Violence is not evil, what’s evil is the infatuation with violence

“BANG!!!” , a shot roared through the forest. Birds flew away, monkeys started shouting, and a few deer which had been camouflaged by the forest now ran for their lives. Tanay and Anil looked back to see Shrey with his gun, the smoke still coming out from the barrel and a strange twisted smile across his face. Anil ran towards Shrey, snatched the rifle from him, and flung it across. “What the hell is wrong with you??? I thought you said it was for self defense only.” “NO NO NO”, they heard Tanay shout, they traced his direction and saw that he was running towards a barasingha, which now lay in a pool of blood, breathing small gasps of air. It saw Tanay running toward it, and even in that state of near death, with all the little energy it had, it tried to run away, away from him. He stopped a few metres away when he saw the fear in the barasingha’s eyes and it’s desperation to get away from him. Unable to move, the barasingha lay there breathing his last. A little distance away, Tanay saw a little fawn standing by a clearing, looking at the barasingha. It wanted to come close but the sight of him made it flinch away. Tanay stepped back carefully so it wouldn’t feel threatened. As soon as Tanay was a safe distance away, the fawn ran towards the barasingha, who had breathed his last by then. It poked the barasingha, licked its head, its nose trying to elicit a response but there was none. The little one just stood there, confused, alone, helpless. Tanay stood behind, watching all this and he swore when the fawn looked at him he could see tears in its eyes. Filled with rage, he ran towards Shrey and flung himself at him, trying to punch and slap him “MURDERER!!! THAT WAS A FAMILY YOU DESTROYED! LOOK AT THAT KID!!! I”LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS! NEVER!!! “

Shrey tried to fight Tanay, seemingly unfazed by what had just happened. “Animals are killed every day, what’s one more to the tally??? “ Anil, who had remained quiet till then, told them to leave for their room. He had been particularly disturbed by what had happened. Shrey had been his friend for over 5 years now, and what he had witnessed today shook the very basis of their friendship.

That evening they were in no mood for the safari and went to the museum instead. As they entered, they saw a life-size replica of a barasingha at the entrance. Both Tanay and Anil looked at Shrey with a look of disappointment which he shrugged off. Though he acted as if what he had done had not affected him, it had. Deep down, he felt guilty about killing the deer. But he brushed that emotion aside, refusing to recognize it. He had apologized to both of them. But that was all he did. He would not confess his crime. They went about looking at other exhibits and roamed about for nearly a couple of hours till they had forgotten about what had happened that morning. It was nearing the closing time of the museum and people had started leaving. But there was this one section that they still hadn’t been to. It had been full of people an hour earlier but now everybody had dispersed, except for a few families roaming about. They went inside the room, and on the right corner there lay a section separated by a curtain and outside a sign that said,

“SEE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL ON EARTH ! “

Tanay refused to inside since he had a fear of the dark, and he didn’t want to supplement that fear by adding another dangerous animal to an already long list.

Shrey went inside the curtain, looked straight and kept staring for a minute.

A single tear rolled down his cheeks as he stared at a reflection of himself.

He kept looking at the mirror for another minute, at his reflection.

He closed his eyes, and he saw the little fawn next to it's dead father.

He knew.