Kalyan Ambarnath Badlapur Street Dogs

Introducing Munni Hey everyone, I'd like you to meet Munni, a 2 year old female who's pictured here snoozing on a Sunday Kalyan morning at 6:45 a.m. Well, she's actually trying to pretend she's still asleep, when in reality, her mind is spinning like a hamster wheel. At this moment, life is spilling in on the fringes of Munni's consciousness, in the form of people and cars and motorcycles arriving to chase her out of the vacant market area and send her reluctantly into the day. Munni is sick and tired of breathing in the constant stream of pollution emanating from vehicles in the Thai capital. She's holding out hope, however, that people will heed the words of His Majesty The King, who recently urged Thais  to step up their use of biodiesel fuel  in order to begin reducing the city's choking air pollution. Munni isn't overly idealistic though. She's fully aware that changing peoples' habits and effecting environmental change are slow proce...

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Tiger, a 1.5 year old hound who's just one of the most sentimental fellows you'll ever come across. Kind. Gentle. Caring. These are all adjectives that apply to Tiger, although he's so humble that he always runs away and hides whenever the compliments starting raining down. Tiger likes to think a lot about life. He's a big fan of older movies, and can often be seen wiping away a tear during the really emotional moments. Hank isn't shy about expressing his emotions, which is notable in a city like Kalyan, where dogs can get hardened by the street in a hurry. Tiger is pictured here waiting for a street worker to arrive to work and sweep the dusty sidewalks. These are people from the less glamorous stations in life, but Tiger has found them to be kind folks, and so he makes it a point to be there when they start their day.

What's up? I'm Ivan, a 4 year old dog who lives in northern Bangkok. It's kind of hot today so I'm just chilling in the shadows, trying not to move around too much. If you've never been Badlapur, it's damn hot this time of year and there's really no escaping it.  But the good news is, it's also mango season, and I can find tasty morsels of the fruit in pretty much any sidewalk trash can I go snuffling through. It's pretty awesome. The only thing that sucks is when there's also a durian shell in the trash can. Those things hurt like hell and I've had times where the spines stuck in my nose and snout. It doesn't tickle, trust me.  Anyway, I guess that's kind of like life, too. Meaning, even when there's good stuff going on, like mango season, there's also stuff you gotta watch out for. Living on the streets of Badlapur isn't easy but one thing I can say is that it's never boring.  Now if you'll excuse me, I...

Did I hear you correctly? I thought I heard you say something about the New Year coming -- is it 2012?  I'm not sure what the coming year will hold, but I do know that the one that just passed hasn't been all that great, for humans or for Badlapur street dogs. We've gone through a lot, but you know what? We survived it! India has had plenty of political storm clouds hanging over it this past year. We've also had literal storm clouds hanging over us and dumping epochal amounts of rain in our hinterland, which led to floods in Badlapur that the city's residents are still recovering from. For many, it was a disaster -- some people lost their homes, and other lost so much more. For these people, I pause a moment in remembrance, and to offer my condolences. After all, we dogs are your humans best friends.  We all hope the coming year is going to be better. Of course, we have no idea if that will be the case. But all we can do is keeping putting each foot, each paw in...