Still water runs deep
Tom, Dick, and Harry were friends. All of them were aged seven or eight years and attended the same school.
They lived in the same place in neighboring houses.
Their parents were loving people and encouraged their boys to watch the world with fun and wonder, and enjoy themselves.
One evening, Tom trudged back home from school. The tree wound through a woodland path. Tall coconut and palm trees, huge banyan and mango trees lined the route.
There was a stream gushing by.
Tom stopped by to watch the flowing stream.
“There flows a stream with a gurgling noise. What a sight! How beautiful! Let me watch what the crane is up to!”
The crane then, long and erect, was standing on one leg to catch any fish that came his way. He accurately spiked a fish with his long bill and swallowed it!
Tom was delighted.
He then reached home and narrated to Dad just what he had seen.
Dad put him wise to the fact that standing on one leg, as the crane did here, meant single-minded devotion to a job.
Next week Tom and his schoolboys, numbering around fifty, went on a picnic to the next town.
There the boys saw a big pond. Its waters were still.
A couple of boys escaping the watchful eye of their teacher or caretaker played about the pond.
One boy stepped into it. He was cheered into moving deeper into the waters.
Now neck-deep into the waters, the little one developed cold feet. He barely felt that he was being swept off. He cried in fright for help. Before he could be rescued the game was over! He was drowned in the pond and fished out dead!
Now the truth dawned on Tom after he narrated the tragedy to Dad, that still water runs deep.
“People who are externally calm are deeply knowledgeable. Never test them for the sake of fun.”
“Foolish attempts tend to land one in trouble,” reflected Tom.
“Appearances are deceptive, my son.”
“You’re always right, Dad.”
Look before you leap.