If you had to be an animal for a week, which one would you be and why?
Back when I was in school, there was a time period I remember when fictional stories about people changing or morphing into animals were very popular. They were in popular books, they were in stories of popular movies and TV shows, they were everywhere, even in some weird rumours associated with reality.
The most popular in my side of the country was a person changing into a snake. Yes such entities are part of mythological stories, but their presence in reality is more imaginatively entertaining, because I can imagine people running away falling and screaming if they actually came across one.
We as human beings are well aware of our strengths and weaknesses, while we do possess what can be called one of the greatest abilities in organisms, that is the ability of thought and understanding. We have created a world of our own vision based upon that ability. At the same time, we are also aware of the many abilities we are naturally not so much gifted in and we have found artificial means for many of them or have brought nature to our advantage, like oxen ploughing the field.
But the ‘what if’ part of it is very alluring right, what if we could become an animal, retaining our ability to think, bring to our advantage some of the other abilities, more strength, more speed, heightened senses. Wait, does that sound like many of the superheroes? We will ignore that part. So, while we might not become a superhero, we can always imagine to feel an ability to a certain degree of freedom to do more than we can, even though many of us don’t exercise regularly and do the most of what we actually can.
In my school days, if someone asked me the animal I wanted to become, it would definitely be a tiger. Tiger is part of the culture, the identity of the nation, it’s part of many writings, so in my mind the big cat has a special identity unlike any other animal. Later, when I gained some weight, but I remained very active, physically and mentally, someone said I was like a bear and I thought not bad, bears are interesting right, ask Rudyard Kipling.
Now in the present, in a life where I have grown in this human made environment, accepting most of what it provides, I don’t think I can live too far away from all that, I cannot just switch to an animal and change my life around completely, even for a few days. Then I look at my dog coming to me barking for dog biscuits and I know what I could be, have some interesting abilities and still be very much at the heart of this human made world.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 