The Pride of being human

          It was a calm and refreshing evening in Jorhat town. I was enjoying a cup of tea sitting at a tea stall and inspecting the activities going around. There was a small grocery store across the road. The owner was an old-timer pale looking lady. She was chewing paan and spitting here and there. A rough looking middle aged man was trying to peel a pine-apple with a small blunt knife sitting on the porch of the tea stall. A cow  was filling its belly with the last batch of green and fresh smelling grasses for the day in the grazing field beside the grocery. I was looking ideally at the vapors developing from my cup and slowly getting vanished in the air. Everything seemed to be so usual. I ceased my eyes from the cup and tried to widen my view as far as possible. Then I noticed a tiny bird with a broken leg lying helpless beside the road. It was spreading its wings and hoping with one leg, trying desperately to fly away. Its eyes were fixed on the pale-reddish sky. I started pondering whether this little creature would see the next sunrise. I soon got the answer.  A bunch of crooks appeared all of a sudden on the scene and started pelting the bird with stones. Before I could respond to the situation, that poor little creature breathed its last. A wild cheer from those lunatics went across my ears and left me stunned.
           I always felt proud of being human-the best creature ever in the world. But a strange awkwardness surrounded me as I thought about it at that moment. I left that place with a heavy heart and a mind full of questions.