Elsa

Elsa- named after the iconic lioness of "Born Free", was brought into our home on a somewhat chilly, winter morning- comfortably, securely tucked inside a fancy food-basket, and all wrapped-up in a warm towel. As we watched with sheer amusement, she was pulled out and unwrapped to reveal the cutest, most animated form of life you ever get to meet. My dad had been living on his own, away from his family for almost 2 years then (on a posting), and being the dog-lover that he is, this was the way out he found for keeping him company. Heedless of all our protests (we had lost our first pet some years back, and were determined never to keep another), he went ahead with his plan- and just called up one fine morning, to announce that he had picked up a cute little hybrid-Lhasa puppy, while on an official tour to Vizag. In just another couple of days, on his next home visit, he carried along a Cerelac-fed baby Elsa to what was soon to become her home and family. She was, however, to remain with Dad till he got posted back- which took another six months to happen. That being the case, we missed out on most of her fun growing-up days- having had the chance to see her only when we visited Dad on a vacation, or when he would come down to visit us.

As we began our hunt for the most apt name for her, in which exercise my brother was contributing the most with his decent research on how a puppy's name matters in shaping up her personality in the formative days- e.g, a puppy named Roger or, Tiger would most likely grow up to be ferocious!- after much deliberation, we settled for the name "Elsa". We still keep getting suggestions within the family of what else we could have called her- like, while we were just having Momo on a weekend evening, it suddenly occurred to Dad that we could have just called her "Momo"- thanks to her Tibetan origin!

Much to our relief and delight, she started exhibiting a very sweet disposition, a natural warmth, a goodness of nature, very high spirits, the most credulous gaze!, and an innocence (read dumbness :-)) that surpasses any you have ever known. She still retains her innocence, and is, at worst, "amoral" about any of her "wrong-doings". ;-)

Signing off now with a famous (far-fetched?) theory/analogy by Sherlock Holmes on families and their dogs-

"A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others."