....................
Continued from where it was left in part 1
RECAP from last part.....
However in a world light years away in distance and time; there were lots
of Elephants and many blind people who would go in groups of 5 or 6 or 8 to
“experience” the elephant. Unfortunately the wise-men in that world were
usually meek or indifferent (many a times due to the past bruises received while
trying to be otherwise)
So when the 6 blind men
‘saw’ the elephant in this world the argument started and the wise man silently
witnessed. So the discussion after a few verbal bouts reached to one conclusion that
the elephant is like a thin rope. Unfortunately the blind man (let us call him
Mr. Z for easy reference) who could only feel the tail had the loudest voice in
the group. Naturally he was most active and most persistent participant in the
discussion. So the other 5 initially reluctantly accepted that the elephant is
like a thin rope. However; now that they had accepted it; so eventually each
one of them started believing that the elephant being a thin rope is the right
interpretation of the anatomy of the elephant. Initially some challenged but were
quietened by Mr. Z’s charisma (or loud voice) at first and then by the others
who had slowly surrendered their beliefs to the confidence in the voice of Mr.
Z. So eventually for good or for bad elephant was a creature that resembles a
thin rope. Everything was fine till one day they were crossing the road as a
group and an elephant cut loose from circus came running towards them. The
whole ground shook under the mighty feet of the huge beast and people who could
see screamed and asked them to brace as the enormous pachyderm were charging on
them. However; they, by now “knew” strongly that elephant is nothing but a rope
so the all tried to extend their hands towards the sound of charging elephant to grab "the Rope." All were soon crushed under the monumental limbs of the beast.
Moral of the story: The one with
most charisma or the loudest voice may not always be right.
Like I said earlier,
this world we are talking about had many blind men and many elephants and least
concerned “wise-men”
So on a different day in
this world a different set of blind men were introduced to the elephant. And
the people being blind were again subject to just a specific characteristic and
the same debate started. There was a "Mr. Z" in
this group too, but some others had heard about a group of blind men who were
trampled by an elephant while they followed a Mr. Z and this Mr. Z was not too different.
So they started discussing and trying to keep the out-spoken one at bay. The
one who had felt the abdomen and thought the elephant to be a wall, just
whispered to the one who had felt the feet, “So you think it is like a pillar
and I think it is like a wall, may be it is like a fort with walls and
pillars.” “That sounds so right!” The
other one complied. So they asked for a vote and decide democratically. So
while the other ideas were split 1 per person, these two guys collaborated and
decided that elephant is like a fort. As luck would have it after they all had
developed complete confidence that elephant is like a fort; they were charged
by an elephant. People with eyes screamed and asked them to run for safety as
an elephant was charging towards them. But why would they run? They knew that a "Fort" can’t walk or run; so the people with eye must have been mistaken. Alas!
the fate of these was no different than the 1st group.
Moral of the story: Democratic
decisions can be better than autocratic ones but still not always bring the
best outcome
And again
this is not the end of the story, because no story should end till everything is
right, happy and festive so wait for the next installment of the story maybe tonight…
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