Dolphinasana

Basavaraju was doing his PhD in Zoology in the Indian Science Association. When he was looking for ideas to work on, his mentor suggested working on intelligence in other mammals. So, Basavaraju attempted to teach a dolphin, party manners and yoga.

Basavaraju went to the Ocean Research centre of India and adopted a dolphin for his research.

After a year of training, the dolphin learnt yoga and party manners. A huge gathering was called in India Science Association grounds. When the Dolphin showcased a few difficult asanas of yoga, the crowd shouted out their “oohs”. When the dolphin showcased impeccable sense of party manners by wearing a bowtie on its own and asking waiter for a perfect cocktail respectfully through Indian Sign Language (ISL), the crowd shouted out their “aahs”.

Then a well-known zoology researcher, who went by name Siddavarma, who was also an old teacher of Basavaraju,  questioned whether a dolphin can think on its own, or is it just doing some circus tricks, the crowd gasped “Ohs”. Professor Siddavarma was jealous of Basavaraju’s progress with the research.

Basavaraju didn’t know what to do. But Dolphin asked the challenge to be translated to it in ISL. After Basavaraju translated, Dolphin nodded its head, thought for some time and mentioned. “See, if I have to do yoga with a bow-tie, to touch my toes while lying on the floor, the bow-tie interferes with my breathing by blocking my nose. So Professor Siddavarma, you belong to an intelligent species, correct? Give me a solution on how to do this asana with the bow-tie.” 

Professor Siddavarma was perplexed by this counter challenge. He suggested removing the tie, but Dolphin insisted on keeping it. The professor along with the crowd went silent. 

After sometime when there was no answer from Professor, Dolphin broke the silence (through Basavaraju as translator), “Professor I am not undermining your intelligence. But, what Basavaraju was trying to prove here is that every species has intelligence in their own way.”

The crowd started murmuring. Professor Siddavarma was agitated, he shouted angrily “Enough with all the teaching-one-lesson. If you really are that smart, tell me the solution for your problem.”

Dolphin replied with a smirk through Basavaraju “I just turn the bow-tie around to the back of my neck and do the Yoga” and then it moved the bow-tie back and touched its legs with its fin, to which the crowd went wild.

~END~
(Author Notes: This story was written as part of creative writing workshop class-work, to write about another student's emotional object. The object was a rubber doll of a dolphin, wearing a bow-tie, with the bow at the back. It had its Flippers trying to touch its Flukes. This was the shortest time I took, around 20 minutes, to come up with an idea and write the story. Most of the elements of the story were already there in the prompt. I tried to insert a joke about Professor Siddavarma's backstory for jealousy -something like his own research failing to push a Sperm Whale to monkhood, but left it out because of brevity.)

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