Tower of Babel and the implications...

“As I told you before, I started to paint to kill my boredom. I painted pretty normal pictures initially. One day, I happened to see the painting of the Tower of Babel. I soon learnt about the legend behind the painting. It was really wonderful and I was spell bound by just looking at it. I couldn’t sleep that day. It really impressed me very much and I couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks after that day.“

“What’s so special about it?” I asked her with curiosity.

“Didn’t you come across it anytime?” She asked me.

“No.” 

“It is one of the wonderful biblical concepts and that painting creates goose bumps in me whenever I see it. As the story goes, there was a great flood after which all the people on the earth came to the land Shinar, found a plain land there and started to dwell there. The whole earth had only one language and only one form of speech then.The people of the earth became extremely skilled and decided to compete with God. They decided to build a city with a tower whose top would reach heaven. By erecting such a tower, they wanted to make a name for themselves. God came to see their city and the tower they were erecting to ascend to his throne. After seeing that, what God did was something really amazing. He noted the powerful force with a purpose in the unity of people. He realized that nothing could stop them, as all the people are one; they all spoke one language and had one common purpose. So he decided to come down and break their unity by confusing them. First he decided to make people speak different languages thereby splitting them on the linguistic lines so that they would not understand each other. And then, God scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.” 

As I was totally enthralled, I remained spell-bound and motionless. She stopped for a second and looked askance at me. 

“Are you listening to me?” She asked.

“Yes! It sounds very interesting. Please continue it Priya.” 

“That was the start of all the commotion around the world we have now. God initially introduced innumerable languages into the world to split the people so that they would not be able to understand each other. See how beautifully the Tower of Babel explains the origin of multiplicity of languages and the current wide split in the humanity. The story might not be true. It doesn’t matter to me. All that matters to me is the beautiful concept and the implications that we can derive from them. Even God is vulnerable if all men on earth unite themselves with a common purpose. The beauty of the theme wonderfully captured in the painting hit me hard.” 

“So, God created the languages to separate us?” I asked her.

“Yes, and for that matter it could be anyone who wanted to sway control over us. God noted the powerful force within our unity of purpose and hence created languages. To confuse us, separate us and control us. What are we doing now? Apart from language, we have created more and more barriers to unity. Religion, region, caste, race, color and what not! We want a separate region for the slightest deviation in language. We break our heads in the name of religion. We dare not touch our fellow human beings in the name of caste and we laugh at the color of the fellow being who worked with us for the tower. What’s happening to us? Why are we craving to be in separate groups? Why are we looking for every opportunity to separate from one another? When will we understand that we are becoming weaker and weaker?” 

An excerpt from my novel THE LITTLE HEARTS....