“You know the kettle’s boiled When the water dances You know the plot is foiled When the victim glances Up at the striking sword Or at the raised slapping palm Proferring an elbow to ward Off the intended harm.” From Teriyaki to Terimaaki, an Indo-Jap Odyssey, by Bachchoo The UK’s House of Lords is debating a Renters’ Rights Bill, part of which considers whether tenants have a right to keep pets. At present, only seven per cent of landlords allow this liberty. Two cat-loving Lords, Black and Lexden, both Tories, are pushing the bill to include this right. Both of them, in a past election, sent candidates a list of animal-friendly policies, saying these would win them the election when animals were granted the vote. Eccentric? Yes! British…? I don’t think Black and Lexden are deeply worried about tenants having extended rights, their support is more about animals finding homes. The bill is being met with all manner of qualifications and amendments. Should it, for instance, specify which animals can be classified as “pets” and which can’t? This clause of the bill has to define “pet”, and so far, the adopted definition in the debate, is any creature kept for “personal interest, companionship or ornamental purposes”. Which would exclude keeping a gorilla or a lion cub, however well trained and creature friendly their masters or mistresses insisted they were. Where does that leave snakes, monkeys or sharks in tanks? And it should be obvious to the Lords and Ladies that landlords and co-tenants who share houses may have legitimate objections to the nurturing in rented properties of proven vicious or aggressive breeds of dogs, such as Pit Bulls and Rotweillers. And will the bill specify how many pets can be kept in a rented property? A hundred and one Dalmatians? Supporters claim that allowing millions of tenants to keep pets will measurably assist the National Health Service as the adoption of pets will contribute to the pet-owner’s mental health and there’ll be less demand on the NHS mental services. Sounds plausible, but difficult to statistically quantify? The objectors to the cat-loving Lords caused one earl to produce statistics to prove that “cats are killers”, who in Britain kill an estimated 270 million living creatures each year, most of them birds. That may seem an exaggerated figure, though we all know that the pet cat occasionally brings in a mouse or even a frog, plays with it and eventually kills it. And yes, birds are the primary prey! I spent my chiildhood and teenaged years in Poona (now Pune) in western India. The family, my two maternal aunts and my grandfather, lived in a rented bungalow with a backyard. We had five dogs in the house, all but one of them dumped on the household by my parents, by my aunts’ younger brother and even a policeman friend who brought in a yellow dog from the streets and insisted that one more wouldn’t make much of a difference to the household or the expense of feeding the pack. All five were of personal interest to me, good companions but perhaps only the chocolate-haired cocker spaniel with droopy ears had ornamental value. Nadira, Lady Naipaul, years ago, asked me to fetch a kitten she’d chosen from the Battersea Dog and Cats Home as a birthday present for my late friend Sir Vidia Naipaul. He fell in love with the kitten, named him Augustus and treated him with the utmost indulgence, feeding him fresh salmon rather than tinned cat food. The Naipauls and I went from their Wiltshire country house for tea one day to Vikram Seth’s in Salisbury. In Vikram’s sitting room he had his painting of Chinese calligraphy, and that prompted talk of the Beijing Olympics, which were in progress at the time, and I remarked that the butchers in Beijing had been instructed to remove the corpses of dogs in their showcases as this may offend foreign visitors. Vikram, mischievous as ever, piped up and said when he was studying in China, his flatmate’s mother sent cooked dog-meat, which he said was quite palatable. Naipaul, who was vegetarian, was outraged and said so. Vikram said: “Don’t worry Vidia, I don’t eat cats, Augustus is safe!” Vidia demanded to leave immediately. We stalled for a while as it was obviously a frivolous provocation. Nevertheless, as I drove the Naipauls home, I must have been infected by Vikram’s insouciance. In Britain, it’s known that some people, given dogs as Christmas presents, keep them for a few days and then abandon them on the streets. The Dog Trust in 1978 formulated the slogan: “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas”. Which inspired me as I drove Vidia and Nadira home from Vikram’s to say: “Vidia, a dog is not just for Christmas, if you keep it in the freezer, it can last till Easter.” Vidia didn’t think it was funny. I genuinely wonder whether bird-loving Lords and Ladies will attempt to exclude the keeping of caged birds as a tenant’s right. I hope they do. Shouldn’t we all agree with William Blake when he writes:...