I felt relieved. My family was not the only crazy one.
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On a morning normally reserved for rest & recuperation, a street in North Kolkata was packed with seekers, from ages 8 to 80. Happiness & companionship by the truckload, occasional irritation and an eventual great sadness - these people had experienced. The Sunday Galiff Street Pet Market, as always, was the answer to their needs.
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Along this narrowish tram-lined street near the Tala Bridge sat and roamed pet sellers of every sort. Transparent water filled pouches with many tints of fishes floated temptingly through the crowds on hands whose owners were unseen in the crowd. A spectacularly happy looking couple passed by, holding the snowy powder puff of a Pom pup in between them.
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Birds - fancy pigeons, parrots, munias, budgerigars, finches - whose shades would shame many an Asian Paints catalogue sat in cages placed just at the eyeline of the milling junta - I took care not to look too long lest I follow up on my wishes. Cuddly baby rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters in all their furriness looked out to their future. Not me, no, no, not me, I had to keep telling myself.
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Especially difficult to get away from, at a personal level, were the puppy stalls. Here an impossibly cute lil' Lab naughtily smiling and there the almost-paid-15K-and-brought-it-home Alsatian baby. A blur of tiny little tails wagging and the irresistible yipping that only puppies are capable of made me consider chucking my plans for the rest of the day and just stand there dazed.
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A week later, I took my mom to the Galiff Street market and realized that the tendency to stand dazed, looking at puppy stalls, refusing to move even when a tram showed up honking (yes, in true Kolkata fashion) was something that runs in the family. I blame my parents.
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I blame my parents for the way I turned out. For talking about dogs, unseen by us children, that passed away 50 years ago but still show up in family discussions ("Tiger! Oh, such a wonderful handsome dog!") more frequently than immediate ancestors; for adopting the turtle Michaelangelo brought in by floods from the river Narmada and eventually with broken hearts returned to it as his increased size required him to be; for being obsessed and observant of a world full of not only people but dogs, cats, birds, donkeys, pigs, cows, langurs, snakes, turtles, peacocks, mongooses - not human by definition but sometimes more human than humans.
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A giant billboard above the Galiff Street market prohibits the sale/purchase of wildlife as pets and promises stern punishment. That is, of course, a matter of vital concern as rapacious industrialization and demand for land push our thumbnail sized wild areas into ever smaller corners. The open is after all is where animals, especially birds, really belong. The wild must be fought for; every last inch of land retained and every species preserved.
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That said, keeping pets, of the non-exotic-not-a-lion-or-a-tiger type, serves a very different and special purpose, one that is at odds with some people's idea of the animal being "imprisoned" by the "human master". For most of us who have ever taken care of a non-human friend, it is not odd to have a conversation with something that clearly cannot reply likewise. Also, it is not very clear who is the actual master when X takes a dump wherever it chooses to and Y has to clean up after.
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The answer may come in the form of a woof or a purr or a chirp. The googly eyes of your goldfish as it swims up near the glass or the budgerigar's chirpiness as you approach has a lot to do with the food in your hand but also a trust that replaces the little critter's natural instinct to run away. That trust, earned by daily routine, does turn into responsibility when you need to get away from the house.
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The addiction, though, is difficult to get away from. We have moved out of the jungle into brick, stone and concrete nests centuries ago. We moved out only because we wanted to stay "safe", but in the process left something of our selves behind. In the song of a bird and its gymnastics on its perch rod; in the serene glide of fishes in their pretty glass enclosed worlds; in the mad circling dash of the dog, unsure of what to do with the extreme joy it has discovered, merely by your coming home for the day - we find it again.
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Let's call it - an animal connection.
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