Why do apples grow on trees? My seven year old tossed up the question during one of our ‘chat sessions’. He actually meant ‘why do plants bear fruits’. The chat sessions are a routine affair during bed time-when he is done with everything for the day, satisfied his hunger for cartoons, games, of course food and has no other reason left to stay awake. I pretend to get angry at him for staying awake, but kind of like our chat since that’s the only ‘quality’ time I get to spend with him! The question didn’t come as a surprise to me since I have been used to similar ones for some time now. I have successfully fielded the ‘Why’,’Where’,’When’,’How’ variants of the same problem for over a few years now. Also, it’s not just my kid who is expert at asking such questions. Most kids at his age will stump you with questions, if you are not used to them i.e. In fact it’s my firm belief that as you grow, the complexity of one’s questions decreases and that of the answers increases!
Coming back to the apple- Now I must admit that I have been carrying a little grudge towards the red fruit. Irrespective of what the doctor says, I hate apples. Firstly because they are the reason for all the evil as described in the Garden of Eden story. So an apple was responsible for putting mankind into all that misery. No longer did man manage to come out of that, another ‘apple’ committed the cardinal sin of falling on to someone’s head. Children are still punished for that ‘sin’ of the apple. In my childhood days we often wondered why Newton could not take a vacation to the Caribbean and deal with a coconut instead! Even if I choose to forgive the apple for these misdemeanors in the past, I hate it every time I go to the market and have to part with a hefty sum to buy few of those. So it remains a ‘forbidden fruit’ for me!
But currently, I had to deal with the apple that was thrown at me by my kid. He was waiting for me to say ‘I don’t know’ so he could ask me to google for it. Well he loves doing that! I don’t know if it’s my inability to answer that excites him more or the fact that Google ‘answers’! .Irrespective, I didn’t want to give him a chance and told him ‘I am thinking’. The simplest answer was “Because God wished so”. I have been desisting from giving such ‘Godly’ answers to his questions so far. They are too simplistic for all the effort he takes into thinking about the questions (or at least it is my belief that he thinks over). Not to be misunderstood here, and theologically speaking “Because God wished so” may be a correct answer after all! But then, I fear that if the answer to all his questions were so simple and similar (actually the same), then the questions would stop! So God has been out of the equation between us, so far. Honestly, I did not know the answer! I mean I kind of figured out that it had to do ‘something’ with reproduction and all, but didn’t remember studying about it during my school days. Well, certainly not after that! So I sneaked into the bathroom with my cellphone and googled for it! I was able to answer him to the levels he could understand and finally put him to sleep. Not myself though!
For the novice (and I was one till a few days back) an apple basically carries the seed of the plant and nourishes it till the seed is good enough to reproduce. It also attracts other animals who eat the ripe apple (well the apple is not edible till it’s ripe!) and deposit the waste (including the seed) at different places, thereby enabling the species of apple to spread far and wide!. Isn’t that fascinating? What a fantastic way to ensure the existence of one’s species! Millions (millions is easy when you don’t know the exact numbers) of species on the planet have their unique way of survival and growth. The uniqueness is not just in the way, how they reproduce, but also based on the habitat, survival rate, threats thereafter. So while the apple carries two or three seeds, a watermelon has hundreds of them. And I am sure every plant, every animal is changing itself to adapt to the habitat continuously .The changes may be too subtle for humans to recognize in their few thousand years of ‘intelligent’ existence! Many species predate humans by millions of years. So quite a few of them possibly might have seen the evolution of Dinosaurs and their extinction! Seems sea whales were land animals millions (again million!) of years earlier until the increasing water levels and dearth of food forced them to turn aquatic.
The human race (and their predecessors) too have evolved over time. However it’s different in case of human beings. While all other species have adapted to the habitat and the changes to it, humans have –by virtue of their intelligence, managed to alter the habitat-for better or worse. Human race has been largely successful in managing the evolution of other species to satisfy their needs (and much more). Farming, domestication of animals and similar activities were actually focused attempts at altering the evolution process of the other species and removing the randomness out of the equation. The problem is – Humans have taken it too far along. Not satisfied with taming other species around, they started (or at least intended to) control ‘other’ humans. All forms of fights, battles, wars since historic times have been with the intent of ‘controlling’ the existence and evolution of fellow beings for the benefit of others. Over years, humans have narrowed their identity by virtue of divisions by geography, color, creed and all possibly variants that their fertile brain can think of. The pinnacle of this idea is the concept of ‘individual evolution’ at the cost of everything (and everybody) else! We see that around everywhere and every day!
Before you begin to be peeved over the obviousness of these facts, let’s turn the tables a bit. Given that apples predate humans, is it entirely not possible that the apple species, over time have evolved themselves into something that’s more ‘useful’ for the humans-thereby necessitating their cultivation? In other words, instead of humans driving the control, it might just be the apples who altered themselves to the human needs so as to have efficient evolution! What better means to survive and grow than ‘tame’ a human being! After all, who benefits from an orchard? The owner? NAY!! It’s the apples all the way :) !.
Well, we may have to wait till the next mass extinction on earth to determine if it’s the human genius that survives or the apple genes. As of today, I would bet my money on the apples. After all, they have seen the dinosaurs. We haven’t!
Coming back to the apple- Now I must admit that I have been carrying a little grudge towards the red fruit. Irrespective of what the doctor says, I hate apples. Firstly because they are the reason for all the evil as described in the Garden of Eden story. So an apple was responsible for putting mankind into all that misery. No longer did man manage to come out of that, another ‘apple’ committed the cardinal sin of falling on to someone’s head. Children are still punished for that ‘sin’ of the apple. In my childhood days we often wondered why Newton could not take a vacation to the Caribbean and deal with a coconut instead! Even if I choose to forgive the apple for these misdemeanors in the past, I hate it every time I go to the market and have to part with a hefty sum to buy few of those. So it remains a ‘forbidden fruit’ for me!
But currently, I had to deal with the apple that was thrown at me by my kid. He was waiting for me to say ‘I don’t know’ so he could ask me to google for it. Well he loves doing that! I don’t know if it’s my inability to answer that excites him more or the fact that Google ‘answers’! .Irrespective, I didn’t want to give him a chance and told him ‘I am thinking’. The simplest answer was “Because God wished so”. I have been desisting from giving such ‘Godly’ answers to his questions so far. They are too simplistic for all the effort he takes into thinking about the questions (or at least it is my belief that he thinks over). Not to be misunderstood here, and theologically speaking “Because God wished so” may be a correct answer after all! But then, I fear that if the answer to all his questions were so simple and similar (actually the same), then the questions would stop! So God has been out of the equation between us, so far. Honestly, I did not know the answer! I mean I kind of figured out that it had to do ‘something’ with reproduction and all, but didn’t remember studying about it during my school days. Well, certainly not after that! So I sneaked into the bathroom with my cellphone and googled for it! I was able to answer him to the levels he could understand and finally put him to sleep. Not myself though!
For the novice (and I was one till a few days back) an apple basically carries the seed of the plant and nourishes it till the seed is good enough to reproduce. It also attracts other animals who eat the ripe apple (well the apple is not edible till it’s ripe!) and deposit the waste (including the seed) at different places, thereby enabling the species of apple to spread far and wide!. Isn’t that fascinating? What a fantastic way to ensure the existence of one’s species! Millions (millions is easy when you don’t know the exact numbers) of species on the planet have their unique way of survival and growth. The uniqueness is not just in the way, how they reproduce, but also based on the habitat, survival rate, threats thereafter. So while the apple carries two or three seeds, a watermelon has hundreds of them. And I am sure every plant, every animal is changing itself to adapt to the habitat continuously .The changes may be too subtle for humans to recognize in their few thousand years of ‘intelligent’ existence! Many species predate humans by millions of years. So quite a few of them possibly might have seen the evolution of Dinosaurs and their extinction! Seems sea whales were land animals millions (again million!) of years earlier until the increasing water levels and dearth of food forced them to turn aquatic.
The human race (and their predecessors) too have evolved over time. However it’s different in case of human beings. While all other species have adapted to the habitat and the changes to it, humans have –by virtue of their intelligence, managed to alter the habitat-for better or worse. Human race has been largely successful in managing the evolution of other species to satisfy their needs (and much more). Farming, domestication of animals and similar activities were actually focused attempts at altering the evolution process of the other species and removing the randomness out of the equation. The problem is – Humans have taken it too far along. Not satisfied with taming other species around, they started (or at least intended to) control ‘other’ humans. All forms of fights, battles, wars since historic times have been with the intent of ‘controlling’ the existence and evolution of fellow beings for the benefit of others. Over years, humans have narrowed their identity by virtue of divisions by geography, color, creed and all possibly variants that their fertile brain can think of. The pinnacle of this idea is the concept of ‘individual evolution’ at the cost of everything (and everybody) else! We see that around everywhere and every day!
Before you begin to be peeved over the obviousness of these facts, let’s turn the tables a bit. Given that apples predate humans, is it entirely not possible that the apple species, over time have evolved themselves into something that’s more ‘useful’ for the humans-thereby necessitating their cultivation? In other words, instead of humans driving the control, it might just be the apples who altered themselves to the human needs so as to have efficient evolution! What better means to survive and grow than ‘tame’ a human being! After all, who benefits from an orchard? The owner? NAY!! It’s the apples all the way :) !.
Well, we may have to wait till the next mass extinction on earth to determine if it’s the human genius that survives or the apple genes. As of today, I would bet my money on the apples. After all, they have seen the dinosaurs. We haven’t!
