Moving on to the next day (Dec 13), in the morning we went for a walk, and tried our hand at photography using our Nikon D90. It was nice to try out, although I am not sure about the success of our efforts. Later that day sis and the kids showed up to hang out with us. It was a fun time for the cousins to bond and do their thing.

December 14 marked the entrance of someone spectacular in our lives. She now goes by the name of White Paws. White Paws is a stray that lives by a peacock park we frequent on our visits to India.

Before going further into White Paws, here’s Stray dog 101 for you. Every dog is different, and the same goes for strays. To figure out if a stray can be your adopted dog, you check its size, its tail angle and its facial expression. These three things will tell you which dog to call. Once you have determined the right dog, you click your tongue, and then magic happens.

White Paws was a little thin for a friendly stray, but we clicked our tongue, and she came bounding as if she had known us all her life. White Paws is not over friendly, she has dignity and won’t go all out for you. However, she will recognize you from afar and will come happily over. She is not greedy and won’t accept lesser treats such as the Indian Marie biscuit, or a ball of rapadura (gud). But she is into Parle G cookies! Even with Parle G, she doesn’t go all out. She accepts it with a polite flattening of ears and a delicate pull. She makes it plenty clear that she is not here for the treats. Rather, she comes over for company and to show she loves you.

White Paws was our primary adopted dog while in India. She made it attractive for us to visit the peacock park and get our morning exercise. She would follow us until her section of the walkway ended. She would turn back then and go about her daily routine.

After our great encounter with White Paws, later that day Bunnu drove us to a nearby mall where the kids tried out an indoor gym. This was probably a big highlight for them. We also had lunch and got henna designs done on our hands.

The following day we went over to sis’ place for dinner and general hanging out. Again, another lovely day with fun and good food. We got to meet Tubby, their bird. Tubby is lots of character packed in a small frame!

Dec 17th was mom’s birthday. We went back to the peacock park and then out for breakfast at Nani’s, a South Indian restaurant with sis and family.

On Dec 21st we went to the Hyderabad zoo. It is quite a spectacular place and we make it a point to visit it every time. The three of us, sis, Priyanka and dad went. We had our usual lovely time. We tried photographing the animals and checking the place out.

The next day we visited Kamat, an old favorite restaurant of mine. It was as it had always been. We enjoyed a big, typical meal (thaali) there! The following day we hung out with sis and family at her apartment. We all met up for lunch, and then we checked out a bookstore called crossword. Then we relaxed at home and watched some standup comedy.

The rest of the trip was full of little things that make memories. I will get into my India musings in part 4 of India blog. However, I want to bring up two additional strays we met. These were Dumpling and Madhur. Both were adorable, and we were sad at the idea that we would have to leave them. Thankfully we have our own dogs to go home to.

We visited dad’s friend Sinha Uncle while there. My nephew Priyanshu also came over another time the day before we left. And my hotelier friend Gautam showed up for a good ol’ chit chat. We discovered common interests and also our differences. It made for an interesting conversation. One other interesting thing that we did was to visit Bunnu’s campus of IIIT in Hyderabad. That was very fun, since it reminded me of my own engineering campus. After having a fun new year’s eve with sis’ family and Priyanshu, where we played dumb charades into the night, we left India to come back home.

Here we were greeted joyfully by Johan and our dogs. We are now back in the thick of things and looking forward to an interesting 2024.

The animals have a lot to say, so I am going to create a separate blog with their musings. Watch this space for India trip – Part 3.