You and I Belong to a Shameful Race

Not long ago my morning-jogs would unsettle me to the point of disturbing my entire day instead of cheering it up. The road I took would be a site of massacred millipedes (the paisa insect that curls up when you touch it). There would be at least one or two of them – crushed and lifeless – every five steps. But what disturbed me more than their death was the insignificance of it. Their lives or deaths meant nothing to the people passing by crushing them as they walked or drove on their two-wheelers. Even more disturbing was that these were the well-educated people who think that they lead clean lives, never committing legal or moral crimes. 

Why can we not think of these millipedes as babies we tend to, the babies who do not know it’s not safe to go out on a road? If a baby crawled onto a street, the entire traffic would come to halt. Uproar will emerge. The very same people who carelessly crush the millipedes would be angry at the carelessness of the baby’s parents. They would take the baby, find the parents and hand it over to them with an earful. And then they will walk home with their civil sense buttered up. 

In our schools we were not taught that being the most powerful race on earth it is our job to care for all living beings. Even if some of us were taught this, they were not taught it a hundred times every year.

If we were really well-educated and a little compassionate, we would be curious about these beings and look inside the grass to find out what they do. In there, they have societies of their own, just like the ones we have. They, too, feel pain at their injuries and joy when they meet one another to produce their next generation. They also do their duty towards protecting their newborns. They will do everything in their power to protect themselves from a danger just like we would. Even if their lives mean nothing to us, they mean a world to them. While we crush them under our feet or vehicles that emit smoke poking holes in the atmosphere – destroying the home that gave us everything – the millipedes do their bit to nurture the very same planet and maintain the natural balance. Why? Because it is their home, too. They live their lives as nature intends them to, trying to restore the damage we cause every day. And we have no respect for them.

I have seen many parents who teach their children to shoo away dogs. I do not know about other countries, but in India such people live every next door. ‘Show uncle how to salute? That’s my boy! Now show him how to shoo a dog? He’s so smart already.’

Why is it our instinct to shoo away dogs? Why can’t we respect them? Why can we not think of them as another race that shares this planet with us? Back in the prehistoric period humans living in caves befriended dogs when they found that dogs can be protectors. But now that we have cleared the jungles and built ourselves homes and societies that protect us, we don’t need them. Now, they are dirty and unclean to us. What should the dogs now do who followed us to our cities because of the friendship we established? Well, they can go die in the human-operated dog murder homes. Just because we legalize such atrocious places does not mean every race approves of them. Should we be proud of this? How are we any different from Hitler who killed Jews the same way?

Back in the building where I lived, there was a man whom I once spotted beating three-month old puppies with stones and approaching them with a wooden club that could kill each in one strike. He did not want that ‘dirt’ to live in the same building as him. He shouted at them and cursed them. When I asked him in a raised voice why he was doing it, he called me soft that I cared for those dogs. Later, he was joined by an advocate in the building, who shared his same, self-centered vision. A month later they called a dog-catchers' van to take away all the stray dogs. Eight or nine people started rounding up the dogs. One of the four-month olds was cornered and beaten it with sticks. As I came down yelling out of my guts at the men, the poor dog found an opportunity to escape. He lived for another year with a broken leg.

That dog used to be my friend, the one who rushed to me every time he saw me. For the rest of that day, I tried to catch him and take him to a vet, but he wouldn’t let me near. He did not trust me anymore. And rightly so! He had now become a scared and unfriendly person who did not want to be touched by a human. The other dogs who had escaped were also terrorized by the incident. The guilt of what the people of my race did that day has never left me.

The most horrifying view during this incident was not the dog being mauled but those two men watching it all with their daughters at their side, not only with complete lack of emotion but with a smirk of satisfaction at having defeated me in my purpose of protecting the dog. I told these men that the dogs they just attacked were far better than them and cut all social bonds that once existed. These are the people who should be thrown into a jail for being a threat to the society, because our society does not include humans alone. Just because our government marks the land into plots and we buy it in exchange of the pieces of paper we call currency does not mean that we become true owners of that land. Nature meant it to be owned by all the creatures it created. If a dog enters a building for shade on a hot day, not only should we let him enter but give him food and water, because we built our home on a piece of land that belongs to that dog as well.

We need to show the same respect to all the residents of this planet as we show to the Misters and Missus’ next door. Every species that exists here is our neighbor, just like the neighbors in our building. Our greed is the byproduct of our ability to grow. And our ignorance to other life forms and their societies is an outcome of our greed. We are a race with shamefully restricted vision that spots only selfish goals. We are a terrible race that does not care about fifty odd birds’ nests on a tree when we cut it down to make home for four humans. We are a rude society that we do not say hello to a stray dog with the same respect as we say it to a human next door.

Just as you are friends with your neighbors, you can be friends with the little bird that sits on your window every day for a minute and then goes away to conduct his/her own business. While your ‘friend’ visits your home once a couple months, the bird comes every day. But you will notice that only if the bird held the same value in your eyes as people do. Only then will you care to observe what she gives you. That bird is the most innocent and a truly sinless being that touches your home every day. She works harder than you to protect and raise her offspring. She takes nothing more from nature than she needs, and gives much in return. She is a true noble being. While you would go way out of your way to have a spiritual guru come and visit your home once in your lifetime, so your home could be holy, you miss out on the real godly power that visits your home every day.

During those mornings, I would gather in my closed palms all the healthy millipedes that had unknowingly stepped onto the road to die a painful death, so I could leave them into the deeper grass. Instead of joining me in the act, people would look at me as if I were a fool. What use is their education if it does not make them think, or at least look beyond their own vanity for one minute? That one minute could save multiple lives. These people will travel hundreds of kilometers to visit a temple, but won’t do a simple deed that will put to their credit a truly virtuous achievement, which is far greater than a hundred temple-visits.

It is okay if we continue to be the way we are today. But, as educated people that we like to call ourselves, each of us must know that we are disrespectful towards the ‘other people’ that live around us. We should realize the shame in it. And that shame should never leave us.