Gotham Chopra - Walking Wisdom: Three Generations, Two Dogs, and the Search for a Happy Life

To:

Krishu, Leela, Tara, Kiran, Noah, Alex, Aanya, Mira, Dakshu,
Sumair, Cleo, and Nicholas. Youre all my babies.

Thank you for all the love and licks.

Contents

OBSESSED. THERE WAS NO BETTER WORD FOR IT. WE WERE obsessed. When I was seven and my sister, Mallika, was eleven, all we could talk aboutall we could think aboutwas getting a dog. I appreciate that as obsessions go, this one was hardly unique, that most kids are fanatical about dogs and cats, most families suffer through the phase. But when youre seven and every waking moment is taken up with this needthis desperate, urgent desirewell, the idea of a universal experience doesnt seem to matter. This wasnt some rite of passage. It was life or death. And we behaved accordingly.

Mallika and I nagged our parents morning, noon, and night. We moped. We pleaded. We cajoled. We made promises we knew wed never keep. I offered to forgo my allowance in exchange for a kibble for work program, while Mallika swore shed bathe the dog every day. Wed take care of the mess. Wed take care of the walks. Wed take care of everything.

Well look after the dog, Mom. Honest we will. That was me.

You wont need to do anything at all. Youll hardly notice the dog even exists. That was Mallika.

My mom, always open to negotiating, took advantage of the situation by horse-trading tasks shed been fighting hard over for some time. My father, on the other hand, was unmoved. A hardworking physician with multiple jobs, he had no interest in our adding another being to our household, especially a four-legged one. Never what youd call a dog person, Papa looked at our neighbors St. Bernardan oafish, uncoordinated, sloppy, and constantly drooling beastwith open disgust. Hence he pretty much regarded all dogs as oafish, uncoordinated, sloppy, constantly drooling... and unintelligent to boot.

It might have ended there, but as was always the case in our family, once my mother had green-lit the enterprise, my fathers opinion didnt really matter.

Mallika and I celebrated the imminent addition to our family.

The Chopras were getting a dog.

NICHOLAS WAS A blaze of energy and anarchy, a little Samoyed pup that was nothing more than a fluffy white ball of fur. We could hardly tell which end was up. Nicholas was goofy and playful and eager to please, but like most puppies, he was ill equipped to do anything quite right. So what if he peed where he wasnt supposed to? So what if he chewed a table leg, broom handle, or couch pillow? These actions only served to make him that much more lovable. No matter what he did, no matter what high jinks he got up to, Mallika and I were happy. Ridiculously happy.

How could we not be?

Our dream had come true: We had a puppy dog.

Nicholas spent most of his time barreling around the house, wrestling plush toys and those little bones that wed pick up daily from the local pet store. Hed tear from one side of the house to the other with speed and cunning. When we finally tracked him down, hed be hard at work ripping apart a pillow or another piece of furniture. Shoes were another favorite, as were the stuffed animals that sat in our bedrooms.

Bath times, which were frequent at the beginning when we naively thought we could keep him clean, were a sudsy bonanza that often concluded with Nicholas escaping. Wed follow the slick, soapy trail throughout the house from the book-cluttered den through the art-laden living room and usually to one of our bedrooms, where wed find our pup chewing up a pillow or tearing apart one of Mallikas many pairs of jelly shoes.

Oh well. She shrugged, prying away the ragged remnants before pulling Nicholas in for a cuddle. Its no big deal.

It was indeed a big deal, considering how much my preteen sister loved her shoes.

Nicholas is our baby, she assured me. Nothing will ever compare to him.

And that pretty much summed it up. For both of us.

My father, meanwhile, tried to lay down the law. He insisted we keep Nicholas in the basement of the house, where we set up an elaborate playpen-slash-doghouse with food and water, toys and blankets, and, now that we knew he enjoyed them so much, an old pair of shoes. But all through his very first night with us, Nicholas whined and cried. His whimpers echoed throughout the house. None of us slept a lick. That first night in the basement turned out to be his last.

Over the next few months, Nicholas rapidly grew from a small white fur ball to a sizable and beautiful canine. Still, despite some halfhearted attempts at training, he never quite lost his puppy-like attitude. Nicholas was an oafish, uncoordinated, sloppy, and constantly drooling blaze of energy. He was my fathers worst fears come true. But for the rest of us, it was love.

Nicholas was becoming a part of the family. Our three cousins who lived just fifteen minutes from our house in suburban Bostonand whom we regarded more as siblings than the strange American term of first cousinscame over almost daily so we could all romp and play with Nicholas. More anarchy.

My father, however, held the line. Nicholas was kept in a separate room during mealtimes and, unless Papa wasnt looking (in which case, Mallika and I would slip our boy a people ration), he only got to eat dog food. And while Nicholas had succeeded in escaping the basement, which Mallika and I now regarded as little more than a dungeon, he was only allowed to snuggle up with a dirty piece of laundry at the foot of either my or my sisters bed. Doctors orders.

Despite his protests and obvious disapproval, in Nicholas Papa soon found another appeal. Even at our tender ages, both Mallika and I had learned to resist our fathers experiments. From as far back as I can recall, he would practice some routine or ritual hed recently read about on us: from hypnosis, to diet, to observing silence for hours at a time (to enhance our creativity, he claimed), to communicating with the universe via a Ouija board in order to propel us to higher consciousness, whatever that meant. Mallika and I were used to being Papas test subjects, and we reacted with a mixture of annoyance and entrepreneurship. Mallika, always the math whiz, devised a sliding scale that, depending on the intensity of the experiment, required Papa to up our weekly allowance. She was also nice enough to maintain my accounts and charge me interest for doing so, a relationship I found reasonable.

Nicholas, on the other hand, was always up for a new game, especially if there was a reward like a bone or a doggy treat at the end of it. Hed show remarkable aptitude for learning a routinefrom staying still to retrieving a ball to other forms of advanced Deepak Chopra trialsonly to quickly abandon them once he had received his prize. This created great frustration for my father, an admirer of the scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who pioneered many progressive theories on consciousness largely based on his study of animal behavior. On the contrary, Nicholass behavior challenged Sheldrake and Papas joint hypothesis that the evolution of intelligence and consciousness should not be dependent on a bone or a doggy treat.

Darwin presumably had better test animals to work with, Papa said, frustrated.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but Mallika was all over it. We could get another dog, she offered. A trained dog. You know... so you could establish a variable.

No thanks, Papa replied. The mad scientist in him was determined. Ill work with what I have.

One of my fathers long-standing intentions with Nicholas was for us all to recognize and appreciate our instinctive trust in one another. The embodiment of this, Papa claimed, would be in letting Nicholas off his leash and trusting that he would stay by our side and not run off. Mallika and I knew that other dogs had managed such a feat, that millions of dogs before Nicholas had been trained to stay by their owners sides without the benefit of a leash. No big deal. And yet we were nervous.