The Lion and the Cub
Leona was in the family
way.
She wandered off to the
edge of the Gir forest.
Hungry for two, she was
prowling for a kill.
I feel a welcome drift in
the wind.
My meal is walking on four
legs, thought she.
Bleating was the sweet
sound of welcome satiation.
One bleat, two bleats,
umpteen bleats and a harmonic cacophony:
Louder they are, she
thought, nearer is the meal for two.
She salivated, smacked her
lips and emitted a growl of muffled roar.
The wind rustled the tall
grass, as the drove whet her appetite.
She crouched and waited
for a tussle with the mob.
It was a good day, the
flock thought, because the grass was tender.
There were no snake, no
fox, no scorpions and no fear.
In one long jump, Leona
landed on the back of a sheep.
The thud scattered the
rest of the mob in a pick of panic.
The scent of death
pervaded the air.
The sheep under weighty
embrace slithered out somehow.
Soon there was a flailing
cub; the lioness bled intrapartum.
Breath and warmth left the
lioness.
The mob assembled around
the wonder amongst them.
They ruminated long and
hard, chewed some cud
And decided to raise the
cub.
A newly parturient sheep
let the cub suckle her.
Months went by without
incident.
A lion came along for a
hunt, fell upon the trip,
And saw a lion cub in the
midst of the mob.
He crouched in the tall
grass, rubbed his muzzle,
Scratched his head and
wondered why….
He went to the lion cub
late in the dead of night,
Mouthed him by the nape
and took him to a lake in the moonlight.
“Look here, cub, you are a
lion, what are you doing with the sheep?”
Look at your face in the
water and tell me who you look like.”
Baa, baa, baa went the
lion cub; the lion hid his face in shame.
“Come, come, give a roar,”
said the lion.
Baa, baa, baa, came the
bleat.
After many Baas, came the
roar.
Now lion-sheep is not a
sheep any more.
He is a lion, the son of
the Lion himself.
The lion took the cub into
the forest
And said to his family,
“Here is my pride and joy.”
"He is my son, I thought, I will never see."
Veeraswamy
Krishnaraj
Ispiration from Swamy Vivekananda story
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