Vimoh's Blog

The storyteller put down his pen and rubbed his aching fingers. He decided that writing a story was hard work. Every once in a while, he entered other stories. Just to soak in the environment and revel in the company of the characters.

So he travelled into the story of the five blind men who were investigating the curious case of the elephant. When he got there, they hadn’t had much luck. He watched them stand near the elephant and run their hands all over it. Mrs. elephant didn’t seem to be enjoying it, but she bore the groping bravely, perhaps for the sake of the spirit of investigation.

The storyteller approached the blind men and asked them about the conclusions they had reached and duly recorded their answers.

Blind Man #1: (fondling the Mrs. Elephant’s shapely trunk) I have concluded that the elephant is like a thick soft rope. It has horizontal creases all over it and there is an opening at the end of its rope-like body which it probably uses for intake of nutrients or for excretion, or perhaps for both.

Blind Man #2: (exploring Mrs. Elephant’s broad side) I am amused by the first gentleman’s imagination. I have been running my hands all over the subject’s body for a long time now and nowhere have I found evidence of anything rope-like in nature. In my considered scientific opinion, the elephant resembles a wall. Careful study will reveal its skin to be moist, thereby proving that the elephant consumes nutrients from the atmosphere, absorbing them through its skin.

Blind Man #3: (running his hands up and down Mrs. Elephant’s firm legs) I do not like to get into arguments. This is why I won’t comment on the profoundly stupid conclucions of my two learned friends. The elephant, I believe, is very much like a pillar. In fact, the elephant is not a living creature at all. It is simply a rigid, unmoving, and inanimate structure.

Blind Man #4: (tugging at Mrs. Elephant’s lithe tail) That is preposterous! The elephant is very much alive and not at all like a pillar. I can vouch for it. The elephant is like a rope, but not a thick and long one, like another deluded gentleman here seems to suggest. The elephant is a short, light rope that flicks about all the time. Indeed, it has slapped me on my face several times in the course of my investigations into its nature.

Blind Man #5: (standing with his back to the elephant and slicing the air with his outstretched arms) I believe what I can observe and prove, unlike all the others here who seem to be guided by their delusions. The elephant doesn’t exist. I have spent a lot of time looking for any sort of tangible proof, but there is none to be found. There is no such thing as an elephant.

The storyteller stood around for some time, wondering what to do next. Then he thought that perhaps the opinion of Mrs. Elephant herself might help clear things up. So he asked her what she thought. It didn’t go well.

Mrs. Elephant: (angrily) You are enjoying all this aren’t you? I will see how well you are doing after you have been surrounded and humiliated by all of them seekers of truth. Wait till my husband hears of this. This was totally against Indian culture!

The storyteller didn’t think it wise to press the point. Mrs. Elephant stomped off the scene and he returned to the five blind men who were still arguing.

Blind Man #5: Seriously! I consider it beneath me to even listen to the kind of drivel you people are pushing. Where is the proof? Where is the documented evidence? Where, for that matter, is anything resembling any of your ideas about this so-called elephant?

Blind Man #1: I, sir, have felt the elephant’s presence myself. It exists, whether you choose to accept it or not. The rope that is the elephant has always been and will always be.

Blind Man #4: I agree on the rope bit somewhat. It is possible that you and I are referring to the same thing. Perhaps the rope is thin at the top and thick towards the other end.

Blind Man #1: No! The rope is thick on the top and thin towards the end. There is no denying that. Do not dare mock my theory.

Blind Man #4: I wasn’t mocking anything… I merely wanted to point out that…

But it was too late. The first blind man had thrown himself at the fourth and the two were soon rolling in the dust yelling obscenities at each other. The storyteller saw that the second blind man was enjoying this immensely. He asked him why.

Blind Man #2: Their quarrels only show how unsure they are of themselves. They are only proving that the elephant is not like a rope at all, but in fact, like a wall, as I have demonstrated.

Blind Man #5: (sarcastically) Or maybe the elephant doesn’t exist at all, as I have demonstrated.

With this, the second blind man threw himself at the fifth blind man as well and they too, in no time, were rolling in the dust yelling obscenities at each other.

The storyteller drew a gun (he was a storyteller after all, and storytellers can draw upon anything from imagination) and fired a shot in the air. The blind men stopped fighting, some more reluctantly than others, and got up.

The storyteller put the gun away and asked them to sit down. He was asked what the loud cracking sound was and he told them it was thunder. They believed him (he was a storyteller after all).

The storyteller then requested all the blind men to sit down and discuss what they felt to be true. He told them that he was sure (he was not) they would find a way out of their disagreements if they just talked about it. The blind ones agreed.

Before he left the story, the storyteller managed to listen to the fourth blind man admit to feeling something like a pillar occasionally brush against his hand when he was trying to grab hold of the tail. The second blind man, in his turn said he hadn’t really found anything resembling a border to the wall and admitted that it was possible that there was more to the elephant than he had thought.

The fifth blind man laughed at all of this. The storyteller laughed with him.