Meet Brownie
Jinesh Bhagdev
Readers of happily (n)ever after loved Goldie. Some wrote in their reviews that he stole their hearts.
Goldie is fiction, but the dog who motivated me to write him is not.
Meet Brownie.
She belongs to a family in my building, and she is their dog, not mine.
Her eyes are deep brown and rimmed in black. When the sun reaches them, they turn the colour of warm honey. Her coat is the brown of strong chai, and a thick ruff of it gathers over her blue collar. Her ears stand tall above a slightly furrowed brow.
Her family says she does not like water. Whatever left her wet in this photograph was probably not her idea.
She was an Indie puppy of about two months when they found her, alone near their home, in April 2021. It was the middle of the pandemic. They know nothing of where she came from. She was scared of people from the first day, and it took them a long time to earn her trust. They still do not know why she was so afraid.
Even now, when visitors arrive, she retreats under the sofa and takes her time. With her own people, affection means rough play and chasing. When one of them comes home, she jumps and howls.
The dog on the cover of happily (n)ever after has her brown coat and her dark eyes, and he wears her grin. That was not an accident.
From Brownie to Goldie
Her wariness found its way into Goldie too. In the novel he is a rescue who flinches when a hand moves too fast, and learning that people can be trusted takes him time. Like her, he is particular about his people.
Early in the book, at a riverside camp in Rishikesh, Goldie lunges toward a woman walking in from the far end of the camp. He reaches her before Viyaan has taken in her face. She crouches and talks to him in full sentences, and only then do the two humans exchange names:
“I am Viyaan. He’s Goldie,” he said. Then, at the dog: “Traitor.”
Goldie chose Meera first. Viyaan took a little longer.
Goldie had met her before, at a climbing camp in Lonavala, and he had not forgotten. Their first meeting is told in The Dog Chose Her First (opens in a new tab), a free bonus scene available by email.
I wrote about the day Brownie gave me her paw in Six Years in the Making.
If Goldie stayed with you, Brownie deserves some of the credit.
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