‘Do you think your leg is a part of yourself?’ The Judge asked the convict. ‘Yes.’ The convict was confident. ‘What about the bacteria in your intestines...?’ The convict’s eyes bulged. He seemed to know nothing about bacteria, and that too in his stomach. ‘There won’t be no digestion of what you eat without them bacteria in your gut,’ the Judge explained condescendingly before proceeding to the next question with his usual solemnity. ‘What about the stream from which you take your drinking water? Is the stream a part of yourself?’ The convict blinked. ‘Is your cow a part of you? Is the land on which your cow grazes a part of you? Are you a part of the landscape and all that it holds, a part of Nature, a part of the universe, one with the streams and rocks, trees and grass, buffaloes and grasshoppers? What makes you think a cow is more a part of the universe than a Muslim?’ The convict’s eyes, which were l...
Cerebrate and Celebrate