Never The Butterfly | Ankur Ashta

"“You know, when I was a child, while playing in our garden, I saw a butterfly.”

She spoke in hushed tones as if something was weighing her down. I looked at her inquisitively.

“It was beautiful,” she continued.

Her eyes lit up as she remembered it.

“I wanted to have it like nothing else mattered more. Brandishing my hands in the air, I chased it wildly. Soon, however, I lost sight of it. I felt so awful I burst into tears.”

She took a long pause.

“After some time, it emerged from the hedge. I resumed my struggle and managed to catch it.”

I felt vicarious pleasure at her win.

“But the moment I caught it, I lost interest. It now appeared nothing more than a coloured object, a scrap of coloured paper, if you will. So, I let it go.”

I kept looking at her.

“As soon as it flew away, I felt a wave of emptiness wash over me again. So, I went after it once more and caught it—this time without difficulty. And once again, I felt a similar loss of interest.”

She looked at me with the strength she had not displayed since she had opened the door for me.

“It is never the butterfly, Mohan,” she said, “it is the fluttering, or maybe something else. But not the butterfly, because you can have the butterfly.”"


About the Authors:

"Ankur Ashta is a father, an author, an entrepreneur and a strategic marketer. He writes on varied subjects on his knowledge platform, 2dPoint, and his columns on marketing have appeared in several marketing-related publications. His first book, Heart, Mind & Wallet: Decoding the Consumers’ Needs to Create Winning Stories, published in 2014, remains a much-loved book on consumer insights.

Ankur is fascinated by children’s picture books and hopes to write one soon to keep his promise to his daughter Ayanna."