A letter, from the King to the Ruler!!!

Sakshi Chaturvedi

Lucknow: Tiger day…Our day and the entire world celebrating it to conserve us, but what do we get?

A century ago, we were proudly roaming with our mates holding our head high because we were the king, our population did not need shelter we were capable enough to protect us, we were strong enough to fight human.

But, Today??? It is rightly said that time flies and it fled away. It moved so fast that we were astonished to see how we decreased in number. We were stunned to watch our mates die. We were surrounded by grief and sadness. The king was left without his army, to wander alone, to surrender.

We lost our kingdom… and suddenly one day you came and assured us that we will be the king again, but in another ‘empire’. A loser does nothing but accepts the proposal. We did that too. No questions, no arguments we agreed and came with you hoping for a better life, hoping to set our new empire and to our excitement we were the king again!!! Yes, I say it proudly the king got his throne back. A throne in jungle was not as much exciting as you gave us.

A throne between your people, a throne that has the power. Power… yes, ‘the power’ to entertain you, power not of a ruler but a name declaring us the king of the jungle.

You were kind hearted enough to give us the escape from our dark past but I apologise to say that you made a mistake giving us a darker future. I believe that those who left us and stayed back at their homes are happier than us. I know they will die, but they will die doing what exactly they wanted to. They will die free and they have lived free.

We have come this far to make you happy, unknowingly though, but this is what kings are meant for in this world of yours...

I would dare to ask you a question… Why our number decreased? Who killed us? Remembering those days, though my imagination is blurred but as much as I remember the killers resembled like your population.

This it what I remember:

I remember the rescue team attacks on our life while we are roaming out in the forest in search of food for our family... (We too have family...We also have children...we are also attached with our community)... but why should you care, you people gave us the throne back.

But in your world, we are the king but you are the ruler!!!

A true ruler whose hands never shivered to kill your own people just like we did. But why did you kill us?? You say that we were carnivorous, but that is how the nature made us. You say we kill your men, but then what do your military forces do when intruders try to come beyond your territory. You came, killed us , then you came as our well-wishers, again with an intention to fulfill your greed.

We feel pain but we are helpless:

When the rescue team spread the nets to kidnap us we feel pain.

We feel uncomfortable we also miss our family and have you ever thought that what our family would be feeling… We have had enough of this throne, this kingdom but now we miss our people. They must be waiting for us…they would be feeling lonely. We have had enough entertaining you, becoming a material of display.

Though surrounded by the crowd we feel alone being caged...we want to run and go to our family but we are helpless... we can't...we suffocate but then also we live... Your men throw stones...makes different faces. It irritates us, but at that time we are helpless... and if we become quite for few hours than the care-taker comes and pat on us. After sunset we can't go out of our cage and at every morning we have to display ourselves to the visitors.

A curse:

Our journey from being uncountable to remain few in numbers is I think a result of curse. Different sanctuaries, different reserves and still no place for us to live free, to relax, is a curse and nothing else.

Edited By: Arnima Dwivedi