Animals

Among all of the people crowding Kolkata, there are also a bunch of animals inhabiting this city. Although I've heard stories of monkeys in other parts of India, I have yet to see any here. I've also only seen one cow, another animal I was expecting a lot more of. I did see a group of sheep being led down a semi-major road once, but again, they aren't something I see day to day.

The animals I do see all the time are cats and dogs, with a strong majority of them being dogs. Almost anywhere I go, I can just look around and see at least one. Unlike pets in America, no one is taking care of these ones. They pretty much all look awful. They are clearly diseased. They are missing spots of hair or sometimes don't even have much hair left. They have unsightly growths all over them. I would probably be fearful of them, except that they move slowly and I have never seen them try to approach a human. They seem to split their time between sleeping and digging through garbage looking for food. Garbage, by the way, just sits in piles all over the place. It is one of the many factors contributing to the general stink of the city. Saturday was the first time that I saw one dead. It was laying on the side of the road. There was a swarm of flies all over it and the eye sockets were empty. I'm actually kind of surprised I haven't seen more.

Like so many other things in Kolkata, it is hard to see. I love animals, but these ones just make me cringe. In the midst of all the other problems, they don't seem all that important, but I still hate seeing them live such horrid lives. I'm not really sure why I felt like sharing all of this. It's just another part of my daily life here in Kolkata. It isn't the hardest thing I have to deal with, but it does get to me after a while.