The incidence:
It was nine pm, my sister called up to tell me the tragedy that had struck a pregnant elephant. I had finished my coding test and had failed miserably, so guess how was the moment spot on! Yeah, I tried to play it down but lost few hours of peace and sleep. Then saw the image of the poor soul in knee-deep water, waiting for the grim reaper. It leaves a question mark on every moment when an animal trusted a human. I wish I could run through time like Flash and somehow just stop this and other such episodes from happening! This image and this very thought will stay with me for a while. I would like to believe that with a few more people, as being lonely without this reciprocity, is a gutting thought in lockdown.
The animal lover strikes:
I have lulled the animal lover in me for a while as it landed me in a soup on many occasions. I am talking of time 20 years back when people thought I am insane for talking to and fighting for dogs on the street. Anyways, we leave the gory details of the Kerala episode as nothing is left for the brain to consume. Yet there is a worm in my mind and thought of sharing it here. I used to see the great epics as a child, and two characters have challenged my sensibilities. One is Aswatthama, for the brahmastra he targeted on the womb of Uttara to kill Abhimanyu’s son.
And yeah, it’s not the upcoming movie, I am talking about.
And when the line blurs between mythology and reality.
I think this would be fresh to your memories as lockdown made people see our great epics? Guess on the ethical scale this was the most heinous act one could ever commit for which he was cursed to be immortal. The other character is of a daitya called as Raktabeej whose episode is fascinating for if he shed a drop of blood, it produced another of himself, his clone. Coming back to the tragedy in which the poor elephant got killed, I think of these two characters, and how ironic it is-we have the Aswathamas. They are increasing at the pace of Raktabeej between us, as humans, with names, faces and everything deemed as ‘human’. To close this, with all the science around us, we are certainly on our quest of being Chiranjeevi!
