Most people mark special occasions with flowers, cards, or a private dinner. But for a man in Assam, love takes on a very different meaning and action altogether; it means staying up all night with an injured hornbill, making artificial legs for a stork that can no longer stand, or driving out to a forest range the moment a call comes in about a wounded animal.Yes, his love is all about caring for and rearing injured animals!For over three decades, a simple man has turned an ordinary household in a small Assamese village into an unofficial rescue centre for animals.His name is Bharat Borah, and his story is less about wildlife rescue as a mission and more about it being simply the way he has chosen to live his life.
Meet Bharat Borah: the man who has dedicated his life to treating injured animals
Bharat Borah lives in Tepsalibam village in Moran, in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. According to a report by ETV Bharat, for the past 33 years, he has been nursing injured wild animals and birds back to health, so much so that his relentless efforts have earned his village the nickname if of “Hornbill Village,” or “Dhnaesh Pakhi” in the local tongue, because of his success specifically in treating and releasing hornbills.
What all animals and birds has he brought back to survival over the course of his journey
His list of patients over the decades reads almost like a wildlife inventory, including all from tigers, monkeys, hornbills, vultures, greater adjutants, lesser adjutants, and several other species.His house today functions as a wildlife rescue centre, with both forest department officials and local residents bringing injured animals to him for treatment and rehabilitation.Speaking to ETV Bharat, Borah shared some sense of the scale of his work. “It has been so many years since I have been working for wildlife. To date, I must have treated and cured around 55 small and big birds, including 35 rare birds like hornbill,” he said. At the time of the report, he was busy caring for yet another injured hornbill at his home.
Bharat Bohra (Photo: ETv Bharat)
Borah builds artificial legs for injured storks who lost their legs
The most special and unique contribution among his interventions was the case of three injured greater adjutant storks who had lost the use of their legs. Rather than accept that they might never walk again, Borah built them artificial limbs himself. “I had a tough time making artificial legs, putting them into the animals, and sending them back to the wild. These are pleasures of life for me,” he told ETV Bharat.This hands-on ingenuity is part of why the forest department in Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, and Sivasagar has come to depend on him. Whenever officials rescue or come across an injured bird or animal in these areas, Borah is often the person they turn to, sometimes going to the site himself, and other times receiving the animals brought directly to his home.
His family supports him in his contributions
Borah doesn’t do this work alone. He is joined by his daughter and a group of young volunteers who have become part of the initiative over the years. “With me are my daughter and some more youngsters who are a part of this initiative,” he said, according to ETV Bharat. He also credited his family for standing behind him through it all, “Spending time with birds makes me and my family happy as we forget our sorrows and hardships.“
