Tuesday, December 9, 2014

3. Hitopadesha - The Deer And His Friends - Crow & Jackal

Long time ago, there lived a crow with his friend deer in a forest. They had been good friends for quite sometime and used to spend time with each roaming around, playing and finding food.
One day a jackal saw the deer gazing the grass. He was hungry and wanted to kill the deer for his food. The jackal thought to himself, "I should try to get close to this deer and make him my friend".

The jackal went to the deer and politely said, "O Deer! I have no family and friends. I am orphan and live alone. Could you be my friend?"
The innocent deer was carried away by the jackal's words. He became jackal's friend and took him home.

That afternoon, the crow flew to deer's home and found jackal there. The crow warned the deer, "My dear friend, you should be careful from this new friend of yours". But the deer was happy with his new friend and ignored the crow's advise.

One day, the jackal told the deer about a corn field. He said, "Friend, the field has fresh corn which you can enjoy eating. Would you like to go there?"

The deer was happy and agreed. From that day, the deer and jackal went to the cornfield every day.

The field owner was annoyed by the destruction of crop. He decided to catch the thief and punish him. He set a trap and next day when the deer came to eat, he got trapped.

The jackal was happy to see the deer trapped. He quietly waited for the owner to come and kill the deer so that he could feast on deer's flesh. The deer cried and called jackal for help. But the jackal refused saying, "The trap is strong. I am sorry, I cannot do anything to rescue you".
In the forest, the crow waited for his friend deer. When the deer did not turned up, the crow flew across the forest searching for him.

The crow found the deer lying trapped in a nearby cornfield.

When the deer saw the crow, he said, "Friend, I did not follow your advise and now I am suffering. Tomorrow the owner of the field will kill me."

The crow was very sad to see the deer's situation. He started thinking of way to rescue the deer. Then the crow said, "Tomorrow when the owner comes, pretend to dead. He would work to remove the net. When he is done, I would caw loudly as I can, hearing which you should run away quickly with all your strength".

Next morning, the owner came and saw the trapped dear. He started removing the trap around the deer. When the net was almost removed, the crow cawed very loudly. Hearing the caw, the deer escaped. The owner was furious. He took his shovel and trajected it towards the deer. But the deer escaped the shovel target and hit jackal which came out running after the deer.

The jackal was badly hit and died. The deer and crow returned to their home in the forest and lived happily thereafter.

Moral: Keep company of good friends.

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