Are we worse than rats !

Rats have been considered stealers of foodgrain and spoilers of papers, books , clothes whatever they can nibble at , so much so that we even have stories of rats big enough to take on cats and dogs and causing all type of nuisance , if the contents of the poem “ The Pied Piper of Hamelin ” by Robert Browning are to be believed. We have had mousetraps in our homes to leave the trapped mouse at a far off place , only to see its return after a few days .One never felt like killing the rodent in spite of the loss and damage caused by it. The other day I chanced upon a news item, based on a research telling that rats are capable of empathizing with their ilk whenever found in trouble or in distress , even resisting the temptation of delicacies like chocolate. This should put us- the superior beings- to shame seeing what we do to our fellow beings , offering only lip service at the time of adversity and sometimes falling so low as to draw sadistic pleasure out of the discomfiture of others and sometimes deliberately putting others to loss and discomfort, out of selfishness and self interest. . For all the strides that we claim to have made in the fields of science and technology, the fact remains that we have not learnt to behave like human beings. The poet or the shayar was not wrong when he wrote:

Haasil kitna kamaal insaan ne kiya,

Aflaaq ko paamaal insaan ne kiya

Par abhi yeh aql nahin aayi ki kyun

Insaan ko tabah haal insaan ne kiya

We have a lot to learn from the animal world !