Sometimes you feel so helpless…

Those of us who work with animals will know how helpless you can feel sometimes. You want to do the right thing, but the right thing appears so monumental without the support of people around you, that all you can do is wait and watch and pray that something gives… someone has a change of heart.

A couple of days back, I saw the same helplessness at Houndsgood. Nine innocent animals… so beautiful… are on the death roll because we don’t have the time, money and space for them. Today is the D-Day, and the last time I checked, Chris, who runs Houndsgood, and her friends have managed to save eight of those nine dogs.

What happens to the ninth one if she does not get adopted? She gets euthanized. For no fault of hers. Sometimes it appears ironical to me how we play the role of God. We decide who gets to live, who gets to die, who gets to eat, and who gets to be tortured. Human beings have probably come upon more power they can handle. Their visions have also become warped.

Let’s take an objective look at ourselves. Everything in this world is about “us”. Everything else have their fates decided by how they can figure in our world. Look at the list of endangered species… look at the list of species that are extinct… humans were responsible for most, if not all of them. If euthanasia among humans is a crime, how is euthanizing animals justifiable?

Dogs are not euthanized in South Asia. They are allowed to live like unwanted parasites. Thus the name “Pariah”. It means unwanted. Here they are beaten with sticks and stones, run over by speeding cars, blinded and tortured, and kicked around. This behavior is accepted as normal among most. Anyone who protests is an outcast.

A couple of years back, a pack of dogs bit a young boy to death near Bangalore. It was the Chief Minister’s constituency. The elections were approaching. The Administration responded by ordering the mass culling of dogs anywhere they were seen. What followed next was a mad frenzy. Every news channel on National television beamed images of people hunting and killing dogs, as if the men had turned into packs of hounds.

A video is still available on Youtube where you can see the hysterical public slitting the throat of a lactating dog. I would suggest that you do not watch it. It is too graphic and heart wrenching. The outpour of emotions on the Youtube bulletin boards reflected that.

Someone called us uncivilized brutes who ought to be bombed by Bush. I couldn’t have agreed more. India, that was a cradle of ancient civilization is now coming to full circle. We are going back to being barbaric beasts. Mercy is hard to come by… in fact, it is a stretch to expect mercy from people. After all, we are talking about dogs in a country where children are massacred without a second thought.

A couple of weeks ago, we were stirred by the news of a young boy in Delhi. His bicycle had been hit by a car that was on its way to a wedding. The wedding was taking place just next door to where the child lived. In fact, he was also invited.

Upset at the damage caused to his bike, the little boy asked the commuters for compensation. A few hours later, his father discovered him from a field nearby. All that was left of him was his feet. The rest of him had been consumed by fire. His tormentors thought it was better to set him on fire than to pay him a few rupees to get his cycle repaired. He was not even 10.

Can I expect mercy in this heartless world? Mercy for second-rate citizens? I don’t know… There is probably still hope. There are people like me working in small pockets of the country looking to restore a bit of humanity in humans. But we are flagging clan.

Sometimes I feel so helpless. Help us, please. Give us a voice… talk about us… let the world know about what we are doing, and pray that more and more of you come forward. If you don’t today, the oldest dog breed in the world might also soon feature in the list of endangered species.