Short Story: Pammi’s Dog

Nikhil Pandey shares a touching tale of a dog that explores the cultural interpretations of mental illness and the heavy weight of communal responsibility.

Pammi lives in our neighbourhood. She is 40-something-years-old and mentally ill – but not violent; although sometimes when she is in one of her moods, she doesn’t hesitate to hit her mother – but, you know, like she would suddenly stop talking and start staring; or turn away without ceremony any guests that come calling; or once made a bonfire of all her good clothes; like that.

She was not always like this. My sister who went to high school with her remembers a shy, but soft-spoken girl, who was also the brightest in her class. “To look at her then, no one could have believed that she would one day come to this,” my sister is wont to say. Her mother agrees. “She was so very gentle!” she remembers. “She would never even raise her voice, let alone hit anyone!” But fate, it seems, had other plans.

Some say it is psychological. Others speak about a fever that mounted to her brain. Her own family thinks she is haunted. According to them, it is the ghost of a dead Muslim that haunts her; which, according to them, explains why she has not been getting better despite their best efforts, as Muslim ghosts are said to be very clingy, besides making the case that love jihad is real and the honour of the Hindu women isn’t safe even after they are dead.