Tuffy Tales- At the Park

Come Tia, let us go to the park to play.

No Tuffy, I don’t want to go anywhere. I am the happiest in the house.

No Tia, park is the place of happiness where you can run and chase, hide and jump…it is all fun there.

Tuffy, you know I don’t like and I don’t want to go out. So just leave me alone. You go if you wish to.

I am not going anywhere without Tia…whoof.. whoof…and that’s final.

Tia was sitting on the sofa, so I jumped and went close to her. She put her hand on my back, rubbed it gently…first up and then down and slowly repeated it. I loved it when she did this to me. I then put my head on her lap with my tongue hanging out, the saliva dripping on her nice flowery pink dress.

Tuffy please don’t blackmail me.

What’s blackmail? I have heard of mail, email and female but never blackmail!

Tuffy leave me alone. I am not going anywhere.

With sad eyes I looked at her and then jumped down. Darted straight out of the room and returned with the leash in my mouth. I walked to Tia and placed it on her lap and with my hairy head started gently banging my head on her knee.

Tuffy, you are a pain. Why are you so pushy and always want to have it your way?

Wham!!

Before I realized, she crashed the thick book in her hand on my head….it hurt pretty bad but I did not cry. I turned around and walked away to a corner in the room and sat down with my head over the front paws. I was not angry nor was I sad. I realized she just was in no mood today.

In some time, Tia came and sat down on the floor, caught my collar and dragged my face close to hers.

Hey Tuffy, chorry baba…I should not have hit you, my best friend.

And then she put the leash on my collar, stood up and said, Chal park chalein.

I quickly got up and stood on my back legs with my front legs on her chest, gave her a watery licky of love as my tail wagged wildly.

Our house was on the ground floor and the park was across a busy street. As Tia and I walked out, I made sure my body was always in touch with her right leg, never to miss the touch even for a moment. Tia’s father had taught me that I should cross the road from a place where there were white lines and a lamp post which had three colours. I waited for the light to move from red to amber and then to green…

Whoof..whoof…I asked Tia who understood my signal and started walking. We were still midway when I saw a person on a bike with one hand on the phone, the other on the handle. I knew this idiot would not bother to see and heed the street lights so I stopped, quickly moved from Tia’s right to her left side and started shouting at the top of my voice….whoof… whoof…while facing the fool on the bike. The idiot panicked and pressed the brake so hard that he skidded and fell….his bike stopped just a metre away from where we stood. I smiled and said, achcha hua as the fallen biker said,  paagal kutta!

Tia asked, Tuffy what happened?

Nothing darling, someone just fell down.

 And we crossed over to the other side, safe and sound. Felt like a hero.

We went inside the park and pulled Tia towards the bench under a huge tree. She sat down and removed my leash from the collar.

I loved coming to the park. I had many friends here. As I announced my entry with my trade mark bark, in no time Boy, Goru and Kalu came running to me.

Tia knew my friends well. They did not have collars but were always very friendly. They walked with me to Tia and announced their entry. Tia opened up her pouch and took out her packet of biscuits. No, she never offered my friends any ordinary biscuits. She always got for them Nice biscuits. My friends loved the coconut flavoured stuff with sprinkling of sugar coating. Tia would never throw the biscuits down. She held each piece in her hand as my friends went close to her, took the biscuit in their mouth and got a loving hug from Tia.

As Tia sat on the bench like a princess, the four of us would make a semi-circle around her. This was our regular routine and we knew what was coming after this.

Are you ready?

Whoof whoof…yes yes!!

Tia would bring out a ball from her pouch and throw it as hard as she could and then the fun began for us as we raced each other to fetch it.  Whoever got the ball back to Tia, got a prize…two cubes of chocolate.

Boy

Boy was really the strong one. He was much bigger than all of us. Goru was quite like me and Kalu was the weak looking one. But when it came to running, Kalu was the fastest. There was never a day when Kalu was not the first to fetch the ball to Tia when she threw it for the first time.

Tia was a bright girl. She realized, there has to be a rule or else the other gladiators would feel cheated and Kalu would become the chocolate king monopolizing the cubes every day multiple times. Tia devised a simple rule…whoever got the chocolate would get disqualified for the next chase. She made sure we all got our chocolates equally every day.

The park had a pathway and many people would walk there as we played. Tia’s bench was close to the pathway and most people would just see us, feel amused and walked away. Then there were a few who tried to get friendly and would get their biscuits and make some strange sound with their pouted mouth much…smuch..smuch. Some would call us, aaja Tommy aaja.

Must be mad, I thought. Who told them any of us was Tommy? Must all dogs be called by this strange name? Why did not any of them call us Amitabh Bachchan or Salmaan Khan…why Tommy? Strange breed are these humans. We never went to them, we never had their biscuits. We were happy with what Tia gave us and never asked for more. Only once did Kalu go close to one of them one day and ate the biscuit he gave. After a while Kalu felt sick and threw up…they would have given the poor fellow rotten stuff, things they would not eat themselves. After this, all my friends stayed away from the day walkers.

Two old ladies stood behind Tia and started talking.

Yeh laadki paagal hai kya? Kutton ke saath khel rahi hai…said one.

The other said, andhi hai bechari.

Hai…yeh toh bahut dukh ki baat hai.

Tia heard the conversation and went limp. She hung her head low and pulled out a piece of cloth that she rubbed against her eyes.

I knew it. My friends also knew it and we angrily went towards these women baring our teeth.

Bhaag…jaldi bhaag…pagal kuttey hain…kaat lengey….as they started running away. One of them almost fell off the pathway.

We returned to where Tia was sitting.

This is why I do not like coming out of the house Tuffy but you never listen.

She put my leash back as we stood up to walk out of the park. I turned around once and told my pals, …see ya tomorrow mates.

Whoof…Whoof...