CHAPTER 2 (AGRICULTURAL OR GODLY)
Once upon a time, very long long ago, man suddenly stumbled and realized that just hunting and foraging is just not going to do. They got together, stormed their rudimentary brains and then talked about a revolution. After talking about the revolution, they rolled it out. It was felt that, just like the sweet bite of the toothless infant stimulates the mothers breast to produce more milk, Mother Earth too needed a few stimulatory, arousing, oxytocin secreting bites sans teeth. The milk that she was proffering was getting inadequate for her growing progeny.
So advented, agriculture . Jaws minus canines were fashioned out of the bounties of Mother Nature in form of of the plough and the hoe. Their toothless bites and prods into the munificent bosoms of mother earth were to be subtle and sensory at the same time. They were not to hurt her, but at the same time they had to coax her to give more. They had to arouse her sufficiently to shower her milk of kindness abundantly on her earthly mundane subjects.
The experiment was vindicated. For a change, a Revolution was sustainably successful. Man gnawed away at the bosoms of nature with his toothless jaws and she responded in bountiful, gay abandon, happily nourishing and replenishing her favorite children, so that they could grow and multiply.
A surfeit of food and the accompanying goodness gave man a chance to exercise the muscles in his head. No longer was he on a perpetual vigil for a fallen berry or a dead goat. He began to invent, innovate and create. He created machines, mechanisms, trap and tools. He created civilizations and religions. He created class, creed, race, boundaries, prejudice, bias and hate. He created nations. He created wars. Most important of all, he created weapons.
As the creative race intensified, there was conflict and confusion as to who was more creative. They once again got together, stormed their advanced brains, and talked about a revolution. But the advanced proceedings of the now august house of mankind were not as cordial or cohesive as the rudimentary one. There was no consensus. Each race, class and tribe claimed the title of the greatest creator but it was plain to see to everyone present, that no one came even close.
Then there was a vapid, dithering partial agreement that the greatest creator crown could not be adjudged with the present data and resources. So it was left as an inconclusive conjecture named Code God. It was also agreed that he resided in the sky overhead in a place called heaven and also that because of this geographical reason, they could not see him. It was agreed that God was the Supreme Creator but still there was bickering and a disconsolate, inconclusive debate as to which tribe or race owned the sky and therefore God.
Ownership of the empty sky was now at stake. Man, in his new found creativity, unleashed weapons on each other, with a view upon decimating one another. After a prolonged calamitous fratricidal battle and a few genocidal wars and pogroms, a few tired, old wise men called for a halt to hostility. Man stopped the dance of death partially because Mother Nature, bereft of the stimulating, loving caresses of her children, started drying up.
The wizened old men suggested carving up of the skies among the tribes proportional to their numbers. This was finally agreed upon and man apportioned the sky and heaven among the tribes. In order to maintain the individuality and ownership of the sky allotted to each tribe, each tribe came up with a different name for the sky as well as the Supreme Creator who resided there.
Although consensus had arrived upon which sky was whose, each tribe and race is on an eternal quest to lay claim on more sky than what was originally allotted to it.
In this rat-race to own the empty sky in totality, man devised and implemented many more revolutions like the industrial and information ones, all with an eye to the empty sky. They shed blood like water and pillaged and plundered. But the endless, empty sky would never respond in kind saying " I am yours, and yours to take and for keeps" . So the battle rages on.
Once I was sent to the Eighth Wonder of World " The Taj Mahal" of India. I was supposed to marvel and wax eloquent about the achievement of man in marble, his heroic creativity etched in the marble-stones of time. But I became enamored with the Ravines of Chambal , which lay on the way, and was wonder-struck at the brushwork of it's creator.
Then I came to the United States of America, the very epitome of man's creativity and enterprise. My friends showed me innumerable edifices and monuments for me to pay obeisance to. But the high for me came, when I stood an the banks of the mighty Pacific, engrossed in its vastness and might and comparing my minuteness and frailty. I wondered aloud and saluted its creator and acknowledged His Might, Resourcefulness, Creativity and Competence. A couple of tears welled in my limpid moist eyes. I have forgotten, as to what they were for. I shall let you know when I recollect.
But one small question . Am I being agricultural or Godly or both . Only my molecules, to whom, I am eternally enslaved to and also eternally indebted to, know the answer.
Once upon a time, very long long ago, man suddenly stumbled and realized that just hunting and foraging is just not going to do. They got together, stormed their rudimentary brains and then talked about a revolution. After talking about the revolution, they rolled it out. It was felt that, just like the sweet bite of the toothless infant stimulates the mothers breast to produce more milk, Mother Earth too needed a few stimulatory, arousing, oxytocin secreting bites sans teeth. The milk that she was proffering was getting inadequate for her growing progeny.
So advented, agriculture . Jaws minus canines were fashioned out of the bounties of Mother Nature in form of of the plough and the hoe. Their toothless bites and prods into the munificent bosoms of mother earth were to be subtle and sensory at the same time. They were not to hurt her, but at the same time they had to coax her to give more. They had to arouse her sufficiently to shower her milk of kindness abundantly on her earthly mundane subjects.
The experiment was vindicated. For a change, a Revolution was sustainably successful. Man gnawed away at the bosoms of nature with his toothless jaws and she responded in bountiful, gay abandon, happily nourishing and replenishing her favorite children, so that they could grow and multiply.
A surfeit of food and the accompanying goodness gave man a chance to exercise the muscles in his head. No longer was he on a perpetual vigil for a fallen berry or a dead goat. He began to invent, innovate and create. He created machines, mechanisms, trap and tools. He created civilizations and religions. He created class, creed, race, boundaries, prejudice, bias and hate. He created nations. He created wars. Most important of all, he created weapons.
As the creative race intensified, there was conflict and confusion as to who was more creative. They once again got together, stormed their advanced brains, and talked about a revolution. But the advanced proceedings of the now august house of mankind were not as cordial or cohesive as the rudimentary one. There was no consensus. Each race, class and tribe claimed the title of the greatest creator but it was plain to see to everyone present, that no one came even close.
Then there was a vapid, dithering partial agreement that the greatest creator crown could not be adjudged with the present data and resources. So it was left as an inconclusive conjecture named Code God. It was also agreed that he resided in the sky overhead in a place called heaven and also that because of this geographical reason, they could not see him. It was agreed that God was the Supreme Creator but still there was bickering and a disconsolate, inconclusive debate as to which tribe or race owned the sky and therefore God.
Ownership of the empty sky was now at stake. Man, in his new found creativity, unleashed weapons on each other, with a view upon decimating one another. After a prolonged calamitous fratricidal battle and a few genocidal wars and pogroms, a few tired, old wise men called for a halt to hostility. Man stopped the dance of death partially because Mother Nature, bereft of the stimulating, loving caresses of her children, started drying up.
The wizened old men suggested carving up of the skies among the tribes proportional to their numbers. This was finally agreed upon and man apportioned the sky and heaven among the tribes. In order to maintain the individuality and ownership of the sky allotted to each tribe, each tribe came up with a different name for the sky as well as the Supreme Creator who resided there.
Although consensus had arrived upon which sky was whose, each tribe and race is on an eternal quest to lay claim on more sky than what was originally allotted to it.
In this rat-race to own the empty sky in totality, man devised and implemented many more revolutions like the industrial and information ones, all with an eye to the empty sky. They shed blood like water and pillaged and plundered. But the endless, empty sky would never respond in kind saying " I am yours, and yours to take and for keeps" . So the battle rages on.
Once I was sent to the Eighth Wonder of World " The Taj Mahal" of India. I was supposed to marvel and wax eloquent about the achievement of man in marble, his heroic creativity etched in the marble-stones of time. But I became enamored with the Ravines of Chambal , which lay on the way, and was wonder-struck at the brushwork of it's creator.
Then I came to the United States of America, the very epitome of man's creativity and enterprise. My friends showed me innumerable edifices and monuments for me to pay obeisance to. But the high for me came, when I stood an the banks of the mighty Pacific, engrossed in its vastness and might and comparing my minuteness and frailty. I wondered aloud and saluted its creator and acknowledged His Might, Resourcefulness, Creativity and Competence. A couple of tears welled in my limpid moist eyes. I have forgotten, as to what they were for. I shall let you know when I recollect.
But one small question . Am I being agricultural or Godly or both . Only my molecules, to whom, I am eternally enslaved to and also eternally indebted to, know the answer.
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