Do you know what I hate most? The sound of wheels on bags….when I hear it, I feel my intestines descend to my knees, all four of them; I feel my hair stand, my tail drop…the sound of those wheels mean just one thing: Mamu going away!

There was a time when Mamu traveled with shopping lists. From Gameboy cartridges to chocolates to linen water…Not anymore. The only person she makes an exception for is me. Particularly because she says I am the only one who doesn’t ever give her a list. So every city, she travels to, she find a pet store. Now I don’t like the word ‘pet’ but there is no going away from the lack of human imagination. I would have called it a companion store but stating the obvious is a very human trait…Anyway a pet store for me is also the litmus test to understand how a country views its pets….from bonnets for silly cats to a squeakie in the shape of a postman’s shoe… From what Mamu tells me, it ranges from the twee to the scary!

I wish I could go with Mamu though. She tells me of walking in the Sussex downs in England… The freedom to be off the leash, run and chase…Instead we have parks where companions such as I are allowed no entry.

She tells me of hotels in France where I would be permitted to stay with her, and I think of our malls that categorically state ‘ No pets and outside eatables allowed’ When I see a photograph of a Labrador lounge in a bookshop that Mamu's friend owns in Warsaw, I stifle a sigh: if only…

It occurs to me every now and then that humans are incapable of knowing how to regard the animal world . On the one hand, they have the Panchatantra where monkeys and tortoises, elephants and tigers are the characters who teach them how to go about becoming a decent human being. On the other hand, they will flog horses, make bulls carry loads they can barely manage, starve domestic elephants, sew the mouths of snakes and throw a stone at a dog just to hear it yelp in pain…

This incapacity to differentiate goes to extremes. Mamu, an insatiable collector of trivia has newspaper cuttings in a file that has me tottering between absolute horror and irrepressible giggles:

A five year old tribal girl in Orissa married to a dog as part of a ritual that would make her immune to attacks from animals, real and mythical. The newspaper states ‘ though the bridegroom went through the rituals with an alarmed look…the bride herself was convinced’.

A woman wedded a snake in recent times. The snake she was convinced was her husband from a previous birth.

A donkey that was summoned to a magistrate’s court as a witness in Kancheepuram.

And a viper that was handed over to the police on charges of murder!

They may worship their cows, monkeys, elephants and snakes. Paint one’s horns and make offerings to the other but Indians are not a nation of animal lovers.
As Mamu’s brother, a doctor, often reminds me: we don’t even value human life so how do you expect us to value animals?

Which is why in retrospect, it occurs to me that it was best that I wasn’t there for my book launch. I would have had silly humans cooing over me with a pretend ‘so sweet’, ‘so well behaved’ and getting me all worked up at the very hypocrisy of it …

I am glad that I stayed home and worried my bone…