ONCE UPON A time
there was a bird. It was ignorant. It sang all right, but never recited
scriptures. It hopped pretty frequently, but lacked manners.
Said
the Raja to himself: ‘Ignorance is costly in the long run. For fools
consume as much food as their betters, and yet give nothing in return.’
He called his nephews to his presence and told them that the bird must have a sound schooling.
The pundits were summoned, and at once went to the root of the matter.
They
decided that the ignorance of birds was due to their natural habit of
living in poor nests. Therefore, according to the pundits, the first
thing necessary for this bird's education was a suitable cage.
The pundits had their rewards and went home happy.
A
golden cage was built with gorgeous decorations. Crowds came to see it
from all parts of the world. 'Culture, captured and caged! ' exclaimed
some, in a rapture of ecstasy, and burst into tears. Others remarked:
'Even if culture be missed, the cage will remain, to the end, a
substantial fact. How fortunate for the bird!'
The goldsmith filled his bag with money and lost no time in sailing homewards.
The
pundit sat down to educate the bird. With proper deliberation he took
his pinch of snuff, as he said: 'Text-books can never be too many for
our purpose!'
The
nephews brought together an enormous crowd of scribes. They copied from
books, and copied from copies, till the manuscripts were piled up to an
unreachable height. Men murmured in amazement: 'Oh, the tower of
culture, egregiously high! The end of it lost in the clouds!'
The scribes, with light hearts, hurried home, their pockets heavily laden.
The
nephews were furiously busy keeping the cage in proper trim. As their
constant scrubbing and polishing went on, the people said with
satisfaction: 'This is progress indeed!'
Men
were employed in large numbers, and supervisors were still more
numerous. These, with their cousins of all different degrees of
distance, built a palace for themselves and lived there happily ever
after.
Whatever may be
its other deficiencies, the world is never in want of fault- finders;
and they went about saying that every creature remotely connected with
the cage flourished beyond words, excepting only the bird.
When
this remark reached the Raja's ears, he summoned his nephews before him
and said: 'My dear nephews, what is this that we hear?'
The
nephews said in answer: 'Sire, let the testimony of the goldsmiths and
the pundits, the scribes and the supervisors, be taken, if the truth is
to be known. Food is scarce with the fault-finders, and that is why
their tongues have gained in sharpness.'
The explanation was so luminously satisfactory that the Raja decorated each one of his nephews with his own rare jewels.
The
Raja at length, being desirous of seeing with his own eyes how his
Education Department busied itself with the little bird, made his
appearance one day at the great Hall of Learning.
From
the gate rose the sounds of conch-shells and gongs, horns, bugles and
trumpets, cymbals, drums and kettle-drums, tomtoms, tambourines, flutes,
fifes, barrel-organs and bagpipes. The pundits began chanting mantras
with their topmost voices, while the goldsmiths, scribes, supervisors,
and their numberless cousins of all different degrees of distance,
loudly raised a round of cheers.
The nephews smiled and said: 'Sire, what do you think of it all?'
The Raja said: ‘It does seem so fearfully like a sound principle of Education!’
Mightily
pleased, the Raja was about to remount his elephant, when the
fault-finder, from behind some bush, cried out: 'Maharaja, have you seen
the bird?'
‘Indeed, I have not!’ exclaimed the Raja, ‘I completely forgot about the bird.’
Turning
back, he asked the pundits about the method they followed in
instructing the bird. It was shown to him. He was immensely impressed.
The method was so stupendous that the bird looked ridiculously
unimportant in comparison. The Raja was satisfied that there was no flaw
in the arrangements. As for any complaint from the bird itself, that
simply could not be expected. Its throat was so completely choked with
the leaves from the books that it could neither whistle nor whisper. It
sent a thrill through one's body to watch the process.
This
time, while remounting his elephant, the Raja ordered his State
ear-puller to give a thorough good pull at both the ears of the
fault-finder.
The bird
thus crawled on, duly and properly, to the safest verge of inanity. In
fact, its progress was satisfactory in the extreme. Nevertheless, nature
occasionally triumphed over training, and when the morning light peeped
into the bird's cage it sometimes fluttered its wings in a
reprehensible manner. And, though it is hard to believe, it pitifully
pecked at its bars with its feeble beak.
'What impertinence!' growled the kotwal.
The
blacksmith, with his forge and hammer, took his place in the Raja's
Department of Education. Oh, what resounding blows! The iron chain was
soon completed, and the bird's wings were clipped.
The
Raja's brothers-in-law looked black, and shook their heads, saying:
‘These birds not only lack good sense, but also gratitude!’
With text-book in one hand and baton in the other, the pundits gave the poor bird what may fitly be called lessons!
The kotwal was honoured with a title for his watchfulness, and the blacksmith for his skill in forging chains.
The bird died.
Nobody had the least notion how long ago this had happened. The fault- finder was the first man to spread the rumour.
The Raja called his nephews and asked them. 'My dear nephews, what is this that we hear?'
The nephews said: 'Sire, the bird's education has been completed.'
'Does it hop?' the Raja enquired.
'Never! 'said the nephews.
'Does it fly?'
'No.'
'Bring me the bird,' said the Raja.
The
bird was brought to him, guarded by the kotwal and the sepoys and the
sowars. The Raja poked its body with his finger. Only its inner stuffing
of book-leaves rustled.
Outside the window, the murmur of the spring breeze amongst the newly budded asoka leaves made the April morning wistful.
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