The Noble Elephant
An interesting story these days is doing the rounds and I am sure many of you have read it. The story of The Dirty Pig and The Clean Elephant. For those living under the rocks these past few days, let's retell the story.
An elephant took a bath in a river and was walking on the road. When it neared a bridge, it saw a pig, fully soaked in mud, coming from the opposite direction. The elephant quietly moved to one side, allowed the dirty pig to pass and then continued its onward journey.
The unclean pig then spoke to its friends in arrogance, "See how big I am, even the elephant was afraid of me and moved to one side to let me pass."
On hearing this, some of the elephant's questioned their friend, the reason for its action. Was it out of fear? The elephant smiled and said, "I could have easily crushed the pig under my leg but I was clean and the pig was very dirty. By crushing it, my leg would have become dirty and I wanted to avoid it. Hence I moved aside."
Then the story goes on to tell us the moral or let's say the lesson, hidden in the story and its goes like this. Evolved souls will avoid contact with negativity, not out of fear but out of a desire to keep away from impurity even though they have the capacity to crush that impurity. Kick the drama and keep going. Not all things require your time and attention. A very noble thought indeed.
I don't know where this story originated, who is the author or whether it is part of some fable, but I loved it when I first read it. Fabulous, I thought. How noble of the Elephant! It made me feel good about myself when I had been the elephant. When I had stepped aside for a pig to pass.
Then I looked back and I saw the pigs again. I wanted to know how the pig had changed. Did it make him noble too? Did it change him? Of course not! He was still a pig, after all. It hadn't taught him a lesson on congeniality or tolerance. Instead it had made them more arrogant and self important. So it got me thinking and I decided to give the tale a twist (with due apologies to the author and the intention of this story).
Here's the twist. Read on:
The elephant is revered in his circle of friends as a very noble soul and his friends start to follow his example. Tales of his tolerance start to inspire the kind and noble souls and he garners a lot of followers.
Meanwhile, the blissfully, unaware the pig starts to sing his own praises. He shoots his mouth off to all and sundry, about how the elephant was scared of him and of course, he has many witness who can vouch for it. After all it is the loudest that is heard. Eventually, word spreads and lot of animals in the jungle start to believe in the power of the pig.
The usually powerful lion and the ferocious tigers, wonder at the oddity but since they have nothing to do with this drama they become the fence sitters. The pig, being what he is, starts to spread his filth in the jungle. Greed and gluttony starts to rule and all the other animals who believe in the power of the pig start to follow him. So there are now three categories of animals. the pig and his followers who think that the loudest is the strongest, which of course there were many.
Then there were the fence sitters, who couldn't care less what happened to the jungle as long as they got their daily food and then there were the 'noble' souls who thought it was not worth their salt to fight the growing rot. And so the rot grew and the jungle became more and more filthy. The fence sitters kept looking away or finder better pastures to settle down and the the noble ones (who also included the lazy ones) found ways and means to justify their silence.
Eventually, the rot spread and spread, until the stink reached one and all. But now, it was a Herculean task to clean. So the noble ones became more and more adept at at saying 'what can we do?' and the fence sitters became more and more adaptable.
And so the rot goes on, as each waits for the other to speak up. If someone does voice his displeasure or protests, his voice is drowned in the cacophonous rants of the pigs and its followers. So the pigs rules and the 'noble' elephants wonder what happened. How did the world change? While the fence sitters can't be bothered, can they? They have their own lives to take care of and of that of their children.
Here's to the pigs of the world. Rule on! There is no one to stop you.
Then there were the fence sitters, who couldn't care less what happened to the jungle as long as they got their daily food and then there were the 'noble' souls who thought it was not worth their salt to fight the growing rot. And so the rot grew and the jungle became more and more filthy. The fence sitters kept looking away or finder better pastures to settle down and the the noble ones (who also included the lazy ones) found ways and means to justify their silence.
Eventually, the rot spread and spread, until the stink reached one and all. But now, it was a Herculean task to clean. So the noble ones became more and more adept at at saying 'what can we do?' and the fence sitters became more and more adaptable.
And so the rot goes on, as each waits for the other to speak up. If someone does voice his displeasure or protests, his voice is drowned in the cacophonous rants of the pigs and its followers. So the pigs rules and the 'noble' elephants wonder what happened. How did the world change? While the fence sitters can't be bothered, can they? They have their own lives to take care of and of that of their children.
Here's to the pigs of the world. Rule on! There is no one to stop you.
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