My parents in Delhi found a puppy wagging her tail at our doorstep early in the morning. My mother gave shelter, food and name Blackie to her (so named, after her jet black shining beautiful coat) rest as they say is a history. Blackie was to become our family member..(That was about 15 years back).

Few years back, she developed severe arthritis, my mother got worried, as worried as a mother could get, we all brothers were frantically looking for cure. I was surfing net and zeroed on to a vet in Delhi itself specializing in her ailment. My mother refused to go out of Delhi as her love for Blackie was turning in obsession, no sooner she would board a train she would start worrying about her. Her visits to us in Mumbai were always cut short, courtesy Blackie.

Her condition deteriorated. Vet would discourage and break my mother’s heart “Aunty she is now hundred years old”…. During her serious illness days my mother, herself in her seventies, would lift Blackie in her lap and take her to nearby Park so that she could relieve herself. By and by, Blackie gave up food and would lie still for days together. Vet’s visits were proving futile. She would stare blankly at my mother and visitors.

During her last days night long she will cry in pain. Fearing her plight during Delhi’s Diwali, senseless crackers / bomb spree, also responding to neighbors growing complaints and lastly on our persuasion, she reluctantly agreed to take Blackie to her final journey (euthanasia).

Later, my mother sobbing inconsolably, gave heart rending account… when Vet made Blackie lie on the table for giving that lethal injection…Blackie turned her neck for the last time, and gave my mother such looks that my mother could not bear to look into her eyes and rushed out of clinic…crying all the way back home…..She did not eat for several days and that year (2011) no Diwali for her.