Heard of the Hindi adage “Akal Badi ya Bhains“ ? Literally translated it means, ‘Is the brain
bigger than a Buffalo’. A pretty straight forward question, depending
on where the pointer rests in a sliding scale showing the respondent’s IQ. Do you agree ? I have seen buffaloes and they are large
enough to outsize some of the pea brains that one comes across, but then even
discounting the expanse of the grey matter, I would confirm that Buffaloes are
larger than a Brain. But I see a smile on the people’s faces when I profess
this view point.
I had the opportunity of meeting Rajni Kanth once in the
airport lounge, and asked him the same question. Yenna Rascalla, he exclaimed
in typical Bollywood style, “don’t you know nothing can be bigger than
Rajnikant “ he roared, and I clapped, more because of being a Rajni fan, than
for having been proven right.
Incidentally Laaluji was standing right behind and he could not but vent out his frustration.
“That eez Korect baba, he exclaimed continuing in his typical drawl, “try telling that to the judge sahib, you
peoples do not know that my bhainswa has eaten all the fodder, and nobhady bhelieve
me when I tell them that Bhainswa is always bigger than bhrain (sic)”. That
were two people on my side now.
Not convinced yet ?
Ask your local butcher ! Am sure he would laugh at your suggestion that
a Brain could be larger than a Buffalo. When I checked, he mentioned a rate of Rs.500
for a goat’s brain, (I don’t know if its a fair value, being a strict vegan
myself) and said that as far as a buffalo goes, I would have to deposit around
Rs.5000/- to be able to order for a fully dead Buffalo. So definitely a buffalo
is larger than a brain
But then for each person whom I could count on my side there
were many who would never agree with me, and some of them would dedicatedly start
trying to asses my IQ, in the process of proving me wrong.
So it happened that one of my more learned friend was asked
the question to dwell upon, and he narrated me a story which goes like this.
Once upon a time, a mustard farmer was into hard times, his
crops had been failing regularly and he
had no answers for the reason thereto. He tried doing many things to improve
the crop which did little to help his fortunes.
Living right next door to him was his clever cousin who
would make a fortune every season. Tired
of being looked down upon by his family for his poor record at farming, he
decided to secretly watch what his cousin was upto.
The first season the cousin planted small black Papaya
Seeds, and harvested huge yellow papayas. The poor farmer noted down the
difference in size between a mustard seed and the papaya seed and said oh so
the size of the seed matters.
The next season, again the mustard crop failed, and the poor
guy again spied upon his cousin, only to see him planting Mango seeds and lo and behold soon had a
flourishing Mangrove.
Dito! the third season,
this time the cousin planted coconuts. The size of the seed is growing by the
year noted the poor farmer, soon the coconut
saplings started reaching for the sky, and the poor farmer continued to rue his
luck at mustard farming.
If the size of the
seed is the only factor which matters, then I shall plant the biggest seed that
any one can plant, said the farmer. He
started digging 2x2 trenches in his
farm, and dug up the whole farm into trenches, as if preparing for a Nazi invasion.
Are you crazy, cried his wife
desperately, why are you destroying the farm, she asked. Shut up! Cant you see, I am going to plant
the biggest seed that I can lay my hands on and become the richest farmer in
town, he exclaimed.
So saying he set out to the local fair to hunt for the
largest seed to plant. No sooner had he reached the fair, his eyes fell on the
vendor selling huge pumpkins, green huge ones, larger than any that he had ever
seen. ”Oh such large seeds, thank god for giving me directions” he exclaimed.
He wasted no time in buying a load of pumpkins from the vendor and stealthily
in the darkness of the night, managed to plant a pumpkin each in the
trenches that he had dug. Tired
and exuberant in anticipation, the farmer decided to take couple of days off,
to await a huge bounty that awaited him.
It so happened that next night, a group of hogs were out hunting
in the fields, they lost no time in
digging up all trenches and made a meal of the sweet load of pumpkins that were
buried underneath. Finding the load of
pumpkins too difficult to finish off in one night, they camped into the
trenches they camped on in the trenches.
When the farmer came back after few days, what he saw devastated
him. The entire field was in shambles. The trenches were a stink, and covered in hog excreta.
There ended my friends story, so you see, he said, size does not matter,
brain does he exclaimed.
I smiled sheepishly, you do not perhaps know the entire story, let me finish
it for you I said, staunchly defending
the poor farmer as I continued.
Depressed with the turn of events, the farmer developed a
fever, and was bed ridden for a month. Incidentally
it was the sowing season and it started to rain cats and dogs. As the rain drenched
soil soaked up the rain water, the hog shit started adding fertility to it, the
pumpkin seedlings which were in the hog excreta, took roots, and wonder of
wonder, two hundred saplings sprouted in the slushy barren dug up farm. After
two months of convalescing, the farmer diffidently returned to his farm, what he saw was beyond
description. Meters till his eyes could
carry he saw the most lush farm that he had ever maintained. Ripe pumpkins were
laden on the ground, a fortune appearing as if out of nowhere, Gods finally answering
his call for help. So all’s well that
ends well, the poor now rich farmer made a fortune selling his produce in the
market and lived happily ever after, always making sure to plant the biggest
seed that he could come across.
So you see big is always beautiful. Lot of us go by quality
vs quality, what street smart colleagues achieve by cursory manipulation of resources,
the lesser sure among us slog it out for longer times. Whereas the manipulator
or the super intelligent walk away to the bank faster, the slogers take their own
time, like the proverbial slow and steady
tortoise, find their fortune they do, but with lots of patience and hard work.
Bigger the input larger the returns they belive.
Big is indeed beautiful, when in doubt always refer to Bollywood.
