(Read it at your own risk)
Note: The story below is purely fictional and has no connection to anybody alive. The dead don’t bother anyways.
Yesterday, on my way from mess to hostel after breakfast, I noticed a small blob on the edge of the hostel’s wall. You know, the ones which you usually get when you forcibly scratch a pimple off your cheek. So here I was wondering the justification of me and the blob facing each other at the most unoccupied hour of my day. There must be some divine wit behind it, I thought. So I took it as the first task of the day to explore the existence of that blob on the wall and the two of us pitted against each other, not as enemies or friends, but as onlookers staring at each other, sharing the same destiny for a few moments.
It seemed to be full of some viscous fluid whose contents I wanted to determine. But it was very small in size, hemispherical, about half an inch in diameter and I was too big to go inside and explore it. I assumed that if there was some cosmic purpose to this event, the God must have bestowed upon me a few extra-terrestrial abilities. So I called upon the heavens to reduce my size to that of an ant. In a usual mythological Bollywood movie, such a prayer will be answered with lightning and thunderstorm and aakashvani from the heavens. But in my case, it didn’t turn out to be so glamorous. Instead, a brick fell from the top of the wall and landed on my head. The very next moment, I found myself ant-sized but under the brick crawling to find my way out. Somehow managing to do that, I stood on my tiny feet, which were still discernable from my hands unlike a real ant.
But now, I was facing the biggest challenge of the day. When I was tall, the blob was just a foot away from me and was within my reach. Now it seemed to be miles away, hardly visible from my tiny eyes. Also, it was a few stories high from the ground level for my new 10mm height. Since the normal ants do not have a public transport systems or elevators to climb up a building, I decided to get to the blob hitchhiking. So the task was to find a suitable mode which could get me there. A fly would be too small to carry my weight and a bird would not perch on a wall. Suddenly I saw a big grasshopper, suspiciously hopping on a cemented floor instead. It looked bulkier than the usual lot and had legs folded like an inverted V sticking to its stomach. The chap was greenish yellow in color with blood red patches (were those just spots or real blood was to be discovered later) on its wings.
Here was my big chance. If I could persuade him to at least fly me to the top of that blob, I could jump on it without my helicopter to land. Wow! I thought, what a golden opportunity to play Tom Cruise in real life. But again, as in case while doing business in different cultural contexts, communication was a problem here. Though humans self proclaim to have developed the most comprehensive languages for communication, there have been studies showing that other species too exchange messages through sounds and signs indiscernible to humans. Thus I decided to ask for yet another divine favor to grant me the power to communicate with that unfortunate grasshopper. This time again, a tiny hard disk, fraught with grasshopper vocabulary, flew from a nearby tree and landed inside my brain.
Puffed up with confidence, I went closer to Hoppy (I already gave him a name assuming it won’t have any) expecting to strike a conversation. But Hoppy turned out to be smarter than I thought. His (yes, it was a ‘he’ as told by him) name was #a!z@o (that’s how he pronounced it in his dialect, and I could too). And it was he who started the conversation by asking curiously, “Are you a human? And if yes, when did humans invent this miniaturization technology?”
I was stumped. “What do you know about technology? You are just a grass hopper whiling away your life hip-hopping.” I asked. Of course I didn’t know that this conversation will turn out to be an unforgettable and enlightening one.
“First thing first”, he said, “never mess with someone ten times your size. And secondly, I am not a grass hopper but a locust, now one of the critically endangered species on earth, thanks to you humans.”
I retaliated, “Sorry to address you rudely (by now I had realized that I cannot crush him under my feet anymore while he can do it), but I don’t see how humans are responsible for your extinction. After all, its survival of the fittest on this planet and we have proved ourselves worthy of it.”
“For Christ sake dude, don’t give me that ‘survival of the fittest’ crap. That’s the philosophy you humans have developed to fool yourselves and to justify your misdemeanors in the higher court of God. This earth is made for everyone to live and procreate and only nature has the right to destroy the unfit. Do you know that species extinctions have increased to an unprecedented rate since humans’ technological advancements started. And it is predicted by some of your fellow humans that half of the current 1.5 million living species will be extinct by the end of this century. What do you have to say to that?”
I realized that locusts have very high IQ and maybe humans have never discovered this. Whatever maybe the case, I was heading for a clear loss in the discussion. Moreover, I wasn’t here to waste my time on trivial discussions but to seek his help. So I asked him straight away, “#a!z@o, maybe you are right, but I don’t have time to discuss all this at the moment. Actually I want to get to that blob you see over there. Can you offer me a lift?”
I was afraid that he might refuse. But instead he offered an interesting proposition, “Ok, I will carry you there, but only if you answer my three questions. And mind you, the questions aren’t going to be easy.” Already disappointed, I asked him, “But you are much more knowledgeable than me. Can you reduce the number of answers required or make the questions easier?” “That is the problem with you humans”, he said, “you have lesser brain than the tiniest of creatures. Let us make it simpler; if you can answer any one of the three questions, I will take you there. Agree?”
I did.
“Ok then. My first question: You are standing on a roadside that leads to the railway station. A passerby asks you, “Where does this road takes me?” What should be your answer?”
I thought this insect was over smart, so I should try to match his wits. I replied, “I’ll tell him that the road doesn’t take anybody anywhere”.
“You are really a dumbo. Haven’t you learned in Business Communication that words have contextual meaning and if you don’t understand it in this case then it’s your fault not the other person’s. You should have told him that the road goes towards the railway station; and not the smartass answer that you gave me. We are 1-0 now.”
“Ok, ok. Move on.”
“Here’s my second question: Your father is 50 years old. What’s your age now if your dad will be twice as old as you after 10 years?”
I quickly calculated and answered, “20 years.”
“Again wrong. Aren’t you 24 years old? Why should you change your age just because I asked you a silly question? So now the score is 2-0 with just one more to go. I don’t think you’ll make it.”
“Let us see.”
“Ok, here’s my last question: What should be your answer to this question so that the score becomes 2-1 and I take you to the blob?”
While I was still thinking of the answer, suddenly the alarm rang up and broke the dream. I’ll try if I could continue with the same dream again sometime to reach that blob.
