Pundi was a happy small fish in the little pond surrounded by green slippery banks. The lush bustling trees around, often offered shade to the pond, thus providing a cool cosy environment to Pundi and his friends. Pundi played around merrily with his friends in the pond and at times took to some serious swimming lessons on his own and then teaching his friends. He could never master any though, yet he knew how a fish was supposed to know about swimming. His thirst to innovate and experiment always kept him restless. Even with his eyes closed, something went on his mind continuously. He dreamt of swimming the big seas, large oceans, and at times even flying; his friends laughed at this. You could drop Pundi anywhere in the pond and he would skilfully swim his way out, so adapted he was to his pond. He was happy about his skills in that little world, but at times the thoughts of learning new swimming styles and facing the tides disheartened him. Poor me! He thought. He often had roller coaster rides between his deliberations of spinning into the oceans and bequeathing the pond, where he was known – a face that everyone recognised, presence that everyone loved.
Sadly, one day came a news that pond will be filled with large chunks of rocks, soil, mud, concrete, and clay, and what not; a huge township project was being planned there. Pundi and his friends were terribly worried. While some stayed back and chose to dump their remains under the burdens of concrete, Pundi convinced a few to set out and try new avenues. Yes, it was a tough decision to leave the place where they all had nurtured the wonderful moments of their lives, but Pundi believed in marching ahead. He looked at this as an opportunity to accomplish his flight of fancy of swimming the oceans and learning those advanced swimming techniques. With even a stronger conviction now, Pundi left for the rivers and then to the seas, each time getting happier than what he was yesterday. His friends got exhausted with the ecstasy and restricted their excursion to rivers and seas. Pundi had learnt to take the sea waves, dive in deep, and rise to top with the waves. His next destination was an ocean.
As though he had enslaved the lady luck, Pundi made his way to the ocean. Cheered with his latest achievement, he swam along the shores of the ocean. He was nervous initially but soon had himself moulded to what was required. He thought of a step forward now. He progressed towards the deeper waters. He met senior and experienced, some aged fishes all through his stride. He loved to see their swimming skills and how they twisted in that cold ocean water. He listened to their discussions from a distance, and felt excited about their triumphs of how they swam around when attacked by a shark or enticed by some bait or chased by some divers. Pundi thought he had been missing so much in life; he was nothing when compared to the real lives of the real waters. Soon he was a part of their group and attentively learnt what the seniors conversed. He was enjoying all this, but he missed his swimming, too much of lectures and mentoring made him irritated at times. Although a part of the huge group, Pundi was still no one, he yearned for what he was when in the pond. Pundi started staying aloof and did what he enjoyed the most – swimming. The big fishes, not necessarily in terms of age and size, but also by their talks, used to be engaged in boasting their skills, and thinking about what-to-do when something happened or when nothing happened, they were busy charting out what should be the goals and objectives of all the fishes. Pundi was starting to get bored.
Over few days, when Pundi was relentless swimming, remembering his old friends and days in the pond, a middle level fish approached Pundi and asked him to join a meeting. There was some news that a hazardous emission of chemicals was being done into the ocean. The meeting was to discuss a strategy on how to save the fish-world from this. Pundi occupied the last seat, as far as he could from the seniors, and yawned merrily, while still trying to keep his stare at the stern and grave faces of the gathered fishes. The only solution, Pundi thought at that point was to swim to some other place that was safe, as there was little that could be done in this case. Pundi had no talent to the likes of his seniors but was probably just using his common sense. The discussion went on with some heavy calculations and presentations that few members presented. There was a deep debate and feasibility test on the SWOT analysis (Swim-Wriggle-Occur-Topple), and then some Root-Cause-Analysis, two fish found some bones from the near-by burials and then they started some Fish Bone techniques to select the most appropriate form and stroke to swim across. Pundi was getting terribly confused with what all was happening, he couldn’t make sense out of anything, is all this going to really help, he thought. Swimming away was the best thing to do he was thinking at that time. Anyways, the seniors too were discussing the same to swim away, then why do strategy analysis and waste time. “Half knowledge is dangerous, but too much knowledge can be fatal,” Pundi said to himself, “sometimes it stops you from doing what is obvious”. Pundi jumped from the seat and started swimming the way he used to during his days in the pond. “Where are you going? You are being arrogant and disrespectful,” said the senior voices behind Pundi, but soon those voices had faded away. Pundi happily swam away remembering his old friends and his world in that small pond. Later, the senior fishes too adopted Pundi’s style and swam away the best they could. One from the group had soon joined Pundi on the voyage, both whirled away finding their way to a river. “It is sometimes better to use common sense and act than to sit in closed rooms and discuss things,” said the fellow fish patting Pundi’s shoulder with his left fin. And they happily swam ever after.
- P. K. Dastoor
