Kedar says..

When I was in high school, I took Biology as an elective. I don’t remember why I did that, especially since I was never cut to be a doctor. I certainly did not know back then, what I was getting into.. Basically, Biology had 2 separate limbs, Botany and Zoology. Botany was pretty harmless and non-violent, whereas Zoology came with some bloody violence.

There used to be a big massacre in our Biology labs. They used to call it “the Dissection”. But I tend to think of it as mass murder, ethnic cleansing of sort! I doubt how much it helped me in my knowledge about those poor animals. If you really hate someone, you may wish that the person ends up like that in front of some “student” in his next life!

These slaughterhouses in our colleges used to be called the “Biology Labs”. Here they would gather all the “students” – some willing and some really unwilling like me, and make them murder these poor animals in semi-conscious state. These “Lab” sessions might still exist in colleges even today, although I have heard lately that they are finally thinking about using computers for all this now.

We started with these tiny, slimy, wriggling creatures – called the Earthworms. Somehow, the Earthworms did not stir the same kind of repulsive, nauseating feelings in me, as the Frogs later did. Of course, I was never fond of any crawling creatures. But it is amazing the way different kinds of feelings work in you – so if a creature is small, you don’t think it is capable of feeling any pain. Kinda’ like, killing an ant is easier than killing a chicken?

Anyway, the Earthworm used to be firmly pinned at the head and the tail, on a tray in front of us. We were supposed to cut it open without rupturing its nerve ring. Whoever managed to do that got the highest credits! I still remember I could never keep the nerve ring intact and then I used to just adjust it so that it would at least look intact to the examiner! So far so good..

Somewhere towards the middle of the year, our lab assistant brought a big bucket with him.. We had special trays in front of us that day – which had 4 corner hooks. All of us were just sitting there and suddenly with a thud, an “almost” unconscious frog drops flat in front of each one of us! I still remember girls shrieking and some boys like me trying to look brave even though they were scared from inside! Over the course of few more weeks, this routine would repeat.

The frogs used to be anesthetized using Chloroform, but I still remember that some of them were not completely unconscious and used to try to get up right in the middle of their dissection and then the screams would follow! We were supposed to tie their legs and hands to the 4 hooks on the dissection board, and I remember I never had the guts to touch “my frog” to tie him up. I used to slowly pass the strings around his legs and hands making sure not to touch him (and not to wake him up from his fatal sleep) and then tie the knot. On the other hand, some kids were brave, and by the way, those were the dangerous kind.. for the frogs, I mean! I am sure those helpless frogs, must have wished that these “knowledge hungry kids” with scalpels, would kill them instantly rather than in their skillfully slow way. But it was never meant to be that way…

I am still not sure what I learned from the whole experience. We would lose some points, if we did not keep their hearts beating during the entire ordeal. Well, this might be so that they can teach us to be light handed during this “operation”, but if I think about it now, a person like me did not achieve anything by prolonging the pain for those poor creatures back then. Whether it is either the digestive system today, or the nervous system the next week, or some other system the following week – every system in the frog body required a new frog body to be killed..!

It all ended in an exam for me, and fortunately then, I had to cut an Earthworm and not a frog! As usual I could not keep the nerve ring intact, but I managed to fake it and be done with it. I moved on, towards bloodless, non-violent study options, and back in those Biology labs, newer generations of frogs kept sacrificing their lives. Some did so, to give birth to future doctors, but some did so, for nothing.

So today, I just want you to join me and pray for those souls..