empty lives

I was gazing at the animals, first I saw the giraffe and was really impressed by its long necks (like my him), the monkeys who did great grooming to each other, the Lion-tailed Macaque pair staring continously till you turn your head off, the lazy crocodiles with gaped open jaws, the adjutant stork with the ugly bunch of hairs in his crest, the magnificient elephants, the slithering snakes in the snake park, the twisting Seals who did great funny acrobatics while diving into it's pool of water, the walruses, a gorilla who was huge and hairy, stood there, posed for the clicking cameras and silently crept into its den and so many so many such amazing animals with amazing identities. Somewhere, I felt that they are also feeling an emptiness, an emptiness in their eyes, a death in their walk, they all obviously miss their homes, the love from their forest, the strong scent of fear, death, life, food, courtship, play everything that makes up their natural life in their natural habitats. though I was not able to feel all this in right terms, I felt that I am also responsible to set atleast a few in proper state. This was when I was twelve years old visiting the huge Arignar Anna Zoological park near Madras.
I feel tht feeling even right now, that raw pressure building up inside, when you see twenty lovebirds in an iron cage.

Even the "civilized" species on earth like us, long for some nature around, visit parks, try our hands in gardening, do fishing, trek...which were all natural activities of the primitive man, who spanned landscapes, hunted, mated, reproduced and died.

It was LIFE.

I long for it... Long for such a life that is full of life. A life, where you have control over flow of materials, flow of energy between you and environment, between elements of nature and so on. When I lose it, I die.

Like many other living human beings now...