Jopu the Love Machine

On reflection, Jopu never held back — on giving or receiving, love, mainly, but many other things too. Except in this last year. But I’ll come to that later.

I have some vague recollections and some very vivid ones, related to Jopu.

I vaguely remember meeting him for the first time towards the end of 2006, when I had not yet moved back to India with bag and baggage. There is nothing vague, however, about what I had with me after that first encounter. It was love at first sight, even though I had never interacted with a dog before him at close quarters. In hindsight, it couldn’t have been anything but love that I could have felt that first time, because Jopu has nothing else to give but love, whether at first sight or at every sight.

For over 13 years since then, I have been received at the beginning and end of each day with a beaming smile and a wagging tail. I guess there’s something poetic in the parallel between Jopu’s beaming smile as a beginning and his wagging tail as a gloriously happy ending.

Except on the days that I’ve been away from home, that was me being lucky on a daily basis. Except in this last year, when his soul shone through but his body wasn’t quite as shiny as we were used to it being.

When I moved back permanently (is there such a thing really?) to India in early 2007, this great goofball somehow knew it and immediately took a large piece of my heart and told me it’s for safekeeping purposes. One look into his melting eyes and I gullibly and voluntarily fell for it. Because, by any other standard, safekeeping was not exactly Jopu’s forte.

We kept this a closely-guarded secret but if any thieves or burglars had ever tried to break into our home while Jopu was on guard, they would have been greeted at the door by a most ferocious, I mean, goofily affectionate new best friend they could have ever made. And while he may not have taken them to all the rooms to invite them to plunder as they pleased, he would most certainly have welcomed them with treats and toys.

“Chewy snacks or toys anyone? They are mighty tasty!”

At home, Shishupal (the COO of the house) and he shared a dignified-at-times man-love. They understood each other deeply. He was the master of Jopu’s moods and Jopu acknowledged this mastery with an abiding respect and love for Shishupal. But, as I said, such dignity was not always the norm, and goofing off was certainly not beneath Jopu’s dignity.

A favorite game between them involved Shishupal standing by the floor-to-ceiling curtains we have in our living room and throwing a ball into the dining room for Jopu to fetch. And even as Jopu would bound away in joy and return gleefully in victory with the ball firmly clenched between his teeth, Shishupal would hide himself behind the curtains.

Jopu, that goofy big bear of a donkey dog, would race around bewildered.

“Where is my hooman? He was just here! I can smell him but I can’t see him! Did he go into the bathroom? No, he’s not here. Maybe in the kitchen, quick! No, not here either! Oh dear, where did I lose him? Have you seen him? Have you? You?”

And then when Shishupal would emerge from behind the curtains, Jopu would go barking mad with joy and race all around the house. And promptly come back for another round of “Make me a donkey dog.”

This joyous ritual has always been a regular feature with him. Thinking back now, knowing how intelligent Jopu has always been emotionally, I have a feeling it was not he but we who were the donkeys. He knew how much joy it brought us to see him become a donkey dog. And so he did it, again and again, willingly and joyously.

I can’t say why Jopu liked me so much and gave me so much love all the time. Mom is his first and eternal love. She is Mom, and his Mom too, after all. And her love for him, well, it was there for all to see. From her lilting, “Haan bacche, kya chahiye tumhe?” when he would paw at her if she got too immersed in her work to the long conversations she would have with him when she was not otherwise occupied in making the world a better place with her love.

Dad and Jopu share a stoic love, fittingly. It’s the same kind of fearless love that has dads throw their infant children up in the air. Their child is insouciantly confident that Dad will catch them and is focused on gurgling with joy in the moment, unmindful of the hard ground that is yearningly looking at them to make contact. Bystanders, such as their mother and others, meanwhile, have their hearts in their mouths. Afterwards, father and child will probably share an ice-cream with each other.

The only person Jopu would allow to indulge in a rough-and-tumble wrestling match is Dad. Divya would watch on and scream in despair.

“Dad! You’ll break his leg! Don’t squeeze him so hard!!”

Jopu would wriggle but never try to free himself from the grasp of this rough display of love. Afterwards, Dad and Jopu would share a Parle-G and carry on as if nothing happened.

But if Mom had Jopu’s heart, and Dad and Shishupal shared a bromance with him, there’s one who willingly carved out her heart and gave it to him.

There’s nothing Divya won’t do for Jopu. Her first question when we sit down for a meal is, “Is Jopu’s roti ready?” Her first call-out in the morning has always been to Jopu. Her tightest hugs, her sloppiest kisses have always been for Jopu. In turn, his most prized reward — the sloppy lick precisely to the nose — was reserved only for her. He understood her joy and her grief, her loves and her losses, her adventures and her pain, better than anyone else. And so he reserved a spot by her side and in her heart, permanently. (I was wrong. There is such a thing as permanently. Like in this case.)

And for all that, when we sat around at leisure of an evening, he would sometimes persistently ignore her repeated calls to come to her, pretending to be too comfy in his curled-up state to move even an inch. And then I would just go, “Psst! Jopu!” and he would immediately rouse himself and come to me with a wagging tail. That was his way of making sure I didn’t feel any less loved.

During the summer weeks when Shishupal, Baby and their family went away to visit their cousins and families, I was Jopu’s designated walker. Jopu didn’t really need to go for a walk so much as he looked forward to just bounding out of doors, to bark at other dogs, love other strangers, water a new tree in the neighborhood. During those days, every few hours, he would restlessly come and whine at my feet. Divya, of course, melted immediately.

“Look at him! He really needs to go. You can eat later. Can you please take him out now?”

And Mr. Jopu would immediately pick up on the cue and go all dramatic.

“She’s right! OMG. I can’t hold on any longer. I’m going to pee in the house. Ooh! Aah! Help! Please! Let’s! Go! Now! Come! On!”

And so I’d get up, pick up his leash while he danced circles around me in excitement.

“Jopu, if you want to go, you need to hold still long enough for me to attach the leash to your collar.”

He’d quieten down long enough for that and then reach the door with a bound.

“Open the door! Quick! We’re going out! So exciting! I can’t contain myself anymore!”

I was battle-hardened by then but even I would get fooled by his antics from time to time. Divya, of course, refused to believe he was putting on an act. So I figured only a live demonstration could possibly convince her. I asked her to accompany us to the gate and see for herself.

There we were, Jopu straining at the leash to unleash his waters on the Great Outdoors, me trying to appear calm. I opened the gate, we stepped out, and then I’d pause and tell Jopu, “Look, Jopu, pause for a moment and look around you. Don’t be in such a rush.” And he would pause and wait as long as I wanted. We were already outside, after all. I wouldn’t be so cruel as to take him back inside right away. And so we waited, and admired the trees and the cars, and the people and the sky. Nobody needed to pee urgently, all of a sudden.

“He really, really needed to go. He’s just being polite to you,” Divya would say upon seeing this drama unfold.

Jopu would never show any outward sign of the victory of this Deception of Love, but he knew that, one way or another, he had me twirled around his heart.

Jopu’s extraordinary and endless reserve of love for all those who came into contact with him is astonishing in itself. But for me, the most revealing and everlasting lesson was how he opened himself up to receiving love at all times, at any time.

“Are you looking to give someone a head massage? Here I am!”

“Is that rasmalai you’re having? Are you looking for someone to share it with? I have no idea what rasmalai is and how it tastes but I would love for you to share it with me.”

“What a coincidence! You’re looking for someone to pamper and here I am!”

Sometimes, we humans shrink from asking for and receiving love, as if that diminishes us and makes us appear weaker, more vulnerable. Jopu showed me that it is the exact opposite that occurs.

Since the time I have imbibed this lesson from him, I appear bounding at every instance, wagging tail included, to be ready to receive love. It’s wonderful, and wonderfully liberating.

This last year, his tail wagged considerably lesser, his smile appeared less frequently. But that’s because Jopu the stoic absorbed all the pain he was going through silently, not showing us an iota of it, lest we feel anything but love from him.

This act of mine — in writing about all the love he showers us with — is just like him too. He’s basically telling me, “Go ahead. Put it all down. You’ll just have to read this any time to see me come bounding up to you with a beaming smile and a wagging tail, ready to give and receive love.”