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Last Sunday, there was this meeting in the jungle to elect the next national animal for India. It was held in a quiet clearing, deep in the forest. It started with quite a fanfare… Each animal came to the centre and introduced themselves. The irony of it all was so funny that it took all my self control not to let a roar of laughter out. , though my roar was somewhat at lower decibels. I cleared my throat, something was wrong. Ah well, the water at the pond was getting contaminated. The once clear bottom seemed somewhat slimy. Oh jeez, I’ll have to find another water hole even further away. What has the world come to? A tiger can’t find a decent clean water hole these days without suspecting Man to have dirtied it, washed his laundry in it or worse, poisoned it!!
It reminded me of a song that the humans love so much
Kar chale hum fida jaan aur tan Saathiyo
Ab Tuhmare hawale yeh vatan Saathiyo
When the famous singer Lata Mangeshkar sang this song the whole country was crying, though I doubt if anyone will shed a tear as I sing it to you today, my fellow animals. But soon the next national animal will understand … too late for me though!
Kar chale hum fida jaan aur tan Saathiyo
Ab Tuhmare hawale yeh jungle Saathiyo
All good things come to an end, no regrets there. The era of tigers came and is soon going to end. We had a good time, we were magnificent, we were impressive and we carved a niche for ourselves in the memory of all living creatures. The humans even have tales, fables, and portraits of us.
Yes, we had a good time while it lasted. But it all changed in the end. It was not pleasant sight to see my mum and dad butchered. I had to flee as I was hunted all night long in the high grass on my homeland… But by some miracle I survived, just to go back and see the rotting remains of my dead parents… Bare skin, bones, claws It was heart aching. But I am a survivor, I took courage and walked
All who saw me admired my majestic walk. The other juicy animals would run wild trying to hide if they just smelt me… but this puny fur-less animal called MAN did not, he would smirk, he would smile when he found a pugmark. He would follow me like a dog. Trying to get hold of me… But my parents had taught me well, I managed to survive…
Oh so many men made merry when we were in numbers. We were the bread and butter for these men, yet they did not show us any respect. They came in numbers and killed us one by one, never having the guts to fight us like warriors, mano e mano… No my friends no one dared to have a Manly/Tigerly fight with us. None or them dared to challenge us one on one.
I know for a fact that if we went into their lair, we would have defeated them and been Kings of their abode too. We chose to remain in our world, but that did not stop them. They came into our abode in huge numbers and destroyed us. They killed us, captured us, trapped us and maimed us. Truly said, in numbers we have strength.
I ask the people who earned their living by killing us, what will they do now? How are they going to feed their kids once I, the last Tiger have gone.
Why is it that there is a MAN called Tiger woods, he makes millions and I, the real tiger am attacked, hunted and my race finished? It is funny Tiger and Woods…
When we killed an innocent man (who is not all that innocent as he is trespassing our land), we are branded man-eaters, and MAN takes this as a license to kill us….. And yet, when they killed us without any reason they were hailed heroes…
I looked around my lair. It seemed the same as yesterday. The cave walls bore the art I did with my talons whenever I got bored which is pretty often these days. Off course if you were the last tiger on Earth with half of the human population chasing you, you’d try to stay indoors as much as possible too wouldn’t you? I miss Leila, my sweet adorable tigress of 8 years. We had such fun together, going hunting, playing at the water hole with our cubs, watching the sunset. She died a few months ago. The head of the vultures who is a good friend of mine, told me it was an accident. Apparently, she was mauled by the buffalo herd. No buffalo could have killed my magnificent Leila. His words couldn’t fool me. It had murder written all over it. The damn poachers!! Why couldn’t they let us live in peace?
So Last Sunday the meeting did not yield any result as None other wanted the responsibility to be chosen as the next National animal of India. Look what happened to the one they had, I am on verge of extinction. Last One standing …. Don’t know when I will say my good byes to this world.. But mark my word
Meet the team :
Ritu Lalit
Deepak Amembal
Bikram Mann
Vibhuti Bhandarkar
Karthik
Manna
Meghana Subramanian
Deepti Raman
The Image in This Post is a Teamwork by THE BLUE INK SOCIETY
Me and My Random Thoughts 