Kochi: Perumbavoor market is a shameful symbol of the two-legged animal’s unspeakable cruelty to dumb four-legged ones. These creatures condemned to the butcher’s knife are tied in the open and left to the mercy of the scorching sun. Some lie comatose, lashed by the heat. Others strain to reach the available scanty shade. But, tethered as they are by a short rope, this too is an unattainable solace. The most unfortunate have to endure standing on a concrete patch. Even the welcome relief of a sip of water is denied them. No officials have so far cast a tender glance at them. Why is it that even those caring souls who put out water in birdbaths are inured to this pitiful sight? Why should the last moments of their nasty, brutish and short lives be so painful? Perhaps these images captured by our man on the scene, Sumesh Kuttan, might stir the finer human emotions in those whose remit it is to ensure that even animals destined for the chopping block are deserving of dignity.