There is no rest for the wicked

I knew there had to be something wrong with this place. It was too perfect.

We enjoyed three days of absolute bliss before we discovered the flaw. The first day, we visited a lovely veterinary institute here which is high tech by Indian standards and I thought we all did a good job oohing and ahing at the appropriate moments.
e.g. "This, is an ultrasound machine."
*awkward silence in the room*
"Oh, uh, oooooooh. Ahhhhhh. Ultrasound is it? wow."

We also visited a snake park, botanical garden and enjoyed an indian pastry picnic in a yard with a herd of goats. As I swallowed my curry puff, a little black and white goatlazily chewed a Lays chips bag beside me.

I forgot to add that previously, we had visited some rural areas and were mobbed by children whenever we took our cameras out. I have a million shots of hands/closeup faces and silly grins. i couldn't even walk and eventually, someone just grabbed my arm and dragged me through. AT one point, our host had to draw the iron gates and lock the children out of the yard and even then, they stood, pressed up against he bars reaching their arms through like zombies in Dawn of hte Dead. I'd wave at them and they would giggle and point and reach out more. It was insanity.

We were led around through the crowds like celebrities in a ravenous crowd of paparazzi and for hte one time in my life, i had a glimpse of what it must be like to be Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt. Well, minus the good looks and foreign babies and all that.

The country side is amazing here and cattle rule the road. I don't even blink an eye anymore when we see a cow on the highway eating out of a garbage pile. Woman and children carrying things on their head and naked children peeing int he gutters kept passing us by and we drove past dozens of water pumps where men in loin cloths were bathing for the day.

Every day, we have been given as much fresh fruit, vegetables, juice, good food and icecream as we desire. It's like they read my mind for my deepest cravings and miraculously, the next morning, it shows up on the breakfast table. They somehow even managed to get us pepperoni pizza last night with big bottles of ice cold coke. I had no idea how much I was missing it till I bit into it. Gosh i love pizza.

So with all the good food, good shopping (wandered into a bazaar today, didn't get stabbed, but saw and bought so many cool accessories I thought they were going to have to drag me kicking and screaming out of there), good books (finished the bird books and am onto the books on primates of NE India), good service (servant still comes in with tea and biscuits for us every morning and offered to change our sheets and clean our floors for us), and cool animals, what is there to possibly complain about?

Well, there's only one thing, but it's a fundamental thing. something so basic and horrible and traumatizing that I would trade in all the creature comforts if only this one thing would change.

It's the 'surgeries' they do here, if you can even call them that.

This shelter is far better funded than the last shelter we were at and yet . . . oh and yet. The last shelter we were at, I was horrified by the standards of surgery they did there, but after seeing what they do here, i almost wish i was back at the other place- rats, ticks and all.

They essentially do the surgeries here while the animals are still awake. THat's right. Imagine you are going for a surgery. Girls, imagine you are going for a hysterectomy (complete removal of your uterus and ovaries). They shave you, give you some drugs to make you more sedate, give you a bit of numbing on your skin where they're going to slice, and then they gag you and have people holding down your arms and legs, and while you are still awake, they slice right into you from the start of your rib cage down to your pubis and without wearing gloves, reach in, grab out your uterus, take their time tying it off with thread and posing for pictures and chatting to people the whole time before slicing it out with a blunt scalpel after an hour of poking around in your guts. Remember, you are awake the whole time and the only thing they've given you for pain is some lidocaine to numb the top layers of your skin before they sliced in. When you scream and struggle, they just hold you down harder and tighter.

That's what we did to those poor animals yesterday. my job was to hold down the front legs and head. i felt every kick and scream coming out of that dog.

What kind of surgery do you do where you have to hold down and muzzle your patient? They should feel NOTHING. NEVER suffer and NEVER remember anything.

It was horrible.

ANd the worst part is that we are powerless to do anything. The veterinarian that did the surgeries here is revered as a god by our hosts and if we say anything, it would just offend them. Plus when we mentioned anything to the vet about pain medication, he just looked at us like we were crazy and argued with us or more often, just ignored us. And afterwards, our hosts looked all expectantly at us while we were having post-operation tea and expected us to smile and thank the vet for being good neough to show us his surgical skills.

i felt a bit of my soul die every time the bloody needle slipped through his ungloved fingers and the dog whined and I had to pin it down harder.

anyhow, in ten minutes, we are operating on some cats. catsa are more sensitive than dogs. I'm not sure what to do anymore.

tomorrow, we leave for our trip to the tiger park (sunderbans) and I won't have to deal with this anymore.

Till i get back, i won't have access to the internet.

Talk to you all later.

hope you're having fun back home.

E-mail me at my ufo_specialist account! I love getting e-mails. It lets me keep in touch with reality. i have limited internet time so i haven't written any personal responses yet but i promise to the next time I get to an internet cafe.

Take care everyone!

Namaste.