Meaty post

Sorry to disappoint you but this is not going to be about that kind of meaty.
A couple days back, Vanglaini produced a picture of a maxicab which was used to transport the Mizo delicacy extraordinaire- dogs. Those dogs were bundled inside sacks with just their heads showing, and bound hand (paw?) and foot. Some of the more whiny ones had their mouths tied shut. It generated a lot of comments on public forums like Fakselna, where people condemned the inhuman, brutal treatment of those dogs.


Now, I'm no vegan (though I don't eat meat that much, and especially not dog meat), nor an animals rights activist. Im not going to speak against meat eaters. Its all part of the food chain, this.


However...
Last year, I and a friend took a trip to Shillong by bus. On the way back, we stopped at Khleiriat, I think. Four Mizo women started bundling those bound and muzzled dogs inside the luggage hold of the bus. We, the passengers were a little shocked. One of them mock-joked, "We're going to report you to the border police", to which one woman replied, "I've already gotten permission from their Chief". Wow. 


We muttered amongst ourselves. I even ventured to ask tentatively if they could be transported in a more humane manner, but they laughed and said those dogs were going to be butchered soon anyway. In the Phantom comics of old, there is a saying, "The female of the species is deadlier than the male". I suppose I'm still conventional enough to be shocked that other women could treat living beings that brutally. 


The luggage hold was dark, cramped and stuffy. Imagine being bound, hand and foot, tied inside a sack, muzzled inside a dark, cramped space. Imagine being jolted everytime the bus hits one of the numerous potholes on the road. Imagine whining through the muzzle, petrified, as you try to scratch your way out. imagine suffocating on your own vomit. For that is precisely what happened to three of those fifteen or so dogs being smuggled in that night.


The women got off at Vaivakawn. And shockingly, they got into a huge fight with a man whose luggage was shredded by one of the dogs who managed to free itself from its bindings. Those woman dared to accuse that man of mistreating them because they were 'weak females' (A awm nem zawk kan nih vangin min diriam). The passengers intervened and an uneasy truce was called.


And those dogs, and others are smuggled in incessantly, with the smugglers supposedly in cahoots with the border police, if what that woman said should be believed. But then, the police conducted their mandatory border check, and they saw those dogs and they did nothing. So...maybe its not illegal, I don't know. Maybe its not even smuggling after all.


So while I think that meat is a natural part of our diet, its the brutal treatment of those animals that galls me. So what if they're going to die anyway, can't they be treated with compassion, their ends hastened instead of being drawn out like that? Do they have to be subjected to such treatment?


Looking back, I remember turning to my travelling companion and saying, "I cant sleep", and the reply, "Neither can I". And we sat in silence, listening to the frightened whines of those dogs that the sound of the bus' engine, nor the howling winds could quite cover up. And wondering who was the bigger sinner- those that commit evil, or those that stand by while evil is being committed.