Please take no notice of the sad rabbits , the once-so-beautiful peacock now limping , the caged dear with wounded skin and the milky eyed Guinea pigs...after all they are just animals ! One has come to Yercaud to enjoy one's vacations .These animals are no part of that vacation . Or are they ?
That is exactly how thousands of educated , not-so-educated and highly educated intelligentsia are treating Yercaud's Anna Park , ironically situated right across the beautiful boating-lake-house .
This is the rabbit enclosure . Hardly 4ft x 6ft , it houses around 10 rabbits. Half of the cage being torn , the iron pieces have wounded most of them . So, huddling around the corner of the good part of the cage , they only crave for food....Just offer them something to eat and if you have any experience with animals you will know they are clearly underfed ! Their furry skin is wounded , bloody , entangled with dry leaves and germs and most of them are noisily breathing. They are so ill , they hardly manage to shuffle their feet around.
The guinea pigs are another story all together , their sad eyes , hungry expressions , cluttering around just one spot and especially the milky eyed sick ones , just melted my heart completely. How can we be strolling around the park taking joy rides when fellow creatures are in such deep pain ? What is the pleasure in taking pics beside their cages when they are screaming with pain inside ?
Who are we really ? The evolved species ?
Then there is the enclosure of our national bird , peacock ! Two of them in a 10ft x 10ft enclosure. No branches to perch , no vessel for water , no greenery -not even a shrub, just stranded on a flat un-textured barren land with no room to walk ( forget fly :-) ) ...truly regal state for a royal bird , I say. Befitting treatment wouldn't you say ?
Then there was this sad pair of parakeet. Both of them in a tiny winy cage , no branch , no hole , no texturing , just flat iron board criss-crossed and mostly torn iron pieces...One of them was huddled in the centre and was breathing so heavily and noisily , I know it was sick with something . Their wings were cut with the iron boards and the cage was so dismally maintained , or not-maintained so to say , that my eyes were filled with tears.
The deer enclosure was slightly open but with abso-freakin-lutely , no shade of any sort . Yercaud can go upto 37 degrees in summer and it gets quite dry. What does the poor thing do when it rains or wants to rest in a shade , I wondered.
Imagine being asked to sit on a small spot of flat land with no trees , no terrain..Just sit there and wait for someone to be kind to you and feed you. And oh ! do this forever until they get bored of clicking your pics or you die of a painful excruciating disease.Of course , while you suffer --they shall click pics !!
Can you imagine that happening to yourself ?I saw the same pain in those beautiful innocent doe eyes.
None of the cages have been cleaned for ages...Poop and piss lay everywhere , the cages were rusty and torn and had no base-sheet ( don't get the point ? try sitting on a criss-crossed iron-rod floor ) there was no regular regime of feeding them as I found out . Worst of all , they were not even treated upon being sick , which would invariably happen in those condition.
What does evolution really mean , have we ever wondered. If capability to extract only pleasure with no thought for the other beings pain counts for advancement or birth-right of evolution , then what was wrong with Hitlers and Mussolinis of the world ? and the slave-keepers of the middle history ? And those who engage in human trade and slavery even now ? They are also using sheer strength to subjugate just because they can !
However , if that is morally incorrect , then so is this. We have no right to exploit helpless animals. NO ,They do not look good in cages .
Please stand up for the right things . Please understand that being sensitive to creatures and environment around you , eventually reflects upon your own quality of existence.
We are but a part of this magnificent ecosystem functioning through its own complicated intelligence , half of which we cannot even fathom. Please respect that Life-process , that Life-form beautifully functioning so spontaneously around you.. You cannot create that process but please do not disrupt it at the least.
Please be intelligent enough to be sensitive and receptive to those around you..Maybe they cannot speakto you or maybe they use an extra pair of legs to walk but they still feel kindness and you will see the Universe will respond back to you in a magnificent way.
Thank you !
