The ants go marching...

"That small red ant walking across my desk may mean nothing to the world at large, but to me it represents the world at large. It represents industry, single-mindedness, intricacy of design, the perfection of nature, and the miracle of creation." When I read these lines in Ruskin Bond's Funny Side Up, I am reminded of my childhood pastime of watching ants.

To my boyish, curious eyes, ants were creatures of great wonder. Wherever I noticed ants, I would squat down and keep peering at them. I was amazed to see them moving strictly in a well-formed row while we, the children at our school, despite several warnings from our teachers, hardly walked in a queue as meticulously followed by these little creatures. Even when I placed an obstacle like a piece of chalk in their way, they never strayed away; they just went around the hurdle and resumed crawling in a row. It was a wonder!

I would sometimes scatter a few sugar crystals along their path and watch them keenly. Not once did I find them fighting each other over the sugar crystals, which were their food. One by one, they would lift the sugar crystals and carry them slowly into their holes. I could not help but wonder at their unity and sense of community.

One evening, while watching a row of ants, I saw a strange spectacle involving a few dead ants. My curiosity was roused, not by the dead ants, but by the living ones crawling in a row on the ground, lifting and carrying the dead ants. I did not know where they were carrying the dead ants. I surmised that, unwilling to abandon these dead ants, the ants were carrying them to their nests beneath the earth. I followed the parade to the flower plants in our garden, where it ended at a hole with a heap of sand around it. I understood they had carried the dead ants into their dwellings. I admired their concern for their fellow dead ants.

Though I derived pleasure from the pastime of watching rows of ants, I took care to place myself at a safe distance when I came across red ants and huge, quite visible, black ants. Unlike the small black ants, which are innocuous, the red ants and big black ants sting whoever comes in their way or disturbs them. However, I never attempted to slay ants, even red ants and big, black ants, simply because I loved them, and I always regarded ants as our little, wise teachers, which teach humans how to be disciplined, how to maintain unity, how to work hard in silence, how to share food in a community peacefully and unselfishly, and how to be concerned and compassionate towards our fellow human beings.