The thirsty crow and the thirsty man

KR Bharti

PANDIT Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra features many interesting stories, including the one about a thirsty crow. A crow lived in a jungle near a village. On a hot summer day, it flew over fields in search of water, but in vain. All sources of water had dried up. There was not a drop to drink. It was terribly tired but did not lose patience. At last, it reached a garden, where it saw a pitcher under a tree. It flew straight down to see if there was water inside. To its delight, the pitcher had water. The crow tried to push its beak into the pitcher. Sadly, it found that the neck of the vessel was too narrow and the water level low. The crow thought hard for a while. Then, looking around, it spotted some pebbles nearby. It suddenly had a brainwave. It started picking up pebbles and dropping them one by one into the pitcher. As more and more pebbles filled the vessel, the water level kept rising. Soon, it was high enough for the crow to drink. Its plan had worked! The bird quenched its thirst and flew away, leaving an everlasting moral — where there is a will, there is a way.

If Vishnu Sharma were to script a story of the present-day thirsty man, perhaps he would do it this way: It was a sizzling summer. The temperatures had broken all records. A man was very thirsty. Not a drop of water dripped from the taps at home. He requested his neighbour to give him a bucket of water. The latter lamented that he, too, was short of water. The man rushed to the bowli and the well, the traditional water bodies of the village. Alas, they had dried up. Having never bothered to maintain them, he had become fully dependent on piped water. But what could the poor pipes do when there were no sources of water?

Frustrated, he incited villagers to start an agitation against the government. He coined slogans against the government and hurled the choicest abuse at the authorities. But water eluded him. He convinced women activists to break empty pitchers in front of the office of the ruling party. The water still didn’t come out of the taps. The state government blamed adjoining states for not releasing water from their barrages. The matter went to the highest court of the land, which advised the states to resolve the matter. But the states narrated their own woes of water shortage.

Ultimately, the government made an effort to supply water through tankers. But the demand outstripped the supply. The greedy man began to hoard water, even as others craved for every drop. There were brawls over water in the streets. Private contractors arranged hundreds of tankers to supply water. They were labelled ‘money-making water mafia’. The poor man was left wondering: if the contractors can find a source of water, why not the government? After all, where there is a will, there is a way!

Sitting on a tree branch, the crow mocked the helpless man.

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