Is Bandu less interesting than a tiger?

A few pictures of my friend Bandu, taken in a hurry on two trips to Tadoba Tiger Reserve this year. Perhaps you've read about Bandu in this earlier post?

Bandu is one of the resident dogs at the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation resort near the park entrance. I've been his fan ever since I first met him in January 2008.

There is a particular dog personality-type that I love a lot, and I recognized it in Bandu soon after meeting him. It's seen in some male dogs: highly intelligent, bossy with other dogs, very friendly and polite and docile with humans, and VERY VERY independent. These dogs just don't want to be house pets. Ever. They want to live on their own terms and will never trade in their freedom completely, no matter how much you bribe them!
Another close dog friend Brownie has more or less the same personality; and so did one of our building dogs Toby-Raja.


Why does Bandu look so sleepy in these pictures, and why were they taken in a hurry?
Unfortunately I can only meet and click Bandu after returning from the morning safari, since I go into the forest before sunrise. By the time I get back to the lodge it's 10.30 or 11 a.m. and very hot and sunny. Bandu and the rest of the gang (lady friends, sidekick, offspring) have all gone to sleep in the shade here and there. I wake him for a few minutes and he's always very pleased to see me and thumps his stumpy cropped tail on the ground, before going back to sleep. But he doesn't look his alert and intelligent best at that time of day. He also rolls around in mud to cool himself and it's often liberally plastered on his body, taking away from his good looks somewhat. Next time I go to Tadoba it will be around 47 degrees C there and he'll spend a lot of time wallowing in the nearby marsh. So he'll probably be almost black.

My friendship with Bandu does not go unnoticed out there. Villagers in India tend to gawk for lack of anything better to do, and possibly a woman who travels alone and talks to dogs is considered a bit of an oddity. The lodge staff clearly think I'm eccentric, because no-one much fusses over dogs in that sort of area, though they are passively fond of them and think them useful. Enthusiasm about dogs is pretty much a big-city thing in India, though I have met a few rural adults and children who dote on their pets. I catch other tourists staring at me too, no doubt wondering why I'm clicking a dog, a pi-dog at that (!!!) in a place famous for its tigers and bears. After all unless an animal is critically endangered it can't be interesting or worth photographing, can it? These weird Mumbai women and their weird whims!

One time there was a tourist family sitting nearby while I clicked Bandu's pictures. I overheard the woman of the family commenting (in sniggering tone) on my strange choice of subject. For the first time I was irritated by this unwanted attention and by her insulting attitude to Bandu. I toyed with the idea of telling her politely: "Ma'am, you are no beauty exactly; in fact you are rather common-looking and considerably uglier than this dog if you don't mind my pointing it out; and yet your husband has probably taken hundreds of pictures of you though you have very little aesthetic value, objectively speaking." But of course I didn't really deliver this forthright speech, and besides, her husband quickly hushed her up and she looked a bit uncomfortable when I stared at her.

I can't help wondering when, if ever, Indians will recognize that our dogs are unique and wonderful and deserving of attention? Well we've made a tiny bit of progress at least...we've made a start. Let's just keep telling everyone we can the truth about INDogs, and hope the message will some day penetrate the collective thick-skulled consciousness.

There will always be space for Bandu on my memory card, no matter how many tigers or bears I click in Tadoba. So watch this blog for some pictures of an extra-muddy Bandu next month!



Moharli,
Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve

Lalee's tenth birthday celebrations

Lalee was born in the first half of March, 2001, at the United Services Club golf course in South Mumbai, not far from where I live.

She wasn't supposed to be born at all really. The people who fed the club dogs had asked me to get all of them neutered, and I had promised to take Lalee's mother in for spaying. But I suddenly got a horrible back problem and had to spend two weeks in bed, and after that I was forbidden to lift heavy things, including heavy dogs. By the time I was active again Lalee's mother was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, so we abandoned the idea of neutering her. She delivered seven pups soon after.

Well, thanks to a chain of events that I will describe some day, ten months later Lalee was living with Kiran and me.

Although I don't remember the exact day she was born, we always celebrate her birthday on 15 March. I take her to Nagaon for her birthday every year. Because among the few places she's been to, Nagaon is her favourite.



That's Lalee in our garden (photo above). The lady you can see a bit of in the background is our cook Jayu. Her job principally is making healthy and nutritious cat food and dog food. On the side she churns out sinfully delicious and fattening food for us humans.

On this birthday it was just Lalee and Kimaya and Brownie as always. I did try a dog party a few years ago, when Bandra and Lucy were still with us. We brought over Zanjeer from next door. But it did not go well (this is a huge understatement). The ancient Indian tradition of atithi devo bhava ("treat your guest like a god") is not very clearly understood by my dogs, and I must say our guest's behaviour was not very godlike, specially when he tried to chase the birthday girl out of her own garden. He was hastily returned to his home before any blood was shed.



In mid-March it was still quite cool early in the morning. Lalee and Kimaya sunbathed in the "sunbird" corner of the garden (the hamelia and other flowers here attract a lot of these jewel-like little birds).





It got rather hot after a while. So a nice cool mud-pit had to be dug.

Digging pits is an old habit from Lalee's puppy days. Back in the golf course her bed used to be in the corner of a large sand pit. She would turn and turn and make a hole and settle down in it. To this day she likes digging in sand and mud and making a little "bed" for herself.



Kimaya HAS to follow Lalee wherever she goes, though she doesn't particularly like sitting in mud. It's more fun sitting on a sofa (after putting lots of muddy paw-prints all over it).



Evening walk on the beach.

Notice the car tyre tracks on the sand? The beach is no longer a safe place to play, thanks to the low-end tourism boom in Nagaon and local authorities who have more important things to bother about than public safety. Even on a week day there were one or two cars racing up and down. On weekends, letting the dogs off-leash would be comparable to releasing them on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. I have to look out for cars constantly.



Above, below: Lalee, Kimaya, Brownie







Above: Who says only Kimaya can run? Lalee races ahead of Brownie across the beach...



...towards Brownie's friend, a white and brown female. She is nursing right now.



Kimaya is now a city dog and mostly walks on a leash...except on the fortnightly Nagaon trips of course.



A much-needed run with Brownie, and much splashing in the waves.





Above: Is that a dolphin? A whale? No, it's Kimaya leap-frogging over Brownie...



Finale: This wasn't taken on Lalee's birthday but a week or two earlier, by Kiran. Morning sunbath in Mumbai.

Nagaon

M Krishnan's essay "The Pariah"

"I have played with the Pariah dogs of our country when I was a child and still have esteemed friends among them. I have seen and known them in all sorts of places, on sweltering plains and cold hills..."

M Krishnan was a legendary Indian naturalist, environmentalist, writer, photographer, and scholar of Tamil literature, and he wrote a column called "Country Notebook" in The Statesman (Kolkata) for several decades. Some years ago a compilation of his essays was published under the title "Nature's Spokesman" (edited by Ramachandra Guha).

Unlike most wildlife-lovers, he was also a fan of our native dogs - one of "us." Though he didn't think them handsome, but then nobody much did at that time!

Back in 2007 when I started this blog, Mr Arijit Chaudhuri wrote this post that mentioned M Krishnan's essay on our native dogs. I decided to look for the essay, but due to increasing scattiness over the years I completely forgot to do so - until last month.

Here is an excerpt from "The Pariah" (1944):

"It is tractable, clever, even sagacious, self-reliant and absolutely incorruptible. It has an extremely hardy constitution and costs next to nothing to feed. There is no better house-dog. It is so clever and willing, you can teach it practically anything, it never makes friends with strangers whatever the bait, and will wake and give voice at the slightest suspicion of anything wrong. It does not keep howling all night, nullifying all attempts at sleep, but barks only when there is good reason. It is this quality, rather than the desire and ability to maul, that is wanted in a watch-dog and the Pariah has it...

"...I suppose the Pariah can be stabilized as a breed and improved in appearance - it cannot be improved in brain - but frankly, I see no future for this dog. In a country where the Poliga and Mahratta hounds have been allowed to die down, practically, is it likely that the Pariah will succeed in attracting notice or support?"

Excerpt from "Nature's Spokesman," edited by Ramachandra Guha, Oxford University Press

A visitor's view of INDogs

I want to share this nice email from dog lover Anna Kaminska, because it's such a perfect description of our dogs! Anna is from Poland.

"I was In India, and all the time I was thinking that all those 'homeless' dogs have very much in common, that they must be one breed. I loved them! And as I could see, the dogs love people.

The first few times I thought that the dogs I met were somebody’s. They acted like trained dogs, they looked like they understood me perfectly. I played with them and they did everything I wanted. I wanted them to stay, they stayed, I wanted them to follow, they did it!

My Indian friends told me that they are not trained. They are street dogs. I couldn't believe it!

I'm sure that over many years, the best chance to survive for them was to be friendly and follow people. I think aggressive dogs naturally wouldn't have survived. This is the best breed of dogs I know. I'm sure in future I will adopt a couple. Now I already have too many animals!!"
Thanks Anna for this first-hand account. Now I wish more Indians were as appreciative and insightful about Indian dogs!

Brandy

We have a new member, Brandy. Proud owner Shivdas tells us about him:

My wife and I have always been dog lovers and we wanted a pet who would really need a home and loving parents.

We came across an advertisement on the net regarding a pariah dog for adoption. His mother had died when he was one month old and he had two siblings. He was born on a construction site and the security guards there would take care of these babies along with another dog lover who lives near the site. He was the one who put an ad on the net.

We went to see them and chose Brandy. My wife named him Brandy as he is multi-coloured (brown, fawn, black and white).

He's the best thing that has ever happened to us. He is so understanding that if I get angry with him and don't talk to him, he actually cries till I go and pet him.

Despite him being just 7 months old, he knows who are friends and who are not. He would only bark if someone is at our the door or a stranger he is wary of. Wherever my wife goes, he has to follow her. In fact they are both crazy about each other.

He has such beautiful eyes that one doesn't even feel like scolding him if he has been naughty. He will look at you with such an innocent expression that one's heart will just melt! He is the best stress-buster one can have. Of course at times he can be a real devil. He has a trainer at the moment.

Friends who had seen him at the time when we had brought him home can't believe the change. And those seeing him for the first time ask which breed he is. We proudly say he is a pariah and frankly not many know what a pariah dog is, but are only used to the term stray.

He is not at all a fussy eater and loves karela (bitter gourd)!

Photos and story: Shivdas Nair,
Mumbai