Are the Dog Days Over?
The Indian Supreme Court recently gave a divisive order to curb stray dogs. What does this actually tell us about our relationship with stray dogs and, by extension, animals?
Our plight is a suffering with no break.
Is it not?
There’s a persistence to live, a will to survive, and a hope that better will prevail, even if the proverbial rapture breaks. And it is this hope, neatly wrapped in a modern version of Pandora’s jar—a Chinese ceramic tea pot painted with decorative flowers, an industrial glass box with an airtight lid, or a plastic lunchbox with superheroes to save the day—that we all walk out of our homes.
On the street, however, things are different. While the brick and mortar dwellings are definitely an upgrade, we have brought ancient remnants of our hunter-gatherer days into the modern fold.
There’s that art decorating the outer walls. Worli, Madhubani, Shekhawati, Mandana, Kolam—a variety of styles to choose from. Or the wall itself is an architectural wonder. Both reminders of the bygone days spent mixing flowery, grassy, and earthy pigments of nature to tell tales of the day spent in the wilds.
We haven’t left out nature, either. Although there’s a familiar scarcity, we’ve planted tame grasses, trees, shrubs, and petals to simulate forests. These home gardens, street avenues, and community parks are but reminders of where we found sustenance. No longer wild.
And although we’ve left the old ways of pack hunting, another ancient remnant continues to knock the doors of our modernity: dogs. The ever-faithful shadow has become a constant companion. Different breeds for different needs.
But there were wild wolves back then. And there are wild but declining populations of wolves now. To compensate, we’ve got stray dogs. Companions, yes, but tamer to a degree. Wilder than your indoor pup. Still dependent on its humans.
There’s a reason I titled this essay after Florence and the Machine’s 2009 megahit from their album Lungs. Because, like all the remnants of the past still surviving with our headstrong leap into the future, there’s an erosion silently wiping our connections to them.
The colourful murals are fading. The greens of lawns are giving way to brutalist landscapes. And the street dogs are finding the short end of the human stick, like all other animals.
Drawing the Lines
For those who are uninformed or not from India, the Supreme Court recently issued an order to curb the spread of stray dogs, especially in light of an investigative report published in The Times of India.
This order was met with intense scrutiny—both from human advocates and dog advocates alike. However, in this court-appointed tug of war, the rhetoric is sound in both camps.
While the country rages against rabies vectors on its streets, many flock to praise these local quadruped heroes who protect, forewarn, and aid in keeping the street scene clean of other menaces. No matter which group you belong to, there’s one certainty: just like we’ve forgotten what it means to frolic through the verdant bosoms of Mother Earth, we’ve lost our touch with what it means to coexist.
Move your binoculars to any modern human habitat and you’ll find reminders that humans are short on tolerance when it comes to sharing the land we’ve unrightfully claimed. We drove away the wild—big cats and their prey; wild elephants, giraffes, and other megafauna; ground-dwelling, arboreal, and avian reptiles; and even monkeys and primates, who somewhat resemble our visage.
And once that was done, we brought in the prim and prime, which were more or less under our dominion; animals who couldn’t do without our intervention. Not that the wild ones are faring any better. But if the birds and the bees we allow to flutter in our horticulturist dreamscapes are any indication, we prefer wild to an extent that is manageable.
The wild that could be tamed was tamed. What couldn’t be tamed was pushed to the fringes of our new homes, locked in cages (which might have expanded in recent years to allow more freedom, but are still very much prisons), or fashioned into ornamental headpieces, carpets, and taxidermied ghosts to boast about.
The dogs and cats we let into our homes today are no less ornamental.
Yes, we do form attachments to them. But are we not proud of the breed we select? Why is it that, when I step out onto the asphalt-cracking heat of Udaipur or the sweat-drenching humidity of Mumbai, I run into huskies, mastiffs, and chow chows? Status, symbol, pride, ornament. That’s our relationship with animals.
I remember, back in 2015, on a trip to the eastern paradises of India, there was one place on the itinerary that I was very much excited about: the Guwahati Zoological Park. Unfortunately, for me at least, I shared the trip with many a Debbie-downer sexa- and septuagenarians. Who wants to see animals? They said. You can see them on the Discovery Channel. Well, they too could just look at the commercials of Bagh Bakari chai or Tata Red Label and experience what it’s like to sip tea.
I kept to myself, even though I could see that sentiment brooding and echoing through the demographically-challenged participants of this collective trip. Today, it’s been allowed to fester and infest many minds.
But don’t you think it’s inherently human to see animals as exotic specimens of the land we conquered? Keep them locked safely. Shoot them if they misbehave. Shoot them if they escape.
Is the Supreme Court order any different? Yes, they’re now scaling all the avenues. But the knee-jerk reaction drew the very line we always draw. It had that very human DNA the mitochondrial Eve must be proud of.
The Paint is Flaking
Coexistence is a delicate balance.
You could argue that we are the very definition of coexistence. But it all falls flat with much of human history built on wars just because the other guy looked or sounded different.
My previous essay on the Falkland Islands Wolf, also known as the Warrah, touched on the not-so-delicate topic of human greed that culminated in the end of a friendly wolf. Never did I imagine that one day, I’d sit down to opine on dogs. But then dogs, too, are different, are they not? The hardy stray, completely adapted to a region’s climate, is far removed from the ornamental effect that a golden retriever carries.
It’s the looks that we always care about . . .
Paris couldn’t help himself upon seeing Helen, forever robbing her of being titled the Helen of Sparta.
Ravan was besotted by Sita’s beauty, erecting a chasm of calamitous war just to have her.
Sarah’s beauty gave birth to fear of her abduction in Abraham, a fear that made him lie to safeguard her, a fear that did come true.
The very epics of our peoples, who had godly blood coursing through their veins, couldn’t help but be vain. So how could we be any different? Nacre, ivory, pelts, pearls, feathers, hides, rugs, minks—the vanity is too on the nose.
As John Keats so deftly penned in Endymion:
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Coexistence then becomes a form of convenience. A covert act of greed to pry open the covetous, covered in thick layers of altruism. Just look at the way we treat farm animals. Cows and buffaloes spill on the street, their fate already a discussion of political bills with religious undertones. Others on the farm fare no better.
Back then, we painted the beauty we hunted. Later, we adorned our homes with it. Now? The tiger pelts might still be on the big cats, the elephant tusks might still be part of the animal’s dentition, the rhinoceros might still be appropriately named for their striking feature. But they’re not far off from our hunting grounds.
Where does the poor stray dog, all abandoned, with mange and grit on her fur, vanishing stomach, bruises all over, and hunger in her eyes, fit in this cave painting?
Will the dog days ever be over for her?
Our Pandora’s jar, with its inlaid gold, mother-of-pearl accents, floral motifs, and luminescent paint, lies open. Only the next mallet strike from the Supreme Court will tell.
Go check out the previous essay that touches on similar themes, albeit for one particular species.
PS: Essays like these are more personal, more intimate, and more demanding. They tug more heartstrings than I usually allow other pieces to. So, if you enjoyed this, don’t forget to leave a like and comment :)