Roger gets Rogerred!!

Our summer hols, when we were little, were always spent at my Grandpas place in Madras. When I say "we" here, I'm referring to my cousins and me. It was a ritual that we all loved because like all grandpas, ours used to spoil us like crazy - Spoil us so bad, that we never really minded the heat of Madras!

And apart from other things, Grandpa liked his afternoon siesta like how people need air to breathe... We would fall all over him as he slept and he would ask us to press his legs and give him a head massage and so on... we loved that part of the day... And then he would go into a deep slumber and we would be paraded out of his room by one of his daughters(either my mom or one of her sisters)

On one such afternoon, once grandpa had reached his 14th or 15th wink, we started our daily round of hide-and-seek in his huge 1st floor house. (Huge is a gross understatement....It was palatial...built during British Raj days. And since we were very small, it looked MUCH larger than it was). It was a large bungalow with a first floor and on the ground floor, lived the landlord and his wife.(The Raghavans, an elderly couple). The house had a large court yard(20 metres by 30 metres) which was Mrs. Ragahvan's garden cum car park.

Now the Raghavans, happened to own this HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Doberman........It would have been much taller than us if it was on 2 legs. I have to say that we werent very big then, but still. And to add to the misery, it was a monster....A postman's nightmare, the milkman's biggest fear and one of the most ferocious things I have ever seen in my life....Im sure it would have gotten along really well with the inmates of the lions cage at the zoo. The dog, Roger(no offence meant to Federrer but that was its name) would bark ferociously at any passerby and had to be kept tied with a large iron chain when people visited the Raghavans...Fat chance of saying "OOOOH....Cute doggie...want a biscuit???"...in such a case, Roger would have taken the biscuit and a better part of your hand in the process...

Back to that eventful afternoon. I was the denner and while I was counting to 100(which was an effort in those days) with my face to the huge grill on the balcony, I spotted this large billy goat hanging around the front gate of the house. Like I mentioned, there was a large courtyard between the house and the gate and that used to be Rogers playground in the afternoons, when the chains were removed. He would run about like a lion in the wild and there were times when all of us would just observe him in awe from the balcony.

By some freak chance, the goat happened to get into the premises. Mr. Raghavan must have forgotten to lock the gate and the goat must have fancied the garden and come in for dessert. When I was somewhere between 57 and 59(I was counting remember?), Roger realised that there was an intruder in his domain.I gave up counting and yelled for my cousins to come and catch the matinée show. As expected, Roger went charging at the goat, tongue out, saliva oozing from his mouth, embers in his eyes and other special effects!

As Roger charges towards what seems to the readers, his victim, let me get down to describing the old goat(wow...always wanted to use "old goat" in my blog) The goat was by no means a push over. Equally matching Roger in size, this guy had a huge pair of horns and was not the types who ends up on the dinner table as "Mutton chops". When Roger reached the goat, he went for its throat like how those mean dogs in Nazi war films were taught to do to their victims. What Roger didn't realise was, that he wasn't in a Nazi movie. The Germans had lost the war and their dogs (Rogers uncles from his mothers side), had lost the canine glory they had once been part off. The goat very quickly turned 180 degrees and with a quick flick of its hind legs, caught Roger right in the face.

I don't know if any of you have heard what happens when you step on a puppy's tail. My building friends and I(in Bangalore) have long since graduated from stamping puppies tails....Now a days, we tie fire crackers to their tails and light them(the firecrackers of course. We wouldn't want to be cruel to those poor things by burning their tails now would we?)...the effect is much the same as the sounds which came out of Rogers throat and apparently, the howls were heard one kilometer away at the post office(The postman confirmed gleefully on the following day!). By now, the balcony seats(literally) were taken. A groggy eyed grandpa came running out to see what the commotion was all about.

Roger was taking a licking(Note: This sentence will NEVER be uttered on a modern tennis circuit). Every attack of his was getting butted away and there came a point when the goat started chasing Roger. The fun and frolic that was coming from the balcony, the high fives, peels of laughter, the deep guffaw emanating coming from my grandpas throat and the high pitched shrill yells of my female cousins along with Rogers shrieks for mercy in dog language must have risen poor Mr. Raghavan up. He came running out and with great difficulty leashed Roger again. He managed to shoo the goat out, just as it had started on its dessert.

By now, our stomachs were paining!..... I will never forget the words that came out of Mr. Raghavan's mouth till the day I die....

He looked up, all embarrassed and said slowly...." The goat is lucky I came out.....else we would have had mutton biriyani for dinner today....."...................

YEAH SURE MR. RAGHAVAN....WE WOULD LIKE FRIES AND COKE WITH OUR ORDER!!!!