Families load their food and cooking pots into the wagons, put the heavy yoke around the animals’ necks, and force them to march to the Chinchali Fair, a journey that will break their spirit. The bullocks and ponies trudge and are often forced to trot or race, miles on rutted paths, dragging their heavy carts, while dust from the carts in front of them chokes their noses and throats. Going all day without water, if they are given food, it can become painfully lodged in their stomachs, causing bloat. Nose ropes used to control them cause their septum to bleed; the heavy yokes cause blisters the size of footballs that rub against their necks with every step. If they dare to stop—or even to turn their heads—the sting of a leather whip or the piercing pain of a spiked cylinder reminds them to move on. Now!. These are horrors no living being should endure. But along this punishing route is something else: Animal Rahat’s free veterinary care and rest camps, retreats where exhausted animals can drink, eat something to sustain them, and receive medical care for lameness and wounds. This year, our veterinary teams made the journey more bearable for 6,331 animals, confiscated 197 torture devices, and spared 3,666 from the rigors of this grueling trip entirely by subsidizing buses and so providing worshippers with animal-free transportation.
