A Grasshopper's Life. A Human Life.

Would you kill a grasshopper? You would flinch at the mere thought of it but for some taking out the Life of a grasshopper would be inconsequential and trite. After all, we are like 20,000 times larger than the humble grashopper...

Two weeks ago, I came across a group of students who were pitching tents for their upcoming holiday camp in school. You could see the excitement on their faces as they worked and chirped happily, working on their tentages. The air was drowned with laughter and jokes were traded all around. What could be more beautiful than the thought of spending the holidays in a school camp in a beautiful school?

While they diligently plummeled the metal foundation of the tents into the ground with mallets and spikes, my eye caught something very disturbing which was about to happen. I was there by chance to take some shots for the school blog.

A girl was squatting down with her friends on the brick road adjacent to the tent area plummelling into the hard, red brick road. Curious, I stepped closer to this group of very focussed individuals. Apparently, they had circled around a trail of millipedes that had forayed their way on the brickroad from the grasspatch next to it. Ever noticed the infestation of the millipedes in our school since we came to the vicinity?

And this one particular girl who had a rusty, metal spike in her hand was dedicatedly aiming for a fat, yellow-black millipede. Instictively, I shouted at her to stop this heinous act of cruelty. In anger, I asked her what if she was that humbl millipede and was about to be crushed under the searing sun with gigantic, rusty metal spike. She immediate stopped her action and her friends ceased their laughter.

On hindsight, two weeks earlier I remembered a botak boy outside the library. Once again this was a coincidental encounter. This tall, lanky, botak monster in his black-framed spectacles was stomping at a particular spot on the concrete floor. I was just walking by dizzy with the thoughts of the work that had to be done, I had not fully understood what was happening. This monster has stomping on millipedes but with a very sadistic twist. He would step on half-tail end of the millipede and then squat down to watch the millipede squirm away leaving a trail of fluid-like blood trail on the concrete floor. He was perhaps analysing how far the mortally wounded millipede could travel before its Life would be drained out of its mortal shell. I shouted at him - "What do you think you are doing?" Sensing the anger building inside me, he ran off. Since I was still dizzy and occupied with my thoughts on school work, I walked on. Now on hindsight, I am angry once more because I realise I did not make an example of this botak monster on stage and relate his behaviour to the rest of the school. Why make an example? Because I know for certain that there are many of you out there committing these crimes against Life, maybe in ways more sadistic.

I don't care what religion you come from, or even if you don't believe in religion. Life is Life. A millipede's Life, a grasshopper's Life, a Human's life - All are equally precious. Until you learn to cherish and learn this, only than will you start to be a true human being.

How do you think we have serial killers, mass murdurers, Hitlers, genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc? We live in a world where some people have total disregard for Life.

Send in your comments. And help me hunt down this botak boy. I'm bringing him up on stage and relating this story to the entire school.

I will find you botak monster.