Skip to main content

Butterflies and Perspectives


Horse: If you don’t want to be a caterpillar, how can you become a butterfly?

Caterpillar: Did you pass through so many stages before you became a horse?

Horse: Not exactly the same stages.  But stages, yes.

Caterpillar: Was it hard?  The stages, I mean.

Horse: It depends.  Being a caterpillar is not hard for all caterpillars, I guess.

Caterpillar: One grows up only by passing through the stages?

Horse: One grows real only by passing through the stages.

Caterpillar: Real?

Horse: Opposite of fraud, let’s say.

Caterpillar: Why should anyone be a fraud?

Horse: Discontent, I guess.  Not happy being what you are.  Wanting to be something else.  Somebody else.

Caterpillar: Like me?

Horse: Well.  There are many creatures who are unhappy about what they are.  Who want to be somebody else.  Becoming real is a slow process, I guess.  It needs patience.  Like being a caterpillar crawling on leaves.  And then a chrysalis. 

Caterpillar: But only we butterflies go through all those stages.

Horse: Not at all.  Everyone does.  The names of the stages differ.  Infancy, childhood, adolescence, and so on.  Many break while going through these stages.  Those who have blunt edges, glass shells, air bags, and such things. 

Caterpillar: And then?  After the break up, I mean.

Horse: Some vanish from the earth.  Some survive and learn to live without those attachments like blunt edges or glass shells.  That’s how they become real. Shedding the unwanted attachments.  It’s tough.  Shedding attachments is tough.

Caterpillar: For us that happens naturally.

Horse: So you’re luckier than the others.

Caterpillar: And I thought I was the most unlucky creature!

Horse: Perspectives.  Perspectives make the difference.
Labels:

Comments

  1. sunaina sharmaOctober 16, 2015 at 4:06 AM

    Some great points here Sir.....I am wondering what stage I am in.....what perspectives I hold.....and whether I will vanish with the vanities I hold or whether I will survive.....very thought-provoking......

    ReplyDelete
  2. IndraniOctober 16, 2015 at 9:26 AM

    Very thought provoking!Discontent is often the cause of misery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 16, 2015 at 7:48 PM

      On the other hand, discontent can lead to creativity.

      Delete
  3. UnknownOctober 16, 2015 at 10:59 AM

    This is brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sunshine-struckOctober 16, 2015 at 12:15 PM

    By the time we know we have pass through the stages and know what is real, we get old and lose physical vigor. Life is funny for an outsider!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sunshine-struckOctober 16, 2015 at 7:35 PM

      Corrected*

      By the time we pass through the stages and know what is real, we get old and lose physical vigor. Life is funny for an outsider!

      Delete
    2. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 16, 2015 at 7:53 PM

      True. The process is pretty long. Quite many people are happy being fake!

      Delete
  5. UnknownOctober 16, 2015 at 1:17 PM

    Thats such a beautiful insight!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 16, 2015 at 7:55 PM

      Personal experience, in fact. ... Thanks for the compliment.

      Delete
  6. Namrata KumariOctober 18, 2015 at 1:58 AM

    Inspirational! And I thought, I am the unlucky one. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Roohi BhatnagarOctober 18, 2015 at 8:58 PM

    Good one :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Titas BiswasOctober 22, 2015 at 1:38 PM

    Um......Have a look at the name of my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Titas BiswasOctober 22, 2015 at 1:38 PM

    Um......Have a look at the name of my blog!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more