The Tigress Is Also A Mother

 

The legendary Jim Corbett narrates this true story in his classic, The Man-eaters of Kumaon.

Corbett, as a young boy, would often go for long hikes in the forests of the Kumaon hills in the Gadhwal Himalayas. He would always be unarmed and more often than not spend the night in the jungle, making himself comfortable against the base of a tree. (The jungle is actually a safe place, safer than any of your cities. Wild animals never attack unless they feel threatened by you). On one such long walk, young Corbett decided to rest for sometime. He knew there was a tiny hamlet close by and thought he would spend the night there. All jungles are quite noisy, and this was no exception — the cicadas (a type of insect) were at their nosiest, a group of jungle warblers were rooting around squabbling with each other and a peacock was calling, harshly, frequently.

Suddenly the jungle fell silent. Then young Corbett heard the rustling of grass some 20 or 30 feet away. A tiny kid (a young goat) stumbled out. Corbett knew the villagers would soon come looking for the little fellow. As he was looking at the kid, he sensed something nearby. He slowly turned his head: a magnificent tigress strode into the clearing. And she was as surprised as Corbett at the sight of the kid. The kid not having seen or known what a tigress was, ran towards the great creature. Bemused, the tigress waited till the kid came up to her, then they both touched noses. The tigress licked the kid on top of its head. The kid must have realised that it had blundered for it turned and bounded towards the village. The tigress looked calmly at Corbett and her look seemed to say, "And what are you doing here, young man?" She then turned and disappeared into the jungle.

The tigress knew that the kid and Corbett were young and meant her no harm. Why should she hurt them? After all she too had young ones. For a few days later, Corbett saw the same tigress with a pair of cubs. v
Anger is Bad

There lived a man and his son. The boy was bad-tempered. One day the man gave his son a bag full of nails. He asked the boy to hammer a nail in the backyard fence each time he got angry. The first day the boy got angry 47 times. He hammered 47 nails into the fence.

This took a lot of energy. He decided to control his anger instead of hammering nails. The next day he got angry only 37 times. And so he hammered 37 nails. Still he lost a lot of energy. He decided to further control his temper. Consequently, with each passing day, he had to hammer lesser and lesser nails.

A day came when the boy did not lose his temper at all. He told this to his father. His father suggested that he now pull out a nail for each day he could hold back his anger. One day the fence was completely free of nails. The boy went up to his father and said, "Look I am free of my anger now."

The man quietly led his son to the fence. The fence was full of holes. "You have gained a lot by controlling your anger," the man said, "but the fence will never be without holes." v