This conversation happened yesterday morning.
L&M: What’s that mark on your face? It’s sort of white.
Me: (Imagining something white as toothpaste ‘growing’ on my face) What mark? I have a mark on my face?
L&M: Yes. Just below your lip on the right side.
Me: Huh? [quickly grabs the phone to check]
Meanwhile L&M, perhaps remembering the many times he has asked about things that he already knows, or should know, about, takes munkoor jamyam (anticipatory bail).
L&M: Did you have it earlier?
Me: (Realisation dawning) Oh! You mean Simi’s bite mark?
I put the phone down without checking. This is something old and definitely not ‘white’ as in white, just light coloured skin of a tiny scar, given to me by my first ever real fur baby, Simi. (Two others died on me as pups while I was still a school girl, one shot by a monster of a neighbour and another due to illness). Simi was an Alsatian-Indie cross and needless to say, I loved her to bits. Coming back from college was made that much more interesting and pleasurable by the fact that she would be waiting for me!
Her love for me not withstanding, Simi bit me one day when I went to konjufy (cuddle) her. That was the usual time my parents put her outside for the night and she probably assumed, WRONGLY though, that I intended to do the same. Talk about lack of trust. Apparently she had forgotten how she had been an “inside” dog when I was still with her and was made an “outside” dog to be left out for the night, only after I left. And whenever I was home, I made sure, she was back in with me.
Anyway, pregnant and miffed she put an untimely end to the loving chirrups trembling on my lips with one snap of her pretty snout, taking me, who was squatting in front of her, by surprise, and making me lose balance in the process. Her sharp teeth cut through the skin of my face, on the top lip and beneath the lower lip, the last one being the deepest. But her action cut through my heart.
I can’t really say who was more hurt, she for having snapped at me, or me at her for having snapped at me. I was deeply hurt at the betrayal and close to tears, but bravely held on. My baby, my baby! Why did she? How could she? Why? Why? Why? I was still young and only starting to learn that in life love does beget you ‘bites’ in some cases and nit love as we hope and dream.
Coincidentally, I myself was pregnant at the time with my first born, the delivery only a month away, the reason I was back with the parents and with my darling Simi. I stood up carefully, lifting up my ungainly weight. I stared in disbelief at my hands and the front of my nightie, all now covered in blood. Oh bother! I was now in for it. It was time for the next onslaught.
The parents had arrived on the scene hearing the unusual sounds late in the night, and promptly began chastising me for having gone and squatted in front of the dog “in my condition”! Sentences like, “How/what do we tell the son in law?” “A scar on the face too!” were thrown about freely. One would be forgiven for thinking that as a married daughter you were just a “property” entrusted with them to be returned without any scratches or damage at the end of the duration of stay. Talk about (real) concern for daughters!
Anyway, it was the early 80s and the time close to half past ten in the night. We were in a sleepy little village away from happening places of Kerala. Home-based first aid was the only solution for the moment. Funnily enough, the parents’ fear of “allopathy” doctors was much greater than dog bites. So that then was that. The bite was left to heal on its own.
And that my dears is the story behind the mark or scar, whatever you want to call it.
The baby I was carrying at the time arrived less than a month later and is now forty years of age. Yup. Its been FORTY TWO years of marriage and FORTY years of owning the scar, FORTY years of the L&M seeing my face with the scar, across his… (well, except for the times we had to stay apart as life in the army entails). And yet, here was the very same L&M in 2025, asking me about the white thingy on my face! Hmm… I am now left wondering what other queries the man is going to amuse me with in the coming days. One can only wait and find out….as also write. 😉
©️Shail Mohan 2025
Shail's Nest 
Rinky also but me a few days back. It’s not disloyalty. She was suffering quite a lot and had become temperamental. I was trying to spray her mouth – part of medication She got scared and annoyed and snapped back. Even my first thought was how could she. But that’s how we are conditioned to think. She of course was momentarily confused and repentant but only for a nano second then it was like so what if I but you…you were irritating me. Mind it she is a Labrador supposed to be always exuberant. But being old.ailing and on IV she too has her moods and emotions..
Sorry typo bit me.
Gosh – a story so close to my experience, it is uncanny 😀
Probably feed for my next post 😉
So, what was L&M’s reaction when he realised this was a 40-year-old “white thingy”? 😛
An interesting observation 🙂
I think that your hubby didn’t ‘see’ the scar before because he was so used to it and forgot it was there. My sister has a slight squint, and I only ‘see’ it when others privately ask me what’s wrong with her eyes. I am used to it, and it doesn’t strike me as it does others. After 40 years your hubby might have been looking at you with ‘fresh’ eyes and so noticed something he’d ignored for many years. Just my opinion, I don’t know – but it is interesting.
I feel sorry for Simi who probably knew she’d done wrong and for the punishments she probably got from your parents! All dogs can bite, something we all have to remember. It happens less often the better you get a reading body language, as you know.
My first dog did a cartoon gnawing all the way up my arm when I found him destroying the contents of the bathroom bin. There was a lot of blood but thankfully no scars. He went on to have another fourteen years or so with us that were reasonably free of further incident.
No dog we’ve had since then has done more than a little growl and a lip curl with a snap in the direction of an offending hand – and then only when food or precious toy has been threatened!
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My God… Poor you and poor Simi!
I think many of the elder generation don’t realize that animals too have feelings and definitely can sense trends, as with Simi. It’s a lovely photo of her…old is gold 🙂