Animal Rights My Arse...
Came across this photograph on the internet this evening[1], protestors from PETA[2] standing outside the visiting West Indian Cricket team’s visit to the KFC food outlet in Bombay, with slogans of ‘QUIT KFC’ scribbled across the many cards donned by these hypocritical quasi- activists.
This gets ironical, I am an activist and an NGO person (sometimes even the very atypical- kurta, jeans and jhola clad and a voice the world can hear), but today’s actions can be construed only as a hypocritical attention seeking ploy.
Why do I say this? I do have my reasons and they are quite a few, a couple of years back, I had just moved to Bombay and after a long days work had stepped into a Suburban Coffee Shop. As I sat there sipping on some much needed almost delicious coffee, I saw this man throw a black bag in the garbage bin that donned the corner of the road. To my surprise, I heard (it initially sounded like a little baby crying) a soft wailing emanating from the bin. Fearing the worse I ran to the bin to dig out the bag which was the source of the noise.
Packed inside were the 12 puppies, maybe just a few hours old, shivering, wet and covered in Lord only knows what all, dumbfounded as I generally am, had no clue what to do with them, tried calling a few friends to take them in for the night (I was as usual homeless those days and was shacking at my aunts place.. who hated me… and the thought of me taking those pups home to my aunt …oh well lets not even go there!!)
Luckily a few colleagues from work joined me with those 12 almost dead puppies… we cleaned them, got them some milk and someone even agreed to take them home for that night.
It was only the next morning that the search for someone to help us with those puppies started, and it was during that bit that we got in touch with people from PETA, and their reply... was brilliant, “Sir we are sorry but we can only offer you a banana and some milk for the puppies”… for Christ’s’ sake... Unfortunately the puppies died over the next 24 hours…..
I so wish that the above mentioned incident was my last brush with the people from PETA... but if wishes were horses... a few moons later, I was visiting a friends place for a night of debauchery, when I saw the most beautiful German Sheppard, (single boned, double coated) locked in a little cage without water outside a building in Juhu during the humid Bombay summer, the bitch on closer examination looked unhealthy and maggot infested.
The only solution at hand was to call the Honorificabilitudinitatibus people at PETA, which we reluctantly did, (as the owner of the pet refused to comply with our requests of having the bitch medically treated and releasing her from her little prison). And what did the people at PETA do… NOTHING… “ Sir sorry there is nothing we can do” Why … then why have an organization, which claims to achieve the goals of treating animals in an ethical manner? Why was I not surprised…. When all they can do is hold banners and protest against a cricket team that turns up to support its sponsors.
Alas, we call NGO’s as the bridge between law and policy, but some NGO’s especially in the wake of the current events, just seem to widen the existing gap, they seem only interested in attaining the much needed media attention and glare which serves the dual purpose of publicity and fund raising but somewhere along this, aren’t they forgetting the aims for which they were created?
Yes, it is important to raise ones’ voice, to raise every issue and fight it to the core, no matter how trivial it might be, but why take this hypocritical stand? Weren’t the lives of those 12 puppies and the German Sheppard (was informed a few months later that she didn’t last the summer) as important as stopping people from eating the chicken at KFC? You decide.
[1] Further See http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/image/263724.html
[2] People for the Ethical treatment of animals, http://
