Locals
The animal kingdom suffers. Its not only the human, vegetable and mineral.
Yesterday near the main square of Darjeeling.. chourastra or something, suspended on a telephone wire above the lane was a mangy and harassed looking mother monkey clutching her cub, crossing the ‘road’ .. 3 meters up as simians do... Dangling on the wires she scuttled across.. They were the only monkeys I have seen up in darjeeling. I guess the English shot them for practice and drove them away for good.
Another thing the English liked doing here was to shoot tiger. I read that on one expedition, king george v who was visiting with his son.. (edward vii I think… the guy who wised up, abdicated andran off with his gf. hehhe. ) Well. They shot 80 tiger in the forest that is now chitwan park in nepal. The tiger has been basically driven to extinction as is well known. Largely by such gentlemen I’d say…. much to the delight of the villagers who have capitalized on this and other things to sell the forest out completely .. I imagine..
the lion that roamed this part of the world succumed in the 19th century already.. there are a few rhino in parks..
I came across an elephant in bodhgaya… one only. So far in india.. he was happy enough .. but not very. I doubt that he was getting enough to eat .. there was no water in the river for him to wash….
Oh.. one day in kathmandu I went for a walk to the pashupati nath.. hindu temple.. I didn’t go in as they wanted to charge me for it.. I did go around the back to the small park there .. I sat down at a shrine on the bhagwati river to catch my breath there was a saddhu in the shed looking after it.... After a few minutes monkeys started pouring out of one huge tree over the river.. they poured out.. there must have been hundreds of wild monkeys there.. they were like ants coming out of a nest.. J
One puss cat I saw in the hostel in Kathmandu. I suspect better-off people have them at home. ( I never got near receiving an invitation to any home there.. it must be me.)
Cows of course are popular in places like Varanasi, among sectors of the populace at least. (everyone knows. It’s capital of the cow-belt U.P.) . and can be seen freely roaming around or seated majestically in the middle of the flow of traffic…(there must be pictures of them on the web but I cant really get there right now..) in Varanasi I noted quite a few rats as well.. I saw only one cat there….one! A poor mangy decimated thing that looked more like a cartoon than a cat.. there were dog-packs there as well but not like here in Darjeeling..
In Darjeeling there are so many dogs it’s a bit unnerving… at night.. they bark and growl.. fight.. yelp.. in the day they like to lie around on the road in packs ostensibly asleep, of about 10.. they arenot big dogs and are not formally aggressive.. but they are wild dogs and best left alone.
I have seen no rat here. I guess that is the wisdom behind letting so many dogs roam the street. I guess they keep the monkeys at bay as well.
As for horses ,,, well.. the unfortunate ponys that are forced to drag tongas .. overloaded with people and produce is sad.. they are whipped and obviously treated very harshly.. noone seems to care for horses here. I haven’t really seen one... just stunted ponys.. ive seen a couple of half breeds and one Arabian. .. that’s it. ( my grandfather’s business was horses and the family company bred and sold horse to India amongst other places.)
A couple of pusscats that someone obviously cares for are about the hostel where I am now.. I doubt that they would spend long out. But its an indication that Darjeeling is a degree more cat friendly than other parts.
As for birds, crows and pigeons and minahs.. that’s all.. I saw one eagle.. don’t recall where… that’s it.. in the whole time here. I read there are hundreds of species in the national parks.. right. They’d better stay there if they know whats good for them.
India has pretty well lost contact with the animal kingdom but there are zoos and soi suppose there is still a chance for some of goddo’s species.
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