Joey-poey, my shweetheart,” SJ cooed in that annoying baby voice of hers, “We’re not going in that howwible plane, my baby. Someone told me dogs were allowed on 1st AC, so we’re taking the Wajdhani to Cal!”
“Woof!” I faked it just to please her. Whoever said ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that matters,’ is a mutt. Ask me. I was only eight weeks old when I was put in a box and transported from balmy Bombay to freezing Delhi. Cool, I had thought at first, when I was the only one from the kennel to be driven off to the airport. Before long documents (‘white boxer dog, brown patch on backside’) were signed and the next thing I knew I was tossed into the back of a tractor trailer and driven to the tarmac, a place worse than hell where aircrafts whined and howled like screaming banshees.
The flight was a nightmare. People who complain about cattle class should be shoved into the hold. Try two-and-a-half hours shivering in that dark, windowless cell, the engines roaring so loud not even God can hear a poor pup’s whimpers. Barely three weeks later I was packed off into that infernal box again. And then again and again. And then I grew up, became a strong 23kg dog that lived up to the name of my breed. I wasn’t going to take this nonsense sitting down. They had to haul me kicking and screaming if they were going to put me in that hold again and they knew, by God they knew I’d take a few good men down with me. So they tried a different tack.
A month before travel SJ set about making arrangements. No one seemed to know anything. Travel agents feigned ignorance despite her patiently reading out the ‘Luggage Rules’, section 77-A, clauses 1 and 2 of the Indian Railways Act. Undeterred, she got the number of the Railways PRO. When he heard SJ was a journalist planning to do a story he tried gently to dissuade her. “Please book yourself on another train, madam. It’s difficult to get a coupé on the Rajdhani.”
“Precisely my problem. I’ve booked a month in advance, the rules say you can take a dog on 1st AC but if someone objects you have to either put the dog in a dog box or get off. The only way to hedge your bets is to request a two-berther, but there isn’t any way to request one officially. So that is what I am asking you now.”
“Er, just not possible.”
“Why?” SJ asked doggedly.
“It’s because we have to keep the coupé for ministers or judges who may travel last minute.”
“But I’ve gone over the railway rules. Where does it say that?”
“It doesn’t,” he confessed. “We have to do it because it’s always been done.”
Well, SJ’s been around long enough to know if politicians and judges can throw their weight around, so can journalists. “OK,” she said coolly. “That will be my story, then, how in the first few months of the first woman railway minister’s tenure, a woman and her female dog were denied access when she was travelling to Bengal to see her mother.” We got the coupé.
The trip to New Jalpaiguri was more difficult. The clerk at the Parcel Office refused to budge. “How do I know you have a coupé?”
“You don’t and neither do I,” SJ growled.
“I can’t issue the dog a ticket until it is so.” SJ threw a fit. People stopped and stared. “Please,” the clerk pleaded, “I have only a few months to retire, I don’t want to lose my job.”
“I have read the rules,” SJ snarled, slapping her press card on his table, “and you might if you don’t issue a ticket.” We got my ticket but didn’t get a coupé. Luckily our co-passenger was a kind gent who had a dog of his own and didn’t mind.
The journey back to Delhi was easier. We arrived at Howrah Station, strolled over to the Parcel Office set up in a booth near the train. When the clerk had the temerity to ask whether we had a coupé, SJ pointed an indignant finger at the chart. The clerk smiled obsequiously and issued my ticket. We got into the train and headed straight for cabin ‘F’. I looked at SJ approvingly. She’d cut the stress and booked us a four-berther all to ourselves. The attendant would soon come around and I’d ask for the roast chicken. It’s a dog’s life, I tell you.
(As told to Sonia Jabbar)