Literary Hoomans and their Best Friends
Photo: Chittajit Mitra
A collection of 45 essays and stories written by several Indian writers, The Book of Dog brings the canine-human connection front-and-centre: the dogs we love, adopt, lose, and remember forever.
Every dog-owner knows, for a simple fact, that their pet has a small life span. Many of us willfully try to not focus on this daunting reality—rather, we choose to cherish our time with our pets. The pieces in the recent Hemali Sodhi-edited collection The Book of Dog (2022, HarperCollins India) explore the different phases of this journey. This is a collection of 45 essays and stories written by several writers, each exploring a unique journey altogether revolving around our canine friends.
Sodhi introduces the book with a narration of her own journey of being a person who used to fear dogs; she ends up getting married into a dog-loving household, and eventually, grows to love dogs as they are, too. Depicting the excitement of having a dog at home, Sri Lankan writer Ashok Ferrey writes about his wife’s casual way of bringing in dogs from her regular vet visits, acting innocently around the issue until asked about it; then, he shares the banter that follows between the couple. In one instance he says, “Do you know there are certain homes, where dogs are only allowed on the bed for a few hours a day during the day? And that at night they have to go downstairs to sleep?” To which she quickly replies, “Really? I suppose you could always go downstairs to sleep if it bothers you so much.”
Gulzar, on the other hand, simply wrote about the companionship that flourishes between a dog and their ‘hooman’, emphasising how his dog Pali was rather a companion to him—rather than a pet. This piece beautifully describes the small reactions that Pali used to throw at the author, to demand to be treated equally.
Because stories like these have been written by so many different writers—each with an experience of their own—every single chapter has a different outlook and style. Arunava Sinha wrote from his dog Tingmo’s perspective but in the form of haikus, describing a simple day of all the naughty stuff that the little friend gets up to.
Elsewhere in this collection, there are pieces that go beyond the personal, narrating instead other important aspects on the lives of the dogs themselves. One such story is a piece of fiction written from a dog’s perspective by Jerry Pinto, of a dog that lives in a kennel with other strays, hoping to be adopted soon. Within a few pages, Pinto covers numerous issues in this story, including the abandonment of dogs, mistreatment of strays, noise pollution and aggression between dogs and humans. He summarises, “A dog looks for the best in another, in another dog, in another human being, even in a cat.”
Our bond with dogs is a historical one, so much so that we have archaeological sites where one can observe the connection our species has with theirs. One of the earliest examples of it is in Germany’s Ober-Kassel site, where the skeleton of a disabled dog was seen with the bodies of a man and a woman. In this book, Aanchal Malhotra tells readers about one such significant historical event where they again proved themselves to be “man’s best friend”. She talks about the important role dogs played in World War I, where about 20,000 dogs were trained for the war effort. This chapter highlights particular instances where these dogs did what no human being could’ve ever done—even if it cost them their life.
Every single story left me with a sense of familiarity—whether it was of belonging or abandonment, immense love, or just a heart-breaking goodbye. A dog teaches us the whole essence of life in their short life span, and maybe that’s the reason why we should cherish these moments as much as we can
My personal understanding around the concept of “man’s best friend” was structured by Mr. Tuffy, a Pomeranian from the movie Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994) who single-handedly brought together the two protagonists Nisha and Prem (played by Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan respectively). Despite all the odds, the dog understood his hooman’s feelings more than the fellow human beings themselves, and gave us the ‘happily ever after’ ending that we all craved. I desperately wanted my own dog after this movie—and not just any dog, but a Pomeranian. Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! instilled an idea in my young mind that only a dog of that particular breed would be able to connect with me the most.
Because of a variety of reasons, my consistent pleadings to get a dog were rejected by the grown-ups in the household, and with time, I even forgot about Mr Tuffy. But as life would have it, in 2014 a stray dog gave birth to some pups near my home, and even though there were no plans of it, we ended up adopting one—automatically making him a part of our family. But only after having an indie dog, I realised how breed-conscious people really are, and it led me to the dark world of pedigreed dogs being reduced to litter making factories. There are still dogs who are accustomed to living in snowy regions being dragged to metro cities just to satisfy the ego of some pet-owners. Luckily, I see that people are now trying to change the narrative, and are promoting adopting instead of buying dogs, and encouraging people to have indie dogs too.
It is in the same vein of a close emotional connect with one’s beloved doggos that I arrived at Abhishek Joshi’s piece in The Book of Dog. Joshi’s Twitter handle is @kaalicharan, and his heartfelt piece in this book laid it all out: Kaalicharan—or Kaali—was a black mountain dog whom Joshi had once adopted. Sensitively, Joshi tells us the story of losing this dog, but adding that the emotion that dogs never die; they live forever in your memories.
Extending these themes of loss, Amitava Kumar wrote about his dog Snoopy, whom he had adopted from a friend. On one occasion, when a young Kumar had to go on a vacation with his family, he temporarily left Snoopy with a friend. But when Kumar returned home, his friend told him that his 5-year-old youngest brother couldn’t part with the pet. Since Kumar knew that his friend had lost his mother to cancer a few years ago, he decided to allow his friend keep Snoopy. Years went by and one fine day, he received the news that the dog had passed away. The news was too abrupt for him to process—and this piece was Kumar’s farewell to Snoopy.
For me, the pleasing thing about the book was the variety of people who came together to share a part of their own self, to share how they relate with dogs individually, each with their own unique experiences. Every single story left me with a sense of familiarity—whether it was of belonging or abandonment, immense love, or just a heart-breaking goodbye. A dog teaches us the whole essence of life in their short life span, and maybe that’s the reason why we should cherish these moments as much as we can. For me, The Book of Dog is a celebration of the bond dogs form with us and make us feel alive even in our darkest hours. An ode to a never-ending friendship.
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Chittajit Mitra (he/him) is a queer translator, editor and writer from Allahabad. He has been working on issues of gender, sexuality and mental health with the team of Resistive Alliance for Queer Solidarity (RAQS) from the last five years in the city. A postgrad in anthropology, he is interested in constitutional ethics, social justice and human rights. He regularly reviews books on his Instagram: @cj_mitra. You can reach out to him on chittajit.mitra@gmail.com or Twitter: @cjmitra.
