By Guest Author Ayon Mukherjee
I am a young goat, living in the fields of the city Tarapith,West Bengal,India. My skin colour is BLACK. (I had no idea that being the skin colour black for goats is really dangerous sometimes, which I later realised.)
I grazed happily in the green fields, eating away tasty green grasses. I was enjoying my life with my fellow mates.
But suddenly I was caught by some people one day, while I was eating grasses on the fields. I had no idea why I was captivated. I got bored as I was tied to a pole whole day, though I used to get good foods in huge quantity.(I never know why they captivated me and giving me such good foods to eat!)
Time passed by. May be after two weeks of my captivation, I was taken to a nearby temple. Must be a very big temple as many people had gathered there. They had all come to pray to the goddess of the temple. There I saw many of my fellow mates, who used to graze with me on the fields.They were also same black in colour like me. I had no idea why so many goats were taken to a temple. I was tied to a pole again. Stood under the sun for more than five to six hours. I was getting damn bored.
Then a huge fat man came and took me with him. I was cleaned with lots of water and I enjoyed the bath! I felt fresh. PHEWWWW....
I was worshipped then. Many people gathered around me. I was feeling proud.
Then I was queued again to a line and found many friends of mine in the queue. They told me that they had the same experience in the last few days. We were chatting happily ,as we all had no idea about what was going to happen to us in next few minutes.
After few minutes, I heard one of my friend squealing. I had no clue,I didn’t get for what the squeal was.
Then my turn came, I was carried away by that fat man again and taken to special place, where I saw dead bodies of many goats like me. Many people were surrounding the place. I also found the killing instrument by which I was going to be slaughtered in next few seconds of my life.
I panicked and started crying at my highest pitch. I tried hard to escape. But all my efforts in vain. I couldn’t. I cried for help from the people standing around me, but no one helped me. All were rather happy, seeing me cry. At last I prayed to God, to save my life. But then I felt that God is also helpless in front of this cruel people, who felt great after killing an innocent life.
HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO ME IN A TEMPLE, WHERE ALL MIGHTY IS PRESENT ?
HOW CAN THEY TAKE AWAY MY DAYS OF FUN FROM ME?
HOW CAN THEY FORCE TO END MY LIFE SUDDENLY IN ONE MORNING?
WHO HAS GIVEN THEM POWER TO DECIDE ABOUT MY DEATH?
I had many questions in my mind. But there’s none to answer.
I was forced to lie down in the floor. I kept lying quietly ,counting last seconds of my life.
Then suddenly the instrument landed on my shoulder and I WAS KILLED. The people surrounding me were happy to see this and celebrating my death.
This is the story of a poor goat and YOU, yes YOU, the cruel human beings ,imagine if it happens to you one day ,how would you feel? Can you celebrate then as you did when it was the goat’s turn?
We are all Indians. India is land of cultures and many religious myths. But I hate this practice of sacrificing the life of goats as a part of rituals.
Earlier in India, life of small children was also sacrificed as a part of ritual. However it was stopped by law after we fought for our life. But, what about this goats? Who will fight for them?
Since they can’t speak like us...cant appeal to courts...they will be killed mercilessly?
Is there no one to fight for them?
I think, we human beings should come up and change our thoughts.
We all know that none of the sacred texts like GEETA, KORAN,BIBLE etc preach about destruction of life. God never wants life to be sacrificed for His satisfaction. Rather He gets wounded when He watches human beings killing innocent animals for pleasing Him.
Great Ramakrishna was never in favour of any kind of animal slaughter. He tried his best to stop it but due to the very strong orthodox priestly class he could not stop it. He even told some devotees during one Kali Puja that Maa Kaali had told him cracking a coconut was enough, that itself was a sacrifice. There is no animal sacrifice at Dakshineshwar today. Even at Kamakhya Temple, Assam, no goats are sacrificed for pleasing the Goddess of the temple. So why we couldn’t stop by enforcing laws against the practise.
We should be more like a human being and act accordingly. We should fight for justice and go for enforcing laws to stop this inhuman act in the name of the God.
So I would appeal to the people of whole world to stop this act to save the innocent lives and stop slaughtering any form of life for the sake of pleasing God.
