LALU AND KALU
By
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur

One grocer had two sons, Lalu and Kalu. He wanted to get them taught in basic measurements on a weighing scale and as such, he entrusted the boys to a tutor. The boys were so unmanageably restless and naughty that a number of tutors proved themselves unable to impart this minimum instruction to them.

Finally, the grocer had to declare that he would give away half the share of his grocery business to anyone who could educate those two boys in numbers up to one hundred at least.

These two boys, however, were full of so many vices and they became addicted to smoking habit even in their early childhood. Nevertheless, a poor old Brahmana, being allured by the attractive and lucrative terms, undertook the job of teaching those boys. Their father made a very stringent arrangement so that the boys should always stay with the tutor.

One day Lalu and Kalu were out on a strolling along with their tutor when they came across a cow. The tutor asked Lalu, "Could you say how many legs this cow has?"

Lalu started counting the cow's legs, "One, two, three..." All of a sudden, Kalu tried to restrain his brother by closing his brother's mouth with his hand, saying, "Oh brother! You shouldn't try counting. Never! He will cleverly teach you to count numbers." Lalu therefore discontinued counting when he realized the tactful teaching method of his tutor.

Another day, Lalu and Kalu were enjoying a recess in one room, along with their tutor. Initially both of them started snoring as if they were in deep sleep and as such, the tutor might take them to be deeply sleeping.

On side, their tutor also started sleeping, while he observed that his pupils were sleeping. After a while, Lalu and Kalu were peeping and prying to ascertain if the tutor were asleep. Being assured, they got up, went outside to enjoy smoking to their hearts' content and came back again to pretend sleeping deeply.

When the tutor woke up after a while, he smelt strong odour of smoking inside the room. Immediately, he roused the boys from their pretended sleep and started enquiring about the smell of smoking. He also smelt their hands to be sure of their mischief.

Then Lalu and Kalu, rubbing their eyes, started pleading, "Oh Sir! We know nothing about this." The tutor chastised them, "But how your hands are giving smell of smoking?"

Lalu and Kalu continued defending themselves in a spell of weeping, "Oh sir, we had fallen asleep before you started sleeping and we are just getting up now. How could we get an opportunity to smoke, sir? But it may be quite possible that some mischievous person might have indulged in smoking with the help of our hands without our knowledge while we were fast asleep!

Commentary - Those who are determined to accept no advice or instruction for their self-development, are reflected in the mode of character as revealed in these two cunning boys — Lalu and Kalu.

Quite often, many of us do not like to pay any heed to the messages and injunctions from the saintly persons, nor are we inclined to follow in their footsteps in our daily activities, only with an apprehension that they might lead us to a domain of peace and welfare. Just like Lalu and Kalu, quite a majority of common people could never accept the way to real welfare and happiness, whereas they would prefer a pretension of keeping in association with the saintly persons as well as continuing their activities of sense gratification in wealth, sex life, and wine.

Only because we are unable to give up our hypocrisy and sense of foolish individualism as well as independence, saintly persons simply fail to lead us to real wisdom. Whenever our spiritual master detects our inclination for such unworthy activities, we defend ourselves with a false plea that we are not really interested in such activities and it is merely some unscrupulous religious or social leaders have made us engrossed in them.

By nature, all mischievous persons do like that and they put all the blames upon others in order to conceal their faults. They try to project their thirst of sense gratification on to other honest persons.