All Fur Love

IT’S RAINING CATS AND DOGS IN THE WORLD OF INDIAN LITERARY ANTHOLOGIES

- Manjula Padmanabhan

Funny, sad and sometimes astonishing, these two must-have books are really more about people than about their non-human companions. The writing is average, but the stories are riveting all the same.

They provide peepholes into the intimate lives of urban, privileged and educated pet owners talking about the love that goes beyond family, property, reason. The great majority of the narrators are Indians whose lives have been fundamentally altered by the sometimes absurd but often unbearable sweetness that takes the shape of furry, four-footed creatures.

Though conceived of and published entirely separately, the books might as well be companion volumes. A couple of writers appear in both. They contain illustrations and photographs but they’re not aimed at children. They’re handsome and well-designed but both contain small fleas in the form of proofing errors. It’s not possible to say which book is better than the other, any more than it’s possible to say which is better, cat or dog.

Cat People (CAT) includes pieces of narrative fiction while The Book of Dog (DOG) is almost entirely first-person documentary. In both books, there are many instances of aliases and initials being used in the place of complete names. Perhaps a sign of the number of famous people who appear at centre-stage or in the wings?

There are more stories in DOG, but most are only a few pages long.