Spotted in the big city

Every few months or so one reads reports of leopards being spotted (pun unintentional but unavoidable) in different parts of Mumbai. This week, one such unfortunate animal managed to make its way into IIT Powai, making Instagram feeds of thousands of young students infinitely more interesting. The leopard hid in the metallurgy laboratory, an excellent decision straight out of a class bunking manual before forest guards were called in to capture the animal.

The leopard is said to have wanted a basic engineering degree before joining a consulting firm and eventually moving to the United States for an MBA. Okay I was lying about that last one. I just feel sad for leopards that because of where Sanjay Gandhi National Park is located, they always end up in the shitty suburbs of Mumbai. They have to spend time in Goregaon and Borivli instead of going to town and seeing how the rich and famous live. Even leopards must have started making fun of each other based on their travels.

"Bro I just went to IIT Powai. You were right, what a frickin sausage fest." "I'm telling you Malad is better. Have you seen Hypercity? It has everything you EVER need" "Okay. Maybe I will go during Mood Indigo. I heard the crowd is awesome plus Palash Sen might make some sexist jokes"

The truth is our headlines should be saying, "Humans spotted in leopard households". With builders grabbing every possible piece of land, environmental considers be damned, you'll see more such leopard sightings in the near future.

Students at IIT Powai got really lucky that none of them were injured or attacked but what else do you expect if millions of your kind decide to enter someone's habitat and squat indefinitely?

Given the number of Leopard induced casualties over the last decade, our narrative has always been that of a ferocious animal on the prowl hunting innocent human beings. Grainy phone camera footage of a leopard on the run looks a lot more terrifying than a 36 floor residential apartment being built with concrete mixers at the edge of a forest. Even if we can get a few more people to acknowledge that root cause it'll be a victory of sorts. Till then, all we can really do is joke about it on Twitter and google the differences between a leopard and a cheetah.