An Ant Measured an Ant—Five Feet Six Inches: A Story of Two Genius Ants Who Spoke Human Language

By Ashok Sharda

An Ant Measured an Ant—Five Feet Six Inches is a story of two genius ants that can read and speak human language, who are well versed in all the branches of human knowledge. By virtue of the law of accident, the author and the ants run into each other and develop a lasting friendship.

In the course of their interactions, the ants tell him how, by a twist of fate, they got their potential back that the ant species had lost in the dark of history. They turned the act of fate into a conscious act. In their own words, ‘what we are today is the consequential effect of the activated buffered code aided by the consequential effect of our own conscious efforts. It’s not the brain size or mass ratio but how you use your intelligence and what role nature has played in determining your potentials or putting a buffer between you and your potential at a later date, owing to non-use or misuse. This, the ants claim, will become the very cause of the fall of mankind. The known history of ants thus will become the future of mankind.

The author is convinced that the very causes that buffered ants’ potentials once upon a time will block human potentials too, unless, of course, humans realize this predicament in the offing before it is too late.

This novel, in a sense, is a wake-up call.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543703795

Book preview

An Ant Measured an Ant—

FIVE FEET SIX INCHES

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A Story of Two Genius Ants Who

Spoke Human Language

ASHOK SHARDA

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Copyright © 2016 by Ashok Sharda.

ISBN:                  Hardcover                  978-1-5437-0380-1

                           Softcover                    978-1-5437-0378-8

                           eBook                           978-1-5437-0379-5

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www.partridgepublishing.com/india

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1 Chance meeting with Kiki and Molly, the two talking ants

Chapter 2 We become friends

Chapter 3 Meeting with my zoologist friend who came accompanied by an entomologist, his friend

Chapter 4 In praise of ants

Chapter 5 Right to live

Chapter 6 Meeting with my metaphysician friend who is also a storyteller

Chapter 7 Molly challenges me to race

Chapter 8 I wish I had no body

Chapter 9 Slw falls in love with Kiki

Chapter 10 Transformation of the ant duo

Chapter 11 Known history of ants is the future of mankind

Chapter 12 Reminiscence of Slw’s cocooning

Chapter 13 ‘And I will put enmity between … your offspring and hers’

Ashok Sharda

Introducing anyone is a difficult proposition, more so when one endeavours to introduce oneself. As such, what one can say by way of introduction would reflect one’s own image of the other person or of oneself.

Those who know me by my name or face claim they know me. But when I look through them, I find an image of a person who isn’t me. Once I witnessed a verbal duel between two of my close friends. One of them said I was B; the other disputed his claim, saying I am C. I tried to intervene, insisting I am A. Incidentally, the fight wasn’t actually about establishing my identity but who was right. I was of no use in this battle as I refused to affirm either friend.

Who am I?

It’s an age-old question. In the past, the human populace identified with some unknown omnipotence which they claimed to know. Several stories were constructed and float about in the collective consciousness for anyone to believe or disbelieve. Normally, one has a choice here, but when it comes to the stories that shape the form, it’s the common belief system which determines one’s choice of the omnipresent. Many gods have died in the course of history for want of identifiers. There is a long list.

A friend once asked me, ‘Who am I?’ She seemed genuinely inquisitive in her search. In response, I asked her, ‘Who is the questioner?’

She understood.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I acknowledge no one. I can take names, several, and thank them for playing the role they played in helping me in giving shape to this piece of my writing, followed by its publication. But going by metaphysical laws, no effect can effectuate without a cause and every cause in turn is a result of an effect. If I sincerely wish to go back and find the original cause which led me to where I am, what I have written, and all the events that led to publication of this long story, I believe it will lead me to several chains of cause and effect which can go back several thousand years and yet we will never arrive at the original cause. Nothing in this universe is unconnected.

I dedicate this novel to

all those human-ants who are struggling hard to un-ant their anthood.

PREFACE

This long story did not appear to me in the form I am presenting herewith; at least not in the disposition of a story, short or long. A scene appeared to me almost two decades ago, not in any expanded visual but in a glimpse of two ants, one measuring the length of the other, using a tiny tape no different than humans use. This little scene found its expression in a short poem I titled ‘An ant is as big as a man is to a man’.

The poem reads like this:

An ant

Measured an ant

Five feet six inches

Looking through my magnifying glass

I watched an ant rolling out a tape

As big as a tape is to a man admeasuring the other ant

‘Five feet six inches,’

Exclaimed the ant who measured,

‘Five feet six inches as a man to a man—

I am as big an ant to an ant

As a man is to a man.’

‘Yes,’ chuckled the other ant and said,

‘As big an ant as an ant is to an ant.’

An ant measured an ant

Five feet six inches

The scene and the underlying idea didn’t leave me despite the penning out of this little poem. Sooner than later (though it took me almost five years to commence), I started jotting my ideas, confined and associated to the scene though, in the process, the scene expanded using the imaginative power at my disposal. What seemed to be appearing from this mental exercise was an essay I wasn’t happy with, as it sounded extremely prosaic and dry to me. Needless to say, I didn’t feel one bit excited with my so-called creative work and left it at that.

I have a habit of keeping notebooks or writing pad and a pencil handy to me everywhere, wherever I happen to spend time, be it in my office or bedroom or bathroom, so that when the words emerge on the horizon of my skull, I do not ditch them, though I do miss a lot owing to my external or internal reasons. At times I find my mood barricading my words from reaching me. They wait for my attention on the periphery and return back to their source.

After ten years or so, I decided to go through those hundreds of notebooks and assorted scrap papers and slips I had filled with my jotting all these years—with the sole purpose of getting rid of as much as I could, as I knew I won’t be able to expand every idea, scene, visual thinking, and half-written story. Many of the ideas I was sure I must have used somewhere. In several notepads and assorted scrap papers, I found this essay and much more, under the title ‘an ant measured an ant—five six five inches’, and I decide to try my hand at writing a short story using those jottings as raw material. I knew it wouldn’t be very short—maybe ten or fifteen thousand words or so, I concluded after having read whatever I had written under this title, I wasn’t happy about. My dissatisfaction with my intellectual presentation of the visual scene generated new ideas in me which evoked my storyteller, who appeared on the scene to write what I assumed to be a short story.

Meanwhile, my very first novel, titled Divine Justice, was rejected by my publisher, and I had to replace it with another novel. I decided to enlarge the canvas, knowing well that this essayistic piece of writing had the potential to transform into a long story, owing to its inherent visual element.

In any case, if my storyteller picks up an idea which appears to him in visual form, he knows he is writing a story. The story remains short or expands into a long story in the process of writing. It’s never pre-decided. My fear is that I might prejudice my thought process and it won’t move freely in any direction to gather raw material which obviously my storyteller will give a shape and create palatable scenes—but for when my storyteller finds the canvas too big and assumes it will turn into a long story. But eventually, it’s the story’s own prerogative and I, representing my storyteller, want to assertively say that I let it write. In this case, I ventured to predetermine and the rest I left to my storyteller. I am sure he did a fine job to the best of his ability and potential.

I earmarked four months to turn these pieces of writing into a novel and so informed my publisher. Four months was too short a period for a novel, particularly a novel which was to evolve from one single scene and some assorted prosaic pieces of scattered jottings. My storyteller had to play the role of not just telling a story, which he is fond of, but also an architect, a builder, a daydreamer, as he had to construct events, visualize characters who would fit into the scenes he would construct, and give them suitable dialogues in the wake of their character traits. My storyteller did this creative job, though not in four months. He took almost one year to complete the novel in all respects. The fault for extended time lies with the story because it started elongating into hundred and eighty thousand words. The storyteller went with it, succumbing to the demands the story was dictating, other than known and unknown external obstacles we all encounter in our daily life. I let the title remain as I found it subtly suggestive of the very idea I was intending to transmit: an ant measured an ant—five feet six inches.

Thinking process is an ongoing process. It doesn’t stop when one is writing; rather, it expands in different directions. It’s like walking into the wild with forked trails; at times, the storyteller gets confused which trail to take. Concentrated story writing needs almost all the apparatuses of the mind to work in tandem to help the storyteller to continue writing. Mechanical centre provides all the associated data by bringing them to the fore from one’s memory bank. Intellectual centre helps select the data provided by the mechanical centre and select words from one’s own vocabulary and its usage, based on one’s own word experience, construct in subtle conducive sentences, analyse the impact, etc. This centre also ascertains that the story doesn’t stray far away from the very theme; emotional centre provides the touch of emotions which brings in quality rather smears the words with love. And, at times when the storyteller happens to walk into a meditative state, his sensing intensifies and starts gathering ideas from unknown source which, to my belief, is none other than ‘no time’.

The scene which compelled me to initiate writing this story I have titled ‘Chance meeting with the two talking ants, Kiki and Molly’. My regular meetings with these two transformed ants led me to the very theme of this novel which I have depicted in a chapter titled ‘Known history of ants is the future of mankind’.

Later in the course of writing, a new purpose emerged, an old-time conviction of mine, on which I won’t elaborate much, as my storyteller has devoted a whole chapter on this idea, titled ‘Right to live’, duly supported and further detailed in the last chapter, ‘And I will put enmity between … your offspring and hers’. Yet, I would like to quote from a Jain scripture which sums up the whole idea of an utopian society—‘Nothing which breathes, which exists, which lives, or which has essence or potential of life, should be destroyed or ruled over, or subjugated, or harmed, or denied of its essence or potential.’ It continues, ‘Is sorrow or pain desirable to you? If you say, Yes, it is, it would be a lie. If you say, No, it is not, you will be expressing the truth. Just as sorrow or pain is not desirable to you, so it is to all which breathe, exist, live, or have any essence of life. To you and all, it is undesirable and painful and repugnant.’

‘Right to live’ isn’t the original cause, though not secondary, in the wake of the underlying importance of the first cause. We all know that every cause turns into an effect which, in turn, turns into yet another cause for yet another effect.

I would also like to emphasize here that the golden rule is the basis of formation of human society, and in the wake of this rule of thumb, these two chapters find their inevitability in appearing as very essential thought in this novel.

There cannot be any objective reality because there ought to be an experiencer to experience the reality whose very presence turns the experience into subjective reality. Ratification of any so-called reality doesn’t turn ratified subjective reality into objective reality. Yet, several metaphysicians believed that the experience can be experienced in the absence of an experiencer if and when an observer merges with the observed. In their words, there’s just ‘awareness of the observed’ and no observer as the observer has become inseparably part of the observed.

I agree with this proposition. I have no hesitation in conceding that this novel isn’t depiction of an objective reality but a reality, however subjective it might be, not unlike any other subjective reality we treat as objective. I hope it will find due ratification from others. Even if it doesn’t happen, it hardly matters because that doesn’t alter my experience.

This is a work of fiction and yet not. Kiki and Molly do exist in my head, though my experience is confined to me, like any experience. I cannot doubt their existence like any person or object or scene that exists inside my head. As a matter of fact, Kiki and Molly are better placed because many of such persons that still occupy my head and find their reflection in my external are just nobodies to me, whereas these two ants, not to ignore the other characters of this novel, are somebodies to me. The only difference is that Kiki and Molly don’t exist in the outside world like all other beings and objects that inhabit my head find reflection in my outside world. They are exclusively my experience. And so are words that transpire between me and the ant duo, the two characters of this novel who occupy the centre stage, who incidentally are ant-humans, owing to their transformation which, in Kiki’s words: ‘We are not as mechanical as ants or humans are. We act like ants or like you humans apparently but it’s not mechanical. We are present in all our mechanical acts, which I insist humans are not. And this, in my conjecture, is the consequential effect of the activated buffered code, and aided by the consequential effect of our own conscious efforts … it’s needless to say, we couldn’t have found these capabilities unless we had the potential and I must add here we were receptive to it and we worked consciously hard to maintain it, preserve it, and grow—in ants’ case, this potential was almost dead. In humans’ case, we can see it gradually dying. I concede the capabilities we attained are not of our doing, but one needs to keep them up and this requires, I repeat, constant conscious efforts. One cannot attain consciousness unconsciously despite having subconscious potentials. You can’t have mangoes on an apple tree nor can you keep the growing capacity of mangoes without keeping the tree alive and healthy. Humans failed in keeping up the potential. In ants’ case, it’s history, a lost chance but in humans’ case, you still have a chance, or else …’

‘Thousands of books’—I am lured to once again use Kiki’s words—‘have been written on the progress the human species has made. A whole lot of myth has been created. As a matter of fact, the very concept of progress is so defective. Can technological evolution be termed as progress when humans have seen the destruction of World War I and II, sitting on piles of atomic weapons, spending several times more resources than on health, physical, mental, and what you term as spiritual? The technology didn’t trigger the war but it added to human capacity to destroy on the one hand, and on the other, it ratifies the fact that humans haven’t changed. They remain the same savage ever ready to kill the other … cars and creams add to the quality of human appearance, status and comfort but not the quality of his being. Cars and creams may have become a necessity, making a human used to it, but it has failed to bring joy in his life.’

The ant duo remains ants in their outer appearance and yet they are emancipated beings, unfit to live in any world. Humans won’t accept them. In ants’ world, they continue to behave like ants. Their brain didn’t grow big after their transformation and yet they have grown as extensively and spaciously as any human genius. ‘It’s not the brain size or mass ratio but how you use your intelligence and what role nature has played in bestowing you potentials or not gifting you or putting a buffer between you and your potential at a later date owing to non-use or misuse. Biologists are right in claiming that man might lose his hands but wrong in assuming that the human head—interpret as intelligence—may attain much larger size in time to come,’ Molly clarifies.

Return of the potential was accidental though they worked hard, continued to do to keep up what was accidentally found. They turned an act of fate into an act of conscious effort. I am sure the readers will experience the two exceptional ants as I experienced them; ants unlike other ants, the very result of this penetration, accidental and subsequently intentional.

This potential is very rare in humans, at least in activation. I personally believe that it’s the being-duty of every human being to look in for this potential and if they find they must activate it. As such it’s a gift from nature for whatever its purpose, as nature isn’t concerned with any individual, his joy or pain, his so-called evolution. We are all born to live to procreate and die. But we are also born with this potential which needs conscious efforts to flourish.

Humans have been provided with additional advantage by being a four-dimensional being, which means aid of a memory bank which lets us record information and project and modify, the cause of our technological evolution. It’s not something we should take credit for. But we also must ensure—the cause of our very fall—that we do not misuse or abuse the fruits of technological evolution. Moreover, we also must curb our mind’s natural inclination to shunt between dead and assumed time.

Thinking is what differentiates human animal and other animals. We could build a language because we can remember. We can improvise our devices because we can remember and record the shortcomings of the previous version. We can express intellectually, mechanically, or emotionally. But what have we done with this gift? Unfortunately, owing to the consequential effect of the element time, whatever and whenever we think, our thoughts are prejudiced by our own prejudices emanating from an ‘I’ we identify as the centre of this world. In the process we fail to see in neutrality; we fail to sense our world without the aid of history, leading towards our own downfall from being a chosen, ‘self-aware’ being to automata.

Humans have amassed piles of things. But when we turn our attention within, we encounter anxieties, fear, hatred, distress, disharmony, and so on. One can produce a long list of our so-called achievements, but the fact is also that if we take away the technological evolution from humanity, where do we stand? Right at the very spot where we stood as savages in the prehistoric days.

In Kiki’s words, ‘Humankind commenced their walk from cave and covered thousands of miles, advancing externally, but unfortunately, the savage inside humans survived. This savage still stands at the very opening of the cave he commenced his walk from. It’s painful to see your ill-fated species walking the same path externally, ants walked once upon a time, instead of finding the cause and remedy of this befalling predicament, humanity had chosen to continue to live in the past or its assumed projection for all practical purpose, not merely justifying it but on the contrary taking pride in their past. Mankind might have developed a fool proof rat trap but the fact is they trapped themselves in their own folly; they won’t be able to walk out unless they start working hard, with immediate effect.’

‘Known history of ants is the future of mankind’ may raise several eyebrows, but that’s what I see and sense happening outside of me as well within. Those who can see and walk inwards, can see the truth, particularly in the wake of ants’ devolution and from this devolution how an ant rises to metamorphose into an ant-human. Needless to say, as said, I am giving humanity a metaphysical meaning. Logic and metaphysics do not contradict each other if metaphysics is seen on metaphysical logic built on all-pervading metaphysical laws which can’t be defied unless one knows and uses these laws to defy them.

I have no doubts in my mind that if the common belief moves in the direction it is moving, nature (read metaphysical laws) will be compelled to turn the so-called evolutionary process into devolutionary process. My ants—the duo—no doubt found their transformation accidentally, but as said, no accident is beyond laws. Accidents happen not just because of reconciling causes, but from here, one needs to actively act consciously, or else nature will buffer their potential and, in the process, transform them into ant colony. I do see this possibility unless humans wake up.

This novel in a sense is a wake-up call.

(I recollect Kafka’s famous character Samsa, who realized one fine day that he was an insect. Samsa alone has the capacity to, once again, transform unless it is not too late, unless this basic flaw in human behaviour pattern has percolated into its essence, compelling nature to shut all the doors on him. That would be a sad day.)

As such, Darwin did not use ‘evolution’ synonymously with ‘descent with modification’ but biological evolution does mean and is being understood to mean a process of progressive transformation rather than just a process of change, which can be otherwise, either side, up or down. Darwin, I believe, was cautious, and this could be his reason for not using this term to depict what he meant by ‘ability to survive’, which in other words is ‘ability to compete and reproduce’.

In any case, metaphysically, rise and fall are relative, and in this relativeness, one can ascend or descend on the evolutionary ladder if one refuses to live up to its potential, misuses or abuses it. Can this be proclaimed as some kind of a metaphysical law? Though it’s not the business of biologists nor they are trained to look beyond and beneath what appears or appeared on the physical plane, their confirmation in the shape of theories clubbed with factual examples alone can make this hypothesis widely acceptable. Metaphysicians do not look towards anyone for ratification. They look for the underlying law to find confirmation of their hypothesis.

I have come across various occultists, spiritualists, and some metaphysicians coming up with such a law, one way or the other. Some confined their belief in law of ascension, raising hopes, not unlike the most misunderstood theory of evolution, one-way journey, up and up. Some believe this can be witnessed inside every one of us in the form of ascending and descending energies. I think, yes, ascending and descending energies—not just in terms of levels but quality too—do reflect a rise and fall on the ladder of evolution, though what I witness on a day-to-day basis is very short-term. Besides, and important too, for this ascension or descent to sustain on the scale of physical time, is the appropriate use of rising refined energies for exploitation of the potential which makes us ascend. If not, one is bound to descend on this ladder over a period of time which eventually will become one’s essence, by percolating into one’s DNA, turning the evolutionary process downwards.

Years ago, I read about a law, named the law of deviation by a metaphysician who claimed that every ascension is bound to fall unless, of course, one interferes consciously. I have all the reason to interpret conscious interference as sustained effort on the part of the being to live up to his potential. If it’s a law, and I have no hesitation in conceding it as a universal law, I would venture to believe that this is applicable on all and everything including human species. Unfortunately, if a being or any species with all the potential at his or its command chooses to behave mechanically, is bound to be affected by this law and descend, which is tantamount to devolution, antonym of evolution, which biologically can only mean descent to lower strata of being.

Natural selection is defined by Darwin as a principle by which each slight variation [of a trait], if useful, is preserved. Herbert Spencer replaces natural selection with a more eloquent phrase, ‘survival of the fittest’, defining it as preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. This favour, I am inclined to believe, nature will withdraw if any species fails to use its potential to survive and grow. Nature is bound to buffer this potential within the framework of the process of natural selection, which isn’t just external to us but more so the potential within. Nature isn’t beyond metaphysical laws. As a matter of fact, nature is law.

The hypothesis I have tried to indirectly build in this novel is not prophetic or new by any chance, though hardly known. And it concerns not just ants, rather more so to humans.

A lot has been written on social creatures such as ants, bees, and termites. They have all been praised for their group intelligence, but they are yet to be seen and evaluated on the touchstone we evaluate human society. Those who have observed and experimented with these creatures have commended them for their collective cognition, cooperation, and judgement.

Unfortunately, intellect can’t be seen, recognized, and acknowledged in isolation. It needs to be shown off or, in other words, communicated. In acknowledgement, one finds ratification which turns an individual intelligence into an acceptable intelligence, which, in due course of time, can form basis for a belief system. Thus, common acceptance of intelligence fixes parameters for determination of intelligence; when boundaries are fixed, no one denies or defies them. If any individual transcends these commonly believed boundaries and starts seeing things from a different layer of awareness, he is either not understood or declared abnormal. Intelligent can only be recognized and acknowledged when it’s common, thus turning once-upon-a-time knowing into known.

Ants are the harbinger of collective intellect. They are more organized than humans in the essence of the term. They were the first to initiate doing agriculture and rear animals. Humans followed. How did they conceptualize the very idea of agriculture or animal husbandry? Needless to say, what we term as a genetic act on their part must have been an intelligent act once upon a time. This fact alone speaks for ants what the ant duo explained when they proclaimed the known history of ants is the future of mankind. Unfortunate on the part of mankind is that they evaluate other social creatures on their terms, their touchstone.

Yet, individuals have observed them since ancient times and have been fascinated by what they observed and learned. As a matter of fact, some of these individuals have started calling these social insects super organisms in view of the display of their collective intelligence. They act in concert in common interest for the greater good of the community. We find the application of the golden rule in these species humans take pride in being the propounder of. I have no hesitation in calling these super organisms a utopian society. The individual ants work like one unit despite their specialized but changeable roles determined by no individual but collective subconscious mind. They are mechanical because of their long history. We are no different despite our claims of choice and our inflated ego. My two main characters, Kiki and Molly, reflect ‘what is’ of ‘what was’ of ants by going into the history of the original cause which they foresee happening to humans.

As I haven’t written this long story in one go to a scheduled plan, based on my jottings in the previous years, I may have overlooked some repetitions of words or thoughts. In my second and final draft, I did my best to remove the repetition. Some, I recollect, I intentionally left purposefully, but some might yet have percolated. In a short story, it’s easy to deal with such unintended errors, as one can easily and conveniently reread the story several times in one go. It is a little tiresome process if it’s a novel consisting of more than a hundred and eighty thousand words.

Normally, I initiate writing with an idea in pieces and save them under different chapter heads. I go by my thought process in the absence of any concrete storyline in my head. One line leads me to another and so on and on. Characters walk in as I build the story part and so emerge events. Later, having written enough and no more words coming forth, I go back to these chapters and try and connect umpteen pieces which appeared at different times spread over years and rewrite. This process goes on till I have gone through the entire novel at least three times. In this process, I also work on composition and replacement of repeated words.

Slw, one of the characters in this novel, appeared on the scene in the middle of my thought process in the course of writing of this novel. It was the doing of my writing that Slw virtually replaces me in the last few chapters, occupying the centre space. This character made my writing easier despite usurping my space. I have no grudge against her, as after all, she is my creation.

Needless to say, no character or event emerges from nowhere. They emerge from some of our past impressions or associations, not necessarily in its exactness but someone you create based on certain impressions or you remould a past associated character into a different character to suit your writing. This is purely writer’s creative prerogative.

Some of the characters are a writer’s own character, rather a side of him, like I believe that all the brothers in The Brothers Karamazov are Dostoyevsky’s own character—different sides of his own personality and essence. This happens with me too.

I will also pinpoint to a fact that any writing is also reflection of writer’s personality and essence. This should never be found in the first person—if the story has a narrator or a first person—but also in other characters.

I do not like to give common names to my characters. I have gone to the extent of not using gender in some of my short stories but then I find it hard to write owing to the boundaries determined by grammar. I give them names for the sole purpose of identification, choosing either alphabetism or an initial or any uncommon name which can’t be identified with anyone other than my characters. My issues are perennial in nature which are not confined to any space or time. I do not want my readers to identify my characters with any region or religion. We all have our own prejudices and certain associations—positive or negative—with places, persons (names do represent), and time. I also avoid physical description of person or place for the very same purpose. I want to stick to the idea, and this is what I do while writing any story, long or short.

Despite my liking for insects, particularly ants, I must admit that my information on ants is confined to their social behaviour pattern. In the chapter titled ‘Meeting with my zoologist friend who came accompanied by an entomologist, his friend’, I have brought in lots of technical information—which, needless to say, I have picked up from various sources over the years. I just cannot quote these sources because I searched through many, checked and cross-checked and what fitted in the mouths of my two characters, the zoologist and the entomologist, I used. Technically, I may be not correct but this is a piece of fiction, though I would insistently emphasize that I do meet several ants not unlike ants but never any freaks like the two I happened to meet and do see them on day-to-day basis, my friends Kiki and Molly.

What leads an ‘ant’ or let’s say a ‘human-ant’ to metamorphose into an emancipated being? Needless to say, as my dear Kiki claims and no doubt every metaphysician will ratify her words, one ought to have the requisite potential.

The potential doesn’t directly invite or pave the path for liberation. But it does make one receptive to quality impressions. Quality impressions refine cruder energies into finer energies, which change not just the quality of thoughts but also the very outlook, which way one looks, outwards or inwards.

A quality impression is capable of bringing one at the crossroads, questions clamouring in his mind. Which is the right way? Assuming the person finds it, with ease or difficulty, is knowing of the path any guarantee of leading one to its destination?

Kiki and Molly, the two ants, accidentally found their lost potentials. As such, nothing in this world happens accidentally because nothing happens without a cause. Life is nothing but manifestation of the effect of the process of cause and effect, wherein every effect turns into a cause to cause yet another effect.

So where do we stand in this play of metaphysical laws?

But we have a choice, a very limited choice in this choice-less-ness. The ant duo worked hard. They are now not just automata but thriving with all the potentials of a human, a species on the highest rung on this ladder of evolution, the creation par excellence.

Kiki and Molly are as alive as Slw or my metaphysician friend or any character of this novel. I identify with them as I identify with any living person and at times dead. A person is more alive or less or has turned into a nobody always rests with the person who identifies. Many characters in this world refused to die because there are still people who identify with them. The characters of this novel, though my creation, have enriched my life. They still visit me as they had, in this novel.

PS: I know I must have, consciously or subconsciously, picked up some of the phraseology of those thinkers, metaphysicians, philosophers, and authors my thought process is influenced by. I would like to acknowledge some of the thinkers and writers I feel indebted to. They are Dostoevsky, Kafka, Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, G. I. Gurdjieff, Castaneda, J. Krishnamurthy, Patanjali, Socrates, Buddha, the Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene, Darwin, R. D. Laing, Freud, Adler, Frankl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Baruch Spinoza and many more.

I have, owing to active interest and persuasion of friends, published three books in the past, titled Bagair Kursu ka Kamra (A Room without a Chair) in my mother tongue Hindi in 1997 and two anthologies of my English poems titled There Is a Room Inside Every Room and An Ascending Experience in 2000. My first novel, titled Divine Justice, is under publication.

Ashok Sharda

1

Chance meeting with Kiki and Molly, the two talking ants

Ant colonies have been subject to zoological observation ever since the beginning of zoology. Our knowledge of this tiny insect’s behaviour pattern is the sole end result of the consistent observation and study on the part of these zoologists. We all know that ants are social organizations and that they communicate.

One of my metaphysician friends commented once though philosophically, but in all seriousness, that the known history of ants is the future of the mankind. This prophetic comment on the part of my friend inspired me to take keen interest in this tiny insect and ever since then my sole occupation had been to observe ant colonies and sole instrument in pursuant to my occupation, a magnifying glass. I wish to share some of these observations in this book I have titled An Ant Measured an Ant—Five Feet Six Inches.

It was a matter of chance that on day two of the beginning of my observation of this tiny insect, I found an ant rolling out a measuring tape in order to measure another ant which, obviously, measured five feet six inches.

One may very well claim that the measurement on my part is just an assumption, though you must not forget that I was watching though a powerful magnifying glass. Over and above, let me also tell you that the ant that measured the other ant did pronounce five feet six inches. One may claim this also to be my speculation or a vision of my obsessed mind. But, let me declare in all solemnity that what I saw and witnessed with all my three eyes intact is what I am presenting here. Besides, I also want to stress that the assumption is the only method through which one can form an understanding of anything and go beyond. Needless to say that logical inference is made from assumptions. As a matter of fact, all beliefs are based on certain assumptions and the other way round. It goes without saying that assumption engenders hopes which beliefs use as crutches.

I also want to stress and with conviction that what we all treat as real is nothing but a ratified assumption. This is why when a human measures another human and pronounces five feet six inches, we, without any scepticism or Cartesian doubt, accept the measurement. We know five feet six inches is an assumed ratified number. In fact all human understanding is based on ratified assumptions. All human communication depends on this ratified assumption that what the one at the receiving end is assuming he or she heard is what the person at the other end has said or communicated using the same or any other form of communication. But in this case, I did hear one ant pronouncing ‘five feet six inches’ after measuring another ant with a measuring tape. This, I will concede, was her assumption which I hereby ratify as real without disputing any contrary or dissentient claim. I firmly believe that assumption is the only course left open to anyone to understand and establish any impressions as real, however subjective it might eventually prove to be or lead one to unknown truths. Impressions are subjective; I need not repeat this objective truth to applaud a subjective experience of mine.

We must concede that if our measuring tape which measures another person as five feet six inches is real despite it being a relatively ratified assumption, then when an ant measured another ant using a tiny measuring tape and pronounced five feet six inches, it has to be real from these ants’ point of view.

In further augmentation of my assumed deductive reasoning, let’s suppose that the ant who measured the other ant, instead of uttering five- six, had claimed it to be six-five and the ant who was measured disputed the measurement, then believe me, what five-six is assumed to mean by one would mean six-five by the other and both the measurements would be assumed to mean the same. This assumption on my part is an assumption as simple as an assumption on the part of the ant admeasuring another ant and pronouncing five-six. Isn’t it as simple as this?

The very next day, I rang up and asked my metaphysician friend, ‘How does an ant, you assume, physically experience another ant?’

‘Like an ant experiences an ant,’ he said.

‘Agreed, friend, but tell me in physical measuring terms of human species,’ I insisted.

‘Well,’ he responded, ‘five feet six inches.’

Needless to say that an ant’s physical experience of another ant has to be five-six, in terms of assumed numbers, considering the physical detail it observes of the other ant as we observe of any bipeds belonging to Homo sapiens or, for that purpose, any living being or things. ‘This means that the measurement is relative to not just an eye but also to the assumption of a prejudiced mind?’ I asked.

Finding him a little confused and feeling good that my words can confuse a metaphysician, I elaborated. ‘What if we were twenty feet tall based on our assumption of the measuring numbers, how much would an ant measure when measured by another ant?’

He understood. ‘Twenty feet,’ he said and added philosophically though unexpectedly, ‘An ant is as big to an ant as big a man is to a man.’

‘Yes, on a measuring tape one makes to fit one’s own assumption,’ I said; rather, it emerged from my mouth to my astonishment, and later as this story unfolds, you would know how this truth, however relative this might be, unfolds.

But the whole episode of an ant measuring another ant did not prove to be as simple as I had assumed. A doubt persisted in the mind of the ant that was measured. This doubt wasn’t the outcome of the understanding of the scale because this was, I assume, was a valid measuring tape. The ant that took the measurement and the ant that was measured assumed the same what was meant by a foot or by an inch, and obviously, they gave the same meaning to what five feet six inches implied. This doubt was because the ant who was being measured thought that she was actually five eight and had actually measured five-eight on the measuring tape. And this ant just couldn’t keep this assumption to herself because she started generating emotional energies which had a negative charge which we humans know as rising anger. Despite knowing that the other ant who took the measurement would never agree that she is five-eight, she blurted out, ‘Come on, I am taller than you. You measured five-six. Mine has to be five-eight.’

Their altercation caused me worry. The primary cause of my worry was that the ant duo might not appear together at my doorstep in the wake of their getting cross. They might break up their camaraderie and move separately in their foraging for food, taking away from me the unlikely chance to observe two talking ants—the one and the only miraculous happening that can happen in any one’s lifetime, no doubt—which accidentally fell into my lap. I had yet another worry that cropped up inside my head and wasn’t leaving me: how would I recognize these two tiny ants despite my use of a powerful magnifying glass, as they all looked almost the same? But somehow, I was damn sure that I would be able to segregate them from the bunch of ants, owing to the duo’s individualistic behaviour pattern and would be able to point them out separately with ease even when they were crowded with their fellow colony members rather than marching in a line, one ant following the other. They were, after all, talking ants, which have never been heard before. And they spoke in our language. I mean in the language I understood. This can be my assumption or not.

But to my pleasant surprise, I found them together under my magnifying glass almost at the same spot I encountered them the day before. Incidentally, to my utter disbelief, I was the centre of their talks. Who can believe, I thought, that the two tiny ants were talking of me, not as an individual but as the sole representative of the human species we know as Homo sapiens and who happens to be the most adaptable, most knowledgeable and lovable children of Mother Nature, occupying, as a matter of fact, the highest rung on the ladder of evolution.

‘You are exaggerating,’ I heard one arguing with the other. ‘You know, as we have read together in his library. He can’t be more than seven thousand times of our height.’

My ears stuck to their talks as they continued sharing their observations of me, under their magnifying glass (though they carried no magnifying glass nor did they need any). And I went on observing them through my magnifying glass and trying to decipher their utterances, assuming to the best of my ability.

‘Do you know,’ the one asked the other, ‘that this species came into existence much, much later than us and yet they claim to be greatest among the greats of all the species? Our evolutionary history is almost four hundred and fifty times older than theirs and so is our culture and social organization.’

‘Yes, I know,’ the other one declared and added, ‘Incidentally, I am going through some stored material on this species, and to tell you the truth, I don’t like them. Rather, I hate them but I don’t like to use this term hate. As we both agreed, we shall discard this word from our vocabulary once and for ever.’

‘What’s so hateful about this species?’ the one who looked more amiable asked.

‘Their boastfulness, their egocentricity, and their belief that they are created in the image of an unidentified entity they call Creator, who categorically directed them to "rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over the creatures that move along the ground". I quote to you directly from a scripture they treat as a holy book, which tells this species how the universe came into existence, how they were created in the image of this Creator, and their subsequent relationship with this omnipresent being.’

‘I have read this and I too wonder. Their intellect is questionable. But I also happened to read the other day … what’s his name … yes, one called Darwin who claimed that all living species have one unknown common ancestor and can you believe this makes us forefathers of this species, in a sense. Can you see?’

‘Do you really believe in this?’ the other one asked.

‘No, actually I don’t know. But they must know that their fate is sealed and they are no different from us. Not in any respect, in any sense. We are better than them, at least the two of us in our present state of being.’

‘But, they believe and rule the earth, treating this earth as their ancestral property, caring little about other living creatures. They demean all the other species either by ignoring their rights or infringing their right to survival and peaceful co-existence.’

‘They do, dear, and they will suffer like our species is suffering because of our own follies. Their fate is sealed, and they are going to turn into ant colonies sooner rather than later.’

‘They are ant colonies,’ said the other with great unwavering conviction.

I wasn’t shocked. I felt hurt.

She called us egocentric, she called us boastful, she called us reckless beings and whatnot, reflection of her own egocentricity and boastfulness but calling us ‘the ant colonies’ was too much. We dream and we desire as no one can, we have evolved skills and invented tools to fulfil these dreams and desires, we have manipulated nature and used it to the best of our advantage, which no other species succeeded, we have evolved language to express the subtlest thoughts and ideas, we communicate, we store acquired knowledge in the form of books, now in hard as well as soft copies, so as to share and let the coming generations use and evolve further. We are the greatest of all living beings, the epitome of perfection Mother Nature could produce, standing on the highest step on the hierarchy of evolution. What if they are four hundred fifty times more ancient than us? This is what speaks of their primitiveness. After all, refined things are developed from rudimentary things and not vice versa. We are on the highest rung of the ladder of evolution. What can they claim? Nothing—absolutely nothing other than their so-called social behaviour pattern, mechanical in nature, compelled by natural instinct. What do they think they are, these tiny insects? I could so easily crush them beneath my foot right here. What is that we don’t have? We have inherited great traditions, so many religions which keep us from falling prey to evil and keeps our communication open to our Creator; we have philosophies, an ever-flourishing science which keeps on adding to our knowledge and understanding the laws of nature and the world around us, we invented so much and created so much, we have excelled in every field, be it archaeology, architecture, engineering, art, craft, music, literature. We have succeeded in decoding the genetic programs of various species we can now so easily manipulate, manoeuvre and change the very essence. We have set new norms of aesthetics, ever excelling, attaining new heights. We have landed on the moon, and the days are not far when we shall land on each and every accessible heavenly body. And what are they, these tiny insects? A bunch of helpless, hopeless, insignificant creatures.

Hurt generates anger, and I did go on venting my anger in words confined to my skull as no one was within my reach.

But once my anger subsided, I realized that these creatures were not what I believed them to be. I had never thought they could communicate, at least not in human language; they could observe, not unlike us, and draw conclusions, and they had the capacity to store information in their memory bank. After all, they did quote verbatim from the Holy Scripture. They seemed to be a curious lot, and this augmented my curiosities manifold which was at low ebb when that bloody tiny thing vented her hatred towards my species. My ‘I’ in those moments expanded, encompassing the entire human race within the confines of ‘I’. After all, I am and will be the sole representative of Homo sapiens communicating with the tiny duo, wherever our talks lead us to and whatever shape our interactions might take in days to come. Yes, I thought, sooner than later, I may be communicating with them.

But a doubt persisted. Did I actually hear them talking or did I assume? Who would believe me? They would all attribute a claim of talking ants to my hallucinating mind. Some of them might think I was suffering from dementia. But to whom do I say, ‘Believe me, I heard them as I hear you’? But why bother, I thought, I am not going to share this story with anyone. I understood them as I understand any human who speaks my language. And if anyone will still think that this is just an assumption on my part, then let me say that every word I hear and understand, spoken by a fellow human, is an assumption on my part because what I hear and what I understand I hear and understand based on my own level of being and understanding, and not where they speak from or understand what they speak. Jesus, despite speaking in the language of his disciples, went on calling upon them, ‘Hear, those who have ears.’ They all had ears and Jesus could see this, but he went on repeating these very words time and again, repeatedly.

I decided to follow them as and when my busy daily routine would allow me to. I brought another magnifying glass so that my continuity of watching them was not interrupted by any accidental breaking of the one I was using. I made it a point to keep eatables for them in one corner of my verandah first thing so that they would be tempted to come here daily, every morning. Morning hours suited me best for the execution of my new-found hobby of observing the two. I also changed my morning sitting from my study to my verandah. I told my wife—and I had to—that I was observing ants for wanting to write a book on them, which wasn’t prophetic as I had not yet decided to write this book.

My wife didn’t like the idea one bit because of her inherent dislike for insects. Actually, she hated them, and the first thing she would want if she found any of the insects infringing her rights—what she thought was infringement of her boundaries (read boundaries of the house)—she would want them dead. We had a few heated arguments over this issue, but she had to eventually shut her mouth because I was observing so as to write a book as I had pretended and this was reason enough for her to cooperate with me, which she did reluctantly.

She had somehow learnt not just to tolerate my son, obviously not born of her because he was a Dalmatian, but also developed a liking for him, though she would, invariably, blame me for spoiling him. My Dalmatian son would go by his moods and would never listen to anyone, not even me. I had declared that he was the master of the house and everyone would listen to him. Other members of my household eventually developed liking for him in their own way. Some actually liked him, some remained neutral but tolerated his moods, some showed their liking so as to not displease me; but when he died, they all cried.

Other than my wife (that too in a very limited way), members of my family were not aware of the existence of these two tiny creatures. In fact, they were not even aware of my new-found interest in ants. Even if they had known, they wouldn’t have believed. No one could have, so I saw no sense in ever telling them. So far I have avoided telling the ongoing miraculous happening of my life even to my closest friends, including Slw, the metaphysician and zoologist.

The two ants under my observation were household ants, commonly known as little black ants, one of the most popular type in the world, I read. They are tiny in size (compared to, obviously, other ants) and black, hence little black ants. The commonness of the duo did disappoint me, but after having a