It is one of the interesting stories from the
Panchatantra collection, giving the idea that a friend in need is a
friend indeed. Once upon a time, a village was ruined by a strong
earthquake. The houses and roads got totally damaged. The village was
shattered on the whole. Due to this, the villagers were forced to leave
their houses and settle somewhere else. Finding the place vacant, the
mice began to live in the ruined houses. Soon their number grew into
hundreds and thousands.
There was a big lake located near the ruined village. A herd of
elephants used to visit the lake for drinking water. This was the only
way available to them, to reach the lake. On their way to the lake, the
elephants crushed hundreds of mice daily under their heavy feet. By this
action of the elephants, the population of the mice was affected. The
problem was getting bigger and bigger day by day.
In order to find a solution to this problem, the mice held a meeting.
It was decided that a request should be made to the king of the
elephants regarding the problem. The King Mice met the King Elephant and
asked, “Sir, we live in the ruins of the village, but every time
when your herd crosses the village, thousands of my subjects get crushed
under the colossal feet of your herd. Kindly change your route. We
promise to help you in the hour of your need, if you keep my term.”
The king elephant laughed on hearing this and replied,” You mice
are very small to be of any help to giants like us. But doesn’t
matter, we would favor you by changing our route to reach the lake and
making you safer”. The King mice thanked the king elephant and
returned home.
One day a group of elephant-hunters came and trapped the group of
elephants in huge strong nets. The elephants struggled hard to free
themselves, but all in vain. Suddenly, the king of elephants remembered
the promise of the king of mice, who had talked earlier about helping
the elephants when needed. He summoned one of the elephants of his herd
which had not been trapped, to go and contact the king of rats.
On listening to the elephant, the rat king immediately took his entire
group of mice to rescue the herd. He found the elephants trapped in a
thick net. The mice set themselves on the task. They nibbled the thick
net at thousands of spots making it loose. The elephants broke the loose
net and got free. They were grateful to the mice for their great help
and became friends for ever.
Moral: Sometimes a weak looking person may prove stronger than
others.
