By Shubham Basu
Aug 22, 2004
Last Thursday, on the 19th of August, the first bear of its community discovered something which would eventually lead to the civilization of its likes, moreover it hit upon something which the vocabulary of humans rhymes with its name. In the state of Washington, at one of its remote campgrounds a revolutionary incidence happened, which might even shake the foundations of what we can debate as a conscious mind or the illusionist. A bear strolled and perhaps lost its way in the woods to discover the warmth of life, the stead of ecstasy, the golden gripe.
Man, since the very first time its nose, its ears, its limbs started resembling the modern man, something else changed in him. He started losing hair, meaning from then he would have to take care of keeping himself warm, all by himself. Dean Kamen didn’t face the challenge first, man came across the first puzzles of gyroscopy when his forearms started receding making it inconvenient to crawl on four. But evolution always helped. First man learned to walk in cycles, sometimes on two, sometimes on four. I would imagine the pre-pre-pre historic men having Olympic like events of walking on two without falling on four. Man was evolving in measures. Some increment in brains and some challenge to solve, which came as an instinct. Imagine a dog whose forelegs are taken off suddenly, can he be trained to walk on two with ease? Somebody thought of this question before and thought better of it. With an all day unconscious effort towards walking on two, man first noticed that the green leaven look more beautiful with mist around, pretty colorful things standing amidst, where butterflies occasionally station at. Suddenly one night man struck the first flint. It helped them simulate the sun, heat and light. It also helped them keep other animals away which were still to strike any resemblance between fire and sun. He first made a leather urn to store water so he did not need to run to the stream or pond every time he was thirsty and found the corner next to it convenient for storing fruits. Meat tasted better when he roasted it. He discovered that he looked mysterious when he wore skin around his groin. He started decorating himself. The understanding that the men were supposed to bring food back, became even more prominent, while females tried hard to keep the faithfulness of her partner, for protection and security, she inculcated ways even advanced to attract her partner, which would be beyond the fancy of mere animals. While man was busy figuring out his role, competing in ‘walk on two feet contests’ and the female first discovered that she looked pretty when she looked into the water stored in the skin, the apples stored nearby started rotting. The smell was intoxicating. The first man thought of making a brew before it was spoiled completely. The taste was different; he had good sex that night. He let some more apples rot. The word spread. Humanity first tasted the golden gripe, the gentleman’s palate. He shared his food, and kept the gripe for last. Everybody went home happy.
The story of the bear starts right at this point, not in the order of chronology, but as an analogy. The papa bear lost its way and found the casket. The smell was intriguing, he is far advanced in the chart of evolution. He opened it, and found a store of cans of Busch and Rainier. He dug his teeth into one can of Busch, the taste did not delight him. Either some instinct of taste played a role or the color of Rainier held his attention. What ever the case, he had the sense of distinguishing. He downed 36 cans after that. Next day the authorities found his asleep and the empty cans tossed around. This wasn’t a mere act of curiosity. Curiosity led him to the casket, but his mind propelled him to repeat the act. The authority thought of keeping an eye on the bear which had discovered the most novel human invention. The next day he came back again, but to his dismay there wasn’t any beer. I wonder how he would communicate his feelings to his community. There is an added faculty now to his search in life, the first rungs of humanity. I wonder whether his search would ever end.
P.S.: I call the bear, him instead of it after its first enlightenment, though meager in the eyes of human. For incidence report I recommend the BBC News World edition, dated 19th of August, 2004.
(c) Copyright 2004-2007. Shubham Basu