86/ 100 Rocky and Moon

In amongst the traffic chaos and luxury high-rise tower blocks of Bangalore sits the large and beautiful tree-filled Cubbon Park. The location of our hotel meant, quite serendipitously, that we usually had to walk through the park to get to all the places we wanted to visit. The only downside was that there was always something there to distract us so, in actuality, we spent quite a bit of our time in the city simply hanging about this wonderful green space instead of seeing all the things that tourists were supposed to see.

In amongst the plentiful ancient trees, courting young couples, and signs warning about snakes there were a myriad of happy dogs. A few were street dogs who had chosen to live there in spite of the park warden with the big stick (the high-end picnic snacks were probably worth it), but many were actual pets on a lead.

Watching the indie dogs purposefully trying to get the tethered pets to play with them was quite amusing. Many of the owned dogs were small, fuzzy and fancy varieties and the much larger indies would rush right up to them, run in a circle and then scurry away again whilst the owners of the little dogs tried to keep control of their two or three whirling dervishes who would be systematically destroying the carefully laid-out food and blankets. Dozing with your dog in the park probably looked great on Instagram, but in reality it seemed pretty stressful.

Folk in the park were really keen to chat to us about our travels and our lives in the UK and generally seemed bemused as to why two tourists would be wandering around looking at trees. Their desire to chat meant that I could quiz them about their dogs as well as tell them that the chilly 20℃ winter weather there was the same as our summer weather here.

In the picture above the fuzzy old guy in the middle is called Rocky. In his owner’s words “He comes here to the park every Sunday to meet the ladies. He runs about after them for two hours then gets tired and has to have a rest.” Exhausting, but still a good way to spend a Sunday.

The dog below is called Moon. She’s actually a rescue from the streets of Bangalore. Her current owners found her injured when she was a young puppy. They took her to a vet for treatment, but when she was better her mother didn’t want her back so they kept her. If you’re wondering why she is called Moon it’s because her owner’s name is Purnima—Hindi for full moon.

Purnima is a popular name given to both boys and girls and carries associations of completeness, brightness and calm. Little Moon, ‘rescued’ from the streets was definitely full of brightness, but she was about as calm as an Indian wedding party. You can see from the photograph that sitting for three seconds was about 2.5 seconds too long.