Hearts Still Care

I nicknamed the kiddo I got to foster. The guys who left him didn’t exactly abandon him on our doorstep — but they did come and leave him there. They named him Milo for all of four days, and we were debating whether or not to name him at all, because once I name him, I get emotionally invested. So I was putting that off for as long as I possibly could.

There was somebody from Khar who wanted to adopt him. I thought this was it. He’s lucky, he’ll get placed within 24 hours. But when we asked for the adopter’s address so that we could come and drop Drizzle at his house, see the place, and decide whether or not he’d be able to keep Drizzle properly — give him the home we want him to have, and not return him after a week — we were met with silence. He did not reply to any further messages, nor did he answer our call. So we’re back to square one.

Drizzle, basically, is a very sweet fellow. Today he did something that touched me. He always wanted to climb up onto the sofa, and I was always wondering why — especially since Zuri is usually sitting there. I thought that was why he wanted up.

But actually, Riyaz, who had rescued him from a road in Goregaon, told me that when Drizzle first came to him, he nestled against his shoulder and fell asleep. So today, after he had eaten and done his potty (he now uses the bathroom, clever little thing), I picked him up. And just like that, he nestled into my lap, into the crook of my arm, and went to sleep.

Moments like that make me so sad about the world we live in. Every day, Instagram is filled with stories of dog feeders being abused by dog-haters in colonies and on the roads, of dogs tied with ropes and dragged mercilessly behind motorcycles until they die, of others dumped near jungles so that wild animals can get to them. I see dog feeders being attacked, and I wonder — where does all this ignorant hate come from?

When you see a pup like Drizzle sleeping in the crook of my arm, and realise all he wants is to play, eat, and drink water, my heart breaks. It feels catastrophic inside me, because I feel so helpless at how far we as humanity have fallen. We take over their spaces, and when they ask us — in the only way they know how — to contribute to their safety, we turn our backs.

It’s the same with animal rescues I see online: donkeys, cows, horses. A cat thrown from a high-rise in Mumbai. And I wonder — how can people do this?

I know there are crimes against people too. Today, I burnt my thumb while reheating food. It blistered immediately — a first-degree burn — and it hurt so badly I was walking around the room to bear it. That small pain made me think of the man who burnt his wife alive because she couldn’t meet his dowry demands. And I can only imagine the agony she must have gone through. The thought makes my heart unbearably sad.

I feel torn apart by the horrors this world keeps offering, again and again. We’ve had wars, then Cold Wars, and now fresh waves of hate — ignorance that convinces some people they are superior and others inferior. Where does this come from?

With animals, I completely lose it, because they have nobody except us. People like me, my sister, and those who marched alongside me — we raise our voices for them. But we are so few. I feel like we’re in the minority.

I’ve been a homosexual fighting for my rights in this country for as long as I can remember. First, you come out to your parents. Then to your family. Then you brave the world. You’re bullied, picked on, made to feel less — because everything is built on straight privilege, and the “other” is always looked down upon. I now know where this prejudice comes from. But I’m so tired of dealing with it.

I’m just so tired.

This evening, Geeta, Anand, Hamza and I were selecting names for the puppy who’s going to be coming into our home tomorrow. The story of the puppy starts around the 12th of August, when it was raining very heavily in Mumbai and my hairstylist, Riyaz, found a puppy huddled in the street, shivering in the pouring rain and covered in grease. Humanity overtook his heart and he picked up the pup and brought him home. Of course, he couldn’t keep it at home, so he would keep him at the salon while he was working, and then take him back to his house.

He reached out to Anand and me to have the pup adopted, and Anand managed to find someone who would take him. Prateek took the pup from Riyaz and said that he would give him a forever home. However, a few days later he contacted Anand, saying that his girlfriend had lost her job and it was difficult to keep a puppy at his house because of the financial constraint.

I was obviously very upset thinking about this, especially because the Supreme Court verdict that had just come out in Delhi had already torn my peace of mind. The thought of all those stray dogs on the streets being huddled into vans and carted away into non-existent shelters made my blood run cold. I made videos about it, I made posts about it—and then the Supreme Court again passed a judgement saying that the dogs would be rounded up, sterilised, vaccinated, and then sent back into the streets. But they also added conditions about “aggressive dogs” and declared that everybody who protested in the courtroom should pay fines ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹200,000. And this comes in a country where the killing of a dog carries a fine of just ₹50. It’s a bailable offence. 

Animal abuse is not taken seriously in our country. And now, with the Supreme Court’s verdict, all the dog-haters have risen up in arms against animal feeders and dog lovers across the country. The situation has gone from bad to worse for those people who go out at night—especially women—who feed strays in their makeshift vans or personal vehicles. There are people ganging up against them, beating the dogs, and even beating the women themselves. There have been incidents all over the country.

I have been a stray dog feeder throughout the lockdown. My partner and I fed the dogs on our street, and we know all of them. I used to take care of three dogs on our street—but we lost one to old age. I know that the streets are their home. People often say, “Take them home,” but I’m not going to get into that argument now. I feel it’s important to understand empathy and kindness. But that’s not going to work, is it? Because it doesn’t even work with human beings. Girls are being raped and murdered and nobody blinks an eye—so when dogs get killed, it’s just like another ant on an anthill somewhere in Africa dying.

The truth is, I have rescued strays before, and this fellow who is coming into my life today afternoon is again going to change my life in some way—because I’ll be helping him find a forever home. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that I’ll be able to find this for him. Every time I bring an animal into my life, they become part of my family, like my children. It’s very hard for me to give them away, but I want them to have better homes. I already have three dogs in my home, and I’m already facing problems in my society where people ask me to leash them whenever they’re out playing in the garden, even when we are all alone. My kids are well-behaved and we have long walks before play time so no accidents happen. I comply and leash them because it’s the law, but sometimes they just want to run. There are no pet parks I can take them to, no designated areas for them to play. If it’s so difficult for pet dogs, can you imagine how hard it is for strays out there on the streets?

So, I try my best. I couldn’t stop thinking about this pup—shuffled from the rain to someone’s salon, then someone’s home, and now finally to mine. I’m desperately trying to find him a home, and I really hope I can. At the end of the day, I think it’s what we see in them that makes us human. I wish I could say kindness matters, kindness makes me more human, but I feel it’s these dogs, these animals, who make us more human. I truly hope his life turns out to be a good one.

I know I can’t do much for all the strays I’ll never be able to help—but at least I can help this one. I still remember when there was a puppy in the gutter near my old home, yelling and yelping for help. I climbed into the gutter, picked him up, and brought him out. Or the time I rescued a puppy from being beaten by a security guard, brought him home, and within a month found him a forever home with a friend. The satisfaction I felt in those moments is indescribable.

I’m hoping this will happen again for the boy I bring home tomorrow. Because in the end, it’s very difficult to live a life that cannot, in some way, be used to serve others—without expecting any gain at all. Yet, I do it anyway.