CULLinary delights

Rumours of suspected bird flu attacks have resurfaced, and with that organized efforts to wipe out the virus. Only that it is synonymous with with wiping out millions of chicken.

Have we really begun considering ourselves to be God? What gives us the right to wipe out entire populations of these defenceless chickens? I have been a part of bloody and gory instances, and managed to stay pretty much composed right through. But i could watch the video of the culling for no more than a few seconds. I felt disconcerted and and downright sad at the ruthless efficiency with which the people were breaking the necks of the chicks and dumping them as garbage into bins/pits. I am certain that the chicks have the emotional intelligence to comprehend what was happening in front of them, and the certainty that the same fate is going to befall them as well. All this, because they are suspected of having avian flu.

Drawing a parallel, if humans were to be culled every time they got flu then population and environmental concerns wouldnt exist at all today. In fact it might be a worthwhile thing to do - every form of cold or flu in the world is incurable. See a human with cold? Wring his/her neck and dump the body into a pit at least 12 feet deep, else you might contract it too.

Without having to elaborate, the analogy is obvious for that human disease that scientists today all over are trying to battle and control. But would we do to them what we do to the chickens? No. Unthinkable. We try to bring them into the mainstream, and make consistent efforts to help them lead a normal life.

Which leads me to think: Probably the only mistake the chicks committed was in being born as chicks. Why would anybody spend millions in developing vaccines for chicken which are going to land up eventually on our plates anyways? Go ahead, cull them. But mind you, there may come a time when it might be man's turn to lie dead in that pit - only that this time it would be fellow humans themselves who have decided that funding for medical research to develop vaccines is simply not worth the (money) effort.

Reflections - 7/11

Exactly an year ago, serial bomb blasts on the suburban trains in Bombay ripped apart the lives of several innocent and unsuspecting people and devastated the livelihoods of several thousand others.

Back home, I sat glued to the TV looking at the gruesome images of destruction and death. And sat with bated breath when Western Railway declared that it is not going to bow down to the whims and fancies of the terrorists: "We will have WR up and running normally by the peak hours tomorrow. No matter what."

And they did it - at around 1:15AM on 12/07/2006 the services were resumed. And I silently rejoiced - a fitting reply to terrorism.

Word was beginning to spread about a Bombay bandh being called on 12/07/2007 by the political parties to protest the blasts. But they declared in one voice, in a rare display unity that there shall be no bandh. A fitting reply to their dastardly act would be to show them that nothing can stop us and that we would still go ahead and lead a normal day.

And that moment I was actually proud of all our political parties for displaying the grit and determinationt that they did. Balls to you terrorism!

Then, a week on, the entire city came to a complete standstill for 2 minutes to pay homage to the victims of the blasts. In silence, we made our message loud and clear to the world.

WR has repaired the one of the bogies that was impacted by the blasts and it will make its inaugural run today evening to correspond with the first blast.
And today, millions of us, travelling in the very same bogie would again give terrorism a fitting reply: "Do what you want - Nothings gonna stop us now".