Ants and Grasshopers

I saw a grasshopper today, rare seen on a winter day. As I was enjoying its graceful, slow movements, the famous fable “The ant and the grasshopper” came to my mind. I started visualizing the ant, extremely hardworking, storing food for the winter ahead, and the lazy grasshopper merrily singing with no worries of future, struggling to survive when winter arrives.

I was doing a course in a reputed institute. We, group of 100+ were sent there for this course by the company recruited us. The course was part of our induction training and it covered diverse subjects to enable us to perform well in any of the department that we would be posted to. If I say it was a jolly good time, it would be an understatement. Great environment, lots of facilities, exclusive hostel building for us, higher stipend than other non-sponsored regular students, above all good food!  But, yes, we had to study and also to get up 5:30 AM every working day for PT conducted by an instructor. No attendance in PT, no stipend for that day. So we used to drag our feet for the same.

As usual, sub groups were formed on Linguistic basis. I was part of a gang of 7. Each one of us used to mingle with others on a need basis. For a group activity like playing mischief, group study etc, we used to flock together. Things went on smoothly till we stumbled upon Tool Design.

Tool Design was new subject to most of us. It was a tough subject for all in the group. In addition the prof was giving only the clues for us to fill in the blanks. Where is the question of filling in the blanks when we were totally blank? To add to our miseries, his classes were just after the Friday lunch, the special one of the week. “Avial” was the specialty for the lunch and we used to sleep happily in his classes. (We used to get the dry concentrated Avial which would have quick and enduring effect!).

After two weeks into this subject, in the sub group discussion we realized that if there was a subject that we would fail in our life, it would be Tool Design. ( The fact of the matter was that as per norms we could afford to lose one subject and would have no impact on our career or degree. We took a clacutaed risk as we were doing well in all other subjects.) No further action plan drawn. We decided to become grasshoppers as far as this subject was concerned, no worries of future.

Winter (exam season) came by. We grasshoppers tried to get notes from ants. Many refused; some nice ones shared their notes with us, though it didn’t help us much. We joined together just for a chat, as we had nothing else to do on the night before Tool Design exam. “I managed to get this” the “grasshopper senior”, who was the mastermind behind all our adventurous and mischievous ventures, pulled up a booklet. It was last year question paper evaluated with score of 47 out of 50. We mugged up the answers, without knowing many questions fully! An ant snooped in to check what we were up to, seeing that it was just last year paper, he laughed at us “ Are you dreaming, in a reputed institute like this such things would never happen” and went off without paying much attention.

In the exam hall, question paper was in front of us, we were not tense but anxious to see how many questions would be repeated from last year. As the time started we opened the booklet. Menon, two rows ahead looked back at me showing a thumb down. I just could not react. Forget about repetition, the format itself had changed, it was no more an objective type exam. There comes the announcement from the prof “Look. Don’t bother about page 1, it is part of some old question paper, attached by mistake. You can start answering from Page 2”. I turned to Page 2; I could not believe my eyes. It was the same old bloody (excuse me for the language, excitement was so much then, I cannot use any other word even now) question paper which we had mugged up last night. Exactly 7 minutes up, Menon was out of the exam room. I followed him after 5 minutes – mind you this was a 2 hour exam.

All 7 of us got marks between 40 and 45, based on our memory power! Many poor ants struggled to get even a pass mark. The snooper ant could not digest this. He formed an ant group went and complained to prof asking for a retest. “In this institute this is unheard off. Why only they got it (old question paper)? You could have got it as well”, Prof was on our side. So we survived by sheer luck.

There was a short story in our PU curriculum by English writer W. Somerset Maugham "The Ant and The Grasshopper" in which he explains the lives of 2 brothers one being an ant and the other being a grasshopper. Similar to our Tool design experience, what unfolds in that story is totally against the moral of what we learn in the original fable. If you haven’t read it, I would request you to do so, it’s an interesting one.

Given a choice, I would like to be grasshopper forever, what fun it would be? But will I be lucky always when it's winter time, sadly the answer is no. That leaves me with no choice.