CHENNAI : Wagging tails, wet noses and hopeful eyes looking for morsels of food and water — the nationwide lockdown has left strays across the country in a state of starvation. With restaurants shutting doors and people almost diligently practising social-physical distancing, the strays, who usually depend on food from these feeder sources, have been left in a lurch — some even starving to death. While few NGO-led initiatives to help the furry friends have rendered some hope, individual initiatives also seem to be catching up City-based couple Guru Narayan and Kavya Subramaniam along with their neighbour, Rakesh, have been feeding cooked rice, curd and biscuits to around 20-30 dogs at Shastri Nagarin Adyar since the lockdown began.
“Rakesh lives down the road and has been involved in feeding dogs for quite some time now. So, we decided to join hands with him and help feed the strays. Kavya and I cook three to four kilograms of rice a day and feed them every evening. The rest of the rice is taken to Thiruvanmiyur Bus Stand by Rakesh, where he feeds 10-15 more strays. We also have Pedigree for the puppies,” says Guru. Soon, Guru came up with a creative way to involve more people in this initiative — but from the comforts of their own home. “A friend started sketching to kill time during the quarantine.
I got inspired by him, made a few sketches of friends and they liked it. Someone even decided to pay me for it! That’s when I thought, why not club this with feeding the strays,” he says. The curd and biscuits cost the couple close to `200 every day. While the duo can afford the expense, they tell us that they wanted to make it a community initiative and create awareness about the plight of the strays.
This thought process paved the way for the initiative ‘Draw for the Dogs’, wherein, Guru takes up commissioned sketches for a fee of `200. “We use it to buy curd and biscuits for the strays. This way, anyone who can’t step out of their home can also be involved,” he shares. Guru uses an inbuilt app to create these digital sketches. “They are amateur sketches and not perfect. I ask people to send a highresolution photo of them, draw it and add some elements to make it quirky and interesting. So far I have completed seven sketches.
I have 15 more requests in the pipeline. Once the backlog of work is done, I will be taking more requests,” he explains. While Guru insists that the payment be made only after the artwork is completed and reaches the inbox of the client, he says that many have been generous enough to transfer the money — artwork or no artwork. “I want it to be systematic. So, I am trying to streamline the payments too,” he says.
