Sujay Shenoy- A Corona warrior.

Sultan was the most precious gift my dad ever gave me, a Labrador puppy. He was my oldest friend and companion. As time passed like a pleasant breeze, it also reminded us of our inevitable mortality, even before I knew the meaning of both. It harrowed me when he departed from us, a week before my boards. So to seek solace and fill the void Sultan had left, I spent most of my time at an NGO, ‘Animals matter to me.  

From my board exams till now, be it feeding or treating wounded animals, I’ve invested most of my vacation in this. I felt the bliss of peace as I feel fulfilled and loved by serving man’s best friends. Even in this lockdown, the NGO fed at least 500-600 dogs every day. I myself have fed 100 dogs this far during the lockdown. I feel less stressed out and relaxed. I enjoy the companionship and their lovely greetings.

The dogs in the new Bombay industrial area are gradually reliant on the food provided by the workers. As the lockdown invites no one to the industrial sector, they are left starving. So I try to find and feed the dogs, and once you go and feed them food, even for once, they’ll remember you for a lifetime and be happy every time they see you. We have a page, where we raise funds for an NGO which serves the starry life. In college, I had a committee where we voluntarily conducted feed drives and felt blessed by the grace of peace afterward.  

So this NGO has been in service to the stray life for over ten years and is endorsed by celebrities like Kapil Sharma, Amitabh Bachan, and John Abraham. They have around 2M followers on Facebook and have rented around four bungalows as an operational center in Malad, where they hold animal birth control programs, treatments, and feed drives. Recently they have bought around 11 acres of land in Kolad, which they want to turn into an animal sanctuary for strays on whom faith won’t be so kind if left-back on the streets. A heaven for them to retire from their hellish lives on the streets.

My dream is to provide animals with a safe place to spend their lives with and my only message to people is to not harm any animal or stray by throwing stones at them or troubling them. They have a life and a family too, just as we have.