Lesson 3: Strangers must smell funny

Whilst in Bombay, we wanted to learn more about the Doorstep School, a charity organisation that supports and sponsors the education of streetchildren in Bombay. Nooj, who has already been involved with the organisation for several years now, put us in touch with the organisation's founder, Bina. So we met Bina late on Friday afternoon, and she talked to us about the organisations and the initiatives it had undertaken.

Then she asked if she could take us to the field, so we could meet the children and and see their classes being conducted in the slums. We entered the narrow, dingy corridors of the first slum, and started cautiously making our way towards the centre, where the school had set up base in the midst of the little one-room homes, tightly packed up against eachother like coins in a roll. There was a raggedy old stray dog lying languidly in the sand, enjoying it's afternoon siesta. Bina stepped past him as we pressed on. The dog, sapped of all its energy under the direct glare of the sun, barely reacted. I stepped past him next. He barely twitched a muscle to shoo away a hovering fly. Then, just as Delta started to walk past him, the dogs nose suddenly pricked up. It cocked its ears and rose up to a sitting position in a sudden burst of alertness, and emitted a low-throated growl of warning.

We've probably just stepped in it's territory, I figured, and it'll stop when we walk a few more steps away. But it didn't. It wasn't about the territory, we suddenly realised. It was about Delta. Out of the hundred or so people passing through or just hanging out in that little area, it had picked the one white guy, and decided there was something different. And he wasn't having any of it. The dog followed us along for a little while growling threateningly the entire way, keeping all three of us on edge. Then, suddenly tiring of Delta, it headed off in its own direction, much to our relief, and we proceeded further into the slums to see the school. We laughed to ourselves on how odd it was that the dog had picked Delta out from the entire crowd, as the person to feel threatened by.

Half an hour later, having spent a thoroughly enjoyable time with the children and the classes, we were heading out of the slums from an entirely different direction than where we'd entered. We were deep in conversation about the school and its initiatives, when suddenly we heard a growl in the distance. It can't be, I thought, but yes, it was. The dog had somehow kept a watch out for Delta, had picked him out amongst the crowds in the distance, and came pounding towards us from more than a hundred yards away. Barking and growling loudly the entire way as it approached. It had actually been threatened enough by Delta's presence (white skin? different smell? American accent?) that it had hunted him out from the crowds to chase him out of the slums.

The dog didn't harm any of us in any way, but it sure made us all remark in wonder about it's uncanny discernment.
"I probably smell funny to him," Delta remarked, "just a scent he's never smelled before."