My ebook: Journeys with the caterpillar

My ebook
"
Journeys with the caterpillar: Travelling through the islands of Flores
and Sumba, Indonesia
" is available at
this link


Friday, January 18, 2008

The return of bird-flu

So, bird-flu is back in India. And even global nobodies such as Bhutan and Abu Dhabi have banned anything to do with chickens from India. This is blatant racism against our chickens. Will the true Aryan chicken please stand up?

As it happens everywhere else, government officials are sending their executioners to murder thousands or may be millions of chickens. These paramilitary officials, used to deal with human miscreants with batons, tear-gas and pistols, are having to learn new ways to get rid of this animal mob. Since the issue is yet to involve any religion, politicians are yet unsure as to how to handle the whole issue. But that may change soon. Some adherents of the proselytizing religions, who are not afraid of doing going any length to gain numbers for their group, must already be contemplating baptizing these Christians before they are slaughtered. As for the typical village poultry farmer, he is just clueless why people dressed in space-suits are taking away all their chicken and slaughtering them.

Though bird-flu scares cause huge losses for poultry farmers, many others have a great time. Last time around, I had a ball as chicken and egg prices fell by two-third. It was also great to know that restaurants were unable to sell non-vegetarian dishes. After all, these were the same chains (like Pizza Hut) who would charge double for any non-veg dish compared to a veg dish just for sprinkling in a couple of ounces of chicken meat. But most of all, the bird-flu does a favor to the birds themselves. With this sudden summary execution, they are spared the less fortunate life of a typical poultry chicken: the hormone treatment that bloats them up so fast that their legs can’t support them, the stacked packed living without any room to maneuver, and the horrible last days of watching fellow cage mates being slaughtered on by one.

But all the same, we can keep a moment of silence for these chickens. Their kind will never be papered like endangered animals, will never be moved around by celebrities in designer bags, and will never get their own show on Animal Planet.

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