Despite living in an urban jungle, there is plenty of wildlife all around, if we were but to tune our ears to listen and open our eyes to see. True, there may not be foxes and jackals which were common a few decades ago, but there are plenty of small animals – squirrels, shrews, bandicoots and, of course, rats. Anywhere there are trees, you can hear the shrill kiiik kiiik kiiik of squirrels. Others are rarely seen and, so, we often do not realise their existence. Therefore, when you sight such an animal, even if briefly, you wonder whether you really saw it at all, but the memory remains.

Across from where I live in Chennai is a park with a fairly large pond. Till a few years ago, the park’s walkways were mostly blacktopped with the usual ups and downs, and there were fairly large patches within the park that were overgrown with bushes. There was even an island in the pond with a couple of trees. The pond was not all that well maintained but it was a haven for waterbirds. Not just herons and cormorants but kingfishers and moorhens too. Tailor bird nests nestled in the trees in the island, away from human intrusion while the sound of warblers and sunbirds was all around. The walkway around the pond was well kept but the space between the path and the edge of the pond was not very accessible, overgrown as it was with weeds and shrubs. Aesthetically, it may have looked a trifle unkempt but it provided excellent natural habitat for a variety of creatures.

One sunny morning, while walking in the park, I noticed a small movement near some bushes and slowed down. Perhaps it was a rat that had overstayed its nightly outing and was scrambling to get into its hole. But no, this was something larger, standing on its haunches and appearing tawny in the dappled light from the trees. Bright beady eyes, a slightly pointy snout and a bushy tail. Definitely not a rat but...

“He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was: Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!”

Rikki tikki tavvi! An instant recognition thanks to Rudyard Kipling’s description from the story that I had read again and again for it featured two of my favourite birds – the tailor bird and the coppersmith barbet. Nag and Nagaina were part of our childhood too; we were told always to be alert for snakes as we lived in a township full of trees tending to jungle. Not only had we heard stories about snakes slithering into bathrooms but my sister even had an occasion to find one sleeping on her bookshelf. Fortunately, before anything untoward happened, the security guard was called in and the snake was sent back to its natural habitat. But I don’t recall seeing mongooses then! Not in the wild anyway. So this encounter in the park in Chennai was, to say the least, exciting!

Mongooses are carnivorous mammals found in Eurasia and mainland Africa. They belong to the sub-order Feliformia which includes animals as varied as hyenas and the cats. The Indian gray mongoose is Herpestes edwardsii, found mostly in the Indian sub-continent. It is found everywhere, in open forests, scrub jungle, cultivated fields and even close to human habitation. It is considered sacred in India and is found depicted in the lap of Kubera, the yaksha of treasures and wealth. Perhaps the connection is because of the reputation of mongooses in killing cobras and the belief that cobras had a gem embedded in the forehead and, hence, mongooses spit out gems!

The word ‘Mangus’ is itself of Marathi origin though it could be from Mungeesa and Mungisi which are the Telugu and Kannada names for the animal (mongoose has nothing to do with geese; which is why the plural of ‘mongoose’ is ‘mongooses’), so that’s another Indian origin word added to my collection. In Tamil, it is known as keeripillai and in Sanskrit, nakula, the name given to the fourth Pandava brother.

Another, more leisurely, encounter was in the Anna University campus in Chennai. Though it is full of buildings now, there are many sections where old buildings have been left unoccupied for years and now have been overtaken by the jungle. Cheetals wander around, having trotted across the road from Guindy National Park. Troops of monkeys play in the open spaces in front of the buildings or leap from tree to tree with their young ones hanging on. And stormwater drains, when not maintained, are perfect hiding spaces for small animals. So, it was not surprising that I saw a mongoose sitting calmly outside the entrance to one such drain, dry but full of used paper cups and plates. This particular specimen looked quite healthy and well fed. But then, a study in India about a decade ago indicated that the Indian gray mongoose is more common in disturbed areas, near garbage bins, garbage dumps, scavenging on carrion, and on roads! Yet their greatest threat is man who likes to capture them for their soft furry skin and bushy tail from which paintbrushes are made.

The mongoose is a skilful hunter and plays an important role in keeping under control pest species such as rats and mice. In fact, they have been preferred as house pets, as described by Kipling, though, according to Tim Wrey in his book, Footsteps in the Salad, “Anyone thinking of having one around the house should know that they can be very destructive. They seem to find as much pleasure in attacking cushions and furnishings as they do in slaughtering chickens, once they get into the mood!” Of course, they are best known for their ability in killing snakes and snake-charmers have made use of this characteristic in their mongoose-cobra mockfights to arouse people’s curiosity. Here is a description that Sherlock Holmes aficionados should recognise:

The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in the corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal’s head.

“It’s a mongoose,” I cried.

“Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,” said the man. “Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night to please the folk in the canteen.

– From The Crooked Man by Arthur Conan Doyle.

(Courtesy: Sri Aurobindo’s Action)