"As if that were not enough," said another wolf, "we don't wear sheep's clothing either."
From the sheep that had gathered, a black one bleated, "What is wrong with a black sheep, eh?"
"Whoa!" exclaimed a rabbit, "say sheep of color."
They all agreed and threw the rabbit out.
The gathering was called by some animals in protest against being abused and insulted by figures of speech of humans.
Someone suggested they block roads in protest, but they did not want to stoop to that level. "We are better than Yogendra," they claimed.
So, here they were.
"When one of my pups bit our neighbors," said the wolf that had first spoken, "we justified by calling him a lone-human."
"It's funny," laughed a hyena.
"We told the other wolves," said the wolf, "that the lone-human does not represent our ideology, our beliefs, our wolfity."
"Give it back to the humans," guffawed the hyena.
"You #LLRC," tittered a monkey, at which the hyena felt insulted and there was a scuffle.
"Silence!" roared a fat lion, but the beasts had lost respect for him after he kept criticizing his own leader and supported the hyenas.
After seeing everyone turn against him, the lion cowered away.
"Brave, indeed," said a chicken. "He is as cowardly as a human."
Everyone laughed, but the chicken clucked in anger.
"Idiots build roads everywhere and then ask why I cross the road. And my soup is for their soul?"
"We need to take a ssstance," sussurated a snake. "I don't like it when they use our name for venomous people. I am not fond of Rana."
"What about us?" rasped an old vulture. "Do you think we have any love for Barkha?"
"We need dignity, we beassstsss," hissed the snake angrily.
"What I suggest," barked a dog, "is to let sleeping humans lie. It's a human eat human world out there, and you can hardly teach an old human new tricks."
"What I suggest," neighed a horse, "is to hear straight from the human's mouth. Let's kick someone out and bring him here."
A cat stood up as if she considered the whole gathering beneath her, like Mani Shankar Aiyar in an RSS event, and meowed, "You are all useless, all copy-humans. I can let the human out of the bag for it doesn't have 9 lives. Just worship me."
At this the rest kicked the cat out.
"Now hold your humans," said the horse amid the commotion. "You can lead a human to theater but you can't make it think. *We* need to think more."
"You got the mouth," said an ass to the horse, "and all I got is the hole. I say, let's kick some humans. Royal pain in the humans."
"A little humanie told me," twittered a bird, "that they are all suffering due to what the bats did."
"Come now," said a bat. "Don't get all human-shit crazy with such talk. We are the victim here."
"Fine," said the bird. "I am just trying to kill two humans with one bone."
"We need to wind up soon," said the dog looking at the overcast sky. "It's soon going to rain humans and monkeys."
"Hey!" chattered a monkey. "Stop it and get someone good to give you ideas. As they say, if you pay peanuts you get humans."
The evening sky was getting saffron.
"Does anyone else have anything to add?" asked the wolf.
"We are all on a wild human chase," honked a goose.
"We should take a human by the horns," bellowed a bull.
"Holy human!" mooed a cow.
"I am feeling humanish," grumbled a bear.
"It's a human race," squeaked a rat.
All the pigeons began to coo together to silence the chaos that ensued.
"We have been doing it for years to humans," said a pigeon seated on a stool. "Just look at their statues."
"So, you will do it for us?" asked the wolf.
Before the pigeons could reply, the crows cawed.
"You may haunt statues," said a crow with human's feet at the corner of his eyes, "but we haunt humans."
The beasts listened attentively.
"We have a score to settle with them too," said the crow. "One of our ancestors died when the Buddha smiled, and ever since, we haunt them."
"What?" some of them asked doubtfully.
"Never mind," said the crow. "My father sat on the car of a CM and he had to change it. My uncle pooped on him."
The others were impressed.
"We know humans more than you do," continued the crow. "Eat crow, is it? We will not relent." //