Indigo

Although Ashamanja Babu is content with his life, he sometimes wishes for a companion—specifically, a dog. One day at the Hashimara market, he spots a vendor selling a puppy. The puppy wags its tail when it sees him, and Ashamanja buys it, naming the dog Brownie. Three months later, while Ashamanja is sitting in his living room, his chair suddenly collapses beneath him. To his shock, he swears he hears laughter coming from the bed where Brownie sits. Stunned, Ashamanja consults his All About Dogs book for any mention of laughing dogs but finds nothing.

Brownie laughs two more times in the following week: once when Ashamanja tries and fails to kill a cockroach, and again when he misses a patch of shaving cream on his face. Determined to learn more, Ashamanja searches for an encyclopedia about dogs, but none of the nearby bookstores carry one. He then visits his neighbor, Professor Chatterji, who has an extensive library. But Chatterji explains that he has no such encyclopedia, and that dogs are simply not capable of laughter.

Next, Ashamanja consults Doctor Bhowmick, a veterinarian, who tells him that dogs can feel a range of emotions, from anger to jealousy, but they cannot laugh. Afterward, Ashamanja decides it doesn’t matter whether anyone else believes him. One day, while walking Brownie, they see a man’s umbrella flip inside-out in the wind, and Brownie bursts out laughing. A passerby named Piloo Pochkanwalla witnesses it and chats with Ashamanja about Brownie’s unusual gift.

Later that same day, however, Pochkanwalla is struck by a bus and hospitalized for nearly three months. On the day of his release, he finally tells his friends about the laughing dog. Within a day, the news spreads so widely that “at least a thousand” Calcuttans know about Brownie. Soon thereafter, a reporter visits Ashamanja’s home to interview him, and Brownie laughs at the man’s stutter. Fearing the article will draw crowds eager to see Brownie for themselves, Ashamanja takes the dog to another city for the day.

That evening, when Ashamanja and Brownie return home, there’s a knock at the door. Standing there is Shyamol Nandy from the Indian Tourist Bureau, along with a wealthy-looking American named Mr. Moody. Ashamanja invites them inside, and the two men attempt to make Brownie laugh, but the dog stays silent. The American explains that he collects exotic objects and animals and offers $20,000 for Brownie. Ashamanja briefly imagines a life with such riches, but his fantasy ends when Brownie suddenly laughs. Ashamanja tells the men that Brownie laughed at their belief that money could buy anything, and he sends them away. Left alone, Ashamanja asks Brownie if that’s truly why he laughed, and Brownie “chuckle[s] in assent.”