Tag: pet

The Weight Of Memory

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I am preparing to move again.

Not just homes — but histories.

The new place at Yari Road sits with a strange tension in my mind. On the surface, it promises something better: more people with pets, more visible dog lovers, perhaps a more forgiving outdoor space. And yet, even before arriving, I can feel the resistance.

There are already rules. Pets cannot use the main lift. They must use the service lift.

I understand where this comes from. I have seen this mindset all my life — where certain bodies, both human and animal, are quietly assigned lesser spaces. Where presence itself becomes something to be managed, controlled, redirected.

And so I know this will not be a peaceful adjustment. It will be daily negotiations. Small confrontations. The quiet exhaustion of having to assert that my dogs belong — not just in my home, but in the world outside it.

Zuri is used to a garden. To open play. To a kind of freedom that roads cannot offer. Roads frighten her. And I cannot explain to her why her world must shrink, or change shape, or become something she must learn to endure.

I already feel the edge of that future. It sets my teeth on edge.

And yet, strangely, Yari Road also holds a past. A different one.

My dogs were once raised there. There is memory in those streets too. A sense — perhaps imagined — that they belonged there in a way they never quite did here.

So I stand between two uncertainties:
A past that holds love, and a future that threatens resistance.

And then there are the homes I have already left behind.

Amruttara — where I lost Bonzo, Rolfe, Diana. That space no longer exists. It has been erased, replaced by a tower. And now I return to that same ground, as if grief has been built over, but not removed.

Raj Mahal — where I lost Zoe. A home I will never step into again. Some spaces become sacred only after they are lost.

And here, in Savera, I lost Zach. And now Xena.

Perhaps they never truly settled here. Perhaps they carried another memory within them — of Yari Road, of a different beginning. I don’t know. I only know that this place holds their absence now, and it echoes.

And in the middle of all this is Zuri.

My living child.

I am taking her back to a place that once held life, but may now hold conflict. I ask myself: will this be good for her? Will she find ease, or will she inherit my unease?

And then, quietly, another thought presses in.

I want to bring home another puppy.

But where do I raise her?
In a place I am about to leave?
Or in a place I am not yet sure will accept her?

There is so much love in me. It does not diminish. It does not quieten. It simply waits — looking for somewhere to go.

And alongside it, there is something else. Not quite fear. Not quite anger.

But the knowledge that love, when it steps into the world, is often met with resistance.

This move is not just about space.

It is about whether love will be allowed to breathe there.

a Goodbye at Dawn

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Today was the day I had been dreading.

The day I would take Xena to the sea—not as the living, breathing presence who filled my home, but as ashes held in an urn. It felt like I would be losing her all over again. For days, I had been sitting beside her—talking, crying, writing—trying to make sense of a silence that came too soon, violently, after Zach, whose absence I am still learning to live with.

And then came today.  

Her twelfth birthday.

A day I had always believed she would see in flesh and spirit—but instead, I carried her to the sea.

—

We left just before dawn.  

Geeta, Atif, Anand, and I.

There is something about that hour—the world not fully awake, the sky undecided between darkness and light—that feels like a threshold. It felt right for a goodbye.

We first thought of going near the crematorium at Versova, but life, in its quiet way, redirected us. A step too steep. A small hesitation. And suddenly, we found ourselves at the beach near what used to be Chai Coffee instead.

The sea was at low tide.  

The morning was still.  

And for once, the city was not loud.

—

We walked towards the water.

No ceremony. No performance. Just the four of us, and her.

We opened the urn. And one by one, we let her go.

Her ashes—her bones—her final physical trace—met the sea.

And something unexpected happened.

I felt… calm.

Not the absence of grief, but the presence of something deeper. A quiet rightness. The waves were gentle, lapping at our feet as if they were telling us of all the millions of times they had borne witness to this act. The sea understood the moment better than we did. We stood there, all of us in the water, and watched as she became part of something vast, something endless.

Anand pointed out how a small fragment kept returning with the waves, as though unwilling to leave just yet. And then, eventually, it didn’t.

It went where it was meant to go.

—

There was sadness, of course.  

But there was also peace. And strangely, there were smiles.

Because in that moment, I knew something with certainty—I had given her a life of love. I had given her comfort, dignity, and presence. She was at peace long before today, because she was with me.

And today, I gave her a different kind of peace.

The kind that comes when suffering ends.

—

We came back home.

There was no dramatic silence. No overwhelming collapse.

We spoke. We sat. I made fried eggs for everyone. Life, in its quiet resilience, continued. And then Zuri came to the door—alive, warm, waiting—and in that moment, I was reminded that love, even when broken, does not end.

It changes form. It redistributes itself.

And there is still someone here who needs me.  

And there always will be.

—

I do not feel like I have lost her again.

I feel like I have completed something for her.

Something difficult. Something necessary.

Something a parent must do.

And I know this much—I have been a good parent.

And she knew that.

My Warrior Princess

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Today I lost Xena.

She began bleeding in the morning. Through the night I had stayed awake beside her, watching over her as I always did. Those quiet hours had passed without incident. It was only in the morning, when I finally lay down to rest, that things changed. Within an hour she began bleeding heavily — blood, clots, and histamine from her anal area. Something inside her had clearly given way.

In that moment I knew what I had been trying not to admit for a long time.

It was time to let her go.

My brave girl had already carried more suffering than most creatures should ever have to bear. Mast cell tumours had spread across her body — around her eyes, along her paws, across her chest. Every day was a routine of care: cleaning wounds, changing dressings, wrapping paws, protecting the tumours near her eyes so she would not scratch them. The tumours on her chest needed constant dressing and covering with a T-shirt, though she hated wearing it because her thick coat made her feel unbearably warm.

The lipoma beneath her tail caused problems. Because of her bladder issues she developed incontinence. We tried diapers, but they pressed painfully against the swelling. So we removed them and learned to manage things differently. Her paws needed bandaging. Some days one paw, some days two. Every walk required shoes to protect her feet, and afterwards we would remove them, clean her, and redress the wounds.

She also carried arthritis and spondylitis in her ageing body.

My poor girl suffered so much.

And yet she was so brave.

When she first came to me in May of 2014, she arrived alone from Bangalore in a tiny crate on a flight. When I first saw her, she was hardly more than a foot long — a tiny thing with a black muzzle, a black face, a white diamond on her back, and flashy white socks on her paws. Even then she seemed impossibly courageous.

That is why I named her Xena — the Warrior Princess.

And she lived up to that name every day of her life.

Her first mast cell tumour surgery came when she was barely a year old. Two more followed over the years. Somehow we managed to keep bladder stones at bay with careful home care — coconut water became part of her routine. But by the time she was nine or ten she developed incontinence. Even then she handled it with quiet dignity. Because of a certain tick medicine, she developed epilepsy. She began treatment for that.

She was never a demanding dog. She learnt how to use the toilet in her fourth day in our home. She was barely two months old. She never fussed or troubled anyone for walks or toilet breaks. She simply did her business quickly and efficiently. But she had personality in abundance. She loved playtime. All of the toys were hers! She was not a sharer.

Xena was always “in your face”, always present. She followed me around the house like a small lamb, bounding beside me like a little goat.

On walks she was always off the leash. Perfectly obedient, yet delightfully independent. Every few steps she would turn around to check whether I was still behind her. That small habit, that constant glance back, was her way of making sure her world was intact.

Whenever Anand picked up the leashes to take the dogs downstairs, Xena would be the only one who returned to the room to check whether I was coming. And if I stayed back, she was the only one who would hesitate at the door, waiting for me.

She trusted me completely.

She was also the last of my dogs to have witnessed a different chapter of my life — a time when my aunts were alive, when the house was full, when my circle of friends was large and laughter came easily. She was there through the storms as well: through heartbreaks, through struggles in my relationship, through the loneliness of COVID, through the grief of losing my aunts.

Through it all, she stayed.

Patient. Loyal. Watching.

Waiting by the door for my return.

I have known this heartbreak before. When Zoe left, a piece of my heart went with her. And now Xena has taken another piece with her.

These girls of mine — Diana, Zoe, Xena, and now Zuri — they arrive quietly into my life and carve out enormous spaces in my heart. And when they leave, they take those pieces with them.

Today Xena has taken hers.

There is a vacuum where she used to be. Like Zach, I feel her absence intensely. I write this in the first 24 hours of losing her. I haven’t shut off the alarms for her medicines. Or her coconut water time. Or emptied the two boxes filled with medicines for her tumours, her eyes, her chest, her anus, her paws. It’s all around me – spinning cartwheels…

But wherever she is now, I hope that my warrior princess has finally found what this world could no longer give her: rest. A state where there is no pain, no tumours, no dressings, no cones, no wounds to clean.

Only peace.

The suffering has ended for her.

The only one left to suffer is me.

Because I still do not know how to live in a world where hearts as pure as theirs — creatures capable of such boundless loyalty and love — are only given such a short time among us.

She spent her life looking back to see if I was there. Now I will spend the rest of mine looking back to remember that she was.

But you, you rest now, my brave girl. Your battles are done.