Petting and Smooching

Woof!

I yelped. Brat, my neighbour’s pug, was looking on whilst Mister and me were planning to rustle some heat between the sheets.

“Good doggie, little fella”, Mister said before turning back to me.

Eugh! Who wants to wag the dog now? Shoo!

But Brat howled the night down when I moved him out of the bedroom and shut the door on him. My neighbour is offended. “He is our child, our pet. He sleeps with us in the bedroom.Don’t Indian parents share their beds with children and still make out? He is a gentle child.Yet to learn to mate. Only a year old;never barks or bites, poor baby, baby!”

Thanks! This is what you get when, in a fit of good neighbourliness, you offer to take in their pet paws while they shut home to head for a weekend holiday resort.

Has the last word on this been written yet? What are the love laws that cover this? And am I alone in this petless protest? I ask around.

Jiji giggles. Her Tom is a fine creature. He’s a grey and black tortoise shell tabby with a bushy tail and unwavering eyes. Jiji says he may occasionaly meow and hop, soft-footed, into bed whilst they are at it and if they play shy, he purrs knowingly. “He knows, you know”, she says proudly. But then she won’t shut the door on him. Cats are independent creatures.You have to let them prowl about the place at will, she says indulgently.

Polto and wife are animal lovers too.Their home abounds with two turtles;a couple of Indian dogs, a couple of bunnies in their back garden, a huge acquarium and the pride of their last dinner, was the chimp they were keeping in the weekend to help a wildlife warden friend before they turned the animal to the local zoo.

Can I ask the unmentionable? The turtles apparently don’t look.The doggies sleep with their children (Thank the Lord), and as for the acquarium-”Fish don’t talk”-he smirks and she giggles:”They make you want to kiss more when they pucker their lips at you”. Oh, please.

In America, where every kink has a valid name, sexuality and pets are a big topic. No, not the beast with two backs types or not even sex-a-pet.com kind of thing where people send photos of their pets’s genitalia to determine their sex (”My goldfish are lesbians, how luverly”). And they say that modern times don’t allow us time to breathe! These are pet psychics who are quite in demand there.They are clairvoyants who answer all queries through ‘telephathic communication’ with pets to find out what troubles their relationship with their masters. You could ask the PP why your dog whines (”He wants it even though he’s neutered” else, “She’s a bitch in heat”)’or how your pet  cat can find its way back to your childhood home (”She was your mother in her previous life”).

Bible preachers object that it’s become a fashion these days like in Soho Grand Hotel in NYC to replace the standard bedside- Bible with a goldfish bowl. And we all know what happens in the anonymity of hotel rooms. Most pet psychics warn that it’s better to throw a dupatta over a goldfish bowl before doing the horizontal mambo.Pets apparently complain to these psychics that their masters mate before them and that’s too traumatising for their beastly sensitivities. 

So while Indians talk about family bonding that includes children, infants and pets inside the bedroom, it may not make for a nice picture for these wordless creatures.

Or else, be shamed as Sekar when we walk by to say hello this pet polly. She responds by squawking, “Feed me now”, and in imitation of the lady of the house, squeals, ”F**k me now” with equal vigour  as she swings in her gilded cage.