Where Do All the Ants Go? 

When I was in third grade, standing in front of a mirror with two plaits of hair on either side held hostage by two ribbons of equal size cut precisely by the store owner, I saw the most spectacular sight: a trail of ants, marching marching and marching. I screamed and asked, “Amma! Where do all the ants go?” Her screaming response amidst the pressure cooker whistles told me something similar to how they were headed to a wedding. The little parcels they were carrying were gifts for the bride and the groom. What a well organised wedding guests! 

Another day, with the white foam of toothpaste slicking down my chin in front of a blue Hindware washbasin, I saw another trail of ants marching marching and marching. Another wedding! To see their disciple, I tried to break the crowd by placing a finger breaking the single file line with parcels for the bride-groom. After a detour, they were joined again, all disciplined, without a tut-tut of noise except for the Lub-dub of dripping water from the soap stained rusted pipe. What a well united family! 

Often I see them escape into the tiny pip-like holes in the walls in my 20 something year old house, and I wonder if they reside there, packing parcels for the next wedding, the wedding after and the wedding after that. I imagine them seeking revenge for breaking their family once, a toothpaste monster with a giant finger breaking their commotion, by gnawing on the 20 something year old bricks and wood and cement and all those that go into a building. 

Sometimes, they roam around aimlessly like military troops in the border. Sometimes, they disappear from our house only to turn up in the next summer again, gnawing and chewing and packing and pip-pipping holes. 

After all these time, I still wonder, 

Where do all the ants go? 

A wedding? A funeral? 

A home? 

Or as those young people call it, 

Are they 

Wanderlusts? 

- Krishna J. Nair | 18.06.2020