By Wg. Cdr. V. B. Purang, [ Thursday, April 20, 2006  ]

The convoy was unending. One followed the other closely, the movement at an even pace. I had noticed it while sitting under a banyan tree, where I had dashed off a few minutes earlier from the bank of a large pond nearby. We had moved to this remote place, abundant with natural beauty in the Vindhya region, on my father’s retirement. I had just entered the third standard then. 

The convoy vanished into a thick bush. The convoy, consisting of hundreds of ants, in a flash took me back by a couple of years, when I was in Ambala with my father. While waiting for a taxi, I had spotted the convoy. It was an amazing sight for my young mind. One after the other an endless stream of vehicles passed by. My father had explained that those were army vehicles and were going for a mission. 

My mind started relating the two convoys with the motivation and the keenness of purpose displayed by both. I was highly impressed with the devotion and sense of purpose in both cases. All of a sudden I felt an excruciating pain at a few places in my leg and winced. As, I bent down to find the reason, I could see some ants stuck to my body. It was their bite that had caused the pain, as I had inadvertently stepped on them. My feeling began to change from that of appreciation to one of rage towards the creatures. However, simultaneously my subconscious self heard a question from the ants and it was,” Why did you disturb us in our habitat?” I was stunned. I had no answer to the simple question, as I accepted that it was my fault for having trespassed into their territory. 

Years later, while I was supervising leveling of a site before commencement of construction of a building in our office complex, I found some rabbit-burrows and ant-holes being razed. My heart choked with a strange feeling. The thoughtless destruction being caused by us humans to innumerable habitats of various creatures for our selfish needs has already resulted in extinction of large number of species. This phenomenon threatens the very existence of the ecology and humanity if not arrested soon.

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