Vulture Culture
By Kirti Ganganaboina
The decision of the Tamil Nadu Government to protect and conserve the endangered vultures is laudable.
Vultures play a significant role in the human ecosystem. Known as the ‘harbinger of death’, these species have been contributing greatly to protect and preserve ecology by clearing off the dead. Various animals putrefying in the wild are cleared by the vultures along with the leftovers of the other animals, leaving behind only bones.
Parsis in India give great importance to these ‘birds of prey’- the vultures, who have been religiously following a tradition of feeding their dead to the vultures. They feel that even these birds have to survive. Parsis are an abysmally miniscule community, primarily found in Mumbai and parts of Gujarat.
The ‘Tower of Silence’ in Mumbai is a place for the Parsis to keep the corpses of members of their community in order to feed vultures. This place is situated beyond their fire temple and there are caretakers, who carry the dead in the Tower of Silence as no one else is allowed in.
Unfortunately, vultures in Mumbai are also becoming extinct as they do not get enough food due to the dwindling population of the Parsis. In addition to this, the impact of drugs found in the bodies consumed by the vultures has affected the lives of the vultures. Huge amounts of chemicals remain in the body of the dead that are later eaten up by the vultures, which has cost the lives of these birds on a larger scale.
Recognising that the vultures are endangered in India, a centre to breed vultures in captivity has been established in Agra. However, it is necessary in the interest of protecting the ecology to save the endangered species of vultures, apart from the experiment that is going on in Agra. The Union Government has also launched projects to protect the vultures.
The dangerous species of vultures are in the form of some human beings, who are worse than animals. One good thing about the vultures is that they do not eat or harm one of their own, unlike the human race. There are various qualities in the vultures, which are also found in the human race. However, while the vultures only go for the carcasses, there is a large community in the human race, more so in India, where the people are forced to release their anger and frustration through violence.
These human vultures have been a threat to mankind, have been the greatest cause of danger to humanity. All these years, these ‘humans of prey’ have been suppressing and harassing, who they think are inferior to them, the ones, who cannot fight back.
These vultures in the human form engage child labour, use children for crime, indulge in domestic violence, sexual assaults, rapes and emotional violence, each passing day. Physical attacks, bullying, child abuse, caste discrimination, bribing, cheating, dividing people on the basis of religions, hatred, sexual harassment, ill-treatment of the elderly and dumping of parents in old age homes and ill-treatment of animals, are among the acts of these human vultures.
They act in cold blood. Such vultures cause great damage to families, sometimes their own and cause greater damage to the society and the country.
Such individuals are worse than vultures; vampires in real form!
There is a need to destroy this community but the destruction is not through violence, it is through words, it is by preaching peace and harmony. There is a need to make the world a place of trust, love, care, respect, friendship. There is a need to make this world a better place to live in. That is possible if the vultures in human form are made ineffective.