DogExpress
The moment we saw this documentary photography, we knew it that we found our first inspiring story!
Kaushik Sengupta has managed to capture this incredibly inspiring story of a Street Dog Doctor – Mr. Sandip Karan, a Kolkata man who has dedicated his life looking after street dogs with his self-taught veterinary skills.
This original article was posted at www.kaushiknews.blogspot.com, but we found out that this blog isn’t available anymore. So, we had to make sure that this amazing story reaches our readers and more people get to see this amazing story.
Story in Kaushik Sengupta’s own words:
“My story centers around a man Mr. Sandip Karan who loves street dogs and his love knows no bounds, unlike most dog lovers. His home- cum -kennels houses 40 street dogs who are mostly sick–some have lost their legs, some suffer from liver ailments and some have cancer – but they are being treated with rare care and compassion by a self-taught vet who learned his lessons while assisting veterinary surgeons for years.
Now confident enough to successfully perform surgeries, Mr. Sandip Karan is lucky to have found assistants in his mother Mrs. Sarasti Karan and wife Mrs.Moumita Karan. He is not doing any charity, it is his profession. He does not believe in chaining the animals or caging them. They are left free to move around and take rest in his house. Quite popular in his area as ‘street dog doctor’, Mr. Karan loves to cook food for his ‘four-legged patients’. When called to treat a street dog in a faraway place, he sometimes brings home his ‘patient’ if the situation demands ‘hospitalisation’. After the ‘patient’ gets well under his treatment he ensures its safe journey to the place it comes from.
He has, till date, treated around 2500 street dogs in his own locality and the quite vast adjoining areas. Half of his ‘patients’ had cancer – those having vincristine cancer have been cured. Not all his neighbors take all these kindly subjecting the ‘doctor’ to their wrath. However, that does not prevent him from dreaming of a house (he does not want to call it a shelter) for his loved ones. He is trying to raise funds for his NGO Concern for Animal & Environment Welfare. His hobby is gardening. As a photographer I share his work and have joined him for the journey.”
Kaushik Sengupta’s Bio: Kaushik Sengupta is a self-taught social documentary photographer. He graduated from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata in 2002 with Honours in theatre and literature. He has since worked as a freelance photographer for Reuters and later for the Associated Press. He has been working with Drik India as a contributing photographer since 2006 and has done a wide range of social documentary photography for various agencies and organisations.
In 2007, he did a preparatory course for 3 weeks on social issues at Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok. In 2007-08, he was posted as an intern for 10 months at Drik Bangladesh where he learned photo editing for magazines and newspapers, dealing with thousands of pictures every day. In 2011, Kaushik participated in a documentary photography workshop conducted by Greg Marinovich and Munem Wasif. He now works as an independent social documentary photographer with Save The Children, Oxfam, Action Aid, Cancer Foundation Of India.
We found this amazing story here.
in Chandigarh, India. 
