Fiction / Anamika M. 

 

:: Dogless  ::

At thir­ty-eight, Lalitha had achieved some­thing few women in her apart­ment com­plex had man­aged — she lived a dog-free life. No leash by the door. No slob­ber­ing tongue and smelly breath in her face. No Insta­gram bio that read Mama to Fur Baby. No social media feed full of dog pic­tures. And for this, she was basi­cal­ly the neigh­bour­hood vil­lain. The out­cast. 

“She doesn’t like dogs!” Mrs. Menon would gasp, clutch­ing that tiny crea­ture with the annoy­ing bark like it was her Birkin. “What kind of woman doesn’t like dogs?” 

“A ser­i­al killer,” some­one whis­pered. Prob­a­bly the broody teenag­er from 67/A who spent the whole day watch­ing dog videos on social media. 

“She must be emo­tion­al­ly repressed,” said Ananya, the Rei­ki cer­ti­fied heal­er, who believed her Labrador could sense neg­a­tive auras. 

Lalitha heard all of it. Every whis­per, every smirk, every pas­sive-aggres­sive dog pic­ture dropped into the Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion What­sApp group. She wasn’t a sociopath nor anti­so­cial. She sim­ply didn’t care for dogs. And that, appar­ent­ly, was a crime against human­i­ty. 

Ananya dropped by one after­noon, unin­vit­ed. With her Labrathing in tow, unleashed. 

“Here to cheer you up! He’s super friend­ly,” Ananya chirped. 

Lalitha backed away instinc­tive­ly as the dog padded toward her and sniffed her knee. 

“Oh my god, are you scared?” Ananya laughed. “He won’t do any­thing, he’s a dar­ling. Just touch him.” 

“I’m good, thanks,” Lalitha said, polite­ly. 

“Oh come on! You are giv­ing out a dark aura, he can feel it. Your path­ways are prob­a­bly blocked. He will help you open them.” 

“I’m not a bot­tle of pick­le, Ananya. I don’t need to be opened.” 

Ananya rolled her eyes, then grabbed Lalitha’s hand and tried to place it on the dog’s head like it was some sort of ini­ti­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny. 

Lalitha yanked her hand back, smiled tight­ly, and said, “You touch your dog. I’ll keep my bound­aries.” 

Ananya sulked. The dog sneezed. Lalitha made a men­tal note to Lysol the floor. 

It wasn’t that she hat­ed dogs. She was just indif­fer­ent. To all pets for that mat­ter. She liked the idea of them, the way one might like the idea of camp­ing in the wild or rais­ing triplets: delight­ful in oth­er people’s lives, but not for her. She even dou­ble-tapped the occa­sion­al dog reel and sent the occa­sion­al thumbs-up emo­ji or a heart emo­ji when a friend post­ed a “My Baby Turned Three” update. But that was her lim­it. No kissy face or heart eye emo­jis, no baby talk. And of course, she drew the line at being referred to as Aun­ty to a mon­grel with dopey eyes. 

She had tried to be, well, “nor­mal” just to shut peo­ple up. She had  once bent down and hes­i­tant­ly put out two fin­gers, like one would test the tem­per­a­ture of bath­wa­ter, to pet a neighbour’s pup­py. It peed on her new san­dals. The neigh­bour laughed, “Naughty boy! Made susu on Aunty’s chap­pals,” and ruf­fled its fur. No apol­o­gy. Not even a flick­er of embar­rass­ment. Bitch. 

After that, when­ev­er dogs came thun­der­ing down the cor­ri­dor, leashed or not, fresh­ly bathed or filthy, she stepped aside. Point­ed­ly and polite­ly, wait­ing for them to pass. And she stepped fur­ther and fur­ther away when the ani­mals tried to sniff her up or slob­ber over her, until the pet mom­ma or dad­da called them off, dis­ap­point­ed that their fur babies were not acknowl­edged with a delight­ed shriek of wel­come. They usu­al­ly walked away shak­ing their heads in dis­be­lief, mut­ter­ing, “Is she even human?!” 

One day, some­one left a scrawny indie pup near the lift with a “Please Adopt Me” sign and a bowl of milk. It blinked up at her with wet eyes, tail thump­ing hope­ful­ly. 

She side­stepped it and took the stairs. 

From the cor­ner, some­one gasped. 

“No heart,” mut­tered the man who lived with three sad-faced dogs that peed in the stair­way every morn­ing. 

She want­ed to snap back. Kind­ness isn’t per­for­mance art, Karthik. But she didn’t. 

That week, the news was full of dog sto­ries, and not the heart­warm­ing kind. 

“Pack of strays attacks elder­ly man on morn­ing walk.” 

“Child bit­ten near school gate — third such inci­dent this month.” 

The inter­net explod­ed. Half of Twit­ter declared war on the feed­ers. The oth­er half shared fake Gand­hi quotes and crowd­fund­ing peti­tions for Parle‑G bis­cuits. 

Lalitha sipped her tea and scrolled silent­ly. She had thoughts. Oh boy, did she have thoughts! 

Peo­ple say they love dogs more than humans. Is that because dogs don’t talk back? Or because they’re eas­i­er to own? 

She pic­tured those ador­ing pet par­ents who treat­ed obe­di­ence like affec­tion. Who called the response to their dom­i­na­tion “loy­al­ty” and slob­ber­ing mess­es “uncon­di­tion­al love.” What they real­ly want­ed was a thing that wouldn’t leave them, argue with them, or grow tired of them. Some­thing to fill the void in their lives, but with­out ask­ing ques­tions. How would they behave if that love came with con­di­tions, she won­dered. 

She didn’t say any of this out loud, of course. She knew she would end up sound­ing bit­ter and hate­ful. But there was truth to it, and peo­ple didn’t want real­i­ty checks. They want­ed val­i­da­tion that their choic­es were the only right ones, uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed. 

At work, a col­league brought her tiny dog, some import­ed breed, to the Bring Your Pet to Work Day. Peo­ple squealed and filmed Insta­gram reels with it. Lalitha blocked a meet­ing room and sat inside all day, head­phones on, wish­ing she had tak­en the day off. 

“You’re scared of dogs?” some­one asked. 

“No.” 

“Reli­gious rea­sons?” 

“No.” 

“You’re aller­gic? There are breeds that don’t shed…” 

“No.” 

“Then what is it?” 

“I just don’t want one. I don’t like them.” 

They looked at her incred­u­lous­ly like she’d said she kicks pup­pies for car­dio. 

Peo­ple didn’t want hon­esty. They didn’t believe in peace­ful coex­is­tence. They want­ed rad­i­cal con­ver­sion. They want­ed the joy­less and unloved, the hard-heart­ed mon­sters like her, to be “healed” by a wet nose and a wag­ging tail, and then to feel good about them­selves for hav­ing changed someone’s life. 

As if dog own­er­ship was the uni­ver­sal path to emo­tion­al whole­ness.  A dog, a baby, or a man. Or all three.  

A man, she had tried. 

His name was Amit. He ran a start­up that import­ed kitchen stuff from Chi­na and white labelled them. He made her laugh. He respect­ed her bound­aries, and he gave her space. For the first few months, it was easy. Long dri­ves, mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions and lots of sex. He said he liked that she was clear-head­ed. Not like oth­er women, he had said. She cringed inter­nal­ly, but didn’t ask him to explain fur­ther. 

Then, eight months in, he rang her door­bell on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing with a box in his arms, grin­ning like a school­boy. 

“Sur­prise!” 

Inside was a Gold­en Retriev­er pup­py. Squirmy and fluffy with dewy eyes that looked up at her. Text­book heart melt mate­r­i­al. He stood there, look­ing at her in antic­i­pa­tion like a flop­py-haired cutesy boy from a Phal­gu­ni Pathak 90s pop video, wait­ing for her to grab it and break out into a dance. 

But she took a step back. The pup­py popped his head out and looked around curi­ous­ly. She did not melt. 

“Four weeks old, pure Gold­en,” he said proud­ly. “I thought we could raise him togeth­er.” 

“You brought me a liv­ing thing, one which I explic­it­ly told you I didn’t want,” she replied, in the same tone she used when the local gro­cery store deliv­ered green milk pack­ets instead of the orange ones. 

“You said you didn’t have a dog.” 

“I said I didn’t want a dog.” 

He laughed. “Come on. How can any­one not!” 

“I don’t want fur on my fur­ni­ture or some­thing drool­ing on my bath­mat. I don’t want a being that thinks it owns me because I feed it.” 

He blinked, try­ing to process what she was say­ing. “That’s… kind of dark.” 

“I don’t want some­thing that licks its butt and then my face,” her tone, bit­ing. 

“Come on! Dogs don’t do that. And what if it was a human baby?” 

“I don’t want one of that too.” 

He laughed ner­vous­ly, like she was being dif­fi­cult on pur­pose. “Come on, he’s adorable. You’ll fall in love. Trust me.” 

“I don’t want to fall in love with some­thing that needs me that much. I don’t want slob­ber on my floors, or some­thing scratch­ing at the door every time I leave.” 

Amit frowned. “That’s… a bit extreme, don’t you think? I mean, most peo­ple want that kind of love.” 

“I’m not most peo­ple.” 

He stood there, still hold­ing the box like it had grown heav­ier. 

“I read some­where that peo­ple who don’t like dogs often have unre­solved inti­ma­cy issues,” he said, not meet­ing her eyes. “Maybe we could talk to some­one. Togeth­er.” 

“You want me to go to ther­a­py,” she said, “because I don’t want a dog?” 

He didn’t say yes. But he didn’t say no. 

They broke up a week lat­er. She had failed his test. He said he need­ed some­one “more open.” More human.  She said she need­ed some­one who lis­tened to her. 

He post­ed pup­py pics like they were rebound rela­tion­ship flex­es. Simba’s first swim! Sim­ba stole my heart first, now he’s steal­ing my slip­pers!  Sim­ba taught me real love! Dogs over Humans any day! 

She scrolled past with­out a twitch. No rage, no regret. Just relief. Like a painful peri­od that final­ly arrived after a week of anx­ious uncer­tain­ty. 

Yes­ter­day, the neigh­bour­hood indie tried to jump on her, and she stepped aside. Not out of fear. Not out of hate. Just out of habit. Out of san­i­ty. Mus­cle mem­o­ry. 

The dog launched itself into Mrs. Menon’s arms and the woman clucked her tongue in judg­ment. 

Lalitha just walked up to her flat, took off her shoes, and basked in the glo­ri­ous silence of a home with zero liv­ing things shed­ding on her cush­ions. 

She liked her silence. Her space. Her books and old Tamil film songs and rain on win­dow­panes. She liked not trip­ping over slob­bered up toys and slip­ping on dog diar­rhoea. 

She turned on an Ila­yara­ja playlist and sipped her tea. Because some­times, choos­ing not to love some­thing that expects eter­nal devo­tion, unques­tion­ing affec­tion, and a life­long sup­ply of chick­en liv­er is also self care. 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

It’s incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for me to even attempt this account — not because I don’t have things to say, but because I’m ter­ri­fied of being judged. All my life, I’ve been asked, side-eyed, and some­times inter­ro­gat­ed about why I’m not com­fort­able around dogs. The truth is, I don’t have one dra­mat­ic rea­son.  

I wrote this because I’m tired of pre­tend­ing. 

I didn’t wake up one morn­ing and decide I wasn’t a dog per­son.  

I grew up in a town that housed the Pas­teur Insti­tute, the only rabies vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­er in the coun­try back then. Labs that housed sheep brains in formalde­hyde and the long queues of dog-bite vic­tims wait­ing for the vac­cine, which was a shot around the navel for ten days — those images nev­er left me. 

I still remem­ber my unpleas­ant neighbour’s dogs that ran loose in our yard, leav­ing poop on my hop­scotch grid. She nev­er cleaned up. 

As I grew old­er, I began notic­ing the hypocrisies around me. Peo­ple feed­ing mut­ton and ghee rice to their dogs while offer­ing three-day-old sam­bar rice to their house help. Some­thing about the pow­er dynam­ic, the mis­placed affec­tion, and the glar­ing unfair­ness of it all angers me. 

There is this the  rude man who walks two mas­sive dogs every morn­ing — unleashed. I cross the street or freeze in place, hop­ing he’ll have the basic decen­cy to rein them in. But no. Every sin­gle time, he smiles that smug, patro­n­is­ing smile and says, “They won’t do any­thing.” 

And then the man I dat­ed who spammed me with cutesy pho­tos of ran­dom dogs. Con­stant­ly. The pres­sure of hav­ing to respond with polite affec­tion every time gave me anx­i­ety. Worse, his dog watched us. Always. I hat­ed it. He thought it was fun­ny. 

So no, I’m not a dog per­son. I’m not heart­less, I’m not dam­aged, and I don’t need to be con­vert­ed by a gold­en retriever’s soul­ful eyes. I just want space to exist with­out hav­ing to explain or jus­ti­fy myself. 

I wrote this because maybe, just maybe, some­one else out there feels the same way but has stayed qui­et. I want them to know they’re not alone. 

Anami­ka M. lives in the hills of South India where life moves at a qui­eter pace. She spends her days with spread­sheets and pre­sen­ta­tion decks, and her evenings with sto­ries shaped by the peo­ple she meets, the thoughts that sur­face dur­ing long walks, and the small-town secrets woven into every­day life. Her writ­ing rests between fic­tion and reflec­tion, lin­ger­ing in the grey area where facts seem imag­ined and fic­tion feels true.