‘This is also the land of strong men . . .’ Kuruppu said, fondling the hair on his chest.

When Noor had her pups—four of them, all male—they too looked exactly the same. Still, Kuruppu felt that one of them was somewhat haughtier than the others. He was the first to open his eyes, and pushing the others out of the way, first at his mother’s teats. Kuruppu resolved to keep him.

A friend of a friend of Kuruppu’s, Dr Kamalesh, came from Ernakulam to fetch one of the others. The doctor was younger than Kuruppu had imagined, and his car seemed to leave a trail of fragrance and coolness behind. Kuruppu gave him a notebook in which he had written down the details of what to feed the puppy for the next two years. He also gave him the telephone number of a dog trainer in Madras. He had given the puppy a name he had come across in the morning newspaper—Candy.

Another pup was adopted by Roy, the nephew of Isaac Thomas, the district president of the Karshaka Congress. Roy had already found a name for him—Jordan, the country in which he worked. Roy tried to hand Kuruppu an envelope with some money in it, but he refused it with dignity.

Kuruppu named his favourite pup Arthur. He had a separate kennel made for him, and fed him special food and medicines to protect him against childhood problems. In the evenings, he let him loose in the compound and watched his antics with a heart brimming with pride and joy.

The retired deputy superintendent of police, Gangadharan, went to Thiruvananthapuram at Kuruppu’s request on a secret mission. Within a week, a veterinarian, a good-looking man dressed in a white shirt and black pants, arrived at the junction asking for directions to Kuruppu’s house. He sat in the front seat of a police jeep whose engine was revving as though it was an impatient beast kicking up dust. Two sub-inspectors sat behind him in a respectful manner, and behind them, two ordinary policemen in half-pants stood on the running board, hanging on to the bars. One of them made eye contact with the paan shop owner who quickly pulled the wooden shutters down and withdrew into the darkness of the shop.

After examining the unnamed puppy, the doctor and his entourage went ahead to camp in a house owned by Kuruppu in a coconut grove by the side of a lake. An old Mappila, well known for preparing wedding feasts in Christian households, had been at work in the kitchen for the last three days. He had prepared chicken cooked in a roasted coconut gravy, fried catfish, snakehead murrel curried with plenty of chillies and tamarind, and acchar with vinegar. More policemen arrived the next day, and they handed a letter of appreciation to Kuruppu, signed by the district police chief and sealed with the elephant insignia of the state of Kerala. Finally, after posing for a group photo with Kuruppu, they went away with the puppy. The next morning, the Malayala Manorama newspaper carried an item about the puppy with the title ‘Victor Dons the Khaki’. The reporter had mistakenly identified the breed as Alsatian. Still, the article said the puppy would strengthen Kerala’s police dog squad, and concluded with the information that it was Kuruppu, an ex-serviceman, who had donated the puppy in the service of the country. Someone cut out the news item and pasted it on the wall of the arrack shop where it would remain for years to come.