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You’re closer to me than a cheek on a pillow;
You’re nearer to me than the beat of my heart;
You’re more welcome than beauty in everyday faces;
You’re dearer than sunlight,
My little sun.
You’re sweeter than honey sucked from the honeycomb;
You’re brighter than stars and wilder than storms;
More complete in your loving than the circle of reason;
I breathe out; you breathe in,
My little sun.

A cute way of expressing your love for that someone who means the most to you, isn’t it? Someone who is nearer to you than your heartbeat, someone who is your own “little sun”. It could be your mother, father, wife, husband, son, daughter; and the list can go on with the names of people who have walked into your life, or walked out leaving footprints in your heart. Would you, then, be surprised if I tell you that the “little sun” can also be a Cocker Spaniel?
Anyone who has a dog will vouch for this special bond with their four-legged companion. Golden Retriever, Dalmatian, Pug, St. Bernard; pick anyone as your pet and you can look forward to a fulfilling relationship for life — a friendship that won’t get lost in the busyness of an ever-increasingly hectic life.
Tanya Mendonsa found her “little sun”, her “soulmate in every way” in Joshua, a Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel.
Leaving Calcutta for Paris at the age of 21, Tanya spent her life in the City of Romance for close to two decades, with the “ideas of Love” and the “Ideal Husband” firm in her head. But after 18 years the second part of the equation changed, for “husband” now substituted “dog”. “As a smug Jane Eyre says at the end of the novel, ‘Reader, I married him.’” In Tanya’s case, his name is not Rochester but Joshua.
It was during an annual trip to Goa to visit her family that she realised “she wasn’t as happy to go back to Paris that January as she used to be”. Back in her flat “I asked my gut what it wanted. ‘A dog!’ it shouted back instantly.” This was only natural for someone who, from the time she was little, “identified people by the dogs they had”. Her family always had cocker spaniels — of every colour and variety, all boys.
But Joshua was a “revelation” to her, lucky for herself and her partner Antonio, “a great artist”, as she puts it. Harmony in her home was never threatened because of the presence of two males in her life, for Antonio, from the beginning, conceded first place to Joshua, “letting the best man win”. And it was easy for him to do so because he was as mad about the dog as Tanya. Of course! “A cocker spaniel is a cocker spaniel the world over. Anybody who has fallen under the spell of those anguished eyes gazing into theirs and telling them that they are the master of the universe, that silky paw pushing insistently at their cheek… that velvety muzzle.” Bringing Joshua home was no less a task than preparing a nursery before the arrival of a new-born baby. Tanya wanted the perfect home for her beloved; she found one in a quiet part of Bengaluru — in Cooke Town — her bungalow fancifully called La Emeraude. And thereon began the test of Tanya’s — and Antonio’s —parenting skills. “The first night was a makeshift affair… we laid Joshua on the bed between us, on a pillow. Alas, he did what all babies do. We discovered that he was surprisingly fastidious about personal hygiene, and hated to be wet or dirty.”
Tanya used to suck her thumb as a baby. Her dog followed the tradition. “Joshua needed one of ours, and he got it. To this day, his front teeth stick out a bit, never mind the cramps we got in our arms to have them look that way.” So much for a dog, you would say? Well, Joshua has always been the centre of Tanya’s life — her “little sun”, remember? — and continues to illuminate every single moment of it. After all, what are soulmates for? As Joshua grew up, he also proved to be the perfect marriage counsellor. “Josh couldn’t bear Antonio and me to be at odds with each other… When Antonio had worked up to his climax — his famous ‘I’ve had enough, I’m going to get on an international flight tomorrow!’ — I would reply, ‘Good! I’m so glad I bought that new suitcase; you can take it with you,’ and Josh would give a heart-rending howl, at which both of us would stop in our tracks and fling ourselves on him, pick him up and assure him that nobody was leaving anyone… You could say that Joshua saved our relationship from exploding practically every day!”
I would spoil it for the reader if I narrate Joshua’s funny little antics at length here. It would, perhaps, suffice to say that Tanya loves her dog so much that she dedicates her first non-fiction book to all dog lovers of the world, and to Joshua, “who made us better than we were before”.
Tanya and Antonio moved houses, and live in the mountains at present. “Joshua is old and grey now, going on fifteen, but he’s far from being full of sleep,” for “neither age nor infirmity has diminished his zest for life”.
As the book comes to an end, the hard truths of life — old age, death, good-byes — surface and the sense of finality in all things good tends to overpower the fun and charm of a life-long fulfilling relationship. But just for once. Tanya finishes off her novel with hope, questioning how could she not try to be a better person “with someone like Josh believing so unquestioningly in me”.
And thus they continue to live happily ever after. “In this beautiful place, we both seem to have drunk of the magic potion, and are renewed every day, getting younger at heart as we grow older in body.”
The Book of Joshua is not to be read with the intent of gaining some insight into how to train your dog. It’s a light read that can be best enjoyed basking in the sun with a cuppa. Efficient in detail and humorous in style, the Book of Joshua will warm your heart with the story of a mistress and her dog who will stay with you long after you have put down the book.