The bird flu thing

"More than eight lakh chickens would be culled and another two lakh vaccinated..."
"Birds sent to London lab..."


I am not sure what exactly culled means. At least, I was totally oblivious of its context till this morning. My wordweb defines it as : 'Remove something that has been rejected/ look for and gather.'

When I read these multiple news items yesterday, I thought the chickens were being sent away to a happy place - like a disneyland for hens at London. How bad could this culling activity be ? The dirty hens were of course being vaccinated. But that is just a prick of an injection, right ? As more news flew into my computer today, the euphemistic expressions were steadily displaced by more direct phrases - birds to be burnt! killed! I wish I was shocked by it. Instead, I was flooded with apathy, quite aptly captured by my favourite american expression - whatever!

At this point, I must state that despite being a consumer of chicken-products, I am still quite a veggy-guy. I eat chicken. But then, I really don't EAT chicken. Get it ? And while this foible has not given me any advantage till date, it has become my source of strength during this odd period. If I was a pure vegetarian, backed by feelings of animal-love or religion, this would definitely have been a unholy phase for me. The poor birds ! The poor birds ! And a non-vegetarian disposition would have left me utterly dismayed. Hence, when I'll walk into our hostel mess for the next few weeks, my face will hold a confident smile, whose source will be known only to the readers of this post.

This bird flu thing will definitely aid mess table conversations. For obvious (yet asinine) reasons, they've stopped serving chicky-stuff in the mess now. Being denied chicken even for one meal today (the first day of precautionary action) left all the non-vegs appalled. My favourite bong-land boasts of many chicken-lovers, who would rather have their chicken whacked and served on a plate, than cherish them as pets.
For me, it's a golden opportunity to smirk at their anguish - "Saala. Chicken band kar diya. It's silly. nahi ??" When offered such a lovely bait, it is inevitable that they'll lash out at (a) The system (b) Vegetarians (c) Manmohan Singh (poor guy) (d) Veg food. With my veggy cousins, I can always take the non-veg stance and have a nice discussion.

It's a period of great dilemma for the animal lovers. Here we have nine-lakh birds, to be culled (killed) within the next couple of days. To the average moron swayed by these activists, it doesn't seem rational at all to save the chicken lives. After all the health of a few hundred million Indians, the economy, FDI, FII, FBI etc are dependent on their death. Is it rational to holler scam backed by a nexus of multi-national corporations ? Well, reason and (animal) love never had a connection. So we can expect a lot of tamaasha in the coming days. Where are you Maneka Gandhi ? I am eager to hear your views about this massacre. Poor chickens...

A brief paragraph to convey important information - "According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), humans get infected when they come into direct contact with the saliva, mucus and droppings of infected birds." In case you thought of smooching that chick that lives down the street, think again. And no matter how attractive it looks, do not scoop out the mucus from a hen's nose (do they have one ?) or collect droppings.

Sadly, no one has considered the situation from the chicken's point of view. I would love it if Aaj Tak does a special report on the "Life of an Indian Chicken." Since most of the other clone channels would be busy giving updates on the number of chickens culled and vaccinated, Aaj Tak can really capture more market this way. Starting from the moment the gooey egg pops out from wherever, till the time it is ready to be consumed, the viewer can be delighted with wonderful details, peppered with boombastic hindi phrases :

"aur iss dehshat ki aag mein jalte hue murgion ki aatmaa cheekh rahi hai." (the hen's soul, burning in the fire of terror is screaming )
"Hum manushya ye murgi jeevan aur maut ka bhayaank khel kyon khel rahe hain" (why are we humans playing this terrible game of a hen's life and death)

Too bad they can't interview the chicken...That would have been something...