AND THEN THERE WAS ONE:

It was May 19th when The Idiot entered our home. He was 2.24 kgs, barely 10 inches tall from the floor, had a thin body, a sorry face, and a really thin tail. I looked at him and thought, “God!! Couldn’t they (Runjhun and Vihan) find a pretty dog?”

It was made known to all that this puppy was born on 1st of April 2006. even the date implied the puppy’s mental abilities.

So, I was a bit reserved in dealing with him. The puppy was unnamed, dirty, smelly, and whiny. Not at all attractive. Runjhun, Vihan, Raghu were the ones who were instantly in love with him. Sushant and Me? We maintained a cautious distance.

The first team job for the children of G-10 and G-11 was giving The Idiot a bath. So, we heated the water, tied him up, and poured warm water over him…………… well, of course he made a ruckus. I never knew that giving bath would be such a traumatic experience…..

He was dried off and looked pitiful. Instead of a thin tail, there appeared a thread, that also bore a used thread look. The body? It was that of a rat. He was a positively ugly sight to me.

He was fed and then we began the difficult task of naming him. (I wanted to name him Foolish ….. seemed appropriate you know)….. Anyways, the naming ceremony was conducted as follows:
Vihan : “Let’s call him Buck…………..Nnnnooo, aisa lagta hai ki koi bakbak
kar raha hai. Hmm… socho socho?”
Runjhun : “Let’s make it Wolff……………mmmmmm..no doesn’t sound right.”
Sushant : “OK, what about tiger?.............ok o.k. was only a suggestion anyway!”
Raghu : “Hmmmmmmmm….. how about Nemo? Hehehehe Lemo?”

And then it stuck us all………………………………

“Let him be------------ LEO!!”

I looked down at the inelegant pup and thought… hmm, maybe, if we are lucky, he will grow up in to some thing deserving this name!! (Though I had serious doubts on that point!!)

Well, the day of his arrival was followed by long days and endless nights, when Leo cried whenever he was not surrounded by all of us.

(Let’s face it… however pretty the dog, no one likes to be with him 24 hours a day.. right?......that’s what I thought.)

However, we managed, Vihan doing the brunt of duty in the night, and Runjhun caring for him during the day..

We were still adjusting, the humans and the pup, when the pup fell sick……he stopped to eat, was lethargic, and even thinner than the time of his arrival. And the doctors said he will die. I was shocked, Vihan Runjhun, Raghu and Sushant heart broken…and the dog just broken by the illness, he did not understand that he was going to die.
(He has always been stupid you see!!)
I did not like him, but I have a tender heart for a living thing that is actually sick, so, for the first time since his arrival, I sat with Leo in my lap, through out the night. His doctor had told that he had hepatitis, and he was dehydrated, So, I prepared the glucose water and forced it down his throat through out the night.

He looked so pitiable, lying in my lap, and as I cared for him in the small hours of night, I found I loved that stupid, smelly pathetically thin idiot.

He was sick for 2 days, but he survived. Were we Happy!! And by the time he recovered completely, we had all adjusted…….we all shuffled our routines and Leo adjusted his growing body and affection (There still was no sign of something remotely resembling intelligence. alas!!)

(So, this is how a small pup became one of the family members for us.. well, of course, Aseem Mama was told that he would be a small dog.. But Mama is very Intelligent.. He understood fairly soon that we were dealing with a Rakshas. By then leo was irreplaceable…)

Our house had never had a dog, and THEN THERE WAS ONE!!