Who decides what’s moral and what isn’t?

We got off the underground subway and stood on the escalator as it glided upwards. As we slowly broached the top, we saw the big letters imprinted at the top of the red structure — Plaza De Toros (the bull ring). Kamakshi & I had booked our tickets for this bull fight in Madrid two months in advance. We were thrilled to be there!

At the entrance, we proudly presented our tickets to the gatekeeper who let us in. The entry hallway was filled with black & white pictures of the men holding a cloth in front of the bull as the charging bull left a trail of dust behind itself. Several famous bull fighters (aka Matadors), were honored on the walls of this coveted venue in Spain.

We passed through the hallway and finally entered the seating area which was filling fast.

The seating was pretty ancient with just stone steps. An old man was renting out cushions for €5 for those whose bums could not bear the tough opponent. Space was rare commodity and I had to be very mindful of not bumping my knees into the person in front.

After settling, I finally got to work — I started reading what exactly is a bull fight and what are the rules of this world famous Spanish art form. I had been postponing that for many days now. I opened Wikipedia and in a minute or so, I turned towards Kamakshi & said:
"Oh shit. They kill the bull in the end.”

“Huh?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, they kill the bull. It’s a fight between the Matador (and his 6-membered team) against the bull. The goal is to kill the bull!"

People around us were mostly Spanish, but if anyone understood our English conversation they would have been like, 'of course they kill the bull. What else did you think happened in a Spanish bull fight you stupid fellows?"

There is no denying that we were stupid. We were so excited about it and we didn’t exactly know what happened in a bull fight. We had several interpretations in our head — two bulls fighting against each other, the Matador trying to tame a bull, etc. etc., but we had no idea that it involved torturing and killing an animal for entertainment. Just as I was digging into the rules more, the crowd cheered. I glanced up to see that a bull was released in the arena.

So it began. The 500Kg beast vs seven skilled humans.

Stages & Rules of a Spanish Bullfight

Reading through Wikipedia, I learned about the 3 stages:

Stage-1:

The goal in this stage is to gauge the power & quirks of the bull by teasing it with the Muleta (the pink-red cloth). The bull fighters wave the Muleta from a distance, and as soon as the bull approaches them, they hide behind the wooden shields. They do this several times to get a sense of bull’s behavior.

Stage-2:

The bull sheds its first drop of blood in this stage. The goal in this stage is to weaken the bull by puncturing its main artery. A member of the Matador’s team enters the arena on a horse & uses a javelin-like weapon to accomplish this task as the bull attacks the horse. The horse is usually blind folded and is covered with protective padding to prevent injuries.

Stage-3:

The goal of the last stage is to finish the beast. Matador, the main bull fighter, faces the bull one on one and tries to slam a steel sword behind the bull’s neck such that it pierces the bull’s heart. Game over!

When I learned the rules, I asked myself, should I stay? Do I want to witness this heinous form of entertainment? Would staying mean that I support such an art form? I was not sure what I wanted to do. I was already in the arena, so I stayed.

But within a few minutes I was questioning my decision.

As the bell for stage-2 rang, I saw the horseman and his javelin for the first time. I knew that it was going to get bloody. Kamakshi cannot handle the sight of blood; tiny drops of blood freak her out. As the horseman slammed the javelin in the bull’s artery, blood oozed from the animal. From then on, I kept my palm in front of Kamakshi’s eyes till they killed the bull and dragged it out of the arena. As soon as I removed my shield, and there was some space to walk, Kamakshi walked out of the arena.

I decided to stay back for one more fight. There was six of those that evening. There was something that confused me to the core about this form of entertainment. I was shocked, sad, angry and bewildered, all at the same time. I wanted to stay and understand my feelings and understand what was going on. There would be very few avenues where I would get to observe this side of sapiens, I pondered.

A second bull was released in the arena and the people cheered its entry. With Kamakshi out of the arena, my entire focus was on the fight and the things happening around me. For the crowd and the bull fighters, everything seemed so surprisingly normal. People praised the attack on bull’s main artery as if Spanish team scored a soccer goal. The Matador happily walked to the pit and sipped water as if it was just another sunny day. When the fight was over, the ground staff came to even out the mud as if it was a friendly volleyball game.

Of all the things happening in front of me, two things stood out:

1. The saddest sight was that the people had brought their 10 year olds to see the fight. The juniors watched the deadly blows to the animal and cheered in excitement. Sad!
2. The most humane part was when a member of Matador’s team killed the bull after the last stage. By this time the animal had lost liters of blood, got irrecoverable injuries, and was waiting for death. The bull fighter relieved the bull of the slow painful end by stabbing it repeatedly with a small knife. Sad, but humane.

After the second fight, I was done too. I walked out of the arena, a part of me still shivering. I had so many thoughts & feelings. I loathed everything I saw - animal cruelty, lack of conscience, sheer animalistic behavior from humans. My mind was so clogged that I had to open my journaling app and write my angry thoughts for several minutes.

But after a while, several contradictory thoughts also popped up in my head. And now the two opposing view points battled against each other. The conscientious part said that it is wrong, completely immoral. Using animal torture for entertainment and enjoyment is unacceptable. The other part said, may be its fine. Humans are essentially animals. We put our benefit over most things in the world. Our animalistic instincts have been trained for thousands of years to dominate over other creatures and those will probably never go away. We kill and eat animals; why is that okay and torturing them not?

I didn’t know what was right & moral and what was not. What I did know was that it didn’t feel right. But does that mean it should be the universal truth? I left the place with a lot of questions, most important of which were “What makes something right or wrong?” “Who decides what is moral and what isn’t?”