A Small Animal Trotting on the Globe

While walking from my residence to the university department where I work, an idea suddenly crept into my mind. I was walking on the road and then the idea came. Perhaps the circumstances of that particular time induced me to think that way. That was the working hour in the university. I was walking on the road, so also many other people including students, staff and others with different vocations and aims. Seeing so many people, walking different ways, with different ambitions, and then some people walking on feet, some riding on bicycles or motor cycles, and some others on the four wheelers including cars and buses – and then the idea extended, and suddenly this sentence ‘a small animal trotting on the globe’ spurted in my mind.

Obviously when I say a small animal, I refer to myself, or like me others. Extending, it refers to all individual human beings. Man is an animal, or what the philosopher says, man is a social animal, as he lives in a society, is both empowered as well as restrained by the society. I will not deal here the aspects of society as it is beyond the current scope, I will deal with this animal, or rather the human animal that trots on the globe.

Referring to myself, I am also a human animal, and behave as normal as other human beings. While walking on the road, the footsteps go forward, one after another, and with the steps, also move the thinking mind, and also the aspiring heart, it is all a great combination, and this same process, with different ambitions and in different contexts and extents, goes on in all human beings. But look at the result! The result is oceanic. The small animal may not at sight have achieved wonders or have all the great or small things, but its steps, in all dimensions, could make the human life possible, also make possible almost everything in society, its arts and architecture, science and technology and also the living life in accordance with laws it made.

While thinking about this small animal, many other things came to mind. Human animal is obviously a small animal, average height of human being in India is five feet six inches, it may vary in other countries, but in comparison with, say, giraffe or elephant, human being is a small animal. But this small animal is a marvellous creator, because it is also an idea bearer and also creator of things based on his ideas. The man created the things by scrutinizing, by analysing or by measuring nature and this was possible because it was an idea creator, and also the implementer of ideas.

Hence, I was thinking, when the idea spreads, it spreads to zillions. In fact ideas are contagious like some diseases, or it may be faster. Like we say that there are about 600 (?) faces in the world with which we can identify more or less exactly the six billion people’s faces, similarly there are similar peoples in terms of thinking, and when one idea spurts in this small human being, it spreads to hundreds, thousands, or even millions similar thinking human beings. Mahatma Gandhi walked on the earth (whom Einstein called a miracle for future generations) and evoked the ideas of truth and non-violence, gave it the personal Midas touch, and spread it through the whole world. King caught this idea in America, and Mandela in Africa, and so on. So the ideas spread over time and space, and that can span beyond our conceivable imaginations.

This small global trotting animal in its present evolution, and in this age of globalisation and IT and wider thinking, indicates towards a human future in which there will be no more divisions but harmony and reconciliation.