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Saturday, March 03, 2007

Here’s a good read…

A gentleman named Vipin Bucksey contributed the following priceless story to Khushwant’s Singh’s weekly column in The Telegraph, 3rd March 2007. Since the views expressed here about what is wrong with this country accord so perfectly with mine, and are conveyed through excellent black humour, I am reproducing the story here: I hope neither Bucksey nor Singh would mind.

The ant and the grasshopper

Old Version: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food and shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

Modern Version: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed while others are cold and starving. NDTV, BBC and CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that the poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers, demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Kofi Annan (UN chief at the time of writing) criticize the Indian government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support, against the wrath of God for non-compliance). Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for ‘Bharat bandh’ in West Bengal and Kerala, demanding a judicial enquiry. The CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers. Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to grasshoppers on all Indian Railways trains, aptly named the Grasshopper Rath. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism against Grasshoppers Act (POTAGA), with effect from the beginning of winter. Arjun Singh makes special reservation for grasshoppers in educational institutions and in government services.
The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and has nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes. His house is confiscated by the government and handed over to the grasshopper in a grand, nationally televised ceremony. Arundhati Roy calls it a ‘triumph of justice’; the CPM calls it the ‘revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden’. Kofi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN general assembly.
Many years later: The ant has migrated to the US and set up a multibillion-dollar company in Silicon Valley. Hundreds of grasshoppers still die of starvation in India despite reservation. As a result of losing a lot of hardworking ants and feeding the grasshoppers, India is still a developing country.
*************

My comments: I applaud this story despite having a very low opinion of the average capitalist, despite being a Gandhian in my approach to the issue of poverty, despite John Grisham’s The Street Lawyer being one of my most favourite books. My views tally very closely with Tolstoy’s (who gave away a gigantic fortune to his newly-freed serfs and lived a life as simple and hard as Thoreau’s) – ‘he who does not work shall not eat’, remembering that a good surgeon, teacher or software developer works just as much as a rickshaw puller, domestic help or coolie (though I do believe that income differentials should not be as great as they are, and very large inheritances should be outlawed). I’d also like to add that since the honest and clever ants have generally all migrated to greener pastures, India has been left with lazy and incompetent crooks by the tens of millions: many of them are also making considerable fortunes, but most of that money stinks. Such creatures are certainly not going to make India great! Point to reflect: why do the likes of Vinod Khosla, Amartya Sen and Mani Bhowmik have not the slightest intention of coming back and setting up shop in India?

3 comments:

Subhadip Biswas said...

I do not think that there is much that I would like to say on this issue. I do not even feel like reflecting upon such issues these days. Yes, I may sound pessimistic but then there are reasons for that-- "Hundreds of grasshoppers still die of starvation in India despite reservation. As a result of losing a lot of hardworking ants and feeding the grasshoppers, India is still a developing country."-- if this is the situation still then I don't think that there is any point in writing about such issues further. A person who is working hard and is not given his due in this country but some other country recognises his talent then why would that person not leave our country and in fact would never again agree to come back -- perfectly justified for that person. Our job would then be to boast of an American Indian geting a Nobel prize or an European of Indian origin earning in billions and claim that Indians are doing well all over the world -- Interestingly not for India but for other countries. Something has gone wrong somewhere and the blame game is not ending. No body is ready to accept his/her responsibilities but everybody is ready to blame someone or the other.
I think its hard time that we stop thinking and writing and rather get down to some sort of field work but that essentially does not mean that we become another Aruna Roy or a Medha Patkar. We need to understand ground realities very well. Before we start thinking
about others and the country we need to think about ourselves and our responsibilities. How can we even think of pointing a finger on someone else when we ourselves may not be doing our duties properly. Yes , I do agree that the media is not doing its work properly.--"NDTV, BBC and CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that the poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?"--
Infact in 1908 Gandhiji had criticised the role of media in modern civilization and even today we can see that it is no different.--"Editor: To the English voters their newspaper is their Bible. They take their cue from their newspapers which are often dishonest. The same fact is differently interpreted by different newspapers, according to the party in whose interests they are edited. One newspaper would consider a great Englishman to be a paragon of honesty, another would consider him dishonest. What must be the condition of the people whose newspapers are of this type?
Reader: You shall describe it.
Editor: These people change their views frequently. It is said that they change them every seven years. These views swing like the pendulum of a clock and are never steadfast."-- The news media's supposed responsibility is to analyse a situation , put forward what is the popular public feeling and in the end give its unbiased opinion. But then in a materialistic world why should we expect the newspapers and the news channels to bring out the truth and think about justice and not about their viewership rates and profits.
Today everybody is looking for an easy life and people who take the hard way are mocked at. Its not about one or two people, a community or two, its a question concerning all of us. Are we ready to see and face life as it is? We need to face the fact that good living does not come easy. When will we stop complaining and own up our responsibilities? When we start doing so then characters like the grasshopper will not be winning rather the hard work of people like the ant will get recognised and probably we will move forward towards making our nation a better place to live in.
As far as I am concerned I have stoppped thinking about what can be done because from my very childhood and even now I have been and am still meeting people who keep on grumbling about corruption and other issues but they themselves are among those who will do that same thing the moment they get the opportunity.
This entire thing is written in a very unorganised manner and the reason for that is i am always unable to understand that in spite of our understanding of such issues why are we not able to fight back?

Suvro Chatterjee said...

If Subhadip has asked a real question (rather than a rhetorical one), I would like to say, from my own experience, that greed, fear (including simply the fear of standing out of the crowd) and sloth (how can you expect those who won't even attend classes regularly if they can help it to stand up and protest against serious wrongs!) make a very deadly combination in India. But I haven't given up yet: India is very big and very diverse, and the same newspapers which we vilify so much keep assuring me that all has not gone wrong with this country. Lots of good and clever and industrious people are lighting little lamps here and there: a very big problem with our youth is that they have chosen to grow cynical too soon, so they simply won't look at the good examples and take heart; instead they'll keep parroting 'but the good people are so few!' For God's sake, since when did diamonds become as plentiful as coal? Should we celebrate the diamonds or go on lamenting the coals?

Sayan Datta said...

One can't help but feel deep anguish and resentment.As has already been said, there are amongst us those who realize what the true situation is and contemplate as to the solution.But I feel that most of us prefer to hide our faces in the dark and try to be dishonest with ourselves by telling ourselves that things are not really not all that bad(whereas we know deep inside that we are intentionally being deceived by the state, the media and those so called social workers who prefer to hold closed door meetings in air conditioned rooms in luxury hotels than working on the ground).We generally prefer to stay away because we are afraid.We are all like the man who never leaves his domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
Someone has rightly said - " What is more foolish - the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?"
We are all afraid of the light.