When the hours seem hard to get by and days even more so, one often turns to the great language spoken by an animal. Be it the ravages of war, pestilence, loneliness or time itself, the love shared with an animal is often more humanising than with one’s own kind.
And sometimes that is also how ideas are born.
The coronavirus pandemic saw many people adopting animals. Photographer Rohit Chawla chose to focus his lens on stray dogs. He has now amassed over 10,000 such pictures, some of which have come together in a recently published book.
Chawla speaks of how the first picture, which is on the book cover, came about. He says, “Every morning at 5, before the curfew hours, I would visit Vagator beach. I would see this migrant worker who used to come to the same spot every day.” This man, Chawla learnt eventually, was from Bihar and would simply stand there, looking longingly at the vastness ahead sealed with the overwhelming clouds — he was stuck in Goa, like so many others everywhere. He continues, “Then one day, all the elements conspired and there were these clouds, there was a boat, a bird and, of course, his dog.”
Chawla showed the photo to his friend, the poet Jeet Thayil, who gave him a title for it — Rain Dogs.
“It became a template for all the pictures I wanted to shoot,” says Chawla. None of the pictures was a happy accident though. Chawla would walk for miles every day, trying for the perfect mise en scène for his actors. “It was a difficult time, but I didn’t want the pictures to look sad in any way. These dogs were survivors, I wanted to show their resilience,” he says.
The book Rain Dogs is about dogs on the beaches of Goa. It is a coming together of many elements, including crisp little pieces by 30 writers in a variety of styles.
“Some 60-65 million streeties live in India, making us the country with the largest population of homeless dogs in the world,” writes Katharina Kakar. Elsewhere, Manu Joseph notes, “In the relationship between the average Indian and animals there is a quality of antiquity. The antiquity is in the absence of over-articulation about what animals mean to him. We just co-exist.”
Loving dogs or disliking them strongly — especially strays — or even indifference is a subjective matter. It was around 2017 when Sraboni Datta, 49, was going through a difficult phase. That was when Luki, all of three months, came into her life. Datta had initially sheltered the Indie pup on the terrace, to protect him from the objections of the housing society. But one night, she brought him home. That’s when her “healing” began. “Luki taught me the power of the words surrender, trust and resilience,” says the mother of a 20-year-old, who runs a boutique. “I have three children now, including another Indie called Jhinti.” Dutta feeds the neighbourhood strays daily, notwithstanding the fact that most neighbours — who have nicknamed her “NGO didi” — do not take kindly to it.
Says Chawla, “The real purpose of the book is to raise awareness about the Indie. We, as a country, are still obsessed with pedigree dogs, which is fine as they too are gorgeous and beautiful. But most of these pedigree dogs come from an illegal trade, certain practices that are foul.”
Chawla, who is known for his art and aesthetics, adopted three Indies during the pandemic. He named the first dog Marco, so naturally the second had to be called Polo. The last one to find him wouldn’t listen to anyone and therefore is called Hero. Chawla says, “Having an Indie is like having an Einstein at home. These dogs are resilient and wise, having been to a finishing school called India.”
Street dogs have been in the news often, with some of the stories being outright horrific. Their population only seems to be escalating, causing great inconvenience and fear in many places, especially among children and the elderly. According to a recent report, there are 2,000 cases of dog bites in Delhi every day. However, those in the know will tell you that ABC or animal birth control programmes are missing from the agenda of the authorities in most areas, or not undertaken effectively.
“It depends on who approaches them with a request for sterilisation of stray dogs,” says Sanjukta Das, 40, who is a resident of New Alipore in Calcutta. Das is not associated with any dog lovers’ association, formal or informal, but years of participation in the lives of stray animals have sharpened her knowledge of how things work.
Das continues, “There are times when a dog, post sterilisation, is dropped off not in its own area but elsewhere. Also, at least seven or eight of the neutered dogs I have kept count of died within a few days, which means either they were already ailing or the surgery had gone wrong. And three, a few of them come into heat even after being neutered, which again raises the question...” A conversation that perhaps does not find the space it deserves.
And then there are Chawla’s bleak but beautiful pages from Rain Dogs. “All the proceeds of the book are going to dog charities. ABC is the only way you can solve the animal-human conflict mushrooming in residential colonies across the country,” says the lensman who, in his own words, was rescued by a whole community of dogs during those 300 days of pandemic isolation.