Down in jungleland: The company we keep

Flies: They do their fancy stunt flying straight from fresh dog doo-doo in the street to your plate of sizzling jalebis. And then try to park straight up your nose. They’ll see things (like a descending fly-swatter) in slow-motion and dance out of the way well in time. We have jump jets and drones, but nothing that can land upside down on the ceiling.

Cockroaches: Aren’t they just waiting for the day when all the nukes in the world go pop and they’ll be lording it over in the White House and Kremlin and, of course, 7 Race Course Road (which they may well have already infiltrated)! In the meanwhile, they’ll blithely picnic in the fridge (especially in summer) or under the kitchen sink. The big ones may fly (straight at you), the babies like impersonating breadcrumbs on your healthy brown-bread toast. In a government hospital in Mumbai, I once shared my thali with a gigantic mahogany roach, perched at the edge of the plate, fastidiously checking out the rice and vegetables with its feelers. He was casually flicked off by the ward boy so he could check out what the patient in the next bed was having. And they say we’re intolerant!

Rats and Bandicoots: Nothing quite as wonderful as a bristly grey rat (or bandicoot) humping over the gleaming washed crockery in the kitchen, first thing in the morning. Or leaving its calling card, generously distributed everywhere. Or heading purposefully straight for your trouser leg when you switch on the oven. Give them an inch and they’ll sit on the sideboard and watch Stuart Little on HBO with you. They like dying and rotting in irretrievable corners. And why are rats and mice used so extensively in medical research? The answer is not very flattering!

Monkeys: We think we evolved from them. They believe they evolved from us — and they have a point. Why else would our finest and fittest young men stand in front of the monkey cages at the zoo and emulate them, face for face, gesture for gesture, jump for jump? In gardens and parks, we throw parties for them and then whine about the “monkey menace” when they snatch popsicles from our babies and threaten young girls in parks. They’re supposed to eat fruit and flowers and leaves and other sissy stuff like that, so why the dirty two inch canines, which they’re not shy to display? Like us, they have perennial high-blood pressure; we have road rage, they have rhesus rage, period. Ah, our youngsters might well envy them: watch how benignly the big mamas tolerate their youngsters’ scandalous moves on one another. We on the other hand…

Crows: Goondas, crooks, thieves and conmen, they keep us company everywhere. It’s a fact they’re with us for better or for worse, till death do us part. Crows can’t exist without us — they are inspired by our ways, our garbage and trash, our conning, clannish ways, and the way we hound and humiliate the weak and helpless.

Pigeons: Blue rock doves, actually. All they think of 24×7 is sex, it doesn’t matter two hoots with whom or what. Just land, gurgle, puff your chest out, twirl and pirouette and get on with it…a dozen times a day. Young couples holding hands in parks are hauled off and beaten up in our world. These guys can conduct full- fledged X-rated orgies in front of children and we offer them more dana! Why? Get the picture?

Cats: They usually slink out of the way, but if you’re making chicken soup (for your soul, of course), they will land up en masse outside your front door yowling for yours, as if they haven’t eaten since birth. They also love to shriek like banshees in the dead of night under your window — as they wind themselves up for a “tear you to shreds” free-for-all. You can never know what they’re thinking, or stare into their eyes for very long.

Dogs: Always more trusting and foolish and gentle-eyed than cats, they end up getting roundly kicked and stoned. Who’s to blame if they’re suckers — these are the mean streets of a city after all and they’re fools to keep us company! But if they band together, they may just remember that they’re wolves after all, just like so many others in the city.

Cows: The sloe-eyed road yogis try to present us with a picture of calm while we’re throwing manic tantrums on the road (er, driving). They pacifically chew cud in the middle of a maelstrom, indicating what nirvana might look like. For that, we rob them of the milk they make for their babies. Nice!

Ranjit Lal is an author, enviromentalist and birdwatcher.