To be or not to be.. a veggie that is..

Was in a rick, stuck at this signal at andheri stn(w). 1 of those typical stinky,and ugly lookin chicken-carrier trucks draws along side..

At first the stink is truly over powering.. no way im goin to look in that direction..

but then.. a particularly distinct "clucking" draws my attn involuntarily to the truck..

tiny cells, just a bit larger than a regular shoe box... crammed with atleast 7-8 of my favored feathered friends..
the ones at the bottom of this matrix of cages, the most pitiable.. with colors tat ranged from a vibrant green to a dull brown.. due to all the chicken poop tat covered them.. thanks to the inmates who stayed above.

just this one cage lay quite empty.. with.. wait a minute.. was tat a dead chicken..?!! yes.. it was.. a dead chicken.. lying in tat cliched pose.. on its back.. with its 2 stiff legs pointed skywards..rigor mortis set in..
but where was tat strange cluckin still comin from..?!!
hey.. the cage with the dead chicken is not empty.. there is indeed one "live" one crouched miserably in one corner.. no wonder i dint notice it earlier..

the little thing was shivering miserably.. seemingly tryin hard to ignore the limp body of one of its own species tat lay just inches from itself.
was it crying, mournin the loss of a friend....
or had it possibly realised tat it too wud soon end up like.. lyin dead in an undignified manner in some garbage dump somewhere..
( yes, most of these chickens end up dying due to the really horrible conditions they're kept in.. exposed to the vagaries of the weather..unclean environments.. n fed either rubbish or nuthin.. for the owners of these chickens.. they cudnt care less.. the dead chickens r just sold off to the hundreds of chinese stalls tat line every street in mumbai..at obviously cheaper rates.Speakin of those chinese stalls.. did u kno tat most often economise their runnin costs by usin chicken skin n meat of other birds instead of actual chicken meat!!! more on them later...)

neways.. comin back to tat lone chicken...it seemed to be lookin straight at me.. as if pleadin .. beggin me to mebbe do somethin and save it...

the situation felt so ironic..seekin help from the very person who mite end up eatin it..
fortunately for me.. the signal turned green.. n my rick pulled away from the truck..

i cudnt help wonderin wat happened to tat chicken.. mebbe.. just mebbe.. its in the chicken manchurian or chicken supreme pizza ure eatin rite now...

as for me.. its taken me 1 step closer to givin up non vegetarian fare..