jabdakhata

The second story goes like this - In a town there lived a small time businessman who was doing poorly in business and therefore was in dire financial strait. That businessman prayed to the God and that night he had a dream that a monk had come to visit his house, but instead of entertaining his guest, he took a stick and hit the monk on the head. Immediately the monk fell down and got converted to a heap of gold. In the morning when he woke up he was still deliberating on the significance of his dream when his barber came for his daily shave. Just then there was a knock on the door and when the person opened the door, a monk came inside. Just then he remembered about his dream, took a rod and hit the monk on head. The monk fell flat and immediately there was a heap of gold coins in his place. The businessman gave his barber some gold and sworn him to secrecy. But this incident dishevelled the barber. He too went hom and began thinking, if by hitting a monk he gets so many gold coins, I...

In this series I am going to tell a story from ancient literature and draw the learnings in our professional and personal lives from the same. These stories are mostly taken from Panchatantra or "5 lessons" and Hitopadesha or "Good Advices". The first story (from Panchatantra) goes like this- In a large pond there used to live four fishes among others. These four fishes had some peculiarities. The first one was capable of sniffing, scanning and monitoring the environment and forecast and analyze trends based on changes in the environment. We will call this fish the "Astute Observer". The second one lacked the talent of scanning and forecasting, but he had a wonderful ability to scurry into action whenever a need arose. He used to devise a strategic plan and immediately acted on the plan. We will call him the "Intelligent Actor". The third one was neither an analyst like the first nor as intelligent and active as the second. However, he was extrem...