The Ways of Nature

The white and the black ant met one day on their way to their respective hiding grounds.

Looking disdainfully at the black ant, the white one remarked, “How underdeveloped is your ant civilization. Though we are of the same stock of ants, see how we have developed.” Saying so, the white ant started bragging about its termite city that had huge high-rise mounds that looked impressive and completely shielded from the sun. They were weatherproof and the entire colony was so well organized that it was near impossible to wipe them out. The black ant had nothing to compare with, as it lived in small hideouts adapting and adjusting to the ways of nature. All that it could communicate was that outer success alone does not matter. The white ant differed saying that nature favours the aggressive and the successful. They alone survive since they are strong and capable, the fittest of the ants. The black ant was not ready to give in so easily. Taught by the ways of Nature on which they depended rather than their outer prowess alone, the black ant said:

“Look at the tiger. Strong and powerful, it has all that is needed to survive. And then look at the deer, swift footed with beautiful eyes yet an easy game for the tiger. See how Nature has worked in ways that the tiger is a threatened species whereas the deer continues to multiply.”

The white ant seemed unconvinced. As a gesture of superiority, it even invited the black ant to stay in its termite city for a few days and enjoy the coolness and comfort.

The wise black ant refused but, in the passing, remarked, “Great and successful you may be but what is the use of such a success that human homes dread your arrival whereas I am welcomed by them as a sign of good fortune. Your city is built by devouring the very wood that shelters you, whereas we enrich the soil that gives us space.”

So saying it quietly lugged along its way. The white ant wondered for a moment at the words of wisdom in their parting but soon walked its way with an air of vanity at the achievements of their kind. As it walked Nature, the great mother of all creatures, smiled and gently whispered to the soul of earth, “I have shared something of my intelligence and power with all my creatures but this I have made the rule of the game. They who live only for themselves shall perish whereas they who live with the sense of the whole shall survive and grow.”

And as she, thus, whispered these words of wisdom, the King of Lanka heard it not and continued to build his termite city with stolen wealth and the blood of earth’s creatures. But on the other end of Bharatvarsha, the gentlest, yet mightiest of all, Rama of the Ikshvaku clan smiled as if nodding to Mother Nature in assent, reassuring her that the Lord of Nature has come to uphold the law and the rule of the game. The days of the devouring Rakshasa and the Asura were numbered. But the animal kind, from the monkey to the bear would have the glory of aiding the ascent of man.

Alok Pandey