The human menace

Anyhow, after the meeting I found myself ruminating about who and what the real menace was, the beastly manor the silent beast? For it is not their fault that they laze and graze around on the streets. After all, they have been serving the humans who resort to throwing them out once they outlive their utility; when their udders turn dry in the case of cows, when bulls are afflicted with disease or become too old to pull the yoke, when horses are no longer the sturdy stallions they had once been. It is then that we call these poor creatures a `menace’.

It really needn’t be a menace. All that the administration has to do is set up a cattle pound (there is one in Chandigarh which the cattle have deserted, for they must prefer the chaos on the road to the stink and starvation that pervades the compound) and maintain it well, with a vet at hand and a good supply of fodder and water.

In his Nicaraguan travelogue The Jaguar Smile, Salman Rushdie wrote: “A cow will never deviate from her path.” So one has just to adjust to this cow-psyche to have a smooth ride on the road. It is that simple. But can one succeed inanalysing the working of the human psyche? For that propels man to jump suddenly from the median, overtake you from the left without prior notice when your indicator indicates a left turn, charge even at a red light when the traffic from the other side is getting on, knock down a fellow rider on the road and dart across as if nothing untoward has happened.

Didn’t Robert Burns delineate this well when he wrote, “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn”? There can be nothing more inhuman than causing harm to a physically handicapped person trying to lead a normal life, more so if it is a school kid. Just as happened once at a roundabout (Chandigarh has lots of them and each one is a potential location for these `menacing’ characters.)

You can call it a coincidence. On my way back home that night I witnessed a remarkable sight that still refuses to go away from my mind. There was Orwell’s troika marching across in single file. They came from the pathway and stepped on to the road and thatis when they sensed the approaching vehicle. The one in the front sniffed and did a `beating the retreat’ in the same position, and the two behind followed him. It was a sight worth recording for what those three pigs taught, through their silent act, was disciplined behaviour on the road.

Compare this with how three humans behaved soon after. Stylish dressed with the customary sunglasses, they stood on the median and the moment they spotted a female scooterist they sprinted across. Sheer delight at making the woman break abruptly must have boosted their egos. Now tell me, which is the real menace?