It seems timely to begin with monkeys. Unlike in other parts of India, most of central Gujarat is populated only with langur monkeys, and no other species of primate. Langurs are generally docile, or so I thought until recently. There is a troop of them that likes to set up camp in the big trees around the Ecosan (toilet facility). The biggest one, probably the dominant male I guess, chased me once a few weeks ago for the crime of trying to walk up to the Ecosan. I motioned to throw my roll of toilet paper at it, but that only made it bare its teeth and start to run after me. I panicked, and ran into a toilet stall and locked the door. And then tonight, I was going to throw away the plastic pouch of a recently consumed yogurt, when that same monkey (I can only assume) pulled a similar act. I yelled, "There's a monkey chasing me!" and raced back towards the office, surprising everyone in the accounting staff's office, since all they heard was a slur of words coming from a clearly distraught American. I must say, I'm losing a bit of my fondness for monkeys.
On the other hand, nilgai have risen in the ranks of my favorite animals, so all is well. That was not a typo -- nilgai , a kind of Asian antelope, roam around Gujarat in small herds damaging crops. When I was at one of the primary schools, a herd of 6 or 7 of them came by in a neighboring field. I had never heard of a nilgai, and was baffled by the children's translation of it as "black cow", so I ran out to the edge of the campus to try to get a closer look. The photo below serves as evidence. Anyway, apparantly some people hunt them as game, because some of the teachers and students mimed gunshots and told me the meat is particularly good. I inquired about buying some of the meat to try it, but it seems like the kind of thing that you can't really plan on. It's more like when the butcher has it, you can get it...otherwise your only options are chicken, goat, or the occasional water buffalo.
To round out the land mammals, recently I've noticed some wild marmots crossing the road in front of my rickshaw on the trip between the center and the town of Sanand. They're beige and pretty small, and seem to generally like to hide in the shrubs.
The selection of lizards is varied, but the most common are geckos. There are geckos everywhere. In this room alone, I'll bet there are at least 5 or 6. There is a little baby one not more than an inch and a half long on the floor next to me right now, actually. They generally stay on the walls or ceilings eating insects and moths, a service I am grateful for. The only time they bother me is if they jump on my shirt (that's happened twice) or die in a bucket of water in my bathroom (that happened once and was not particularly fun to dispose of). Below is a gecko on the screen window of my room here last year.
The second most common lizard is a kind of chameleon. These guys stay outdoors around bushes and trees. They have a spikey mohawked head and back, and look like little dinosaurs. They can get pretty long, at least 8 or 10 inches. I maintain a guilty pleasure in chasing them around, because they look hilarious when they run.
And then there are the snakes. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes, but maybe that's because no one I've known has been killed by a king cobra, which is something not everyone here can say. I've yet to see a wild cobra here, but I've seen a bunch of other kinds of snakes. The following story is relevant but pretty gross, so if snake death bothers you, you might want to skip it. Last year I was coming back from Sanand at night, maybe around 9 o clock. I was riding with a teacher at the center, when he saw something on the road and stopped. It was a snake that had just been run over by a huge truck, and had been snapped in two. Both halves writhed around for about 15 seconds before staying still. The snake had been full of eggs, the majority of which were scattered on the road. Some were even still intact, though most had cracked.
The birds around here are amazing. There are all different kinds, of all different shapes and sizes, making many, many different calls. The biggest and most impressive is, of course, the peacock. There are a lot of wild peacocks around here. The idea of a wild peacock still seems a bit odd to me, because peacocks are absurd animals. Today on the ride back to the center from Sanand, I saw one peacock with his tail feathers fully extended and displayed, which was surreal. Another was on the roadside just watching us drive by, the little palmtree bob of feathers on his head wobbling in the evening breeze. It seems appropriate to me that the peacock is India's national bird. Indians have a penchant for unnecessary shine and glimmer, sewing tiny mirrors into pastel clothes and wearing giant gold umbrella earings. The peacock represents that attitude perfectly, for no good reason (other than to show it off) possessing a really, really ostentatious tail.
There is also a great woodpecker here with a black and white spotted mohawk crest on its head, tiny black hummingbirds, beautifully colored kingfishers, storks and cranes, doves, sparrows, and all kinds of others whose names I don't know. There is a bird sanctuary about 50 kilometers away, so it's a real treat to get to watch some of these birds.
There are probably other wild animals here that I'm forgetting. There is also a whole variety of giant wasps, hornets, and bees that I don't feel like writing about. I hate wasps, and there are so many of them. And there are just thousands of wild dogs, which all look the same and are filthy. And of course there are plenty of domesticated animals (cows, water buffalo, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, chickens, etc.). But I think the above gives a pretty good picture of most of the interesting wild animals I've seen around here.
