A desi love story: adventures with Indies

"I love travelling and I was sad to leave my dogs all the time. I had to find a way of travelling with them so Indian Railways came into the picture. Our first journey was from Nizamuddin in Delhi to Madgaon in Goa and the dogs were really well behaved. They really took to it. Tigress fell in love with the pantry! Since then we've done over 75 train journeys across India and by the end of it there was me and my husband and son and three dogs! When you travel with your dogs, you have to chart your own course, make your own map and do it at your own pace and you can really do that in India on the railways. Also, Indies are so much fun and so intelligent, I really hope more people rescue and adopt them. We live in a very hypocritical society. If a pandit says feed a dog or a cow to get something, only then will people do it because it means they will gain somehow! Otherwise, we don't care about anything beyond our own unit; we don't care about the immediate surroundings, the trees, the garbage... These animals too are invisible to most people and many view them as a nuisance. To change this we have to raise kind kids. I hope this book will change the way people view Indian dogs. I wanted to write a very positive, very funny book about them." - Divya Dugar, author, Chaos in a Coupe talks to Manjula Narayan about the great joys of rattling around the country with her family, the magic of Indian railways and slow travel, and the unconditional love of canine companions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices