| Salma’s Commonwealth Essay -2009 |
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| News - English | ||||
| திங்கள், 01 பிப்ரவரி 2010 00:00 | ||||
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The noise was worse than a herd of elephants stampeding. Thump. Thump. Thump. The echo of each tree as it fell was final, terminal. These humans were barbarians. She could sense the immediate panic and the raw fear around her. The birds were squawking in a frenzy of confusion.
She knew she had to move away from the suddenly dangerous place…at once. She did not want to share the fate of others who had been captured by these savages before; to be put in a cage and transported away – away from freedom, from home – by one of those rolling monsters that growled and groaned alarmingly. She padded away silently, blending in effortlessly with the opulent colours of the rainforest, or what was left of it, at the most. These humans could take and take and never be satisfied. More than three quarters of the forest was gone now, replaced by huge silent buildings. Her dismal thoughts surrounded her as she stopped, out of tiredness, to drink a sip or two from a nearby stream. Approaching, she stopped in shock. The stream was choked with soil and debris; it was not a stream anymore but a pool of mud. As more trees were chopped down, more soil was left bare to the attack of the seasonal rain which washed it down. Disgusted, she turned around and continued her pointless journey. How could they? They were stealing the very life from her home. Her tiredness plagued her and she laid herself down underneath a tree. Here, the grass was a vibrant green and the flowers as if painted by a very cheerful artist, but yet, something was missing. As a cub, she would come here to play. A single, miniature movement would send scores of multi-coloured butterflies into the air and for a few wonderful, magical moments, it would be raining butterflies. Now, they were no more. The climates were changing and now, it was too warm for them here. The heat was unbearable, and sometimes in her wildest imaginations, she would wonder if perhaps the whole world was warming up. The rain was different, too, nowadays; sometimes friendly, sometimes not. Those barbarians had turned even the rain against them. Every now and then, acid rain would fall from the skies. She had to move on. After a while, she turned around. She had left small, light paw prints in the mud. Her tracks. In contrast, the humans left behind them a trail of devastation and destruction. She was very hungry now, but at a loss about where to find food. Fear, exhaustion and a desperate hunger culminated into a mindless force that drove her to a nearby farm. A lone hen was pecking about in the dust. She crouched down, eyes focused, her inborn instincts guiding her as she prepared to attack. She pounced. A short, deafening noise filled the air. Then, all was still. “Bloody tigers.” swore the farmer softly, as he put his gun down. New York, USA, A decade or two later As was his habit, he started the day by reading the days’ newspaper. They were at it again. “Alarming increase in Global Warming has scientists on their feet” , the headlines screamed, but as usual the people they -normal, everyday people like him -had put in charge were doing, quite simply, nothing. Everyone was too busy pointing fingers at someone else. Scandinavia blamed the UK for the downpour of acid rain it was facing. Japan, when inquired about its part in all the ensuing mayhem, pointed out that the USA wasn’t doing much to help either. Scientists claimed that the increased level of carbon dioxide in the air was halting the release of heat from the atmosphere and the melting ice caps were almost non-existent. Dramatic changes in the climatic belts meant that suddenly, some places were having hot weather in winter. Many fragile ecosystems had not gotten enough time to adjust to these changes and mangroves, swamps, coral reefs and wetlands all over the world were ceasing to be. Scientists forecasted floods and hurricanes in the future. Acid rain was a different issue altogether. Acids from industries and factories which were being released into the air fell back to the earth in the form of acid rain. Acid rain killed the fish, the plants; each drop was poison, promising death. This acid entered into the general water supply and increased the risk of people getting other diseases. Meanwhile, Greenpeace was out and demanding that people not use their personal cars and instead use public transport. “Every little thing counts.” they said. He snorted disbelievingly. He had saved for three years for his gleaming, silver BMW and there was no way he was abandoning his ‘baby’ – that’s what he called his car – for a retarded bus. Putting the newspaper away, he kissed his pregnant wife goodbye. He got into his car and reversed out of the driveway, he glanced at the bus stop just opposite to his house. He could easily use the bus every once in a while, but he wouldn’t, because guess what? This was the ‘Land of the Free’, and his baby had cost him three long years of careful saving. The child sobbed quietly against his mothers’ bosom. His sister sat nearby, her face a mask, betraying not even a glimpse of emotion. They could not believe that he was gone, dead. His mothers head was filled with troubled thoughts of how she was going to provide for her family. Their house had been destroyed too. The floods were being vicious; almost nothing was left in their neighbourhood now. The uninterrupted rains had slowly swallowed up the coastal farms, and the floods that followed weakened many of the buildings which then collapsed…with people trapped inside. Her husband had died that way, too. The bigger part of her wanted to break down and cry, just cry, but she knew that she owed it to her children to be strong. It was as if it was the end of the world. Many coastal cities, all over the world, were flooding. Hysteria had broken out all over the globe. The very world they all lived in seemed to retaliate; it was their enemy now. To her, it felt as if the whole world was flooding, and she was augmenting it with her tears. She could not explain the sense of loss that had taken over her soul. She could not understand the emptiness that she felt. What had she ever done to deserve such punishment? Why would the Gods be so cruel? Her loneliness haunted her as she hugged her son close and told him everything was going to be okay, when she knew it was not true. Day slipped into night, and as a mother, her heart twisted as she thought of what her beloved children were going through. To lose their father at such tender ages, surely, it was a curse that had been flung upon them. She pulled her son close and whispered into his ear, “Shall I tell you a story? The story of the tiger, perhaps?” His five-year old face lighted up instantly. He loved the one about the tiger. So, she told the story to him, as she had done so hundreds of times before about a majestic animal, that man had wiped away from the face of the earth. They were extinct now. The boy rested his head on his mothers’ lap and fell away into an impossible dream about tigers roaming in fields filled with butterflies of a hundred colours. -Salma Farook
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இச்செய்தியை நண்பருக்கு அனுப்ப
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Rainforest, Western Coast of India, 2009 
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