This week we’ll talk about two stories from the Jataka Tales. Both are about clever monkeys outwitting some kind of water monster. One of them claims to be a cardiologist expert enough to perform surgery on himself. The other is as observant as Sherlock Holmes and as resourceful as MacGyver.
The character this week is a giant crane. The bird kind. not the mechanical construction equipment kind.
Now onto the show.
There was a mango tree by the river. The mangoes were most delicious, and so a monkey lived there. He had breakfast, lunch and dinner right outside his door, what more did he want?
If he was thirsty, he could jump down to the river and drink his fill. As we have noted in a previous episode, the absence of industrial waste in those days made the water perfectly safe to drink.
But when approaching the river he had to be careful anyway. This was because the river was infested with crocodiles. Sure they looked like they didn’t do much, just sitting around in the sun, mouths wide open. Why, the monkey even saw some birds hopping in and out of the crocodile mouths and not get eaten. However the monkey played it safe. Those teeth sure looked sharp!
Most days the monkey would play and eat mangoes and not do much else. One day a crocodile approached him slowly, but also waving its hands in a gesture of peace. If you haven’t seen a crocodile wave its hands, you’re really missing something.
Hey monkey, said the crocodile.
“Hey crocodile! But I am surprised, do you speak Monkey?”
“No we’re actually both talking in the universal animal language. You may not have realized it, but this is a common language created by story-tellers so that we don’t have to spend a lot of time on establishing a means of communication before we even get to the *meat* of the story”
“Ah” remarked the monkey, “and what happens next in this story now that we’re communicating?”
“Just that you offer me a mango out of politeness”
“Cool, I can do that” said the monkey offering the crocodile a mango. The crocodile ate it. And loved it! The mango was incredibly sweet and the crocodile had never tasted anything like it before. He thanked the monkey and went home for the day. The crocodile skipped dinner that night and his wife suspected that something was up, but she let it go.
The next day the crocodile visited the monkey again and ate another mango, and skipped dinner again.
This continued for a few days, until the crocodile’s wife confronted him. “You have completely stopped eating dinner at home. Are you secretly eating dinner out with your mates? We can’t afford it”
The crocodile was reluctant to reveal what was up, but as it happens in all marriages, relented under pressure. His wife found it hard to believe. So he had to prove it.
The next day he went back to the monkey, who by now was a friend and asked for an extra mango. The monkey gave him an extra one without thinking too much about it.
The crocodile took the extra mango to his wife. She loved it too! In fact she said to her husband, “if the mango is so sweet, imagine how sweet must be the heart of the monkey that lives on these?”
“Wait a minute, that’s a silly argument. First of all, hearts just pump blood, they don’t absorb taste chemicals from ingested food. Secondly I have been eating mangoes every day too, does that you’ll eat my heart next? And thirdly, this monkey is like the goose with golden eggs. If we eat his heart, how do we get our mangoes?”
“You’re the silly one” the wife said “Firstly, how do you know it won’t? You have never tasted a monkey’s heart, you can’t claim to know how it will taste. Secondly, like I have been reminding you throughout our marriage, you haven’t got a heart. Thirdly, monkeys don’t lay eggs, golden or not, so stop blabbering and go fetch me the monkey’s heart”
The crocodile couldn’t argue against that! He slunk away, straight to the mango tree.
He knew though that the monkey would not go willingly. He instead said “monkey. My friend, good news, a new version of “the curse of monkey island” – that video game you love so much is out now, there’s another monkey on that island over there who has the game and is willing to sell it for a discount.
The monkey did indeed love this video game, and he had talked about it often to the crocodile. He even tried to get the crocodile to play along on an auxiliary controller but it didn’t quite work out. Crocodile hands aren’t exactly built to handle video game controllers.
Anyway, this is why when the monkey heard about it, he just had to go see it for himself. “Ooh it’s the island, how do I get there?”
“On my back” said the crocodile. “Hop on”
The monkey did without too much thought. The crocodile soon swam off towards the island, at least until they were far enough from shore that the monkey couldn’t jump back to land.
“Hey” said the monkey. “How did the video game selling monkey get to the island anyway? And the curse of monkey island is a game from many years ago. It had value then and was well rated, but those values and ratings don’t transfer to this day and age. And hey why did you just change direction – you’re heading away from the island now!”
The crocodile said “well the truth is that I was lying. There is no video game seller. My wife actually wants to eat your heart”
“Nooooo” screamed the monkey “I can’t take it! No new version? You raised my hopes just to dash them!
And wait, what was the second part? Your wife wants my heart?”
“She wants to eat your heart” corrected the crocodile.
“Well then why didn’t you just tell me before we left? I’d have brought it with me”
“You mean you don’t have your heart with you?”
“Of course I don’t. You must not be familiar with monkey biology much. We monkeys store our hearts at home. Haven’t you heard? The heart is where the home is?”
“I thought the expression was Home is where the heart is”
“Among crocodiles maybe. Anyway, let’s go back, I will be happy to give your wife my heart”
“*Feed* my wife your heart” corrected the crocodile.
They raced back, and as soon as they got closer to the shore, the monkey jumped off, scampered up his tree and breathed a huge sigh of relief!
“You silly crocodile. If my heart were out of my body I wouldn’t be alive. I am never coming near you again or giving you any more mangoes either”
The crocodile could do nothing because crocodile hands are not adapted to climbing trees, but you should have seen him try. It sure looked funny!
Our second story is about a band of monkeys who were wandering about a forest. They were thirsty and badly needed water. Finally, they happened upon a lake. The water looked so refreshing, all the monkeys were about to rush in. But just then their leader shouted, “Stop!”
Something’s fishy here”
“Of course” said one of the monkeys “its a *lake*. There must be fish in it”
“Haha very funny. But this is not the time for wisecracking. Observe – all these footprints are leading into the lake, and none of them lead out”
“And your point is?”
“Just that there are no animals in sight. What happened to them? I bet there’s a monster in the lake that ate them all”
“Argh!” Came a loud noise from the lake. A monster had emerged! “I am going to get me a new cleaning lady! You, monkeys! Tell me – is it too much to ask to have those footprints cleaned up? What does it take huh? I already pay her a hundred dollars every time and she can’t even clean this? I am going to take her to the better business bureau ” he grumbled.
The monkeys all looked at each other, expectantly.
“Oh yes,” the monster said. “I forgot the welcome speech. Here goes.
Welcome to the lake, your perfect retirement destination. Here you can turn off your mind relax and float and enjoy the sound of songbirds.
Be careful not to touch the water though. If you do, the monster has full permissions to eat you.
Carve your signature on the bark to indicate you have heard these terms and conditions and fully accept them”
“Eat us?!” Exclaimed the monkeys.
“Yeah, come near my lake and I will eat you”
The monkeys were really thirsty and too tired to find another lake, their leader could clearly see that.
He thought for a while, trying to find a loophole.
“Is the water safe to drink? Is it poisoned or otherwise capable of causing discomfort or illness”
“Well being eaten would be discomforting I suppose” the monster replied “but the water is perfectly potable, completely safe to drink, filled with nutrients and all that. But how are you going to drink it without touching it or coming near?”
“Now suppose” continued the leader “if a part of the lake water were to be separated from the rest of the lake, would that then be ok to drink without risk of being eaten?”
The monster was puzzled. “How are you going to do that?” he asked.
“Never mind how, just tell me” said the leader.
The monster put on his reading glasses and pulled out the monster handbook of Lake Residency Rules, Guidelines, and Etiquette and browsed through it for a while.
“I’ll admit, I can’t eat you if you do that but beats me how you’re going to get the water out of my lake without coming near the lake and without touching the water”
That was what the leader had been hoping to hear. “I’ll show you,” he said
The monkey leader organized a couple of teams. One of them would tear down all the hollow bamboo shoots they could find. The others would make bowls with a few large leaves joined together.
This tool-making behavior might have interested Dame Jane Goodall but she wasn’t around in this forest or in this century.
Soon the long hollow bamboo shoots which were basically pipes at this point were all laid down like giant straws, one end dipping in the lake, the other end opening up near the leaf bowls. The leader showed the monkeys how to use the straws, but to be careful not to drink the water directly from them. They would suck the air out of the bamboo shoots and redirect the flow to the bowls, so they weren’t touching the water and they weren’t going near the lake.
While the monkeys were chattering and drinking all they could from the leaf bowls that had water sucked from a bamboo straw, the lake monster was placing two very important ads on all the job sites. He needed a landscaping service to get rid of all the bamboo around the lake, and of course, he needed a new cleaning lady.
Notes
The crocodile and monkey tale is a well-known Jataka tale, though it’s also claimed to be a folk tale from the state of Karnataka.
In the original story, there’s a clear contradiction – the crocodile knows in the conversation with his wife that the monkey and his heart are one inseparable unit. Yet he readily buys the monkey’s story about him leaving his heart behind. Maybe he didn’t have a stethoscope with him to check. Obviously, it goes without saying a crocodile handling a stethoscope is a funny sight.
The Character of the Week
The character this week is a giant crane, the bird kind not the mechanical construction equipment kind.
Bakasur, quite unlike his gluttonous namesake from an earlier episode, was a shapeshifting demon.
He’d been sent by Kansa to kill the boy Krishna. See more about this in Episode 11 and Episode 13
Bakasur in giant crane form flew speedily to Gokul where Krishna played cricket with his friends.
He swooped down and scooped up Krishna in his beak. But Krishna wouldn’t be swallowed. He broke off Bakasur’s beak from the inside; killing the bird, to loud cheers of his friends. The bird fell to the ground, Krishna promptly got off, and resumed playing. It was his turn to bat now.
Next Week
Next week, we’ll do some Tenali Raman stories. I realize I had portrayed Raman as a tormentor of animals in episodes 2 and 3. He certainly was that, but he did a few good things too. For himself.
The character next week is someone who was absolutely devoted to their parents. So much so that he gives them higher priority than even a god who has come to visit him
I’ll see you next week.