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LIGHTER VEIN: Cats, Dogs And My Neighbour (Part I)

Cats and dogs are meant to be sworn enemies. But what about the poor sleepless human caught in between? Read on to find out, as you follow Venugopal Unnikrishnan on yet another misadventure.

On Jan 30, 2012

Have you raised dogs that bark only at cats and other dogs? Well, I have. My dogs bark only at these beings and just to make sure that these animals do not ever return, they bark about half an hour more, long after the other beings have disappeared. I forgot to add that my dogs bark only in the night and take their much deserved rest during day time. They spend the entire day time sleeping. They couldn’t be bothered if someone opened the gate and walked in. To make matters worse in the night, two cats appear out of nowhere and meet on the terrace of the neighbour’s house. They spend the entire night hollering the most unprintable adjectives at each other. The pitch rises to a crescendo and breaks off for sometime. But the dogs never cease to express their displeasure at having to listen to the choicest of harsh words nor show any let up in barking back their loudest form of protests. Needless to say, these innuendoes fall on deaf ears and the cats ignore the dogs with a contemptuous flick of their ears and a wink that contains a most derisively coined expression, something like the middle finger up.

‘Shut up, Denny, Timmy,” I lean out of the window and yell at the dogs.

The dogs turn around to stare at me and utter a short “Whooof,” which I always thought was the short form of, “Ahh .…shaddap, dumbo.” It was either that or something worse because the dogs immediately resumed their shouting match with renewed vigour. I seemed to be the only one who was affected by all this noise at night, when my parents, sister and the entire neighbourhood can sleep through the entire ruckus and not hear anything at all in the night.

“Peaceful sleep last night. I remember having hit the bed and woke up just now, feeling great. This is a great neighbourhood and you could cut the tranquility with a knife,” said my sister.

“I could use the knife too, to slit the neck of these damned dogs. I am sick and tired of not being able to sleep in the night because of their incessant barking.”

“Come on, Chetta. It was so silent last night that you could hear an ant burp a mile away.”

“If you were sleeping so peacefully, how did you hear the ant burp? I was up all night and I did not hear any ant burp.” I had never heard an ant burp nor was sure if I would recognise it if the ant sat on my ear lobe, leaned forward and burped right into my ear, but I was not going to give up so easy.

And as with the dogs who “whoof” at my reprimands, she turned away and sighed deeply, “hhhhmmmfff” with a heavy emphasis on the “fff”s. Now, this was often the kind of response I got from my parents and sis, when I asked questions that irked them.

If it was the dogs that punctured my long strip of sleep in the night, it was the turn of the cell phone which rang intermittently, with a vengeance, during the day time. I had realised a few days after buying a SIM card that the number once belonged to someone who used to run a restaurant.

“Two double omelets and 4 chapattis with subzi, please. Deliver them to ZRBNA 4005, Varkala at 11.30 am.”

“Sir, this is not the restaurant anymore. I happen to have bought his number.”

“Do you know the phone number of the guy who owned your phone number before you owned his phone number?”

“No and dear sir, believe me, there are things I would like to tell him if I knew his number,” I would hiss.

Imagine how it is for a man who cannot sleep well either during the night or day. He would be hopping mad and ready for fisticuffs at the drop of a hat. I decided to do something to keep these dogs from barking so much in the night. From experience I realised that dogs barked only if they were annoyed at something. They did not greet each other with a few short whoofs which may sound like “hello” or “howdy”. Dogs barked only to express their displeasure. I have never heard them say “thank you” for the food they get everyday nor have I heard them say “I love you”. It was always complaints, complaints and complaints. I wonder how any being can exist thus.

My plan of action was very simple. Remove those things that made these guys holler in fury. This meant that the cats that appeared on the terrace of the neighbour’s house have to disappear or simply, not appear at all, each night. I only had to wait till these critters appeared, pick up a stone, throw it at them and that should scare them off. I might have to repeat this procedure a few days before these dumb creatures got the message and melted into the darkness.

It was past 11 p.m. when the cats appeared on the terrace, the next night. I did not see them arrive at the scene of action until one of them vehemently expressed his repugnance at the other’s arrival. I did not blame him because that was exactly how I would voice my disgust, albeit in a different language. I picked up the stone and taking careful aim, threw it at the cats. The cats seemed totally unconcerned that a stone had missed them by a few inches, nor did they mellow down their cacophonic meows. But what they and I heard was the window pane of the neighbour’s house break into a few hundred pieces. They jumped up with a start at this sound, but soon settled down as they decided that this sound was not any of their concern. I also waited for a few anxious moments for the lights to flicker on, the neighbour to appear at the terrace and threaten me with dire consequences. But nothing of the sort happened.   The cats waited just long enough to make sure that the last piece of the glass pane had settled down and went back to their repertoire.

I was very upset with this turn of events. I was very sure that no one would see me in the pitch darkness and so, did not budge from where I was perched, which was on the balcony of my bedroom. After giving the neighbour about ten minutes to wake up, run up to the terrace and shout at me, I decided to act again, since the neighbour did not bother to respond to the hullabaloo. I picked up the next stone and threw it in the direction of the cats again. I was positive that this stone would not break any window pane, as I had already achieved as much with my first throw and the path of the second stone was thus cleared.   Hardly a nano second must have elapsed before I heard a loud scream. It was unlike any that I had ever heard before. It went, “EAAAOOOOHHHHWW!!” and it was quite unlikely that the cats would have made such a sound.   This screech was followed by a loud thud which resembled something like a big log falling on the ground while being lifted into a lorry. I peered hard into the darkness to see what it was, but the next thing I knew was waking up from the balcony of my bedroom, the next morning.

My forehead hurt so bad that I thought it was going to explode. A careful exploration of the concerned area with my hand revealed a lump which was just about the size of the stone I chose to throw at the cats. The back side of skull hurt too, probably because my hands failed to initiate action to support my body weight on the way to the floor and the rear side of my medulla oblongata must have tried hard to break the fall. Needless to say, another lump developed there too. I could not fathom how this could have happened.

“What happened to your forehead?” My sister asked without looking alarmed or the least bit concerned. She believed that I was prone to meeting with such accidents and was only curious to know how it happened. “It happened again,”, she announced to my mother who looked quizzically at my forehead.

“What do you mean, again?”

“He doesn’t remember what happened?”

If I remember right, the last time it happened was when I was playing cricket. I remember trying to take a sneaky single, but then nothing afterwards, except waking up in the hospital bed. The other players say that I nicked the ball to first slip, started to run for the single, when the ball which was thrown at the wicket hit me on the head.   This time it was very different. I vaguely remember this explosion in the head, a brilliant flash of light inside and then nothing afterwards. Angry with the cats was the least I could say at this turn of events. I squarely blamed the cats for this lump on my forehead. If the cats had not appeared at the terrace, the dogs would not have caused the ruckus and I would have slept peacefully in the night. I would not contemplate such a drastic step which cost the neighbour his window pane and won me a lump on the forehead. The lump seemed to growing every hour and by evening, it looked almost like the horn of the fabled Unicorn.

(But did Venu give up? No way! To read all about his adventures on the second night, watch this space tomorrow…)