The news that three members of an animal rescue team, while rescuing a parrot entangled with kite strings to electric wires, sustained electrocution injuries and one of them succumbed to his grievous burn in a hospital cannot help tugging at heart of anyone capable of empathising. In their 20s, all three volunteer rescuers took the trouble to go to Keraniganj for saving the life of a bird in danger and met with the deadly accident at the time they just started their rescue operation. These youths have been working for a voluntary organisation devoted to rescuing animals injured or in danger.
The news has received some attention of the media but still the single column story mostly on the inside or back page of newspapers may have escaped many readers' notice, particularly at a time when 'more pressing' news of national importance relating to election and sabotage gets the focus. Also, the majority of people who take pride in their calculative and practical sense might consider such ventures foolish and impractical. To them it is 'gharer kheye boner mosh tarano' (to work for others with no remuneration).
However, this is the labour of love and to those who have experienced the bliss, the contentment and a kind of spiritual reunion with life or soul at its indivisibility, this feeling is more precious than anything else. At a time when teenage gangs are practising unlimited cruelty and savagery, youths are growing increasingly vulnerable to drug addiction, sex abuse, perversion and other aberrations, the select band of youths like the three rescuers hold the beacon of hope and give the message that not all is lost for the nation. Their positive emotion, passion and love for animals help them connect with the wider living world or Nature.
This is important. Their greatest treasure is their souls of gold which preserve them from moral debasement and deviations. People who have a soft corner for all forms of life are the last persons to give in to wickedness and commit a violent crime. The country needs more youths like the deceased named Tashfian Atif who was in the prime of his life. It is young people like him who stand firm in their soul against the rot that is setting almost in all areas of life.
Atif and his comrades could not enlist them with the voluntary organisation RobinHood The Animal Rescuer unless they felt the inner urge, the drive from within to take care of animals in danger. But Atif's death and injuries to two others who accompanied him brings to the fore the issue of safety of the rescuers. Are they well trained for the missions they are supposed to accomplish in challenging conditions? In the Keraniganj case, reports vary but one report has it that the iron cage Atif was carrying came in contact with the electric wires somehow and caused the wires to explode into a fire.
Clearly, without training such rescue mission cannot be carried out successfully. In extreme cases like this, there is a danger to the lives of the rescuers. Death to young people like Atif is a great loss to the nation because they do not live for only themselves but for wellness of 'inferior species'. Their love and respect for life's diversity rank them a class above the ordinary materialistic and self-seeking mortals. Compared to the evil incarnations who feel no qualms about pushing a knife into the body of a fellow human being over a dispute or for serving self interests, or resorting to mass killing by raining down bombs in Gaza, they are simply angels. Just contrast their missions with the arsons and sabotage to buses and trains carried out recently putting at risk hundreds of people's lives and the rescuers' value can be realised.
There are youths who fix earthen pots to trees, rescue Himalayan vultures for treatment at veterinary hospitals. One such youth in Old Dhaka has built up a rapport with kites, one of the few species of urban birds, to feed them from his 'Chilbari' rooftop. He has been rescuing and treating injured kites for years to become a friend to them. These are the young people who can sacrifice so much – at times their own dear lives – in an attempt to save a life of another species. Firm in their conviction, they can connect to all forms of life courtesy of the elan vital.
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