Angry at romanticization of tigers, poacher lashes out at tiger sympathizers

"Bloody tiger sympathizers" belched out Dhanvant Pandey, poacher of tigers and president of Anti-Tigers Squad (ATS), with absolute scorn towards the flag-bearers of 'Save the Tiger' Campaign.

Dhanvant Pandey who has been hunting tigers for over two decades in the deeps of Sundarban jungles is an angry man. "These tiger sympathizers should be thrown to the tigers. Confronted by tigers in flesh and blood, their sympathy for the wild cats will evaporate within seconds.They will start trembling with fear and begin to wonder what made them sympathetic towards tigers in the first place." Furious at the romanticizing of tigers by environmentalists, he blurted out in disgust to our reporter who had tracked him down at his wooden shack, 32 kilometers away from a tributary between Bidya and sajnekhaki forests in Sundarbans. "Everyone is into saving tigers nowadays. Even the bloody corporates! What is the world coming to?" he asked in bewilderment.

The 45 year old poacher, who has spent his entire lifetime roaming the jungles of West Bengal searching for tigers to kill, hates being called a poacher. "I'm a man on a mission. Over two decades ago, I launched Operation Tiger Hunt along with my younger brother with the sole purpose of freeing the jungles of my land from the scourge of tigers. Thanks to our untiring efforts over the last two decades, we have succeeded in reducing tiger population to just a little over 1400!" he said with visible pride.

Pandey doesn't quite understand the fascination of India's elites and environmentalists with saving tigers from extinction. "How can anyone feel sympathy for bloody tigers? These tigers are fucking terrorists. They are violent creatures who terrorize poor, innocent, defenseless animals and destroy the peace of the jungle."

"There can be no moral justification for violence." said Pandey, slamming his fist on the table, when our reporter pointed out to him that tigers preying on weaker herbivorous animals was the natural order of the jungle. "Okay, god made tigers carnivorous, but that doesn't give them the right to attack weak animals, rip their flesh off with their claws and eat them. Next, you will justify killing of the rich saying that since some people are born dirt poor with no access to education or any scope for moving out of poverty, they have right to kill rich people and steal their wealth."

Pandey deplored the romanticizing of the tigers by tiger-lovers. "It is disgusting to hear talk of how tiger is a magnificent and beautiful animal. These idiots who romanticize tigers see only the beautiful black stripes on glowing golden tiger skin but not their deadly fangs with which they mercilessly shred the chassis of innocent deers, antelopes or wild boars to satisfy their lust for flesh."

"Tigers are cruel, barbaric, violent terrorists of our woodlands. They are the number one security threat to the peace of our jungles and should be dealt with strongly." he added with emphasis.

The poacher outrightly dismissed arguments about the threat of extinction of tigers if they are not protected. "So what if only 1400 tigers are still alive? Will your government call off operation Green Hunt midway, if they discover that only 1400 maoists are remaining? Do you wish to preserve maoists or Kashmiri militants for your future generations to admire? Our first priority should be to end the reign of terror unleashed by tigers in our forests. We should have zero tolerance towards violence and show no sympathy for any specie of beasts that doesn't respect the right of all animals to live and flourish in peace."

But can violence towards tigers be answer to the violence perpetrated by tigers? By killing tigers, isn't Pandey guilty of the same crime that he accuses tigers of committing? "Look Saar, every tiger kills over 300 poor animals every year. By killing one tiger, I'm saving 300 lives of innocent animals a year. So net-net, we tiger-hunters are saving many more lives than we are killing!" said the man in justification of his violence towards the royal Bengal tiger.

By the end of the interview, our reporter was thoroughly confused about his own beliefs. He couldn't make up his mind whether he should feel sympathy for the tigers or for their prey. Or whether the poachers were criminal outlaws or heroes saving lives of defenseless animals from blood-thirsty predators. He spent several sleepless nights mulling over the dilemma of choosing to sympathize with one specie over another. During one such night, he received instant enlightenment and realized that reality is a bitch and that our beliefs of right and wrong are formed by our own twisted perceptions and not by any objective constructs. "Fuck it all!" he said and enjoyed a deep, peaceful sleep which was disturbed by a nightmare in which he was being eaten alive by a ferocious tiger. "Fuck tigers..fuck tiger sympathizers" he murmured, shaking with fear, but after he had calmed down, he wisely decided not to join Dhanwant Pandey in his exploits in the jungles of Sundarbans.

Law student backs away from his plan to build nation

22-year old, Yashwant Chavan who is a law student and resides in Nagpur has decided to climb-down from his earlier plan of dedicating his life to the task of nation-building. He will now now focus all his energies only on the task of body-building, according to his friends.

Yashwant was inspired to dedicate himself to the task of nation-building after listening to Prime Mininster Manmohan Singh's speech where he had urged the youth of the nation to re-dedicate their lives to the task of nation-building. But six months later, Yashwant finds himself unable to motivate himself to do any fruitful task that will help build the nation. "I'm almost broke. I don't have either a job or a girlfriend. If I can't even build my career or a stable relationship, how will I build the nation? I think I'm better off trying to build something more easier. I've been working out strenuously at gym for last few months and should be able to build my body if I keep at it. The task of nation-building can wait for now." he said to his friends.

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Regular man on street talks uncannily like Amartya Sen

According to a few educated friends of Raj Purohit, a lower division clerk working with Indian Railways, also a regular asshole on the street, Raj talks uncannily similar to leading economist and Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, who has recently published his first book on philosophy - The Idea of Justice, wherein the famed economist laments the lack of justice and fairness in our cruel world.

Whenever he gets too emotional watching a tearjerker movie or some atrociously stupid saas-bahu-damad-nanad-bhabhi-jethani-devar-devrani soap, Purohit tends to get a bit philosophical and makes pithy, philosophic remarks, his friends say. Sometimes during tea breaks at his desk in the Railway Booking Office, he gets into a sombre mood and offers his pearls of wisdom to anyone who would care to listen to him.

"Bahut na-insaafi hai is duniya mein!" (there is too much injustice in this world), he had remarked recently to his co-worker in the booking office during tea-break while reading about hunger deaths in a tribal-dominated district of Orissa, recalls co-worker Aditya Bannerjee. When Bannerjee tried to cheer him up by saying that India is growing at a healthy rate of 8-9% every year and that within a few decades starvation deaths will be a thing of past, Purohit replied sententiously, "Aditya babu, bhookh aur berozgari mit jayegi tab bhi is duniya mein nainsaafi rahegi." (Adidya babu, even if we get rid of hunger and unemployment, the world will remain unjust). Some people will still be filthy rich, while others will struggle to make ends meet. Some people will be born with talent, confidence and skills to make a mark in the world, while most others will take birth, live a pointless existence and die without leaving their footprints on the sands of time, he had lamented.

Banerjee, who read Amartya Sen's recent interview in newspapers was astonished to find the Nobel laureate's comments on the minor and major injustices in our country eerily similar to the remarks made by Purohit a couple of weeks ago. "Purohit babu had even remarked on the impossibility of achieving the utopian ideal of perfect justice since we lack even a proper definition of the concept of 'perfect justice'. I remember him saying - 'Insaaf to sirf Ishwar hi kar sakta hai, Aditya babu. Ek aam aadmi jiska ek pair hamesha kabar me hohi hai, jo yeh bhi nahin jaanta woh kahan se aaya hai aur usse kahan jana hai, woh kaise samajh sakta hai sacha insaaf kya hota hai" (Only god can provide justice. A common man on the street, with one foot in his grave, who isn't aware of his true origins or his final destination - how can such a person understand what constitutes perfect justice?)

Maheshwari Joshi, his friend of over two decades, also recollects several instances when Purohit had waxed eloquent on the topic of poverty and starvation in our country. He remembers that long before people of the country became aware of Amartya Sen's theory on man-made famines, Raj had made observations about how famines are result of poverty, not lack of food. "I remember him saying - 'Garibi hi insaan ki sabse badi dushman hai, uski sabse badi kamjori hai jo use lachar aur majboor bana deti hai. Paisewale kabhi aakal ya sookhe se nahin marte" (Poverty is man's biggest enemy, his biggest weakness that makes him handicapped and helpless. The wealthy never die from famines or droughts.)

Some of his colleagues say that they have a new-found respect for Purohit after learning about the similarity of his views with that of Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. "Often when we used to sit together laughing, joking and having fun over a cup of tea, Purohitji would out of the blue make a dry, highly philosophical observation, which would create an awkward silence as no one would know how to respond to it jocularly. This abrupt end to our camaraderie used to terribly irritate us and we often used to make fun of his philosophical bent of mind. But now I realize, we were not up to his level of intellectual sharpness" He added, "Purohitji might not have said anything that we haven't heard before umpteen number of times. His observations on life may sound very filmy or seem to have been inspired from dialogues of television melodramas. But nevertheless it is very remarkable that he said all the things he said much before a brilliant scholar like Amartya Sen elucidated these ideas in public" said Rakesh Gupta, a senior manager with Central Railway.

Gupta jokingly said that the office staff would jointly file his nomination for Nobel Prize, but a modest Purohit refused to take any credit for his observations. He sheepishly admitted that his insightful remark about the rich never becoming victims of famines may have been inspired by a 1965 released Balraj Sahni starrer whose name he was unable to recollect wherein Balraj Sahni on his death-bed, suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition, had quiveringly said a few seconds before his death "yeh sookha bhagwan ne hum jaise garibon ke mukti ke liye banaya hai. Paisewale kabhi sookhe se naheeen marte"

Reader gets paralyzed choosing budget-related news to read

A reader of Times of India & Economic Times, who missed the budget speech of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the subsequent discussions through out the day and night on 17 different news and business channels became paralyzed by the sheer volume of budget-related articles published in the two newspapers.

"In a way, I was relieved that I was away at work and didn't have to deal with the pressure of selecting which channel to tune into for post-budget discussions. The information overload on budget day can become quite overwhelming, so I was subconsciously glad that I didn't have the freedom of sit at home and watch the budget discussions live on television. But the day after turned out to be worse, as I sat down on my sofa holding both the newspapers trying to grasp the details of the budget." said Shivkumar Hegde.

"The first page of TOI was easy enough and I breezed through it quickly. But when I turned the page, I felt nervous and anxious. There were so many items on budget and I found it increasingly difficult to choose which one to read and which to ignore. Do I care to know what Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan or Katrina Kaif feel about the budget? I don't, but I couldn't resist a peek and discovered that Katrina Kaif was clueless about the budget and had only heard about increase in allocation for Mumbai's flood management system. She even wished that this year rains won't exceed the handlng capacity of Mumbai and hoped that the increased funds never get used. How nice of her to care so much about the city! Then as I started reading Priyanka Chopra's endorsement of the budget due to its commitment to increasing female literacy, I realized that I was getting distracted by fluff stuff and needed to move on to more serious items"

"Oh boy, what a difficult choice it was. Should I read about what Mukesh Ambani, Adi Godrej, Kishore Biyani, Indra Nooyi or Narayan Murthy had to say about the budget or should I read the impact of the budget on automobile, banking, finance, agriculture, cement, infrastructure, consumer durables, power, textiles, telecom and steel industries? I settled for the latter but gave up after a couple of minutes of reading statistics about growth rates and sales figures. Too dry, too boring!" said an exasperated Hegde.

"I kept flipping pages trying to decide what information I need to know. Unable to decide, I switched to ET. More pages, more statistics, more words. I started reading whatever I could, but couldn't concentrate on anything for too long and kept flipping pages. Finally, paralyzed by indecision I gave up."

Hegde told us that the only thing he remembers about the annual budget is that like every budget every year, it was a good budget for some, not-so-good for some others and disappointing for the rest, mostly politicians not belonging to the governing UPA. "Opposition politicians never appreciate any budget and point out every negative they can detect. I wonder why news channels and papers bother getting their reactions. Movie stars don't give a shit about budget, yet always discover some positives to talk about. I'm sure Katrina didn't have a clue about allocation of more resources to Mumbai flood management system and her budget reaction was directed to her by the journalist interviewing her. Yet after browsing 50 pages of budget-related articles, that's the only thing I remember about the budget!"

Hegde, whose equity portfolio suffered a significant drop in health due to sensex crashing by over 900 points, also learned the stock market crashed due to over-expectations. "I'm wondering who is a bigger retard, the market for always behaving like a spoilt child over-expecting goodies from the finance minister every year during budget despite past disappointments or me for not encashing my profits before the budget despite knowing that stock market behaves like a tantrum-throwing cry-baby after every budget presentation."

Life: Vijay Golpade - A Life More Ordinary

In these Life columns, we feature ordinary people living extremely boring and ordinary lives with good cheer, a tinge of regret, an undercurrent of despair, but nevertheless with hope for something better however bleak their situations might be, however improbable the possibility of their hopes turning to reality.

This weeks antihero, our featured average joe, is Vijay Golpade, an amiable young guy who lives his life without a purpose plodding through life wherever it leads him. On a routine day, Vijay goes to work, chats with his workmates, comes back to his tiny shack, smokes a few ciggies, bumps into his neighbors, screams at his wife of nine years, scolds his kids, throws a few pebbles at barking dogs, hums a tune or two, drifts off to sleep. On a non-routine day, he goes to work, gets scolded by his supervisor, gets ragged mercilessly by his workmates, comes back to his tiny shack, smokes a few extra ciggies, bumps into his landlord, gets a dressing down from his wife of nine years, gets taunted by his kids, throws a few pebbles at dogs barking at him, gets irritated at everyone humming tunes, drifts off to sleep. On a special day, which mostly comes once a fortnight, sometimes just once a month, his wife agrees to fuck him.

In his 37 years of existence, Golpade has trudged his way through school, failed attempts to graduate from college, mountain of debt accrued from marrying off his sister after the untimely death of his father without leaving him a penny, string of poorly-paid jobs, a somewhat successful marriage and an occasional trip to Shirdi or a vacation at Lonawala.

"I like singing and I think with some training I might become a middling to good singer. Though my voice tends to crack while singing high notes, with little bit of training I might learn to sing at few octaves lower. Sometimes I wish I should audition for at least the 'Bathroom Singer' show, but my wife starts laughing hysterically every time I talk about it and pleads me to spare her the embarrassment" said Golpade to our reporter.

His wife, Premlata, denied that she laughs hysterically whenever he talks about auditioning for TV shows. "Yes, I do laugh off his ideas of becoming a television star and sometimes its difficult to control my laughter at his daydreams, but I would never intentionally hurt him by laughing hysterically at his face" she said with a smile, offering a plate of cookies. "I too do wish that he should do something with his life, set goals for himself, take charge of his life and try to make things happen. But when I talk about goals, I mean realistic, achievable goals that would better his life and help create a good future for our kids, not silly day-dreams of becoming a talent-show participant."

"I'm quite content with my life" countered Vijay, "Things could have been better, but my life isn't too bad. I got a job, a roof to live under, a good wife who serves me food twice a day, two great kids, friendly co-workers, tolerable boss, nice neighbors, my ciggies and my music"

Not true actually. A lousy job, just a roof and four walls, a nagging wife who denies him frequent fucks till he gets going in his life, two kids whose future looks as bleak as his own, nasty co-workers, brute of a boss, tolerable neighbors, ciggies which will eventually kill his lungs and delusions of musical talent.

But like every ordinary person living with hope and good cheer, Vijay Golpade likes to look at the glass of his life as half full, even as he finishes off another boring day failing to set any goal or achieve anything substantial.