Fury: The Boomslang with a Heart — and No Bite

It was May 2, 2023, when we left for Bangalore early in the morning. We had decided to return the very same day, which was the sole reason for our hurried departure from Coimbatore.

The sky was still dark, a faint sliver of light stretching across the horizon. The air was unmoving and redolent with the fragrance of oleander flowers. I noticed the milkman trudging along on his rickety two-wheeler, cans clanking softly as he rode up the road, immersed in his own thoughts. The headlight from his lamp sliced through the darkness, doing little more than etch an ellipse of molten gold, shimmering like gossamer against the road.

Yet despite the quiet beauty of the morning, I was beside myself with anxiety.

It was the first time my family and I were adopting a rescued dog, and quite frankly, we did not know what to expect. Fury was a male Shih Tzu — a miniature one at that. He had been subjected to unspeakable abuse and left battered and bruised on the streets of Bangalore, forced to fend for himself. The ordeal had been so horrific that he lost one of his eyes in the process.

Rescued and rehabilitated by a Good Samaritan, he was eventually put up for adoption. The kind lady who had undertaken the unenviable task of saving him later told me that he was one of the worst rescue cases she had ever handled.

I reached the foster parent’s house wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, naively thinking this would be a walk in the park. After all, what could a tiny, hapless Shih Tzu really do to disrupt the existing dynamics of my pack? I already had five by then.

I dismissed the flicker of doubt as my obsessively fixated mind doing what it always does — focusing on everything that could go downhill instead of on the positive.

I sat there waiting for Fury.

Out he came — a scrawny little Shih Tzu, a moving mosaic of grey and white with black streaks around his eyes and ears. I felt as though I were shooting in continuous mode on my DSLR, trying to capture every fragile detail. He almost looked like a small rat, most of his hair having been sheared off for surgery. I watched him circle the room before finally coming to sit quietly under my chair.

In hindsight, it felt akin to him saying, I choose you.

I did not make much of it then.

I swept him into my arms, bundled him into the car, and drove away.

I remember the drive back vividly. It rained torrentially that night. The sky was furious, lightning forking across it and briefly illuminating the road ahead — wet and treacherous. The rain was unrelenting, and the trees swayed, frenzied and trance-like, as if whispering an incantation. The world, now furious, seemed to dissolve with Fury beside me, vanishing in the blink of an eye as I wondered what lay ahead.

And all through the drive, Fury snuggled into his blanket beside me and slept without a care in the world. It felt as though he knew he was finally going somewhere he could call home.

I couldn’t have been more surprised. Fury was a character, all right.

Unflinchingly loyal and decidedly not a people pleaser, he disliked anyone new who came gushing at him, eager to get cozy from the start. Utterly lovable — but strictly on his own terms — he set the pace, and we followed. From the very beginning, he made one thing clear: he wanted no pity and no concessions for his past.

He quickly asserted himself as the alpha of a group that included shepherds far higher up the natural pecking order. My giant German Shepherd is wrapped neatly around his paw. The moment he strides into a room — carrying himself as though he owns it — the entire pack falls under his quiet spell. Blinded in one eye and scarred by months of abuse, both physical and from relentless breeding, he chose to script his own narrative.

Fury was such an apt name for him. Diminutive yet tenacious, he can land a surprisingly mean bite when he chooses to. We lovingly call him the “Boomslang,” after one of the deadliest snakes in Africa. Fury may have a comic-book name, but he is just as tenacious — only minus the venom.

He is, very easily, my favorite.

My son quips from time to time, in jest, “Mama… he is more of a son than I am.”

Who would have thought that a pint-sized dog — named with superhero bravado and arriving on a night that thundered as fiercely as he once fought — would quietly steer me out of the choppy waters of procrastination, people-pleasing, and second-guessing, into something steadier: courage, character, confidence — and the audacity to start Green Molecule, India’s first lead-free, 100% plant-based cleaning and hygiene brand.

Molecularly Yours,

Sanjana

Curiously Irrepressible  

First dreamer. Accidental chemist @ Green Molecule - Clean Confidently

A Personal Note

P.S.: This is simply my personal experience and not a prescription for anyone else. We all find our spark in different ways—to each his, her, or their own. This is not a roadmap at all, just something that worked for me.

Tourists, Madness, Coffee, and Stranger Things

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