One
of the many creatures that Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classical Little Prince
encounters on the earth is a fox. The
creature approaches the Prince with a weird request. “Please tame me,” pleaded the fox. The Prince did not know the meaning of ‘tame’. “It means to establish ties,” explained the
fox. Without the ties, the boy would be
just another boy for the fox just as the fox would be just another fox for the
boy who don’t need each other in any way.
“But if you tame me,” continues the fox, “then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the
world. To you, I shall be unique in all
the world.”
 |
| Little Prince and the Fox |
When
you establish the “ties” the person or thing becomes unique to you, the Prince
understands. He remembers the rose which
he used to look after on his own planet.
He watered it, he made a special glass enclosure for its safety, he
killed caterpillars for its sake. The
Prince refers to the rose with the personal pronoun ‘she’. “It is she that I have listened to when she
grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing,” he says. “Because
she is my rose.”
Relationships
do not require many words, reminds the fox.
“Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every
day...” The fox goes on to share its
personal secret with the Prince. “It is
only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to
the eye.” He also reminds the Prince
that he must not ever forget what he has tamed. “You become responsible,
forever, for what you have tamed.”
Men
have forgotten this, accuses the fox. “Men
have no more time to understand anything.
They buy things all readymade at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can
buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore.”
The
latest Indispire theme [What do women need more today: equality or
empathy?] brought the Little Prince and his fox to my mind. Man has established his lordship not only
over his own planet but also over the infinite cosmos whose mysteries are being
probed by man-made telescopes roaming the interstellar spaces. Yet
why has he not been able to shape a civilisation in which the question of
equality and empathy should not arise at all, especially for the whole half of
the species? Or are some of the fears
grossly exaggerated? Personally, I have
seen many women who have wielded tremendous powers over men in workplaces. I have seen men being made dumb asses by
clever women who ascended the winding staircases and dark corridors of power in
a world that reminded me of Kafka and his Castle. Yet, of course, there are women too who still
languish outside the Castle, I suppose, waiting for the corridors to open,
waiting to ascend the staircases...
Perhaps,
the question should not be about equality and empathy. Perhaps, it is about the taming that the fox speaks about.
“The
men where you live,” the Little Prince tells the narrator-human, “raise five
thousand roses in the same garden – and they do not find in it what they are
looking for.” A little later he adds, “And
yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little
water.” Then he concludes, “But the eyes
are blind. One must look with the
heart...”
But
our hearts are up there in the telescopes that are conquering the stars.
An interesting post here.....do you think 'taming' or 'establishing ties' as you mentioned, leads to empathy which in turn can lead to equality? Because what ties will teach will be a sense of belonging, a kind of bonding that will make the sharers responsible for each other....and from that responsibility will spring the ideas of respect and equality.....
ReplyDeleteYes. And the only genuine solution lies in establishing those bonds, ties. Everything else will remain plastic surgeries or facelift attempts. But people, both men and women, don't want genuine solutions today. There are a lot of other things to be gained!
DeleteWhoa.. deep, very deep philosophy. I am enjoying the regular doses of your posts now and the way you tried to explain the problem and the solution :)
ReplyDeleteTrue love is the harbinger of respect. It is the absence of ego within. Any man or a woman is unequal unless they understand and practice what exactly is meant by loving truly. And the ones who do, the question never arises for them. For rest, they are just lost in the world of maya, forgetting that our true nature is to love!
What differentiates between maya and real is ignorance. I saw you mentioned ignorance in your comment on my post on Gandhi. What is maya for the Buddha is what is real for the layperson and vice-versa. The Buddha is as out of place in the world of the layperson as the layperson will be in the world of the Buddha. Hence the Buddha has to perish so that the ordinary persons will flourish.
DeleteWhat is ego but ignorance, again? Lack of self-knowledge.
Great post. I have no words. Just glad to see your posts after a long break.
ReplyDeleteI tried my best to stay away but couldn't. Certain things suffocate me until I get them out through words....
Delete