A Story shared by Shashidhar
Our situation is such as it happened in the second world war...
A small airplane was left in the jungles of Burma when Japan was defeated; the Japanese
left it there. The aboriginals who lived in the forest found it. They were really very curious,
excited – what is it? But seeing the wheels... they figured out that it is a kind of bullock
cart, but some idiotic people have made it because this is not the way bullock carts are
made. They started using that airplane,small airplane, as a bullock cart. Just by chance a
man, a hunter, saw them; he could not believe his eyes – an airplane being used as a
bullock cart! He asked them, ”Have you made it?”
They said, ”No, we are not such idiots, why should we make it? We have found it. But we
are enjoying it.”
The hunter was from a nearby village where he had seen buses, cars. He said, ”It seems to
be a kind of car. It is not a bullock cart. You just wait; I will bring one of my friends who
knows something about buses.” He used to work for a bus transport service. So they
brought some petrol, and it did work like a small bus.
And the people thought it was hilarious. They said, ”So we were wrong, it is not a bullock
cart; it is a bus. Great idea!” They enjoyed it.
And then the mechanic who had come said, ”I don’t know much about airplanes, but as far
as I can see it is not a bus. I have seen airplanes only in the air. My village is small.
Buses come up to my village and I have worked on the buses so I can help with this
airplane – but this is an airplane because you can see the wings. I know a man in the city –
I will find him and I will bring him – who knows about airplanes.”
And the man from the city came and he said, ”What nonsense is this? You are using a
beautiful airplane as a bus, and that too in the jungle where there is no road, nothing.
You are just dragging it through muddy roads. It can fly.”
The aboriginals said, ”It can fly? Is it a bird?”
He said, ”It is a bird – have you not seen steel birds flying?”
They said, ”We have seen, but we have never seen them on the earth.”
The man managed... he took a few aboriginals with him and the airplane functioned as it
was supposed to function – it started flying. And the whole village was dancing, beating
their drums, singing, ”This is great! A bullock cart flying!”
Man is not just a mundane physical, material phenomenon. He is not just a bullock cart, but
that’s how we are using him. We are all using ourselves as bullock carts. We can be buses –
– but we are not buses either. We are airplanes.