Saturday, July 21, 2007

A Little Ant Story

OLD VERSION..... The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
MODERN VERSION..... The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving and calls for a Nepal Bandh to protest this 'Soshan'.
Kantipur, Image and Nepal 1 show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The nation is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
The Civil Society steps in and stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house and a concerned group goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.
Amnesty International and Ban ki Moon, the eighth Secretary General of the UN, criticizes the Nepali Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).
Immediately laws are tabled to prevent Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter. The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by all TV and media.
Everyone hails it as "a triumph of justice and revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden". Ban ki Moon invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.
Many years later...
The ant having lost everything has since migrated to the US in despair and set up a multi million dollar company in silicon valley. As for the grasshopper.... well, thousands of grasshoppers continue to die of starvation...

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