How can you explain away infanticide, abandonment of infants, or the giving away of babies for adoption, or surrogate motherhood? By women who may later go on to have more babies and keep them. How do you justify it if you believe that the maternal instinct is innate and automatic? Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has some provocative answers to the above, in her new book Mother Nature. By sheer coincidence, I landed up reading two books, back to back, that deal with behavioural science. Amusingly, the behaviours are of two different species. One is about humans, and the other about animals. Both ground-breaking, with some pretty mind-boggling, new thought. Bound to raise hackles and controversy. Anthropology professor at the University of California, Hrdy has done a lot of work with primates, and her research leads to her claims about the gentle sex not being so gentle after all. That maternal instincts are not really `instinctive' at all.

As it is, the division between the sexesis blurring. No more are there the clear-cut divisions which decreed man the hunter and procurer. And females the little women back home, who cooked and tended to babies. Today, women are out and about. Equally the hunter and procurers. Nothing can be taken for granted anymore, as far as role-playing is concerned. But one thing has been accepted unconditionally. That maternal instinct is natural to women. Yet Hrdy claims that despite a genetic disposition toward maternal love, it may not always come forth. She suggests that the `instinct' is conditional, contingent to circumstances.

In the thousands of past years, fertility led women to be pregnant and home bound anyway. Now, the scenario is vastly different. Birth control frees women from motherhood in a way that has revolutionised thought processes. Women can delay having babies for considerations like careers, or monetary solvency. They can put back the biological clock, or even ignore it altogether. Adoption of another's baby is an option, should shechange her mind. Ambition, in conflict with reproduction? A woman eschewing a family altogether, how does that jive with the takers of maternal instinct? The second of my books is called Dogs that know when their owners are coming home & other unexplained powers of animals. The writer is Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist from Britain. The title of the book is self-explanatory. Anyone who has had a pet would relate to it. I have had dogs as pets. I love the creatures madly. My dog Snuffy, a gold Spaniel, came to me when he was five weeks old. He grew into this incredibly friendly animal, with a most winning disposition. He had more invitations to people's homes than I did. I swear. Friends would call and ask after him, often I was asked to bring him over. "And, oh! You come for dinner too!"

Going out of town was usually no problem for me. Snuffy happily found homes to move into. One time I rushed off to Delhi. My return was unexpectedly delayed, I came back four days after my original date. Without notice to myfriends, the Vyas's, temporary owners of Snuffy. I walked in straight from the morning flight, singing, "Surprise". But they grinned happily and said, "We were sure you'd be returning today." How? They said that when I did not return on the prior mentioned date, Snuffy went into a sort of blue funk. He was depressed and off food. They were worried he might be sick. Then suddenly, the evening before, from about 5.30 pm, he perked up and was his exuberant, greedy self again. And on THE morn, he was on sort of on tenterhooks.

Strangely, it was around 5.30 the previous evening, that my program to return started to map out. This was only one in a series of such stories. On a daily basis, one could witness manifestations of things that go beyond the realm of a dog's famed sense of smell and acute hearing. Friends would testify that Snuffy was human.

Then there's the dog who got lost whilst on holiday with his family, 1,000 miles from home. Nine months later, the dog arrived at their doorstep, emaciated anddisease-ridden. How on earth did this dog traverse the great distance? Could he read a map? According to Sheldrake's fascinating book, pets bond to their owners and homes in powerful ways. Uncanny animal behaviour is explicable by expanding on ideas about morphic fields.

Telepathy, sense of direction and premonitions are the three categories his work is based on. Not all animals are reactive. Even breeds may differ in response. He has spent five years of research, spanning various countries. His claim is that there are some things that science has not managed to explain. "The wealth of experience of animals s generally dismissed as anecdotal. I looked up the origins of this word. It comes from the Greek root anekdotos, meaning `not published'." But, he says, "Research, especially medicine, rely heavily on anecdotes, but once published, they cease to be anecdotes and are promoted to the ranks of Case Histories."So, the next time you want to communicate with an animal, just use telepathy.

AnuradhaTandon is a film-maker.