Coming to a Park Near You

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjjoVAgqp4s[/embedyt]Marquel, TPVs NYTimes Big Game Master Section correspondent, was checking the Jaques Pepin recipes for rabbit, when he stopped to read Sharing Our Habitat With Big Cats.  A study is disputing the view that leopards wish to be in the forest, and that they enter human territory only because of circumstances. Apparently leopards are almost like cows in India. Nobody touches them, or at least hardly any body. It’s not religious, but legal. Leopards used to be more common in India, but as human habitation expanded, they were chased out. Now they are returning.

Scientists say the leopards are not returning as interlopers, but as neighbours, homeowners, colleagues, and friends. Marquel took one of his few long distance trips to understand this phenomenon better.

Sure enough, as Marquel exited the airport in Delhi, he was approached by two taxis. The first had a driver who looked Sikh. The second had one who looked leopard. He was sitting at the wheel, functioning as well as the Sikh, but his broad smile seemed a bit forced.

Nevertheless Marquel took the leopard. At the Hilton, the bus boys were all leopards but they took Marquel’s bag to the front desk, behind which Marquel could see no leopards or anything feline. Upstairs in his room, the TV had two channels, LNN, the Leopard News Network, and Sponge Leopard, a cartoon which appeared too juvenile for all but the youngest leopards.

I went to the internal ministry.

“We have realized that the leopards are not intruding. They are returning to their homes. India has always lived in what could be called quasi-wilds. The  forest and the village are Ill-defined. That is our history and culture. We have always lived aside the leopards, and he with us.” Said the Minister of Living Resources.

“What if he eats you?” I asked.

“What if we eat him? You see, both happen, but new laws try to avoid that and encourage mutual respect.” he said.

“So that’s why I see them at common jobs.” I said.

“Yes we surveyed the professions and leopards are severely underrepresented in every sector.” He asserted. “Clear discrimination. Intolerable”

“Will we have leopard neurosurgeons?” I asked.

He laughed. I think he might have been Sikh also. “I don’t think they are physically equipped to manipulate things in the body. Plus I think an operative body might be too much temptation for the tiger. You know we are equals but we’re both red meat. Our civil rights laws, §L, the leopard chapter, only require that we make reasonable accommodations for leopards to make them feel like the fully equal and productive citizens they can be.” The minister expounded.

I went out to savor some of the streetfood and a leopard passed me with a large aluminum box of goodies, many of which I bought immediately. As he left, and I was shovelling down my lunch, I realized his smile seemed a bit similarly forced. Maybe these leopards weren’t as happy as the Indians hoped.

I went to a restaurant where a leopard was the maitre d’ . I put up my finger 1 and he repeated it, clearly understanding. I ordered everything, Keema paratha, some minced meat chicken, and a bunch of tandoori snacks. The waitress was a woman, but I could see à leopard was handling the Tandoori oven. He was flirting with a waitress. How can you tell if a leopard is flirting, I asked myself. This one had a double forced smile reserved for the waitress, and when near enough, he would lean over the counter and sniff everything nether on her. Later in the day I saw this couple and several other leopard-woman couples strolling around the city’s gorgeous foliage. I even thought I saw one of the couples dart into the dark forest.

Frankly I was nervous. Do the Indians know what they’re buying into? Would we, along with a little help from Peta, adopt similar laws and see Brown bears, coyotes, and Wildcats, as equals sharing the land with us? Or will we keep them in reservations. That’s happened before. I stopped my revery as a parade went by.

It wasn’t a parade but a demonstration. Leopards trudged by holding banners saying “marriage equality.” I think I know what that was all about, since the float was filled with leopard-human couples, all locked in what can only be called affectionate embraces.

But a counter demonstration passed the other way. “Protect our jobs,” with banners showing leopards teaching elementary classes, and others showing them in army uniforms flying fighter jets.

“You Indians,” I said, “may be out liberaling us Americans, but you may have bitten off more than you should have.”

“Nonsense,” said a demonstrator for the leopards. “It’s no threat to traditional marriage to permit these couples to join. It’s a question of property rights. What if they live for decades together? Right now if one of them dies, the other receives nothing even though their family wealth is a joint effort. It’s simply fair to allow them to marry and have the same privileges as all of us.”

A counter demonstrator shouted, “nonsense. Not everybody should marry. What if all gay Indians living together demanded marriage? Thanks to the leopards, this country is going down the drain. In the middle of the forest.”

I suspected he was just afraid of a leopard taking his job. It’s happened before.

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BY MARQUEL: Coming to a Park Near You