British Dramatist Neil Grant scripted a one-act play titled
"The Last War" on the eve of the second world war in the
backdrop of an imaginary but potential bacterial war fought among warlike nations
of the world. They attacked each other with the bio-weapons carrying most
deadly viruses which were stockpiled for foolhardy genocidal acts. The deadly
diaspora of the lethal viruses liquidates not only the warring nations but the
whole mankind.
When the lights are on, a group of animals are seen having a conclave to
discuss the conditions around the globe after the annihilation of humankind by
the microbes. The animals assemble after an extensive search for any surviving
human and engage in a discussion on the situations that led to this catastrophe.
Barring a dog, all other animals are
happy to see a world bereft of mankind. The dog expresses his grief on having no
one to feed him or to take him for a hunt any more. All other animals tease the
dog for being despicably docile to man whom they consider inferior to them in
many faculties , let it be olfactory, optical, aural and even of immunity.
“I had already foreseen this
situation years ago while carrying man to the battlefield and witnessing how
atrocious they were to each other", says the horse. The Monkey expresses
his wrath for the evolution theorists calling him as the "ancestor of
humankind". He claims it as an “absurd story”. According to him, monkeys are not that “damn
cheap” to be called as the forefathers of the foolish race that violates all
the sacred laws of nature. The lion has
a very pertinent comment to make: "We kill other beings only to appease
our hunger which is our basic need, but man kills each other and other co-
creatures for silly selfish reasons". Serpent poetically phrases it
thus: “Give him an Eden, and he straight away loses it. Give him a mind, and he
becomes arrogant; a hand, and he makes a weapon of it; a garden, and he turns
it into a quagmire; a dream and it becomes a nightmare; a prophet, and he is
stoned into a corpse" He states that he has been constantly watching
man right from the garden of Eden and all through history.
All animals unequivocally concede that
mankind was the most "stupid species" that trod the globe. Man was so
foolish to divide the glob into nations according to their whims and fancies
and to find reasons to fight each other. They are all seen very much relieved
and relaxed that there is no self-proclaimed superior being any more to exhibit
them in the zoos or in circus without considering that they are also fellow
creatures upon the world having an equal right to live with dignity.
As the meeting proceeds, there enters
the virus (Microbe) who is so exhausted after accomplishing the task of
annihilating human race. According to him, man has caused his own self-destruction.
The scientists who are considered to be the most brilliant of humankind
generated him, nurtured him and kept him in their lab as a lethal bio-warhead.
They very well knew how deadly the viruses could be, but still kept them in the
labs foolishly.
As the meeting proceeds, an angel
enters into the scene after having made a global tour analysing the aftermath
of current events. Animals are curious to know whether any speck of humankind
remains upon the earth. “I have visited today some of his temples, soaring
prayers on stone, where his struggling soul sought communion with God. I have
mused over his works of art, so fragile in their beauty, yet seeking to defy
the inroads of time. I have surveyed this fair earth, which was so generous
with its riches, so eager to sacrifice all for his comfort, and which will bear
for a little longer in its journey through space the marks of his kind. I have seen
everywhere the monuments of his industry, and alas, the memorial of his crime”
says the angel. The angel makes many critical comments on the fragility of
human life: “Man created a new world, the world of science. He fashioned
everywhere new instruments, which gave him mastery of the air, the mastery of
the ether, which placed at his disposal the abundance of earth and sea. He was
given all these things on one divine condition that he should live in peace
with his brother man”. ? The greatest stupidity in the view of angel was man’s
claim that everything is intellectually possible and humanly capable without
realising that humankind is a small string in the web of creation and can only
exist in union with nature.
In the last scene, to the great
surprise and rage of all animals, a man in uniform plods on to the stage with
weary feet. He is a soldier, fortunate
to survive unnoticed by the virus.
All the animals grunt and growl at him and the lion pounces to kill him
with a single strike. The angel intervenes and pleads with the animals to have
mercy on the man as he is the only creature in human race that remains as a
sample. The wounded soldier appeals to the animals to have no pity on him but
to kill him as he finds no meaning in living without a human company. He
apologizes on behalf of all the mankind for the atrocities they have done to
nature and other living beings. The drama comes to an end when the Angel
carries the remorseful man in his arms out of the stage so to save him from the
animals’ fury.
The play is very
much apocalyptic in tone and looks at man’s folly from the perspective of the
non-human. A chill went through the
spine while reading this play, written nearly four score years ago, in the
milieu of world encountering the unprecedented global shutdown to fight
Covid-19. The author has foreseen what might happen to the world if science
goes amok without fool-proof visions. At this critical juncture while the whole
world is at the threat of a massive annihilation, “The Last War” begs us to
have decisive deliberations on human destiny. It reminds us that we have taken
everything for granted unmindful of the fact that the planet does not belong to
man alone. Man never considered that he is only one species among the many
living organisms and innumerable non-living
bodies in the cosmos and can survive only by being interdependent with the
whole. The play reminds one of the words of Chief Seattle from his famous
speech in 1854: “This we know: the earth
does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like
the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a
strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself”. The Covid-19 outbreak
once again reminds us of these resounding facts, as foretold by Neil Grant, so
that we can be much more empathetic and caring towards Mother Earth and our
fellow creatures. Ii is certain that a more intelligent and harmonious coexistence with all our siblings
in Nature shall guarantee life in abundance and all spectral shadows of death
shall vanish into thin air from this beautiful abode of ours.
Fr. Sabu Thomas,
Assistant Professor,
Department of English,
SH College, Thevara, Kochi.
9446144836
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