What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri – Thoughts
There are so many stories to tell in this world. There is the sleeping girl, the old man with regrets, the captive princess. There is vengeance on parents; there are star-crossed lovers, adventurous youth, and all different kinds of lonely people. There are heroes, and villains, and quests. And then there are all the stories about the animals and magical creatures.
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
A debut collection of 9 short stories that Kolluri writes from the perspective of 9 different animals all around the world. Kolluri explores environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family through the eyes of a vulture, tiger, polar bear, and more.
This is one book I impulse borrowed from the library based on its cover, and it did not disappoint. In addition to the beautiful cover that caught my eye, each story made me think and I even found myself closing the book after each to take the time to ponder on the story I had just read. Which I don’t find myself doing often, I just consume and read, read, read.
The vulture’s perspective is so interesting. We see them or think of them as gross, creepy, ugly as the eagle says at the beginning. But from the perspective of the vulture, that’s what they’re here to do. The remains of who they’re eating isn’t being harmed, it’s the ones who are alive who are disgusted, distressed, and mentally harmed by watching the vulture eat. Without the vulture, the bodies of the dead would be there for longer. So what is more cruel? The vulture eating a dead body and not harming anyone, giving back to nature and cleaning up as well, or allowing the body to decay for longer, possibly leaving more wreckage in nature than other scavengers can clean up after?
‘I am not ugly,’ I said to the wind that remained, ‘because I will be of use.’
Vulture, What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
Not to mention the vulture’s belief/perspective that this is the way to help the other animals travel to an afterlife. We don’t know of any afterlife, not really. So who are we to say that that would be impossible or incorrect?
That my consumption of her body was for her, perhaps, a moment of birth again. I thought of the ritual of this. Of what it always meant for me to do this. But when the hook of my beak pierced the meat of her shoulder, I saw the steppe transform before my eyes. The open sky became streaked with the wisps of thinly spread clouds, luminous at their edges, where they met the blue expanse.
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
Polar bear’s fur being unhelpful when he swims – makes me think that all species have an environment where they fit perfectly into, but there’s at least one other kind of environment that tests their strengths. Nature is beautiful, bizarre and outlandish (probably since I’m a human living so differently) that we have to go through trials and tribulations to see who can live another day just to face another crazy predicament the next day.
This is kind of what I think about when I see people complaining on the internet or hear people (and myself) being distressed about mundane things in life – we’re not fighting for our lives against other animals daily. We’re not foraging for food, we don’t have to enter a distressing situation just to chase and lose the food we need to eat, and need to chase that same food again tomorrow to make sure we live.
Ugh I digress. Read on.
Alessandra is reading... 
Leave a comment