Remembering Chintu

In what would appear as a curious frown over his hazel-colored eyes Chintu would gaze as I would tie the thread with a bulbous rag dangling from its centre, on his collar.
Having secured the knot, it was a vermillion streak up his snout to what I calculated was the larger part of the forehead and then sum it up with the best part of the deal...a delectable pedha(an Indian sweet) which he had been eyeing all along.
As a gesture of appreciation Chintu would wag his golden brown tail and lick my hand...
'Yikes Chintu,' I would recoil in horror,'you stink to hell...must brush your teeth this weekend'. To which he would wag his tail yet again and look expectantly for another pedha.
That was almost a decade and five years ago...Chintu was put to sleep following a nasty gangrene in his front leg. Mites and ants had dug deep into the wound and were eating him alive...almost...that is when we decided to spare him his misery. Chintu's hazel eyes were soon replaced by Tony's deep black ones. Playful, loving, tender and vicious, they were a kaliedoscope of emotions.
Unlike Chintu, whom I had ridden piggy back, Tony was less tolerant towards my childish intrusions on his person.
Come rakhi and getting Tony to sit quietly would be a task. At such times I missed the older and bigger Chintu.
Incidentally, for those uninitiated in Indian traditions, re-invented by STAR network (with all its tear jerking soaps), Rakhi bears testimony to a brother's undying love for his sister and a sister's beseech for love and protection from the brother (if this smack of a chauvinistic disposition towards hailing males, that was quite the intent).
Popular Bollywood films have depicted the occasion as one marked by pristine chastity and a background score to match the occasion...soulful, tug-at-heart numbers blessing the brother-sister duo.
All this was of course very enticing as a child. And since I lacked (it is always a loss and lack not to have a male offspring/sibling according to conventional (?) wisdom at least) a biological brother, my sister and I brooded. That is when granny came out with this brilliant solution. Cutting through the flab of Bollywood and 'culture' rhetoric she reasoned with us.
'What is the significance of rakhi?' she asked.
'It means honour the one who protects you', my sister and I would retort(in Hindi and Marathi alike rakshan means to protect and some interpretations of rakhi claim that this is a celebration to honor those who protect you).
'In which case,' she would continue, 'who guards and protects you the most?'
To which the unflinching reply would be 'Chintu!'
Chintu, tethered at the main entrance to the house, fiercely guarding it day and night, indulgent to all our childish idiosyncrasies of riding him piggy back was the sum total of love, protection, tolerance and kindness.
Today, as the country celebrates yet another season of rakhi and radios churn out 'gut churning' songs from yesteryear, I remember and miss Chintu...his hazel eyes and the reassuring bark in the dead of the night.