Moral Science

Fairytales and fables have been the oldest form of moulding instruments used for training a child’s influential mind. The child is taught righteousness, morality, ethics, honesty, humility, etc. through these stories. As the child grows up, he is introduced to books like ‘Panchtantra’, ‘Easop’s Fables’ and the like. The ideas often get reinforced in the mind of the child as he grows up.

I have observed that these reinforced ideas usually tend to produce slightly different results than were expected. The individual tends to get a bit superstitious in his thought and conduct. For example, poor performance in an examination is a direct result of poor preparation. I used to play during study time and thereby fare poorly in my exams. But this situation would be analysed by me as ‘A period of immense pleasure is immediately followed by a period of ultimate sorrow.’ This more often than less resulted in me trying to spend the period before exams in boredom so as to automatically avail myself immense pleasure during the results. It never occurred to me that studying would ensure a good result. I learned the truth the hard way.

But sometimes these moralistic stories do help. Remember the story of the woodcutter whose axe falls into a pond? It so happens that he prays that he get back his axe and a fairy appears from the pond with a silver axe. The woodcutter is honest and tells the fairy that his axe was not made of silver. So she fetches another axe made of gold. But the honest woodcutter doesn’t claim that axe either. Finally when the fairy gets the woodcutter’s axe made of wood and iron, he takes it from her. Amazed with his honesty, the fairy gifts him both the silver and the gold axe too. And he lives happily ever after.

Well on our way back from Ladakh, my very humble looking bag was stolen from the train as it was lying amongst various attractive looking bags at Ambala Station. The bag was so plain and simple that if I were a thief, I would have never looked at it. But I presume the thief had great humility and decided to take my bag anyways. And he was rewarded too as my bag contained my mp3 player, my Ray Bans and various other articles which would easily be worth over Rs.8,000/- I guess whoever took my bag, if not before the incident, surely started believing in fables after taking away my bag. And it reinforced my old belief that ‘A period of immense pleasure is immediately followed by a period of ultimate sorrow.’