With the world moving towards development, humanity seems to be moving backwards with increasing cases of cruelty towards voiceless beings.
Every day, there are reports or stories on the internet about a dog being tied behind a car and dragged till he died, crackers being tied to the tail of an animal just for entertainment, bitches being raped, puppies being thrown from balconies and what not!
If we start listing down the ways in which the human race has inflicted pain and terror on other species, the list will go on endlessly. I have myself been witness to many such cases and would like to mention some of my experiences here:
While growing up, I saw many stray dogs around me but I was oblivious of their well being. I remember, during the monsoons, I while playing in the ground near my house with the potholes in the ground full of rainwater. Some boys from the nearby village who were also playing suddenly caught litter of puppies nearby and drowned them in the potholes. I remember going numb! I just couldn’t move and didn’t know what to do, those boys were big and I was scared. I remember running back home and complaining to my mother, who then went with me, found the family of those boys and yelled at them for not teaching their kids compassion.
In another very recent event, a puppy right outside my house was crushed by a speeding driver who didn’t even bother to blow the horn or use the brakes to save the poor puppy. As I was right there and saw what happened, I came in front of the car and stopped him. The crowd gathered and the drama began. To my dismay, I found no support from anyone, and all I heard was, “Why are you creating an issue? It was just a stray”. I was appalled to see the reaction of these people while the mother of the puppy was trying to move her dead child, hoping to hear his breath. The insensitive attitude of the people hit me hard that day. Despite going to the police, filing an FIR, trying my best to get justice for the voiceless soul and the grieving mother, I couldn’t do anything. To top it all, a leading newspaper that covered the incident, stated the police officer saying that “the complainant was over-reacting.” It left me completely hopeless.
In the past years, while growing up, I saw many such incidents of dogs being hit, crushed under cars for fun, and slowly, I gathered up the courage to stand up against it and raise my voice.
I also realized that shouting at such people is not the solution. The root cause is the insensitive attitude that the children grow up with, due to the lack of opportunities where they can get to interact with animals. Therefore, teaching compassion to children at a young age is what is necessary. But, in a nuclear family setup that most people live in, there is no one to teach the children these skills.
That is when I decided to start teaching children about compassion towards animals and being kind to them. I have been fortunate to meet people who have been equally passionate about the cause and supported me in reaching out to children and conducting sessions with them.
Spreading kindness is the need of the hour. What are the ways we can encourage people?
To start with, how about being kind to everyone around us? Smile at your neighbour, greet the security guard, leave food and water for animals.
Also, a fun and interesting way to do the same and bring many people together is to involve them in some kind of game or activity, for example a wonderful global event happening in Delhi on 17th November like “Dance for Kindness”, which is a concept started by an International non profit organisation called Life Vest, which encourages people all around the globe to organise a flash mob in their city. On the same day, lakhs of people in different cities and countries do the same dance steps on the same song and spread the message of kindness. Such events unite the whole world for one cause in such a beautiful way. Details for the event are there on the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/events/424245501630649/?ti=cl