Asked my favorite number, I would always yell ‘1’—it is so uncomplicated compared to ‘7’—the most popular number in the world.
And there are so many reasons why ‘7’ enjoys this status.
It is a lucky number—’Lucky 7s’ appear on the good old ‘one armed bandit’, and it is the Creator’s favorite—there are 7 days in a week, 7 colors in the rainbow, 7 wonders of the world.
The number has always intrigued me—how something as dry as a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label could soar in importance above all the other digits in the number system.
Then a childhood experience added to the spiritual quality of the number, a whole new dimension.
The Wait
I was not allowed pets as a child, and neither were the other kids in the neighborhood—it was a luxury—except a few, and their German Shepherds were so ferocious that we preferred to cuddle the meek street dogs instead.
Dana was one such dog, and one winter, she gave birth to a litter of puppies in the old wooden shed tucked away in the corner of our courtyard.
I was in the middle of my Christmas holidays, and though the days were short, and I was not allowed to bring the puppies indoors, I bonded with them, fed them our dinner leftovers and covered them in rags after they had eaten. However, within a few weeks, they grew more independent and wandered around the neighborhood.
The children in the other houses loved them too and saved tidbits for them too. The puppies visited them regularly, and sometimes, ventured farther—onto the main road and the neighborhoods beyond—and then it was not uncommon to lose them completely.
However, when school reopened, it became impossible to care for them during the day and ensure that they stayed within the boundaries of the house. They disappeared quickly, all except one—Chikoo. He was soft and beige with black, and bead-like eyes.
There was no way I could be more careful with him, but I pampered him in the evenings with treats and cuddles.
One Sunday morning, well before sunrise, I heard Dana bark. She knew her position in the household and never uttered a sound.
Then I heard voices—two—just outside my bedroom window, which overlooked the courtyard.
The voices were a little muffled because the window was closed with the drapes pulled over them.
Could they be burglars?
I wondered what time it was.
In the darkness, the wall clock ticked over my head. I did not dare switch on the light and check the time.
I knew my father woke up just before five every morning to collect clean municipal water— available at one tap only—the one in the courtyard, just outside the kitchen—between five to six in the morning, in a 55-gallon metal barrel in the bathroom.
The kitchen being at one end of the courtyard, and the bathroom at the other, my father connected a long hose to the tap, walked the length of the courtyard with the other end and dropped it into the barrel in the bathroom.
Every day, he followed the same path in the dark. As soon as the job was done, he returned to bed and did not wake up until half past six.
By the time my mother woke up at six, the barrel was full for the maid, gardener, and the sweeper to start work at seven.
It was almost impossible to catch both my parents out in the courtyard before sunrise.
My thoughts returned to burglars and I cringed until my mother spoke louder, putting me out of my misery. “The maid will know what to do with it.” she said.
Isprang out of bed and parted the curtains. Though the skies were still dark, the courtyard dazzled with light from the outdoor wall sconces. I saw my parents, only yards from my window, deep in conversation.
What were they talking about?
Somewhat relieved, yet still curious to know what was going on, I raced out.
Immediately Dana and Chikoo came bounding toward me wagging their tails and barking. I picked up the puppy and moved swiftly toward my parents, but his mother leaped up at me, licking my face furiously. I almost lost balance.
“Careful,” my parents cried together. “Don’t step on this offering.”
I recoiled almost dropping the puppy. Before me, on the cement floor, lay a paper plate, with a glowing diya in the middle with flowers and fruit pieces arranged around it. “What is this?” I asked.
“Black magic, we think,” said my mother. “Your father wasn’t feeling well this morning—he had very high temperature—103°F.”
I touched his forehead and frowned at the burning temperature.
My mother wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused.
“I took aspirin.” He tried to laugh but coughed instead.
“I offered to do his morning chores for him, but had to drag him out,” said my mother. “All this black magic stuff terrifies me.” She sniffled. “Thank goodness I turned on all the lights—scared as I am of ghosts—or I would have stepped onto this. Your father does the job in the darkness. Someone was trying to use supernatural powers to hurt him.”
That sent an uneasy feeling snaking up my spine. I glanced at the oil lamp on the plate. It was still burning, which meant that the plate had been planted on the ground only minutes before my father was supposed to step out onto the courtyard. “Who could have done this?”
“Whoever it is, knows your father’s routine,” said my mother.
I wondered how the culprit could have entered the courtyard without my parents noticing. The front door was bolted from inside. The two doors leading out from the courtyard into the gardens were locked every night at seven after the maid left and were unlocked by her at seven when she arrived with the gardener and the sweeper in tow.
My gaze drifted to the tall spiked wall that barely allowed us a peek at the roofs visible over it or the people hanging out on the rooftops. We were worlds apart and I had always suffered from a deplorable lack of interest in them.
“He climb over the garage and plant the plate.”
I swung around to find the maid talking to the gardener and the sweeper. I had no idea that they had already arrived. “Who?” I asked.
The maid cast a glance beyond the spikes of the tall wall. “The man who put offering here—tantric ritual. He climb over the garage and come down.” She pointed to the garage to the left of the courtyard.
“Why did they target my father?” I asked.
“They need to transfer curse, it not matter to who. Someone dying in their household,” the gardener said, “so they offer fruit and flowers to evil Goddess and pray she transfer misfortune.”
The sweeper refused to touch the paper plate though he was paid to clean the grounds of the property.
All three of them explained that they would like to help but were sure that getting involved would prove fatal. They advised my parents to find an ojha, a priest who could perform ceremonies to counteract its effects.
While we listened to the gardener and sweeper, the maid started making tea for everyone in the kitchen. Dana followed her all the way to the kitchen but chose to sit down by the door and lick her paws.
Chikoo leaped around mugging attention. He was in constant motion, wagging, wriggling, and jumping—he was a living store of pent up energy waiting to release itself on the world.
My mother instructed the maid to get some milk and bread for Dana and Chikoo. The maid obeyed, placing the bowls at the entrance of the old wooden shed, where almost immediately, the dog and her puppy relocated to lap up the homemade dog food.
The gardener seemed to know a little about tantric activity, but he was hesitant to share the information with us. “The whole process complicated, you talk to ojha—he help you, tell you when, how, and where to perform ceremony—”
Worried out of our wits, we pressed him for the priest’s address. He denied knowing the ojha himself—however, he knew someone who did, but that someone was out of town for treatment—he had cancer—and would get back a month later unless he died . . .
Listening to the gardener with rapt attention, no one noticed Chikoo pawing the paper plate with his fore paws, his wet tongue licking furiously at the diced fruit—not until the maid’s shrieks diverted our attention to the puppy.
“Chikoo, no!” I bent down immediately to prise him away, but his jaws were clamped shut. That upset the lamp and blew out the flame.
The maid handed me my cup of tea and whacked him with the wooden tray. “Go, you stupid dog!”
The puppy released his grip, squealing, ready to pounce again.
“No!” We all cried out.
The maid now grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him out of the way. Perhaps the maid had been a trifle too harsh. The puppy cowered, shaking, and backed away.
“Good, good,” said the sweeper, kicking him hard. Chikoo flipped and rolled, yelping.
“Scoundrel,” I muttered under my breath, rushing to pick up Chikoo, but the scared puppy picked himself up and scampered away, squealing, before I could reach him.
Dana fled whining. We never saw her again.
Behind me the sweeper laughed. “Now I throw this plate away; the puppy taken away the curse—”
“H-he’s only little—he doesn’t even know what he has done.” Foreboding filled me at the expression on his face, then a well of anger swooped inside me. I looked pointedly in the direction Chikoo had fled. There was no sign of him. Where was he? In a moment, a thousand hazards flashed through my mind.
I cringed, breaking into a run—keeping a sharp eye as I went along for signs of him—slowing down to ask a familiar face now and then if they had seen Chikoo. I described him.
Someone had seen a puppy bounding toward the main street. She could not remember the color but thought it might be beige.
My heart sank a few more notches. Just the place he should not be.
Inches from the main road, I stopped dead in my tracks. Dirty diesel exhaust fumes almost choked me. It was the rush hour.Through the black smoke I saw cars, rickshaws, buses, trucks, combis, bikes, scooters, motorcycles, pedestrians, and hawkers—not to forget the occasional cow—competing for space on the narrow and rutted road.
Slowly, I weaved my way through the screeching traffic. Jangling bells startled me. I turned around to find an ox cart behind me. Arms and legs popped out of it; some pointed to the bright red trail from the blood poolingin the mud by the side of the road.
No! Lightheaded, I staggered back a step.
“Let’s go home,” my father’s feeble voice pierced through the fog of my mind.
“Chikoo is dead,” I wept, staring at the blood.
I felt my father’s grip on my arm. It was still very warm to the touch. “Chikoo can’t be dead, or he would be lying here,” he said, with a tremor in his voice.
I forgot about Chikoo and looked up at my father’s face. His lips were red and his features flushed from the fever. “It’s not like anybody will remove the body so fast,” he spoke breathing heavily. “Let us go back. Please.”
I followed him back and arrived home just as the sweeper was leaving. I walked past him and into the house.
“That puppy grow into street dog. Who want more street dogs?” he called after me.
A niggling sense of foreboding hung heavily upon me—one I could not shrug away. It clung to me like summer sweat.
That afternoon, my father made a remarkable recovery. His temperature dropped to 99°F, and he suggested that we should begin an organized search for Chikoo. We told people about him—and how much we cared for him.
The next day, a neighbor said that Chikoo had been hit by a truck on the main road not long after he ran out of our house. The man had witnessed the accident, but he was on his way to work, so had done nothing about it. After all, Chikoo was a street dog.
“But they are still living creatures,” I argued.
Another day passed, and there was still no sign of Chikoo. In the evening we walked to the local grocery store on the main street to ask if the grocer had seen Chikoo. We described him and showed him a picture of a similar puppy. The grocer said he had seen the injured puppy after the accident but could not imagine that the puppy was someone’s pet. He would expect a pet to wear a collar.
I asked my father why he did not get Chikoo a collar. My father swallowed but said nothing.
On the third day since Chikoo’s disappearance, an elderly man stumbled over an injured puppy a quarter of a mile from our house. He claimed that it was a beige colored puppy with his two hind legs hanging on only by the skin, but it was dark, and the fall had disoriented him. As a result, he could not remember what happened to the puppy.
I felt heartbroken, but my parents explained that the elderly man’s words proved three things: Chikoo was alive, he was moving, and that he was coming closer to home. They promised to take him to the local vet as soon as we found him.
The following day, all our immediate neighbors left tasty treats out for him at their doorstep, but twenty-four hours passed, and the food remained intact.
On day five, a lady who lived two blocks away from us discovered what she thought was dog vomit by her gate. She did not mind—she was a dog lover, but we grew concerned.
Day six dawned. The weather turned blustery. Concerned about Chikoo, we redoubled our efforts. We searched the entire neighborhood. We looked in every conceivable place—in the garages and the out-houses, under hedges and in ditches, in the grass and amongst the flowers.
The puppy was nowhere to be found
In the afternoon, the gardener discovered a huge snake in the garden and killed it.
“The puppy be small snack for this one,” the sweeper laughed as he burned the carcass.
That night my parents and I barely spoke. None of us were particularly hungry and retired to bed earlier than usual.
I tossed and turned and fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning only to be awakened by my mother before sunrise.
“Chikoo is in the courtyard—possibly in a lot of pain.” She blinked back her tears. “Your father heard him crying when he went out to fill the barrel. He unlocked the door and brought him in.”
I sprang out of bed and rushed to the spot where Chikoo lay shaking under a light blanket. He had not touched the warm bowl of milk my father had given him.
“He’s dying,” my father said. “Both his back legs are smashed. He had the accident several days ago—probably on the day he ran away—and the infection has spread.” My father sighed. “I have no idea how he dragged himself this far.”
Chikoo had a dazed expression on his face—like he did not recognize us—and his breathing was labored. We stayed with him during his final minutes, stroking him gently and reassuring him with kind words.
Chikoo died as the sun rose, only inches from where he licked the lamp-flower-n-fruit-plate exactly seven days ago.
He was so young—the living store of pent up energy waiting to release itself on the world.
We never found out who the perpetrator was or if he benefited from the act.
For days grief overwhelmed me; it was like a nightmare I could not shake off. It all felt so wrong—so unfair.
I never got over the sense of loss; however, the feelings of guilt and anger mellowed—my brain learned to manage the emotional pain—and somewhere along the way,Chikoo ceased to be the tangible puppy of fur and drool I knew him for, and became a puppy within my own heart, where he continued to live together with my love for him.
What tormented and baffled me for ages was the uncanny distinctiveness of the incident from all other experiences I had ever had—the strange coincidence of eventsthat made us believe that the curse meant to affect my father was transferred to the puppy.
How was that possible? Did a greater power intervene? God?
It intrigued me that Chikoo came full circle back to the starting point—the courtyard—on the seventh day to die. He could have died at the site of his accident, come back before, perished on the way, or lost his way, disoriented, being in so much pain.
We did not find him until the seventh daydespite all our efforts, so we were not in a position to help him.
Perhaps the puppy was destined to die.
Perhaps God used his signature number to point out his involvement in the tragedy—that he had a plan for us, and our destiny guided us to make choices that helped to fulfil God’s plan.
Whatever it was, the incident gave a whole new meaning to the spiritual number, 7. For me, it now signified the completeness of a process—life, suffering, destiny—and the consequent release from a state of helplessness.
This idea stuck with me for years and while writing my novel ‘They’re Calling’ and its sequel ‘The Date’, it occurred to me that No. 7 would be a befitting series title.
Nandita Author 