The Flying Penguin

"Look at the family of penguins. Each one is so happy in it," said a little fish.

"It’s not called a family; the group of penguins is a COLONY," corrected the mother fish.

Unlike the penguins we know, these penguins of Freedom Island had broader wings. They flew high and briskly flew down to catch the fishes that they could see from heights. On the seashore, the young Penguins played rolling on the sand and the elder ones just relaxed and took sunbath. The colony was so happy in its own way.

“If the group of penguins is called the COLONY, what are we called?” asked the little fish.

“Hasn’t your teacher taught that? The group of fish is called a SCHOOL,” said the mother fish feeling a little upset about her baby fish’ question.

*****

Once, while flying swiftly from the sky down to the surface of the sea to catch a fish, a penguin lost control and fell into the sea. It was shocked and breathless with water all around. Suddenly different fishes surrounded the penguin and started pushing it, “Come on… Swim! Flap your wings!”

The penguin somehow managed to reach the surface, inhale some air and drowned again. It flapped its wings again, reached the surface, exhaled the old air and inhaled the new air. Wow! It found this new game amazing!

“Why did you fall down?” asked a fish to the Penguin.

“Well, I don’t know. I think wind blew heavily and I lost control,” answered the Penguin.

“Perhaps he is not trained to fly in such situations,” commented another fish.

“Not trained? I just saw my parents and other penguins of my colony flying. I tried and started flying,”

“That’s the problem. Have you seen any fish losing control and flying in the air?” – asked one of the fishes.

“Never.”

“That’s because we train them in our School of fishes. From the very childhood, we teach our young fishes swimming, discipline and much more,” said a fish proudly.

“What’s that much more?”

“We discipline our young fishes. We teach them how to swim in a line. How to remain awake without wasting time even at night, just taking minimum rest.”

“But, why do they have to swim in a line? Why should they not sleep?”

“Discipline! We want to be civilized like human beings. They are the most advanced creatures on this planet. And sleeping? It’s just a waste of time. We want to prepare our young fishes to work hard like humans.”

“But we, the Penguins never follow any lines. We just fly randomly. We catch you and eat when we are hungry. We sleep sufficiently when we feel tired.”

“That’s why you have remained so backward in your life. You have no aims, no purpose for your life. Learn to swim. Follow discipline. Work hard,” said the fish.

The days passed. The penguin spent a lot of time observing and learning from the school of fish. It learnt the art of swimming, joining the queues of the other fish. It controlled its sleep and felt guilty whenever it slept more although it had no great work to do. It was programmed wonderfully by the fellow fishes.

By then the broad wings of the penguin had also turned into short fin-like structures of the fishes.

‘Now, it’s time to step up. I should learn from the most advanced creatures of the planet: the human beings,’ – thought the penguin and left the sea.

The penguin disconnected itself from the colony of other penguins and started roaming around the places where human beings lived.

‘We, the group of penguins is called a ‘colony’. The group of fish is a school. What is a group of human beings called?’ – the penguin wondered.

It soon learnt that human beings are not as simple as fishes and are much more complicated than penguins. Their groups are called crowd, family, team, class, troupe, army, choir and so on.

‘But I want to be like human beings: so intelligent, so advanced and so sophisticated. So, I must learn. The group of learners is a ‘class’ and I find it in schools. Yes, that’s where I should learn from: the school,’ decided the penguin.

The penguin started observing the classes hiding near the classrooms. Like fishes, human beings also followed discipline. They made lines of small human beings to walk within the school. They made some ring sounds to let young ones out and inside classrooms. They ate when the bell rang. They played when another bell rang. They went home when another bell rang when the sun was about to set.

The penguin realized that human beings follow something called ‘time’ and ‘time-table’. Unlike us, the penguins –human beings don’t eat when they are hungry, they wait for the right time. They don’t play when they want to; there’s a time for playing. There’s a time to eat, play, sleep, relax, gather, make love – there's a right time for almost for everything! What a discipline! Perhaps this makes them the most advanced creatures on the planet.

Although the Penguin didn’t understand what was taught in the classrooms at the beginning, it slowly understood that human beings learn the rules of the language called grammar. ‘Maybe that’s why human beings are best at exchanging ideas and emotions with each other.’ It noticed that they learn something called Mathematics – quadratic equations, trigonometry, calculus, game theory and whatnot! ‘Maybe that’s why they are so smooth in exchanging what they have with what they need in life.’ They know about stars and planets and call it Science. They learn about the parallel universe and multiverses. Amazing!

After a few days, as the learning became heavier for the silly penguin’s brain, it just moved away from the school and started roaming in the town. It peeped through the windows of humans’ homes and families and noticed hatred, fights, misunderstandings and the root of all these called ‘ego’, which existed only in humans. The Penguin wondered, ‘then language and its rules are not something so important because humans are not living in perfect harmony.’ It went to the streets and markets to find if quadratic equations, trigonometry, and calculus are used to exchange what they need with what they have. The penguin got more confused seeing that those mathematical concepts are not used by anyone. It wondered ‘Then why are they teaching and learning all that in the classrooms? Well, that may be used by some human beings at higher levels in different places. But is it worth teaching them to all students, at such an age, without knowing their interests, wasting their precious time?’, the Penguin’s opinions about human beings kept getting changed. It kept contemplating how does knowing the respiration system of birds and knowing how cockroaches reproduce young ones help humans to improve their lives?

As it kept roaming, the Penguin had learnt walking almost like humans. It saw the meaninglessness in many things. It just recollected its earlier life. Did I lack anything in life before I fell into the sea? I was just flying high, catching fish, rolling on the sands of seashores playing with my colony of Penguins. Have the schools of fish and schools of humans made my life better in any way?

It was tough to answer.

But it had lost its broad wings. It had forgotten flying. It was small legs to walk and short fins to swim, just like humans and fishes.

It realized:

I was a bird and my very identity was flying. I was right and beautiful as I was. Is it truly worth learning so much just to realize it is not worth learning?