Page 157 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

A Personal Experience

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am a vegetarian. I am also a born pacifist. My life has been
I an eventful one and all the events of my life have, directly
or indirectly, borne some relation to my peace-loving nature.
Here, I would like to narrate a story which I still vividly
remember. It was the year 1984 when I went to visit my elder
brother A.A. Khan, who lived in Allahabad, India. His interests
were very different from mine. He used to have in his possession
two licensed guns and would sometimes go out hunting. When
I went to see him, he organized a hunting expedition and asked
me to accompany him and his friends. Although hunting was
not in accordance with my temperament, I nevertheless agreed
to go when my brother insisted.
We reached the outskirts of Allahabad in two cars. The
environment there was like that of a jungle with many birds
perched on tree tops. My brother wanted to hunt for a certain
type of pigeon which was called kahlak in the local language.
While he and his companions went off hunting, I stood to one
side as an unwilling onlooker.

Then my brother approached, handed me a loaded 12-
bore gun and urged me to aim for a kahlak with it. So I stood
underneath a tree and sighted a kahlak perched on one of the
branches. I placed the gun on my shoulder and tried to take
aim. When the bird came within range and I had to simply
press the trigger, a question suddenly came to my mind:
why was I killing the bird? My conscience answered that I
had no right to kill the bird. When I realized this, I could not
press the trigger and returned the gun to my brother. I felt

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