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City Life – Two Dogs, Zamrudpur Community Center

City Life - Two Dogs, Zamrudpur Community Center

Day-time friends.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Let’s be clear about this.

One is not suggesting that dogs lead better lives than humans.

Even so. Raja and Pushpa have a wonderful life in a commercial complex in south Delhi—doing almost nothing.

“They just play around without a care in the world,” rhapsodizes Rajinder Singh, a receptionist in Zamrudpur Community Center. A dog’s life, in other words. They camp outside his office.

In fact, just about everybody in Mr Singh’s office loves Raja and Pushpa, he reports. Mr Singh gives them milk every single morning, “while a madam in our office got them mattresses to use during the winter months.”

Raja has been around for a long time, but Pushpa is hardly more than 12 months old. “She still lives with her mother and siblings but turns up here during the day,” says Mr Singh, adjusting their mattresses. The mother, Sundari, hangs around another building in the community center.

The kind receptionist proceeds to enter the building, leaving the dogs to stare at him through the glass door. “Sometimes I let them come inside and do the rounds…people love that.”

Now Mr Singh’s colleague tries to photograph the two friends, but they refuse to pose, and keep moving and turning.

After the office closes, the young Pushpa returns to her mother, while Raja is left to his own devices: perhaps passing the night alone, like many other bachelors in the city.

Office life without office work

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City Life - Two Dogs, Zamrudpur Community Center

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City Life - Two Dogs, Zamrudpur Community Center

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City Life - Two Dogs, Zamrudpur Community Center

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