The good ol’ U.S. of A.: alleviating poverty, one five-star doggie hotel room at a time…
An argument broke out between US security personnel and the management of the [five-star] Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi on Wednesday over the accommodation of 60 sniffer dogs that are part of President George W Bush’s security entourage. The US Embassy booked 70 rooms in the hotel in the Indian capital, where Bush will travel on Thursday. However, the hotel management was surprised to find that the rooms had been reserved for dogs.
These weren’t just any old pooches, they were decorated officers of the U.S. Secret Service:The hotel management was surprised to find that the rooms had been reserved for dogs
US security personnel accompanying the sniffer dogs were offended when the management told them that dogs were not allowed on the hotel premises, saying that they were “security officers”. The External Affairs Ministry had to intervene and arrange for the rooms to be allotted to the American “officer” dogs. Each “security officer” dog has been provided an air-conditioned room with an American attendant. [Link]
… the newly revamped Le Meridien in New Delhi has some “special guests”… The hotel is playing host to an “important delegation” from the United States — the K9 dog squad. But the word “dog” is never mentioned in front of these elite canines: they are referred to as “officers”… Kennels have been flown in specially for them… The “officers”, who have been decorated for their service, have their own private area in Le Meridien. [Link]
<
p>Upon hearing of the K9 unit’s digs, half the population of Bihar attempted to enlist 
<
p>In other news, the U.S. remains ignorant of the dog taboo among desis (thanks, N-hound):
Hindu priests who look after the memorial of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi conducted a purification ceremony at the shrine after a visit from U.S. President George W. Bush. But it wasn’t the president who offended them, it was the sniffer-dogs who scoured the area ahead of his visit. After the dog visit, the memorial was cleansed with water brought from the Ganges River…
Letting dogs into the memorial also drew sharp protest from Hindu politicians and Gandhi’s great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, who called the incident a “national shame…” [Link]
Related post: Clueless cartoonist inadvertently infuriates millions
Hey! I’m Bihari! That’s not nice…
manish- i’m still scratching my head over the bihar reference/link… pls. explain
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” -Mahatma Gandhi
He’s probably referring to the extreme poverty in Bihar and the almost absurd ways in which it is cultivated and people are dispossesed. Well, now that I think about it, Manish might not be so offensive, but still, it’s a tad beastializing even in the satire…
So if a K9 unit officer smells another officer’s (human or otherwise) crotch, would that be considered sexual misconduct?
Good to know there were some intelligent members in the Bush contingent 😀
I thought the dog taboo was exclusive to Muslims. Are you saying Hindus also have a dog taboo? This is news to me.
Yesterday an Indian friend visited my apartment, and was made very uncomfortable by the presence of my (fat, indulged, beloved) cat. But she said she loves dogs. She wasn’t Muslim, of course.
I had no idea Hindus had a dog taboo. I guess having lived in mostly metropolitan areas in India I’ve only known people who were totally nuts about their dogs and were worse than Paris Hilton and her pocket pooch. This was news to me.
Nina, likewise re: the cat thing. Last time I was in India, a cat happened to wander into the garden at my Chacha’s house; the laundry girl was outside hanging up the wash, saw the stray cat, shrieked like Jamie Lee Curtis, and hid in the pantry til it was gone. My cousins explained to me that cats (the small domestic kind) are basically equivalent to panthers and leopards and tigers, in a lot of people’s minds, so understandably the girl was scared of being mauled. It was very cute.
Hindus do not have a dog taboo.
Was the basic problem here specifically to do with the fact that it was a dog, or just a general objection to an animal’s presence at what is regarded by many people as a sacred shrine ?
I think the Bihar reference has nothing to do with the people; its just that there are so many mangy mutts running the streets in that area, and nobody does anything about it.
I think cats in India also have a status similar to vermin – they’re not pets, no one wants them around, but they keep reproducing and showing up anyway. Of course, if India’s cats suddenly disappeared, THEN people would realize how valuable they were – the population of real vermin (including mice & rats) would explode. There’s a reason Egyptian agricultural societies worshipped felines. Poor maligned Indian cats, I cried almost every day in Trivandrum seeing the starving mangy strays.
in india my mom’s family totally had a dog that they loved, but once we got to india, it was no-no on the pets. we got the impression we just were not “supposed” to have a dog. to this day i would’ve liked a dog
I wonder how distanced people are from reality. Dogs are NOT a taboo to Hindus. However, out of shear respect, all carnivore animals are usually restrained from disturbing the sanctity of a holy place. Hope this clears the issue of Dogs being a taboo!! Dear Hindus please take more interest in your religion and you will realise that it is having little or no taboos. The taboos that you hear are mostly different interpretations coming down from centuries and have no congruency with the Hindu religion. If I remember correctly, when the Pandavas were climbing to their eternal abode a.k.a Heaven, it was a dog which accompanied them in their long and arduous journey.
i found the story surprising. there is no taboo against dogs in Hinduism. in fact Dattatreya is shown with dogs, who represent the Vedas. The correlation between the remarkable qualities of dogs and the Vedas is clear. the problem today is that many Indians have the designer dog syndrome. they prefer “brand” name dogs like expensive breeds and show contempt for the wonderful mongrels. dogs are dogs and i love all, breeds and mongrels, but it would help the stray population if people saw as much value in the mongrels as well.
Hindu priest come up with a whole lot of nonsense given the chance. Come on, you must have seen some weird signs outside of temples in India!!! I really cant get over the fact that ‘I will pollute/god will love me less’ when it is a certain time of the month. Screw that!
Menstruation has been a taboo in nearly all cultures at some point or the other for various religious and social reasons. It seems odd in modern society but religious leaders of any faith tend to be more on the conservative side and it will take time for certain taboos to fade away.
Speaking of dogs and Bihar
My parents in India have a German Shepard. Most of my relatives in India have dogs. For safety reasons too.
I was visiting my cousin @ JNU campus, New Delhi, they were cats all over. They were koking how some of them are cunning enough to drink milk from the kitchen if doors left open. That is true, traditionally you will more cats in Muslim neighboorhoods in India. as Hindu folklore has them as harbingers of bad luck.
Does Bad Indian Girl give extra points for being a non-veg, unmarried woman, over the age of 25, who smokes and drinks, with a cat? they should 🙂
Only if the woman concerned thinks the cat is more trustworthy and deserving of her respect than “a man” 😉
Hahhaahaha…now she wouldn’t really be a Bad Indian Girl if she actually preferred the company of the cat over a man would she? I love cats, dogs, birds, all animals, including men 🙂 If I was allowed to my house would be a zoo.
But I did learn about the insane fear/hate desis have of cats. I had a visitor once who came to see my mother and refused to come into the house till I made the cat “go away”. I refused to…my mom begged me…I locked the cat in the bedroom. The woman spent 15 minutes of her 1 hour visit insulting my cat and all animals. At the end of the hour I decided to put myself out of the misery and couldn’t take my howling and crying cat who couldn’t figure out why for the life of him he was being locked up away from his family. I let him out. She ran off screaming. When she was saying goodbye to my mother she said “I’m sorry I will not be able to visit next time if the cat is around”. My mother politely said “I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll chat on the phone.” Ugh.
i think attitudes and the level of fear/liking towards animals are sometimes “genetic” for lack of a better word. my mother grew up in India in a large family. they were not taught to fear animals but they never had any pets either. my mother grew up to be a huge animal lover as is our whole family and they are very much a part of our family. one of her siblings now has dogs and cats (in India) and they are very spoiled. the other siblings don’t dislike animals and would never be cruel to them, but would never consider having them as part of the family and just don’t have the same level of affection towards them.
Ugh. Now you made me cry. It’s bad enough that they get a bad rep in the western media, sometimes comparable to being brown 🙁 … but I suppose they have it good here in comparison.
Gawd that’s irritating as hell. I have an aunt who has to wash for hours if she visits a house with a pet. Months later she’s still worried about it – get a life already! On the brighter side, I have made a few converts along the way. Even their overly dramatic “brown nausea syndrome*” dissapeared over time. Once you get to know the love of a family pet, you realize that there is nothing quite comparable 🙂
*Brown Nausea Syndrome: Also known as False Nausea Syndrome. Induced by furry pet friends, the symptoms include excessive coughing, gagging and mad rushes to the loo. If you’ve ever heard anyone with BNS during a BNS episode, they literally sound like like Linda Blair of “Exorcist” fame – you will be scared! Treatment: Ignore and watch “Kusum” or other equally melodramatic fare instead.
*Brown Nausea Syndrome: Also known as False Nausea Syndrome. Induced by furry pet friends, the symptoms include excessive coughing, gagging and mad rushes to the loo. If you’ve ever heard anyone with BNS during a BNS episode, they literally sound like like Linda Blair of “Exorcist” fame – you will be scared! Treatment: Ignore and watch “Kusum” or other equally melodramatic fare instead.
funny! never heard of it.
Once you get to know the love of a family pet, you realize that there is nothing quite comparable 🙂
i second that.
I believe there’s something called “imprinting” that happens with all mammals, including humans: when young animals are exposed to certain animals’ presence (esp. smell) the develop a comfort or affinity for said animals. In fact there is supposedly an enlightened way to raise horses by exposing foals to human hands regularly almost from birth, so when they grow into mares and stallions they trust humans and can be trained without being “broken.” I was raised in a home with pets, both cats and dogs (well, one dog), and I’ve adored felines and canines as long as I can remember.
For visitors who give grief about pet cats: just tell ’em without the cat, your house would be full of mice and rats, but if they prefer those you’d be happy to accommodate…
I’ve heard of positive imprinting, which is just about the cutest thing ever, but I didn’t know there was such a thing as negative imprinting for irrational fear and b.n.s!
As per the Bihar thing, my mother’s family lived in Bihar and they always had a dog while she was growing up. Their dogs were always well loved and taken care of. So I didn’t mean to imply it was a Hindu or Bihari thing, in case that’s how anybody understood my comment. I just picked up on what I thought might have been an, um, unflattering comparison of Biharis to dogs, or something like that. But if that’s an overreaction, I guess it wouldn’t be the first time. And there are lots of stray dogs (real canine ones) in Bihar, that is true.
People have an (irrational) fear of animals because of a bad childhood experience.. Every single (Indian) person I’ve talked to who doesn’t like cats or dogs have been bitten or scratched up. I’m kindof an exception (been bitten 4 times..) Some parents pass this fear on to their kids. They attempt to rationalize their fear by saying “cats are cunning” or “dogs are dirty”.
Come to think about it, most families I know in India have had both cats and dogs as pets except for mine. Dad was scratched up by a cat AND bitten by a dog when he was a kid.
Kush Tandon
I don’t think so, killing cats is supposed to be a harbinger of bad luck. Black cats are of course the exception. Every culture thinks of them as bad luck. And orthodox muslims consider cats clean and dogs unclean. That’s why a lot of them keep cats and not dogs. Plenty of exceptions there.
http://geappliance.info/toastmasterappliances.php
On a side note, I was working at an animal shelter a couple of summers back and this woman asked me if Indians ate cats or dogs.. You can thank Spielberg’s Temple of Doom for that I guess.
The reporting’s fine, but why the need for the random ‘Bihari’ reference? Quite like the random racist comments against Indians one hears on American radio. Methinks Indians treat Biharis the same way that the West treats them, which is SO stupid…..
For visitors who give grief about pet cats: just tell ’em without the cat, your house would be full of mice and rats, but if they prefer those you’d be happy to accommodate…
Nina,
On the contrary, my cat Cassidy brings mice for me from outside and plays with them. When I throw them outside, she gets pretty upset. One of these days, I am going put her picture on my blog.
I agree. Bihar is an entire state and has relatively impressive diversity, so for Biharis, it’s only funny the first million times before you realize being from The Great Indian Wasteland warrants you to become the butt of every other desi joke, for any reason. Can’t think of anything witty? Make fun of Bihar. Or Sardars 🙂 I realize that (in no particular order) Sardars, Dalits, Patels, dark South Indians, etc… almost all desis cop shit for something, either in their religion, geopolitics, caste and/or skin color, but I think it’s qualitatively different for Biharis because the fuckedupness in Bihar is real, and can span across more than 500 discourses. And yes, comedy is social commentary that can be progressive when it is satirical, but the kind of jokes people usually make about us really only essentialize Biharis as this wretched, backwards people to the extent that it becomes negative indoctrinazation about us. Ok, I’m done. 🙂
I live in India and can assure you that:
dogs are NOT taboo for Hindus. There is in fact a nice story about a dog accompanying Yudhishtir (the eldest of the five Pandavas in the Mahabharata).
Indians do not abhor pets. On the contrary! I know I live in a lane full of dog lovers. And I don’t think it’s just limited to certain parts of the populace. Randomly – When my dog (who is twelve) started showing some signs of old age, I was stopped by some autorickshaw drivers the other day who gave me some tips on how to make his life a little more comfortable.
Regarding the sniffer dogs who were part of Bush’s entourage, generally hotels in India (especially the five star ones) do not allow dogs on the premises. It sucks, but it’s part of their management policy. And people were upset because the US security officials showed absolutely no regard for our sentiments when they insisted that their pooches sniff Rajghat (Gandhi ji’s memorial) as part of their security routine. This was in spite of being told that it was a grave sign of disrespect to us, the host country, and especially on the memorial of the father of the nation.
OMG KT I swear I thought my cat was weird. He’s never known another animal so I don’t think he’d know what to do with a mouse. He will randomly chase after ladybugs and flies and stuff and when he kills them he’ll line them up for me, take me to go see them and have this look on his face “Look I saved your life, give me a treat now!!” He is like best friends with my neighbors pug and occassionally we’ll let them lose in the hallway and they go nuts over each other. My mom tells me when she’s home during the daytime and I’m not around they talk to eachother thru the wall!! So the cat hates mice and dogs hate cat theory is lost on mine.
Cats bring mice and bugs into the house so that you can share it with them. They consider u as one of them and this is their way of taking care of you. And if u r wondering why the cat’s upset when u throw the ‘food’ out.. think how upset ur mom is when u don’t finish wht she cooked for u.
ooohh man…..3 things in life i can’t live without – cats, food, and…..ok, make it 4, and good bhangra. my cats are my babies! and they’re good too…they watch over me, are great councellors, etc. i can’t do without em!
um, no. sardarji jokes are almost always lame and prejudiced. if you want to make a joke that advertises you’re a bigot and can’t really think of a funny joke, i guess sardarji jokes are an option
um, no. sardarji jokes are almost always lame and prejudiced. if you want to make a joke that advertises you’re a bigot and can’t really think of a funny joke, i guess sardarji jokes are an option
seriously! not cool at all.
On the contrary, my cat Cassidy brings mice for me from outside and plays with them.
I hope she doesnt get kitty cancer.
That’s what I was saying. I’m as sick of hearing Sardar jokes as I am of hearing Bihari jokes.