Walk 'n' Talk Animals

Stray dogs themselves make my heart pound. Not that I hate every thing untamed. But I am bewildered by their unpredictability. Until I watched "Dog Whisper" I never knew that  staring  at dogs could mean a  menace to you. . Unintentionally I  happened to connect  with few stray dogs while I was set for my  morning walk  some time ago.  I thought I was warning few curious looking dogs on my way by looking straight into their eyes. That was the beginning of my perils with stray dog. They showed loads of affection and shook me to my foot by pouncing on me wagging their tails and scratching with their nail  and I began screaming.  Pitifully no one was available  to  rescue me in those  wee hours, until I found a milk vendor on  his bicycle who cared  to drive them away.

 It brought back the memories of a puppy I reared  long long ago, so long ago  until it was six months old. But  I have spent those  span of  six months  in clearing his excreta,and deodorizing my house than  emotionally connecting  with it. I had no time yet  I admit I was  a bad trainer.Till that fateful  morning wherein I had my morning blues with street dogs I never cared what was walking next to me when set on foot. From that moment I turned  very conscious of every dog on the street and took all the care to avoid them to the extant possible. Some dogs are  very cunning. They follow you, but the moment you stop to check  they too stop and  look sideways. And when  You revert to  walking with a sigh of relief  all again  you find them following your foot steps. Some dogs try to give you false impression that they are not following you. But in fact they are leading you.They run ahead of you  as if they care a heck  and after a while  turn back to check  whether you are following them or not. Some dogs  stop and bark at you  to grab your attention  and in a split  second  change their mind and  proceed  with sudden  detachment.You have no clue why it tried scare you in the first place and decides to take u turn at once .However  I found myself  more attractive to   lame, weak, diseased, dogs who show special kind of  affinity towards  me. Probably I look like  a natural harbor of lame ducks. Again in  few years I gathered my courage to be on my own on streets despite dogs. 

 Other day I was on my own until I found some living thing  in  brown pulling itself  next to me. It is a  normal dog  I thought,  and in few moments I was terrified to discover it to be a  monkey. How come I landed with an animal which is supposed  to live on  trees ? When  I stopped to figure  out where exactly I was going,  many monkeys were spotted  all around. They no more appear to be interested in trees.   They were just, squatting,  walking, grooming and playing   on the street at all the peace in the world.. I thought I should stop and take an  about turn. But to my amazement I began  noticing  people hopping me ignoring monkeys on their way.  Some cared to  walk along with them.  After a while I saw one monkey pouncing on one man without provocation of any kind  and he shook him  off and continued to walk on his mission. Bravo! We Indians  can survive anywhere. No body ever stopped. They continued to walk. The small  by lane  is the only patch available for morning  walk in that area.  Next few days monkeys did not go any where. Every day we found them either  sitting on the road or crossing it.. One day they disappear only to appear on a  following day. Each day  I found sweepers with their large brooms chatting standing next to them. Fruit vendor with his push cart hardly appeared to have been frightened. He did not change his place. Walkers raced with monkeys on the roads as if they were just dogs. It is as if there is no differentiation between dog and monkey. Every body look bolder than me. They continue to walk on streets crowded with monkeys. The man  with scratches was sighted on the next day with a bandage on his forearm, yet determined to continue with his mission. . He has  no where to go. Rest of  others have no where to go. The monkeys too have no where to go !!

Television showed  a cheetah beaten  to death by villagers for preying on their sheep. We find bears with their furn burned for trespassing  into fields. Many  elephants create  havoc in villages bordering forests with their habitat shrunk day by day. Leopards attack humans while on their walk to shrine. It looks like a war between human and wild life.  Humans have needs and fears. Yes.Agreed.In this war for survival undoubtedly man wins over beasts using his brains and ammunition. Poor animals have not learned making guns and yet greatly rely on their natural primitive sense of survival and danger.Man makes nonessential overreaching presence in every available space. A streak  of  hegemony, overpowering,  dreadfulness, avidity ,rage surfacing in human actions can wipe out scores of life from this planet. I pose a straight question to myself. Does this planet belong to me alone?