|
|
|
|
| Once
upon a time, on the banks of a river, lived a crane and a crab.
The two were very good friends. The crane had a major
problem. There was a bad snake in the region, that was always
eating up the crane's eggs. The crane and the crab put their head together and tried to work out a way out of the problem. The crab had a sudden brilliant idea. "We are not equipped to kill this powerful enemy of ours. In order to kill the snake, we must invite an enemy of the snake", he said. The crane was thrilled with the idea. But his wife who was a sensible person was not too sure. She asked him to go through the plan thoroughly, so that it would not backfire. The crane was however convinced that the plan would work great. He picked up a fish and dropped it outside the home of a mongoose. All along the path up to his house, he dropped fishes at a regular interval. The mongoose came out of his house, saw the first fish and was delighted. "What a wonderful lucky day, this is, to find a juicy fish at my doorstep" he said. He finished that fish and to his delight, he found another just a little farther away. He ate up this too. He soon spotted the whole line of fishes and finished eating up all the fishes strewn by the crane. He finally came up to the tree where the crane lived. The snake and the mongoose sighted each other and a fierce battle ensued between the two bitter enemies. The mongoose was victorious . The cranes were delighted to see that the wicked snake had been killed. The next day they happily flew off to look for food, convinced that the eggs would now be safe. The mongoose came out of his house looking for the gift of fishes. Not finding any, he walked along the whole path in the hope that he would find some fishes. He soon reached the house of the crane. He climbed the tree and was delighted to find the eggs. He ate them up. The cranes flew back home only to find that the mongoose had gobbled up their eggs. They had managed to get rid of one enemy, but had unwittingly invited another enemy. "Think before you Act". |