I received a call at the beginning of November from a Mr Yalladi letting me know that a donkey had fallen down a manhole and the donkey needed help. We immediately set off to find her and after some time searching we found her located in a very quiet area and were amazed that anyone had noticed her at all.

On my way to an education course I was running in the Kumta Naka area of Solapur, India, I saw this donkey who had been injured badly in a road accident. I immediately went on to meet the donkey owners waiting at the course to find out if they could identify the donkey's owner. We all went back to find the donkey, but having searched all over, she had gone.

As you know, here in Solapur we have been trying to reduce the number of colic (gut pain) cases caused by donkeys eating plastic bags. The problem is that people throw out their waste food in plastic bags, and the donkeys end up eating the plastic bag together with the food. In the worst cases, the plastic bags block the gut and the donkey dies a painful death.

I was on my rounds in Lashkar, a town in Madhya Pradesh to see if the donkeys were in good condition and happy in their life. I was near the house of Goopy the donkey owner in Lashkar. In a small lane near his house I found the donkey called Mushke. Her head was down and her ears were in a tense way straight on the side. When I lifted her face, it was very terrible to see the cruelty done to her nostrils which had been cut and were bleeding. I could see in her eyes the pain and I could hear her voice saying help us. Water from her eyes was flowing continuously.