Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), today we will share this tale from the book Kalila Wa Dimna by Ramsay Wood, where he brings some of the ancient and timeless tales to life once again.
Also as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’. Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
THE CRANE AND THE CRAB
A crane once dwelt upon a pleasant lake placed among little hills spread over with herbs and flowers. He lived upon such fish as he could catch, and for many years got plenty. But at length, becoming old and feeble and unable to plunge into the water with his former speed, the crane was driven to fly in the air and feed only on the occasional cricket. Soon he was almost starving.
While the crane was poised in the bankside shallows one morning, sighing and looking mighty melancholy, there wandered sideways by a huge old freshwater crab who asked him what the trouble was.
‘Oh,’ replied the crane, I am depressed by the conversation I overheard between two fishermen yesterday. That’s all.’
‘And what did they say?’ asked the crab.
‘Do you really want to know?’ answered the crane. ‘It’s not very pleasant news, and I have no wish to burden you.’
‘Don’t worry’, the crab said. ‘Tell me about it. I’m interested.’
‘Well, I was standing around one-leggedly over in that patch of reeds at the other end of the lake. The sun was shining fiercely, and I must have dozed off. Anway, I didn’t hear these two men approach. Their voices woke me but they were too close for me to move without risk. I stood stock still, camouflaged by the reeds, and listened. “If we dug a trench through the left bank, we could drain this lake and catch all the fish in it,” said one. “True,” said his friend,” and there are many fish here. But I think I have a better idea. You know that smaller lake higher up in the hills, a mile or so away? Well, it also teems with fish and would be even easier to drain. Let’s do that smaller one first, and later, on another day, we can come back here.”
‘I’m sure they mean business,’ continued the crane, ‘and when they return, that means the end of the fish and therefore the end of me. Without fish to feed on, my days are numbered. I am too old to fly about in search of a new home and start all over again. I am waiting for the day the fishermen come back, and facing the inevitability of death. There is nothing to be done except to wait, and learn to accept my fate.’
‘Very interesting,’ said the crab, and she slid off into the lake to seek out the president of the Fishes. He was taking a nap – floating almost motionless near the lake bottom among some waving weeds – a huge old carp that had seen at least a dozen summers and weighed nearly six pounds.
‘Mr. President,’ said the crab, ‘Mr. President – Please wake up!’
‘Burble, said President Fish, and in a start his body swished left and right until he saw who it was. ‘What is it, Madam Crab?’ he said irritably. ‘Why have you interrupted my siesta?’
‘President Fish,’ answered the crab, ‘it’s about the fishermen coming to drain the lake. It’s an emergency, and I think you had better call your cabinet together for a special meeting.’
This is exactly what happened once the crab had told him the full story. After the meeting the president’s most intimate advisers fanned out into every nook and cranny of the lake to declare an Extraordinary Session of the Parliament of Fishes. Soon a great hubbubble arose from the traditional meeting spot deep in the middle of the lake. When all the fishy debates were done, and every opinion heard, a vote was taken which carried the motion to speak to the crane. That afternoon the fish swam towards the old bird in a great wedge-shaped armada with their president in the vanguard.
‘Although you are our enemy,’ he said from a safe distance, ‘we feel we must have a word with you about our common danger.’
‘But of course, by all means,’ responded the crane in a somewhat lackluster tone. ’What can I do for you?’
‘First, please simply answer this question. Are you quiet positive that you heard two men saying they intended to drain the entire lake?’
‘Yes, I heard it with my own ears. I swear it by all the feathers on my body.’
‘Well, then,’ said the President Fish, ‘we are both in the same dilemma. For if we who are your food die, you die too, old bird.’
‘I am well aware of the delicate ecological balance which is involved,’ the crane remarked testily. ‘In fact I have personally resigned myself to my own death, and sincerely feel the inescapable doom which awaits…’
‘But is there nothing we can do to protect ourselves?’ interrupted President Fish.
‘No, I think not,’ said the crane. ‘We do not between us have sufficient power to withstand two determined men. There is only one way out, but I doubt you will try it, for it involves placing your complete trust in me.’
‘For love of the lake, tell us anyway!’ President Fish exclaimed. ‘What have we to lose even if it fails? Say on, for we have not the least idea of what to do, and have come to hear your advice.’
The crane slowly rotated his head on the end of his long neck and carefully tucked his left leg up under his wing. ‘There is a rather special pond not far from here,’ he said at length, his little jet eyes peering past the tip of his beak. ‘The water is cool and clear, and the bottom so deep that men could never drain it. More important, it is uninhabitated by fish. My idea would be to fly you there, one or two at a time, depending on size. You could grip the feathers on my back with your mouths and, strength permitting; I estimate I could make four or five trips per day.’
‘But how do we know this is not a trick?’ asked President Fish.
‘There,’ said the crane, ‘I predicted you wouldn’t trust me. So, what is to be done except wait around for the fishermen? It won’t be long now; they should finish with the smaller lake inside a couple of months.’
‘Would you take me upon your back to see this pond?’ asked President Fish. ‘I could swim about in it and verify the truth of what you say, and then you could bring me back here to tell the others. Will you also guarantee a complete truce between us during this difficult period of transition? No fish eating until we are newly settled and things return to normal?’
‘Why, of course I will,’ answered the crane. ‘Certainly, certainly. Maybe you would care to have a trial run now?’
‘Why not?’ President Fish answered. ‘There’s still plenty of daylight left.’
It was agreed. The crane dived underwater so President Fish could obtain a good grip on the shoulder feathers with his mouth. He surfaced with the big fish nestled on his back. When all was balanced, the crane flew slowly off, mustering every bit of his remaining strength, and shortly arrived at the pond. President Fish flopped off the crane’s back and spent a good quarter of an hour exploring the locale.
‘The pond is everything the crane says it is,’ President Fish told all the other fish excitedly when he had returned. ‘I urge you, therefore, to accept his offer. Let the great exodus begin! It is our only hope of survival. Three cheers for the crane, Hip hip…’
‘Hooray!’ sang out all the gathered congregation of fishes. ‘Hip hip, Hooray!’ Even the old she-crab joined in the cheering and waved her claws about in the air.
The next day the crane made five trips carrying away a total seven fish, four little ones in pairs and three large ones riding solo. But he flew his finny passengers to a rocky hilltop out of sight of the lake, and – when they could no longer hold their breaths and released their holds from his feathers – he flung them violently off his back so they lay gasping for water in the sunlight. Then he killed them and devoured them. Thus for many days he continued filling his belly, and soon grew sleek and glossy feathered.
However one morning the she-crab requested a ride to the pond, as she missed a particular tench friend who had flown on before her. The crane, realizing that the crab was a potential troublemaker, readily agreed – determined to drop her from the air on to the rocks below and smash her to pieces. The crab scrambled up on the crane’s back and tightly clasped his feathers with her legs and claws. They mounted into the skies and soon left the lake far behind, but after many minutes the crab still could not see the famous pond.
‘Friend, friend,’ she cried out over the wind which rushed past her, ‘how much farther to the cool, clear water which we heard so much about?’
‘Ha ha!’ the crane yelled back over his shoulder. ‘You dumb crustaceous bitch – there is no pond for you!’ Sure enough, the crab could see in the distance great piles of fish heads and fishbones which the crane had scattered about on the hilltop. He now began to swoop sharply left and right, trying to shake the crab off his back. But an instant later he felt first one then the other of crab’s powerful claws grip his neck as tightly as a blacksmith’s pincers. The claws squeezed so hard that the old crane began to gasp and tears ran from his eyes. Madam Crab carefully pulled herself forward and shouted down his earhole:
‘If I were you, foul fowl, I’d stop this nonsense and make a nice soft landing immediately. Otherwise I shall cut off your head as clean as a man lops through a lotus stalk with his hunting knife, and we shall perish together.’
‘Hrvvck aahh krr,’ the crane rasped out from deep in his throat. ‘Stop, stop, you’re strangling me! I can’t see! Stop, for God’s sake, so I can land!’
Madam Crab relaxed her grip perhaps a millimeter: the old crane glided ever so gently to the ground.
‘Sit down, you evil trickster, so I can climb off your back,’ the crab ordered. ‘I was only joking,’ the crane said in great pain, folding his legs and lowering his body to the earth.
‘Tell me another,’ said the crab, and with a mighty squeeze she shut her claws and cut his head off clean as whistle. When she had recovered and wept over the bones of her friends, the crab made her way back to the lake and told all the remaining fish of her adventure with the treacherous crane. Needless to say, they gave her many thanks for their deliverance, but poor President Fish somehow became the scapegoat for their collective poor judgment, and was hounded from office and never forgiven.”
Excerpt from Doctor’s orders:
I must emphasize this last point: my stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, wretched imaginings, or vapid guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing away the effective substance. Thus the urge to tag tidy little rationalizations, persuasive formulas, intellectual summaries, symbolical labels, or any other convenient pigeon-holing device, must be steadfastly resisted. Mental encapsulation perverts the medicine, rendering it impotent. It amounts to a bypass around the story’s true destination; to explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Kalila Wa Dimna; Vol.1 – Ramsay Wood
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