Sour Grapes

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Aesop's Fables fascinate me. 

Having read them as a grown-up, I find them pretty dumb.

So, for fun six years ago, I tweaked and retold a dozen of them with atrocious twists in their tails.

This is how our "Tweaked Tale of Two Cats & A Monkey"(which has been read 489 times) ends:

And then Ishani smiled at me and said:

"I know what is going to happen now...the Himalayan Monkey bites away the two pieces one by one till he eats both of them entirely, and runs away and climbs and hides in the top branch of the banyan tree, no?"

"No, dear...you are not right"

"Then, how does this story end?"

"As the two fighting cats were watching and arguing and watching and arguing endlessly, the Himalayan Monkey first screeches and then howls and then lies on his back and then closes his eyes and then faints and then dies peacefully"

"Why?"

"That slice of bread was poisoned"

"Did the two cats know it?"

"Yes, yes, very much"

"Then why were they fighting?" 

"Theirs was a mock fight...they wanted to kill the Himalayan Monkey"

"Why?"

"They wanted to take revenge"

"How did they know that the Himalayan Monkey would come down from the banyan tree and offer to settle their dispute?"

"Oh...they were then in UKG and they had read Aesop's Fables in their Nursery Class"

"Very very clever!"

"Yes, remember, not all cats in the world are copycats"

https://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2014/10/fables-for-clever-girls-two-cats-and.html?m=0

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Let us now redo the: "Fox & Sour Grapes" for fun:

Last night Ishani came to me for another story.

And I began thus:

"There was this fox who was walking in the forest. And he noticed a succulent bunch of grapes hanging from the tall branch of a tree.

And he wanted to grab and devour its sweet grapes. So he jumped up but could not reach that bunch of grapes"

And then Ishani said: 

"I know this story"

"How does it go?"

"The fox jumps up twice more without being able to reach the bunch. So he tells himself: 'What a waste of time! Those grapes certainly must be sour'. And then he abandons his labors and resumes his walk happily"

And I said: "No, Ishani! That is not the right ending"

"How does it go then?"

"After three failed attempts, the fox goes home, opens his fridge, picks up a bottle, opens it, drinks its contents, and rushes back to the tree. This time on his very first jump he catches the bunch. And tastes a couple of grapes. And finds them sour. And he says to himself: 'What a waste of time on sour grapes!' And then he throws that bunch afar and runs away and catches a rabbit and devours it happily"

And Ishani asked:

"Very clever! What did that bottle in the fridge contain?"

"An energy drink"

"What is its name?

"Red Bull"

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For now let us abandon our mod version of Aesop's fable and its implications...that would be material for another blog. And revert to Aesop's fox and its sour grapes.

Politics is full of sour grapes.

In 2014 this fox wanted to jump and grab the PM post. And he failed miserably. And he grinned. He jumped again in 2019. He not only failed to become PM this time but had to abandon his hole in UP and scoot to Kerala to survive. Beaten badly by a woman with a jhadu....

And now he says:

"UP voters are fools. Kerala voters are wise"

Sour grapes!

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Literary Critics too are foxes. In their hearts of hearts they crave to write a famous bestseller. They fail. And they try and fail again. And they say to themselves: "What a waste of time! Literary grapes are sour!"

And then they turn into critics.

Listen to this:

....(RK) Narayan has also come in for criticism from later writers, particularly of Indian origin, who have classed his writings as having a pedestrian style with a shallow vocabulary and a narrow vision.^[16] According to Shashi Tharoor, Narayan's subjects are similar to those of Jane Austen as they both deal with a very small section of society. However, he adds that while Austen's prose was able to take those subjects beyond ordinariness, Narayan's was not.^[102] A similar opinion is held by Shashi Deshpande who characterizes Narayan's writings as pedestrian and naive because of the simplicity of his language and diction, combined with the lack of any complexity in the emotions and behaviours of his characters....

The first Shashi is a politician (failing).

And few have heard of the second Shashi...poor fox!

Only Bernard Shaw was honest. He said:

"I am taller than Shakespeare. But of course I am standing on his shoulders"

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I too am a literary fox.

Six years ago I abandoned daily-blogging in English and joined the celebrated group of Telugu poets in: "Shankaraabharanam".

The poets there fascinated me with their scholarship, Sanskritized vocabulary, knowledge of puraanaas, and charming style.

I too wanted to reach their supreme heights. And failed. Jumped again. Failed. And then I said to myself: 

"Telugu writing is pedestrian. Waste of time"

Sour grapes!

And I reverted to English a couple of months back.

And, with the impeccable technical support of Sri Kandi Shankarayya Garu, I published two booklets in English...charming according to many of my English readers (one of the booklets is dedicated to him).

And I greedily distributed them to all  of my Telugu pundits in the Shankaraabharanam group.

None read them. Nor even bothered to acknowledge.

I hope they are saying to themselves:

"English writing is pedestrian. Waste of time" 

:)

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Here is the tailpiece of our "Tweaked Fable of Tiger, Brahmin & Fox" (that has been read 254 times):

The two then walk further and meet with a fox. The Brahmin tells his story to the fox and asks him for his judgment. The fox says:

"I just can't believe your story. Till you two really take me to the trap cage and give me a demo"

The tiger and the Brahmin walk back to the cage and show it to the fox. The fox says:

"How can such a small cage hold such a big tiger. Both of you are faking"

"How can we convince you?"

"Let the tiger get back into the cage and show me it can indeed hold him"

Ishani then said:

"Granpa! I know how this story ends"

"How?"

"The tiger then walks back into the cage and the fox at once shuts the gate of the cage and traps the tiger back and asks the Brahmin to run for his life"

"True...you are indeed a clever girl...but this is not the end of the story"

"What happens next?"

In the evening the Brahmin was walking back to his village and hears the pitiful braying of a donkey. And he finds a donkey trapped in another similar cage. And the donkey pleads with the Brahmin to open the trapdoor and release him. 

The Brahmin feels pity for the poor donkey which eats and survives only on old newspapers. And he opens the trapdoor and, guess what?

Ishani then said:

"The donkey runs away as fast as he can and the Brahmin goes home"

"Not exactly"

"What happens then?"

"Before running away the donkey gives a vicious back kick to the Brahmin in his vitals"

"Why?"

"This donkey is a symbol of the Democratic party" 

"What about the South Indian Brahmin?"

"Oh, he is a Born Loser"

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2014/10/fables-for-clever-girls-tiger-brahmin.html?m=1

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Acknowledgement:

I thank Sri Kandi Shankarayya Garu for suggesting the topic of this blog.

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