Now it's so small it fits in my head. You must imagine a hotand humid place, bathed in sunshine and bright colours. Theriot of flowers is incessant3. There are trees, shrubs4 andclimbing plants in profusion5 – peepuls, gulmohurs, flames of theforest, red silk cottons, jacarandas, mangoes, jackfruits andmany others that would remain unknown to you if they didn'thave neat labels at their feet. There are benches. On thesebenches you see men sleeping, stretched out, or couples sitting,young couples, who steal glances at each other shyly andwhose hands flutter in the air, happening to touch. Suddenly,amidst the tall and slim trees up ahead, you notice two giraffesquietly observing you. The sight is not the last of yoursurprises. The next moment you are startled by a furiousoutburst coming from a great troupe6 of monkeys, only outdonein volume by the shrill7 cries of strange birds. You come to aturnstile. You distractedly pay a small sum of money. Youmove on. You see a low wall. What can you expect beyond alow wall? Certainly not a shallow pit with two mighty8 Indianrhinoceros. But that is what you find. And when you turn yourhead you see the elephant that was there all along, so big youdidn't notice it. And in the pond you realize those arehippopotamuses floating in the water. The more you look, themore you see. You are in Zootown!
Before moving to Pondicherry, Father ran a large hotel inMadras. An abiding9 interest in animals led him to the zoobusiness. A natural transition, you might think, fromhotelkeeping to zookeeping. Not so. In many ways, running azoo is a hotelkeeper's worst nightmare. Consider: the guestsnever leave their rooms; they expect not only lodging10 but fullboard; they receive a constant flow of visitors, some of whomare noisy and unruly. One has to wait until they saunter totheir balconies, so to speak, before one can clean their rooms,and then one has to wait until they tire of the view and returnto their rooms before one can clean their balconies; and thereis much cleaning to do, for the guests are as unhygienic asalcoholics. Each guest is very particular about his or her diet,constantly complains about the slowness of the service, andnever, ever tips. To speak frankly11, many are sexual deviants,either terribly repressed and subject to explosions of frenziedlasciviousness or openly depraved, in either case regularlyaffronting management with gross outrages12 of free sex andincest. Are these the sorts of guests you would want towelcome to your inn? The Pondicherry Zoo was the source ofsome pleasure and many headaches for Mr. San tosh Patel,founder, owner, director, head of a staff of fifty-three, and myfather.
To me, it was paradise on earth. I have nothing but thefondest memories of growing up in a zoo. I lived the life of aprince. What maharaja's son had such vast, luxuriant groundsto play about? What palace had such a menagerie? My alarmclock during my childhood was a pride of lions. They were noSwiss clocks, but the lions could be counted upon to roar theirheads off between five-thirty and six every morning. Breakfastwas punctuated13 by the shrieks14 and cries of howler monkeys,hill mynahs and Moluccan cockatoos. I left for school under thebenevolent gaze not only of Mother but also of bright-eyedotters and burly American bison and stretching and yawningorang-utans. I looked up as I ran under some trees, otherwisepeafowl might excrete on me. Better to go by the trees thatsheltered the large colonies of fruit bats; the only assault thereat that early hour was the bats' discordant15 concerts ofsqueaking and chattering16. On my way out I might stop by theterraria to look at some shiny frogs glazed17 bright, bright green,or yellow and deep blue, or brown and pale green. Or it mightbe birds that caught my attention: pink flamingoes or blackswans or one-wattled cassowaries, or something smaller, silverdiamond doves, Cape18 glossy19 starlings, peach-faced lovebirds,Nanday conures, orange-fronted parakeets. Not likely that theelephants, the seals, the big cats or the bears would be up anddoing, but the baboons20, the macaques, the mangabeys, thegibbons, the deer, the tapirs, the llamas, the giraffes, themongooses were early risers. Every morning before I was outthe main gate I had one last impression that was bothordinary and unforgettable: a pyramid of turtles; the iridescentsnout of a mandrill; the stately silence of a giraffe; the obese,yellow open mouth of a hippo; the beak-and-claw climbing of amacaw parrot up a wire fence; the greeting claps of a shoebill'sbill; the senile, lecherous21 expression of a camel. And all theseriches were had quickly, as I hurried to school. It was afterschool that I discovered in a leisurely22 way what it's like to havean elephant search your clothes in the friendly hope of findinga hidden nut, or an orang-utan pick through your hair for ticksnacks, its wheeze23 of disappointment at what an empty pantryyour head is. I wish I could convey the perfection of a sealslipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point topoint or a lion merely turning its head. But language foundersin such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want tofeel it.
In zoos, as in nature, the best times to visit are sunrise andsunset. That is when most animals come to life. They stir andleave their shelter and tiptoe to the water's edge. They showtheir raiments. They sing their songs. They turn to each otherand perform their rites24. The reward for the watching eye andthe listening ear is great. I spent more hours than I can counta quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions oflife that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weirdand delicate as to stupefy the senses.
I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as Ihave about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformedpeople think animals in the wild are "happy" because they are"free". These people usually have a large, handsome predator25 inmind, a lion or a cheetah26 (the life of a gnu or of an aardvarkis rarely exalted). They imagine this wild animal roaming aboutthe savannah on digestive walks after eating a prey27 thataccepted its lot piously28, or going for callis-thenic runs to stayslim after overindulging. They imagine this animal overseeing itsoffspring proudly and tenderly, the whole family watching thesetting of the sun from the limbs of trees with sighs ofpleasure. The life of the wild animal is simple, noble andmeaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked menand thrown into tiny jails. Its "happiness" is dashed. It yearnsmightily for "freedom" and does all it can to escape. Beingdenied its "freedom" for too long, the animal becomes ashadow of itself, its spirit broken. So some people imagine.
This is not the way it is.
Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessitywithin an unforgiving social hierarchy29 in an environment wherethe supply of fear is high and the supply of food low andwhere territory must constantly be defended and parasitesforever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such acontext? Animals in the wild are, in practice, free neither inspace nor in time, nor in their personal relations. In theory –that is, as a simple physical possibility – an animal could pickup31 and go, flaunting32 all the social conventions and boundariesproper to its species. But such an event is less likely to happenthan for a member of our own species, say a shopkeeper withall the usual ties – to family, to friends, to society – to dropeverything and walk away from his life with only the sparechange in his pockets and the clothes on his frame. If a man,boldest and most intelligent of creatures, won't wander fromplace to place, a stranger to all, beholden to none, why wouldan animal, which is by temperament33 far more conservative? Forthat is what animals are, conservative, one might even sayreactionary. The smallest changes can upset them. They wantthings to be just so, day after day, month after month.
Surprises are highly disagreeable to them. You see this in theirspatial relations. An animal inhabits its space, whether in a zooor in the wild, in the same way chess pieces move about achessboard – significantly. There is no more happenstance, nomore "freedom", involved in the whereabouts of a lizard34 or abear or a deer than in the location of a knight35 on achessboard. Both speak of pattern and purpose. In the wild,animals stick to the same paths for the same pressing reasons,season after season. In a zoo, if an animal is not in its normalplace in its regular posture36 at the usual hour, it meanssomething. It may be the reflection of nothing more than aminor change in the environment. A coiled hose left out by akeeper has made a menacing impression. A puddle37 has formedthat bothers the animal. A ladder is making a shadow. But itcould mean something more. At its worst, it could be that mostdreaded thing to a zoo director: a symptom, a herald38 oftrouble to come, a reason to inspect the dung, tocross-examine the keeper, to summon the vet39. All this becausea stork40 is not standing41 where it usually stands!
But let me pursue for a moment only one aspect of thequestion.
If you went to a home, kicked down the front door, chasedthe people who lived there out into the street and said, "Go!
You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!" – do you think theywould shout and dance for joy? They wouldn't. Birds are notfree. The people you've just evicted42 would sputter43, "With whatright do you throw us out? This is our home. We own it. Wehave lived here for years. We're calling the police, youscoundrel."Don't we say, "There's no place like home"? That's certainlywhat animals feel. Animals are territorial44. That is the key totheir minds. Only a familiar territory will allow them to fulfill45 thetwo relentless46 imperatives47 of the wild: the avoidance of enemiesand the getting of food and water. A biologically sound zooenclosure – whether cage, pit, moated island, corral, terrarium,aviary or aquarium48 – is just another territory, peculiar49 only inits size and in its proximity50 to human territory. That it is somuch smaller than what it would be in nature stands toreason. Territories in the wild are large not as a matter of tastebut of necessity. In a zoo, we do for animals what we havedone for ourselves with houses: we bring together in a smallspace what in the wild is spread out. Whereas before for usthe cave was here, the river over there, the hunting grounds amile that way, the lookout51 next to it, the berries somewhereelse – all of them infested52 with lions, snakes, ants, leeches53 andpoison ivy54 – now the river flows through taps at hand's reachand we can wash next to where we sleep, we can eat wherewe have cooked, and we can surround the whole with aprotective wall and keep it clean and warm. A house is acompressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilledclose by and safely. A sound zoo enclosure is the equivalentfor an animal (with the noteworthy absence of a fireplace orthe like, present in every human habitation). Finding within itall the places it needs – a lookout, a place for resting, foreating and drinking, for bathing, for grooming55, etc. – andfinding that there is no need to go hunting, food appearing sixdays a week, an animal will take possession of its zoo space inthe same way it would lay claim to a new space in the wild,exploring it and marking it out in the normal ways of itsspecies, with sprays of urine perhaps. Once this moving-in ritualis done and the animal has settled, it will not feel like anervous tenant56, and even less like a prisoner, but rather like alandholder, and it will behave in the same way within itsenclosure as it would in its territory in the wild, includingdefending it tooth and nail should it be invaded. Such anenclosure is subjectively57 neither better nor worse for an animalthan its condition in the wild; so long as it fulfills58 the animal'sneeds, a territory, natural or constructed, simply is, withoutjudgment, a given, like the spots on a leopard59. One might evenargue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it wouldopt for living in a zoo, since the major difference between azoo and the wild is the absence of parasites30 and enemies andthe abundance of food in the first, and their respectiveabundance and scarcity60 in the second. Think about it yourself.
Would you rather be put up at the Ritz with free room serviceand unlimited61 access to a doctor or be homeless without a soulto care for you? But animals are incapable62 of suchdiscernment. Within the limits of their nature, they make dowith what they have.
A good zoo is a place of carefully worked-out coincidence:
exactly where an animal says to us, "Stay out!" with its urineor other secretion63, we say to it, "Stay in!" with our barriers.
Under such conditions of diplomatic peace, all animals arecontent and we can relax and have a look at each other.
In the literature can be found legions of examples of animalsthat could escape but did not, or did and returned. There isthe case of the chimpanzee whose cage door was left unlockedand had swung open. Increasingly anxious, the chimp64 began toshriek and to slam the door shut repeatedly – with a deafeningclang each time – until the keeper, notified by a visitor, hurriedover to remedy the situation. A herd65 of roe-deer in aEuropean zoo stepped out of their corral when the gate wasleft open. Frightened by visitors, the deer bolted for the nearbyforest, which had its own herd of wild roe-deer and couldsupport more. Nonetheless, the zoo roe-deer quickly returned totheir corral. In another zoo a worker was walking to his worksite at an early hour, carrying planks66 of wood, when, to hishorror, a bear emerged from the morning mist, headingstraight for him at a confident pace. The man dropped theplanks and ran for his life. The zoo staff immediately startedsearching for the escaped bear. They found it back in itsenclosure, having climbed down into its pit the way it hadclimbed out, by way of a tree that had fallen over. It wasthought that the noise of the planks of wood falling to theground had frightened it.
But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close themall down if you want (and let us hope that what wildliferemains can survive in what is left of the natural world). Iknow zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion facesthe same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague themboth.
The Pondicherry Zoo doesn't exist any more. Its pits arefilled in, the cages torn down. I explore it now in the onlyplace left for it, my memory.
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1
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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baboons
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| n.狒狒( baboon的名词复数 ) | |
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lecherous
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| adj.好色的；淫邪的 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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wheeze
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| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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predator
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| n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者 | |
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cheetah
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| n.(动物)猎豹 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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hierarchy
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| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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pickup
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| n.拾起，获得 | |
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flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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vet
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| n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查 | |
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stork
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| n.鹳 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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evicted
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| v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sputter
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| n.喷溅声；v.喷溅 | |
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territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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imperatives
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| n.必要的事( imperative的名词复数 )；祈使语气；必须履行的责任 | |
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aquarium
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| n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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grooming
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| n. 修饰, 美容，（动物）梳理毛发 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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subjectively
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| 主观地； 臆 | |
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fulfills
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| v.履行（诺言等）( fulfill的第三人称单数 )；执行（命令等）；达到（目的）；使结束 | |
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leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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chimp
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| n.黑猩猩 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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