Sometime during the hot month of June this year, I picked up a fruit to eat, and I found out that it had already been half eaten into by something which was not a human. It was not very difficult to figure out that the real culprit was actually a mouse. To put an end to this invasion, I decided to lay down a trap for our visiting nocturnal rodent, and I did so for the next three nights in a row. I was clearly dealing with a smart one this time because, well, nothing happened. I was supposed to leave the house for a few days the next evening, so I decided to not lay the trap for the time I was gone. Because if I did, and if the trap did manage to catch the mouse while I was not around, s/he would’ve probably died in those days of my absence. I checked all the taps, windows, appliance connections, locked the doors and left. While driving to my destination, a thought struck me which I’d like to share with you folks through this post.
First of all, what was the thing which prevented me from killing this nuisance? If it would’ve died when I was not around, it shouldn’t matter, right? In fact, good riddance I’d say. And yet, I couldn’t do it. I’m not saying that I’ve these saintly instincts which pop up every now and then and force me to perform such noble acts. I’m as practical as anyone of you when it comes to rodents. But then the bigger question is, why do we perform such acts in the first place? When I pondered over it I realised, that while most of the mousetraps designed in the West are designed to kill the creature, the ones designed here in India are designed to capture it, and not kill it. This although is an obvious finding, it’s not a small one. It leads us to a very significant point:
Is culture really that deep-seated in our day-to-day lives that the design and purpose of something as simple as a mousetrap is also defined by the boundaries of the same culture that you and me are a part of?
In most of the first and the second world countries, especially the ones in the West, killing any creature has never been a big deal. Mice in America and Europe, kangaroos in Australia, sharks in China (not exactly West though), you name it. These killings have usually been justified either by the rules of the food chain, or by Darwin’s theory. However, in a country like ours, killing of anything big or small, significant or insignificant has always been considered as a sin. From the teachings of sacred books from the post Vedic era, to what our parents, teachers and elders taught us when we were kids, killing another living being has always been strictly forbidden. Now the argument of us killing chicken and goats in the name of food chain doesn’t hold true here, because as far as my understanding goes, West also doesn’t really relish eating these rodents. While we love our chicken breasts and mutton kebabs, just like the West. And before I go any further, this is not an East vs West, or ‘my culture is better than yours’ debate. I’m presenting the facts as they are to get to a better understanding of the bigger force in play here. And that bigger force in play here is Culture.
At the risk of being called technically off the mark, I’d like to speak of culture and value systems in the same breath. For those of you who don’t know, ‘value system’ is a technical term from the field of Sociology, which simply means ‘the system of established values, norms, or goals existing in a society’. Value system defines culture, and as this culture matures and evolves, it in turn alters the value system, as and when required. While the value system of the West tends to deal in absolutes, our value system advises the middle path, the melodramatic ‘offer the other cheek’ theory, non-violence and what not. How much we as mortals from both the cultures follow all these values is a different thing altogether, but the value system just doesn’t give up! Which is precisely why, while it manages to alter the design of a goddamn mousetrap, it fails to stop incidents of mob lynching for moronic reasons, murders, rapes and wars. And have no doubts, the section of society that indulges in these brainless activities was also brought up under the same umbrella of value systems, like you and me. So is it you and me who qualify as rebels, or is it them? Would we also one day, if given a free rein, be capable of indulging in such senseless acts? Or have we already done that in the past in some big or small measure, and we’re not even aware of it? Is it the cognitive ability of the human beings that makes one digress from the guidelines of culture as per convenience, or the whole idea of value systems is flawed in the first place? Or to break it down to something very simple, is it just a small part of the usual gigantic cycle of evolution?
While I cannot answer these questions for you, I hope, just like me, you find them intriguing enough to ponder over, one day. Or you can discuss this with your peers on one of those Friday nights over scotch, when you run out of other things to talk about. In the meantime, two things are guaranteed here: One, you’ll never look at a mousetrap in the same way. And two, till the time I’m here, my visiting rodent will survive. And now that I’ve traced his/her daily route, I keep a fruit for him/her separately, so that it doesn’t dig into my supplies. So my fellow (un) cultured reader, for now, the whiskered rat lives!
Edit: After further research, I found out that Gandhi’s ‘offer the other cheek’ theory is actually not indigenous. He himself borrowed it from the New Testament’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’.
Himanshu Awasthi (89hardy) 