The Hungry Mass

"Gopal, keep your eyes wide open and be aware", Chandan Sahukar told Gopal in a harsh voice. A feeble cane hanging from the strong, sweaty, dirty, vein wrapped arms of the bonded labour Gopal, replied him confidently yet in a submissive way, " Ji bhau". 

The cold, cloudy night covered the entire village of Ambavalli, in Maharashtra. The young, gallant young man Gopal stayed awake, hungry but strong, thirsty but optimistic, protecting Sahukar's livestock from the flesh-boring canines of leopards amongst the somnolent mud houses and potato fields. The nearby forests were a warehouse of fierce beasts such as sloth bears, elephants, dhols, hyenas, Indian grey wolfs and even Bengal tigers. Aware of all these dangers he stayed awake with a feeble wooden cane. Once this village was a portion of Shivaji's independent Hindu empire. Now this place has gained the infamy of one of India's poorest villages. 

Gopal and the people belonging to his community only knew the taste of oppression and bondage. They are the representatives of those who are maximum in number but programmed to be the submissive, silent, fearful mass. Gopal was thinking and humming a Gulzar song which he had listened once in a Jalsa organized by the village head on the eve of his birthday. Suddenly he felt a warm breath over his shoulder, the fear froze his spine, he looked back in no time but a hard fang slapped him aloud. He fell from the cliff he chose to sit. "Roaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr".

Next day the Sahukar entered a thick mob and fainted watching the whole scene. He saw Gopal's head bleeding and one of his hands badly chewed. Beside him, he saw a group of children feeding on raw flesh from the body of a dead leopard. Cannibals, zombies, carnivores? Whom do you find amongst these inhabitants of hungry India who killed both the top orders of the food chain, the man and the leopard barehanded to feast upon their meat, because they had remained hungry for 20 or more days? And surprisingly one of them was a long lost bastard child of Sahukar. 

Feed your children, quench their thirst. 

Or the thirst of revenge will feed you.