Animals

I remember the exact point in my life when I became an animal lover. It was back in India and I was around 8 years old, maybe 10. A construction lorry had pulled up alongside our house. Without warning, the driver backed up into our garden fence and damaged one of the fence posts. He then took off without bothering to wait for justice to be meted unto him. I was furious. I ran behind the lorry driver, following him from inside my garden, screaming little child epithets. Even at that young age, I was well versed in the art. When I reached the end of our domain, I had to quit, my progress being thwarted by a neighbor's fence. That is when my attention wandered to the property across the road and I saw a dog, who had also been chasing the lorry from inside his garden and had been similarly foiled by his own fence. I marveled at how the dog had correctly determined that a crime had been committed and had taken it upon himself to extract justice for his human neighbor.

As the two of us watched the receding silhouette of the miscreant vehicle, it dawned upon me that animals have as great a sense of moral outrage against society's evildoers as do humans, if not greater.

Even today, when I go back home and look at the bent fence post (which still stands bent), I think of that dog and our joint crusade against injustice.