The lady and the tiger.

For a long time I thought that ‘the lady or the tiger’ was a short story written by somerset maughm. But no, it’s written by Frank Stockton. It’s one of the stories I like best. You can read the story here: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml

Well the story is like this. There was this princess of a barbarian kingdom. She also possessed the passion and cruelty of the barbarian king and kingdom. She fell in love with a youth who’s way below her station. But she loved him with all her barbaric passion. One day king found out and gave him the usual punishment – that he’ll be send to an arena where there are two doors. Inside one door is the most beautiful woman in the kingdom and behind the other is the most ferocious tiger. He’s to open one – if it’s the beautiful woman, he’ll marry her if it’s tiger, it’ll kill him. the guy knows that the princess will know the right door and looks at her (remember she’s also a barbarian and so extremely passionate and also extremely jealous). She shows him one door and he opens it. And the question is who will come out – the lady or the tiger? The author has left it to us to decide.

I don’t know. If I were the princess and if I were swayed by the same extreme passions, which door will I show? May be the one with the tiger, may be the one with the lady J. I don’t know honestly. It is the same with everybody.

All of us have a beautiful and not so beautiful side to us. We all have this dilemma “to be or not to be” . Each moment we are making a choice, ‘to show the beautiful me or the not-so-beautiful me’. when I decide to show the ‘beautiful me’, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have the ‘not-so-beautiful me’. she is just hidden. Why I show the beautiful me is again because I want to make myself comfortable. Most of the times I find that my projection of myself is based on fear – fear of what others will think, fear of harm to myself, fear of criticism, fear of…. I really don’t project the real me most of the times. While it helps to maintain a sense of peace and harmony, many a times I search for the real me.

However, I can’t help but wish that I act out of ‘love’ rather than fear. I have found that whenever I act out of ‘love’, I am constructive. That is one time I seldom think about myself. But love is one feeling which comes and goes. Rest of the times, I live in the memory of it. I have observed that though people label many of their actions ‘are out of love’ for somebody or something, it generally is out of a self-preservation instinct. For when there is ‘love’ in me, I have felt that it’s towards everybody and everything and not just one person or a thing.

Anyway, realizing the beauty and beast in me has helped me accept myself. The other benefit is that I don’t have to criticize others’ actions (or even if I criticize I know I’m being a hypocrite) because I know the other side is just hiding around the corner. It helps me to accept people as they are. People are not continuously good or bad. The just react according to their cause and conditions. The moment I stop criticizing and judging, my life becomes easy and happy.

My sir said in one of his classes “God is a great communist. He made everybody equally crazy. The only difference is I specialize in one field and you another”. As always, I tend to agree with him