Pi-Dog - A poem by Arun Kolhatkar

1

This is the time of day I like best,

and this the hour

when I can call this city my own;

when I like nothing better

than to lie down here, at the exact centre

of this traffic island

(or trisland as I call it for short,

and also to suggest

a triangular island with rounded corners)

that doubles as a parking lot

on working days,

a corral for more than fifty cars,

when it's deserted early in the morning,

and I'm the only sign

of intelligent life on the planet;

the concrete surface hard, flat and cool

against my belly,

my lower jaw at rest on crossed forepaws;

just about where the equestrian statue

of what's-his-name

must've stood once, or so I imagine.

2

I look a bit like

a seventeenth-century map of Bombay

with its seven islands

not joined yet,

shown in solid black

on a body the colour of old parchment;

with Old Woman's Island

on my forehead,

Mahim on my croup,

and the others distributed

casually among

brisket, withers, saddle and loin

- with a pirate's

rather than a cartographer's regard

for accuracy.

3

I like to trace my descent

- no proof of course,

just a strong family tradition -

matrilineally,

to the only bitch that proved

tough enough to have survived,

first, the long voyage,

and then the wretched weather here

- a combination

that killed the rest of the pack

of thirty foxhounds,

imported all the way from England

by Sir Bartle Frere

in eighteen hundred and sixty-four,

with the crazy idea

of introducing fox-hunting to Bombay.

Just the sort of thing

he felt the city badly needed.

4

On my father's side

the line goes back to the dog that followed

Yudhishthira

on his last journey,

and stayed with him till the very end;

long after all the others

- Draupadi first, then Sahadeva,

then Nakul, followed by Arjuna and,

last of all, Bhima -

had fallen by the wayside.

Dog in tow, Yudhishthira alone plodded on.

Until he too,

frostbitten and blinded with snow,

dizzy with hunger and gasping for air,

was about to collapse

in the icy wastes of the Himalayas;

when help came

in the shape of a flying chariot

to airlift him to heaven.

Yudhishthira, that noble prince, refused

to get on board unless dogs were allowed.

And my ancestor became the only dog

to have made it to heaven

in recorded history.

5

To find a more moving instance

of man's devotion to dog,

we have to leave the realm of history,

skip a few thousand years

and pick up a work of science fantasy

- Harlan Ellison's A Boy and his Dog,

a cultbook among pi-dogs everywhere -

in which the ‘Boy' of the title

sacrifices his love,

and serves up his girlfriend

as dogfood to save the life of his

starving canine master.

6

I answer to the name of Ugh.

No,

not the exclamation of disgust;

but the U pronounced as in Upanishad,

and gh not silent,

but as in ghost, ghoul or gherkin.

It's short for Ughekalikadu,

Siddharamayya's

famous dog that I was named after,

the guru of Kallidevayya's dog

who could recite

the four Vedas backwards.

My own knowledge of the scriptures

begins

and ends, I'm afraid,

with just one mantra, or verse;

the tenth,

from the sixty-second hymn

in the third mandala of the Rig

(and to think

that the Rig alone contains ten thousand

five hundred and fifty-two verses).

It's composed in the Gayatri metre,

and it goes:

Om tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yonah prachodayat.

Twenty-four syllables, exactly,

if you count the initial Om.

Please don't ask me what it means, though.

All I know

is that it's addressed to the sun-god

- hence it's called Savitri -

and it seems appropriate enough

to recite it

as I sit here waiting for the sun

to rise.

May the sun-god amplify

the powers of my mind.

7

What I like about this time and place

- as I lie here hugging the ground,

my jaw at rest on crossed forepaws,

my eyes level with the welltempered

but gaptoothed keyboard

of the black-and-white concrete blocks

that form the border of this trisland

and give me my primary horizon -

is that I am left completely undisturbed

to work in peace on my magnum opus:

a triple sonata for a circumpiano

based on three distinct themes -

one suggested by a magpie robin,

another by the wail of an ambulance,

and the third by a rockdrill;

a piebald pianist, caressing and tickling

the concrete keys with his eyes,

undeterred by digital deprivation.

8

As I play,

the city slowly reconstructs itself,

stone by numbered stone.

Every stone

seeks out his brothers

and is joined by his neighbours.

Every single crack

returns to its flagstone

and all is forgiven.

Trees arrive at themselves,

each one ready

to give an account of its leaves.

The mahogany drops

a casket bursting with winged seeds

by the wayside,

like an inexperienced thief

drops stolen jewels

at the sight of a cop.

St Andrew's church tiptoes back to its place,

shoes in hand,

like a husband after late-night revels.

The university,

you'll be glad to know,

can never get lost

because, although forgetful,

it always carries

its address in its pocket.

9

My nose quivers.

A many-coloured smell

of innocence and lavender,

mildly acidic perspiration

and nail polish,

rosewood and rosin

travels like a lighted fuse

up my nose

and explodes in my brain.

It's not the leggy young girl

taking a short cut

through this island as usual,

violin case in hand,

and late again for her music class

at the Max Mueller Bhavan,

so much as a warning to me

that my idyll

will soon be over,

that the time has come for me

to surrender the city

to its so-called masters.