EXCUSE ME, IS MY UMWELT SHOWING?

I remember my father once telling me “To understand the actions of others, look at the world through their eyes”. A clueless biologist shouted ‘UMWELT’ and there my vocabulary found a new word for the philosophy my father had tried to inject in me. Though it sounded poetic and incoherent at first, I did spend a fair stint of my childhood trying to comprehend as to why the world and its people acted in such mysterious ways.

Why does our Prime Minister never speak? Strong proof to the contrary has made us strike out the possibility that he is mute since birth. But Instead of throwing verbal stones at his self imposed handicap, let us seal our mouth with duct tape and look at the world through his beady eyes. Maybe he is exercising his Miranda Rights. Maybe for him the world is one messed up court room where everything he says would be taken against him, with Soniaji being his most trusted advocate. Who knows he might be suffering from Selective Muteness, much like our own Raj from the epic ‘Big Bang Theory’

Another tortured creature is S.Sreesanth and I still do not quite understand why we are so angry at him. MCOCA danced on the hard work of the Delhi Police and he is now out on  bail. But let us for now imagine Sree did what we assume he did. I am sure none of his match fixing gimmick would have actually contributed towards the outcome of the game. My heart weeps for him for he was not only pitiable in his bowling, but also lacked the intellect required to do spot fixing ingeniously. If only we could channel all the hatred that we hold against him to actually look at the whole issue through his innocent perspective. Picture him sitting alone in his locker room, counting the number of religious chains on his neck and wondering as to what went wrong in the field. Why and how did his fellow cricketers bag endorsement contracts for big brands while the few products he got to endorse was a South Indian Ayurvedic joint pain massager, or being a sidekick to Riya Sen in a jewellery ad, a split second of an appearance in the Kingfisher Campaign and a few other failed endorsements? Even his restaurant chain ‘The Bat & Ball Inn’ tasted dirt.  Much to his dismay, women too kept away from his attitude and the world was just too hard on him. Spot fixing might have been his secret getaway.

Kapil Sibbal chose the wrong career for the job of a movie or food critic suits him better. Through his eyes, the world looks like a giant deformed potato and everything associated to it is highly improper, thus requiring his constant criticism and brilliant modifications. The critic in him had to play with the education system and felt a massive need to improve the 12^th standard score of the kids by allowing only the top 20% cream students to be eligible to write the prestigious IIT exams. When they had enough of him, they made him the law minister, much to the horror of the judiciary. Who knows he might promote the passing of a new act called the ‘Social Networking Inspection Act (SONIA)’. It’s not his fault, it’s his ‘UMWELT’.

We live in India, but each one of us looks at India through a radically different perspective. For a socialist, India is a huge party with gossips flowing from all four corners, while for a Politician, India is nothing but a game of chess where he has to either kill or be killed. For the ruling party, India is Utopia where everything is perfect and progress is a daily thing, while for the opposition, it is a paradise gone wrong where every living soul is denied his rights. For Pakistan, Kashmir is a treasure island, while for India, Kashmir is nothing but a bet it cannot afford to lose. Through all of this are the soldiers of both the countries sacrificing their lives for a cause unclear to them and the Kashmiris suffocated by the malice that has found its place in their divine land.

This makes me highly jealous of the animals, for they are all loyal to their species and look at the world through one shared perspective. The Gods must have been crazy indeed to have given us a luxurious personal bubble world i.e our umwelt, consisting of our individual dogmas, spiritual beliefs and values, while he cleverly forgot to give us a bit of humility to understand the varied tenets of others sharing the space with us. While the world is busy launching satellites to understand the possibility of life beyond our galaxy or trying to decipher the language of the dolphins with the help of fancy toys; the nations are busy throwing missiles at each other due to non compliance of agreements, and the leaders of different religions are busy warning the homosexuals about the little place that is reserved in hell just for them. If only we had the nerve to step out of our way of thinking and look through the perspective of those we claim are at fault.

Because there is nothing more tragicomic than trying to speak to the dolphins when you are unable to understand those who belong to your own genus.

P.S- This is an article I submitted for an Epic contest organized by 1 Hundred Works . I  beg want you all to show your generosity by liking and commenting on the link given below. I do require them !!!! If you do so, you are awesome. If you don't, my black magic awaits you!  

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