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Monday, September 7, 2009

some lessons from behaviour of animals

Anyone who has driven on a narrow hill track would have had this experience. you come across a cow on your track which you cannot overtake. the animal is convinced that the only purpose of your vehicle being there is to run over the cow. It starts running for dear life; may be for a kilometer or more, and then it is too tired to move a step; It moves to the side of the road and your drive on. One particular cow , I remember was very aggressive. She would give a menacing look, "Stop where you are ...or else.....". The jeep wouldn't stop. Then she would start running and after a while she would turn around to give another deadly look, to no avail. This went on for over four kilometers when the inevitable happened and I could overtake. The cow could hardly move , but once the perceived threat cleared, she gave a victorious snort at the jeep, before moving away.


I always have that eerie feeling that even as we worry about some real or perceived threat, there is some higher being laughing at us. We worry about a number of events like, sisters'/ daughters' marriages, higher education of children, construction of house, retirement and so on. We start running. When the time comes, the events pass off quite peacefully, leaving us just tired and relieved.


Another case is a monkey trap. Monkeys are trapped using a tin with a small opening. The tin is anchored to the ground and the opening is large enough for a monkey to put its hand inside but too small to withdraw a clenched fist after grabbing some nuts. The monkey is caught, since it would not let go of the nuts.

So many times we find ourselves in a difficult situation when all we need to get out of it is to let go of something we are dearly clinging on to. It may be sheer ego, some property/ material , position, power and so on.

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