Sudhirendar Sharma
Let us start 2015 with a question about ‘question’, and an assurance that it will fit into the flavor of this page. Haven’t we been digging ‘questions’ where there have been ‘none’ from rather mundane happenings in life all this while? So, let there be one more. To say that ‘to question or not to question is the question’ does not raise any ‘question’ on the plight of those who are at the receiving end of a ‘question’. Students quibble questions; teenagers resent probing wards; employees grudge questioning bosses and so on……..a question creates a situation when otherwise sensible people get temporarily stumped, feeling let down and envious of themselves. Yet, one can hardly escape being its victim!Human mind has so evolved that given a chance the ‘stumped’ too shall resort to asking questions, sending fierce bouncers along the same pitch. But why humans ask questions? Is it a psychological stint to assert supremacy or a moral obligation to probe deeper? Whatever be it, evolutionary biologists contend that humans were not born with this unique ability to ask ‘question’. It was a cognitive add-on over first thousand years of evolution! And, there hasn’t been any looking back since then.
Many of you would want to ‘question’ the evolutionary hypothesis! But before you jump to do that, you ought to realize that there is an ‘answer’ to your ‘question’ lurking somewhere. Whether to your satisfaction or not, more than one answer has always been there because ‘question’ alone makes a fearful company. And, questions you encounter wherever you go…..in the garden, on the road, in coffee shops, in newspapers, on the internet, inside the Metro…….anything but ‘question’ survives…….poor ‘answers’ keep chasing them endlessly!
If answers are lying scattered all round, whether or not stupid or intelligent ‘question’ gets asked, then why should humans not be searching for ‘answers’ only? It is too trivial a matter to be left alone because at the end of the day we might be the ‘question’ we are trying to ask? Till you grapple for an answer, imagine if nobody knew what a ‘question’ was, in letter and spirit, and the world was not asking any ‘questions’? Sans ‘question’, life would have been such an ease for students, teenagers, husbands, employees, bureaucrats and even politicians. Teachers would have gained the most…..no answer books to take home for checking!
But people could still be asking ‘how are you’? After all, it (how are you?) is a greeting and not a question.
(Dr Sudhirendar is Director, The Eco-logical Foundation, New Delhi.)
