"Yaanaikkum adi sarukkum" - "even the elephant can slip" is a popular proverb in Tamil. It denotes that even the strong and the mighty can topple over and be brought to their knees. It is just a matter of time. Needless to say, in these Corona times, this proverb pricks us...as if it were meant for us- the human-species as a whole.
We prided ourselves as the roof and crown of all creation. But uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Scepter and crown must tumble down...and what a tumble it has been! Till now, we called the shots- ruled the world with impunity and quarantined hapless animals for food and fun. The shoe is now on the other foot. The hunter has become the hunted. Humankind lies chained and quarantined in continent after continent. And that too, by a nemesis, who is too tiny to be even seen. It is your proverbial David and Goliath story.
Locked down, there is now a lot of time at hand. We leaf through our favorite childhood comics. We settle down with the "Jataka Tales, Elephant Stories". Through its rich illustrations, it tells the tale of the Buddha, as Bodhisattva, who took birth in different lifeforms, and once as a wise, white elephant. A man loses his way in the thick jungle and is racked with fear. This compassionate elephant comes to the man's rescue. It provides him with food and shelter for the night and eventually takes the man by the arm and shows him the route out of the forest. In his city, he befriends an ivory sculptor and realizes he could be rich if only he could get an elephant's tusk.
He retraces his way to the forest, meets the elephant and explains his predicament. The elephant is too nice and allows the man to saw off his tusks in half. The man is back in the city with the prized possession. He now leads a cushy life. Greed gets the better of the man. He mulls over...if only he had sawed off the tusks till the end, he could be even richer! Unabashed, he returns to the elephant and makes a repeat request. The elephant relents. This time, he yanks off the tusks from their root. Without the slightest sympathy for the elephant which doubles up in pain, he abandons it and clasping the booty to his chest...tries to make a hasty exit from the forest. Karma eventually catches up. The ground under the man's feet gives way, the subterranean flames engulf the man and he meets his end.
The story is gory in some sense, but has a hard hitting message. It is not the story of one ungrateful forester, as the title of the story reads; this is our story, the story of humankind as a whole.
For too long, we ravaged nature with abandon and bulldozed our way mercilessly...often at the cost of all other lifeforms. What goes around, comes around. It is now payback time. Our cellphones are filled with little videos of deer roaming the city streets, civet cats crossing the road, peacocks dancing on roof-tops and even mountains revealing themselves over and above the city-dust behind which they hid themselves all these years. Ironically, we watch all this squinting our eyes behind our facemasks, sequestered in our homes.
You and I may howl and protest that we did not wrong nature in any way. Why are we paying a price? Being part of the same ecosystem makes us equally culpable. It is like school. When the offenders are too many, the teacher has no time to mete out individual punishment. She takes a ruler, goes around the class and gives a whack to everyone! We are all taking the same mass-beating today! Not all is lost. Nature is not vengeful. It is just. It hits back hard so that we may learn. Learn we must. It is as if Nature is speaking to us in Amitabh Bachchan's baritone- "ab tak tum bolte rahe aur mein sunta raha. Aaj mein boloonga aur tum sunoge!" "Till now, you kept talking and I listened. Today, I will talk and you will listen!"
We prided ourselves as the roof and crown of all creation. But uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Scepter and crown must tumble down...and what a tumble it has been! Till now, we called the shots- ruled the world with impunity and quarantined hapless animals for food and fun. The shoe is now on the other foot. The hunter has become the hunted. Humankind lies chained and quarantined in continent after continent. And that too, by a nemesis, who is too tiny to be even seen. It is your proverbial David and Goliath story.
Locked down, there is now a lot of time at hand. We leaf through our favorite childhood comics. We settle down with the "Jataka Tales, Elephant Stories". Through its rich illustrations, it tells the tale of the Buddha, as Bodhisattva, who took birth in different lifeforms, and once as a wise, white elephant. A man loses his way in the thick jungle and is racked with fear. This compassionate elephant comes to the man's rescue. It provides him with food and shelter for the night and eventually takes the man by the arm and shows him the route out of the forest. In his city, he befriends an ivory sculptor and realizes he could be rich if only he could get an elephant's tusk.
He retraces his way to the forest, meets the elephant and explains his predicament. The elephant is too nice and allows the man to saw off his tusks in half. The man is back in the city with the prized possession. He now leads a cushy life. Greed gets the better of the man. He mulls over...if only he had sawed off the tusks till the end, he could be even richer! Unabashed, he returns to the elephant and makes a repeat request. The elephant relents. This time, he yanks off the tusks from their root. Without the slightest sympathy for the elephant which doubles up in pain, he abandons it and clasping the booty to his chest...tries to make a hasty exit from the forest. Karma eventually catches up. The ground under the man's feet gives way, the subterranean flames engulf the man and he meets his end.
The story is gory in some sense, but has a hard hitting message. It is not the story of one ungrateful forester, as the title of the story reads; this is our story, the story of humankind as a whole.
For too long, we ravaged nature with abandon and bulldozed our way mercilessly...often at the cost of all other lifeforms. What goes around, comes around. It is now payback time. Our cellphones are filled with little videos of deer roaming the city streets, civet cats crossing the road, peacocks dancing on roof-tops and even mountains revealing themselves over and above the city-dust behind which they hid themselves all these years. Ironically, we watch all this squinting our eyes behind our facemasks, sequestered in our homes.
You and I may howl and protest that we did not wrong nature in any way. Why are we paying a price? Being part of the same ecosystem makes us equally culpable. It is like school. When the offenders are too many, the teacher has no time to mete out individual punishment. She takes a ruler, goes around the class and gives a whack to everyone! We are all taking the same mass-beating today! Not all is lost. Nature is not vengeful. It is just. It hits back hard so that we may learn. Learn we must. It is as if Nature is speaking to us in Amitabh Bachchan's baritone- "ab tak tum bolte rahe aur mein sunta raha. Aaj mein boloonga aur tum sunoge!" "Till now, you kept talking and I listened. Today, I will talk and you will listen!"
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