Our constitution gives us the right to equality amongst all genders.

But we thumb our nose at the constitution.

Nothing gives the right to gender equality amongst animals.

So we exploit it- It’s a free for all.

We humans will use any gender (and I include transgender in it) as long as it ‘serves our needs’.

Humans – we seek the male child.

Cows- We seek the female calf.

Dogs- We seek the male puppy.

Horses- We seek the female foal.

Someone in Chandigarh recently stole puppies from a mother and decided to drop them outside the Gurudwars in sector 23. (For the love of Bollywood- when will we get over this Hindi movie crap about being abandoned outside a temple so as to seek a compassionate, pious adopter-or if it in some way assuages our guilt a little for the dastardly crime we are committing). The eight puppies were less than 4 weeks old and had barely opened their eyes.

-Not only does a puppy need its mothers milk to give it some immunity from disease the mother is the only protection it has.

-The mother teaches a puppy not to fight with other pups or dogs.

-The mother teaches them how to not bite to hard.

-The mother teaches them the street smarts from not running onto the street.

In-effect they can’t survive without the mother.

Within a day someone took the 2 male puppies away and left the 6 females to fend for themselves. Now we humans took away their chances of survival further as they huddled to spread warmth into each other in the biting cold.

One of the girl puppy caught a cold and subsequently Pneumonia within a day. She was picked up by a compassionate student and fostered back to health.

The other puppies continued to run into the street and 4 of them were killed within the first 5 days. The runt of the litter survived because she was too weak to run onto the street.

Now we have 2 girls who have survived.

But hundreds of puppies are going to be born this winter in Chandigarh. Most will freeze over in the cold nights, to be swept away by janitors hired to clean the streets by the government each morning. Others will be run over by cars or two-wheelers.

But we will continue to dislocate them.

We will continue to steal the male puppy (specially a black one- per superstition perpetuated by pseudo-religious belief).

The girls will continue to die.

While the girl calves are saved because we can milk them dry and then slaughter them. Male calves will continue to be starved and disposed or sold for veal to the European nations or companies like Gucci for their soft baby leather.

The girl child will continue to face foeticide.

The transgendered will continue to be used as props for wedding celebrations or some form of a novelty sexual pleasure in the dark underbelly of most cities.

Most women/girls can relate to this form of inequality. That is the reason why most people in animal rescue are women. They can understand this pain that others inflict.

We live inequality in this country.

The constitution protects the humans but the animals are clear out of luck.

A human’s sense of owning never ceases to amaze me.

Growing up in Chandigarh, I always knew where the leisure valley was but thought I’d go visit it on a future date. This past week I was in a situation where I was on my morning run right by the valley.

 

This is as good a time as any to visit the valley, I told myself as I stepped on the gravely trails those circumscribe the concrete paths crisscrossing the 10 acre jogging park.

As scores of early morning joggers and walkers passed me, I noticed how clean the trails and the gardens were. “This is highly unlike my country”, I thought to myself as people wrapped up in woolen scarves, burning smoke with their breath into the cold December morning huffed by me.

That’s when the decision of exploring the periphery was taken; mid run.

Aha, true to our countries nature, there it was in all in undignified glory; plastic cups, paper plates, plastic bags, leftover food, un-usable shoes- you name it, we had it.

The main paths were being cleaned by the janitors and sweepers appointed by the city (some swatch bharat, this) and the garbage was pushed to the periphery. And true to script, there was a sweeper burning the trash and letting the noxious fumes and dark smoke pollute our ‘city beautiful’- without any check or bounds.

We are a filthy country and we are irresponsible citizens.

But we are obsessed with owning land.

What we haven’t realized so far is that we are all renters. We all rent a piece of land from mother earth- even if it is for 75 years. If we are bad renters then we leave dilapidated houses, abandoned factories, vacant plots with weeds and trash. If we are decent renters, we pass that land on to our children; who in-turn rent it from mother earth.

If, however we are good renters. Then we care for that piece of land well and other pieces of land well to; be it the land being swallowed by the landfill by the outskirts of sector 38 or our own Leisure valley.

We have the wrong idea about ownership. Ownership brings responsibility and not a right to abuse.

The Leisure valley is all of ours. Lets not leave trash there for someone else to pick up. Lets not use it for events with small plastic bottles being handed out which kill our environment. Let’s stop people when we see them burning trash or urinating on the streets.

Either we will all swim in these turbulent waters or we will all sink.

Ownership will bring pleasure to the leisure.