The Ant that found God, by Zubin Mathai, is a beautiful piece of writing. It is a simple story about a worker ant who strikes out from the colony in search of something more. Driven by a compulsion to follow pink petals which appear and float off on the currents of winds, the ant finds herself engaging new friends, and enemies in this daring and courageous expedition to find out where these beautiful petals are heading. The parallels to the lives we lead as humans, are obvious, and the transcendent message that peace and happiness are to be found in the moment and not in possessions or wealth, leaves the reader feeling good. Moreover, as much as one might think that the story of an ant would be a child's book, The Ant that found God is far more relevant and applicable to the adult reader because it makes one reflect on life and what is important about it and what it is we are hoping to achieve in the pursuit of that flighty, often ethereal thing called happiness. The author does a brilliant job of taking us into a world as seen from the perspective of ants and beetles and wasps and spiders, and creating another dimension which we rarely ever think about and yet which is all around us. This is not a placid story. It is filled with thrills, adventures, danger, conflict and even death - on a level we never think about. I dare say, after having read this book, that I would not willingly ever step on an ant again. The Ant that found God is an inspiring story that touches the soul and reminds us that in spite of everything we think is important about life and the goals we strive to achieve, that the real joy of living exists within us already - from the day we are born to the day we die.
Review by International Writers Inspiring Change
About Zubin Mathai
I grew up in a suburb of Montreal, Canada, and even though my parents pushed me towards science, I was always drawn to more creative endeavors. I learned to program the family computer at twelve and loved making video games, adding ideas from my head to the blank-slate of the screen, typing until I saw robots or little aliens marching across the monitor. To fuel the daydreams I loved, I would write them out as a little kid, letting imagination paint words, and then letting the cadence of sentences feed back to spur on even more imagery. But, alas, I never wrote professionally when younger, instead choosing the life of a software engineer. I became an expert, started companies, and blazed trails through the internet, but still the passion to write kept nagging.
What prompted you to become a writer? In my late forties, I thought back to a trip I took at twenty-four, where I went to India, to the Himalayas, and lived and meditated for five months in a pristine forest by a rushing river. I felt peace rolling down the mountains back then, and it touched the tips of the trees, ignited the winds, and filled my soul. As I sat hunched over my computer one day, I remembered that precious feeling, and an ache to share what lay in my heart was reawakened. I thought again about writing.
What do readers like about your writing? From feedback, readers seem to like my poetic descriptions, my subject matter, and the feelings of love and silence I weave through words to bring the same to their hearts. They like that I am not preachy, for I am writing fiction instead of non-fiction, and so I stuff my stories with adventure, action, and interesting characters, all serving the subtle, spiritual themes spun through my tales.
Is there a message weaved into your writing? The stories I like to write are often about nature, since I live in a place that is surrounded by mountains and stillness. I write about the force of love painting self-recognition in people, animals, and everything that you meet throughout the day, and I write about how happiness is just beneath all our surfaces, just waiting to be rediscovered.
What is it that you want to inspire in others or change in the world through your writing? I hope that my writing inspires people to look at themselves anew, to freshly dive down to the truths at their cores. It is not a difficult journey, for it is the most natural, built-in to every last one of us, an ache to surrender to what you have always only ever been.
Tell us about your most recent book and why you wrote it? When I knew I wanted to write something, the idea came quickly. I thought about all the roles I had played in my life, from son to meditator, from addict to entrepreneur, and knew I wanted to use those roles to help paint a story of self-discovery. I set it against a fantastical backdrop, in the times of castles and knights, and wrote to release all the roles that were trapped in my heart. A few months later, I finished The Oarsman.
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