After our day of exploring Mahabalipuram, we decided to take a break and have some snacks and drinks to relax. So, we purchased a sweet roll and some salty/spicy snacks at a sweet shop and found a rocky area near the shore temple to sit. It seems that the granite rocks were piled high around the perimeter of the Mahabalipuram shore temple after the 2004 tsunami, to protect it from further damage. The rocks ranged from 1 foot across to 10-15 feet across, and the pile sloped up from the beach level up some twenty feet to the base of the wall surrounding the shore temple. We sat on a small rock at beach level.
Sadly, the sweet roll was not so tasty. It was filled with candied fruit rather than the typical South Indian "poornam" that Pradeep was told it contained. Daniela didn't like it. As we ate, some black birds began to circle and land a few feet away. They cawed raucously, eyeing our food. Daniela decided to toss small pieces of the sweet roll to the "seagulls", as she called them. Pradeep suggested that maybe they were crows. Daniela swung her arm high, repeatedly tossing pieces towards the crows.
As the birds competed with each other to snatch up the morsels Daniela tossed, neither Pradeep nor Daniela noted the perilous advance of a pack of wild dogs sniffing the aroma of sweet bun. It wasn't until the crows suddenly flew off and four or five scraggly feral dogs were in our midst that we realized Daniela's innocent bird-feeding had lured the canine threat. We were backed up against the rock pile and surrounded by the dogs. They leered at us, eyeing the plastic grocery bag containing the bun. Pradeep told Daniela that they should not panic, but just get up casually and walk away. Both of us arose and began to move down the beach, but the dogs only surrounded us on all sides, baring their teeth.
In a brief moment of lucid thought, Pradeep took the food bag Daniela held, so that he held both bags, and told her to move off so that they would only follow him. She did so, and predictably the pack of dogs followed Pradeep. Of course, he was thinking, "great, now I've got the whole pack after me." Wild ideas shot through his mind as he thought furiously how he might escape his plight. He even considered giving the alpha dog a swat across the muzzle.
In the end, Pradeep did the obvious thing and tossed the plastic bag with the sweet bun in it away from him. Immediately the two largest dogs leapt at the discarded booty. Pradeep smiled a self-congratulatory smile; "heh, got rid of that nasty bun and the dogs in one go!", he thought. As the two curs fought for dominance, Pradeep thought to make good his escape, and continued walking non-chalantly along the edge of the rocks toward the sea.
No good. The other dogs continued to follow him, eyeing the remaining bag. But Pradeep was not about to give up his treasured murrukku! He stuffed it into his shirt, but the dogs were not fooled. Their noses knew the truth. So, Pradeep had no choice, but to scramble up the slope of granite rocks and boulders. Two of the dogs followed, loping along casually in Pradeep's wake. As he climbed the rocky slope, the rocks turned to boulders and he continued desperately leaping from one to the next, rising higher and higher, toward the path encircling the perimeter fence of the shore temple. One dog could not make the leaps and was left behind. But, frustratingly, one last rabid hound stayed on Pradeep's heels. Thinking to lose him, Pradeep approached some picnickers. Maybe the dog would shy away at that point. However, it was no good - the dog had a nose for murrukku. Pradeep kept climbing higher, then made a final Matrix-like leap (there is no spoon!) across a gaping chasm from the highest boulder up to the path. Daniela was already on the path, having seen Pradeep's trajectory and having leisurely taken the dirt path up (sans wild dogs), rather than scrambling over the rocks. Pradeep joined her and they made good their escape, leaving the last tenacious dog slavering hungrily on the granite boulders.
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