Grandma To The Rescue- By Sharon D'cruz

My Grandmother was a kind of a Florence Nightingale when it came to animals. She fed the countless amount of stray cats that wandered into her backyard. She would throw food scraps to the cats while sounding her famous cry of "Puss! Puss!". I was a kid back then, only about 8 or 9 years old. She used to let me feed the kitty cats too which I loved doing because my mother wouldn’t allow us to keep pets. Then came the dreaded day....a cat had the nerve to scratch me while I was feeding it. I had a long, angry red scratch on my arm. My grandmother immediately washed it and put some toothpaste on it; her remedy for burns or scratches. It worked for burns but not on scratches (but I didn’t tell her that).

Anyway, one morning, my grandmother, whom we fondly used to call ‘Mamama’, was on her way back from the travelling vegetable seller (a guy who drove around in his van selling vegetable, meat, fish etc . Interesting point to note is that they were always Chinese), when she saw a puppy being attacked by three big dogs. Three huge dogs were trying to tear a little puppy to bits. Mamama to the rescue! She picked up a piece of wood and rushed at the dogs and what a sight it was. An old woman in her late sixties, dressed in her ‘grandma clothes’ (matching sarong and blouse), hurrying towards three huge dogs with the piece of wood held high over her head and uttering her battle cry of "Ei! Ei! Ei!" (she was the true Xena, Warrior Princess, in my eyes). The dogs ran for their lives, tail between their legs. Mamama had saved the little pup from certain death.

The puppy came home with her much to our delight. We fed it and petted it and fed it and petted it some more. It was the first pet my sister and I had ever had. We named him ‘Snoppy’ (how unoriginal). My grandmother just called it ‘Patti’( pronounced ‘putty’ as in ‘silly putty’), the Malayalam word for ‘dog’. Unfortunately, during the night the puppy made too much noise howling and yelping in the porch. And it just so happened that my Uncle’s room was the nearest to the porch. Being the spoil-sport that he was, he said that the pup had to go. We were so upset but being kids we had no say in the matter ( how unfair). So my grandmother let the puppy go. The pup wandered to our back porch and of course, my soft hearted mamama gave it food. Surprisingly, the puppy started to wander into our front porch by itself, coming and going as it pleased. Since it didn’t make a nuisance of itself, it was allowed to stay. We were on top of the world and so was my grandma although she didn’t show it. She always kept a dish for him filled with food.

One evening, when we were playing with the pup, two Chinese girls came by looking for their lost dog. And of course, of all the worst luck in the world, their dog was ‘Snoopy’ but they called him something that sounded a lot like ‘Ching Chau’. Tears were shed as the puppy parted company with us. My grandma consoled us by saying that one day we would have a dog that was meant for us.

That night, while I was watching ‘The Cosby Show’ , my grandmother came and called me excitedly. There at our doorstep was….Snoopy! My Mamama immediately brought out a dish of food for him. So, for the next few days, the puppy stayed with us and did a lot of usual puppy stuff. One night however, he disappeared. My grandma called and called but to no avail. Snoopy was gone. The next morning she carried on her search but turned up nothing. My Aunty joked that the puppy had run away because he couldn’t stand the food we fed him. Then we got word from Mrs. Gomez (neighbour) that the puppy had been knocked down by a car on the main road. It was a sad moment for us. Snoopy was gone for ever.

But life went on. My grandmother went on feeding the cats, chickens, dogs or whatever fortunate animals that appeared at her back door, my sister fell into the back drain while watching the cats being fed….did I say that? Well, that’s another story. She was about 4 at the time, sucking her thumb and smelling her precious little pillow which she called ‘Goigoi’ or ‘Domini’ if it was a bigger pillow. She was leaning against the back door when she either lost her balance or fell asleep and BAM! She was in the drain. There she was still sucking her thumb and looking up at us in shock. My aunty quickly picked her out of the drain and took her to the bathroom. Only then did she begin to cry. Me? As cruel as this must sound, I was laughing my head off.

Those were the precious moments in life I remembered, like whenever my Uncle Frankie took us to A&W, the rootbeer would always spill in the car and whenever we were naughty, it was time to hide the featherduster . And most importantly, whenever we were in trouble, my grandmother would always be there for us. But she was right, there was a dog that was meant for us, in fact there were three, Moo, Jupiter and Biscuit. Sadly though, she never lived to see either of them. What a pity....they would have been the best of friends.