ETIQUETTE and GOOD MANNERS
[A Story]
By
VIKRAM KARVE
Once a renowned philosopher was traveling through the wise Mulla Nasrudin’s village and he asked Mulla Nasrudin if he knew of any good place to eat.
Nasrudin suggested an eatery and the scholar, hungry for conversation, invited Mulla Nasrudin to join him for the meal.
Much obliged, Mulla Nasrudin accompanied the scholar to the restaurant, where they asked the waiter about the special dish of the day.
“Fish! Fresh Fried Fish !” replied the waiter.
“Bring us two,” they answered.
A few minutes later, the waiter brought out a large platter with two fried fish on it, one large fried fish and one small fish which was quite a bit smaller than the larger one.
Without hesitating, Mulla Nasrudin took the larger of the fish and put in on his own plate.
The scholar, giving Nasrudin a look of intense disbelief, proceeded to tell him that what he had just done was not only blatantly selfish, but that it violated the principles of almost every known moral, religious, and ethical systems and started to deliver a moral lecture and pontificated on the subject of etiquette for a long time.
Mulla Nasrudin calmly listened to the philosopher’s long winded extempore lecture patiently and when the scholar had finally exhausted his speech, Nasrudin asked the visitor, “Well, Sir, please tell me, what would you have done?”
“I being a conscientious and cultured human being would have taken the smaller fish for myself,” pontificated the scholar taking a high moral ground.
“Good. Here you are,” Mulla Nasrudin said, and placed the smaller fish on the scholar’s plate.
Tell me, Dear Reader, what is the moral of the story, the wisdom hidden in this tale?
VIKRAM KARVE
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
vikramkarve@sify.com
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