Gas Cylinder

Was visiting my in laws today. I had just gone out for a smoke to the next street.

I heard a dog screaming down the road. I ran towards it.

The shopkeeper nearby had thrown a full gas cylinder on the sleeping dog. A gas cylinder weighs about 20 kg. He had let it fall on its head, for fun.

The dog’s skull was broken and the whole place was full of blood. It was running in circles, crashing, rising and then running around in frenzy. Its mouth had foamed. I think it had lost its sight. It was running around and hit a wall head on. It walked with a strange tilt. It was unable to balance itself. It kept falling every few paces and letting out a gut wrenching yelp.

The shopkeeper and a teenager were gawking and laughing at the creature. The teenager was shouting, “It’s a murder, murder”, with a smirk of smartness written all over his face.

The commotion had drawn a few people from around. They started asking the guys how it would feel if they had the same cylinder dropped on their heads.

They hung their head down, they were ashamed. One guy said, “It was only a dog”

One onlooker said, “If it was only a normal street dog, you could have chased it away by pelting a stone at it”

A lady on the top floor of an apartment kept cursing the shopkeeper, “You will be born a dirty dog in your next life. I will drop a TV from the third floor on your head”. This lady was making most of the noise.

A cop was riding by on his bicycle. He stopped to look into the row. He gave both the guys a good beating on the spot. Every time the baton fell on their backs, there was some encouragement from the people gathered around.

Everybody had forgotten the dog that had struggled and got away from the crowd. It was lying in a pool of blood panting its last breath in a gutter. It was choking and a few little boys were looking on. Only one of them had tears in his eyes. The others were, of course, learning their first lessons in inflicting pain. They were coldly poking at the dying thing with sticks. I had to shove them away.

The dog died approximately 10 minutes into its struggle. It will be carted onto a garbage tipper tomorrow and disposed of in an unknown dump.

I have felt the death of a man and the death of a dog very near me this week. But the dog’s death seems to have shaken me more than the man’s. In my travels, I have seen many gory deaths on the roads. But twice I have seen a dog beaten to death, and I can recall both to this day to the minutest of details.

A man has many variables to manipulate for his good. But an animal lives with more constraints than a man. It lives on faith and intuition.

To dump a gas cylinder on someone’s head is rank disrespect for life. A rage had built up within me at that time. I felt like puking a long time after I had seen the whole thing happen.

I think our children start throwing stones at dogs for fun, and to tune their aim. Some do family planning operations for lizards and frogs. Some experiment how many wings a dragon-fly can fly with. Some try throwing cats out of windows – cats don’t seem to die so easily from a fall.

How can there be fun in the suffering of another living thing?

Children get trained early on that someone else’s pain is not a thing to fret about, that if the situation permits and if there is the right company, inflicting pain can be fun.

Uthangarai

14th March, 2008

I was in a place called Uthangarai – a remote hamlet in a corner of the Krishnagiri District. It is on the crossroads between what used to be 2 very busy trucking routes in Tamil Nadu.

Over the years, the significance of the place on the state map has gone down. The roads have deteriorated and the locale remains one of the least developed in Tamil Nadu in terms of infrastructure and industry.

Public transport is very bad or is not well connected. So people have to go in for their own means of transportation. This area remains one of the top rural markets for taxis and vans for ferrying people to Vellore, Salem and Chennai – 3 places where the many business interests of the people here lie.

I had stopped in Uthangarai to meet a customer of ours. I was leaving to Chennai and I had run out of cigarettes. I stopped by at a small shop and asked for a pack of Gold Flake Kings cigarettes.

I handed out a Rs. 100 bill and the shop keeper didn’t have stock, so he walked over to another shop and got it for me. The pack costs Rs. 38 normally. In villages you get it for Rs. 40. But this guy gave me change of Rs. 55 – meaning the pack had cost me Rs. 45.

He gave me a statement before he handed me the change – “Sir, the amount of money you spend on this pack of cigarettes can buy 20 kg of rice from a government fair price shop”.

My casual reply was, “Nothing can be done about that”

Then I asked him, “Why does this pack of cigarettes cost Rs. 5 more?”

He says, “That is the rate the other fellow gave it to me for”

I reply, “If you don’t have the stuff in your shop, how can you buy it for me at a cost higher than the normal cost?”

He says, “OK sir, since you are so concerned about the money, I will return the material and give you back your money”

He returned the money and I asked him, “Why do you think this Rs. 5 is not so important to me? Do you think people make money without working or do I look like a fool?”

He mumbles something and just goes away.

As I was driving back I was wondering – it was a new thought to me that one pack of my cigarettes is worth more than 20 kg of food grain in our country. Is it that the food is cheap or is it that the tobacco is costly?

A man who buys rice from a ration shop buys it at Rs. 2 per kg. I am not eligible for this scheme because I make than Rs. 10000 per annum. I have to buy rice at Rs. 22 per kg from a normal grocer. I bet the guy who tried to make Rs. 5 from me did not know this.