A 20-metre long blind alley in the busiest part of south Kolkata is the home-cum-world for about a dozen of stray dogs. The ‘family’ has been living there for a number of canine-generations.

I came to know about their vivacious presence at the night of a 31st December, when the gang came to bark on me and my friends for no apparent reason while we were merrily walking down after partying at a friend’s place, located at the end of the alley. I would have forgotten the incident unless I had met the gang again nearly after a year.

It was a winter afternoon; through a din of curse and scream we could decipher that on the basis of certain complaints the stray dog catching squad had come with their vehicle to take the dogs to the dog pound of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). A frantic search by the squad however, failed to yield any result. None of the dogs could be seen in the vicinity and to add to the woe of the squad, some of the urchins in the neighborhood were resisting the operation.

One of my friends immediately recalled how in 2007 the Bangaluru civic authorities had culled over 200 stray dogs in a week, and Mumbai, which has more than a million stray dogs roaming  in the city, till recently killed about 40,000 of them. Another rattled statistics: the last dog-census in Kolkata conducted in 2007 recorded presence of 58,000 stray dogs and the number had been steadily increasing. We made some phone calls here and there and found out that dogs arrested by the stray dog squad are sterilised manually by the KMC authorities. The wounds take almost a week to heal and KMC does not have the infrastructure to provide adequate post-operative care. The process often leaves the dogs traumatised. Laparoscopic surgery would have served the purpose better but KMC does not have the adequate money for the purpose. More information, data, anecdotes started pouring in – I was not listening anymore.

Our meal arrived in few minutes. The food delivered from one of the finest eateries in the city. Delectable Kachchi Biriyani with Kebabs, I silently moved out with a packet of kebabs. Nobody noticed. A ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds to reflect on the Aluminum Foils, and they started appearing from nowhere, one after another, unsuspecting, vulnerable, friendly faces. The foiled packs were empty even before I realised. I slowly walked back to bring my camera.

Nilayan Dutta

independent documentary and reportage photographer

Born in 1973 in Kolkata, Nilayan started his career as an independent documentary and reportage photographer in 1996, his work is featured including of New York Magazine, ENTER(World Press Photo), Corriere Della Serra, Private photo review, Far Eastern Economic Review, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Tehelka, Rediff News, Outlook, Mint, Open magazine and in many national and international publications. He also was commissioned by Action Aid, Save the Children, OXFAM, UNICEF, Positive Lives, PACS, Fredkorpset Norway and by many organizations to take up various assignments and projects.
He completed his internship with GEO magazine in Germany in 2004 he also received media fellowship from PANOS South Asia. Having been exhibited in many of the countries around the world his photographs have also been collected at the ‘National Gallery of Modern Arts’ in New Delhi and by many individual collectors in Europe. He stopped taking assignment and doing journalistic work in 2015 and took a sabbatical for two years. Besides teaching photography, presently he is working on long term projects and involved in experimentations with visual representation and idea.