The Unpretentious Love of My Indie

In a world where we must constantly demonstrate our love and loyalty, our indie is proof that caring and co-existing is also a way of showing love

- SANDIP ROY

Get a street dog, they told us. They are hardy with great immunity unlike those pampered foreign breeds. Our indie Chutney eats grain-free lamb and apple meals, gluten-free high-calcium smoke-dried yak milk puffs and hypo-allergenic duck and quinoa to deal with his skin allergies.

Get a street dog, they told us. They are fiercely territorial and excellent guard dogs. Chutney is a fiercely territorial scaredy cat. He barks at every courier and delivery person on a bike but from the safety of his divan.

Get a street dog, they told us. They are natural learners. They are so intelligent, Indian police academies are now starting to use them. Chutney has never learned anything beyond "sit"; he expects to get a treat if he sits at attention. He did learn to shake hands but has somehow managed to forget it.

To be fair, Chutney was never meant to be a house pet.

He was born on our street in Kolkata over seven years ago, one of a litter of four. Like most street dogs, his mother was raising her pups on the rubble. But street dogs do not have an easy life even in a neighbourhood where they get fed daily. A car killed two of the puppies in one go. Then a motorbike killed the third. At that point the mother deposited the last of her Mohicans in our garden.

"No dogs inside the house," my mother said firmly. "Ja, ja, shoo," she would tell him when he tried to sneak in. We should have named him Jaja. But my sister named him Chutney—the names of the dogs on our street in Kolkata come out of a Bengali kitchen—Chutney, Posto, Luchi.