Life's Haircut?

I havent eaten in days. The choices on the menu are rabbits, dogs and peacocks. Yes, I did say peacocks.

Arunkulam is a tiny hamlet – its a really remote village in the Ottapidaram block of Tamil Nadu. The population of this hamlet is around 30 households. Everyone looks the same. The same! You will believe it only if you see it. You too will look like them if you stay here long enough.

People actually hunt for food. Each house has atleast 4 blood hounds. They are used for hunting rabbit. The dogs get to keep the limbs and people eat the rest. A convinient arrangement. If no rabbits are available, people eat dogs. Miles and miles of land stretch all around the village. Dry as dust land! Not a soul or a building or a shop in sight but a peacock calls to you every now and then.

You’d rather not eat becuase it is easier that way. The food is taken from another plate.You’d rather not sleep becuase its safer that way. The wolves might take your life away. You’d rather not bathe because its cleaner that way. The water is liquid plague.

The people here are resigned to fate. They neither know nor care what goes on in the rest of the world. Their life’s aim is to stay alive. Disease and poverty are their inseparable companions. They dont even own their time. Someone decided, someone they never met, generations ago, that their life will be somebody else’s labor.

Your cellphone mocks the village by getting signal at one particular spot on one particluar hillock at one particular angle. It hurts to think or feel in this place. It physically hurts!

I haven’t eaten in days. But thats my only problem. How did I get so lucky?