ChotiToday I went to the Mumbai Press Club, to a press conference given by my friend Jonathan Balcombe. He was touring India speaking at medical and veterinary colleges on animal sentience. I skipped out a bit early to go meet Abodh and purchase some The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) products. The make some really neat tote bags with whimsical line drawings of dogs. (Buy them here.)

Since Abodh was a volunteer for WSD for six years before he started work there, he has spent a lot of time on the streets of Mumbai getting to know the dogs. It seemed to me that he knows all of them by name. When he found out that I was headed back to the Mumbai Press Club, he told me to look for Choti, a dog who lives on the pavement just outside the Club with a woman who also lives on the pavement just outside the club.

I went back to the press conference, which was just wrapping up. Jonathan and I waited for his taxi outside the gate of the club and, sure enough, just to the right of the gate was a woman and a sleek white, brown and black dog. I asked the woman, “Iska naam kya hai?” (“What is his/her name?”) And she replied, “Choti.”

Choti showing off her WSD tattooI took a couple photos of Choti (with her human companion’s permission). In one, she is looking all sweet and cute and, in the other, she has her back legs sprawled apart. After I came home, I emailed both to Adodh and referred to the second one as “Choti in a rather undignified pose.” Abodh wrote back that, in fact, Choti was showing off the WSD tattoo inside her thigh that indicates the date that she was sterilized. What a smart dog!

After meeting Choti, I attended a talk Jonathan gave at K.C. College nearby.