Of red ants, bridges and possibilities ~ Malinda Words

Photograph: Sandra Mack

No 69, Jambugasmulla Mawatha, Nugegoda is an address I’ve known for more than 40 years. That’s where my friend since 1977, Kanishka Goonewardena, now a professor at the University of Toronto, lived. Classmate and fellow scout in our younger days, we graduated to discussing political and ideological issues once we entered university and ever since. Kanishka studied architecture at Moratuwa University and would later move to city and regional planning, and eventually political philosophy.

There are lots of stories associated with my friend, his father who taught German and was a diligent student on a wide range of subjects, his mother who treated his friends and their friends as though they were her own sons, his siblings and that household. This is about the gate.

It was an ordinary iron gate, with a latch that held the two parts together. I remember having to open that gate very carefully because there was always a line of red ants going back and forth across the bar at the top. The movement, obviously, would be interrupted whenever the gate was opened. I was always fascinated by the behaviour of these ants. I would watch them after placing the latch back. There was agitation at the interruption, but not for too long. The ants would go back and forth, as before.

What was particularly fascinating was the fact that there was a slight gap between the two parts of the gate. Just too wide for the ants to cross. And, as ants do I suppose, a couple of more of them would form a bridge so others could cross this ‘chasm.’ Myrmecologists, i.e. those who study ants, may know more about such phenomenon, but for me, it was pure fascination at the coordination and solidarity expressed in this simple bridge-making act.

A few years ago, visiting ‘Kaniya’ I noticed the ants. Probably not the very same ants, I told myself. Kaniya and I had a good laugh: ‘they are still here!’

Apparently the life expectancy of an ant varies from a few weeks to 15 years, depending on the species. I don’t know how long red ants live on average, but clearly several generations had lived and died since I first saw them on that gate.

A few days ago, dropping him off at home, I glanced at the gate. There was no ant-bridge, no line of red ants. There was one ant at one end of the gate, though. Maybe, I told myself, ants do other stuff, as colonies or as individual creatures. Maybe, I told myself, it was the weather. Maybe, I told myself, it was just coincidence that there were ants each time I visited that house.

It was coincidental that Sandra Mack, actor, model, art director, copywriter, archer, martial artist, cat-lover, photographer and maker of ‘homemade pro-veg lava-hot sauces, sweet sauces and toppings under her own label, “Burgher Hottie’s” posted a picture of ants upon a gate. Red ants. A bridge. A gate. A memory-rush.

Sandra called it ‘Possibilities.’ Perfect.

It took me back to an essay I wrote in a sociology class in which I mentioned bees in relation to community, social organization etc. The lecturer took issue with the example with a one-word dismissal - instinct. I have since learned that non-human creatures, insects included, engage in livestock development and have good knowledge of appropriate medicines. I have asked myself, across the many decades that followed that dismissal, ‘how can we know, ever, if it’s instinct, did we ever ask the creatures we pass judgement on, did they ever tell?’

Sandra explained: ‘I stood outside, not going in, scared I’d kill them if they fell, but eventually when I had to, they were so well organised that like gymnasts on either side, they held on. Simply amazing.’

‘Words fail me, I kept looking at this scene in awe,’ she said.

Two gates. Two people. Several decades apart. Same species. Both in awe. A bridge is an overused metaphor. Solidarity too. But ‘possible’? No. We are fixated with its antonym, impossible.

There are red-ant stories all around us. We may not notice, we may choose to brush them all aside. We can stop. And be awed, at and in the universe of the possible.