Was there a time in my life when I chose the unpopular over the popular?
Just one time? Ok, two?!
Then you aren’t talking to me. I am drawn to the unpopular, and the attraction sometimes borders on the fatal.
I invite trouble.
One recent example, and you’ll know what I am talking about.
Last evening, when I left the house for a jog, I had no clue of what lay ahead. I should’ve been alerted of the impending disaster when I turned the corner to arrive on that stretch of the road that ended in a T. T’s as you know are decision-points. As I approached this T, my mind went into an overdrive, trying to decide which way I must go. If I went left, I’d arrive at the big central park of our sector; if I turned right, I’d find a calm and quiet park, but which didn’t have a proper jogging track.
My decision-making was simple, and my decision was obvious. I would turn left…
but just before I turned, I saw them!
Mr. Goyal, my neighbor of the You-don’t-know-anything fame was coming toward me from the left, and Tornado and his fur-keeper Bir Bahadur were charging at me from the right.
Anyone who knows Mr. Goyal would’ve changed his mind and turned right, preferring to be slobbered, even bitten by a 190 lb dog who kept his Nepali groom on a tight leash, but Mr. Goyal waved at me, and I took the bait. Ignoring the warning beeps and flashes that signaled danger, I still turned left!
Mr. Goyal stopped.
I stopped.
Tornado stopped.
He threw me a dirty look, lifted his leg, and peed on the tire of a parked car.
I saw him do it.
Bir Bahadur saw him do it.
Mr. Goyal saw him do it.
But Mr. Goyal was the only one who took Tornado seriously.
“These dogs,” he fumed, “they pee everywhere!”
“Yes, they prefer tires and tree-trunks,” I laughed, a little self-consciously. While I have a girl-dog who doesn’t indulge in the undignified lift-the-leg peeing, the non-dog people have a difficult time accepting that a girl-dog is any different from a boy-dog.
“You don’t know,” he said, shaking a finger so close to my nose that it might’ve gotten into my nostrils, “these dogs, they are a menace!”
“Why?” I had to ask, and that was my undoing, because then he launched into a poop-bite saga that could put any dog to shame. Any dog but Tornado.
That lovable jowly drooler must’ve heard Mr. Goyal’s diatribe against dogs, because he turned around and charged at us, dragging a hapless Bir Bahadur behind him. I should acknowledge that Tornado and I have been friends for almost an year now. He is the friendliest dog in the neighborhood and he thinks of me as his pal, so I soon realized that he wasn’t charging at us, he was rushing towards me for a rather public display of his affection.
I saw him in slow motion. His tongue out, his eyes filled with joy, his beautiful fur shimmering in the golden light of the setting Sun.
Mr. Goyal saw him too, possibly in fast-forward mode. His tongue out, his eyes filled with mad hatred, his white canines shining cruelly in the yellow light of the…drat…the setting Sun!
Before Tornado could reach me and throw me down to climb over my chest and shower me with his dribble-coated affection; Mr. Goyal was three feet up in the air. His usually acerbic expression having transformed in that of 24-Carat terror!
“You don’t know, he’s coming to bite us!” He shouted, then turned his tail and ran! “Kutta…kutta” (dog…dog,) he screamed at the top of his voice.
The tailor who sits under the tree at the corner, left his work and rushed to help Mr. Goyal, who suddenly became aware of the spectacle he was presenting to the world. He turned and looked at the tailor with disdain mixed with embarrassment. He had been the CEO of a Tata-Birla type company, and he couldn’t stoop low enough to be saved by a tailor. So he gathered his wits, pulled up his collar, and told the tailor that he was fine.
Tornado had gotten to me by then. I was stroking his head, when I heard Mr. Goyal’s remonstration.
“People like you are responsible for all this! You adopt these ill-behaved dogs! You don’t know. I was the CEO of a Tata-Birla type company, and I had hundreds of B.Tech MBAs like you working under me! You don’t know anything about these dogs – they carry diseases, they make people go mad, they bite…they…” he spluttered, then finished his sentence, “they are monsters!”
Then he shuffled away.
Tornado watched him leave, then swished his tail and signaled Bir Bahadur that it was time to go. I could swear I saw a smirk on Tornado’s face.
Ever since I took that unpopular turn that nobody in his right mind would’ve taken, and preferred to bump into Mr. Goyal instead of Mr. Tornado – I’ve been getting dirty looks from both Mr. and Mrs. Goyal. I suspect that Tornado’s reputation too must’ve gotten tarnished, because Mr. Goyal has been going around the neighborhood telling every electricity pole that Tornado is mad.
Tornado, Bir Bahadur tells me, has generally remained unperturbed by the hullabaloo, however he has developed a pee-ference for the tires of Mr. Goyal’s car.
A Note for the Non-Indian Reader: A Tata Birla company is a term used to refer to any old and respected business-house of India.
On popular demand (that has been gaining ground since Mr. Goyal first made an appearance on this blog,) I present you my faithful rendition of Mr. Goyal’s awe-inspiring persona.
Penned in response to the Daily Post tag “Unpopular,” which actually is about making unpopular choices and not about the unpopular you. Both ways, it refers to me.
If you enjoyed this post, find more of my Quirky, Snarky, Malarkey in The QSM Magazine. |
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Hahahaha! I loved this story, and I love Tornado. I’m afraid your Mr. Goyal is a wimp. Poor guy. So full of himself, yet cannot even deal with a dog!
Needless to say, your descriptions were vivid and evocative. I swear I saw the whole scene right before my eyes.
Sorry I’ve been somewhat absent — I need to get on WP more and read. It’s been rather busy here for the past few weeks!
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Lording over humans isn’t the same as lording over a dog. I have a feeling that even if he tried, there’ll be a huge communication gap between Mr. Goyal and the dogs of the world. Glad you saw the scene…I wish you could’ve seen it before I made the decision – you could’ve stopped me. Being busy…story of our lives.
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🙂
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Liked how you described Tornado’s PDA. I wonder if Mr Goyal has read this post and seen his caricature.
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In the previous post I had mentioned that I’ve changed his name to preserve his identity. Hoping that he “doesn’t know” a lot about blogging, and doesn’t see his caricature – because it’s a spitting image of his real self.
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What a wonderful story! I could picture the scene so clearly. Mr. Goyal is a curmudgeon and deserved to be set on his arse. I’m afraid at that point I would have been tempted to pretend to be afraid of Tornado, too, just to see what Mr. Goyal would do when he saw that Tornado was following you, dragging the hapless Bir Bahadur behind him. Hehehehe
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Glad you enjoyed my unpopular choice 😀 Mr. Goyal exists to destroy the eardrums of the community. Had he found another fearful creature, Mr. Goyal’s diatribe would’ve lasted an hour, at the very least. You saved me by your absence.
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Tornado seems to be fun! Exacting his sweet revenge from Mr. Goyal. I wonder if the electricity poles disagree or no with Mr. Goyal, considering Tornado would at some point have had a pee-ference for the poles too.
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He keeps those poles green, so I am sure they must’ve given Mr. Goyal a shock or two and tried to bring him back to his leftover senses.
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Animals seem to have this instinctual sense of when people like them or not. I believe Tornado came to rescue you from the grips of Mr. Goyal’s conversation! Good dog,Tornado! Mr. Goyal should be thankful the neighborhood dogs haven’t taken to peeing on the legs of grumpy know-it-all men!
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They might form a union and start doing it – drawing chits to decide the pee-er of the day 😀
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Hahaha!!!
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Oh my word! I can’t help the laughter. I had a dog, she is late though but she had a penchant of peeing on my neighbours tyres and a particular tyre for that matter. He wasn’t a very nice fellow too and practically frothed at the mouth over the whole affair. The funny thing is that once we stepped out of the compound, Sheila would gallop off at an insane speed and she wasn’t small at all.
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I can imagine your frothing-at-the-mouth neighbor in the avatar of Mr. Goyal. There must be something in car-tires that draws a dog to pee on it. This could be an interesting area of research for dog-lovers.
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I wondered at that phenomenon for a while but didn’t have the time to research into it. I think it is a case of establishing territories because it was that particular tire. None other would do. She was ready to run away just to get to that tire 😉
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I know…but Mr. Goyal assumes all territory to be his. You don’t know, he was the CEO of…the world. If he met you, he’d tell you that two Dozen Sheikhs were in his employment.
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What a bag of humpty!
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Truer words were never spoken!
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Can’t stop laughing. Funny one.
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I’ll pass on the compliments to Mr. Goyal and Tornado 😀
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I love Tornado (great dog name!) and I think your choice turned out to be a wise one, as it gave you a brilliant post!
I have an uncanny knack for making unpopular choices, but they always make sense to me. Just as an example – I have a Windows phone and like it. Recently heard that only 1.7 percent of cell phone users have a Windows phone. Um… wow.
Maybe I should invite them over to my house for a party. (What do you think, is it worth a blog post?)
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Of course, Christi. With a humorist, anything and anyone is fair game…especially when that anything has a Windows connection. I am so glad I divorced MS (I endured that marriage for almost a dozen years – tried my best to make it work; in the course of 12 years, bought six computers, made Windows join Alcoholics Anonymous, but it kept getting worse!) Later I married Apple…now I can sit on the fence and laugh my guts off at those who cannot cut the umbilical cord. (Please keep those sandals on! Remember, anyone’s fair game for the humorist?! Even a fellow humorist!) (Speaking of unpopular choices – LOL followed by ROFL! You win!)
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I must admit, I feel a bit sorry for Mr. Goyal, though goodness only knows why. Perhaps it’s because I get a bit nervous around jumpy dogs too. It’s strange, because I used to have an excitable dog when I was a boy and I got on well with him. I’m regret to say, though, that he did have a tendency to break wind at times, which could obviously be embarrassing if we had company. It got me wondering about your doggy pal. I mean, with a name like Tornado…
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Now that you mention it, Tornado excels at breaking wind. I don’t think Mr. Goyal sticks around him long enough to catch a full blast, but I hope that one day he does. I must ask Tornado’s owner why he decided to call his dog by this name. After all, Tornadoes don’t happen in India.
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Perhaps there were already too many dogs called Cyclone.
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None, but thanks. That’s a great name for a certain canine I have the pleasure of knowing.
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Oh dear. I hope it doesn’t describe his or her temperament.
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A rather active Golden Retriever.
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I do have a female dog that hikes her leg -it is embarrassing. Loved the story. I don’t know how you come up with these perfect little bits of fun -but I admire your work.
http://www.fiddledeedeebooks.wordpress.com
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Thank you Dee. I think we live in a world where unisex is the in-thing.
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