Sassoon Dog

100 Dogs of India Project - Day 93

Canine Conflict Mediators.

I have spent hours of my time in India simply sitting and watching the behaviour of the indie dogs. I have come to realise that, rather than simply living alongside the human inhabitants of India, they consider themselves to be a part of one large pack that includes both us and them.

The hotel we were staying in whilst in Mumbai was very nice and something of a treat for us. We usually try to stay in pleasant but low-budget places and, whilst this was a far cry from the decadence of the Taj hotel around the corner where one night would’ve burned through about half our total budget, it was still at the upper-end of what we were happy to pay. It did have unlimited free, and highly addictive, Parle-G biscuits so that offset the cost a little.

In keeping with the boutique vibe of the business, the tours they offered were overpriced to the point that one of the lovely receptionists even commented on the fact that a four-hour tour of the flower market cost the same as half a month of her wages. So, whilst enjoying some poha and tiny bananas for breakfast, we hatched a plan for our own, completely free, tour. We were going to visit the fish market and the famous street art that lined the walls of the buildings leading to the harbour.

Still jet-lagged, we didn’t fancy copying the 5:30AM start time of the ‘official’ fish market tour so we walked to a suitable taxi-hailing location and summoned an Uber at a far more agreeable time. The hotel was close to the famous and confusingly popular India Gate and the traffic outside our door was so bad that walking the first 500m was always the quickest option. Because of our later start we knew we would miss the hustle and bustle of the actual fish market (and, as it turned out, a torrential downpour too) but we were cool with that.

We drove south through the Colaba neighbourhood, noticing loads of interesting things that we knew we would never be able to find again, and arrived at the 150 year-old Sassoon Docks. I was already feeling queasy from the taxi ride and when I leapt out of the car into a world of beautifully painted murals I was hit with the nastiest rotten fish smell you could possibly imagine. As you can imagine, a minimal regard for hygiene, piles of dead fish and tropical temperatures created a very distinct perfume.

In 2022, the Mumbai Urban Arts Festival opened with the Sassoon Dock Art Project. Many of the otherwise empty facades of the large warehouses were painted with absolutely amazing artworks and it was a place I’d definitely recommend visiting, especially on a breezier day. What made the artwork even more special were the beautifully decorated fish transport trucks all lined up ready for their next load. Indian folk love to jazz up their rides anyway, but the owners of these vehicles took their artistry to the next level.

Once we had wandered down the road, admiring the paintings and avoiding the large puddles thick with fish bits, we arrived at the docks themselves. As if mirroring the traffic chaos of the city this small area of the Indian Ocean had space for about 50% of the number of boats that were actually berthed. Whilst we stood, surrounded by discarded shrimp and the white egrets happily munching upon them, yet more boats would arrive. There would be no visible space for the new arrival, adorned with colourful flags, and yet the vibrantly painted wooden vessel would point its nose into a little chink between two moored boats and muscle its way in. Even though this usually meant that the boats either side would be tipped at just enough of an angle to make life on them that bit more miserable, the resident fisherfolk would greet their new neighbours without any animosity.

We watched as a boat began unloading its catch from the hold, but the boat itself couldn’t get anywhere close to the dockside. The lack of access was no problem as a well practiced and resourceful team of men formed a human chain stretching across multiple boats, throwing baskets of fish from person to person until they arrived on dry land. Fish frequently fell off of the baskets and, on more than one occasion, entire baskets of their precious catch ended up on the deck of a boat when one member of the chain was distracted by something such as the offer of a cigarette.

When the smell became a little too much to endure we decided to walk back to our hotel. On either side of the gates to the Sassoon docks were two ladies, each sitting in front of wooden chopping blocks upon which rested a knife that had been sharpened almost to the point that there’s now little left to sharpen. Around them lay dogs partaking in the kind of rest they had perfected — lying still with eyes closed, yet ready to rise at the slightest sign of food or a shift in the pack dynamic.

People would, it appeared, buy a fish from the market and take it to these ladies for careful filleting. Whilst we watched, folk would tip their pomfret or kingfish from a plastic carrier bag onto the chopping block and the lady would deftly slice away at it before placing it all back in the bag. The only parts that were discarded were the fins and the innards, and even the dogs knew that it wasn’t worth their effort to raise themselves from their dusty plastic sacks for such slim pickings.

I was photographing the beautiful dog in the main photograph above as she rested on a wooden cable drum when trouble erupted. The sultry mid-afternoon stillness was pierced by two drunken old men who, for whatever reason, had decided to have a fight. I had seen them earlier, napping on one of the large wooden carts loaded with empty polystyrene boxes, and I guess they live somewhere close by. They started shouting and pushing and shoving one another and, in the blink of an eye, the dogs were roused from their siestas and ran into the commotion from every corner.

Two older male dogs, covered in scars from years of past battles, ran into the space between the men and barked to try and de-escalate the social tension in their pack. Their well-practiced tactic worked. The men became more preoccupied with the dogs than with each other and did what drunk men do, skulking off in different directions while stopping every few steps to turn and mutter something derogatory at the other.

Satisfied that order had been restored the dogs all went back to their spots and resumed their naps.