Can we keep it, pleeeeeeeease?

Late last night I awoke to the sounds of someone closing and locking the front door of our house. Too groggy and unable to see clearly without my contact lenses I called briefly for Hamid before curling up into my feather pillow and falling back to sleep.
But within a few minutes I was awake and very aware that something was missing - namely, my husband.
It's normal for Hamid to be awake at all hours, but out of the question for him to leave the house at four in the morning so I sat up, puzzled, and yawned, curious and slightly suspicious.
Immediately, I opened the door to the balcony, hoping to spy my husband and understand what on earth he could be doing, venturing into the silent street, barely lit by multicolored holiday lights strung up at our neighbor's house.
The sound of the lock unhinging echoed loudly into the cavernous darkness beyond. Perplexed, I could see nothing from where I stood and turned back to close and lock the door behind me. As I reached up to push the squeaky metal latch into place I heard Hamid calling me from within the blanket of Indian night. He was moving toward me. I could not see him, but I could hear his chappals sliding against the stony ground beneath his feet.
He shuffled up to within a few meters of our house, apparently dressed in his pajamas and wandering around outside like some kind of insomniac.
He whispered "Look, look!" but I still couldn't see anything.
After slipping my contacts into unwilling eyes, I blinked back sleepy tears and returned to the balcony to see my darling crouched down in front of a tiny bouncing puppy. Hamid moved closer so I could see his surprise more clearly, puppy following happily along behind him.
"Bring it here!" I cried.
"Tess...." Hamid weighs the consequences of this request, sharing his trepidation with me in his tone.
"Bring it here!" I repeated, anxious.
"Tess....it's dirty."
"I don't care, bring it here, bring it here, bring it here!" I'm desperate to see this little fat puffball up close and personal, even if it means I have to go out into the street, but I'd rather have the dog in the house where I can feed him and give him water, maybe a bath...maybe work out a way to keep it.
If I can get it in the house then the likelihood of that happening is greater.
We've been through this before.

There are always puppies, tiny, sweet, perfect little whining things running around the neighborhoods. All of them hungry, dirty, and stray. There are no services installed in India for the management of the canine population and so the dogs breed, and starve. We wonder at them individually; how long will that one live, which ones will be reigning the street in six months. I've learned not to get too attached to them, but my immediate reaction is always the same - an innate desire to keep them.

It's a habit - I did the same thing in Grenada, Spain with the black and white cat that followed me all around the Alhambra and jumped into my lap, digging his claws into my thighs, drooling and purring the second I sat down. It took me half an hour to come to the conclusion that no, I couldn't take him back to the apartment in Barcelona with me, and no, I couldn't probably manage all of my luggage and a pet carrier come time to go, not to mention the fare for the animal to fly and sit in quarantine.
It takes some time, but eventually, heartbroken, I get to the point of understanding and say goodbye.

Then there was the desperately sick little kitten, rescued from the greasy seeping gutter of a Moroccan bazaar only to die in my hands minutes later (although not before she bit me, sending my friend Alana into a panick over the possibility of rabies in the rat and garbage infested north African city of Tanger.) and another healthier kitten encountered on a busy streetcorner in Bombay that begged for my attention until I begged Hamid to let me take it back to the hotel.

One day during my first few weeks in Bangalore, while waiting to cross MG Road I noticed a tiny four week old black puppy sprawled out on the pavement in the baking sun, too skinny and weak to lift his head. I watched in horror as people walked past him, stepped over him - unconcerned. Within five minutes he was nestled and sleeping inside my Dior shopper, leaking fleas and God-knows-what-else all over the sweater shrug I had wrapped him in. He accompanied me that day to a meeting at an outdoor coffee shop where I fed him milk and small bites of chicken.
I named him (Padeshah = 'little king' in Persian) and bought everything I needed to keep him clean, happy, healthy, and alive.
I carried him like a baby nearly everywhere I went, to the great displeasure of my landlord, Hari Krupa.
In an effort at winning the man's approval I asked him where I could find a veterinarian, hoping to get whatever shots were necessary. Hari not only offered me directions to a nearby animal doctor, but a ride there the following morning. The next day, with Padeshah wrapped in a soft red blanked, I sat in the car for the short ride, pleased with myself for having found an ally in Hari after all.
Hari spoke to the vet in Kannada and left with a smile. The vet gave the squirming dog a few injections, hydrated him with some fluids intravenously, billed me, and sent us both home telling me the dog should 'walk around a bit to get everything in his system.'
I had yet another appointment to keep so I set out a dish of water and kissed my little one goodbye.
Two hours later I returned home to find the dog in the middle of the floor, dead.
It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life, finding him like that, having clearly suffered alone until the end, and I called Hari to cry obscenities at him, accusing him of instructing the vet to euthanize the puppy.
I loved that dog and would have kept him, but the universe had decided otherwise, and that was that.

These experiences and others run through my head as I watch Hamid carry his fluffy white-faced mixed-breed friend up the stairs and into the house.
We feed him, play with him, consider bathing him (this is where the possibility of keeping him becomes a struggle) and realize all in the same breath that it's just impossible.
For this one baby dog there are a million others all over India and there is nothing we can do to ease the pain of that knowledge.
Hamid takes him back outside where the dirty little beast cries pathetically for an hour before moving on.
We've fed puppies outside our house before, literally loved them and kept them alive with butcher's meat and multivitamins, and they all eventually and mysteriously disappear (likely at the hand of Rajju, the houseman charged with keeping the grounds clean.)
It's pointless, this heartache. But I can't help it.
Tonight I will cook rice and chicken for our newest acquaintance and hope for the best.