Is that a bear you’re walking with?” someone asked Monorama Ghosal on the street the other day, while staring at Balu, her black Chow Chow.

Monorama has been asked this so many times that she’s tired of correcting people. “Yes, it is,” she replied, fed up.

“Do you make your bear dance?” the man asked again. “Yes, why not,” Monorama played along.

“Well, you hope you know you need a licence for it!” the man advised and walked away, leaving her both flabbergasted and laughing.

That’s not all. Once when Monorama was walking Simba she ran into a family with two Siberian Huskies. The lady of the other family walked up and again, shared some unwanted advice: “You feed your Husky too much. He’s simply too fat!” To which Monorama snapped back that Simba wasn’t a Husky at all! “He’s an Alaskan Malamute, a breed that happens to be way larger than the Siberians, thank you very much!”

Such is life at this New Town home, with two rare breeds, two Retrievers and two Labs. And the dogs have names that will transport you both to Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Disney’s The Lion King.

You’ve met Balu, named after the bear who befriended Mowgli, as well as Simba, the cub in the The Lion King. “Two days after we got Simba, we got an English Retriever and so named her Nala, who was the female cub in the same movie,” smiles Monorama. The next puppy, a Lab, has been Mufasa. “In the film, Mufasa is Simba’s father but here he’s the youngest of the lot!”

Their two oldest dogs are Golden Retriever Brandy, and Labrador Aabee and they’re praying for puppies. “Brandy and Nala have been mated recently and we’re hoping they conceive,” says Monorama. She had gone over to a house to choose a mate for Brandy, actually, when she also liked another dog there and choose him for Nala.

But Nala is rather shy and to get her to open up, her trainer suggested she be taken to crowded places. To do the needful, Monorama selected the recently-concluded Saras Mela, no less. “Initially the guards wouldn’t let her in but I told them I was a regular at the fair and that Nala was harmless. Soon she was the star of the fair that attracted visitors and volunteers alike. The exposure did her good and she was comfortable thereafter at her in-laws’ place when we took her,” Monorama laughs.

Simba is the alpha male in the family, well aware of his size and strength, and so has issues with the other adult male, Balu. Mufasa is still too young to have a say in the sibling politics. Monorama still maintains that her boys are the obedient ones. “The girls are wild,” says the lady who stays with her husband Anindya Sengupta and a round-the-clock help.

Indeed, Brandy is affectionate to a fault and Aabee is but a storm that enters the room and upturns everything in loving excitement.