The Ways of the World

Why does God burden me alone with so much strife?

In a village a young boy was playing by the river’s edge. Suddenly he heard a cry for help. “Save me, please save me!”

A crocodile was caught in a net and it cried out for help. The boy hesitated: What if the crocodile ate him up? But the crocodile pleaded with him and said, “I promise you that I won’t devour you. Please save me!”  Moved, the boy began to cut the net that had trapped the crocodile. No sooner was its head free from the net than the crocodile grabbed the boys leg in its jaws.

Now it was the boys’ turn to cry “How unfair you are!” he shouted. The crocodile said: “What to de? Such is the way of the world. Such is life,” and continued.

The boy was not worried about dying; he couldn’t accept crocodile’s ingratitude. While his leg was slowly sliding into the jaws of the crocodile, the boy looked at the birds on a nearby tree and asked: “Is the crocodile uttering the truth? Is life unjust? Are not words honored?”

The birds replied, “We take such care to build save nests on the tops of trees to protect our eggs. Yet, snakes come and swallow them. The crocodile is right. Then the boy saw a donkey grazing on the banks of the lake and repeated his question. “When I was young, my master loaded soiled linen on my back and extracted maximum amount of work from me. Now that I am old and feeble, he has abandoned me. Such is indeed the way of the world. There is injustice and unfairness and such is life!” said the donkey.

The boy, still not convinced, noticed a rabbit and repeated his question. The rabbit said “No no! I cannot accept what the crocodile is saying. It is utter nonsense!” Hearing this, the crocodile became angry and wanted to argue with the rabbit, even while holding the boy’s leg in its strong jaws. The rabbit protested, saying that as the crocodile’s mouth was choked with the boy’s leg it was not able to decipher what the crocodile was trying to say. The crocodile laughed heartily at this and said, “I am not a fool! If I let go the boy would run away!”

Now you are really stupid, said the rabbit. “Have you forgotten how strong your tail is? Even if he runs, you can smash him with just one mighty lash of your tail!”

The crocodile fell for this and releasing the boy, continued its argument and the boy took to his heels. Only when it tried to raise its tail, did the crocodile realize that it was still entangled in the net. The crocodile glared at the rabbit. The rabbit smiled sweetly, saying: “Now do you understand? Such is the way of the world! Such is life.

In a short while, the young boy returned with the villagers. A dog came along spotted the rabbit and started chasing it. The boy screamed at the dog. “This rabbit saved my life; don’t attack him.” Alas, before the boy could intervene, the dog had chased and killed the rabbit in a jiffy.

The distressed boy cried and said to himself, “What the crocodile said was true. Such is the way of the world. Such is life!”

Unfairness is a part and parcel of life. Such is the way of life. Can we teach ourselves not to be victims of unfairness and face it with the understanding that life’s mysteries cannot be fully understood?