A crafty man
A man saw sweet yellow mangoes hanging from the
branches of a tree in an orchard. He was sorely tempted to get them. He thought
to climb the tree, so he looked around and called out the shepherds who were
grazing their sheep around there. The shepherds gathered on hearing him. “It seems
you haven’t eaten anything for a long time, so you must be feeling hungry,” the
man said to the shepherds. “Look, if you all help me climb the tree, I’ll pluck
those mangoes and throw them down for you to eat.” The shepherds lifted him up
so that he could reach for a branch. Anyway, when he succeeded climbing the
tree, he started eating the fruit and putting some into his bag. “O you, what’re
you doing?” shouted the shepherds. “Throw down a few mangoes for us too.” “Friends,
after tasting the mangoes, I have found that they are all sour and so not worth
eating,” the man on the tree replied. “But you know, the leaves taste so sweet.”
And with that he chucked a bunch of leaves with a few unripe mangoes on the
ground. In the meantime, the man on the tree was too loaded with fruit to remain
steady on the branch. Eventually, he lost balance and screamed, “Shepherds,
dear my shepherds, help me – I’m falling down!” Brothers, would you like to
Help Gandhi’s once again?
A Drunk
Four Brothers
A
woman had four sons. They loved each other and were very obedient to their
mother. They were happy even though they did not have enough to live on. They worked
together on the farm and ate what their mother cooked for them. Slowly they
began to improve on their physical strength and financial position. But a few of their
neighbours could not bear to see the old women living happily with her
promising sons. One day they invited the eldest of the bothers to a party and
pretended that they loved him too much and were his well wishers. The innocent
boy believed them and got into the habit of calling on them every evening. One day
one of the neighbours asked him how many loaves her mother backed for dinner. He
innocently replied that she backed four or five of them as the day’s earning
could afford. “How many of them does your mother give you to eat?” asked the
other. “We share them between us without thinking how much one gets,” was his
simple reply. Whereupon the third one said, “I’ve seen you working harder than
your brothers, so your mother should give you the greater part.” These words of
the neighbours made a strong impression on him and when he sat to eat his
dinner with his brothers, he claimed two loaves, saying that he earned more so
he would eat more. This caused a bitter conflict between the brothers. The mother
was shocked to see all that and one day she fell ill.
There lived
a couple who always bickered with each other because the wife did the opposite
of what her husband asked her to. One day an idea came to the husband that he
would ask his wife to do the opposite of what he actually wanted. “Madam, I’ve
decided not to go to any pilgrimage this summer,” said the husband to his wife.
“No, no, we’ll certainly go to Haridwar,” responded his wife. They set off for the
Holy Place. On reaching there, the husband told his wife that he would by no
means bathe in the Ganga, whereupon his wife became adamant about taking a bath
in the river. They walked down the stairs into the water. When the enthusiastic
women walked ahead of her husband, he shouted, “Paro, paro! Stop, stop!” The
headstrong women continued heading for deeper water and finally bubbles rose on
the surface.
The Stranger
I was sitting on a park bench – quite alone, deep in thought. A little while later a stranger came to sit next to me. We looked at each other but showed no interest in getting introduced. When I glanced at my watch, I found I had spent about four hours thus sitting on that bench. I was late already, so I got up and hastened over to the parking but before that, I could not help giving a final look into the eyes of my mute friend. The next day I sat yearning for those great moments.
The Boy and the Girl
A
girl was walking along the road. All of a sudden, a boy came running to her. He
grabbed her arm and pulled her with a jerk and consequently the girl fell down
in the dust alongside the road. She got up quickly and slapped the boy hard on
the cheek, but soon she heard a loud bang and saw a car that went past them
crashing into a boundary wall ahead. She turned to look at the boy again and
asked what his name was. The boy was dumb and deaf so he could not reply. He
stood putting his hand on his cheek, with his eyes brimmed with tears. The girl
eventually could not help stroking his head.
A Lovely Puppy
I was coming home for lunch one day. A pup of 20
days that lived in the lane to my house came running to me and stood right
before my bike. I braked to a halt and started to look at it. A little while
later, it crept over to my leg and began to climb on it. A surge of affection
ran across me. I picked it up and sat it on the seat. It did not resist, nor
did it try to climb down; instead it kept sitting - almost stuck to the seat. I
could not help bringing it in. When it did not eat anything with me, I chose to
give it a cup of milk which it drank with relish. It played and jumped in the
lobby, on the brandah, in the courtyard and almost everywhere in the house.
Finally, I left it in the street and went back to the office. The evening was
very cold. By chance at about 8 p.m. it occurred to me to go out for a walk, so
I opened the gate and went out. When I came back after an hour I found that
Pillu was sitting near the fire. My children gave it another cup of milk and
after that they prepared its bed. It went to its bed by itself - without being
guided -and soon fell into a deep sleep.
A rabbit
A
rabbit had a safe abode in a meadow surrounded by green fields and sloping
hills. One day a trapper passed though it while going to his village. He was
carrying an old obsolete net, which he chucked away. It accidentally fell onto
the hedge in which the rabbit was sitting. When the little creature hopped to
come out of it, he got tangled in the net. He chose nothing but jumped up and
down, each time leaving less space between him and the wreathing net. At last,
he knotted himself so badly that he was unable to open even his mouth. He could
have carefully crawled out, or else crunched the strings. The poor creature lay
groaning with pain caused by the loss of his freedom. Friends, in such a one,
one should try one’s wisdom, not mechanical efforts.
Nature Looks After
On
a morning walk I caught sight of something lying in the dust on the road slope.
My curiosity led me closer to it. It was a chilly and misty morning and what I
saw was a torn blanket wrapped around a thing physically similar to a man. All
of a sudden it stirred and a woman of about fifty got up from her bed of
nature. I wondered why her blood did not freeze that night and why rich woman
fall ill if they happen to get a touch of open air. Perhaps both these women
receive equal pain from nature. The only difference is that we sympathize with
the former and scorn the latter, the wife of a white robber.
A Sensible Servant
One day a donkey went to a horse and said, ‘Brother,
your master treats you with respect and kindness, whereas my master insults me
and also treats me with contempt – I wonder why?’
The horse smiled. ‘You carry out the instructions of
your master right as you have been given,’ replied he, ‘but as for me, I
sometimes disobey him, particularly, when I see a ditch or some danger ahead of
which he’s then unknown.’ The donkey turned round and went back, with his head
bent down.
The Future of India
“One
evening, I decided that I would not go to bed until my day’s work was finished,
and with that I opened the windows, sat at the desk, determined, and got on
with my books and notebooks. Just then a sweet wind from yon hills rolled
forward, carrying the fragrance of wild flowers, and passed dancing through the
room. My eyelids lowered, so I forced open them and gave my head a shake but
everything seemed blurred. A little while later, a gentle hand slowly placed my
forehead on the book. Anyway, the future of India slept for one more night.”
The
Young Monkey
Once the animals of the forest believed that someone
young would give them good governance so they elected a young lively monkey as
their king. But what came out later was just the reverse of what they had
expected from him, as the newly elected king was a gourmand and loved to have
enjoyable time with his ministers and bureaucrats. Not long after he sat on the
royal throne, anarchy spread across the jungle. Lions, tigers, wolves - all
started to do what they chose. After having received a lot of complaints from
the animals, the king grew furious and ordered the heads to control the
situation, but they did not listen to him because they thought that the king
would forget everything in the evening. One day a delegation of goats arrived
for talks with the king. But the king climbed up a tree before they said
anything to him and started jumping from this branch to that. The goats looked
up and cried about the insecurity that they were facing in the forest. At this
the king roared from above, “Don’t you see I’m making all possible efforts and
all for you people!
The Naughty Boy
Hello,
hello!”
“Hullo,
dad...”
“Raju,
you’re out for so long. Where are you? We’re worried about you, my son.”
“I’m
riding on my bike. Daddy, please, you know, I’m afraid I can’t talk to you much
at the moment.”
Putting
his mobile phone into his pocket, the boy turned to his friends sitting around
a table in a hotel and continued chatting to them.
Weakness is Strength
Sometimes one’s weakness is one’s strength.
There was a blacksmith in a village. He was very lean and thin but equally very
peevish. Not a day ever went by but he had a bitter quarrel with one of his
customers or with a neighbour. The strange thing was that nobody dared to beat
him because they were afraid that he might die if they beat him brutally and
consequently they would have to go to jail. Whenever the money he earned
exceeded his expenses, he would become more quarrelsome and would go the police
station to lodge an FIR against the person he bickered. All of his neighbours
had become worn out of his behaviour but they were helpless. Thug
A pundit ji was going back home with a heifer that he had got from one of his yajmans. On the way, he met up with a thug who stopped him and asked where he got that donkey from.
“Do you call it a donkey?” pundit ji retorted angrily. “You fool, don’t you see it is a heifer?”
Pundit ji walked on. After half a mile, another thug emerged and asked the same question. “Where did you get this donkey from, Pundit ji?” Then he added, “You’re a Brahmin and I wonder you are taking this ugly animal!
This time pundit ji rubbed his eyes, but he was still sure that he was taking a heifer and not a donkey. He rebuked the thug and went on.
Before he completed another mile, he came across a third thug who asked the same question, too. “Where did you get this donkey from, Pundit ji?”
This time pundit ji lost his confidence and accepted that the heifer was a donkey and handed it to the thug.
Dispute between Family Members
Two brothers quarrelled over a piece of paternal land,
though the elder had already given the full share to his brother. The younger
one was a bit untruthful and as stubborn as a mule, but not as strong as his
elder brother. When he was beaten up by his elder brother, he went to a
bullyboy and paid him to hurt and threaten his elder brother. The goon did what
he was paid for but in addition he slowly took over all the property of the
younger brother.
By Ramesh Chandra Tiwari
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