Wildbuzz | Filmy love knows no laws

Aspiring actors, models and singers dancing with snakes at showy public events has been a recurring headache for wildlife law enforcement authorities in Punjab

Aspiring actors, models and singers dancing with snakes at showy public events has been a recurring headache for wildlife law enforcement authorities in Punjab. The black buck poaching case involving Bollywood celebrities like Salman Khan hogged national headlines for years. Yet, the allure of posing with prohibited wild Indian species to gain traction on social media remains an enduring one for starlets and models. Being popular role models and prominent public figures, such exploitation of wildlife sends out a wrong message to legions of fans. It fuels demand for illegally capturing helpless birds and animals.

Srabanti Chatterjee with chained mongoose pup; another starlet, whose offence was compounded by the department, with an owl chick.

A case that shocked wildlife conservationists is the controversy emerging around Bengali actress, Srabanti Chatterjee. While shooting for a film in January, she posted on her social media account pictures of herself posing with a mongoose pup in chains and separated from its mother. The caption she chose to highlight her photos was astonishing: “Suddenly met e cute little friend...#Setstories #loveforanimals”.

Enjoying 8.1 million followers on Facebook, the mongoose photos drew 20,000 likes, 71 shares and 968 comments. However, some netizens lambasted her for chaining an animal and yet professing love for it. The Wildlife Crime Control cell of West Bengal issued her a notice on February 15 under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, to present herself before the range officer (RO) as offences involving the mongoose attract the longest jail terms and are non-bailable.

Her response to the majesty of the law vexed officers and enraged netizens. “Chatterjee was given two dates to appear before the RO but she abstained. We will issue a third date and if she still does not appear, we will file an application before the court seeking her arrest warrant. The fact that she has to date not even removed the offending photos from her social media account despite the notice and outcry does not send out a good message to the public,” deputy conservator of forests, Om Prakash, told this writer.

Chatterjee did not respond to calls on her cellphone and a text message from this writer seeking her version.

Painting of sunflowers by Ukranian artist Galina Kazakova has been adopted as a Twitter profile photo.

Flower power

An iconic political song of the 20th century ran thus: “Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them every one/ Where have all the young men gone? They are all in uniform every one/Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, everyone/ Where have all the graveyards gone? Gone to flowers, everyone/ Oh, when will they ever learn?”

Besieged by the Russian invasion, doughty Ukrainians have turned to their national flower, the sunflower, as a symbol of resistance. A viral video of a Ukrainian woman abusing a Russian soldier and asking him to put sunflower seeds in his pocket so that they may flower where he dies an accursed death has gone viral. The symbol of resistance has drawn resonance in the West and on social media such as Twitter with peace netizens adopting sunflower paintings by Ukraine artists as profile photos.US First Lady Jill Biden sported sunflowers in a show of solidarity with Ukraine last week.

The beloved sunflower has come full circle for Ukrainians as it was offered as a symbol of peace when the nation gave up its nuclear weapons in 1996 and the then US, Russian and Ukrainian ministers planted sunflowers in a ceremony at a missile base.

Flower power to oppose state violence has a history. The Vietnam War saw US peace activists insert flowers down the barrels of soldiers’ rifles as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, anguished street and graffiti artist Shamsia Hassani fearing the worst would befall her lot, executed drawings of a young woman and dandelions with the dark shadows of brutal male Taliban looming. In Yangon, Myanmar, flowers were laid in public to preserve the memory of victims of the military junta’s chilling repression.

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