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| Empathy And A Little Sensitivity Can Make The World A Better Place |
Over the years, I have grown increasingly bitter over my fellow human beings. It sickens me that people have no regard for the lives and feelings of animals. Truth be told, I feel more at ease when I am with my furry and feathered friends. Because the way they make me feel loved is incomparable. And also because I love the soul behind those eyes. It's actually funny how they are able to know and understand the inside of me better than my fellow humans do! They are non-materialistic and non-expectant; and at the same time, neither do they ever hold back on their love for us, nor are they ever hesitant to express it. Their love is, in fact, among the most unadulterated ones one will ever get from anyone. Animals love us not just because we feed them, or shelter them or play with them or walk them, or groom them, or protect them, but more so because they can feel 'Love', they understand 'Love' and they value 'Love'
. If only we could look inside their hearts!
Sadly, I can't say the same about my fellow folks. In fact the mentality of some people sometimes disgusts me. I fail to understand as to why some humans bear so much malice towards animals. The news of the gruesome killing of a female elephant (who was reportedly pregnant) in Kerala recently, made my blood boil. Although the officials maintain that the elephant wasn't deliberately fed the firecracker-laden pineapple and that she accidentally ate it, but even then, keeping fruits stuffed with crackers to scare away the wild boars from the farmlands, is still a despicable act. How could someone be so vicious as to give a sentient animal a fruit stuffed with explosives?
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| (Image Source: dnaindia.com) |
And mind you, this incident is not the first instance of cruelty against animals to have come to light. The horrifying memory of a poor stray dog being flung off from a five-storey building by two medical students in Chennai some three or four years back, is still fresh on the mind. While in another similarly loathsome incident, five minor boys had burned down three puppies alive in Hyderabad! What's even more worrisome is that the culprits, more often than not, have no remorse or guilt whatsoever! There seems no end to the depravity of humans.
In fact, sometimes it seems like the whole human race is caught in the quagmire of hatred, more so because of their heartless attitude towards other sentient life forms. Every other day I come across reports of animal abuse and ill-treatment, one kind or another, that it makes me mad. Some people in fact think as if the animals have been put on this earth for our entertainment. Haven't we seen even little children throwing stones or splashing water at a sleeping dog or a cat or a cow or yanking their tails, just for sheer fun and without any provocation? How I wish their elders could correct their behaviour! It isn't uncommon either to find some people indulging in such ghastly acts as tying crackers onto a dog's or some other poor creature's tail and lighting them up during Diwali, much to the amusement of the onlookers, as if it were some fun! What if it was reversed? Well, we at least have voices; the animals don't have. But just because the poor animals don't have voices to speak up for themselves, should we think that they are immune to pain?
Accept it or not, our human society continues to be animal unfriendly. In fact, such instances of mistreatment, passive cruelty and abuse of animals are abound and have been occurring around us every now and then, with varying degrees of severity; and they are no less painful or traumatic. Haven't we come across instances of animal owners starving their pets and locking them up confined somewhere, just because they messed up their room? Or even feeding their pet-dogs with beer, just to have a good laugh or tossing their innocent little pets like toys! Do such acts make people feel more powerful? How does it?
It's not uncommon either to hear about pet-owners being neglectful, not providing adequate care for their pets, whom they had once purchased and now have simply forgotten about; and the poor creatures been left malnourished! Or people trimming or shaving off all body hair of their pet, leaving its body bald because they think their pet would look better that way! Or people cutting their pet's tail down to a stub, just because they feel that would make their pet look more intimidating and fierce... or else sometimes the reason being as silly as "because the tail knocks things over"! It's also a common practice among some people to abandon their pets on the road, to fend for themselves when they grow old or sick, like some trash! How come their heart not ache, leaving behind their once loved pets on the road with no shelter and no surety of food?
It is actually sad to see time and time again how such mistreatment and abuse of animals is allowed to happen and hardly any intervention or prosecution occurs! It’s happening everywhere, yet people often turn a blind eye to it, ignoring it. How can someone be so heartless, so insensitive, so cruel as to hurt a speechless creature or let an old, sick animal die before one's eyes? How can someone be so deaf as to not be able to hear their cries of pain? Just because the poor creatures can't speak our language or we don't speak theirs, should we assume that they feel no pain? Why can't we, the human race, realise someone else's (these creatures') pain the same way as we feel ours?
If indeed the humans are the smartest living creatures on earth, having the ability to feel the largest variety of emotions, then why do they do these horrid things to an animal? Why can't we live in harmony with the natural world? Why can't we learn to co-exist with all animals and birds, without harming them? We human-beings need to realise that these speechless creatures also have a heart and they too can and do feel pain, just as we do. The laws on cruelty against animals too need to be made more stringent but more than that, it's high time we instill a sense of responsibility, little sensitivity and empathy in humans at a young age to avert such animal abuses.
Animal and bird abuse must stop... the sooner the better!
