IN MY CITY

Well,as much as i don’t like to think about it, i must admit,that my city where i have been residing since birth (leave aside those few years i went to another city for college) isn’t one of the best or ideal cities. Oh no no....i am not talking about the  potholes ,open drainages ,horrid roads, broken traffic signals or traffic police conspicuous by their absence/rudeness. That exists pretty much in all the cities across our country. I am speaking about the general attitude and approach my city-people have. I don’t know if my city has always been like this ever since i was a kid. Maybe not. Or maybe yes. Its just that i am noticing all of it now.

     The most important weapon that people out here possess is that of POWER. It may come by the virtue of filthy money (which is most often acquired by not-so-decent means) or high-contacts( local corporator’s son-in-law, MLA’s brother’s daughter-in-law’s  brother, MP’s driver, minister’s P.A’s grandson.....just a few to cite an example) So basically a lot of people here are either related to some ‘V.I.P’ person by their contacts or money. This spectrum of powerful people is very very wide. It ranges from a local gunda to some rikshawalla to some grocery-store wala to some industrialist. These people think the world of themselves. They have some kind of a dangerous confidence that whatever they do (or don’t do), shall be taken care of easily by their Saheb/dada/Anna/Bhau. They might as well shoot someone and nobody will see and say anything.

And this is where a sense of  fear is sown firmly into the minds of the ‘real common man’. When i walk on the streets ,( like many other women/girls, wearing my simple kurti-leggings....which covers me from top to bottom leaving no inch of my flesh exposed), very often i am subjected to ugly stares from random people that make me want to scream or cry. This happens with more-or-less all the women out here. Eventually however ,we learn to ignore the stares or just keep our grit intact until we move away from the onlooker’s field of vision or his eyeballs settle on someone else. Also,if you are a woman and travelling alone by an auto and the rickshawalla asks for 30 rs when the meter actually says 20, you shut up and pay whatever he asks for, because its not ‘safe enough’ to argue. At traffic signals, 2 random boys riding an extremely posh bike stand next to your vehicle, keep honking, break the signal and just whisk off. But you don’t dare say anything. You never know when they will take out a pistol and start a  random gunfire. But today, what i heard, left me totally shell- shocked, aghast and numbed my senses.

   4 very influential men(who happen to be brothers - one being a local politician,another a share-holder in a powerful local newspaper and the other 2 into BIG businesses) went hunting last night in a forest area, quite near to our city. Normally, a lot of such big-daddies go hunting and kill rabbits, jackals , wolves  -take off the flesh and have it for dinner. They go a step ahead and send the freshly-cooked-meat   to the local politicians who are ever delighted to savour it and hang the scraped skins proudly on their drawing rooms’ walls. The forest department, local policemen and local media know about it in depth but have maintained a dignified silence. Last night these BIG men went hunting and killed 2 spotted deer. Now,  the spotted deer comprises of the most threatened species in India. I was disgusted at this. How can somebody just take out a gun and shoot a deer?? I remember seeing deer as a kid at zoos and their eyes are the most innocent and beautiful of all the species. Leave aside the fact that they are soon to be extinguished species, but what kind of inhumanity it is to kill a deer for fun?? What cruelty and shamelessness must have inhabited their minds when they just pulled the trigger??

Next comes the expected mundane part. As of now, these demons are in prison. But somehow, i have a strong feeling that in 2 days they will be out. It will be proved that the animals which were killed were not deer but just rabbits. Everybody will eventually forget it. It wont be printed in any newspapers and then, some night these men will go hunting again.

 Things like these happen all the time. Firstly,biggies like these do a lot of such things which are animalistic and devoid of, even an ounce of humanity. And secondly, they just get away with all their deeds....just like that.

 I don’t know which of the above two is more disturbing.