Published in Dwarka Express on 12.8.2023

Surprisingly the otherwise lacklustre WhatsApp group of the Residents Welfare Association was brimming with texts and pics. The residents of the apartment were fuming. An annoyed Gupta wrote in the group that monkey population (he means the real monkeys only) is increasing in the apartment and yelled that the Resident welfare association is ineffective since it failed to chase them away. Shyam gave an expert advice, ‘Bring a langur to scare the monkeys away’ while the most vociferous Ramkumar bated for a ‘No Confidence’ against the Management Committee.  ‘PEACE’ (WhatsApp name of a member) wanted stringent action against bees, as they have started building hives near his tenth-floor balcony. ‘DO NOT DISTRUB’ (another WhatsApp warrior) was disturbed by pigeon droppings which could cause 60 diseases. He posted a YouTube link to support his view. ‘LOVE ALL’, another ‘anonymous’ guy posted a photo of a snake in the group and spit venom, forgetting that his mobile nomenclature is LOVE ALL. Encouraged by the post, Sheila was critical of a stray dog roaming in the apartment. ‘NO WORRY’ posted a picture of an exotic love bird, and was worried that the bird had been sitting in the glass window of her apartment and wanted to know whether anyone else had missed the caged bird.

Precisely, residents were not happy to see any animal around except their pets. Perhaps, there’s a logic in all their concerns. When the flat was bought, there was no monkey, no bee and no pigeon. But they comfortably forget that the apartment was either built on a dead lake or a scrub jungle and all monkeys and bees were living there only. It is we who had simply relied on representative pictures, virtual tours or fascinated by serene landscape. Animals either come to an apartment in search of food or because it is its territory. A monkey or bee never ever would have guessed that their own land would be snatched by the human beings arbitrarily. Neither they had strength to fight the powerful Homo Sapien.  Very few social organizations raise their feeble VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS.

Animals have only five senses and can’t think rationally. In an evolutionary pyramid, man is in top and the food chain connects the human beings to all other living organisms. It is not possible to live without this support system which includes all living beings. We must not forget that we have encroached the animals’ space and make a hue and cry when an elephant or a tiger intrudes human colonies. It is essential that the man-animal conflict has to handled judiciously as man is said to be a ‘rational animal’

V Selvarajan