Jeevashram

All About Animal Care and Cure
By Swarnendu Biswas

In this age of crude materialism, there are very few reflections of selfless service and undiluted human compassion. Jeevashram, whose mission is dedicated to prevent the cruelty towards animals, is one among the few institutions in India, that is guided primarily by an altruistic motive. Spread across 1 acre, this sprawling animal care shelter is located in village Rajkori, near the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Jeevashram is the brainchild of Lekha Poddar– a business- woman with her heart beyond mere business. She founded Jeevashram, way back in 1990, and besides providing the infrastructure, she also supported Jeevashram fiancially during its initial stages. Even today, she continues to support Jeevashram. Her labour of love has borne fruit over the years; today Jeevashram is a success story, which has attracted the attention and reverence of a cross-section of society.

Presently the show is managed by Dr. Vinod Sharma, who is serving the institution in the capacity of Chief Officer-in-Charge. This veterinary surgeon joined Jeevashram in 1994, and is the first resident vet of the animal care shelter. Then he was the only doctor on the roll. Besides providing medical care to injured and afflicted animals, he also handles the administration and day-to-day functioning of the institution. In his mammoth endeavour, he is ably assisted by two junior veterinary surgeons and 15 support staff. The latter help in hospital work, pick-up of animals, upkeep of the environment, and other assorted activities.

Jeevashram has a very well-equipped operation theatre, where a gamut of surgical operations, of both small and big animals, are being done.

Over the decade and a half since its establishment, the infrastructure at Jeevashram has vastly improved. “We now have an X-ray room, dental surgery facilities, a small laboratory and also boarding facilities for animals,” informed Sharma while elaborating on the boarding facilities. The boarding facility not only caters to those animals who have taken ill, or are undergoing post-operative care, or have met with an accident: pets whose owners are going out of town for some time prefer to keep their pet/s in Jeevashram’s safe custody for the time being, are also catered to. That’s not all. “Over the decade, we got a mobile clinic as donation, have included a pet shop where people can buy myriad pet accessories like dog collar or cat food- and have introduced gas anesthesia and ultrasound facilities,” conferred Sharma, with satisfaction emanating from his voice. In 1994, he was the only doctor and today there are three of them.

This holistic animal care centre treats a number of large and small animals, which include cattle, donkey, dog, cat, peacock, rabbit, guinea pig, eagle, etc. Sharma elaborated, “Not only are pets accepted for operation, cure or boarding, but stray animals within 15 km of the radius of Jeevashram, which have taken seriously ill or are injured, are picked up by our pick-up team and taken into this centre. After curing and healing the stray dogs, cats or cattle we leave them at the same location from where we have found them, and after healing the injured peacocks and eagles, we let them fly way.”

Sharma, who had one month animal welfare training from London (RSPCA) in 1995, believes that today’s pet owners are more educated about their pet’s well being than their yesteryear counterparts. “Regarding pet-keep, nutrition, vaccination, etc., the awareness level among today’s pet owners are impressive,” pointed out Sharma, while adding that, “today’s pet owners are very much assertive and particular about the facilities available in an animal care shelter, which of course, is a healthy sign.” And Jeevashram, with its increasing popularity, has done its bit in raising the awareness level about animals, particularly among school children and villagers. “School children visit Jeevashram as part of their educational exercise, or do voluntary work for us; this helps them to gain awareness about animal care,” explained the vet. Folks from the nearby village also visit this farm for the treatment of their cattle, which in turn, have acquainted them about the benefits of better animal care.

However, in the same breath, the doctor with a mission and a vision feels that a lot still needs to be done in generating awareness about animal care and animal transportation. In this context, he cited a gruesome and tragic real life experience of his. He recounted, “Sometime back, a truck loaded with 12 camels overturned in NH8. We reached the accident spot within 20 minutes of hearing the news, along with the requisite infrastructure, and were horrified to see that all the affected camels were not only severely injured, but were also old, dehydrated and in altogether bad shape of health. We immediately did the needful and managed to take them to the animal care shelter but we knew that it was an uphill task to revert them to health…the damage was already done!” The whole incident made him more proactive to the need of spreading awareness about animal care and transportation.

Today the name of Jeevashram has spread far and wide; and people from places like Kanpur, Gwalior and Jaipur come here with their pets. And that has made Dr. Sharma happy but not contented. He is happy because his earnest endeavour has been a success story, but he is not contented, since he thinks a lot still needs to be done. There is no room for complacency in his philosophy as he has miles to go...