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A Boy Won't Let A Lion Get His Goat

A little boy and his goat have an encounter with a painted lion in West Bengal, India.
Courtesy of Partha Kar
A little boy and his goat have an encounter with a painted lion in West Bengal, India.

A boy, a goat and a lion.

Those are the stars of an award-winning photo called Friendship.

Each year, the international relief and development group InterAction gives a prize to a photo that highlights "the determination of individuals around the globe" and that makes people "feel something." This year's pick is by Indian photographer Partha Kar. He lives in West Bengal, where he happened upon a boy of about age 7 or 8, carrying a kid — "his pet," Kar says.

The youngster was in a playful mood, Kar says. So the boy went up to a painting of a lion on a wall "to give him a proposal of friendship," while holding "the lion's favorite dish in his lap." A little kid "could not even think of anybody as an enemy," Kar says — even a lion.

Goats and Soda wishes it could be so innocent! Here's what we would have told the lion: "Keep your paws off the family goat. And we're not kidding!"

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Marc Silver
Marc Silver, who edits NPR's global health blog, has been a reporter and editor for the Baltimore Jewish Times, U.S. News & World Report and National Geographic. He is the author of Breast Cancer Husband: How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) During Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond and co-author, with his daughter, Maya Silver, of My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks: Real-Life Advice From Real-Life Teens. The NPR story he co-wrote with Rebecca Davis and Viola Kosome -- 'No Sex For Fish' — won a Sigma Delta Chi award for online reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.