THE BIRD THAT ‘FLEW’

THE BIRD THAT ‘FLE= W’

‘Did you read the headlines today?’ my husband asked. ‘Not yet’ I said. ‘What is it?’ ‘The Bird Flu’ I heard him say. ̵= 6;And it has come to India= ’. So what was so special about this bird that had flown itself straight into = the Indian Headlines? The discrete factor was that this bird also carried with = it the AIV (Avian Influenza Virus). As if HIV wasn’t enough, we now had = to deal with one more poisonous IV. How deadly was it? Where did it originate?= How did it spread? What are its symptoms? What about precautions?

I didn’t h= ave to wait for the answers. It was there- splashed across every paper, every chan= nel and every mail that was news related. Moreover, what are friends and well-w= ishers for if not to give free advice? ‘Don’t handle chicken’. ‘Wash your hands well before touching the eggs’. ‘DonR= 17;t eat poached eggs’. ‘Wash the eggs before refrigerating themR= 17;. ‘Don’t broil the chicken, cook it’. ‘Don’t co= ok the eggs, boil it’. ‘Wash the chicken under running water’= ;. Don’t this, Don’t that.’ ‘Wash this’, ‘Wash that’. If the confusion got any further I would probably end up boili= ng my hands instead of washing them. It was probably safer to leave the chicken and egg situation alone for sometime.

I can imagine the ‘I t= old you so’ smug look on the faces of the simple dal= and paneer eating vegetarians. And why not? Red meats, in= any case are nothing but cholesterol time bombs. Even white meats are sometimes= processed to such an extent that they lose their freshness. Few years ago, the Mad cow disease had almost the entire world in a state= of panic. Immediately after the Tsunami, seafood for sometime became a threat. Consid= ering the health hazards, combined with the ecological upsets, especially in a country where sanitation is at its lowest level, I see this as just one ‘bird’ alert in the list of the multiple red ones to come.

No, I am not a vegetarian. But can non-vegetarians no longer remain humanitarians? I may not be a stringent an= imal activist but has any of the flesh eating group truly given a second thought= to the plight of the poor birds? Or of the farmers whose livelihood is so mercilessly being butchered? All they can think of is that there will be no more chicken soup in the bowls for sometime. How about the chicken soup for= the souls? The government is busy safely(!?!) dispos= ing off the culled ones. The throats of the luckier ones will be slit, one day = or the other. For them, either way it is the scalpel. Forget about the ‘= cull’ ki baat. Even today= , the manner in which live meat is hoarded, transported and dealt with in our cou= ntry is enough to melt every unfeeling auricle or ventricle. It surely is enough= to unnerve the very last nerve in one’s digestive tract.

So, what exactly is bird flu?= Is it just another type of Influenza virus that infects a number of animal specie= s? Is it just another panic attack that will last till our country is designat= ed disease-free? Is it just another instance where our government’s expe= rtise or greenness in implementation will be tested? Or is it that the bird which flew down all the way to India was carrying with it a divine message? Something meant exclusively for the carnivorous clan.

Nargis<= /span> Natarajan.