My special bestie

By Ruhi Sengupta

Best friends are like diamonds lying on the street, it’s hard to find and lucky to have! Every individual who has a bosom friend, must deem oneself lucky.

A best friend is like a family anyone at any age can make. A bestie is someone who knows all the good and bad about you, but still loves you. I have got a good deal of friends but my dearest friend is a cute stray dog living behind my building whom I fondly call ‘Chhoti’. Everybody has a friendship story and here is ours.

It started a few years back when I used to watch Chhoti’s mother with her puppies and I took a particular liking for one of them. I often came to feed her and slowly our bond grew stronger. Now I feel much attached to her and, of course, as the saying goes ‘dogs are a man’s best friend.’ There are often similarities between two best friends and after being covered in thoughts for a while, I spotted the ones between us too. The most striking one is, we both would choose junk food over healthier options anytime. I often feed her dog biscuits which have proteins, vitamins, and minerals, but unless she is famished she’ll just lick and drop them unless I mix a few KFC leg piece bones, which are is her favourite food and within a blink of an eye everything will just vanish. I detest bottle gourds, but when accompanied by a gulab jamun then I also gobble it in no time.

Whenever I meet Chhoti after many days, generally because I am caught up doing something monotonous and spiritless like studying, it seems like she has scores of things to tell me which she shows by standing on her hind legs and wagging her tail.

She whines and yelps excitedly almost sounding as if she is speaking. After musing for a few more minutes, I came up with the dissimilarities too.

Chhoti is generally obedient and mostly obeys me. If I tell her to stop when she is barking continuously at a bicycle rider or a passing car, she listens, but not when she is animatedly chasing a cat or rat.

But I am not exactly the obedient type for I rather prefer to do what my mind suggests which is generally the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. I love playing with her. I taught her how to catch things thrown at her with her mouth and she is exceptionally good at it. Sometimes when I have bad days, she is a good distraction to me and I feel peaceful and happy again after I have patted her or talked my heart out to her. I don’t know what she understands but she seems to be listening without judging me. She is very forgiving and is never angry with me no matter what I do. True friends are hard to find and I shall cherish mine till it lasts.