Who Stirred the Water?

As I have said before, my grandmother was an incredible storyteller. Many of the stories were strange when you think of them as children’s stories, but today, with age and maturity, I find that many of them have important lessons for us.

One such story is of a little lamb who was drinking water from a pond. A wolf came up and the poor lamb was terrified and started trembling. The wolf was going to pounce on the lamb when it asked innocently, “Why do you want to eat me?”
“Because you have stirred the waters in the pond and dirtied it,” said the wolf because he felt he needed to give some reason.

“I didn’t do that,” said the lamb.
“If you didn’t do it. Your mother did it,” said the wolf.

“My mother didn’t do it. She has not come near this pond in a long time,” said the lamb. “She drinks from another pond.”

“If your mother didn’t do it, your grandmother did it,” said the wolf.

“It cannot be my grandmother. She has moved away and doesn’t live here anymore,” said the lamb.

“If your grandmother didn’t do it, your great grandmother did it,” said the wolf grasping at straws.

“My great grandmother has been dead for a long time,” said the lamb.

“All I know is that someone stirred the water and muddied it,“ said the wolf getting tired of the argument. He then pounced on the little lamb and ate it up.

As I grew older, I realized the point of the story. Life is not fair and sometimes things happen to us for no reason.

I am reminded of the game Chaupad (Dhaayakattam), an ancient game played on a board that looks like a symmetrical cross. There is an interesting twist to the rules of the games. After a game piece goes all around the board and goes home safe, the player has the option of bringing it out again as a ghost. No rules apply. The game piece travels in the opposite direction from all other game pieces and can cut even on safe squares. The role of the ghost is to create mayhem on the board.

Much like my grandmother’s story, it’s about things happening for no reason, no logic and following no rules. Life is like that. In a game it can be a lot of fun and excitement. But when it happens in life, it gets us down. I guess one merely needs to think of life as a game.

Kreeda has been in this position many, many times, facing problems and challenges that have no rhyme or reason. Even as I write this, we are in the midst of a crisis of sorts and are doing our best to resolve it at the earliest. In the meanwhile, we need to learn to deal with it.

So, unlike the proverbial lamb in the story, we need to avoid being eaten up by the wolf for imagined wrongs and manage to dodge the ghost in the game of Chaupad!

We hope to prevail and grow stronger through the years with the support of every one of you.