A Turtle ..... ......... ..... and some moral stories !

                                    A tortoise or perhaps a Turtle pictured at Kairavini thirukulam of Sri Parthasarathi Perumal Thiruvallikkeni.

 

All tortoises are turtles— i.e., they belong to the order Testudines or Chelonia, reptiles having bodies encased in a bony shell—but not all turtles are tortoises   Tortoises  are exclusively land creatures. They live in a variety of habitats, from deserts to wet tropical forests.  Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins.  Turtles live in Sea, river and Ponds and occasionally come out of water too! 

Coming out of water is not all that easy as experienced by Olive turtles - Under cover of darkness,  they swam harsh conditions, prepare the sea shore sand and lay eggs - baby olive ridley turtles hatch from sun-warmed eggs on remote beaches.  They try to return to the sea and not all of them make it back !   some lose their way, some get killed by predators ! – it is not a life of charming existence !   

There are many stories involving tortoise, the most popular being  its winning a race against a hare.  Then there  is  this  interesting story of ‘tortoise flying’ and ‘speaking madly’ in Panchatantra.   Once upon a time, there was a tortoise by the name of Kambugriva and two geese by the name of Sankata and Vikata.  When the local pond dried up totally, the geese offered to  shifting the tortoise by air, with firm advice that it should keep its mouth shut throughout.  The geese took each side of a lengthy sticky, to which tortoise was to hang by holding on its mouth…… midway, curious to answer, the tortoise spoke, opening its mouth, letting off the stick in the process, fell down and died……..  

Moral : listen to friendly advice and never speak when not required.   

There is Chinese fable – a little turtle that was afraid of coming out !  On one stormy night, a little turtle and his older sister were moving towards the pond. The little turtle was so scared of lightning and thunderstorms that he was not coming out of his shell.  His sister kept on encouraging  to come out of the shell and move towards the pond. The scared lil one told her about how a flash of lightning once stroked him, fortunately, it struck his shell, and he was alive.  As they kept moving, he saw a beautiful turtle,  fell in love and came out of his shell. 

 

Moral :  come out of the shell, to see and enjoy better things in life.  

Read somewhere a Turtle & Elephant story of African origin.   

Once a small turtle was sleeping in the grass,  an elephant came stomping along with his fat heavy feet. The ground was shaking, but tortouise  did not wake up or stir his shell.  The elephant shouted, get out of my way or get crushed ! Tortoise poked his head out and said, do whatever, I am stronger than you.  That hurt the ego and big pachyderm trumpeted louder and walked his way!  It weighed thousands of tons and  he placed his foot on the small one – much to the surprise, the tortoise was not crushed to death – his shell could withstand the weight of elephant.   

Ignoring the giant elephant, the tortoise continued his nap.  But that news stirred the neighbourhood – all animals gossiped and some spoke loud on how tortoise got the better.  By evening, tortoise went to a pond to be greeted by a hippopotamus.  Hippo warned him, don’t venture nearer, my jaws are much more powerful than an elephant and I crush crocodiles too.  

The proud tortoise had become headstrong and challenged the Hippo too but this time differently – he invited him to a game of   tug-of-war.  While one end was taken by the Hippopotamus, tortoise took the other one with lot of dirt and in the cover reached the river bank where the once defeated elephant was standing.  Snugly tortoise challenged elephant again and the elephant took the bite.    

Now without caring to check who was at the other the end – the elephant and the hippo started pulling the rope – one gave way a few steps, regained and pulled the other fiercely.  When the rope got snapped, both the animals fell and got injured.

This time the stock of Tortoise went further up as animals started telling the story of how tortoise defeated Hippo on one side and elephant on the other side 

Moral :  not all fights are won with muscle power, think, use your brain and put one against another – the brainy win is most likely to win  !!   

As you read this don’t waste your time pondering whether this could really happen – life is all about imagination, dreams and perceptions and thinking that one can be victorious against tough conditions too.

 
With regards – S Sampathkumar
11.7.2024