India Part 6: Urban Safari

Cows in Gurgaon / P. Salemme

One thing that has been the most different about living in India has been the quantity of urban animals running around. This macro fauna comes in sizes large and small; some species are familiar and others less so.

Cows are maybe the most Indian of the urban animals. According to Hindu tradition, cows are sacred because of their life giving attributes i.e. milk. Cows are not worshiped or venerated, just given respect and allowed to roam freely. I haven’t seen any roadkill cows, but I have been in a traffic jam caused by some cows who decided to lay down on the warm pavement in the middle of the highway. Mostly they stay on the sidewalks, though.

Despite their religious status, some people will slap or kick or throw water on them to get them to move out of their way. Supposedly some Indian shoe companies are run by Hindus who aren’t paralyzed by the idea of slaughtering thousands of sacred animals. It’s kind of sad to see cows eating out of garbage cans but evidently there’s one day a year when people feed the cows well, paint them, and cover them with garlands of flowers, so maybe it evens out. The few cows I have approached are totally friendly; I jut walked up and petted it, no big deal.

There are also a lot of stray dogs in my neighborhood. Unlike stray dogs in America, however, these dogs seem to be completely harmless. I have never seen one in any sort of angry disposition. I have seen several missing a leg and some with maimed legs, but they all look pretty well fed at least. An Indian colleague explained that the Indian mentality towards stray dogs is that they are like the neighborhood pet so people do feed them. Even the ones with terrible skin diseases, whose bite is supposedly fatal to human, are pretty laid back. What I have learned is that this kindness to dogs varies from states to state and that in some states, the Army has standing orders to shoot strays on sight. I guess I am glad I don’t live in one of those states.

I have seen one cat, but it was the skinniest, saddest cat I have ever seen in my entire life.

Of course, India also has the familiar beasts of burden and domestic ruminants like donkeys and horses and goats (surprising to see a goat herder leading his flock through my office parking lot last week) and sheep and, in arid Rajasthan, camels all over the place, although the cow is still the most common. One unfamiliar animal of the large hoofed variety is the water buffalo, which look exactly like black cows except their horns swoop backwards instead of sideways. The first time I saw them was swimming in Ujjain, eating aquatic plants in a lake that was also full of garbage.

India is also home to the Indian palm squirrel, which is almost an exact cross of an American squirrel and a chipmunk, with the color and tail of the former and the size and stripes of the latter.

My Gecko Roommate / P. Salemme

Like many tropical countries, India also has lizards. Indoors, I have seen mostly wall- and ceiling-crawling geckos, including one who lived in my room for several days. Outside, surprised a yellow lizard about a foot long that I caught warming himself on the foot path as I came running by. I was in a meeting with one of my work colleagues when a huge gecko started crawling across the wall behind him to my surprise. “Don’t worry, they’re domesticated,” was the response to my concern. Fair enough. It was still a little startling when I went to the bathroom at the office and one of these monster geckos was running around on the inside of the stall.

The biggest animal surprise, however, has been pigs. Neither Hindus nor Muslims eat meat, so I don’t know who may have originally brought these pigs here (the idea that these are the descendants of pigs brought by the British seems slightly plausible), but they are thriving in Gurgaon. There’s a large, fallow plot of land next to my office building, and from the rooftop terrace, you can see a herd of pigs foraging all day long. There’s also some intermittent construction going on in the area, so it isn’t uncommon to see pigs napping in hollows in the sides of these big sand piles. The pigs come in different colors, from Babe-like pink, to black, brown, tan, spotted, and even some with stripes, but like all the other animals, are quite docile and totally content to keep their snouts to the ground and sniffing for food as you walk right past them.

Pigs in Gurgaon / P. Salemme

Lastly, I have spotted a few monkeys in Delhi, two with a woman in Bhopal, and, most excitingly, a whole troop of several dozen running through the brush in Rajasthan. Indians aren’t nearly as excited about the monkeys as I am, but probably just because we don’t have them running around in America.