Innocence
Old grandmother said a story....On the dangers of being innocent...
"The Noble man and the Tiger"
Once upon a time, there was a noble man who was as pure as the sky....He was a wandering mendicant...who collected the pebbles in the sea shore, looked at the colors of nature, listened to the songs of birds, travelled through the forests....
In one such day, as he was travelling in a dense jungle, he saw a tiger inside a cage. The tiger was very attractive and it spoke to him nicely but deceitfully.
Unaware, the noble man, was quite attracted by the beauty and majesty of the tiger....
The tiger said, "Good man...its a divine blessing to have happenned to come across you. May you take mercy on me and relieve me from this torment of hell of a containment in this cage, when my likes, are enjoying freedom. He took pity on the poor tiger, but was hesitant and afraid of letting the tiger out. The tiger promised not to hurt him. The man picked up some courage and opened the latch of the metal cage and let the tiger out. Now, the soft spoken tiger came out and menacingly growled at the noble man. The man was frightened. The man pleaded with the tiger by reminding it of his noble deed and that it is bound by promise, not to hurt him. It said, it had no other food to eat and therefore had to eat the noble man. The man was pained beyond measure by the tigers lack of gratitude. He cried and pleaded to god to help him.
"The Noble man and Chanakiya"
As a divine intervention, there came to his rescue a fair, tall, thin, vigorous looking tonsured man who sported a small turf of hair, over and behind his head, that was knotted at the end. He had sharp nose and peering eyes with a raised forehead and strong countenance. He said, his name was Chanakiya and had taken strong vows of celibacy for religious reasons and that he comes from a far off strange region to fulfill the wish of god. Our friend, the noble man, lamented to the stranger his story with the tiger and said the tiger is going to devour him too.
"Chanakiya and the Tiger"
Chanakiya was quick enough to sense what had happenned and he simply told the tiger that he can't believe so big a tiger to have been in so small a cage. The tiger reacted angrily that it was so. When Chanakiya seriously asked the tiger to get back into the cage and prove him, the tiger did so. He immediately asked the noble man to latch the cage, which he quickly did.
Looking at the noble man Chanakiya said, 'Never do that mistake again. That it was his forefathers who had put that tiger in the cage. You may be able to feel love and you may have wanted the tiger to enjoy freedom as well, but the tiger did not reciprocate your love as you had just witnessed.'
Now, the old grandmother said, "the noble man was the sage Buddha, the tiger was the then society, the cage was the rules and regulations, and Chanakiya was a sage too but an intellectual genius who thought more than just love."
Now, we say yes but the rules and regulations are the old same but under the pressure of a modern world in its mad running to its dooms day as some sensitives say pollution itself is going to be a major killer if left unchecked. So, Beware!
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