The tale dates back to very old days when human race was still hunting for food. There were two tribes, Tribe-W and Tribe-E, living in a nearby territory.
Tribe-E was living in the same area for many centuries. They had a long and glorious history. They had their Heroes who achieved a lot in different fields from science to medicine, and from arts to politics. Unfortunately for Tribe-E, most of their ancestor's knowledge lost in the passage of time. Still they held a very high degree of pride in the achievements of their ancestors.
Strikingly opposite, Tribe-W had migrated to this place very recently, with no known history, no heroes, nothing to hold pride about. They were living in the present. The people were working hard to understand different things around them and using this understanding to improve their life.
One day while playing with branches of a tree, one curious member from Tribe-W came up with a new idea of a weapon, which can be used for hunting. It was a bow-arrow, and was very effective for hunting fast moving animals from long distances. The chief of the tribe encouraged this idea and a team started working on this newly found weapon to increase its range and accuracy. In a few months time, with hard work and dedication, they mastered the art of making a perfect bow and a very sharp arrow.
All this time, members of the Tribe-E were watching Tribe-W people hunting with this new weapon and they understood how effective it was. Some of the scholars from the tribe quoted the use of a similar weapon from their ancestor's literature. The weapon was commonly used by Tribe-E ancestors a few centuries back!! All the tribesmen were extremely happy and proud of their ancestor's achievement.
In Tribe-W, the new weapon made hunting relatively easy and took less of their time. In the free time, they started enriching their sociocultural experience by spending more time with family and friends, and cultivating different hobbies. The expert bow and arrow makers started producing excess of these weapons to trade it with nearby tribes, including Tribe-E.
Even after few years of expertise in making bows and arrows, an expert from Tribe-W would take half an hour to make one arrow, and 2 hours to make a bow. In a day, working for 9 hours, he would make 2 bows and 10 arrows. The price of a bow was five times that of an arrow, justified by the time taken to produce the respective. Though the income from bows and arrows was comparable, the art of making a perfect bow was much more complex and involved than that of making an arrow.
A wise man from Tribe-W came up with a new idea. He suggested to transfer the less complex skill, that of making arrows, to Tribe-E. It saved almost 5 hours for Tribe-W expert to concentrate on the more complex task of making bows. It was a win-win situation, as Tribe-E got to learn the technique to make arrows, and then they could trade these arrows with the bows made by Tribe-W. Tribe-E people started working very hard to make more and more arrows. They were happy because it was bringing prosperity in their tribe.
In Tribe-W, people were now getting more free time which they invested in doing research and generating ideas to make human life even better. They came up with ideas for generating energy, storing it, locomotives, guns, farming and many more. At this time, they thought they were wasting their precious time in making bows, which was now a routine task. Thus they subsequently transferred this skill to Tribe-E as well. Tribe-E was now on the seventh heaven as they started providing the end-to-end solution for hunting.
By this time, the researchers in Tribe-W had matured the concept of Guns as a modern hunting weapon. They started producing guns and bullets. These were extremely effective compared to bows and arrows, and thus threw the later out of business.
People of Tribe-E were jobless and starving...they went back to Tribe-W to ask for some different form of work to feed themselves...This was anticipated by wise men of Tribe-W, who now transferred the skill of making bullets to Tribe-E, keeping the key skill of making guns within their own tribe. And the story continued...
Even till date, many members of Tribe-E have not understood the importance of technology and research. They are still spending their time in carrying out secondary tasks given to them by Tribe-W, and feeling extremely proud of the money they are earning and the prosperity they are bringing to their tribe. Many people of Tribe-E are far away from understanding that the trade with Tribe-W started with a win-win situation, but its not anymore the same...We hope that the day will come when they start investing their time and money into research, technology and idea generation, so in future they can dictate the terms. We hope that they learn to lead and not to follow..
देशाचे भवितव्य
4 weeks ago
