Animals: Part 1

Animals are a part of every-day life in India. And I don't mean house cats and pet dogs either, and I'm not referring only to people living in the country aka farmers. No, no here in Ahmedabad, a city of 5 million, rural meets urban everywhere you look. And this creates some..interesting...stories. So let me go down the list, starting with least exotic.

Cats and Dogs
Cats are somewhat rare here. I've seen a few on CEPT's campus, but they're street cats so are usually really skinny. However dogs are EVERYWHERE which is the reason, I'm assuming, that there aren't many cats... Unfortunate for me as I LOVEEEE kitties :( and am not so fond of the dogs. But there are stray dogs all along the sides of the roads roaming about. CEPT has a regular set of strays and often a set of puppies wandering around.

I was waiting for a train on the platform once, and there was a litter of little puppies on the other side. They were just the cutest, happiest puppies ever, and each time someone would pass they would run after him nipping at his heels. But luckily, the street dogs almost never bother you. Which is good, because I'm not a fan of being sniffed on, licked on, or jumped on by dogs at all...especially mangy street dogs. However once I was in a plaza talking to some friends, and was scared half to death by a warm, wet feeling on my toe...there was a little puppy, happily licking my big toe! :P

Pigeons
When I came to India, I thought cockroaches were the most disgusting creatures ever. Ugh. Couldn't stand them. Now, I know that I was wrong. Pigeons are by far the dirtiest, most disgusting, stupidest things alive. Cockroaches don't bother you; they don't leave a mess.

We live in a 10 story apartment building, and there are pigeons everywhere. We don't have an A/C and it's freakin hot all the time, so the doors and windows are usually open. We don't have a dryer; I don't know if anyone here does, so we hang our clothes on a line on the balcony. Ok, this is the worst ever. Because now we have a maid who comes once a week to wash our clothes. Prior to that I had been hand washing everything in a bucket in the bathroom. When you are constantly sweaty, you have a lot of clothes to wash, and after toiling away washing the clothes, you hang them on the balcony. Only to discover that the next day, pigeons have CRAPPED all over your CLEAN CLOTHES. >:( Don't you laugh! It's not funny!

They are constantly flying into the house via the open doors and leaving feathers. Or landing on the fan and knocking dust everywhere. Once while I was cooking, a pigeon flew in the kitchen, into the pantry and broke the lightbulb and spilled rice everywhere. Why do they want inside so badly??? It's not any cooler!?

And our balconies have become a pigeon incubator. They keep laying eggs there, and now we can't get them away. And pigeon babies are absolutely hideous! So then we have a whole family of pigeons living on our balcony for weeks. Finally the baby leaves, and then somehow we get another family that lays its eggs. Think about how nasty that would leave your balcony....disgusting!

But by far, the very, very worst: I came home one afternoon. I opened the door and there was pigeon shit everywhere! All over the floor in the living room. Someone had left the kitchen door open - this had to have been the work of several pigeons. One pigeon couldn't have created this much crap. There was crap on the couch, on the chair, on the TV. They came in through the kitchen so there was crap all over the floor there. And on the shelves, on the dishes, in the pantry. They spilled a bowl of spices. They even got into my room and crapped on my bedsheet. Needless to say, I WAS NOT HAPPY. Cleanup ensued with much cursing. Do you know how hard it is to get hardened bird crap off a tile floor? It's a pain!

So this, THIS is why pigeons are the worst. By far the worst. You NEVER have to worry about a cockroach reeking this much havoc.