Anoop Judge | author · blogger · tv host

My days veer between being depressed and on top of the world.  I\’ve always been susceptible to mood swings but this erratic behavior is unnerving.  My husband mildly criticizes the Tandoori chicken I made for dinner as being too chewy, and I\’m flooded with tears.  After consoling me for an hour and assuring me that the chicken was delicious even if a tad chewy, he finds me rolling on the floor that night watching a rerun of \’Friends\’.  He shakes his head, baffled and unsure of what to make of the ten-headed alien that\’s entered his wife\’s body.

As my emotions swing violently like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock, I learn from a community Heal Circle session that this and other vibrant surprises are headed my way, now that I\’ve hit the menopausal age of 50.  Hot flashes; night sweats; brittle bones . . . I\’m gleefully informed by much younger friends.

Golly! If this is a precursor of what\’s to come, I\’m tempted to turn onto my side when the alarm clock peals, pull up the covers  (no big sacrifice there, because it\’s raining . . . again) and pretend to go back to sleep.  If my husband asks, I can always say the \’Comedy Nights with Kapil\’ show ran over.  

But wait, there\’s a scratch on the door. I try to ignore it, but the sound is incessant and grating.  Like sandpaper or a broken axle.  I stumble out of bed, feverishly searching for my warm slippers as my cold feet hit the marble floor and squeal in complaint.  The door swings inwards as I fumble for the latch and in runs my Punjabi puppy.

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He’s so nick-named not for his breed —that\’s an unremarkable White West Terrier— but because of his habits. His entire aptitude is that of a spoilt Punjabi boy raised by a typical over-indulgent Punjabi mother who spoon-feeds him his favorite dishes, plies him with copious portions of butter on his spinach, slavishly cooks day and night for her one and only pampered son and heir to the family fortune.  (If from South Delhi, such Punjabi boys usually also suffer from the spoil-boy-syndrome where men in their twenties and sometimes, thirties see no problem with not having a job and sponging off their well-off parents.)  

My Punjabi puppy who\’s just rolled in the mud outside, loving the rainstorms I personally detest, energetically shakes off his white furry body in a bombastic fit, depositing big fat chunks of mud on my pristine white shag rug; walks across the marble languidly, leaving muddy paw prints and then climbs on to my once cream Austin Horn bedspread, once being the key word.  Now my beautiful classic bed covering that I\’d paid an exorbitant sum for, sports messy splodges. Sob.

My unrepentant puppy jumps on top of me.  \”Where\’s my treat?\” he seems to ask as he devours me with huge expectant eyes.  When I don\’t immediately run back to the kitchen and grab the treat jar for HIs Royal Highness, he extends a delicate paw and scratches me on the arm.  \”Be gone, you minion,\” it seems to indicate.  His eyes have grown as big as saucers, if that\’s humanly, er. . .dogly possible.

Must. Resist. The cuteness.

I try to stare him down, but it\’s no use.  I hold my sides and rock myself as I feel a big burst of laughter arising inside me and threatening to spill over in a wave.  There\’s nothing like a Punjabi puppy to dispel the menopausal blues!

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