Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Like Son,Like Father


Black Buck
Originally uploaded by gopoo.

The son did it several years ago. The father emulated him on June 3. Both are now charged for similar crimes. Killing an endangered species. The black buck.

Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi,ex MP,former cricket captain of the Indian team finally surrendered to the Haryana police after going underground for more than two weeks. During this period,his near and dear ones,moved heaven and earth to get him off the hook. And the senior police officials seemed to have cooperated. Dame luck was not in favour of the killer of the buck though . Finally he surrendered and was in lockup at Jhajjar for 2 days. What a fall. Finally,the hunter was hunted down. The Nawab spent nearly 48 hours in a dingy room with minimal comforts and bread and boiled potatoes for lunch and dinner.

It is an enigma. What made a sophisticated,educated,urbane,knowledgeable,enlightened person indulge in this barbaric act. Perhaps all the qualities attributed to him,he did not really deserve. And this was not an one off incident. It was his bad luck that he got caught.When his Gypsy boot was opened in a routine manner,when he was leaving the forest area,perhaps he did not expect the chota police official to have the gumption to question His Highness the Nawob.Out came the caracasses of the black buck and two rabbits. Surprisingly,he was not detained.He was let off. That he couldn't remain untouched for long is a different story.

One explanation for this seemingly mad behaviour which I tend to agree with is the Nawabi arrogance that no mortal can question their actions. Otherwise how do you explain the killing of thousands of birds in one single day by the Nawab accompanied by the begumsahiba and chote nawab in Kashmir?

Whether he will be ultimately brought to book is something to be seen but Raymond's 'complete man' has been shorn of all his clothes and stands naked in front of all animal loving people.He killed a female deer and one which was carrying.His crime therefore gets compounded.It is said that shikaris don't shoot during the mating season. Also that they do not kill a female deer. And also not when she is pregnant.And Pataudi violated all these unwritten rules.Shikar ka nasha hai,nahin to aur kya.

The Baishnoi community for whom the black buck is like a guru has sworn to take revenge.They follow the 20 and 9 commandments laid down by their preceptor. Bees aur nau and that is why they are called baishnoi.

Naveen Patnaik,the CM of Orissa is anguished. He fell in love with the black bucks when he saw them in his father's constituency,Aksa. And so carried away he was with its beauty that he immediately painted a black buck on canvas and wrote an appeal in Oriya asking his people to preserve the endagered black buck and bring no harm to them.

Sharmila Tagore says that she has great faith in the country's judiciary.I don't know what that means.But for the crimes that the three have committed,they deserve to go to the gallows.

2 comments:

rums said...

absolutely! and by doing so an example will be set for all those people who think they are above the law.
uncle, isn't it ridiculous that everytime people get arrested for serious crimes, they have to be checked into a hospital for health complications?

gs said...

no one is above the law is an oftquoted saying.but the truth is different.in india you can literally get away with murder.
and i am sure nop will never go to jail.i too have great faith in our judicial system!
they will buy off the witnesses,tamper with the evidence and do everything possible to obliterate and obfuscate any shreds of the truth that could emerge.
and rums, complaining of chest pain is an easy way of getting the 5 star treatment that they yearn for and delay the whole investigation process to their advantage.