Story Of A Squirrel – An Allegorical Tale

By A. Sivapathasundaram –

It is a dense forest full of plants, ferns, shrubs, and trees, both tall and short, and diverse animals of all kinds. A squirrel, a blur of brown and grey fur and three conspicuous white strips on the back of its body, scurries through the undergrowth, darting among the trees and the branches.

The squirrel knows not of its supposed legacy of the three white stripes on the back of its body: In a tale emanating from the Ramayana, one of its kind had helped in the building of a bridge to rescue Lord Rama’s wife, Sita, abducted from India by Ravana and kept in Ravana’s kingdom in Lanka. Seeing the devotion and dedication of the squirrel, Lord Rama, in fondness, caressed the squirrel gently, running his fingers over the squirrel’s back. The three conspicuous white stripes that one sees on the back of a squirrel are said by some to be the marks of Lord Rama’s fingers. Since then, these marks appear on the bodies of all squirrels.

Some others say –which too the squirrel knows not–the markings are similar to the three stripes of holy ash that Hindu Saiva devotees apply on their foreheads in obeisance of Lord Shiva, also metaphorically, as reminder of the impermanence of body that inevitably and eventually ends up in ashes, when the soul departs from its embodiment.   

This squirrel, flitting between different trees, alternates restlessly climbing up the rough bark of different trees, and coming down, and repeating the process. It also darts around, nimbly foraging and gathering nuts and seeds, which, looking around to see whether anyone is watching, assiduously gnaws the ground with its nimble claws to bury them under the earth. It is for recovery for its food during the harsh embrace of the winter.  However, it invariably forgets most of the points of places in which it had taken so much of effort and care to bury, the nuts and seeds often ending useless for it as food as it had planned.

Suddenly, it glimpses an animal in the thick of the forest and the dense foliage, with a grin stretching wide across its face and eyes glinting, intently and with measured steps approaching it.

“Is it a friendly smile or a glee of a predator?” – The squirrel is not sure.

The animal steadily lumbers towards the squirrel.

Nervous with wonder and worry, its energy morphs into outright panic.

The animal seems closer, its grin never wavering. Panic chokes the squirrel.

Fright pulsating its entire body, it frantically looks around.

It spots a small wooden structure perched on a platform on stilts above the forest floor and a flat surface jutting out.

With a desperate surge of energy and burst of speed, it scrambles for refuge from the danger lurking, and launches itself onto the veranda.

Its tiny claws land with a thud.

Seated on the platform is a tall, bulky figure.

Hearing the thud and seeing the squirrel on the veranda, the tall, bulky man rises from his chair, and walks towards the squirrel, extending his arms. His mischievous son, who was frolicking around, also hears the thud and sees the squirrel. He follows his father keeping close.

Seeing them, the squirrel thought, panting and standing on its hind legs, “Surely, these beings would not mean harm”.

It sees a broad smile on the face of the approaching man.

“Is it a good thing or not?” —it is not sure.

A tentative chirp escaped its throat; shivers run down its bushy tail.

“Is it a friendly smile or a glee of a predator?” – The same thought envelops the mind of the squirrel again.

“Is it a cruel mockery of my desperate search for refuge?”, it asks itself.

The son following the man prods: “Papa, I want it; go, please get it”

Just then, looking around, the squirrel sees a lean and starved monkey tethered to a chain on the pillar of the veranda, nibling what appears to be a crumb of a stale bread. Overhead, hanging on the ceiling is a bird in a rusty cage. It continually flutters in what appears to be its forlorn attempt to get out into the open wide.

The squirrel senses it’s only hope for survival being dashed into smithereens; its world goes dark.

Confused, and its senses tangled with both trepidation and intrigue, sees in the man a predator, not a protector.

Desperation drives it. — With a squeak, it leaps back into the forest. But it lands right at the very feet of the waiting animal.

“Easy pickings,” the animal mutters. Its grin widens further, this time with genuine amusement as well.

It swiftly snatches the bewildered squirrel in its jaws, the same glint in its eyes.

Its grin widens as it chomps down on the squirrel.

The tall, bulky man and his son watched disappointedly from the veranda, perched high on stills above the level of the forest.

They both sigh deeply, the dejection of not having the squirrel for them unsettling them.

The squirrel, meek and week, the common of the world’s tangled and treacherous forest, falls an easy prey to the devouring predator—its fate the same be it down in the forest or up above in the veranda.   

The forest, beautiful as it is, with a tapestry of plants, shrubs, and trees wide and varied, is a place of harsh realities, where the very survival of its tiny creatures is not heard, helplessly subjugated, or devoured by the might of the ferocious.

The post Story Of A Squirrel – An Allegorical Tale appeared first on Colombo Telegraph.