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Mowgli’s house training also came on in leaps and bounds not least because of the input of our maid Amena who, when she spotted a puddle anywhere in the house, would summon the little fella announcing loud and long as she pointed to the pee on the floor “Mowgli su su!! Su su! No su su Mowgli! No su su! Naughty boy Mowgli”

As his appetite improved his weight began to increase and he started to look like he would look as a fully grown hound. As he grew out of his Dhoby basket we moved him into a cardboard box emblazoned ‘beware of the dog!’ pending finding him a nice bed from somewhere. It was about now that his nose began sprouting from his face, in the same way a child grows into it’s big teeth, and although we still couldn’t detect any breed in him there was no doubt he was going to be a handsome dude.

Among the ex-pats community we had a couple of Brit friends, John and Christine, who were big dog lovers and who had a couple of hounds of their own, one of which they had brought out from UK, the other a local dog like Mowgli. After cutting a deal with them to bring back copious amounts of Cadbury Milk Chocolate they agreed to be locum parentus for our beloved while we were away, and so it was we took said puppy with all his worldly goods (a rubber chicken and a cardboard box) to Uncle John and Auntie Christine’s for his holidays……

Dogs in Goa are seen as a pest. Those who have them often do so for security reasons. A dog will be tied up outside the house morning, noon and night, and bark incessantly whenever visitors call. The other main reason people have dogs in Goa is as a status symbol and these animals are often traded in for a better one when the finances allow. It’s an attitude I have always found sickening.

For the unfortunate dogs who are not status symbols or protecting someone’s property, life is a day to day survival against the odds; the odds being the heat, the monsoons, hunger and thirst, traffic, abusive people and other dogs which often form packs in towns, cities, villages, in the jungle and on the beach. There is a strict hierarchy in these packs with a top dog in command and the pack will attack any other dog which is not a member.

Every so often the government have a cull and send out dog catchers who go around, particularly in tourist areas, to bring in and put to sleep any dog not clearly chained up or owned by someone. Living rough on the streets as they do they obviously breed prolifically and the population increases regularly, sometimes at quite an alarming rate.

Before we took Mowgli off the streets, these were just some of the dangers he was at risk from; others being health related as disease passes quickly around animals (and people for that matter) living rough on the streets.

Responsible dog owners who were not intending to breed their animal would have their pet ‘done’ at around one year old and of course by now Mowgli fitted the criteria. With great in trepidation we booked him in at ‘People for Animals’ who were the vets who had tended him from the beginning and then later took him down for his ‘op’. Apart from preventing Mowgli procreating the ‘op’ also promised to calm his nature down – although I didn’t especially see anything wrong with him biting the arses of the likes of those who had abused him as a puppy.

After the ‘op’ we got Mowgli onto the back seat of the car, still half out of it with the anaesthetic his tongue was hanging out and his eyes were crossed, unsurprisingly. Half way home on the highway there was a thud behind my seat and Mowgli had rolled off the back seat into the well and his head was underneath my driving seat. We finally got him back on the seat and Carol sat with him till we got home.

At home according to the vet, Mowgli would probably sleep for some time and may not try to even stand for a day or two. Rhubarb. The minute he got home he refused to sleep and did everything to stand up, wobbly though he was, and go into his garden as normal. But all the poor soul could do was stand. He couldn’t walk. So he stood like a horse in a field staring straight ahead. And who wouldn’t? The thought in my mind was ‘My God what have we done?’ But the diamond he is rallied and returned within a few days – but no calmer. Indian male arses were still par for the course (and always will be me thinks)

Chapter 14 – Mowgli’s car seat

As the tourist season progressed, more and more people were beginning to find our little beach side restaurant Limeys, partly because of our advertising campaign and partly through the dozens of taxi drivers we knew; Brits and Swedes who were staying at nearby hotels took to having a daily walk up the beach to spend the day (and sometimes the evening) with us.

Some came up from the Heritage Village Club in Arossim (one of my own gig stomping grounds), others from the Horizon Hotel in Velsau. Some even took to climbing over the rocks along the sea front from Bogmalo to the North. Following a Goa wide campaign we even began to get a regular stream of visitors from Calangute, right up in the North of the state, of people looking for some peace and quiet away from the hustle, bustle and trance-like night life well known to their area.

For Mowgli, of course, having Europeans guests was a delight because Europeans loved him and he knew it. He knew they would be happy to see him, and that there was no question of them mistreating him, and so he responded unconditionally by greeting them with his unique snake dance. On occasions some guests would take him ‘porkies’ up the beach or let him snooze under their sun bed and so for Mowgli these were halcyon days. Porkies up the beach always included a swim in the sea followed by a roll in the sand before digging a hole under a sun bed and settling down.

By now of course the Christmas season was looming and we were beginning to take orders for the big day. This meant an increase in shopping trips to Margao, Vasco and Panjim, trips which Mowgli would always come along on provided we could ensure that he wasn’t going to have long periods stuck inside the car while we were in the shops. The back seat of the car was his and whoever happened to share that with him was designated as his cushion. Occasionally it may have been one of our staff but their arse was spared because they were in uniform and he trusted them.

Speaking of Mowgli riding in the car reminds me of a cherished incident. The week before we were due to have guests come to stay at Bananaville, Carol suggested that we should train Mowgli to travel in the boot area of our hatchback car, thus leaving the back seat free for our guests. Fair idea. So we opened the back door, ushered Mowgli into the boot area, and then closed the door. Before we could blink he’d jumped over the back of the seats and was back on ‘his’ backseat. We didn’t try again.

Chapter 15 – Busking with Daddy

On the lead up to Christmas Carol introduced English roast beef dinners on Sunday lunchtime and these were an instant hit. At times when Mowgli and I were half a mile down the beach we could smell the dinner cooking. There’s little doubt that the Brits from the Heritage woke up and smelled the gravy too because Mowgli and I would often see a group of 20-odd strolling up the beach around 11.30am on a Sunday morning.

It came to pass that the Heritage lot started to pre-book four or five tables and always asked for them to be placed near to where I would be singing which was very complimentary to me. Carol and I would often joke between each other about whether the crowds had come for the roast beef or to here me sing but whatever the reason was didn’t matter really. The atmosphere was wonderful. To the dulcet sounds of Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Donovan and the Beatles (to which everyone joined in, some of whom stood on their tables to do so) the roast beef was devoured with the joy of people seriously curried-out.

My sweetest memory of sitting on my high stool entertaining was looking down to see Mowgli parked – like a sentry outside Buckingham Palace – with his arse on my microphone stand as if stopping it blowing away in the breeze. The crowds loved the image because throughout the gigs the cameras never stopped. It must have been one of the most photographed visions of the season although sadly Mowgli and I never got a copy.

It was during one of my gig breaks that an old man summoned me over to his table with the wiggle of his index finger and the command “Yang man”. Thinking he may want to hear a Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra song I obliged and made my way over to him.

“Yes Sir, and how may I help you?” says I. He was sitting with a younger couple who later turned out to be his daughter and her husband. The daughter was desperately trying to tell me through sign language to ignore the man as though I hadn’t heard him and move on but I decided to have none of it.

“Yang man” the old man continued “my dinner was dreadful. The vegetables were cold, the spuds were hard and the meat was tough”.

“I’m really sorry to hear…” I tried to reply but was drowned out as the old man continued. “I’m going to give you some advice. When you shoot the cow, make sure it doesn’t see you coming. Because, yang man, if it sees you coming it will tense its muscles and the result will be tough meat! And by the way, nice dog”.

Chapter 16 – Off the lead in the fields

By Christmas time 2008 our restaurant Limeys had ‘arrived’ on the Goa scene and was fast becoming the place to be. Within the restaurant we had the capacity to sit 80 guests and could also sit a further 50 on the open air dance floor and beach area. In addition we also had a tree house; a very private and intimate table for up to 4 people literally built in a tree which overlooked the Arabian Sea; needless to say this one was highly sought after.

Apart from my musical evenings, which were several times a week, we also had quiz nights, themed nights and private parties, and it wasn’t unusual for the restaurant to be so full that we had to turn people away. Parties in Goa occur both day and night often at the drop of a hat and so fast planning was the key to success. Some of the groups we played host to included Kite Fliers, Double Birthday Bashes, End of Term College bashes, various Banks, Airlines, Hotels and other companies based in Goa.

Of course Christmas is all about turkey dinners and Carol and the team decided to go all out on it. Sourcing the said turkeys however was not as easy as it appeared; there were dookars aplenty, elephants aplenty, dogs and cows aplenty, but turkeys?

Any the ways Carol did eventually track down a pair of Australian turkeys, ordered them quick smart, and had them delivered to Bananaville much to Mowgli’s (and my) eternal disgust. They were humongous (mota haathi like), and certainly not something he wanted on his patch – or I wanted on mine. Leaving Carol to do the needful – gutting, plucking and whatever else needed doing to an Australian turkey to make it edible, Mowgli and I beat a hasty retreat and took off for porkies in the hills.

On the outskirts of Bogmalo village, on the hills overlooking the South is one of the few areas that Mowgli could safely come off his lead and run through the fields, and it was a fantastic site to see. The grass was something like four foot tall and all you could see of Mowgli was a tail bouncing up and down as he created his ever widening corn circles. The pleasure on his face was always worth the trip and at times I used to just wish there were more places and opportunities I could give him to enjoy his freedom without the fear of traffic, pack-dogs and abusive people. It was at times such as these that I would be so envious of people back in the UK who could take their hound off to a meadow and let him run, run, run………….

Chapter 17 – Christmas 2008

As could be expected Christmas dinner went really, really well. The crowds turned out and the place was steaming. Many people travelled from well up in the north to sample something they had never sampled before – an English Christmas dinner – albeit with Australian turkeys. To this day I have no idea how those kangaroo-like turkeys got in or out of the oven, you’d have to ask Carol, but what I do know is they were the dogs’ bananas. And tempted though I was to include Rolf Harris’ hit song ‘Tie me kangaroo down sport’ in my Christmas set, I decided against the idea, preferring not to be eunochised by the kitchen staff.

Of course Mowgli had a serious portion of said birdie for dinner and there’s no doubt he thought he had died and gone to Heaven, after which the pair of us groaned our way up the beach in a hundred degrees for his constitutional. Carol and the chefs, meanwhile, having lost a couple of stones each in the heat of the kitchen finally rested after literally running for about six hours.

By this time most of our regular guests knew Mowgli very well (and knew of his penchant for sinking his teeth into the male Indian arse); but what was just as entertaining as seeing contact between teeth-and-arse, was observing the degree to which said male Indians would go to avoid contact between teeth-and-arse. For an Indian guy to be seen by his Indian girl with a dog hanging off his pants was just so not cool and it wasn’t uncommon then to see a bloke walk literally out of the main entrance of the restaurant, down the unlit lane, and re-enter through the tradesman’s entrance just to get from table to toilet.

All through the festive season the restaurant did well; people continued to come during the day for the beach and then in the evening for their dinner, and our guestbook continued to be adorned with wonderful comments from folks as far away as the USA, Sweden, UK and Australia. 2008 was soon to become 2009 and Mowgli was soon to celebrate his first anniversary with us. Neither Carol nor I could remember what life was like before Mowgli became part of our family.

Chapter 18 – Bedtime Playtime

It was now over a year since we had picked Mowgli up off the streets of Panjim and he was now as much a part of our family as the children had been when they lived at home. In some ways, because we lived so far away from our native homeland, Mowgli was our family and so everything we did, or planned to do, was only done after first considering his welfare. To leave him for long periods of time, or with someone he didn’t know, was out of the question and so in the main he spent most of his time with us or with people we trusted.

Mowgli loved to be included in as much of our lives as possible, and indeed he was. His days would be spent down at the restaurant with us, peppered periodically throughout the day with porkies through the jungle – or along the beach, which invariably included a dip in the ocean. Lunch was delivered to him by either Mickey or Belinda around the same time that we had ours, and an afternoon snooze with one eye open often followed.

In the evenings Mowgli invariably cuddled up to Carol on the very big couch we had, watching the BBC entertainment channel as I rocked away on my Captains rocking chair. I think he quite enjoyed Doctor Who and the Weakest Link. If the mood took him he’d have me walking him around the Bananaville Colony two-or-three times in an evening, a walk that usually included his friend Cheroo, another street dog who lived within the colony and was looked after by all of the residents.

Without a doubt Mowgli’s favourite part of the day was bedtime. As I prepared his supper he would go upstairs to bed with Carol and jump up onto the bed waiting for his bowls to be brought up. As Carol read a book he lay (on the look-out with one eye on the door) waiting for me to follow. As the bowls hit the floor Mowgli hit the bowls, after which it was playtime. Up onto the bed he would jump and spend the first fifteen minutes fighting with me over one of his soft toys or one of the Bonios I had hidden. The bedclothes were all over the place and Carol, still trying to read amidst the bedlam would be lying on the bed with no sheets and no quilt.

Towards the end of his bedtime mania, just as we would breathe a sigh of relief, down he would go under the bedclothes running round in circles until he was absolutely pole-axed. And there he would stay; till morning. To wake up in the middle of the night with a third head on the pillows became par for the course and there were times when, in dreams, we both thought the other was suffering from the heat and had taken to nose-licking.

Chapter 19 – The Rat

In the baking heat of summer Carol preferred to get up early before the sun came up to do the washing. As a rule she liked to rise before dawn, see the sun come up on the terrace with her morning tea, and then go downstairs to play with her state-of-the-art twin tub. Her state-of-the-art twin tub was almost identical to the one she owned 30-odd years earlier when we lived in Gibraltar after we had first been married and there was no doubt the good bit was that at least she knew how to use all of the knobs.

Traditionally Mowgli would slob in bed with me until I cracked one eye open but on one particular morning his extended beauty sleep was interrupted. Carol had slithered into the bedroom and coaxed him to come down the stairs with her because she had a problem that needed his help.

The revered twin tub was actually kept outside on the back balcony and it seems that during the night a rat had climbed into it. Carol directed Mowgli straight to said twin tub to investigate. After taking one look into the machine it wasn’t long before said hound was back in bed with me – he wasn’t having a bar of it.

When I eventually dined to rise and go downstairs I, in turn, was also presented with said rat problem although by now the rodent had climbed out of the washer and was down the side of the spin drier. No problem, thought I, as I turned on the spin drier followed by the kettle before inspecting the edibles in the fridge.

About five minutes later the drier stopped and Carol, Mowgli and I went to investigate. There, down the side of said twin tub, said rat could be clearly seen sopping wet and well pissed off that it had gone in there in the first place.

That day Carol and I had to go to Panjim shopping but when we came back there was no sign of the cleanest rodent in India; and reading Mowgli’s thoughts later that evening (as he slobbed on the couch) the ‘Circle of Life’ shone through loud and clear……..it’s a cats job to chase a rat; and my job to chase the cat

Chapter 20 – Valentine Day 2009

Probably the most successful evening we had at the restaurant was Valentine Day 2009. Goa is a place of continuing feasts – any excuse will do – but Valentine Day takes the biscuit. Our place was so full that we brought in extra staff in particular our old friend Deepak who I swear invented the word charm. His smile lit up the restaurant as he presented every lady with a red rose on her arrival and gave our regular waiters a run for their money.

Mowgli wasn’t best pleased as because I was singing and Carol was running the place he had to stay at home but then it had evolved that he preferred to in the evenings. He isn’t a hound who likes too much solitary but like with most dogs in such a situation he would just get his head down; that’s to say get his head down with one eye open; he missed absolutely nothing.

But whenever he wasn’t at the restaurant he was always conspicuous by his absence and regular guests always asked where he was. Even the regularly bitten Indian arses asked where he was as though part of their reason they came to our place was to have their arses bitten. There were even times I sensed real disappointment in those who had specifically come to impress their friends by either showing their skills at avoiding having their own arse bitten – or (more often than not) enjoying the reaction on the faces of their guests as they met Mowgli for the very first time.

Restaurants in Goa worked very hard at ‘being known’ for something different like a special dish or a particular singer. In our case, as we endeavoured to carve our niche at being known for amazing English Roast Beef, home made beef burgers and the best Goan cuisine in the land, the public had already decided what we were to become famous for….the kind of entertainment they couldn’t get anywhere else, and that certainly wasn’t my singing.

Chapter 21 – The Winds of change

In April 2009 Carol had a dreadful accident, slipping on the marble stairs at home and badly breaking her leg, and although we didn’t know it at the time it was the beginning of the end of our days in India. The break at the ankle was almost total and if that wasn’t enough she had also sustained a nasty crack at the knee on the same leg.

The nearest hospital was SMRC at Chicolim about a 10 minute drive away and somehow I got Carol into the car. Mowgli was extremely distressed by everything and I asked Sabini our maid to stay and look after him while I was gone. As always she was lovely and said she would stay as long as need be.

On arrival at SMRC Carol was seen by quite an elderly doctor who in his wisdom decided that all she needed was to have her leg in plaster which he set about doing quick smart before sending us home. It would be many weeks, and many consultations with many more doctors later, that the reality of the situation would become apparent; the leg should have been operated on, and pinned on that first day. Because it hadn’t been treated properly meant that for the next 3 months we would be in and out of almost every hospital in Goa – from Vasco to Margao – with ever increasing medical opinions contradicting one another, mounting medical expenses, and of course constant pain and disillusionment for Carol, who by now had begun spending more time in bed doped up to try to get away from the pain.

The impact on Mowgli was that he wouldn’t leave Carol and began spending many of his days on the bed with her in an air-conditioned room. With Carol at home it fell upon me and Francis to run the restaurant and so I was out for long periods during the day and later during the evenings. To get Mowgli to come out for his ‘Porkies’ became increasingly difficult because he didn’t want to leave Carol; when I managed to get him out it was only for relatively short periods compared to previously. Both Carol and I were becoming really concerned for Mowgli’s well-being whilst at the same time coping with what was fast becoming a nightmare. I say nightmare because in the scale of what followed the broken leg faded into second place…..

Chapter 22 – Hospital

As the weeks turned into months progress with Carols broken leg seemed none existent. The pain was almost continuous and any quality of life she had previously enjoyed in India had long since vanished. Stuck either in the house or in a wheelchair life had become very limiting and her spirits naturally were declining rapidly.

Blanche, a dentist and a very good friend of ours, suggested that we see a medical friend of hers at the Apollo Hospital in Margao. I had to laugh when she told us that she recommended him because he had successfully operated on her dog’s leg but then thinking about it afterwards that was probably the highest commendation she could have given him because her dog was her pride and joy; a girl after my own heart. Any guy who had done something like that for Mowgli would certainly be on my Christmas card list. Having nothing to lose we went to Margao.

The doctor we saw was indeed excellent and gently took Carol through the usual rigamarole of examinations and x-rays before finally concluding that had he been the first doctor she saw he would have operated on it immediately; one step short of castigating his colleagues. The break hadn’t healed at all and was almost the same as it had been when the accident had occured 6 weeks earlier. Since we were due to fly to the UK for our summer break and to update our business visas his advice was to see doctors on arrival and take things from there…

Whether it was because of Carols immobility I couldn’t say but other very serious complications began coming along. In the early hours of one particular morning she woke up unable to breathe; unable to inflate her lungs. Terrified I ran to the security gate to get the guards to phone for an ambulance. Over the course of the next four hours I would run to the gate a further half dozen times demanding to know where the ambulance had got to. One of the problems in the delay turned out to be communication – where one man may speak hindi, the next may speak marathi or kannada, as in India there are dozens of different languages. Another reason for the ambulance taking so long was that directions in India are given according to the nearest notable point (i.e behind the Post Office opposite the Bus Station); no satnavs there!

When the ambulance finally arrived the Indian crew came into the house and Mowgli went banzai. By now he had become an extremely powerful dog and took an immense amount of restraining. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say the ambulance crew literally shook with fear on seeing him. I finally got him into a spare room while the ambulance crew got Carol into the vehicle in what was quite a painful transition for her. I still remember shouting at them in ‘blue’ words to go gently because although she was having breathing difficulties she also had a broken leg. God only knows how we got Carol to hospital and got Francis and Belinda to stay with Mowgli but somehow we did.

From the hospital I was in constant contact with Francis who assured me that although Mowgli was sitting on the terrace waiting for us he was at least not distressed, and so I was able to put Carols mind (and my own) at rest over him and deal with the business in hand. A very, very serious situation…

Chapter 23 coming soon…….