A Bug in Hand is never better than Two in The Bush
I am not a zoologist, nor am I an adventurist TV anchor. I am just an ordinary man trying to lead a normal life.
These aforementioned people catch butterflies and follow birds. They trail tiger pugmarks and wait patiently at night to catch a glimpse of the leopard. They play hide and seek with poisonous snakes and sit in deep pest-infested forests feeding wild gorillas.
But I am no such person. I prefer catching buses to go to work and wait patiently for the football match to start on the television. I can play hide and seek with the neighbor’s docile cat and I much prefer feeding myself.
In this normal day to day eventful life of mine, when suddenly a black scorpion with glistening fangs alights on the rim of the window pane of my humble abode, I perceive there is every reason to panic.
I am reminded instantly of the curious imagination that went through my furtive mind when I saw a huge TV anchor playing with an equally sizeable bug like that. I am reminded of the fact that I felt better imagining and speculating about the difficulty of the task of handling a poisonous predatory arthropod.
At such moments of crisis I wish I was a magician who could pull off disappearance tricks with such élan. But there I was, at the losing end of the game with no tricks up my sleeve, not even a bug spray.
On one side was I, on the other, the little pest. But mind you, size doesn’t matter. It is a scorpion that I talk off. In between was a thin mesh of iron, enough to prevent any possibility of physical contact, but never adequate to prevent emotional damage.
But how on earth did this creepy crawly obnoxious ground creature reach my first floor habitat? It was beyond question that it must have been some conspiracy of the workers and laborers who were unnecessarily digging up the ground all around the hostel, silently trying to put it across to the privileged few of us how hot and horrible the weather really was.
I wasn’t impressed. What have I done to them that they should send scorpions to put me into discomfort? As it is, it is very hot, over and above that the humungous cooler doesn’t cool anything and then at the end of the day if the doors and windows have to be kept shut, I might as well prefer to write an application to the devil to book me an emergency ward in hell!
But all these delusions don’t solve the real issues in life, and it was a fact that the scorpion was right in front of me, not on a TV screen, but in person, scratching its belly sometimes with its spiny legs.
What has created an everlasting memory in my mind is its tail full of poison waiting to pounce on the unaware and gently kiss its feet with its fang. Then it would tear its innocent flesh with its crab like appendages and prepare to put the delicious meat into its mandibles. How terrible it is to imagine such grossness. Does not God think of innocent human beings who wish nothing more than to run around corridors then come back home and engage in unending slumber? What do these earthlings have to do with poisonous scorpions and snakes and rats and porcupines?
If only we had an ear to eavesdrop on the schemes of the Gods! The world would have been a better place to live, not a stage for the Gods to direct whatever nonsense they wanted to, then watch the twaddle unfold in front of their pot bellies and fairies.
My narrative ends. The bug in the bush remains. Once again, the design of the Gods succeeds to fill our text books and imaginations, so that for the little time that we play our part we may not play it with melancholy. And who knows, maybe there isn’t enough vacancy in heaven for all of us, and we might as well enjoy our stay while we are still on Earth.
Dwaipayan Adhya
These aforementioned people catch butterflies and follow birds. They trail tiger pugmarks and wait patiently at night to catch a glimpse of the leopard. They play hide and seek with poisonous snakes and sit in deep pest-infested forests feeding wild gorillas.
But I am no such person. I prefer catching buses to go to work and wait patiently for the football match to start on the television. I can play hide and seek with the neighbor’s docile cat and I much prefer feeding myself.
In this normal day to day eventful life of mine, when suddenly a black scorpion with glistening fangs alights on the rim of the window pane of my humble abode, I perceive there is every reason to panic.
I am reminded instantly of the curious imagination that went through my furtive mind when I saw a huge TV anchor playing with an equally sizeable bug like that. I am reminded of the fact that I felt better imagining and speculating about the difficulty of the task of handling a poisonous predatory arthropod.
At such moments of crisis I wish I was a magician who could pull off disappearance tricks with such élan. But there I was, at the losing end of the game with no tricks up my sleeve, not even a bug spray.
On one side was I, on the other, the little pest. But mind you, size doesn’t matter. It is a scorpion that I talk off. In between was a thin mesh of iron, enough to prevent any possibility of physical contact, but never adequate to prevent emotional damage.
But how on earth did this creepy crawly obnoxious ground creature reach my first floor habitat? It was beyond question that it must have been some conspiracy of the workers and laborers who were unnecessarily digging up the ground all around the hostel, silently trying to put it across to the privileged few of us how hot and horrible the weather really was.
I wasn’t impressed. What have I done to them that they should send scorpions to put me into discomfort? As it is, it is very hot, over and above that the humungous cooler doesn’t cool anything and then at the end of the day if the doors and windows have to be kept shut, I might as well prefer to write an application to the devil to book me an emergency ward in hell!
But all these delusions don’t solve the real issues in life, and it was a fact that the scorpion was right in front of me, not on a TV screen, but in person, scratching its belly sometimes with its spiny legs.
What has created an everlasting memory in my mind is its tail full of poison waiting to pounce on the unaware and gently kiss its feet with its fang. Then it would tear its innocent flesh with its crab like appendages and prepare to put the delicious meat into its mandibles. How terrible it is to imagine such grossness. Does not God think of innocent human beings who wish nothing more than to run around corridors then come back home and engage in unending slumber? What do these earthlings have to do with poisonous scorpions and snakes and rats and porcupines?
If only we had an ear to eavesdrop on the schemes of the Gods! The world would have been a better place to live, not a stage for the Gods to direct whatever nonsense they wanted to, then watch the twaddle unfold in front of their pot bellies and fairies.
My narrative ends. The bug in the bush remains. Once again, the design of the Gods succeeds to fill our text books and imaginations, so that for the little time that we play our part we may not play it with melancholy. And who knows, maybe there isn’t enough vacancy in heaven for all of us, and we might as well enjoy our stay while we are still on Earth.
Dwaipayan Adhya
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