This story is a recapitulation of the story I loved watching as a kid in good old Doordarshan. If anyone remembers there was a program called ‘Teleschool’ that was aired at around 10:00 am everyday. I enjoyed watching it and this story is vividly etched in my memory. I even remember it being in that old video-tape quality :-)
Now for the story itself: I thought of penning it down as whenever I mentioned it, most of the responses were that they never heard of it. Given the nice moral it carries, it wouldn’t harm reading it. I added some subtle touches to the actual story.
Long long ago deep in the jungles of the Aravalli hills there was a large lake. The numerous streams from the mountain fed the lake which supported a good variety of aquatic life.
Among them were three fish, Sumati, Kalamati and Mandamati. They were good friends from childhood.
Sumati had a very good presence of mind, while Kalamati didn’t bother too much till the last moment. Mandamati is the laziest of them and spent most of the time lazing around. It was a very peaceful life with few predators and everyone lived in harmony.
One hot summer day, some fisherman from a nearby village were going to the river for fishing. Their path was along the edge of the jungle. However on that day they came face to face with an elephant which started chasing them. They dropped all their belongings and ran off into the jungle.
They got lost in the jungle and ended up by the lake shore. They drank some water from the lake and then seeing so many fish one of them said, “Why should we walk to the river everyday when we have so many fish here? Let’s come here tomorrow with the nets and catch the fish here.”
The fish who were watching the strangers with interest till then panicked on hearing these words. Sumati, who’s quick to react said :
“Friends, don’t panic. There’s a canal flowing from this lake into the river. If we start now we can escape into the river. If we wait till the morning the fishermen will close off the canal and will cast their fishing nets”. Some fish agreed to go with her.
She then turned to her friends and said “Let’s go before it’s too late”. Kalamati replied “Relax, this lake is very big and we’ve lived here our whole life. Why should ‘we’ leave it. We can easily escape their nets”.
Mandamati who was gliding around there said “I heard the river is dangerous and we need to leap to avoid whirlpools when swimming into the river. What if I couldn’t leap? I’ve never done that. I’d rather be here”.
Sumati tried convincing her friends, but they were adamant. So that evening she, along with some other fish swam to the edge of the lake towards the canal. The water was swirling into whirlpools where the canal merged with the river. They swam carefully trying to avoid the larger ones and leaped over the smaller ones. Finally they made it into the wide open river. They met up with other fish over there and narrated their tales.
At sunrise the next day the fishermen arrived with their nets and started catching the fish.
The fish panicked and swam helter-skelter trying to avoid the nets. Some swam towards the canal to escape. One of the fishermen saw this, ran and blocked the canal.
Now with their escape routes cut off the fish had nowhere to go. In the third haul Kalamati and Mandamati were also caught. They were taken from the net and put on the shore while the net is cast again in the lake.
Panicked and gasping for air most of the fish started jumping around. Seeing that they’re trying to get back into the water one of the fishermen started picking them and putting them into a sack so they can’t escape.
Seeing this Kalamati lay still pretending to be dead. Just when the fisherman turned around she jumped trying to move towards the lake. In the end after three attempts she slid back into the lake and swam away. Mandamati who was still flipping around was picked up and put in the sack.
Realizing that they had enough for a day, the fishermen stopped fishing, removed the block to the canal and started back to their village.
Moral : Well, writing this I realized how close it was to our professional life too. The comfort zone we don’t want to come out of, the swirls we don’t want to jump to move out or even just ignoring the signs.
Let me know in the comments what you felt or any feedback.
