I love this story. Infact, I go through it almost once a month. So here we go... This story is about two kids who lived in a village. One of them was 10 years old and the other one was just 6 years old. That day they were playing somewhere in the outskirts and suddenly the older child i.e. the one who was 10 years old fell into an old well. The other kid was so afraid that he didn't know what to do. He cried for help but he could hardly see anyone there and his village was quite far away. It was dark now.
Finally, he found a rope with a bucket attached to it. He lowered it into the well and asked his friend to hold on to it tightly and with all his strength, he kept pulling the rope up until he saw his friend coming out of the well and both returned back to their village. Their parents along with other villagers were looking for them. When they both reached their village, everyone was staring at the condition of their clothes and the cuts and bruises over their body. So before anyone could question them, they explained the whole incident of what had happened in the outskirts and how one helped the other to get out of the well. Nobody believed them and laughed at their story. They thought that the boys have made up a story as a defence tool so that their parents could spare them. It was hard for the villagers to believe how a boy can pull a boy almost thrice his weight and double his age from an old well all by himself i.e. to state in simple words - how can a small boy help a big boy get out of the well and that too by himself. There was an old man in the village. The villagers respected him a lot not just because of his age but also due to the enormous experience that he had. So the villagers went to the old man and narrated what had happened in the village that evening. The Old man summoned the two kids at once. The old man asked the kids to narrate back the incident again. The boys repeated what that they had told the villagers hours back. The old man turned back to the villagers and said that the boys were telling the truth and what was there to disbelieve them?
The villagers were in a dilemma- On one hand it was logically impossible for them to accept a small boy who could not fetch a bucket of water from the well by himself had pulled out a big boy out of the well all by himself and on the other hand questioning the old man would mean disrespecting him. But the old man knew what was bothering the villagers. He said that the only reason that the boy was able to pull his friend out was -There was No One there to tell the Small boy that he Cannot. The villagers learnt a massive lesson, thanked the old man and returned back to their homes. Here the small boy represents "us" and the villagers refers to those people whom we are surrounded with, who doubt our potential even before we take up a task. Finally the moral - Even we don't know what are true potential is.
CAclubindia
