83/ 100 Roger

We had met Roger before, just about a year ago. It was a beautiful, sunny morning on our very first day of that particular visit to India. We’d flown from a very cold, dark and dismal Glasgow winter and arrived late at night in Delhi. Waking on the very first morning of a trip, in a country so very different from home, is one of my favourite things. Even before getting out of bed you can simply lie there and listen to the unrecognisable birds singing completely different music from the ones in my garden. The air smells different, the traffic in the street sounds different and every voice outside the window is speaking in a language I don’t understand. I just want to get outside and experience whatever is there.

After a very fine breakfast we ventured out to explore Hauz Khas—an upmarket area in the south of the enormous and chaotic city of Delhi. From what I’ve seen during my wanderings the whole area is divided into blocks, and each block has gates which close at night to keep out the baddies, whoever they might be. There isn’t a whole lot going on as a result—there are no corner chai stalls, no smoking pans of oil full of tasty snacks and definitely nobody offering to clean your ears for a small fee. However, it is very quiet, safe and peaceful and a great place to recover from a long couple of days of travel.

There are also dogs who, mostly, seem to have been adopted by the large population of security guards who sit in small groups each night. Our own security guard had drawn the short straw because he guarded a building at the end of a cul-de-sac. Each night he would sit completely alone, almost unrecognisable under metres of woollen scarves that protected him from the surprisingly chilly winter nights. He also didn’t have a dog, unless he kept it well hidden. Perhaps he liked it this way?

When we first met Roger he needed a snack. As we sauntered along the street that was lined with the sorts of tropical plants that we can barely coax into life inside our house we made the fatal error of looking at a dog and, most probably, smiling. After even this most minuscule of interactions he decided it was a signal to chance his arm and see whether he could get some breakfast from these two tourists who were surely loaded up with pocket-fulls of Parle-G biscuits.

He ambled over and gladly accepted a good scratch behind his ears. We moved on, but he wasn’t finished. He trotted along ahead of us, almost as though he was guiding us to the vegetable cart that sat on the corner in the hope that we would pick him up something to his pleasing.

We continued up the road, beyond the vegetables and Roger seemed to have given up all hope of being given anything edible. He had one last trick up his sleeve however. In a risky manoeuvre he tried to get Fiona’s attention (he thought she would be a softer target perhaps) by nibbling the back of her jeans behind her knees, gently tugging to get attention. As is often the case, this was mildly amusing at first, but then the tugs became a little less gentle and Roger got a telling off from us, and the vegetable man at which point he scurried off to hide under a bush and sulk.

Almost exactly one year later we returned and found that Roger had made a new life for himself. In precisely the same spot as the vegetable cart (which seemed to have sadly disappeared) there was now a smart kennel, a mighty fine dog bed that someone had kindly placed on top of a precariously balanced paving slab, a bowl of water and, of course, a jacket. Flanking his little enclave were two of the ubiquitous plastic garden chairs beloved by security guards so we already guessed that he had been befriended.

Later that day, walking home at night after a fun day out in the city, we passed Roger again, fast asleep in his bed. As we had suspected, this time there were two guards with him who told us his name, and that he wasn’t a guard dog, just simply a dog. That’s probably good thing really, because his guarding ability didn’t ever appear to stretch much beyond the edges of his bed.