This story features a bat, a Pomeranian, a clowder of cats, a Cocker Spaniel, three snakes, a Squirrel Monkey, a green bird of unknown pedigree, a pair of Toucans and a Mithun. But you will see through the facade and know that the story is really about my inability to connect meaningfully with the animal world.
I have been an abstract champion of the animal world, intellectually understanding the need to be humble about our place in the world, the importance of biodiversity and its role in combating climate change. I know animals of all kinds make the world a better, a more interesting place. Cognitively, I am there. Emotionally, not so much.
Perhaps the heroic existence of the animals I describe would eclipse my own incidental part in the story. Here goes...
Episode 1: The awning bat
We had just 170 sq.ft to call our home in Mumbai, and we defended it against bird and beast alike, The one time a young rat (moonjuru in Tamil) entered our home, we lost our cable connection to gnawing and our peace of mind to the eeriness of the situation, and we did not sleep well till we stayed up half the night to chase it out.
It is in this context that a bat made the half-broken sheet-metal window awning outside our room its home. Despite its diminutive size, it scared me; its penchant to claw across the blue netting of the window triggered vampire nightmares. In the weeks in which we made amateurish attempts to evict it, something shifted in me. Fear gave way to curiosity and I began to wonder about this organism that favoured this incredibly inhospitable crevice for a home. Thick traffic, unruly cricketers and pressure cooker whistles must have disturbed its daytime slumber. It braved all these stimuli unlike me, who couldn't tolerate its mere sight. For the first time, I questioned my claims over the world. I was too young to comprehend that I was challenging the basic tenets of rights, boundaries and the idea of the insider versus the outsider.
Episode 2: Feeling Sweety in Pune
The family into which my aunt married had a risky Pomeranian named Sweety who had coopted herself into a Tam Brahm diet and happily consumed sakara pongal (jaggery rice) instead of a crunchy bone. Sharing space with an animal indoors was a daunting experience for the timid 11-year-old that I was. But the experience came with rewards. One evening, I was allowed to take Sweety for her evening walk. While it was she who led me, I felt weirdly powerful for a few minutes.
Episode 3: Sparrows in Milwaukee
With the temperature dropping to 25 below zero in winter, the twelve minute walk from my home to my office in downtown Milwaukee felt like an unending series of steps. En route, I would pass the backside of a Greek restaurant where, if it was sunny and I was lucky, I would find sparrows. Exactly like the ones from my childhood, the ones that every Indian city housed before CDMA airwaves took them away. They would peck nonchalantly at invisible food on the frozen ground and I would marvel at their ability to be outside without ever having visited the Burlington Coat Factory.
Episode 4: An experience in ammonia
I briefly dated a woman - who I till date consider to be one of the kindest people I have ever met. When I visited her place, I was immediately enveloped by the powerful pull of ammonia. She had three cats, if memory serves me right. I felt awkward, unsure of my next step. But watching her immense love for those feline lives was an experience in itself. A humbling one, in which I questioned for the nth time my inability to connect that broadly and deeply.
Episode 5: Ginger in Yelahanka
When my best friend brought home a cocker spaniel, it felt as if I now had a pet, considering how much time I spent at his home. Ginger, as she was called, was her own person, defiantly disobedient and capable of mesmerising bursts of energy. In the presence of the second dog in my life, I learnt that humans are not the only species with such distinct personalities. I did not know this obvious truth in my late 30s, which should tell you how dissociated I truly am from life as we know it on this planet.
Episode 6: The downtown King Cobra
I have crossed paths with snakes many times in Bangalore. I saw a ritual of two snakes rearing their heads as high as they could, and till date, I'm unsure if they were fighting or warming up for procreation. Another time, a snake almost slithered over my feet in a footpath in Yelahanka. But my most majestic snake sighting happened during the pandemic. Since I lived on the edge of downtown, I used to walk through empty arterial roads on most evenings. One day, walking bang in the middle of Cubbon Road, I saw a King Cobra move with deliberate slowness across the asphalt. I mustn't have been more than twenty feet away from it, but I felt no fear. I felt awe. I remember looking around at the downtown structures just to remind myself that I was in an urban jungle before turning my attention back to the king.
Episode 7: Squirrel monkey in Mudumalai
It was a humble resort in Mudumalai, adjoining a brook. Dawn had erupted, but the mist kept the sun at bay. I thought I would spend the morning staring at fast-flowing water. Instead, I was regaled by a black-and-white squirrel monkey darting up and down the tree in which it was nesting, collecting food as if Armageddon was upon us. "Just the pandemic," I wanted to reassure it. "Armageddon is a decade away."
Episode 8: Scolding in Davangere
During one of the many solo bike trips I made during the pandemic, I checked into a hotel room in Davangere and went to a window to look at the squalid heap of garbage adjoining the railway tracks. A few moments later, a small bird - couldn't have been more than a few centimetres long - landed on the perch of the window, speaking a million words. With the window fastened, I did not hear its voice, but its expressive eyes suggested that it was scolding me even as it dazzled me with its radium green body, set against a beige flat beak. A moment later, it seemed to realise that I was a stranger, not the human with whom it could take liberties (such as scolding). It flew away, rendering the scenery unbearably drab.
Episode 9: Toucans in flight
The first post-pandemic solo bike trip was to Valparai. One mid-morning, I was walking on an embankment overlooking a tea plantation set in a shallow valley. Without warning, a toucan resting on a bare tree took flight. A moment later, its mate followed suit. I watched the couple glide across the valley, their black-and-yellow plumage so vivid, I could have sworn they were but a furlong away. The more than 1000km round trip had become worth it in those few seconds during which the two birds revealed their majesty in flight.
Episode 10: Mithun in Arunachal
With two appointments in Itanagar the next day, I was immensely fortunate to hitch a ride in a car going to the state capital from Ziro. We set off at 11pm and drove through most of the night through nonexistent roads, covering around 20 kilometres an hour. On one of the thousand bumpy stretches, the driver braked to give way to a Mithun crossing the road. The great beast looked at our headlights with an expression that said, "Surely you are more cultured than to flash me with those bright ones?" On cue, the driver switched off the lights. "That's better!" the Mithun seemed to say before ambling away. The nonexistent road did not seem so lonely after that.
I hope to add many more episodes during the remainder of my lifetime. I'd be so lucky if I managed to do that.
