Cat and the Birth Right

 About 40 years back, a school in one of the small towns down the southern tip of India had a lesson on Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak in class four English textbook.  The same Bal Gangadhar Tilak who declared boldly to the world that “Swaraj is my Birth right and I shall have it”.  At that point in time, I was one among the young minds who were inspired by him.  

Everyday, enroute my  office, I pass by the statue of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak situated here in chowpatty (beach) in South Mumbai. This reminds me of the day, many years back when my father had first taken me to this same place to show the statue of Tilak during one our vacation trips to Mumbai.

Lucky for Tilak, he aspired for just one birth right, the Swaraj, self-rule, or freedom from the British. It was a slogan that inspired the country and the subsequent leaders of Indian freedom movement. It is said that the weapon should suit the opponent. The ‘weapons’ that the leaders of India’s freedom movement chose whether it is non-cooperation, hunger strike, Satyagraha or whatever were successful only because they exploited an inherent weakness in their opponent.  The Indians would have never won the mighty British in a traditional warfare.

In my daily commute, I see the nomads sleeping on footpaths of this same Mumbai, children begging at traffic signals, poverty, lack of housing and much more even after 75 years of Swaraj!  We have not just one but many birth rights now! The right to clean air, right to clean drinking water, food, clothing, housing, hassle free roads to commute and the list is endless.  

Back to daily routines, stray cats in our campus are a source of inspiration not to miss the daily walks. They come running for the few pieces of cat food offered to them during our morning and evening walks. Among them, there is one particular male cat that stands out from the crowd. He has all the mannerisms of a cat minus the meow sound. Probably dumb! He shows no signs of aggression and knows to rescue itself from all other fellow cats in the neighbourhood who come running for a fight with him. In the last two years that I have known him, he doesn’t even have a minor scratch on his body.

Sometimes I feel our situation too is not quite different from this cat. Raising voice for our birth rights has become futile. Our problems are to be solved by our own elected people. The fight is with them, and our arsenal is replete with archaic weapons. Like the dumb cat, our voices too are lost in the crowd and the resolution of the issues seems remote.  Like the cat who survives this hostile world, we too should find innovative means to rescue ourselves from all adversities around and strive for our birth rights.

What else can we do in this world’s largest “demons crazy” ?