(The Nationalist, July 2001)
Once upon a time there were five blind men living in a village in India. They had all been blind from birth. From time to time they would come together for a drink and to enjoy each other’s company. The conversation often turned on what things might look like. They would try to visualize what shapes things had.
One topic that particularly fascinated them was elephants. Everybody spoke of them with respect and some fear. The blind men used to speculate about them. So it went until one day a kind neighbour said that there was a tame elephant some distance away belonging to a cousin of his. He volunteered to bring it to the village so that they could get a feel of it.
The great day came when the elephant arrived. The first blind man went up to it and happened to catch hold of a tusk. He let his hand run along it and felt the point at the end. He turned to his friends and said, ‘This reminds me of that thing which sighted people call a spear. An elephant is a kind of spear’.
The second man was at the opposite end. He caught the elephant’s tail; it reminded him of a snake. ‘An elephant is a sort of snake’, he said.
The third man approached from the side. He put his arms around a leg and immediately felt that it was familiar. ‘A tree! An elephant is a kind of tree!’
The fourth man reached up his hands and felt the elephant’s stomach. It was big and strong and fairly flat. What could this be? It seemed like a wall. ‘An elephant is a kind of wall’, he said.
The last man was near the front and was too timid to touch anything. He just stood there while the elephant flapped its huge ears. It was delightfully cool. ‘I know what it is’, he said, ‘An elephant is a fan’.
And that is the end of the story. I didn’t compose it; I heard it years ago. There’s a truth in it.