The people are ingrates

In politics, there are three kinds of animals; the Rabbit, the Snake, and the Bear.

The Rabbit gets victimized by the Snake and is out of the game early, no matter what its intentions were. These animals are good administrators, but are the worst politicians. They don’t understand the first rule of arguments: self-interest.

The Snake is cunning. It is the master of the game and knows what it wants: power. These animals are an asset to any political party, but god save us if they become the administrators.

Lastly, there is the Bear. It doesn’t hunt down the Rabbit, but it can calmly throw the Snake away, without harming the Snake. It understands politics, and has what it takes to be a Snake, and how to take it down, but chooses to live and let live.

Between these three animals and the others, there is a middle-man. The Monkey. This has control of the media. The Monkey’s purported aim is to take down the snake and save the rabbit, but really, what it wants it to do is go up the ladder itself.

Next, we have the Vulture, which is the industry and lobbies. They admit openly that they’re in the game for the flesh, and they can get much more of it if they have the Rabbit, Bear, Snake, and Monkey, all on their side.

Finally, we have the people, who are Hyenas. They believe they’re smart, but really they aren’t. They only see what everyone else wants them to see. The Snake poses as a Rabbit and makes the Hyena believe that the real Snake is the Rabbit, and tries to make them believe the bear is a Snake too.

And here’s the thing about the Hyenas which is a governing reason for the evolution of the system into its present state: they’re ungrateful bastards.

Some men gave their lives to a cause, and receive mere applause, after which they’re forgotten. Others shirk duty and use the system for their own benefit. They’re chastised and reinstated.

A police officer who ran away from a bomb-blast site isn’t stripped of everything he has and brought to the streets. He’s suspended and then shoved to a less important position. Another officer who lost his life fighting a rioting mob or terrorists, receives a posthumous medal and his family receives a few years salary as compensation. His kids will now grow up without a father and will have to fend for their own college education, if they ever manage to make it that far. The people aren’t going to help his family. They’ll post his photo on facebook which will receive a few hundred likes and shares and comments. And what good did that do to anyone anyway?

The media personalities who went into investigative journalism and got killed days before their evidence was published. They receive a few minutes of screen-time and their murderers are the subject of a few strong words. Compare that with the news-channels and newspapers which create news and successfully increase TRPs. They roll in money and live risk free, because the Snake is the Monkey’s best friend. Papers like The Indian Express will go bankrupt if they don’t step up to the level of Times of India. And we have ourselves to blame for that. I’m as much of a masala news junkie as the next guy.

If the Snake can tell the Monkey what to tell the people about itself as well as the Vulture, all three get their share of the flesh.

In today’s jungle, a moral high ground or short term recognition is nothing compared to raw, bloody flesh. A cunning animal will take a beating after stealing its pound of flesh, because trickery and deceit are in the very roots of the trees which make up the jungle. You can fight the animal, but you cannot fight the jungle.

The confused hyenas have a number of choices. They can either move to a new jungle, where the very life giving air produced by the trees isn’t infected with the poison that makes us Snakes and Vultures, they can stay back and live their days accepting the unwritten laws of the land, or try to fight in their own small enclosures of the forest. These are the ones who turn into one of the other five animals.

To the latter I say, be warned. It isn’t worth fighting for the Hyenas. They hunt with the Snake and eat with the Vulture. Fight instead, for the trees. And be a bear.

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