I Hate Being Called an “Animal Lover”

On 22nd November 2025, at the Shaam-e-Baazgasht Kolkata edition, a dear friend and neighbour from the audience affectionately introduced me by saying, “He is a very passionate animal lover.” That evening, it felt heartfelt. Warm, even. But over the last few weeks, I have slowly started hating this term — animal lover.

Especially because I have increasingly seen it being used by people who have a problem with feeding strays, taking care of their health, or ensuring their wellbeing. Very often, the phrase is not used as a compliment anymore. It is used as a sneer. A label. A weaponised word meant to alienate anyone who chooses compassion over convenience and indifference.

“Here comes the animal lover again…”

And the implication is usually clear — emotional, irrational, troublesome, impractical.

But tell me something honestly. If people who show compassion towards animals are called animal lovers, then what do we call people who actively oppose kindness towards them? Would animal haters be an appropriate antonym? I’m genuinely open to improving my English. Because the irony is difficult to miss.

The same people who mock compassion are often the loudest voices speaking about “health risks,” “danger,” “disease,” and “public nuisance,” while sitting comfortably inside air-conditioned homes, far removed from the uncomfortable realities of coexistence. And let me be clear — concerns about safety, rabies, aggression, or sanitation are not invalid. These are real concerns and they deserve responsible, humane solutions.

What disturbs me, however, is how rarely the conversation moves towards actual solutions.

Very few people ask questions like — How do we vaccinate strays? How do we sterilize populations responsibly? How do we create safer coexistence for both humans and animals? How do we reduce aggression caused by starvation, abuse, and territorial instability? How do we build systems instead of outrage?

I recently came across heartbreaking news reports of stray dog attacks, including attacks on children. Such incidents are tragic and frightening, and public safety absolutely matters. But somewhere, we also need to ask ourselves — how did we collectively reach a point where fear became the dominant language between humans and animals?

Very often, an animal’s violence is not born in isolation. Someone’s act of cruelty eventually reflects as an attack on some other innocent human being. An abused dog becomes fearful. A starving animal becomes defensive. A cornered animal lashes out. A population left unmanaged becomes territorially unstable.

It is easier to demand removal than responsibility.

But nature has never belonged to humans alone. It has always been an assortment of species, instincts, survival systems, territories, and coexistence. Yes, violence exists in nature. So does fear. So does self-preservation. But the solution cannot be extermination, cruelty, or convenience masquerading as logic. Because if human beings truly wish to call themselves a civilization — or as I prefer to say, the privileged species — then privilege must come with a higher ethical capacity and responsibility.

A civilization is not judged by how it treats the powerful. It is judged by how it treats lives that are vulnerable, voiceless, and dependent on human mercy for survival.

And perhaps that is what many people fail to understand about stray animals. These four-legged creatures are not sitting around plotting urban domination. Most of them are simply hungry. That is all.

Unlike us, they do not have structured economies, salaries, kitchens, food delivery apps, refrigerators, gated societies, or social systems that guarantee food and shelter. Many of them are descendants of animals displaced from shrinking habitats and expanding cities built by us humans. We destabilized ecosystems. We expanded into their spaces. We altered the balance. And then we grew resentful of their presence among us.

The humane and scientifically recommended approach has always been feeding in designated spaces, sterilization and neutering, anti-rabies vaccination, medical care, community awareness, and structured coexistence. Even India’s Animal Birth Control Rules recognize sterilization and vaccination as the ethical and effective way to manage stray populations rather than cruelty or illegal displacement.

[Refer: Animal Welfare Board of India https://awbi.gov.in]

The love these animals offer is often among the purest forms of affection one can experience.

And no — caring about animals does not mean caring less about humans. Compassion is not a finite resource. In fact, societies that normalize cruelty towards animals eventually normalize cruelty elsewhere too. History has shown this repeatedly. Empathy is a muscle — either you strengthen it, or slowly lose the ability to feel it at all.

Animals often love with a purity humans spend entire lifetimes searching for. No social status. No hidden agenda. No manipulation. No performance. No transactional politics. Just recognition, trust, and warmth. Feed a hungry stray consistently, and you will understand what gratitude without language looks like.

And perhaps that is why this subject feels deeply personal to me.

I am a cat dad to two rescued souls — Pride and Glitter.

When they arrived in my life, I was a single man living a quiet bachelor life. Their arrival brought a kind of emotional abundance I cannot fully explain in words. They gave me reasons to return home to. They made me feel paternal, protective, purposeful, needed, emotionally anchored — and above all, deeply and unconditionally loved.

There is something profoundly healing about a creature choosing to trust you. About tiny footsteps following you across a room. About sleepy eyes waiting near the door. About silent companionship after emotionally exhausting days. About being accepted without explanation.

In many ways, these little beings stitched parts of me back together.

Not because they solved my loneliness. But because they transformed a house into a living space filled with affection.

People often underestimate how deeply animals participate in human healing, especially for those carrying heartbreak, solitude, grief, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion. Maybe that is why the echoes of Baazgasht feel so relevant here too.

In the past, despite criticism, hostility, emotional exhaustion, and at times outright harassment from co-residents within our housing society, my neighbour, my sisters, and a few compassionate people around us continued doing what they believed was right for the stray cats and dogs of our area.

But that is a much longer story.

A story of love, tears, attachment, helplessness, healing… and animals somehow always finding their way back into our hearts.

Perhaps I’ll write that story another day.

For today, I only want to say this — the love I see in the eyes of my kittens is an echo of goodness still resonating in this world. And that is my reason for Baazgasht — my return! 

Because love echoes. Kindness echoes. And cruelty does too.

So yes, I hate the term “animal lover.” Rather, I believe a complete absence of compassion towards vulnerable beings is deeply inhumane. Having said that, if kindness towards vulnerable beings earns me that label with sarcasm and criticism, I will accept it proudly.

What I refuse to normalize is a world where compassion is mocked more than cruelty.

16th May 2026, 09:39 PM