In the previous episode, we had witnessed the continuation of Bhishmachaarya’s detailed accord on the “Aapad-Dharma” to Yudishtra, wherein he is currently narrating how a leader should have a foresighted vision to lead his kingdom / team effectively. With this vision, the leader should anticipate potential problems and think of how to resolve them, well in advance. In this regard, Bhishmachaarya had narrated a beautiful story of three fishes and through this important accord, he highlights how one of these fishes escaped from the fisherman’s net well in advance, even before the net was thrown into the water. However, the other fish was caught in the net and had to lose its life! This clearly shows how a visionary leader understands problems well in advance and charts the escape route very clearly. However, if the leader is waiting for things to happen, it might be too late to react on several occasions.
Moving on further, Bhishmachaarya is rewinding the point that we’ve already discussed earlier with yet another beautiful story. Readers might remember this point that we’ve discussed a few days ago – During times of danger, “Dharma” can become “Adharma” and “Adharma” can become “Dharma”. We’ve seen this elaborately a few episodes ago, but Bhishmachaarya is going to talk about this yet again. He is going to narrate a beautiful story to highlight this point to Yudishtra. As all of us might be familiar with this in our day-to-day life – A cat and a mouse are perennial enemies! Everytime a mouse would be seen, the cat will try and pounce over it to kill it. We’ve been seeing this since our childhood days as well. Bhishmachaarya is now going to invoke the cat and mouse story to drive home this important point. Once, a mouse named “Palitha” was living amidst a huge tree by making a small house for itself with adequate protection. Adjacent to this tree, a cat by name “Romasha” was also living with all its luxuries in its home. Even though both Palitha and Romasha used to fight every day, they still managed to live beside each other. This was amidst a beautiful forest and several birds made their way and started building nests on top of the trees. Upon seeing several birds queuing up in this forest, a hunter was getting interested to capture one or two birds from this huge flock. With this intention, he throws his net over the tree. However, while throwing the net over the tree, it accidentally falls over the Romasha cat and eventually it gets stuck into the net! Unable to move here or there, the Romasha cat shouts and screams for help. Upon seeing its enemy getting stuck into the net, the Palitha mouse erupts in joy and celebration! It heaves a huge sigh of relief that its enemy has been caught red-handed!
However, as the Palitha mouse thinks thus and starts to celebrate, there is a huge chimpanzee on top of the tree, and a huge mongoose to the side! Both were watching the proceedings very carefully and were waiting for an opportunity to pounce and make merry! It is to be noted that the mongoose likes to eat the mouse. Simultaneously the chimpanzee which is sitting above the tree, is extremely hungry and is scouting for a prey. No matter whatever the prey is, the chimpanzee is waiting to pounce upon it. As the Palitha mouse was making merry for the Romasha cat getting stuck, these two animals fell in its eyes! Now the Palitha mouse has to escape the wrath of the mongoose, which is looking for the right moment to pounce. Fearing the mongoose, the Palitha mouse starts running here and there, and starts climbing up the tree with panic. However, at the top of the tree, this chimpanzee is waiting for good prey! Now, the mouse is confronted with two dangers simultaneously on either side. Now the Palitha mouse thinks thus, “Oh no! Till now I was thinking that this Romasha cat was my only enemy in this world. I started rejoicing once he got stuck in the net. However, only after he got stuck, I realized that there were several other enemies waiting to pounce on me. So what do I do now to escape from these two animals?”
Thinking thus, the Palitha mouse makes a smart plan here. It thinks further thus, “The entire world knows that the mongoose is scared of the cat. I’m sure this mongoose will be afraid of our Romasha cat as well. Also, if the Romasha cat shows his fiery spirit, even the chimpanzee will be afraid and he will run away! So the first thing that I should do here is to free the Romasha cat from the clutches of the net! Even though the Romasha cat is my enemy, the other two enemies are comparatively bigger than him. Thus, in order to escape from these two bigger enemies, I’ve to shake hands with Romasha first!”
Making a plan thus, the Palitha mouse starts biting the net and tries to break it open. So for today, let us understand up to this point, and in the next episode we shall continue this story further and witness the important underlying message conveyed by Bhishmachaarya! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 