The school girls shuffled from side-to-side, unable to keep the straight formation implied by the intertwining of little hands. Judging by their open laughter and expectant gazes, I was sure that this zoo had more than one main attraction. 

The first animal made its debut through the lanky trees on the right. It’s a…it’s a…well, it’s not moving. And, it’s made of wood. A wooden giraffe. Maybe the school teacher was right when he snapped: “the animals are all sleeping because you are all being so loud!” No worries, there really were multiple attractions. Their names were Alyssa, Alyssa, Melissa, Sophie, Beth, Dan, Kai…our faces are starring in at least five point-and-shoots throughout Pune. I guess the wooden giraffe wasn’t very photogenic.

 Further down the trail, about ten deer and two elephants dotted the exhibits to either side. A display sign for monkeys stuck in between two thicker trees; I took the lack of fencing around the exhibit to mean that they all wore fancy primate collars around their necks for the invisible fencing that was surely buried beneath the dust. Maybe they forgot the collar part, because the monkeys never showed up. Washed down with a few bottled sodas and a tired communal slump on the steps outside of the concession stand, we concluded a successful day at the zoo in India.

Open "monkey exhibit"