Many of this year’s client newsletters will include articles revolving around the theme of “memories.” Those who are new to Ideal Carpet Cleaning may find this blog post surprising… they’d expect us to promote Ottawa’s most thorough carpet cleaning, to offer a great rug cleaning service, to do tile and grout cleaning and to clean upholstery. But they might not expect our client newsletter intended to entertain and inform (on topics outside of household cleaning – though we do also offer tips on household cleaning).
We’d love to hear from clients on some of their most interesting memories. We have some very accomplished, well-traveled and fascinating clients but I’ll start it off. Growing up in Canada with immigrant parents from India gave me some interesting memories. In many ways, it was the best of both worlds: I learned South Asian culture, traditions and values while also benefiting from Canadian ones – which are, themselves, strongly influenced by both European and American culture, traditions and values. And, in many ways, I felt I learned a lot about the world, without having to go far.
Stories Preserve Lessons and Memories
All over the world, a traditional way of preserving memories is by storytelling. In particular, fables are very popular: it seems no culture can resist spinning a yarn that drives home a life lesson featuring animals getting themselves into trouble. As an aside, there’s wisdom there: different animals have well-known characteristics to fill stereotypical roles and, with animals instead of people, no feelings get hurt. The stories pass on cultural wisdom and memories.
The Internet Preserves Stories
Nowadays, I don’t know about wisdom but certainly the world’s memory is the Internet – in fact, for many people, something that’s not on the ‘Net really doesn’t exist! Happily, many valuable and entertaining stories are stored there. A search for traditional stories, folk tales or fables on YouTube or DailyMotion turns up millions of hits to animated videos from around the globe.
I haven’t been able to find on the Internet, though, one fable my mother told me when I was young (at least not in English – someday maybe I’ll figure out how to type a Web search in Hindi!). This article is an attempt at preserving the memory of that story (and an attempt at adding to the entertainment value of our newsletter, I hope).
The Story
Two hungry crows, friends, were together when they spied a piece of bread (chapati, Indian flatbread). Eager to eat it, they descended on the bread but began to argue to whom it belonged. A fox was passing by and heard them quarreling. The fox stepped in and said, “Friends, I see you cannot decide how to share this bread. Let me help.” He split the bread into two pieces and gave each bird a piece.
Before the crows could begin eating, the fox exclaimed, “Oh no! One of the pieces is a little bigger!” He tore off part of the bigger piece and ate it himself. The crows considered the new split but the fox cried, “Now the other piece is larger!” The fox tore off part of the second piece and ate it. Then he judged the first piece was again too much and ate some of that. Back and forth the fox went, eating more and more of the bread until the shares were perfectly equal. Of course, each crow ended up with just a morsel while the fox went away with a full stomach.
The Lesson
The moral of the story is that it is much better to settle our differences between ourselves – having someone else settle them costs far more.
About the Author
Anil Balaram is Ideal Carpet Cleaning’s part-time Marketing Manager. Anil was raised in Ottawa and works full-time as a software engineer. He and his wife have three children.