There is this interesting Ashram in the Old Nagpur Shanti Nagar area called ‘Kutte Wale Baba Ka Ashram.” It is over a century-old Ashram, where today minimum of 60 dogs feel it’s their home.
What’s unique about Kutte Wale Baba Ka Ashram is every evening, 50 kg of wheat is rolled and cooked into rotis. They are then soaked in milk and fed to dogs that live here. And the feast is not just restricted to them; it is open for hungry strays too.
The dogs are at peace here. And one could spot them almost everywhere, even inside the Kutte Wale Baba Ka Ashram’s sacred temple. The Ashram also serves as a shelter where people who cannot care for their pets leave them for their upkeep.
The tale of how the Kutte Wale Baba Ka Ashram got its name and became a home for strays goes back over 100 years. It was when Pramahans Ramsumber baba settled here in the Shanti Nagar location of Nagpur. He was feeding stray animals and caring for them.
However, as people started believing that Ramsumber Baba could communicate with these animals, his popularity grew. Though the Baba left the mortal world in 1967, his followers built an ashram dedicated to him. And ever since feeding strays became a religious service in the Kutte Wale Baba Ka Ashram.
Eknath Kawde, one of the Ashram’s trustees says, “Our guru told us that feeding animals that cannot speak for themselves are a divine duty.”
Speaking about the Bombay High court’s order prohibiting feeding strays in public, Ashish Varma, another trustee of the Ashram, thinks, “Humans can ask for food when hungry. What will a poor dog do? We feel blessed to be able to feed them.”
Vouching that stray dogs cause no harm to people, Jaykumar, also a trustee here, says,” In the last 100 years, not even a single dog attack has been reported in our ashram. It is we humans who attack these animals.”
Reference: Times of India
Representational Image: Killing animals in India, including stray dogs is an offence