Animals are part of the street and home culture more than in any other place. If in Ukraine you mainly find dogs, cats and birds around us. Here, except dogs and cats, you will find cows walking on the street, knowing where is their house exactly, monkeys moving with the whole family, lizards, parrots, birds I don't even know the names, ants and many more. They are all around you.
I got few stories with each of the animal and it took me a while to meet my fear and feel part of their space.
I usually get easily scared of the animals, because I feel that I don't know their language and might be I do something wrong which will make them attack me for their self-protection.
Since I was a child I was told that in case of the dogs never show your fear. They smell it. If the dog is barking just pass by. He/she is bearing his/her service and protecting the land.
As for the cows, it was the only animal for whom I haven't felt any fear. While we were leaving in Noida cows were regular part of the landscape and they were moving here and there. In Varanasi I found myself walking together with the cow, very close to her, for a while. She was like a wall protecting me from all the noise happening around.
When I arrived in Hampi the main animal became monkey. Except monkeys there are also tigers, bears and mongooses. But monkeys are taking the leading role in any case. I reacted with the fear when monkeys started to jump from the staircase of the temple to the ground. My friend laugh at me and was very surprised that I am so scared of monkeys. Most of my friends were raised in a culture, where their grandmothers were feeding snakes with milk. After a while I stopped to observe my new friends closely and I found them extremely beautiful, especially the little monkeys with their human-like long fingers always looking for a banana, but also able to smash a water bottle to get an access to fresh water.
There is also a little story of a lizard, but this needs a separate note.
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