Krishna Kumar Mishra, known to everyone as Shyam Sadhu
He was born on 2 June 1939, and he has spent most of the years since then feeding, treating and burying animals that no one else would claim. This is his life as his own site tells it.
A boy in Varanasi who carried bread out to the animals
He was born in Bermo, in the Hazaribagh district of what was then Bihar and is now Jharkhand, in British India. His father, Bal Bhadra Sharan Mishra, was an inspector at the Hazaribagh police station.
By the age of eight he was living at his maternal uncle's house in Varanasi, and it was there that the habit began. As he tells it, he used to take bread and chapatis from the kitchen without asking and carry them out to the animals. He was a teenager when it stopped being a habit and became the thing he did.
He has been based in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh for many years now. What started with stolen chapatis is today supported by his family and by people who have never met him.
Why he calls feeding monkeys a service to Hanuman
His reasoning is simple, and he repeats it often. People looked at Hanuman's vanar form and made idols of it. Today those idols are offered bhog with great devotion — while the living vanars are turned away from. Vanarbhoj, as he began it, is the answer to that contradiction.
He goes regularly to Bhanvare Suran, a village near Nigoha, where he feeds the monkeys and helps the children who need it. He collects chapatis, gram and whatever else he can, and goes out to feed them regardless of the weather.
He admits he was afraid at the start — that the monkeys might bite. They did not. Over time he became family to them, and they to him.
He does not choose between them
He is known locally as the messiah of orphaned animals, because he makes no distinction between them — a snake, a cow, a donkey, a bird, a pig. If it is injured or abandoned, it comes home with him and he gets it treated.
When the hospitals have no room, the animals stay at his house; he has set aside a separate ward there for them. He is also known for rescuing snakes and releasing them back into the forest.
And when an animal does not survive, he performs its last rites in full. He has turned the ground of his own home into their burial place. Many are buried there. He holds that respecting every creature's life is what being human actually means.
Indian and foreign plants, grown where they should not grow
He is not only an animal lover but an environmentalist. He has taken part in many plantation drives and spends time persuading and teaching others to grow plants.
At his home he keeps a garden he calls Geetanjali Herbal Garden, a collection of Indian and foreign plants. By making the conditions they need, he has managed to grow coconut, mini litchi, black grapes, Singapore star fruit, fig and clove in the north of the country.
His hope is a small garden at every house.
Serving animals is the same as serving Lord Hanuman.
Shyam Sadhu, in his own words
He has passed it on
These values went to his family too. Both his daughters and their families are involved in helping animals — some of it is on the channel, in films of his daughter and grandson caring for animals themselves.
See the work for yourself
Thirty-six films from his official channel, including the full documentary.
Everything on this page is drawn from Shyam Sadhu's own website and channel.