An open letter from a tiger to humans

FROM
14, Bengal Woods
India

TO
‘Mankind’
Planet Earth


23 September 2010

'Undearest' humans,

Today I woke up to find my brother missing. And you know what I did? NOTHING! Because I know I’ll never see his live body again. Because I know only his skin will be in the place where there is a lot of your kind. Last night my mother was missing. Before that it was my father. Tomorrow it’ll be ME!


Why do you do this to us? Took my grandparents, my mom, my dad, my brother. You aren’t satisfied yet, are you? NO! You aren’t. You’ll be satisfied only when the whole of my lot is dead. What is the use of my skin? You just want to show off, that’s it! So then why don’t you go kill YOUR kids, YOUR parents, huh? It would break your heart to see them dead, wouldn't it? Why don’t you think about how we’ll feel when we wake up to find our family missing?

If you want to have fun, if you want to show off, if you want to…whatever, why don’t you go play soccer or cricket or maybe basketball? What is the fun in killing a living thing of such beauty, pride and ferocity.

When I say this, you may say ” Hey, even you kill, you are carnivore” YES, WE ARE! I mean I am. But I kill for food, not for fun. I kill to survive!!! Don’t you get it??? We can’t live on green, no we can’t!!!


You remember the red Indians, you remember the time when people used to mind their own business and we used to mind ours? The happy times!!! As years and centuries passed, the greed and selfishness of your lot also increased. You wanted more. More and more! You wanted our home. Then you took our family. You took our skins! Then you wanted our lives!!! When will your greed end?

Last night one of my kind came to me with a sad story- a sad but the same story. Shelter gone, family killed. Nowhere to go!  When he went to the place where your lot live, they started throwing stones at him. You are so cruel and stupid! Why call yourselves ‘mankind’ when there is not a bit of kindness in you?

I know I’m pleading to deaf ears but all I want to say is DON’T KILL US! There are only a few of us left on the earth. Please, please! Don’t kill us. You do the damage and we are the sufferers- the silent sufferers. Please don’t kill us anymore. Leave us alone and let everything be as it is.

A very depressed tiger