By Girija Madhavan
Star of Mysore recently carried two touching stories about pets. I recall an unusual one from my childhood. In the early 1940s, after an illness, I was kept at home. Our Railway bungalow had a large garden. A lonely child, I wanted a pet for company. Dogs were vetoed because the family dog, Veera, had menaced visitors and tradesmen but ingratiated himself with dubious strangers. In my English book, I saw a picture of a golden-haired girl with a fleecy white lamb, in a garden of hollyhocks and bluebells. I wistfully told my mother that I too would like such a pet. To my surprise, she agreed and asked Thimmanna, the gardener, who had village contacts, to get one for me. When the “lamb” arrived, it was a fully grown animal with brown, shaggy wool. To my mother this was the ideal pet; it did not enter the house, carried no infectious diseases and needed no inoculations. Named Kuri , he could not gambol like the lamb in my picture book. He had a passion for bread, all but knocking me over in eagerness for the treat, when I called out “Kuri, Bread!” His absence was noticed only when there was no response to repeated offers of bread. Alarmed searches began; but to no avail. Everyone guessed his fate but I was told that Kuri was homesick and had gone back to the village.
