Monkey Business!

Although the matter of anthropology is in jeopardy with many evolved beings questioning the Darwinian theory of evolution recently, there is no denial that we learned many things from Monkeys, as our ancestors or not! When in School, we used to listen to a peculiar monkey story wherein two Cats would fight over a ball of cream butter and a Monkey would offer his counsel to settle the dispute for free. By trying to divide the ball in exactly equal halves, the Monkey would finish the entire cream ball in the process and the stupid Cats would make fool of themselves by just staring at vanishing cream ball in front of them with every passing moment.

In other story, a trader comes to a village in search of Monkeys and offers a good price in exchange of Monkeys. When the supply of Monkeys diminishes he raises the offer price and many villagers would rush to the jungle on lookout for Monkeys. While those villagers are busy in their Monkey-business, the dealer would hand over to his Assistant and ensure that he will return as soon as he finishes his business in the town. Meanwhile, as the Boss is away, the Assistant offers to sell already purchased Monkeys to the villagers who couldn’t go to jungle to catch Monkeys and lures them that they will get an excellent deal when his boss returns with a bigger demand and higher price for Monkeys. In anticipation, the entire village monetizes everything they have to get hold of maximum Monkeys to have the best deal and wait for the Trader to return. The Assistant leaves for the town to get his Boss and the villagers rushed to the jungle return with all the Monkeys they could catch. After a week when there’s no news from the town, villagers realize that they have been fooled and there are Monkeys everywhere who would do more harm than good to the villagers who are neither their owners nor caretakers!

In the third story, a stray Dog that has wandered to the jungle, realizing that it is approached by a Tiger would act smart by turning the back to the Tiger, picking up a bone lying around and pretend to have eaten a Tiger exclaiming, ‘I never knew the Tiger tastes so good. How wonderful would it be if I can get another Tiger to complete my delicious feast?’ The Tiger hearing this gets scared and thinks, ‘What a beast of an animal this Dog must be, let me get away from it and save my life!’ A Monkey on the tree watching the entire episode from above, rushes to the Tiger and narrates him the whole story. Getting furious for being fooled by a stupid village Dog the Tiger asks the Monkey to sit on his back as he would get back to the Dog and teach him a lesson for life... literally! The Dog being smarter than both the Tiger and the Monkey, senses that something has gone wrong in his trick and realizing the imminent, turns his back once again and immediately improvises a loud self-talk... ‘It’s been almost an hour I sent that Monkey to bring me another Tiger, I am starving with hunger and god knows where that stupid Monkey is lazing around...?'

Now am I trying to prove something here or am I just Monkey(ing) around with these Aesop fables? Well, first of all, all these are not Aesop fables, at least two of these are stories with a real ‘Moral’ that varies from individual to individual depending upon the character in the story he or she identifies with! That’s one thing; secondly, somehow I could see the reflection of recent disturbing headlines, all devastating, making news, in here. Now, if you can look at the blame-game that has erupted between two major political parties over the data leak revelation by ‘whistle-blower’ Christopher Wylie – the new Julian Assange – of Cambridge Analytica, match it with the first story and find out who is the Monkey here. A hint – it is not important to identify the Monkey in this story, it’s more important to understand what the ball of cream butter symbolizes? You will be shocked if and when you find out!

The second story depicts the lengths humans can go to win, whether it’s a Cricket Match or a deal, and make a complete fool of themselves by losing their hard-earned lifelong earnings and rankings! The Gentleman’s Game was ashamed and lost its shine like a old ball when the most professional and phenomenal players reduced themselves to petty cheaters by doing what was not only completely unnecessary but absolutely awful and disgusting thing, to ‘win’ which should never matter more than the spirit of sportsmanship. The worst thing in this episode is this trio bring disgrace and sheer embarrassment not just to themselves, their family-friends and well-wishers but to their Nation that has a longstanding eminent reputation in the sport. No amount of regret and tears could bring back the lost glory of the game... neither to them, to their nation nor to any earnest cricket lover anywhere in the world, ever again. It’s a permanent loss; way beyond slaging and fixing as it compromised the very purpose of playing – the sporting attitude – that is smeared by the winning (at any cost!) attitude.

Finally the third story which neither is a fable nor a moral story but made rounds of internet some time back as a new management theory – of improvising on the situation to come out clean and safe. I am not going to deliberately link it to some story as there are plenty of those ‘Tigers’, ‘Monkeys’ and Smart ‘Dogs’, all around, on the local, national and Global levels. If you are confused, take a hint from Animal Farm by George Orwell. Every being that believes what is heard without probing into the matter and saves his skin, is that Tiger, everybody who tries to take advantage of the situation with hidden (and devious) motives, is that Monkey and the (other)wise one who knows how to confuse, divert and misguide the furious interrogator with flashy pretension of bloated might and fake intentions, is that over smart Dog. Saying this should suffice and there is no need to elaborate it any further, I guess! My readers are more conscious than I believe them to be, I believe!

So to sum it up, in all the stories above and the incidences around, what is compromised is the belief, the faith, the trust of people in something, somebody, and somewhere. Not a good sign - neither for humanity nor for society or for democracy. If this practice continues to exist, people will fear expressing themselves, even to their intimate ones. If the suspicion starts ruling the world, there would be apprehension all around, just like the monkeys in the second story. If we need a society that is creative, hopeful, loving, caring and sharing; we need to get rid of these tendencies that thrive on manipulating others for their own purpose and we should develop a culture of empowering conscious of every individual... till the last man; sooner the better!

Way to go...!