It all started with the drawing of a boa constrictor
from the inside and a boa constrictor from the outside. This whole drawing
describes the charm, the transparency and the whole nature of humanity in this
masterpiece, The Little Prince by
Antoine De Saint-Exupery.
The year 2013 is the 70th anniversary of
The Little Prince and the whole world is celebrating it in one’s own way of
loving the Little Prince. So, I thought of celebrating my love for him too.
Thus I took it out of my shelf and read it once more. And my experience since
then cannot be comprehended in words alone.
The story revolves around the narrator and the
Little Prince who left his planet in search of a friend, feeling betrayed by
his love, the flower. Little Prince tells the narrator all about his quest-
where he lives, the places he visited before coming to earth, things he learnt;
some he understood, some he didn’t, some he liked, some he didn’t. No, it is
not a science fiction at all. It is a simple story in itself. But the message
it carries and the way it carries it is beyond any appreciation. Little Prince
is a symbol of innocence and loyalty which has been compared to something
fragile. The reason is obvious, isn’t it? We are losing our innocence, loyalty
and the desire to love truly and unselfishly amidst our daily rush and it has
become so rare, that it is on the verge of becoming extinct and need intense
care to be protected. We, human have suppressed it under our pride, ego, greed,
conceit. We don’t even know ourselves; we don’t even know what we are looking
for. Hence the Little Prince has rightly said, “The men where you live grow
five thousand roses in the same garden and they do not find what they are
looking for. And yet what they are looking for can be found in a single rose or
in a little water. ”
We have become too blind to appreciate the beauty
around us. We are either too busy with numbers or too busy with things of
superficial importance to realize how forlorn we are, with no friend at all. We
have forgotten how to look with the heart. The metaphors that the author has
used are marvelous. The author has compared humanity with that of a flower. He
has defined the strong magic of true love with the help of a flower. Throughout
the book we will often find ourselves in the shoes of the characters- whether
it is the Little Prince, the narrator, the flower or the fox, only to realize
with great contempt what we have lost. We will be reminded again of the
sparkling water of a freshwater spring, the music of the glittering stars and
the refreshing sound of a child’s laughter.
The Little Prince is a symbol of man’s curiosity to
know the unknown, a symbol of man’s unquenchable thirst to explore the world of
knowledge. Yet we are deeply saddened by how we have lost that. The author
mocks at us when he says he had to bring himself “down to his or her level” and
talk about bridge, golf, politics and neckties. “And the grown up would be very
pleased to have met such a sensible person.” There is a particular incident
when the Little Prince hears his own echoes across the mountains and thinks men
are answering to him. And he says, “People have no imagination. They just
repeat what one says to them”. The author mocks at people’s loss of imagination
here. Such simple yet majestic irony can only be achieved by an extraordinary
writer.
The brilliantly written work of an artist portrays
the whole humanity in 109 pages. He not only gives an unknown definition of
humanity but also paints an unseen picture of nature too. He describes how we
are in a way responsible for the natural calamities that occur every now and
then by not cleaning our earth as Little Prince cleanses his volcanoes and
hence they are mild. He describes this artificial world with nothing but sheer
sarcasm.
The Little Prince will leave you contemplating for
years. If you get the idea that it is just a children’s book, I have only one
thing to say to you- Read it and you will never see the world again in the same
way as you do now, I promise!
