Mom of abandoned pets left in the lurch

Thiruvananthapuram: Sundari, a blind terrier, was thrown out of the car window one night, into the darkness of the streets. Now she is one of the hundred or so abandoned pets rescued by Saramma, who runs ‘Action for Distressed Animals’ in Peyad, Thiruvananhapuram.  The ‘animal shelter’ is Saramma’s hut which offers her little protection from rains. All around us are dogs barking; birds, puppies and kittens with skin diseases rolling atop one another.

Saramma“People say I get funds. That Maneka Gandhi is on my side. That rich people fund me. But see what I get,” she says, wiping away tears with the edge of her muddy, torn nightie. The animal care centre is dilapidated. There are goats, crows with torn wings, hens, ducks, a parrot with a cancerous lesion. No vet wants to touch them.  The dogs, which come in all shapes and breeds, were abandoned. “Animal lovers, they claim to be. Yet when one is a little diseased, they throw it into the streets,” Saramma says.

The animals, wounded or sick, look drenched, in their dilapidated cages. They are tormented by skin infections, tics and fleas. The dogs need to be fed at least once but there is hardly any rice or vegetables in Saramma’s kitchen; only a few cooking utensils. “I am a graduate and have a Gana Bhooshan diploma from Swathi Tirunal School of Music. But I have nothing now,” she says. Her husband passed away two years ago. Her 26-year-old daughter is in depression and refuses to come out of the dark.  Saramma is no longer the beautiful young face smiling surrounded by pets that one sees in her visiting card. No one will give Saramma a Padmashri for her acts of kindness. She strokes the blind terrier and says, teary-eyed, “I will endure it all.”