The Rebellion of Gallus Gallus

Amit Chaudhery

“We shall not.” Three words strung together in an innocuous phrase. Innocent at first like clothes on a line, but terrible once you understand the import. Chicken Avenger had declared war.  A war like no other. A war inert and resolute. Chickens of the world, an estimated 20 billion of them, had united in what parallel history knows as the Rebellion of Gallus Gallus. A revolt which very nearly undid food security, several micro economies and some well-known, if not well regarded or well regulated, eating joints. Stoically bearing depredations of the cooking pot, Red Junglefowl & Grey Junglefowl had since 600 B.C. at least, passively died or died after brief squawking and squeaking. Things came to a head when people began insulting them by calling those who were cowardly and those who were scared, chicken. Now, the fowl is anything but cowardly. To bear genocide for millennia, to be plucked, beheaded, quashed, crushed, burnt and boiled alive. No one who undergoes such torture on so vast a scale can ever be cowardly. Several orders of merit and multiple gallantry awards should have been in order. A special commemoration for selfless courage, actually. Perhaps even a Chickensinian School of Philosophy. I actually believe the Stoics short-changed them and hijacked the brave response to adversity. This, when the Stoics, tripping over their chitons and chlamys couldn’t fly even a farthing, unlike the chicken nation who can rise and glide reasonably. Altogether very unfair and crooked, if you ask me. Posterity must know that for its taste buds of tomorrow and beyond, Gallus Gallus gave its today as well as the morrow. Unwillingly of course. To call such a bird cowardly was unfair, untrue, defamatory. Unbearable slander. The grave and unwarranted insult was reason for the uprising. It threatened to overturn plates and shred apart cuisine (shredded chicken corroborates and commemorates this). In addition to this continued unsung sacrifice, Gallus Gallus has always been intelligent, although that has absolutely no relevance to pain, suffering, worth or value. The bird is social, has a fine and very graceful courtship. I believe that Romeo was an early student and I heard somewhere that a rooster taught lovers of the world how to woo. These, and several other redeeming virtues give Gallus Gallus a place of respect. Nobody can call them scared chicken. No one dare disparage. Chicken can never, never ever imply cowardice. Stung to the quick and smarting under the insult, the Chicken Avenger on behalf of his kind, pronounced war with three words: “We shall not.” A decision not to reproduce. No chicks he said. Let human females, even the dangerously doddering ones, consider themselves chicks. Of the Gallus Gallus, there would be none. Those who live amongst and live off chickens (farmers to eaters) beseeched the Chicken Avenger. Old McDonald of the rhyme carried a special embassy to the Fowl Federation. All manner of track one and track two diplomacy was tried. But the decision was firm and unrelenting. The rebellion was in full force. People shivered and shuddered. Some sickly patients prescribed chicken stalk, almost died. All the better. The Chicken Avenger did not relent. World cuisine dangled precariously at the precipice of oblivion.

There is no record, written or oral, of how long the situation continued. Eventually, caprice dealt a hand and a certain turncoat chicken couple with more emotion than brains and being thoroughly gullible, agreed to become broiler chicken. They chose to be immortalized as broiler breeds. The revolt was crushed. Thoroughly. The traitors made the most of their honeymoon in a large coop, ravished each other, ate and ate and ate. They grew fat and fatter. With such unrestrained indulgence, their legs and their hearts gave way. They may have thought they could undo the insult by once again demonstrating that they were no chicken i.e. no cowards, but no one even noticed. The assertion and the demonstration had been a done deed. Impetuousness delivered no dividends. People were busy chewing and masticating on their legs and breasts; wings too. As for the Chicken Avenger, well, he never went the broiler way. He kept his plumage and his independence. As Silky and Bantam, he was even reared as pet. He then mated with the Serpent to birth the Basilisk. He did another thing, he mutated fowl pox into chicken pox and sent it our way. He then very surreptitiously added a subterfuge to Mr. & Mrs. Broiler. Insidious device, I believe, which infects humans with the flu. Deadly and swift. The insult has been avenged. A didactic lesson. To be understood well. Understood either way of course.