Issue May 1 – 14

Respect Nature, or this will become a lonely planet indeed

I take pride in the fact that through the years that I have been at the helm of Femina, there have been very few instances where I have not read every single page before it goes to press.

But in the last issue, I wilfully refused to read the Earth & Sky pages.

Reading the first few lines of the article on how elephants are treated in India, written on assignment by ‘elephant man’ Vivek Menon, had me horrified and close to tears. I thrust the paper back into my colleague’s hand, refusing to read any further. But through the day and later, the words, and worse still the pictures they evoked, haunted me, tormenting me with the knowledge that my not reading the piece did not make it any less real.

All through my younger years, I was taught that everything has a reason for being, and therefore needs its quota of respect. Blades of grass, mighty rain trees, the dragon fly and the lion all had their place in Nature’s scheme of things, and meddling with them was sure to take away from the balance and order that Nature had created. I do believe my love for animals stems from this...

Indeed, growing up Indian too, has something to do with this. We revere stones, invest them with life giving powers, we worship trees, and many of our gods have animal faces. Besides that, Hindu mythology ensures a sacred status to almost every living thing, from the mighty winged Garuda to the lowly mouse, all of which are the vehicles of some god or the other.

Of course, the mature mind tells you that the gods and their attributes and even their respective ‘vahanas’ are but human values personified, but it still does serve the purpose of instilling a respect for all things great and small.

Which is why I have never understood man’s cruelty to animals. The bullock cart driver who whips his skinny animal, the starving horses that trot valiantly carrying a joy rider, chickens being trussed and weighed in bunches like grapes or being transported in a hot mesh encased van, their beaks open in thirst... these are sights one sees every day and no amount of rationalising makes it justifiable that man should punish a beast which cannot hit back.

Once, while walking one evening by the river, I saw a man who had a dog by its hind legs and was crashing it to the ground, much like a dhobi washes clothes. I was too young and too frightened to ask him to stop, and he looked pretty fierce himself, but that night, I could sleep only after I had convinced myself that either the man or the dog was mad. Today, as I look at the way most men treat animals, I begin to feel that most humans are as mad as that man from my memory.

Why is it that we have forgotten the truth? That an animal, reptile or insect will live its life in peace, if man will not disturb it, or threaten its existence. Which is what we do... we build hutments on forest land, graze cattle on grass that must feed the elephant and deer, chop down the trees where the monkey has its home, and then curse the animal, and label it killer or rogue and get after it.

Laws and the such will not help; we as humans must realise that the wild is part of the Indian heritage, and it is the presence of our once bountiful wildlife that has created our rich tapestry of folklore and legend, and set up the principles of our very way of life. Which the West is seeking inspiration from...

We are losing our rivers, have lost much of our forest cover, and unless we learn to respect life, we will lose not only the wildlife that still roams our country’s reserve forests, but our own link in the ecological chain. We will have of course, no one to blame, but ourselves, if this happens.