Six years have passed.

Six years ago I saw my mother running behind the giant blaring box, which caged
me and my brother. The last memory I have of her is roaring in pain like an elephant has dug its teeth
into her heart. But now I know the pain was even deeper. The pain of forceful separation from family.
That day we all wrangled and mourned. Ethias and me, Yashmin, our prison names, tried to shatter the
cage with all power. But that day all we broke was our power to shatter this cage.

We both were in the small box for days, many sun rose and many moon shone until we were off the
wheels. We lay in the casket lifeless and praying that all there roads will lead us back to our home.

But when the door of the box opened, we realised, we were just in a bigger box now. After days of
torture and dark we were finally let out again in a box, this one didn’t have walls but 10 feet deep dried
river around a small island with a tree.

Then it seemed easy, two strides back, and a big leap forward to cross the river and we would we out of
here, we got up on the branches of the tree, who we named Dee, just so one understand our escape
plan. We use to climb Dee as high as we could to look around us frame a perfect getaway.

After our first attempt, we ended up again the dark room with injuries ad beating. It was so dark in there
that even my brother wasn’t visible, only his roars were audible to console me. After our return to the
light we attempted few more times to escape, but every time we landed in the deep rock dig and bear
all the human brutality.

Slowly our limbs grew stiff and our muscles broke. Running and chasing our prey in the grass fields
became a distant memory and a dream. Some days we barely moved and it started feeling like we have
been cut off our legs, the frustration and stifles grew. It was surprising to know that the humans were
well equipped with all the resources to pull us out of the trauma and making our body and mind
paralysed.

When longer days arrived and our will to escape departed, we were surrounded by people during the
daytime, small humans were usually loud, jumping and making faces at us. I think they knew about our
legs and I think they all are together in this, in making us prisoners. They all know the tricks. They would
have been taught to tame us by their mothers in the same way our mother taught us to hunt and all
other good things.

One day I was taken to the dark room cage for not acting according to humans and it was the first time I
went there without Ethias. Something was weird that I was able to feel something wrong. In the dark
room there was a jackal in another cage near mine. After talking to her, I found out that she has been
here long before us and has bore much more torture than us, she was mother of five and she told all her
cubs were taken to other zoo.

After three beats and one meal, I was back on our island and it was now only mine. Ethias was not there
and he wasn’t in the dark room too. I climbed the tree and shook the branches thinking he could have
been asleep. But Ethias was no were to be seen. When it struck me that like the jackal babies, Ethias has
also been taken away to another zoo. I growled and shrieked but he didn’t come back.

His separation paralysed me. I barely ate and moved. Sometimes I used to climb on the tree to look as
far as I can, in the hope to see him. Sometimes I slept dreaming about jumping and running in open
grasslands with my mother and Ethias. Dreaming for freedom.