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 PET OF A PRINCE
‘When I was a fawn barely three months from my mother’s womb I already ran precociously well – even for a gazelle. I adored the clean freedom of flashing my limbs in air over ground rough or smooth. But I knew nothing about traps or snares or the wiliness of men. One day I wandered too far from the herd and, while leaping about with the carefree friskiness of youth – ignoring warning cries from the older females, including my dear mother – I tumbled into a netted pit and became hopelessly entangled.
The hunter who caught me was a retainer to The Royal Household and eventually I was presented to the king, who gave me to his son, a boy of eleven or twelve. The prince delighted in my company in his rather rough, spoiled way. He petted me and stuffed me full of my favourite foods. He also hung his arms around my neck; pulled my ears, nose, lips, eyelashes, and tail; stuck his fingers in any of my body’s orifices whenever; he felt like it; and rubbed disgustingly sweet perfumes into to my coat. His spifflications grew so unbearable that one night during a storm my feelings suddenly erupted. I was hiding under The Prince’s bed watching jagged lightning flash against the dark, swift running clouds. There was shattering, God-Almighty doom –crack, then a violent crash of thunder, and I cried out, “O Fate, when again will I run with the haphazard herd, gazelles driven by the wind and rain?”
“Who said that?” called out The Prince.
I had forgotten he was sleeping on the mattress above. “Who spoke?” he asked again, lighting a candle and searching all about the room until he found me shivering under his bed. “Dapple?” he asked, for it was he who gave me that name. “Dapple?” he repeated, his eyes widening behind the flickering flame.
Something fragile seemed to shift deep inside The Prince. “My gazelle spoke to me!” he exclaimed, louder this time. Then he flung his arms apart, hurling the lit candle and its holder right across the room, and shrieked, “Dapple spoke to me!” By the time his servants arrived to grab him he was screaming like an idiot from the open window, ranting and raving into the storm.
They had to bind him with silken sashes to keep him down in bed. He was feverish and hysterical. The King came in the middle of the night and was dreadfully upset. On and on The Prince babbled about his talking gazelle. I was beaten and kicked about the room, for it was assumed I had caused his madness in some unaccountable way. Uproar reigned all night.
Morning brought doctor after doctor, all impotent to diagnose or treat The Prince’s malady – despite stupendous rewards promised by The King. Finally an old medicine man appeared, one reputedly able to read signs.
“You stupid people!” he roared as soon as he was admitted to the room. “What do you mean by beating this poor gazelle!” He rushed over and gathered me tenderly into his arms. The King raised his palm to halt servants from ejecting such an unruly person. We approached The Prince’s bed.
“You abominable child,” the shaman began fiercely, fixing the boy with a terrible glare, “of course your gazelle spoke to you! Don’t you realize that all animals can speak? But they never do so in the company of pitiful humans! This poor creature of God spoke her heart’s desire, forgetting you were there. The storm stirred yearnings for her own kind, and she truly spoke the words you heard: ‘O Fate, when again will I run with the haphazard herd, gazelles driven by the wind and rain?’ So there is nothing wrong with you. This illness is all pretence in the mind. I’m going to count to three, untie you, and you will be permanently cured of this psychosomatic nonsense.”
The old man put me down and counted to three. He loosened The Prince’s bonds and said, “Now get up and get on with it! There is nothing the matter with you!” The boy rose and indeed was cured. A huge smile spread across his young face, and The King leapt forward to clasp him to his bosom.
The old medicine man refused any reward. “I don’t want your gold,” he said to The King, “I want your understanding.” He left the palace and I never saw him again. The next day, after I had been pampered by The Prince as never before, I was taken to the spot of my capture and released. Soon I rejoined my herd and lived happily for many years until the calamity which sped me here!’
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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