Hope

Just thought of sharing a small story I read in one of my primary classes. I liked it so much and was so much affected by it that I have remembered it ever since.
There was this fisherman in one of the small fishing village in coastal regions of India. He used to fish daily from sunrise to sunset and sell the catch at the night market to earn his livelihood. A normal, hardworking fisherman. He and his wife were quite content and happy with their lives.
One morning when the fisherman reached the coast to start another day full of toil, he heard a feeble female voice calling out his name, after much searching he found it to be coming from a small puddle of water at some distance from the main sea. On reaching there, he was amazed to see a small silver fish calling out his name. The fish must have reached the puddle in the high tide last night. She requested the fisherman to put her back into the sea. Kind hearted as he was he immediately did the same. As soon as the fish reached her abode she told the fisherman that she’d grant him one wish, and that she had the power to grant him anything. The fisherman thought for a moment and asked the fish to grant him a good house instead of the small makeshift arrangement they were living in. the fish granted him the wish, After selling his fare at the market that night, he headed back toward the place where his small hut used to be, but instead he found a huge structure at the same place. He was quite happy that the fish had actually granted his wish. He told his wife everything about the incident that took place that morning. She too was quite happy, but told him that he should also have asked for some money, so that they could live a more comfortable life.
So the next morning the fisherman reached the coast and summoned the fish and asked her if she would grant him another wish as he had saved her life. The fish agreed, so the fisherman asked her for so much money so as to fulfill all the needs of his family for generations to come. The wish was granted.
The fisherman and his wife lived in peace for some time. Then again the desire to have more arose. The fisherman again went to the shore and summoned the fish. He expressed the desire to be made the king of all the regions within 1000 miles of his village. The fish became very angry and scolded the fisherman for his greed. Then she told him that she will be taking back all that she had granted to him in the past and disappeared. When the fisherman reached his home, he found the same old small hut standing in the place where his magnificent house used to be.
It’s a Konkani folktale which shows the implications of human greed, and how heavily one has to pay for it.
But the writer had interpreted it in his own way. According to him the fish was to blame for all the greed that arose in the fisherman. The fisherman had helped her selflessly, he never expected any reward out of the act.
But the fish showed him that she could grant him anything. It was the fish that made hope arise in him. Then there was no fault of the fisherman in asking for more if he thought he could get more, afterall that’s common human nature.
According to the writer it was a wrong doing on the fish’s part to deny the fisherman whatever he asked for afterall it she who had made him hope that he could get anything out of her. It’s a terrible mistake to make hope rise in someone and then go back. You cannot lend a helping hand to a drowning man, show him a ray of light that he can survive and then pullback your hand.
So always beware of your acts, if you show somebody the light at the end of the tunnel, do make sure you do accompany him to the end of the tunnel, or else never point out that ray of light.