Read this. I need you to read this. This is a person spewing out her mind that has come closest to madness that she has ever known. This isn't catharsis, not even close. This is a desperate plea for coherence, for sanity. I'm scared. I'm scared of losing my mind.
"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." had written Edgar Allan Poe. I had fancied myself one of them. One of those who prefer to surrender their psyche to the turbulence inherent in what is fashioned as "insamity" or "anarchy". Till yesterday, I had no comprehension whatsoever of what insanity actually meant.
I have 17 cats. One dog. I've always loved animals, always cared more about the mute innocents than humans. Each of us have perpetrated crimes in our lifetime. They may not be crimes described in the Penal Code, but deep down, we know they were crimes against human hearts and minds. For some of us, that's the worst kind. But what about the little guys who wander streets in these freezing nights, looking for a little scrap of something edible to put into their stomachs, with their ribs protruding under skin nearly completely shorn of fur? What crime can we condemn them of? Why, inspite of genocide and rape and murder and pedophilia are the humans more important than those who have never learnt to smother you in your sleep or destroy your little sister or daughter for a lifetime?
There are only a few strays in my neighborhood. Not because most of the dogs have been adopted into loving homes, but because most of them die of starvation, and disease. For the past week, I decided to risk the added expense and start feeding the five or six stray dogs along with my pets. Rice and fish in the morning. Some biscuits in the evening. Yesterday, while I was walking to the nearby shop for the biscuits, I saw two puppies by the road, their bodies stiff, ice cold, their eyes wide open. Call me crazy, but I could actually see agony, see loss, see a longing for a real life in their eyes. That's when I realised more profoundly than I ever did, they weren't all that different from us. They aren't.
Have you ever tried googling "Animal Cruelty"? Do so, if you think that they don't need or deserve our concern. Stray dogs mercilessly massacred in Ukraine to "clean" streets for the upcoming Football Tournament. Firecrackers stuck into a dog's mouth by teenagers who wanted "fun". His face was blown off, but he didn't die. He faced worse. A lady throwing puppies into a lake. Little baby birds tossed into a dumpster. Countless animals run over by drivers who don't bother to slow down. Passers-by who don't bother to stop and look, let alone help the groaning creature. Torture at slaughterhouses, fur companies, farms, torture at the hands of hunters, of poachers, circuses, so-called "sanctuaries", for purposes of sport, or simply tortured by the sheer magnitude of human indifference. You know what's the worst part? The "I can't really afford to adopt a pet" routine all of us seem to come up with. Everything wants a pretty dog or a pretty cat that will win first prize at some pet pageant, not the starving, shivering puppy begging you to take him in and give him a little milk. He has a black, sooty nose. He doesn't deserve your love, right? No one will volunteer at an animal shelter or donate a few rupees to give a dog a warmer blanket. No one will listen.
Parents don't want their kids beinging in pets. It messes up the house. Passers-by see me picking up a stray puppy and go "What are you doing? It's filthy!!" What if it had been a homeless kid I had picked up? Forget the atrocities they endure at animal testing facilities [ I suggest you don't look for those pictures if you don't have a strong stomach ], what about the abject lack of empathy that prevents people from leaving some leftovers out for a whining dog or a crying cat?
I can't stop thinking about them. I can hear them screaming as they are shot, harpooned, skinned, kicked, electrocuted, thrown out into a freezing night, caged, left to die.I can't sleep. I can't read. I can't think. I hate myself for every animal I have passed by without feeding. All I want to do is hold an animal and cry. I want to bring every stray I see into my house. I want them to stop fighting among themselves so I could house more of them. I want them to dissapear. I want them to be endowed with superhuman abilities so they can fight back. I want humankind to be wiped out. I can't swallow this boiling lump of helpless sorrow lodged in my throat. I can only cry under my covers, in the bathroom, behind a book I can't read.
Was I wrong in majoring in literature? Should I have tried something that would have enabled me to make more money? I could have helped them. I could have helped so many of them.
You'll tell me that one can't expect people who demonstrate barbaric unkindness towards their own fellow beings to care about a different species. I don't understand you. Why does your sorrow and pity for an emaciated child in Africa stop you from giving a few slices of bread or a few fishbones to the underfed, near-death animal right before your eyes? How much does it cost? I don't understand. Why are their cries for help so different from that of the orphans?
Read this. I need you to read this. This is a person spewing out her mind that has come closest to madness that she has ever known. This isn't catharsis, not even close. This is a desperate plea for coherence, for sanity. I'm scared. I'm scared of losing my mind.
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