Down under, a Thunder over Bandar

It is said that every human being has certain characteristics of some species belonging to animal kingdom. A man or woman may be considered clever as a fox ,or watchful like a dog or peaceful as a dove. It has also been said that a close look at the facial structure of a man or woman might give a hint of resemblance to some animal whose characteristics dominate his outlook towards life, it may be a bull or a cat or a bulldog and we routinely tease our friends and cohorts for such resemblances. Hardly ever such comparisons are seriously contested. In fact sometimes we on our own compare ourselves to some cute little animals , (like Australin Captain Ricky Ponting’s statement that he was not Harbhjan’s bunny). We even had advertisements over Bandar theme featuring cricketers ( Don,t be a Bandar taste the thunder ).

However things turned out to be very different when Bhajji our ever chirpy and comical cricketer , the typical Punjabi puttar compared a kangaroo to a monkey. Monkeys and Chimpanzees because of their superior intelligence enjoy a much higher rating above the Kangaroos as far as the hierarchy of evolution of species is concerned.

However this time the incident which was reported by the alleged victim (?) a member of Australian cricket team-which is routinely referred to as Kangaroos in the cricketing parlance , triggered off an international crisis between two cricketing nations of India and Australia . The incident let off a fiery protest from the Australians in rather funny sort of way . The comparison was labeled as a racist action inviting severest punishment for sports person. The heat and dust generated by the controversy threatened to insert a monkey ranch in the smoothly rotating wheel of Border Gavaskar trophy being contested on Australian cricket grounds.

Monkeys worshipped as descendants of our mythological Lord hanuman are not the monopoly of any race or nation . Comparison of a human to a monkey , may be irritating to a person totally devoid of a sense of humor but to call it a racial abuse raises serious doubts about the intention of the complainant and his supporters. It is the developed superior logical ability which separates humans from other species down the ladder of evolution. We should try to remain as such.