#The_Matriarch
"We are huge in size, you see, but surprisingly getting reduced to a number that is increasingly growing small; I have happened to come across some twisted rules of engagement, lately, of an unbecoming brawl...
It's very easy to declare those mistakes as 'silly', with a wisdom-laden 'hind sight'; today, standing at the precipice of a long journey, I can clearly mark the 'darker chapters' out from the brights...
I am the 'Matriarch', and the success for me has been a complex web of different propositions, and there have been umpteen ways to be 'what' & 'where' I am now; but a secure future of my generations to come, will be contingent upon the 'right answers' to questions of 'whys' & 'hows'!
It's been a known fact that the pre-eminent threat to us has been the loss, degradation and the fragmentation of our habitat; and one of the instigators of conflict between us, has been the real as well as perceived competition for space...
In the name of development you still encroach upon our 'maiden grounds' as a basic model of your growth; you forbade our inclusion in the 'complete picture', so ruthlessly, as if our presence has inherently been loathed...
You fence your borders, but nothing else gets disrupted better than our age old 'migratory routes'; I have long been accustomed to this 'second class' treatment by the savage—first class brutes!
Even though, I have not always been a 'matriarch', yet, I have never been in the position to put up a fight for the right to merely exist; I have just been lucky enough in securing those timely favors, to just naturally coexist...
You must have realized by now that more than the dreads of a jungle, to the dangers of the habitat loss, we are more expossed;
therefore, irrespective of a thousand year old—conflict ridden—history, I keep looking in you the Real Champions of my cause... Please, help me find the 'Real Champions' of my cause!"
I am just a hapless Matriarch...
Mediator: Praveen Katiyar
