Chhavi Noticed This! » animals

carriage cat

chhavi — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:32:05 +0000

I came across this beauty scared stiff because a very ill-meaning man was trying to set a dog on her, but the dog just wouldn’t get it. Good for the dog
Man and dog moseyed off and the cat finally uncurled her tail and then rolled around to get extra pats and cuddles, looking very much in charge of the carriage.
You know where this rickshaw is, in Mumbai, don’t you?

Oh and this one was taken with my new Samsung Nexus S which has no zoom but is pretty good, eh?

you lie down with dogs

chhavi — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:19:44 +0000

…you wake up with fleas? And what about the dog?
This is one of the things I totally love about Bombay. I’ve never seen it anywhere else. This is a daytime example of someone sharing his bedroll, perhaps unknowingly, with a four-legged friend.
But if you’ve driven past the homeless at night – near VT, Dadar, Worli naka, anywhere – you’ll see man, dog, cat, even a rat, sharing space, food, love.
I <3 it

eww. or, rather, ewe?

chhavi — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:25:18 +0000

This actually says “The myth of youth guardian angel” and then the rest of the text says “enhance body energy; revitalizing to the skin” – 60 capsules made from the placenta of sheep.

Err. Right, then. The damn thing says “myth” and people still buy it? The elixir of youth based on not even a half-claim. If I remember right, these cost something like USD 100! Holy cow! Or sheep. Or something.

happy new year

chhavi — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:21:10 +0000

Sometimes I really do think it’s a dog’s life. And then I see the strays shivering in the cold or dripping in the monsoon rain and feel bad for them. I guess Bombay is still kinder to them than other, less temperate parts of our country. This critter lives in the shadow of one of the largest temples in Bombay. But he has it made in the shade. Every time I see him, he’s found a new spot to beat the heat. We’ve never talked, but I suspect he’s a happy little fellow, based on his profoundly mellow expression. I know, first a flirty Batman, now anthropomorphism taken to a fresh height. It’s pathetic

Flutterby landing

chhavi — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:00:04 +0000

Behind Ta Prom in Angkor Thom, as my fellow travelers meditated on the incredible roots of the trees that have taken over the ancient temple, this fellow came along and perched on me.
I waited for a long time for him to get moving so I could capture how dazzling his iridescent his tiny blue/black wings were – but he flew too fast and in quick bursts which made all the motion pictures totally blurry.
He flew off and came back to perch on my finger three times in total – and I have no idea what made my finger so attractive. But there he was. And I wasn’t complaining about being so favored!

and now what?

chhavi — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:17:51 +0000

My mother said after she’d visited the Louvre, she felt this sense of satiation and then faced a big question mark: a lifelong dream had been realized. What on earth came next? That’s how I felt.

Thanks to: Kwantu game reserve, The Fantastic 5 contest at Web18, Blish for the online support,& South African Tourism for making it happen.

zoo

chhavi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:01:03 +0000

In March, I visited Rani Baug, which houses both Mumbai’s zoo and the Victoria & Albert Museum, now the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla. We had such perfect timing, we chanced upon the albino peacock just as he unfurled his beautiful tail and tried to get the attention of the very coy peahen (visible on a perch on the left.) It was gorgeous! Very soap opera-esque. Yeah! Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo We saw sleeping rhinos, a python, gazelle, neelgay, sambar, beautiful birds, including one of paradise – all with bad or no signage. The bird of paradise, an unusual red and green specimen was identified as a “mynah” – a terrible travesty.
The only decent sign we saw, however, was … audacious in its sheer stupidity. Click on the peacock picture to see the only sign of explanation

yum :)

chhavi — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:31:22 +0000

Is this bliss or is this bliss? I’m not trying to romanticize the life of this beast of labor or anthropomorphize this dude here but I caught sight of him recently at Warden Road and he was so striking, I had to stop and video him. I swear to you, he looked like he had hit hay nirvana. He was smacking his lips loudly and his eyes rolled back into his head. I think there was no doubt whatsoever that he was beaming to himself in sheer happiness. So I stopped to watch, and soon a small crowd of people had also stopped to smile at the bull and each other. Well, all except the bull’s maalik. Guess he hadn’t gotten to his own fodder, yet.

Odyssey ;)

chhavi — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:39:27 +0000

Heaven knows I have a backlog of photos to blog but fresh from a hectic eco/immersion-tourism trip to Orissa, I have a total Oriya hangover that begs to jump the queue. This is a frieze from the Sun Temple in Konark – where our tour guide shouted at us (just in terms of his volume, we figured he was unused to groups of only two!) I loved this dragonesque lion bullying the elephant. My trusty 6500 refused to work much of the time so all my cool photos of flaming Palash & simul, the baby goat I nearly ‘kid’napped, the baby elephant we played with at the Simplipal reserve, the Khairi river, sal leaf forests, the random-ass cups of *salted* tea I was continually served (grr) are all on the Samsung so cannot be posted here. We packed a lot into four days and I think I need a vacation from this vacation.

hell on earth

chhavi — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:56:34 +0000

One of our dogs died Friday. We rushed her to the Bombay SPCA because it’s the only all-night vet hospital we know of. They treated her with a callous irresponsibility we are still raging against. She would have died anyway, she was badly hurt, but they certainly protracted our pain and hers (the subject of a complaint letter that has been circulated widely now). But what stays beyond to haunt me beyond my grief is the horror of the place. Remember how the Scarecrow in Batman visits upon someone an image of their deepest abhorrence? For me, this would be it. In an atmosphere of despair that sucks your soul dry, abandoned and sick animals cry all the time. Howls, whimpers, almost-human shrieks rent the night. Anyone with a brain and a heart would be tormented. I’m never going there again. p.s. please don’t post condolence comments.