Since childhood, my parents urged me to strive for excellent grades, then go abroad for further studies and whenever we talked about the possibility of I having to live aboard, my mum always advised me to never go to zoos abroad because the animals there were ferocious. Every time she said this, my mind was baffled about the connection of studies with zoo. Somehow my mum only trusted the local animals.

When I did get the chance to go abroad, within few days, I planned a visit the local zoo. I also wanted to see if the animals there were actually ferocious. So there I was, standing in front of the main gate of London’s great zoo, not to prove my mum wrong but to discover what was so special about the zoos abroad.

To my amusement, there was no comparison of these zoos with those in Pakistan. The London zoo was clean, well-maintained, well-funded and, above all, took proper care of the animals as they were healthy and playful. However, in Pakistan, the animals, after working full shifts and entertaining people whole day, hardly got enough food in return.

After I entered, the first animal I saw was a monkey and it was none another than an orangutan. Wrapped in masses of light brown fur, the creature sat in the corner eating bananas. I remembered one back in my country, it sat there having peels of fruits to eat. Poor creature!

I, unintentionally, disturbed this one by taking a photo. The orangutan got furious and as I started walking forward with a snarky chuckle on my face just to irritate the monkey, I slipped over a banana peel and fell on the ground. Now the orangutan had a snarky chuckle on her face, and there was nothing I could do except to continue my adventure.

Next, I wanted to see the king of animals, the lion. When I reached its enclosure, I was amazed to see that it was so majestic, full of energy and looked so healthy. It sat in the corner of its enclosure and was eating a piece of meat rapaciously. I took out my cell phone and positioned in front of the cage to take a selfie. While I was thinking about the caption with this photo, the lion rose and ran towards me with a terrifying roar. The soul-shuttering sound and the fact that a humongous lion was behind me, wacked the wits out of me and my cell phone fell, out of my hand, on the ground and broke. There was nothing I can do except continue my adventure without it.

The next animal was the great Indian elephant. As elephants live in a large area, the zoo had allotted it a small ground to it. Visitors were advised to stand at a distance of 15 feet from the fence of its enclosure, but I went a bit closer to get a clear view.

Beside the elephants’ area there were tall trees, on which I saw species of birds I had never seen in my life before, including tarsiers. I was still looking at the elephant when something fell on my shirt. I looked over my shoulder and saw something black on it and as I looked up I saw a tarsier swaying its tail from left to right; I guess the tarsier found my shirt the perfect place to attend to nature’s call.

What followed was even worse. As elephants enjoy the taste of dung a lot, so this elephant came near the side of the railing near me, raised its long trunk, stuck it out of the railings, and sucked the dung. The dung was in its mouth, but the mixture of vegetables and elephant saliva splashed on my face.

‘But … why me?’ I thought. This was the yuckiest outing of my life but funniest to you all. It also dawned upon me that animals didn’t like me at all so I should better stay away from them whether in Pakistan or abroad. Perhaps mum should have said, ‘Stay away from animals because you may seem to them an object of irritation.’

That day, I almost cracked my hip, broke my phone, had my shirt defiled, and even though my face still attached to my neck, but that day I felt that zoos are really a fun place, and in my case the fun was all at my expense.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 5th, 2018