Opinion Who’s my neighbour: Inside a gated community, three creatures have sorted out the world between them. And no, the humans are not among them

Three dogs are collared in this community. Collared and named. Mini, Jhumki, Jagga. They know their friends. And where the food pours. Rotis, fruits, and chicken bones with rich slivers of meat on them. Sometimes, chappals to carry away. Mangled chappals of the kind of people who cannot enter these homes with shoes on.

The dogs like to nuzzle against the legs of people who love them. Sometimes, Jhumki chases children who bicycle around the park. Some children love to bike around with the dogs behind them. It feels cinematic. A few are scared.

The peacocks like to walk in the park and shine through the greenery. Folks are used to them, and yet they always cause a faint whisper of happiness. People slow down a little without realising. Then the birds melt in the greenery and become invisible.

The monkeys are not citizens of this country. They change it every time they come. They shoot through the trees, and the terraces and balconies like their great ancestor had once ripped through an enemy kingdom. No fires burn on their tails like that ancestor, but they have the same scandalous sliver of energy. They don’t have rights like the dogs or the peacocks. Their shadows always prick the air with shouts and cries. Sometimes, a guard’s whistle. But the monkeys know people don’t really hate them. People also like to look at them, not in the same way they steal glances at the peacocks, but in a perky sort of way. But people don’t like them enough. Most of them vanish from the balconies and the terraces and pull the children inside when the monkeys come.

The people hide inside most of the time. It’s too hot or too cold, or the air is too dirty. Sometimes, they fiddle with things. The long pole at the gate, cleaning brooms and watering pipes, the bicycles, motorbikes and the cars they drive. They remain invisible inside the villas, from which you can hear voices and sounds. At night, lights stare like eyes.

But the dogs can see the peacocks all the time. Even in the places the guards can’t, when they melt in the green hedges or sit like long-stemmed leaves on the trees. They are birds which can’t fly well. Patiently, the dogs watch them.

The dogs always know when the monkeys arrive. Even though they are hard to see. They shoot through trees and terraces. Light tremors run through the place whenever a monkey comes. The peacocks are always alert about the dogs. Their rough smell, their hanging teeth. The peacocks are puzzled by the monkeys, who float through the branches without flying. They like asbestos sheds and the blue canopies of houses under construction, and the water tanks above the house terraces.

The monkeys see the dogs and the peacocks. They darken the sky over the dogs to reach garbage bins with lids uncovered. They are a bit puzzled by the peacocks, who don’t seem to eat the kind of things thrown out from the houses. Why do they like living here?

Majumdar is the author of five novels and three books of criticism, most recently, The Amateur and The Remains of the Body