dog-sitting in dogville, dogeatdog

spent the weekend house-sitting and dog-sitting for a friend in the far wilds of eastern Noida, (New Okhla Industrial Development Area, Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, part of the National Capital Region) a strange territory of very empty roads, obnoxiously large and ugly fortified villas with football field size gardens, and on the vacant plots adjacent, the flimsy hovels of those who are here, temporarily, to build these ugly mansions. That, plus the construction dust flying along the empty, wide, very straight roads gives it a very, very 'Western' feeling... like all frontiers where someone stakes claim to the land and a lot of people can't, where the new is built, but something older is disposessed, where some people have God on their side, and other are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea....

I vent purple, but then Noida does that to you... it is weird. Noddy International Public School with Richie Rich drawn on its walls next to children of construction workers playing in the dust, with very little hope of an education, .... fucking unfairly surreal.

But dogs are weirder.
Blackie, the dog we were going to, well, sit - spent half of our first day there sulking under the bed, being surly and uncommunicative, despite all attempts at communication. That is, till i sat in Salil's wheelchair and wheeled around a bit, at which Blackie immediately scooted out from under the bed and became my best friend...
Or like the shaggy streetdog in our Jangpura street, who never recognises me as I walk past, but is always running to greet us when we get home in the car...

Maybe they're on to something...