Stray Dog City

For long, Bangalore was known as the Garden City. One could see trees lining almost all the roads, there were parks to be found everywhere, there was hardly any place in the city which didn’t have leafy canopy, and it had the best climate among the cities in the country. Then, probably in the 1980s, pubs sprung up across the city, and the city began to be known as the Pub City. Most of them weren’t much better than a local bar, but that didn’t deter people from calling them pubs. What probably did differentiate a pub from a bar those days could be that all the bars in those days were named after Hindu Gods or other celestial beings. Probably that ensured that they stayed in touch with our rich culture even as they were selling alcohol brewed using a Western culture. Then came the IT boom, and Bangalore successfully tapped it first and became the IT City. Anyway, nowadays, Bangalore is the undisputed Stray Dog City.

In 1985, when I first visited Bangalore, I remember seeing these fancy dog breeds being taken for a walk by their proud owners in the mornings. Even though people didn’t exactly know each others’ names, they definitely took enough time to smile at each other. This was a city with a hill station’s trappings. By 1998, when I returned back to the city, things had definitely moved along. With its enviable weather, the city was able to successfully project itself as the IT destination in the country, and all the major companies flocked to set their units up in the city. The old-timers were beginning to complain that the city was no longer the way it was. People came to the city from all over the country; so did the stray dogs.

A typical stray dog seen in Bangalore would be a muddy orange in color. Will we see a different color if we were to give these dogs a thorough wash is a question which I’ve never found an answer for. Of course, there are the spotted muddy orange or completely black varieties as well, but they aren’t as commonly seen as the fully orange ones. Color apart, they share a lot of similar traits. They are all fiercely territorial and don’t entertain any attempts of border transgressions. In fact, any attempt to sneak in and capture an inch of foreign land could result in the whole pack stopping all that they were doing, which would be nothing, and barking at the top of the voice. While most intruders take this as a sign to retreat, there are indeed a few adventurous ones which feel like testing out the proverb that barking dogs seldom bite. Of course, there’d always be a dog in that pack who had not heard of that proverb, and he would run towards his adversary at full tilt, barking all the time. This is the final sign for the intruder to retreat gracefully. When the pack sees one of them willing to disprove the proverb, they all decide to join that member and rush to the sensitive spot and take care of the terrorist.

Another common trait is their base camp generally being close to a bakery or an eatery. While this is no surprise, it is very surprising to see them happily munching on buns, glucose biscuits, and what nots. In fact, I’ve seen a couple of them having rice and sambar and occasionally look up at the hotel boy to wonder whether they’d get a small serving of either curd or rasam. Due to this strategic location, I am yet to find a struggling stray in Bangalore city; they are all pretty healthy. A couple of them near my office have even started dieting and refusing to eat anything other than biscuits with nutrients and low on sugar, milk, etc.

The way these dogs detest those that aren’t clean is another trait commonly seen. Whether it be people or vehicles or anything else, if they don’t see stuff that isn’t of the better quality, they start off. I have personally seen a dog take a monstrous truck on just because the wheels had a bit of mud in it. That dog can still be seen in Koramangala 8th block, near the National Dairy Development Board, walking around with a malformed fracture in one of its forefeet. Of course, that was one lucky stupid dog!

Due to their impressive network, these dogs have a great mechanism to evade law (read: the dog catcher). The moment they see a vehicle, or even a person, closely resembling law, these canines show great skills in vanishing from the face of the city. It won’t be until a day later that most of them would come out of hiding. That said, they are always pretty confident about their lawyers (read: PETA, CUPA, and other dog lovers) who would do all that is in their power to get these animals back on the city roads. When an owl met with an accident near our company premises and a few animal-loving colleagues had called these lawyers, they weren’t pretty interested. After all, owls aren’t dogs, and they definitely aren’t stray dogs.

Apart from being a threat to the general public, this Orange brigade is a threat to science too. All the neutering procedures carried out by the officials seem to have little effect on the reproductive capabilities of these fellows. The claims continue to be strong regarding their birth control; only, their births continue to be more. With such a strong network backed by strong powers, it is little surprise that the city has a orange hue to it nowadays, and not all of it is dust.