I offer you the following evidence:

7:00 a.m.: several tiny lizards turn up everywhere - the loo, the curtain, the window sill, and the kitchen. As they dart about at the sheer joy of breaking out of their eggs, their mother, or maybe a pre-historic relative - turns up above my bed. (Ever tried shouting out loud and shuddering when alone in the house? Makes you feel super-stupid.)

7.30 a.m.: A mango in the kitchen is gnawed by something - I tell myself it's an ant - but then whom am I fooling? The teeth marks are so distinctive; it's got to be a mouse, possibly a rat.

7.40 a.m.: Massive cooking gas smell in the kitchen. I find that the gas rubber tube is gnawed by something in the same style as the mango. I consider lighting a match and ending it all.

8:00 a.m.: Watchman comes in and pokes around near the cylinder (which has been turned off) and finds 6 mice, all tucked in, and cozy in what was once a kitchen towel. He removes them and considerately leaves them in the field nearby, so that they can tell the story to their many grandchildren.

8.10 a.m.: I consider offering the watchman the entire house in exchange for a serious search for the mother of these mice.

8.15 a.m.: He spots her tail in the space where the gas tube goes away from the kitchen counter and down to the space below. Great. A cute catch-me-if-you-can kind of mother mouse. Rat actually. Large, and very angry about her kids being woken up. Watchman catches hold of her tail while I shudder at the kitchen door, and the dogs pretend that they knew about her all along, and just wait till they get their teeth into her, etc. Canine cowards.

8.25 a.m.: In a stroke of brilliance, the watchman grabs at a can of Hit, and sprays the rat. It mumbles something like "Main kahan hoon?" and slides out of its hiding place, wiping its mouth and burping rubber-tubing burps. The watchman says sorry to his god and whacks the rat once, twice, and it's dead, but not without spilling its blood on my kitchen floor. Major guilt for me - using an aerosol spray-can and walloping an animal (or having it walloped, in this case). What to do? Sometimes it's like that.

8.45 a.m.: Scene of the crime has been cleaned. Gas-man turns up and tells me: "Shouldn't allow rats to get so comfortable here. Didn't your dogs know? Always check the tube, always shut the cylinder from below"…the entire drill. I nod humbly.

9.10 a.m.: With tube replaced, I dare to put on the gas and make myself a cup of coffee - which tastes to me like generations of rats have personally stirred it. Can't get the image out of my head (or taste buds). Ditch the coffee.

9.30 a.m.: Much shouting outside. Dogs give very hunter-like woofs. The neighbours are pointing excitedly from their terrace. There's a mongoose outside my gate, dogs are half out of the bottom gap, and the mongoose looks like it's turning into a werewolf and going to, at the very least, smack each dog very hard on the nose. Dogs suddenly look not so keen, slimily give the mongoose a small time advantage, and THEN chase it, safe in the knowledge that it will get away.

The neighbour giggles and says, "Very good luck you'll have…seeing a mongoose brings luck."

Sure.

Her husband says cheerfully: "Must be snakes nearby."

Wow. You don't say? That's the good luck coming my way?

10:00 a.m.: I discover, to use a delicate word, the 'spoor' of some animal on my terrace. No, it's not the tiny 'bird-spoor' or 'lizard spoor' kind. It is definitely something that has been eliminated by the digestive track of a medium-sized dog. Deposited by whom or what on a second storey terrace? Parachuting wolves? Mountaineering stray dogs? Rappelling foxes? The next day, I build myself a machan and lie in wait. (Oh ok, not a real machan - I simply skulk in the twilight with a torch.) At 8 p.m. sharp, a form rushes past me and vertically upwards. I flash my torch, and find, frozen in its tracks, half way up a tall papaya tree, a creature that looks part cat, part skunk, part fox and part my fourth-standard maths teacher. Later, a book informs me that I have seen a civet. I immediately check to see if part of its feeding habits include picking up small to medium-sized dogs, and in a pinch, small to medium-sized women. But no, it's going for the papaya, and that explains the abundance of spoor on my terrace.

Am now fully prepared for larger animal forms turning up. Or worse, smaller, slithery ones. Already there are a couple of humans who've called saying they want to drop in - to whom my response should be a quiet and determined reaching out for the can of Hit.

Who needs the great outdoors when it's all coming in through the windows?

Anandi