What a beautiful sight that would be!

What a beautiful sight that would be!
Syed Ali Mujtaba

The entire peace loving people of the world found expression at the shoe throwing incident on the US President George W Bush in Iraq. I followed this incident through the radio at my father’s farm in the province called Bihar, the so called cradle of the Indian civilization. As I walked past the paddy fields of my father's farm, this news made me smile for a while and I upped my ears to listen it with great enthusiasm to follow its graphic details.

Stream of thoughts jogged the memory lane and the famous punch lime of the out going US president made shortly after 9/11that he will smoke out Osama Bin Laden from the face of earth rang my ears.

This was because I met few `rat eaters' who were busy fanning a hole in the paddy field near which I stood listed the radio BBC English service. These folks knew me and greeted me with a courtesy salute. I acknowledged their gesture raising my hand and nodding my head and I stopped by them to observe their activities in some details.

These guys had found a hole in the paddy field and were preying on the rats holed up there. They had dug up another hole close to the first one where they had put fire and were fanning it up making the smoke to come out from the next hole.

I watched the entire operation with patience and saw suffocated rats coming out from the other hole. These guys immediately pounced on their prey and held it in hand to bang it on floor hard enough to kill.

One guy who was a holding a stick tied tail of the rats on one end of the stick and kept it on his shoulder. All together they had five catch that was hanging as items of display. It demonstrated these folks were going to have a nice meal that day.

I am not writing this to tell how some people in India feed. Its also not to highlight the plight of this particular caste within the schedule caste who still live in stone age and relish rat meat.

The story is to connect with the pledge that has gone into smokes after eight years of world terror in the name of war on terror. The entire peace loving people of the world is rejoicing at the exit of one of the most hated man on earth. There could not be a more befitting finale then the shoe throwing incident at the greatest spoiler of peace.

I am wondering if a world crime tribunal sends him to the gallows, will this brave heart face the noose barefaced with the Bible in hand and with TV cameras catching his every expression beaming it live into many homes – I am sure some may definitely quip, what a beautiful sight that would be!

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba@yahoo.com