We might be smart, but ants are smarter

THE ants formed an almost straight line to one of the legs of the table, and then another line went up the leg and onto the tabletop where the mithai was. I watched this coordinated procession with fascination and recalled that EO Wilson had found them to be amazingly smart creatures. This time, they were spoiling a perfectly good piece of barfi!

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The coordinated way in which the ants were passing on the barfi crumbs reminded me of the song ‘Saathi haath badhana’ and photographs of the construction of the Bhakra dam where workers are seen passing baskets of building material, forming a human conveyor belt. It also brought back memories of a wonderful contraption for storing food — the humble doli.

Keeping food safe from nasty things such as cockroaches, ants, flies, lizards and rats was very important in those pre-refrigerator days. It was not just leftover food but also things like boiled milk, bread and curd. Our kitchen did not have drawers or cupboards — it just had a bunch of ledges on which old newspapers were spread and dry groceries stored in old Kissan jam bottles or Dalda tins.

We had the doli, an exceptionally well-designed object whose creator could easily have won the best functional designer award. The one we had was a cuboid, about 2 ft wide, 2.5 ft deep and 3 ft high. The top, bottom and the frame were of solid wood, while the other four faces had a wire mesh. The front had two doors which also had a latch to put a small lock in, presumably to avoid pilferage by maids.

There were two shelves inside the doli which allowed one to store things. The wire mesh ensured that there was air circulation while warding off flies, rats, cockroaches and lizards. Everything which could attract vermin was safe as long as it was kept inside the doli and the latch was firmly closed.

That left the small problem of ants — the latched doors were as much of an obstacle for them as the Maginot line was for the Wehrmacht. They would easily come from the spaces around and below the doors. And so an incredibly simple solution was devised against ants. Four large leftover diyas from Diwali were filled with water. The four legs of the doli were then placed in these so that the water acted as a moat to keep the ants away.

In time, we acquired a refrigerator and the doli lost its raison d’etre. However, like everything else in an Indian household, it was not discarded but instead upcycled. Since the refrigerator was a small one, there was no space in it for all things which needed to be protected. Thus, instead of storing cooked food, the doli was now used for storing stuff like dal, sugar or atta. However, invariably the water in the diyas would evaporate and the ever-vigilant ants would make an ‘antline’ for their food!

After all, we might be smart, but ants are smarter. Long after we are gone, they would still be around on our planet — happily working as a team and getting along with their lives.