[Reader-list] In the shadow of the Vulture

[Ravi Agarwal]

Dear all,
>From 12th to 21st December, Delhi will host its first public eco art show .
Called 48 deg C (www.48c.org) it will have 25 public art installations along
sites close to the metro line. As part of it I am putting up an installation
at Mandi House, outside the National Museum of Natural History. My theme
deals with the extinctions of vultures from Delhi and its near extinction
from the subcontinent. The Museum has the last of these - stuffed.

Alongside there is an event - The Vulture Readings at the MMB on December
18th at 3:30 pm, where some invited people will read on their idea of
extinctions and how we can think about this word. I invite all those who
can, to please come and participate.

Below is an essay which forms part of my installation:

I hope we can think of 'extinction' as a reflection of the times we are
living in.

Best wishes
ravi agarwal

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*In the Shadow of the Vulture*

* *

*The Docile Dead Keeper*

It is true, we all seem to be going somewhere. Very fast, and quick. The
question is where? All around us, there are extinctions, as things get
blurred and we cannot see what we step on, all sacrificed for the sake of
the journey. But where does the journey lead to –  what would we have learnt
during it, that will form our future. It may be said that the barrenness
will be fertilized with new dreams, new hopes and new possibilities. Yet, is
that true? Do we really believe in this idea, or is the speed of the present
so exhilarating that we cannot make sense of the landscape any more, since
it is so very fuzzy? Maybe we are scared to see that it may be barren, very,
very barren.



For one species, which came upon this planet, probably over a 100 million
years ago, there is no journey left. Almost. The vulture is increasingly no
more. Wiped out, from the staggering tens of millions in number in the sub
continent, even a couple of decades ago, to less than tens of thousands.
Over 95% of them have died, in the largest mass extinctions ever known in
the recorded history of mankind. All killed, amazingly by one innocuous
pill!



Maybe, it is a sign of times. Maybe, the wise vultures have departed on
their own. Decided to withdraw from the cycle of evolution. After aeons of
changing, adapting, evolving, co-existing, it may have become just too much
to cope with. The world is no longer possible to survive in, and hence there
is no future in it. What the biggest earthquakes, volcanoes, meteorites
could not do, has happened in the time when we, as the human race, claim as
a time of 'civilization.'



A sign of animals and birds sensing a tsunami much before we can?



The vulture is carrion. It is seemingly dirty, large and scary. It feeds on
dead flesh. Why on earth should we bother for it? What we fail to recognize,
in the age of abattoirs and incinerators, is that the vulture is also on top
of the food chain, doing nature's job of ensuring that all dead are disposed
of safely. It is also an unusually  caring bird, nesting and bringing up its
young with great devotion and tenderness, besides the fact that it only
feeds on dead animals, but normally does not hunt.



It is the docile dead keeper of the planet. Only doing its job, and helping
nature complete its ongoing cycle.



*The Pill*

Surprisingly, in the end, all it took was a simple pill. That pill proved
more powerful than all the vagaries of nature such a species must have faced
over millions of years. This pill was meant to reduce pain in ones muscles,
especially in livestock, so that they can produce more milk, more often.
Livestock as industry. A simple drug, which helps animals like cows and
buffaloes, become better machines to produce more milk – not to feed their
young but to feed the dairies, which feed us. For unknowingly the cows and
the buffaloes became the bait, the poisoned bait, which took the vultures
out. But coming back to the cows and buffaloes which meant no harm to the
vultures except they offered themselves as food once they were dead. No big
armies here. Just a pill, diclofenac, like aspirin, which we fed to the
vultures through the carcasses of the cows and other slaves, and silently
destroyed the kidneys of the vultures. First their neck would droop, then
they would salivate, and then finally fall from the tree – dead. Perfect.
Like nerve gas. Chemical warfare.



But no one is really asking why was such a pill necessary in the first
place?



For over a century now human beings have been making and synthesizing
chemicals for the benefit of human - kind. Over a hundred thousand such
chemicals have been put out already. But no one knows what other harm they
do to our lives and life forms which have inhabited this planet for millions
of years. These are all considered safe till proven otherwise. While
diclofenac did reduce body pain, it also made extinct a life form which had
evolved over maybe a billion years – who knows from the beginning of time
itself. Such is our intelligence and sensitivity and belief in our
industrial systems. Such is the nature of the industrial systems we have
created, and the methods of science we encounter.



It was in 1962 that Rachael Carson wrote the book 'Silent Spring." The
observant scientist, reviewed thousands of papers, and predicted that
chemicals like DDT are destroying the ecology of our planet. DDT and similar
chemicals, she stated is causing the extinction of eagles, or leading to the
genetic distortion of fish and other marine animals, which are continuously
exposes to them, even in very minute quantities. Similar impacts have also
been detected in human beings now. Through bringing home the increasing
impacts of chemicals in our lives and the unintended and /or the unstudied
impacts they have on our lives, she drew attention to the need of
'precaution.'



However the market based economic systems do not have any place for such
approaches. If it is good for the market, it must be good. The chemical and
pharmaceutical industry has fought regulation, information transparency and
independent research for over a centaury. Their financial and political
clout makes us believe that everything that is introduced on the market is
benign. The onus of the burden of proof is on us. Hence the drugs are safe,
unless proven otherwise. "Prove it!" is the motto. It is not by accident
that it took over a decade to ban 'diclofenac." This ban is also only for
'veterinary' use, and not for human use. It is not uncommon to find the drug
being diverted from human to veterinary use.



The story of the near extinction of the vulture is also the story of the
fiscal and political power of  our economic and industrial processes It is
indeed a reduced life we inhabit, and the loss of the vulture is evidence of
that.

* *

*The Lengthening Shadow*

The vulture did well, over time. It did well enough for the Egyptians to
equate it with mother (*Mut*), or Cleopatra to wear them on her thrones and
crowns. It also did well to be the great *Garurda*, king of birds which was
faithful to the mighty Rama, or the winged warrior of the American Indians.
It did well with everyone who saw life in its entirety and respected all
they did not know and did not fully understand.



It was killed in a time when 'knowledge has substituted the 'knowing' of
things.



Simultaneously it is harder to see sparrows, or rose ringed parakeets flying
home every evening around our homes. Tales of tigers dying, elephants being
killed, rhinos being poached, saras cranes disappearing are descending all
around us. Maybe this is the age of man-made extinctions! Or maybe man has
always led to extinctions – like the cheetah, the bison, the great American
eagle, or now even the disappearing honey bees!



How does a species which has survived for millions of years, just die out in
a matter of a years? In the past too, there have been mass catastrophic
extinctions- the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, or the
extinction of the dodo. The dinosaur died seemingly as a result of a massive
meteor collision with Planet Earth, which blanked out the atmosphere with
dust, blocked the sun, and essentially snuffed the pre-historic and some
massive creatures out. The dodo was hunted to extinction, unable to fly away
from the arms bearing humans.



Our ecologies are changing. In the way we relate to the city, or the manner
in which our network of relationships functions. The extinction of natural
systems, of a biodiversity of ideas and connections, the discourse is
reduced. Development seem to need an unnatural unipolarity and focus, but
what lies its counter charge? In fact what is 'development' and how do we
understand that term which seems to drive all our energies today?



In the shadow of the vulture we live. When wisdom passes, maybe the wise
pass on too.



The Vulture is dead. Long may we live.