Lazy Somayya

It was a small village. Nobody was poor. Everybody had some property or the other. They used to look after an anaatha by name Somayya. However Somayya never learnt anything. He became a very lazy fellow. The elders of the village once called him and told “you have grown up now. You must do some work, do good to the society and earn something by yourself”. Because of paurusham, Somayya joined some work; but never could do anything properly, because he never learnt anything. Everywhere he used to get scoldings because of this.

Once he left the village, went to the forest and sat under a tree thinking how to earn easy money. Seeing him a white elephant asked him why he was so sad. Somayya told his difficulties. The white elephant gave the idea of cutting some wood and selling in the village. Somayya never liked doing work, so was not able to cut wood properly. Seeing his inability, taking pity on Somayya, the elephant used to bring some wood by itself and give to him. Somayya used to sell in them in village and carry on his life. His laziness increased again.

Once he came to know that the animal leather was very costly, mainly because it used to be taken after some animal dies and before the skin gets spoiled. Somayya thought of killing the animals, selling the skin and earn a lot of money. Everyday he used to do this. He earned a lot of money too. All the animals then met the white elephant and told their difficulty.

The elephant requested Somayya to not continue this. If he wants it is ready to give a piece of one of its tusks to save the life of other animals and with this once for all he will get a huge sum of money. Somayya thought he was fortunate and he earned 100 times the money which he would otherwise earn by selling the skins. Next day Somayya with force removed both its tusks entirely and went to sell them in the village.

All the animals in the forest then became united and killed Somayya the next time he came for animal skin.

(See the beautiful ekta video which used to come on DD)

Morals in the story:

1. Laziness is an enemy for the society. The very thought of trying to earn easy money is very dangerous as shown in the Somayya’s story. We must remember that any work we do to earn money must help the society not harm it.
2. The parokaara-buddhi of the white elephant is well shown in the story.
3. The power of unity is also shown in the story. Nobody can harm us if we are united.