The BIG pet

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Spellings were a big part of what Mum insisted we do while sitting around her when she was sewing our clothes. And the biggest word I knew was E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. And that was with a lot of guesswork from my end and patience from Mum’s end. I learned A-E-R-O-P-L-A-N-E much later and Hippopotamus and Rhinoceros were not even on my radar at that time. Probably because we used to get to see tame elephants on occasion on our streets. And hippos and rhinos were just animals from the book for me. So the big animal I had seen on the street was something I could identify name and spell. I was enthralled. Animals were a part of our lives by then. Dad had adopted Byrah, but no one apart from him went anywhere near Byrah. I was told that Byrah– the white mongrel, belonged to the oldest sibling, and Tinku, the dachshund belonged to the other sibling. So they were the ones who would care for them. I was upset by this because I wanted to take care of Tinku. She was more my size and I could run the streets with her. But, since I was not allowed to take her around with me, I decided to get myself a pet. And in typical ‘my style’, I swung in the exact opposite direction. I decided I wanted a BIG pet. An elephant. When Mum asked me why I wanted an elephant, I told her that even Tinku would have to sit at the side, silently if I had an elephant. So, instead of discouraging me, she told me that if it was big, I would need a lot of string to tie it up, so it would not wander off. And that’s when I started collecting yarn. Initially, I used to pick up the discarded yarn from under the sewing machine that Mum had left behind. Eventually, I found the box, the source of the colored yarn, and started pulling it off directly from the spools, which irked Mum a lot. She did not like anyone touching her precious yarn to play with it. So she instructed me to sit at her feet, near the pedal and I was allowed only to collect the yarn she discarded and not directly from any of the spools in the box.

During the holidays, when we were all around the table at breakfast, occasionally dad would order dishes from the store at the corner. These dishes were first placed on a banana leaf and then he would place it on a newspaper and it would all be wrapped and tied with a white string so it would not unravel. So, one day, when he brought the breakfast back home, I insisted on unravelling all the items, because then I got the entire strings, not bits of it like mum would discard while sewing. One being questioned, I said I wanted it because I was going to get my pet and I needed a leash for that. And since no one had volunteered a pet or the leash, I had to get my own sorted out. So, Dad volunteered to unravel the strings carefully so I could reuse them for my pet project. Literally!

He would unravel the string, then roll it neatly in a ball around a piece of folded paper, so it would not knot up and could be used again. And I kept adding to it. In those days we did not order in often enough, so the string ball I was collecting grew slowly. Once, while he was helping me out, he asked me why I was collecting so much string, and what was the pet I was hoping to restrain with it. To which, I responded with a small smile, I was going to get myself an Elephant. And I wanted the longest string ever, because if the elephant needed to sit, he would have to move away from the wall to sit, and the string should give him the space, and not hamper the movement of my pet. Holding back a chuckle, without letting on that he was already aware of my BIG plans, Dad continued to unravel the strings and roll them into a neat ball that I could tie an elephant with. And every time we ordered in, Dad would help me save up the string, which I used to hide with my books, on the bookshelf. Guests at breakfast were informed about my wish to get a pet elephant and everyone accepted it with equanimity. The siblings used to giggle and they were told that it was rude to giggle. So for the longest time, I wanted to be an elephant carer, not a mahout, but someone who would take care and walk and turn tricks with an elephant. In my head, I was confident that I would be the best pet owner ever. Not like the sibling who kept the pet tied. I kept adding and although the ball of string did not grow too big, I still had something to look forward to. Every holiday, especially if the holiday was for a festival I used to wait by the gate, to see the passing elephants, visualizing if my string was long enough. The Mahouts never had a string or leash, they just had a chain that chained one front foot and one back foot together, and when I realized that, all I needed was that much string, I was confident that my ball would suffice. It was then that I broached the topic of getting my pet home, that mum reminded me that I would have to sacrifice my milk for the elephant. And if it was that big, then it would eat up all my Chickoo as well, and would still be hungry. Now, I was a milk baby, I would drink milk all the time. And Chickoo or sapota, was my all-time favourite fruit. It was the only thing I would eat and I would eat as many as I was served. And mum was now telling me, after collecting yarn to hold my pet, that my pet would have a big appetite and it would hit my list of favourites first, milk and Chickoo. But at age 5, the elephant was the only BIG thing I dreamed of. I wanted one, I was willing to collect bits of yarn that smelt of food, to tie him to the wall around the house. And nothing seemed to deter me from this noble cause. Not even sacrificing my all-time favorites of milk and fruit. Anything for the elephant, right?! For me, the elephant would care for me as much as I would for him. We would play together, sleep together and most importantly, he would walk on the string leash with me. Because he was my pet. No dream is too big, for a five-year-old.