Gift BNThe female bird narrated the story of the tortoise and three fishes to drive home the point that one has to be open to feedback and take timely action. The male bird was convinced. He vowed that, this time the ocean will not to do anything to their eggs. If it does, he would teach him a lesson.
The ocean who overheard this conversation was offended. This time as soon as the female bird laid eggs, the ocean pounced upon and grabbed the eggs.
The female bird felt sad and questioned the male bird, “See what happened! What are you going to do now?’
The male bird was also deeply hurt by this incident. He got together all other bird species and made a representation to the head of king of birds, Garuda – the eagle. They together conveyed ocean’s arrogance against small birds. They surrendered to Garuda saying, our safety and protection is your responsibility. Please help us procreate and let our species survive.
Garuda also felt their request is genuine. He immediately appeared in front of the ocean.
He warned the ocean to give back the eggs to the birds and seek pardon. If not, he would gobble up the entire water and dry the ocean. The ocean did not expect this turn of tables. He immediately made amends. He returned the eggs to the birds and sought their pardon. The birds felt happy to get back their eggs, safe.
“The ocean was humiliated and faced defeat because, he under-estimated the strength of the small birds. Two small birds taught the giant ocean a lesson. Similarly, we also need to estimate the strength of our detractor, Pingalaka the lion king before confronting him”, warned the fox Damanaka to Sanjeevaka, the bull.
Sanjeevaka said, “I am not confronting Pingalaka to win over him nor am I unaware of his strengths. I only intend to establish my loyalty. I want to communicate that I am not a traitor as his confidants have conveyed to him. I am now left with no other option. You may ask Pingalaka to be prepared for a combat.”
Damanaka was elated that Sanjeevaka is also falling into his trap.
He proceeded to Pingalaka and said, “Oh! King, all our doubts are now cleared. The information we got is validated. Sanjeevaka is indeed a traitor. He is not a good friend either. I tried to strike a chord and get him into a conversation. But, he did not heed a word. He said, ‘there is nothing left to discuss now. There can be only one leader for the forest. It should be either me or Pingalaka. Ask your king Pingalaka to get ready for a combat. Whoever wins will be the leader for the forest.’” Damanaka left no stone unturned to create rift between two good friends.
The King fell into the trap. As they were discussing this, they saw Sanjeevaka arriving from a distance. As soon as Sanjeevaka approached close enough, Pingalaka pounced upon Sanjeevaka signalling combat. Sanjeevaka used all its might and confronted Pingalaka with valour. As the combat got fierce, all animals of the jungle assembled around to watch. In a short while, the lion king Pingalaka was wounded deeply and became weak.
Karataka who was watching all this, neared Damanaka and said, “The trick seems to be failing. You never heeded my advice to stay away from Pingalaka. I should not have given you any suggestion to get back into the kings’ good books. This reminds me of a bird who tried to advice the monkeys and put her life into trouble.”
The Monkeys and The Bird
It was winter and quite chilling. Some monkeys lived in the forest. They were looking for a fireplace to keep warm. They mistook fireflies for sparkles of fire. They collected all the fireflies and assembled around to get some warmth. However, they could see no difference.
A bird was watching this from treetop. He knew they were fireflies and cannot provide warmth to others.
He flew down to explain the same to the monkeys. The monkeys couldn’t digest the fact that a small bird is giving them advice. They got into denial mode. The poor bird felt pity on the monkeys and tried to explain that they cannot get warmth from the fireflies.
The foolish monkeys got furious at the birds’ perseverance. They decided to teach him a lesson. One of the monkeys, grabbed the bird, strangled the neck and killed it.
The poor bird, thus lost his life, trying to advice foolish and arrogant monkeys. Similarly, it looks as if I put myself into trouble by joining hands with you.
Do you mean to say that I am also stupid like the monkeys? retorted Damanaka. You are not stupid, but selfish. You should not become like a donkey, who lost his life by impersonating using a tigers’ skin. “Who is that donkey? What did he do? How did he lose his life? Explain these aspects clearly”, asked Damanaka.
Let’s learn about that story in the next edition.
