Jonah Achumi
Let me share a short story which I came across from a friend’s timeline. I find this short story as a very relevant and one worthy to share relating to our present state of affairs, both in our personal as well as in our societal realm today. A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package.” What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered – To his shock, he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse squealed and proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”The chicken clucked and scratched raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the goat and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house !” The goat sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin of my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house - like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his matchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main Ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the goat. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. He wished only if they all had heeded him when he informed them about the mouse trap. Only if they had all shared together the same concern with him with one heart and one mind when the mouse trap was brought. Only if they had all listened to him and realized that the trap was not only a danger for him alone but the ripple effect and its aftermath would have a consequence up on all of them alike. But all of them thought it was of no matter to them that they all had to pay a very heavy price for it.
Today when we look around us we have the mouse, the chicken, the goat, the cow and both the farmer and his wife too. In our quest for materialistic and individualistic approach of life most of us have now become immune and comfortably numb to all the happenings around us no matter how corrupted, alarming or worrisome it may seem. Snubbing and brushing off these alarming signals has become a dreary habit of ours. We like to sweep everything under our feet that occur every now and then, those sharp unseen bends and pitfalls that bring perils as non-existent or imaginary ones until we have to pay the price for our insensitivity. Now let us ask ourselves which one are we from the few creatures mentioned in this short fable? So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember that when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in it either directly or indirectly. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to help out one another. We are failing to understand the deeper meanings that have left only despair and anger within us. The course changing results which every one of us expects will only be a deluge, the upheaval, disarray and unpreparedness in its wake. Reverberations that will have impact on the coming generations where people have felt the multiple burdens of our own successive actions have imposed up on ourselves. The divisions within the people only reflect the people’s frustrations where our leaders have failed to heed. Deep schisms only seem to have open new wounds and festered new chasms within us. Our momentary lapse of reasons one too many times fails us to see beyond our comfort zones, passing fancies and temporary glories. Just a handful trying hard to make their voices heard to bring a change but drowned by the silence and indifference of the multitude who keeps on pretending everything is fine. Just some people trying to bring a change, trying to work out a strategy and bring a change only resembles like fireflies in the deep abyss.
The eyes are useless when the mind is blind. The mentality of ‘this can never happen’ must be replaced by ‘what if this happens’? Everything is inevitable in today’s world but we prefer to sit over the fence and just watch the things happening silently either to join the winning side if it favours us or remain on the fence if it doesn’t. There are three types of people in this world today; those who make things happen, those who see things happening and those who never know what is happening. Which one are you? Never be a silent spectator of unfairness or stupidity that is all around in plenty because the grave will provide plenty of time for the silence. Ours will be a better place if only a more responsible mass engages in the building of our own well being; only then it will be progressive society ; and not by being playing dumb or being numb to the idiosyncrasies around us. Only people instilled with the conviction and the commitment going deeper in thought, action and collaboration can help drive successful and meaningful outcomes. While we look on without any sensitivity the ground beneath our feet is shrinking and moving. Moral integrity surpasses all other values but this seems to be the rarest commodity amongst us today. Remember we are only confined by the walls which we build ourselves and what we may see from the hole maybe beckoning our conscience. Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds can never change anything. If we listen to the voices around us we can atleast be prepared for the changing seasons of circumstances and conditions around us that threaten our wellness and security. Many a times, the furore of the mouse represents a serious dilemma unlike the other animals who just brushed off when the mouse alarmed them about the trap until the price was too heavy and became too late that everyone had to pay sooner or later. Today some mouse may be calling us out to open our eyes and bridge the islands in our minds. Maybe today we all need a critical evaluation of ourselves of our thoughts and the serious paradox of the way we are heading. Those creatures depict political passiveness, visionless leaderships and indifferent attitude of ours .Today Naga intellectualism needs a serious recovery or else myriad practical problems without any contemporary solutions is bound to multiply. Many a times deceptive calm help to let the psychological barriers remain. In these trying times, there are two sections of the society that people look upon to lead the way for defending their rights –the intellectuals and the media. It is a good augury that a fairly large section of intellectuals have come out in the strength to oppose the decisions that has been going against their will and wishes. They have been able to sense the direction in which our society is moving. The taxation problem, the rotten debris of corruption all around us, the lack of transparency and accountability in every sphere of our life, the stoic silence of those organizations and institutions that matters most, the illegal immigrant issue and so forth. At the same time the overwhelming majority of us have chosen to remain silent. This is true of the media too. While a section of the media has been openly critical, others have been either one -sided or clearly partisan. Some have been chosen to be the flag bearers and brand ambassadors of the authority while others choose to be more vocal to the injustice and unfairness around us. The world is becoming more and more dangerous indeed not only because of some people who do harm but because of those people who watch on without doing nothing. Anything can happen to anyone. It’s best to be prepared. Delighting at our adversary’s misfortunes or constantly manipulating things to bring calamity on one another will ultimately be digging our own graves only deeper. The schism between the “real” world and the “virtual” world has become a place of endless speculation, potential insanity and idyllic haven. People never truly understand until it happens to them personally. We have all been blinded by cheap glitters, dubious distinctions and false hopes when we have so many other serious matters and alarming matters to worry about.
