In the pandemic-induced lockdowns, where life turned on its head for everyone, it also did for Mumbai’s stray dogs and cats, also called streeties. Santa Cruz East resident Sarika Nerurkar, who until then had barely paid attention to the animals in her neighbourhood, remembers noticing a few roaming around emaciated. The “hotel uncle” in her gully, who used to feed the strays with the kitchen leftovers, including a diet of rice and chicken bones, had shuttered temporarily. “The dogs were going hungry,” she recalls. On a whim, she began feeding them rice and eggs, at 10 every night. “There were seven of them, so it seemed doable,” says Nerurkar. “Within a week, I was feeding 27 dogs and 45 cats, covering a kilometre-radius around my home.” This went on for a year, until the lockdown rules were eased, and the eatery resumed business.

But this sparked within her an affection for feeders and rescuers. “I had encountered callous behaviour. I was being told off by residents in the society... they suggested that I feed poor people instead. They saw both, strays and feeders as a menace.”