Meet 'Dogman' Viren Sharma from Jaipur

"I love animals, and I don’t think that it has been given to me or I have adapted it from some outer world, I think it has been inherited, it is within. Every human being has a special place for animals in their heart, we just need to explore the possibilities and it can only be felt once you have been in touch with the animal, be it a dog, a cat, or even a cow.

There hasn’t been any special moment or any incident that has inspired me to love these animals. But yes, during the lockdown I was very much worried about these mute helpless companions because I know that we, the humans, have the capacity to arrange things for ourselves, but these voiceless creatures, the cows, dogs, and monkeys, who are completely dependent on the urban population aren’t. During the lockdown, people went in an invisible mode so it was the question of their survival and that was the one thing that motivated me to do something for them.

The moment I started taking care of our voiceless friends, I never knew that it will become something of mass interest and everybody will start doing it. But I believe my initiative has actually motivated so many people and they have started feeding the stray animals on their own. And it has actually helped these voiceless animals survive at least one more day.

I have been feeding stray animals since I was a kid but I didn’t use to share it on social media. I started to share my videos of feeding stray animals because I wanted to motivate people that they can also do it. I was too little to reach all those thousands and millions of stray dogs around us who always have been a part of our society but have always been deprived of their existence. So that’s why I started publishing videos and photos on my social media handles and that’s how they came into the frame.

Otherwise, I am doing this for years and it has always been a part of my daily life and it has always made my soul happy. So basically, I don’t only feed these dogs, I feed their souls. And by feeding their souls, I feed my own soul.

India has always been an animal-loving country but outrightly because of this competitive world where we have to run to prove our existence, we have somewhat forgotten to respect the existence of these creatures. My only motive, now and in the coming times, will be to dedicate myself completely to the betterment of these animals and to make their life easier the motivation behind this is, I feel blessed, I feel lucky that I have been given this opportunity by the almighty to pursue my passion as my profession. And this is something which makes me happier. So whatever I am doing is basically with the motive to keep my own soul happy.

I have faced some challenges during my journey. Whenever you are the first person to do something, you definitely face some challenges because people do not know what it is, how it is, and where it is. Identification challenge was the biggest challenge I had faced but when I started doing something out of the box, something innovative and inspiring, I started getting attention and recognition and people started calling me ‘dogman’ because whatever and however, anything related to dogs used to come in their mind, they used to lay it on me and I believe that is my biggest achievement so far."