Tuesday, April 7, 2009

aashaan, darwin and another poet

Drive to school should be tough for Mihika! She, I am sure, would be wondering every day what acha would come up with for the day - it is 'discussion time'! Most of the days we end up talking about something she learned, but that day 'we' decided to talk about my favourite poem - aashaan's kuTTiyum thaLLayum! (http://kkps.tripod.com/homepage/poem.html)

So, we reached the line where the child is asking the mother why the world is as it is (she can not fly, but the butterfly flies, etc.) and the mother replies that we know little, it is all god's imagination. (naamingariyuvathalpam, ellaam OmanE daiva sankalpam). I normally tell her that the concept of god is a philosophy, and the discussion then turns to Darwin - I sort of explain that according to Darwin, the butterfly flies because it needs to escape from its enemies. We discuss about survival of the fittest, etc. and I end the discussion saying that I would like to change the poet's last line to ellaam OmanE Darwin sankalpam.

Then I call home. I am telling the above story to my father, mother and brother. My father is a strong believer, I am wondering what his reaction would be. But the talk goes on, and I end up asking one of my favourite questions: Why are our noses not turned up instead of down? According to Darwin, there is only one answer for this question: There, most probably, were humans with noses turned up, but they did not survive. Here is what followed:

Achan: this is what our old poets have sang about long back
Me: what?
Achan: chanthi enthiiiiinu randaaaaaaaayi piLarnnathu?
(come on, add some music to it)
Achan: Then the poet himself finds the answer
Me: what?
Achan: chanthamOdE irikkaanum, thoo.aanum!

There is Darwin in a nutshell ;-)