It's a Dogs Life

Another long hiatus from blogging and I return apologetic as ever, both for not updating my own blog and for not taking the time out to read any other blogs. What's a guy to do, there's much work and little time to do it. The other day I had to leave the institute early just so I could get home early and clean up my room and wash some clothes.
But that's not what this post's about. Confusion had commented in my previous post the pictures helped in visualizing what i was talking about and Nothingman added that it was time I got myself a phone with a camera. Well... hard cheese, all I can do about it is try extra hard describing stuff.
On that note I think I'll begin with Kadugodi, the area in which I live. I think I mentioned in some previous post that it was a bit of a village, well that doesn't really do it justice. Kadugodi is actually more like an urban village, something you tend to find on the outskirts of any large city. There are narrow alleys, flanked by open drains through which thick black streams flow, there are the cows, the chickens and then the stray dogs.
I think I first developed a paranoia against stray dogs when one bit me when I was a kid. Since then, I've never managed to walk past a stray without my heart taking on a life of it's own. Some times it gets so bad, I wonder how nobody else manages to hear it.
There are so many dogs here, it would be impossible to keep count, according to someone who knows about these things, they've all been neutered, but that doesn't seem right because behind every bitch there runs a pack of puppies, just waiting to grow up and scare the shit out of me.
What I hate about them the most though is the fact that when compared to me, they seem to be leading quite a good life. Unlike most strays, they don't spend all day looking for food and that leads me to believe someone is feeding them. Thus freed of this concern, they spend the whole day, either sleeping or sunning themselves, what time is left, they employ in waging large scale gang war on rivals from adjoining alleys.
Getting stuck in between one of these is like hell. Normally i somehow manage to muster up enough courage to slip past dogs that are sleeping, scratching themselves or pursuing other such trivial activities. Once they start barking, try as I might, I wouldn't walk near them for all the fags in China.
My roommate observed that they idyllic life isn't that great, due to the density of dogs packed into the area, the territories of gangs are typically restricted to a single alley or occasionally to an adjoining stretch of the main road. Any dog that dares set a paw outside its demarcated territory is immediately set upon by dozens of its canine rivals. So far from leading a totally carefree existence, they too are prisoners of their own canine instinct.
Within friendly territory, however, they are free to chase after their tails, snap at flies, chase after speeding cars or pursue any random whim with dogged determination.
They have one tendency in particular that fascinates me, their self-appointed role as moral and social watchdogs. If a vehicle passes through the lanes at a relatively sane speed, they will ignore it, sometimes even consenting to get out of the way. Anyone who makes the mistake of driving fast suddenly finds a whole pack barking their bloody heads off chasing after him. Then there are the rag-pickers. While they ignore the regular morning trash collectors, they seem to hate rag-pickers. They're almost as class conscious as people. They seem to single out the poor and very obviously unwashed as targets for their wrath.
Then there is their mob-mentality, if one dog barks, every other one in a 200 meter radius will heed the call and come to investigate, it's funny sometimes to come upon a pack of dogs, all barking in different directions, sometimes I suspect, they just like the sound of their own voices. Or it would be funny had I not been so damn scared.
It's scary sometimes, the similarity between dogs and us, they're as vivid a reminder as any of our lowly origins.