I saw a hornet’s nest in a neighbour’s house in our community and was wondering what it was. My neighbour explained to me ,that it was a hornet’s nest. Till then, I had only heard of the idiom in English – “ Stirring a hornet’s nest” and had never seen one.

After a few days ,I noticed that the hornet’s nest had quietly disappeared from my neighbour’s home and set its nest at my backyard. I decided not to disturb the same but observe it every day silently and learn from it.

The English idiom goes as “Stirring a hornet’s nest”. The belief is that if you do not stir a hornet’s nest, it does not harm you. A hornet’s nest is a nest of wasps which can sting you, if you disturb them. As long as you do not disturb them, they do not harm you, in any way.

I have experienced this ,multiple times in my life. The first incident was when I had noticed a cobra in my bathroom at the steel plant quarters, where I lived. My wife had gone for delivering my first kid and I was staying alone. When I got up in the morning and opened the bathroom, I noticed that a cobra was relaxing inside my bathroom. I was scared . so decided to close the door and leave for office without disturbing it. In the evening, when I returned home ,I noticed that the snake had left my home ,from the same ventilator ,from where it had entered.

The lesson learnt from this incident is that ,if you do not disturb even a dangerous cobra, it will not harm you either. I have experienced this multiple times in my life time. It is equally true for dogs, cats or even monkeys, which generally frequent our community since it is green. It is full of fruit trees ,providing good fodder for them.

Life is no different ,in general. If we do not disturb the life of other human beings knowingly or unknowingly, nobody harms you. However, if we interfere in someone else’s life, then they do hit back either through words or actions.

We need to live life ,without harming anyone around us. It could be other humans,animals or birds. The moment we try to enter their personal space, they may harm us ,in order to defend their own territory. For eg. a snake may bite us, if we try to kill the snake ,using a stick in the garden. However, the same snake may disappear in the woods ,if we let it go ,as it may have just come to our garden ,in search of food.

Sometimes, we may also need to realise ,that due to human greed, we may have occupied the territory of animals or birds and not the other way around. We may have destroyed forests or lakes and built our homes, which originally belonged to these animals or birds. In this scenario, if they end up attacking us to defend their territory, we cannot blame anyone apart from ourselves.

Human needs can always be fulfilled but human greed is limitless. We need to learn to try and fulfil our needs and not our greed. The day we realise this basic tenet of life, we may have arrived and no animal or bird or plant will harm us in any way.

Let us learn to live and let live from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

3rd Sep 2023