Ashish Joshi
There has been a terrible tragedy in Uttarakhand in which thousands of innocent lives have been lost and hundreds of homes destroyed. It is a time of working together and rebuilding the shattered lives of the affected. But sadly instead of coming together and restoring order to the chaos, political parties have begun a vicious blame game over the handling of the Uttarakhand disaster. Here it is worthwhile to read the story of a small group of porcupines in the Indian forests, who learnt to live together during one of the coldest winters ever. Many animals died because of the cold, freezing to death where they lay. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to band together to keep warm. They all huddled together so they could share their bodily warmth and keep out the cold, but this led to a major problem- the quills of each one pricked and wounded their closest companions.
After suffering for a while in this manner, each one decided to distance himself from the other, and they began to die, alone and frozen. The casualties began to mount and a critical choice had to be made: either accept the quills of their companions or die a lonely, frozen death. After some dithering, wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others. In this way they were able to survive the harsh cold of the winter. This story teaches us that the best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person’s good qualities, a lot of good things can be achieved.
