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It Happens Only in India

“Mummy! There’s a big cat in the bathroom.”

By: Santosh :+: Under: It Happens Only in India
On: ⋅ January 7, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Imagine going to the bathroom early in the morning, after a nice cup of coffee to do your daily thing and finding an intruder has taken over your throne. That was kind of what happened in a residential neighbourhood in Vadodara (a.k.a Baroda) in the state of Gujarat, India.

From DailyIndia:

Police and wildlife officials in Vadodara had a busy day on Sunday rescuing a leopard that entered a colony in Vadodra city early morning and spread panic among residents.

The leopard, which got irritated by the ruckus outside, entered the bathroom in the backyard of a house.

“When we woke up in the morning, we heard noises. We saw a leopard walking into our compound. We closed all the doors…we saw him standing at the rear side of the house where we have a bathroom. The maid was cleaning there, and we called her in.

Puss-in-bathroom (image: Times of India)

Good thing they called her in. Leopards often stray into residential neighbourhoods because of the decimation of their natural habitat by human encroachment. At times these leopards even turn man-eaters.

In recent years, incidents of wild animals straying into urban areas have increased owing to of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.

In 2004, at least 14 people were killed in Mumbai after leopards strayed from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a 103 sq km (40 sq mile) protected forest on the northern rim of India’s financial hub, and entered nearby neighbourhoods. (ANI)

The point that stood out to me in this whole drama was the slow response time of the local officials.

“It kicked around the stuff lying there. We called up fire brigade help line and they gave us another number. They said they are on the way and asked us to keep all doors and windows closed,” added Sukhadia.

It took the fire brigade officials two hours to reach the place but since then they have been trying to get the leopard out for the last six hours here.

Two hours to respond! That makes me feel safer. But in the end the leopard was captured without any physical harm to either party. All in a day’s work! If you live in Vadodara it would probably be a good idea to check out your bathroom before you anoint it first thing in the morning.

p.s. What is the Gujarati translation for “Mummy! There’s a big cat in the bathroom.”?

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