The Benevolent Activist

Prabhu loved animals. From his childhood he had been fond of pets. There was always a dog or a cat in their home. He was more interested to study the life style of various animals side by side his school studies. Prabhu could predict the weather by the movement of the ants in his backyard.

As he grew older he learned how the industrial wastes caused danger to the environment. He could learn from the behaviour of sparrows when the mobile network towers were installed in his neighbourhood, that they felt very disturbed. After the tower erection, Prabhu came to learn that many types of birds that could be seen before had just vanished.

Prabhu enjoyed very much to spend time near the Sarita river that flowed on the outskirts of their town of Ramgarh. From his childhood he had developed this habit of visiting the river. After the monsoon and till the dry season, Prabhu mentally calculated the rise and fall in the water levels. He enjoyed all this. On the sand on the banks of the river, Prabhu played with friends when he was small. He loved the river bank.

But recently, Prabhu observed that the sand from the banks was being depleted. Series of trucks used to come down to the river bank and carry away sand for use in the construction sites.

Later on when Prabhu grew up he learned that mining of this sand from river banks was banned by an order from the court. Because this was impacting the environment adversely. Prabhu, now studying in college had become an activist. He had become a champion warrior on climate change. Because future generations existence would be in stake if people were not made aware of the dangers of climate change.

The sand mafia had to be controlled otherwise the flow pattern of river Sarita would be affected. Prabhu knew that. But the Don of the sand mafia was the notorious Fagun Lal who was very powerful. This Don had an army of people working for him. The police and the local politicians maintained distance from him. In times of need like during elections, people like Fagunlal were of great help to the politicians.

Prabhu knew that he must however reduce the clout of Fagunlal in the sand mining of Sarita river.

Prabhu knew the job was not easy. He thought over it deeply. Finally he came upon the idea that whatever to be done was with the help from law. Prabhu had discussions with various lawyers in the local court. Then he approached the best lawyer Bhushan to fight the Don Fagunlal legally. A public interest litigation was filed against the sand mining. When the case came up for hearing, it was between Prabhu and unknown parties. The court passed the order of prohibiting all types of sand lifting and mining from the banks of the river Sarita.

Fagunlal and other aggrieved parties filed a counter suit challenging the court order. A close contest was held between the nature activists like Prabhu and the sand mafia like Fagunlal. After a close fight, Fagunlal had to accept defeat. The lawyers placed before the judge all the negative effects of the aggressive sand lifting and the impact on the river and the future generations. The court took a proactive step and struck down the counter plea of Fagunlal and company.

Prabhu had now become quite a hero in his town. Also he had made enmity with powerful people like Fagunlal. These miscreants now always tried to find ways to harm Prabhu in some way or the other.

But Prabhu was not perturbed. There was a sizable monkey population in the town who were friends of Prabhu. Although these monkeys were migrants but they visited Ramgarh once every two months.

Whenever they visited Ramgarh they would all visit Prabhu, who would feed them with all the best goodies. Slowly, Prabhu earned their trust and faith.

Once a stray dog had given a chase to Prabhu and only due to the monkeys Prabhu was saved, otherwise he would have been bitten.

Fagunlal wanted to punish Prabhu with conviction so that he dare not spoil his party. So, Fagunlal ordered his men to stealthily capture Prabhu and on being captured was secretly imprisoned in an isolated hut in a lonely location on the town outskirts.

But, unfortunately for Fagunlal, his efforts were not successful. Some monkeys had seen Prabhu being taken to the hut. After his captors left Prabhu who lay imprisoned in the hut, the monkeys swooped down from the trees and freed Prabhu from his imprisonment. The monkeys escorted Prabhu back to the town.

Then the monkeys trooped together towards Fagunlal's palatial home. There they all clambered up on the roof of the building. Before climbing up they collected small loose debris in the form of broken bricks and stone. Then while seated on the rooftop the monkeys started showering the accumulated 'missiles' over the parked motor cars beneath. Fagunlal had a collection of expensive cars. No glass pane was spared by the monkeys. They damaged them all. Fagunlal and his men tried their best to chase away the simeans but to no avail. The Police were called but they too were helpless. Then the forest department personnel were called who used their unorthodox methods to pacify the monkeys. Very soon the monkeys were gone. Fagunlal pleaded helplessness. He was staring at huge losses. Before leaving the forest officials advised Fagunlal not to play with the sentiments of wild life members. All the unfolding of the events was being secretly observed by Prabhu, the benevolent activist and with a big grin on his face. He was happy that the monkeys had taught that scoundrel Fagunlal a lifetime lesson of not playing with the environment for personal gain.