Leader: 50 Insights from Mythology by Devdutt Pattanaik

Author:Devdutt Pattanaik
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2017-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

24

The poison of stagnation

Last Sunday, Shivkumar got transfer orders and he is upset. For years he has served the company loyally, not taken a single day’s leave, made it to office even when he had fever. Never late to office, he has worked diligently, doing all his work, even that of others, staying back in office every day, leaving only after his boss had left, making sure that all is in order. All his life he had stayed in Lucknow, in his family house. He walked to work and enjoyed the neighbourhood. Now this! How could they do this to him? How could they transfer him to Allahabad? Yes, the new office needed setting up, but why him? Surely, they could send someone junior, or someone more experienced in setting up new offices? He had not taken a promotion so that he could stay here. He was willing to take a pay cut to stay here. He just did not want to go to Allahabad. But this new boss, the one who came from Delhi, is a scoundrel. He just will not listen. ‘You must go to Allahabad, Shivkumarji. The company needs you to do this. And I need you to do this. And it is for your own good.’ Your own good? How can it be for his good? Moving to a new place, a new neighbourhood, a new house, the headache of school admissions, the pain of shifting furniture. And who would look after his family house while he was away? And his parents? Would they also have to move? His mother would never agree.

Shivkumar does not know this. But he is what Kaliya had become to Yamuna—poisonous. There was a bend in the river Yamuna near Vrindavan that was shunned by all the cowherds and cows. The water there was lethal. Even a blade of grass that fell into these waters shrivelled in an instant. This was the result of the poison that a great serpent called Kaliya spat out each day. When Krishna learnt of this, he decided to tackle the serpent. ‘Don’t!’ shouted his friends, but Krishna would hear none of it. He jumped into the river and began splashing about in glee, laughing at his friends who stood on the river banks begging him to come back. The disturbance caused Kaliya to stir and rise up from the river bed. He sprang up and grabbed Krishna in his coils. He spread his hood and prepared to strike the young lad, but to his astonishment, Krishna turned out to be a nimble fighter, slipping out of his coils with ease and striking him hard on his hood. Before Kaliya could react, Krishna had leapt on his hood and was dancing on it. No, that was no dance; he was being kicked into submission. ‘Go, go, go,’ Krishna said. Kaliya resisted. He thrashed about, swung his tail like the trunk of an elephant and shook his hood. He hissed and he bared his fangs, he twisted and turned, rose up and went down the water, determined to shake Krishna off.

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