Monday 30 August 2010

Naming pets

I have found, any civilization with a 'developing' tag to it, has largely two types of pet dogs. I will go into a little detail about these dogs in one large and compact agglomeration we know as India.

The first types of these are locally known as 'the paltu', and the other as 'the faltu'. Both these types are usually harmless unless invoked, poked or xxx. The paltu type lives off on various combination of home cooked meal, plus processed pedigree and get almos an equal treatment like a family member who lives inside the house. This type is generally well groomed, clean, like I said earlier, is well fed, usually solemn by face, and prefers solitude probably as he gets used to it. He is the home pet.

Whereas, the second type, the faltu type, also known as a stray, is under the casual collective care of a particular community. For his own ease of life he lives in groups and marks territories un-barbed and unseen. As a part of collective is fed on leftovers or biscuits, and keeps clean - more details are available from the neighborhood, usually from concerned or retired citizens who feed them. In other words, he is treated like a family member who lives outside the house.

I am in regular contact with many from both the categories, and in close relationship with one of the each type. And, from somewhere a divine moment, perhaps artful thought full of love, concern, affection and world-peace has had put into my head that these pets, who ever they are, where ever they come from, whatever size, color, cast or creed they can be named after musical instruments.

So, the Paltu type, the first type, who lives with me most of the time is known as Banjo. A communal cat he shooed off from the courtyard because she made him insecure, for he hated her after I had affectionately started calling her Harmonica. The Faltu type, who I interact before entering my office, and slamming the door close, I call him Gitar, keeping 'r' at the end as silent using accentual effect.

***

p.s. The author has used Masculine intonations for purposes of ease

3 comments:

Rutul Joshi said...

Brilliant piece! :)

just wondering if the 'Faltu' type comes with more variety?!?

Bend said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bend said...

Hey Rutul, Thanks for your comment. Great to read Charkho spinning too - nice Gujarati flavor. You may like to look at Quakeschool's Gujarati Posts

BTW on your profile page, Ahmedabad/Bristol looks nice to me.