GODBOLE RISES AGAIN

A.K.RAMAN

I was sitting, relaxed, enjoying every second of the leisure time, inhaling deeply the free oxygen rich air in the park. It was around five in the evening and I had one full hour more in my hand to pass as per my wish. I was watching the children and the old men and women walking round and round the path laid at the edge of the park.
Suddenly my eyes fell on a lean and thin man squatting under a tree gazing at something below on the ground. Something in him caught my attention. I had a nagging feeling that I had met him earlier. Was it the bald head, the curly hairs just above the ear lobes, the large and protruding egg like eyes or the French cut beard not suiting his face? I could not put my finger on it. It could be the eye brows tied in permanent knot or the way he dressed. He had put on his fading coat buttoned from top to bottom even in this 115 degrees summer evening like a mad……. I snapped my fingers. It is none other than Mr. Er er Dr.Godbole. I got up and rushed towards him.
“Oh! God! What is he doing in the open park on the hottest evening of the year?” I wondered.
“Dr.Godbole! Sir! Dr.Godbole!” I called out loudly. There was absolutely no reaction.
“Sir! I am Jokelekar. We have met in my house last summer.”
Again there was no reaction.
“Sir! How is the progress on the Time machine? Have you developed technology to move faster than light?” He looked up. As usual there was no expression in his eyes.
“Sir! What about the tuners, filters and amplifiers for selecting the desired light signal?” I reminded.
“Uh….Huh. Please don’t disturb” He spoke at last.
“But Sir! The suspense is killing me. Please say something about it.” I prompted.
“It is in design stage. I will show it to you as soon as the machine is built. No need to remind me. I remember my promise. More over you are the only person in the world who knows about the project. You are the only one person to understand and encourage me. But now please get last.” He waved his hand.
“By the by. What are you doing here? Are you working on any new project? Are you postulating a new concept planning to work on it?”
A look of surprise flashed on his face.
“Oh! We are in the same wave length. Your mind is tuned to mine. Tell me how you found out?” He said in a wonder struck voice.
“Found out what Sir?
“You are really dull.” He remarked disgustedly. I groped in the dark, not knowing how to react.
“Tell me who leaked the information?”
“What information Sir?”
“Information about my new theory which I had postulated just three months before.”
“What new theory Sir?”
“I was just conducting a study and was trying to establish contact with them. I was about to succeed. You came like a bolt from the blue and poked your nose in. See all have left.” There was lot of irritation in his voice. I looked around. All were there engrossed in their respective activity.
“Conducting a study?” I asked looking around to see some symptoms.
“Four hours of hard work has gone in the wind because of you. In another fifteen minutes I would have established contact with them and could have made some sort of working agreement with them. Then they would be at my disposal and would clarify all my doubts. It would be interesting to know how they did it.”
I was hearing a lecture in Greek and Latin.
“It was once in a life time opportunity and I failed to grab it because of you. See. All of them have left”
“Please tell me who has left? Please pardon me for my ignorance.”
“The ants of course, you…………..” Suddenly he looked up and let out a peel of laugher. In between that frightening sound he spoke.
“Oh! You are not aware of the project in full. Don’t worry. Failure is the first step to success. The ants will come tomorrow. Come on. Let us sit on the bench near that bush. I will tell a startling fact of nature and the right course the mankind should take to safe guard the earth and mankind itself.”
I followed him like a faithful scapegoat and sat in the bench.
“Have you heard of Darwin?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Then tell me his theory of evolution?” He asked me as a teacher asking his student.
“It has something to with evolution of man from monkey and something to do with survival of the fittest. Am I right?”
“Wrong. Absolutely wrong.” He replied loudly.
“Sir?”
“I am not telling you. I am talking about Darwin’s theory.”
“Now scientists like me are not ready to accept his theory.”
“Why Sir?”
“Simple. If one form of life evolved from another, then there will be only one form or two forms of life on earth or may be three or four. That is only few forms. Not more than that.”
“Why so Sir?” I asked totally confused.
“Don’t you see? If man has come out of monkey, then you can see only monkeys and human on earth till the process of evolution was going on. Then you will see only human. You can not see any monkey.”
“You are absolutely right Sir.” I remarked meekly and unconvinced.
“But you are seeing thousands and thousands of forms of life even now.
This proves that Darwin was wrong.” He went on enthusiastically.
“Yes Sir. You are absolutely right.” His reasoning skill was remarkable.
“But from where these thousands of forms of life came from?” I asked.
“There are thousands of stars in cosmos. Some stars have planets revolving around them. I am sure some planets sustain life. Life in one planet may be different from that on another planet.”
“It is possible Sir.”
“Comets come from far off places crossing stars and their planets on their way. These comets could have attracted small pieces of rock and dust from different planets. Some of the rocks could have carried life along with it. Some of the comets might have come very close to earth and could have been attracted by earth and fell on it.”
“I have heard about such occurrences” I prompted, stalling for time.
“That is how different forms of life from different parts of cosmos reached earth. This theory explains the similarity between some groups of life like cats, tigers, dogs and lion. You can take the case of Bears, monkeys and human. Birds form another group and fish form another group.”
“So you say there was no evolution at all.” I remarked to keep the conversation going.
“No. I did not say that. There was evolution, evolution in form and intelligence. The rate of increase in intelligence is different in different forms of life. That explains why different forms of life ruled the earth at different ages.”
“Yes Sir. The Dinosaurs ruled the earth once upon the time”
Yes! Yes! Of course. Your response proves that you could understand me well.”
“Then can you explain why they became extinct after obtaining the highest IQ level?”
The intelligence should be used for understanding nature and learn to live with nature. Otherwise it will lead you to destruction”
“Yes Sir. Development of nuclear weapons is one example” I volunteered.
“You are correct. Most of the life forms which ruled the earth did not understand and destroyed themselves. But some of them understood and learned to live with nature”
“You mean that some forms life attained highest level of intelligence and ruled the world and are still living in the earth.”
“Yes. You are right again.”
“I am not seeing any of them around here”
“You are seeing them daily. Only thing is you don’t understand them.”
“Please tell me which are they? How they did it?”
“Ants, Bees, white ants to name a few.”
“Interesting! Please proceed.”
“Have you noticed the similarity of their society to ours?”
“Like?”
“Like Kings, Queens, servants, soldiers……”
“Yes. Yes. I know…..”
“I know you know this much. What else you know?” He snapped irritated. Sensing his irritation I kept mum.
“Do you know that they fight wars like us?”
“………….”
“They come in different colors too. Red, Brown, Black, with and without wings”
“Yes” I mumbled without meaning anything.
“Do you know that they cultivate and harvest?”
“It is news to me Sir.” I submitted politely.
“Do you know that they keep cattle and milk their cow?”
I did not know at that time, but later on referring through books I understood all his statements were true.
“To do all these things with such a small sized body……..” I wondered slightly excited.
“That is the point. I wanted you to say that from your own mouth.”
“What is the point Sir?”
“It is the size of the body. They were not as small as they are now. They were bigger, almost to our size.”
“Then how come they became so small?”
“They opted for it.”
“But why?”
“They wanted live. They wanted to avoid extinction”
“I don’t understand Sir.”
“Let me explain. They were facing the same problem we are facing now, population explosion, shortage of food, water and other commodities.”
“How they solved the problems?”
“They handed over the problems to scientists like me. They agreed to abide and implement suggestions. They were ready to sacrifice their scientific advances, their easy way of life, their comforts and pleasures, in fact everything to keep this earth for themselves and others.”
“Did they achieve it?”
“Yes they did it. They shrunk their size by doing some genetic modification so that they would consume little food and occupy little space. They gave the pleasures of reproduction to selected few. Most of them agreed to do service to their society like servants. They decided to lead a nature friendly life without polluting the earth. The result is here for everybody to see. They are still with us, living everywhere and in all conditions.”
“So you propose to do the same thing for us.”
“Yes. As a first step I wanted to establish contact with them and develop communication methods with them. Once successful I can learn from them the problems faced by them after shrinking their size so that we can avoid those pit falls.”
“But how will you shrink our size?” I asked.
“Select the strongest breed, take their gene, do some modifications to shrink the size, do some more modification to switch off their past memory and retain the modifications in future generations. These are all technical matters. Leave them to experts like me……………”
I was not at all listening as some movement behind the bush caught my attention. Mrs.Godbole, the doctor with the syringe and four stout men were closing in on Mr.Godbloe. Within few minutes Mr.Godbole started his return journey fully unconscious. Realizing that it was too late I also started my return journey planning strategy to cope up with my better half’s queries.


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