Rita’s life, her animal companions

Editor's note

Tejasvi Kumaran is a student of Class 12 in Shibumi School, Bengaluru. She read two PARI stories that showed the love and affection people had for animals, “In both cases, it was the fact that whatever little these people had, they shared, that moved me,” she says.

The illustrations published here are inspired by M. Palani Kumar’s story Rita akka’s life is going to the dogs (and cats) published on PARI in March 2020. Tejasvi says, “Rita akka was happy to feed the stray dogs even though she herself had barely anything and struggled to get by. I found it incredible how she spent a large proportion of her meagre earnings on the animals every day, without a second thought.”