“Hey, you are not going to make this a story. I believe. People will make me a villain—you know, honestly, I like him. He was exceptionally good. But there’s no way other than this.”
There was grief in my father’s voice as he sat in the back seat. His clothes still carried a dog’s familiar smell. The three of us remained silent, and I drove the car away as fast as I could.
Max was our pet dog.
We brought him home when he was a little over a year old. He was sincere, lovable and obedient. My mother, however, was never comfortable around dogs. She was constantly afraid of rabies and disliked touching or petting him. Even when Max licked us or jumped up at us out of affection, she would immediately move away. Once, while he was playfully pouncing on me, I thought his sharp nails had left a tiny scratch. Worried, I went to my mother, who poured some liquid soap over the spot and rubbed it with chilli powder. She then asked if I felt any burning or stinging sensation. To my surprise, I felt absolutely nothing. Yet, the very next day, I found myself sitting in a hospital, getting an anti-rabies injection just because my mom was scared of the phantom scratch.
Max could be playful, but he was never greedy. Whenever we filled his bowl with food, he would patiently wait until we were done before eating. He never tried to snatch it from our hands.
In the beginning, he used to take our footwear and clothes from the linen cupboard. But unlike many dogs, he never destroyed them. My mother was extremely particular about cleanliness, and perhaps that was one of the reasons she slowly developed a fondness for him. Max never tried to enter the house, nor did he ever pee or defecate in his kennel. He would always go to the burnt ash in the backyard.
He was intelligent too. My father had no difficulty teaching him commands like “No”, “Take”, “Sit” and “Handshake”. Max never became angry with mother, father or me. Even when he was punished, he would take it quietly, like a poor little teddy bear, without resisting. Or else, he would run away and hide somewhere. It always reminded me of Adam and Eve hiding from God after eating the forbidden fruit. His eyes would well up with tears, and he would hesitate to look into ours, as though he knew he had done something wrong.
He never barked at our regular visitors either.
Eventually, Dad decided to let go of the chain around his neck and allow him to wander freely inside our compound. Whenever someone appeared at the gate, Max would run all the way up to the third storey of our house and look down from there, as though he needed to know exactly who had arrived.
I knew how much Max was attached to us. Whenever we went away on an excursion for five or six days and returned, he would look noticeably thinner, even though we had arranged food for him and our neighbours had helped take care of him.
When he first came to our home, I tried to name him “Binks”. He never responded to it. I suppose he didn’t like the name. Then, suddenly, the 2015 film Max the dog came to my mind. I called him Max. He seemed to like it. And Max became his name.
The freedom we gave Max, however, slowly changed everything. He began jumping over our walls and befriending the stray dogs outside. This caused a great deal of anxiety in our household, especially because of our fear of rabies. Our vaccinated dog was becoming a source of worry. He became part of a group of stray dogs and even started bringing tick-infested dogs into our compound. He began to smell. He would return home covered in mud, dust, dirt and ash after wandering through the streets and getting into fights. Still, my mother would take pity on him and offer him food. But he refused. His stomach always seemed full. Whenever we tried to chain him, he would howl continuously until we finally let him go. Dad tried everything to stop him from jumping over the walls, even punishing him at times, but nothing seemed to change him.
One day, when Max saw us outside our home, walking along the road to go shopping, he followed us. We noticed an old coolie worker walking towards a stationery shop. He had bought some fish from the market and left the polythene bag outside the shop. Max appeared from nowhere. He grabbed the bag and ran. People tried to chase him and get it back, but Max was already far ahead. That was when we finally understood how his stomach was always full.
We heard the man say, “I brought it for home. I think today we will have lunch without it. I don’t think I have enough money to buy another couple of fish. “I watched him leave the shop with his head lowered in despair. In his other hand were only the vegetables he had bought for his family. My mother and I tried looking for him afterwards, hoping we could give him some money. But he was already gone. From that day onwards, we did not want people to know that Max was our dog.
Another day, while roaming around our garden, Max spotted a little cat. He pounced on her, and after a brief struggle, the cat died. For the first time, I saw a side of Max that frightened me. He began eating the cat.
My hair stood on end. For a moment, I wanted to punish him myself. At least, I wanted Dad to give him a serious beating. Instead, Dad said quietly, “It’s the nature of dogs. Cats and dogs have been enemies from time immemorial.” “But eating a cat? That is not acceptable behaviour. You should have punished him.”
Dad only shrugged his shoulders and went to bury the cat.
After everything that had happened, we took Max to my father’s place—a remote, forest-like property that seemed to have no purpose other than accumulating debts. As Dad drove away, Max ran behind the vehicle for as long as he could. Then he stopped. He stayed there for a week, receiving almost no food. We brought him back after a week, hoping that perhaps he had learnt his lesson. For a few days, he was the old Max again. Then, slowly, he returned to his old ways.
“This is an indigenous dog,” people began telling us. “They can’t resist these habits. You should get a breed instead.”
We were torn between abandoning Max and keeping him. But we chose to keep him. As the days passed, Max became more distant from the house. Whenever we called him inside, he would run in the opposite direction. He became a nuisance to people who visited us because he always rested near the front gate, making visitors afraid to enter.
No one had ever reported an attack from him. But the entire neighbourhood had begun to complain about him. “Either you chain your dog, or we will beat him up and kill him. No one can buy food anymore because this dog keeps snatching everything. When people walk through the streets, he follows them and smells their bags. We can’t tolerate it anymore. Do you understand?”
A man yelled at my mother. She simply nodded.
As a last resort, we hung a PVC pipe around Max’s neck so that he would not be able to jump over the walls. But he did. Then we tried tying a dry coconut to him. Again, he managed to escape. The next day, the coconut was gone. Someone had apparently untied it, perhaps to use it for making chutney. We had run out of options.
There was no way left except to abandon our Max.
One night, Dad finally said, “Let’s get rid of this dog. Girl, you drive. I’ll sit in the back seat and take care of him. I can’t think of poisoning this poor creature. Let him live the life he wants.” So we drove far away from our home. It was nearly ten o’clock at night. Max was restless in the back seat. He kept trying to look outside the window and desperately wanted to get out of the car. He didn’t make much noise. His restless movements said enough.
Every now and then, he licked my dad. And Dad kept stroking his head. He continued talking to Max throughout the journey, as though he were trying to make the last few minutes with him feel ordinary.
Finally, Dad asked me to stop at a lonely, dimly lit place.
“You were a good dog… probably the best. I don’t know if I could ever find anyone better than you. Why couldn’t you be the good old doggie you used to be? I can’t punish you anymore, boy. I hope you will be happy now.”
Dad removed the chain from Max’s neck. Then Dad opened the car door. Max jumped out. He ran as fast as he could towards whatever lay ahead of him. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t look at us with those familiar, pleading eyes. He didn’t run after the car. He simply chose the darkness ahead of him. The unknown wilderness seemed comfortable for him than his customary home.
“I think he was so suffocated here,” my mother said softly.
None of us answered.
