RIFLE RANGE BOY: Treating animals better than people?

All that Breathes (Documentary; 2022)

Director: Shaunak Sen

In a man-eat-man world, two brothers find their purpose in life, rescuing injured birds. Against a background of opposing groups fighting against the abrogation of article 370, of brothers of the same nation, hurting each other, we see two brothers going all out to rescue various birds and nursing them back to health, all voluntarily on their own accord with no training whatsoever. Within the confines of a dinghy house which they have converted into a bird clinic in Wazirabad in South Delhi, they have been rehabilitating small animals since the 1990s.

The brothers, Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud, even had referrals from other veterinarian clinics to treat these feathered animals. One of the reasons these raptors were sent away is that these clinics could not feed them non-vegetarian meals.

The brothers' efforts, even though they received minimal local financial support, garnered international recognition and the attention of a documentary maker and his team to immortalise their efforts.

What started as their late mother's teaching to be kind to fellow beings and all that breathe had snowballed to this. In an environment that is quite hostile, with all the Delhi pollution, their job is endless.

This documentary is a moving presentation with many artistically captured moments when and where fellow beings breathe the same airspace. Many reels show the many 'wild' animals that share our spaces in modern cities. A good documentary, India's nomination to the Oscars.

A cynic wonders whether the filmmakers are trying to portray India as a place so vile that even animals find it smothering to live. Not to forget the toxic environment that minorities have to put up with. And are we talking about pollution or societal pressures? And, of course, another group would lament that people's priorities are twisted - animals taking precedence over humans.