We want to share with you some images and stories of some of the angels who have left us with sweet memories…
 

We never had a chance to save Rani. We found her starved and tied to an electricity pole in April 2008. She was about 20 years old. Injuries to the hips from malnutrition, lame and thirsty, Rani could barely walk the single kilometer to get to our hospital (we don’t have a proper horse trailer; it would have been more difficult to load and unload her in our ambulance than to walk her.) She ate well for one day, lay down and could not stand again. She faithfully would have served an unknown tunga cart owner (a tunga is a cart with wheels that bears humans or other loads) or worked in marriages. Rajasthani marriages present the groom to the bride on horseback, and both groom and bride take turns in their villages in street processions. These processions are difficult because the horses often have to travel on foot from some distance to reach the village; also, they are almost never pastured, and weddings are seasonal. Off season they are standing for weeks at a time with little food or exercise. Suddenly they are hauled off to perform, and part of the procession always includes the detonation of firecrackers close to the horse. We
believe the horses are deafened by these repeated

blasts. They are covered in decorative cloth no matter how hot the season and forced to stand for hours and hours at a time. Blaring village bands with loudspeakers turned on super high volumes surround the horses. Rani must have had a quiet nature. We have no more information but speculation; we saw that she was a lovely, innocent Being abused by long neglect. Rani, we named her. She deserved a better life.
 

“Lady” stood forlornly by a tea vender’s cart on a road near the hospital. Something told Erika that she had a problem, but it wasn’t clear what it was. Erika had a somosa (like a stuffed deep-fried Rajasthani-style spring roll) in a bag, stopped and offered it to her. She sniffed at it eagerly, wagging her tail, but she wouldn’t try to eat it. Then Erika noticed pink saliva drooling from her mouth, but couldn’t open her mouth to see the problem. She slipped a leash around Lady’s neck, and called the Animal Aid ambulance to pick her up. When Lady was examined by Dr Rajiv, he found, to our horror, that Lady’s tongue had somehow

been cut off at the base. With great effort from a volunteer named Joan, Lady learned to swallow by tilting her head back, fed by a large syringe a mixture of egg, milk and mashed cereal. She was with us for a month. Her tongue healed, and she was let off the chain and roamed freely on the hospital grounds, “requesting” food whenever she was hungry, and accepting daily baths (without a tongue, she could not clean herself.) But one day Lady wandered off, and didn’t come back. She could not eat without our help, so we believe that she chose to stop eating and wandered off to die. Letting go of Lady was very hard for us. But we find comfort in the fact, that in the end she had the freedom to choose her fate. Lady put up a brave effort to live, and we know her days with us were full of love and peace.
 

“Cheeky” arrived scorched by electrical wounds. He had been a member of Planet Earth for a few days, and his mother, who he was latched on to, died from the burns when she apparently touched a “hot” electrical wire. The story of the 11 days that followed is one full of laughter, awe, and, finally, buckets of tears. Cheeky ate and slept and was in the arms of Julie most of the time. She made a sling so she could carry him everywhere. We could stare at him for hours

as he slept, took milk from a bottle, sucked on watermelon and explored the house. He seemed to be gaining strength, but electricity burns are usually fatal. Internal and invisible damage made for an eventual decline. Without a doubt, cheeky had many serene and happy hours, but he also missed his real mother. He developed diarrhea which we could not stop, despite our most conscientious efforts. Primate specialists tried to help, but warned us early that the prognosis was grim. Still, when Cheeky actually died (on a drip, in Julie’s arms, with two vets working on his heart) it came as a shock, with shocking sadness. We gave Cheeky a beautiful, intimate funeral, and buried his little body under a beautiful tree, and see the tree, and see Cheeky in our memories every day.
 

Gentle, tender, weak, adoring. Button died with an unconfirmed diagnosis. We get quite a few young puppies in a sad state, found starving on the road, weaning age, not making it, collapsing. Button was rarely in a cage. He was too weak to spend much time unsupervised, so he was toted around by staff and volunteers. He never thrived; he always struggled, and when he died, it was a gentle, perhaps inevitable death. Look into his face—do you not recognize him? Like EACH animal on earth he was a living angel, and somehow it seems he is gone, but, somehow, well within reach.