IT was a video clip of a lion, most probably an escapee from a zoo walking freely on a city bridge! The person shooting the video, had even rolled his glass down to get a closer shot, obviously excited that he had a forward that would go viral, but in doing so, I wondered whether they knew they were endangering their own life and others in the car? You don’t fool around with a lion, do you?
For eight years, Sally had been the Romero family pet. She was only one foot long when they brought her home, but Sally grew and grew until eventually she reached a length of eleven feet and weighed eighty pounds. Then one day Sally, a Burmese python, turned on 15 year old Derek, strangling the unsuspecting teenager until he died of suffocation. Police said the pet snake was ‘quite aggressive, hissing and reacting’ when they arrived to investigate the young man’s death.
We as a country have a national pet and its name is Corruption! Like Sally the python, we have seen it grow from a little snake to a python of giant proportions. Like the king of beasts I saw in the video this pet continuously stalks the country, a roaring lion and finds willing victims everywhere! A few years ago the watchman in charge of security met me, “Sir,” he said, “we caught some boys stealing metal grills from the compound. We suspect they also stole car radios and lift petrol from parked vehicles during the night!”
“Take them to the police,” I said and started hurrying away. “Sir, these boys are from our locality!” I was shocked. The parents were called, they begged not to do anything harsh to their sons. They slapped and thrashed them. One boy looked at his father strangely. “Why are you thrashing me dad?” he asked.
“For stealing,” shouted his furious father, “I am so ashamed of you!” “What about the exam papers?” “What papers?” asked the father taken by surprise. “The ones you bought for my engineering entrance exam? Wasn’t that also a form of stealing? What about the red lights you cut and bribes you pay to traffic policemen?” “We’ll talk at home,” said his dad hurriedly, as he took his son and left.
The question papers we buy our children, the grease we put into the hands of officials are all like little Sally the python. But Sally grows and grows until one fine day, we find our children or even ourselves caught in its deadly coils. Kill that leopard of corruption or that lion as it comfortably lives side by side with us. Don’t keep Sally..!
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