Extinction?

1400 Tigers left in natural habitat in India; elephants of Africa predicted to go extinct by 2020. Causes, both human and inhuman.

"The habitats have been lost due to severe deforestation, contributing to the dwindling tiger numbers," CPR Environmental Education Centre (CPREEC). [More info]

“Elephants are being killed for their ivory at such a rate that most large groups could be extinct by 2020, researchers warned. Dr Wasser said the loss of the animals will have a negative impact on their ecosystem and other wildlife that depend on it - as well as on the cash flow they generate from tourists.” [More Info]

But they are not the only species that need help and I think they should grow up to take care of themselves before it’s too late. The apes realized this and made themselves worthy of being the test subjects in laboratories. Now they are bred in captivity, so no extinction issues.

Meanwhile, I too am facing serious extinction issues. These issues occupy my otherwise vacant mind for hours. This particular homo-sapiens genus of hominini tribe has learned a lot. But only a small lot amongst this group knows its roots, it’s Terra Firma. They have forgotten that everything new doesn’t pour out from the sky. It is learnt from the roots, from the basics. Science as we call it.

They taught me words after teaching me the alphabets, and then I made sentences, convinced that these were mere arrangements of words. From sentences emerged emotions. But now, it is all history. Today, they rough me up through superconductivity course without telling me if it is a special case of conductivity. Schrodinger equations are used like (x+y) and we are expected to know it all. They have made education a compulsion for me, not a delight. The best subject, mathematics, was transformed from a deep reasoning subject to mere cramming of rules and results. Electrostatics, electromagnetic fields and antennas are taught as if they are all different fields of study.

Just to show how they have stopped using their upper storey, let me narrate to you a personal experience. In a lecture on ‘Growth of Industrial Sociological Approach’, the lecturer explains how F.W. Taylor propounded ‘Scientific principles of Management’, the first one being ‘Science, not the rule of the thumb’ [More Info]. But the comma after ‘Science’ was missing and turned this statement into ‘Science not the rule of the thumb’. And our respected lecturer explained it as such, though the lecturer was an MBA graduate from a top institute. The statement that was supposed to mean, use science and not the rule of the thumb, was transformed into, science is not the rule of the thumb. F.W. Taylor’s spirit would have died again of a heart attack if it was wandering around us.

Is this how they are going to treat the lone piece of my kind? Is this how they intend to curb me and my natural instincts? Foundations of science – What, how and why, are reserved and forbidden words. I ask too much, they screw my grades. I ask too little, I’d rather suffocate. A few understand my situation, fewer help, others encourage me to join ranks.

By making me like themselves, they think they can save me from extinction. But when they could not save their original self from extinction and succumbed to the tyranny of the system, how can they do justice to me?

A single poached tiger “ground down and separated into various medicines” brings in around $50,000. A kilogram of Ivory can fetch you around 700$. Neither my bones nor my skin would fetch you anything greater than a trifle.

Though my extinction might not disturb the ecosystem, I might not be the bringer of rains, I might be adding just one species to the biodiversity, but still I am unique, am I not?

So save Tigers, save elephants and SAVE ME!

*Note: We all are unique in some way or the other. Only a few exist in the world who shall try to make us climb the glory mountain. Rest are there to push us down into the well of obscurity and ordinarity. God gave us brains not to preserve but to use to help ourselves and those mute animals who cannot speak for themselves.