Noted: Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories by Rain Chudori

There’s a kind of fierceness to how animals love. Do they? I’m sure they do, they must. In the natural world, there is no room for contemplation — it is only survival. But come to think of it, that primal instinct might make animals love better than we do.

No requisites, conditions.

No, I am not undermining the fact that survival in the human world involves a lot more. Yet this insight lets us drop everything and relish in the love’s raw quality.

Below are wonderful words by Indonesia’s own Rain Chudori in her compilation of “Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories”. Click to read more.

Tigers show their love differently than humans do.

Humans hide their love in the compartments of their body. We take it out in rare moments to caress between our nimbly thumbs and then return safely to where we think it belongs. But for tigers, love is abrasive. Love is aggressive. Love is an emotion that is shared through constant demonstrations of it. There is no shortage of love for tigers and those who experience it. There is no confusion. There is or isn’t love. 

If I could choose a life, I would be a tiger. I would spend days picking nettles out of each other’s fur and licking each other’s ear and pushing raw meat with my nose to the one I love because the first bite matters most. I would love other tigers with no regard for shame and no remorse in my carelessness. I would love like tigers do. Because fear is not enough to fill the space next to you in bed, but love is always enough. At least for tigers it is. 

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There’s a kind of fierceness to how animals love. Do they? I’m sure they do, they must. In the natural world, there is no room for contemplation — it is only survival. But come to think of it, that primal instinct might make animals love better than we do. No requisites, conditions. No, I am…