Do we deserve to LIVE?
A 15-year-old elephant, who was 2 months pregnant, strayed
into a village near the Silent Valley National Park in Palakkad district a few
days ago. She was calm, and not trying to hurt anyone. She must be very happy
for being pregnant and valued every life.
A local fed her. She gladly took the food. It was a pineapple.
The poor soul didn’t know that the pineapple she was taking from a humble human
was not just a simple pineapple and the humble human was a devil pretending to
be humble. The pineapple was filled with firecrackers, which blew inside her mount
leaving her in excruciating pain and a large injury in her lower jaw.
She strayed on the roads of the
village for days in pain, but she still didn’t hurt anyone. She was pregnant.
She had a life inside of her. She valued other lives and didn’t harm any of
them. How difficult it must have been for her to know she can’t save the little
life inside of her? And yet she valued the human lives who tried to harm her.
She finally went to a river. Stood inside it submerging her trunk and mouth
into the water, until finally, she took her last breath!
She was first seen by forest officials
on May 23 trying to look for water desperately. They observed her for 24 hours
and saw her to go to river Velliyar on May
24. They called a vet after some time. The vet saw the injury but could not do
anything about it without taking her out of the river. So on May 27, the
officials decided to take her out of the river, but while doing that, she
collapsed and died.
From May 23 to May 27, government officials were
observing her but couldn’t do anything for her. They say they tried. I agree to
that. They must have tried. But was that helpful? Was that enough? And was that
so hard? We humans have the capability to create history in one day, but we couldn’t
find a way to help and innocent elephant in 5 days!!!
I am not sure if I should feel rage or shame!
She must have not been able to eat
anything after that incident. She must have been in a constant pain for days.
She must have been hungry. She must have been worried about the life growing
inside of her. What must she be thinking? What must be going on in her mind? How
hard she must be wishing to live, if not for herself then at least for her
child? How hard must she have prayed for her baby to survive?
A lion when eats a deer in a forest,
it’s his need, not his choice. He has been engineered that way by the nature.
He can’t choose to survive on grass and he can’t choose to live without taking
life for his food. But we humans have evolved so much from being hunters to
being farmers and much more. We have evolved intellectually, technologically,
culturally and much more. But we have not yet evolved to value a life.
Specially, life of an innocent animal who didn’t want anything else but some
food. What was her fault? Why can’t we understand that these animals need to
come to villages for food, only because we have penetrated their homes by depleting
forests. What threat was she posing on any human? Even after being in
excruciating pain and running around on the streets of that village in pain for
days, she had a sense that she didn’t want to hurt anybody. Then why, the
people, who fed her the firecrackers didn’t have the same sense.
A lion threatens a few lives because of
his need. But we are threatening the existence of every species in the world by
choice. We are responsible for the extinction of hundreds of species in the
world and are still threatening many of them.
We run campaigns to save tigers. Why?
Because we have brought them to the brink of extinction. We have national
forests and we give protection to those forests now. Why? Because we have
depleted them to such a level that we can’t afford to deplete them anymore. We encourage
people to plant trees. Why? Because we have cut them so much that we can’t
survive anymore if we don’t plant them. Everything bad that is happening in the
world is because of us. This covid 19 pandemic is a nature’s way of telling us
that we have had done un-forgivable harm to the nature. We are now locked
inside our homes since months. Have you thought why only humans are being
affected by this virus? Why no animal is worried for their lives just like we
are? Because we are the only ones who are responsible for the destruction of
this planet. No one else! And that is why, only we are being punished.
We call ourselves the smartest, most
intellectual and logical species. What was the logic behind feeding a firecracker
to an innocent elephant? How dumb must a man be to understand that it was
wrong? What to do with such an intelligence which only hurts other species? Out
of millions of species living in the world why should one species have special
powers and monopoly over the rest?
Whenever we see injustice happening to
us, we raise voice against it. We go to police, Media, government, court and
ask for justice and expect it to be served. Who should that elephant must have
gone to? Who is responsible to give her justice? If a lion breaks the boundary
of its forest and interferes in human world, we expect it to be killed. But we
are interfering in the lives of every species on the planet. What should be
done about that?
We keep saying, “Making the world a
better place”. Are we really? Leave everything. Stay silent for two minutes,
take a deep breath, think hard and ask yourself. What good are we really doing
by living? We are only endangering the lives of millions of species that could
co-exist peacefully if humans extinct. We are not the solution; we are the
problem…
So I ask, do we really deserve to
live??
Thank you for reading the article. If you like my writing, you can search for my novel…
I Don’t Need Reasons. I Need You!
Well written,eagerly waiting for next.
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