The story of the Fox and the Grapes

The story of the Fox and the Grapes has followed me through life.

My mother told it to me first. Later, my grandmother repeated it in her own style. Even as a child, the image fascinated me: a fox jumping again and again for a bunch of grapes hanging just beyond reach, only to walk away saying, “They are probably sour anyway.”

I met that fox many times afterward. In schoolbooks. In Tamil and English. In coloured illustrations and fading black-and-white pages. Aesop’s name became familiar long before I understood why his stories survived centuries.

At that age, the moral seemed simple.
If you cannot get something, you pretend it has no value.

But life has a way of reopening old fables.

Now, when I look back at certain ambitions, disappointments, and relationships, the story feels less amusing and more uncomfortable.

Sometimes my career did not rise the way I imagined. Sometimes people I loved did not become the versions I had pictured in my mind. Sometimes even small things, like a meal not tasting exactly as expected, left behind a strange irritation far bigger than the moment deserved.

And then the fox returns.

Did I truly try hard enough for those grapes?
Did I stop wanting them halfway?
Or, when life refused me something, did I quietly protect my pride by declaring the grapes sour?

Perhaps that is why the fable survives.

It is not really about a fox.
It is about the stories we tell ourselves after disappointment.

Some of those stories heal us.
Some merely help us walk away with dignity.

Even now, I am not fully sure which kind I have been telling myself.

Sent from my iPad

Comments

The Big Bang Theory.

He is robbed including his pants. He can’t fix himself to change in life. He calls Leonard. — Girmit (^‿^) (@cgBalu) 🚆 → 🚉 → 🚆 → 🚉 A funny moment from The Big Bang Theory (Season 8, Episode 1). Sheldon decides to tour American cities by train. New York. Arizona. A few others. But there is a Sheldon twist. He never actually goes into the cities. He remains inside trains and railway stations, orbiting them like a cautious satellite. Then disaster strikes. He is robbed. Everything goes. Even his pants. And Sheldon being Sheldon, he cannot recalibrate his personality. So he does the only logical thing in his universe: he calls Leonard. ❤😎

Gunshot Piercing

Chill Gunshot Piercing It began, as all life-altering decisions do, with someone else’s fashion. My younger cousin walked in wearing purple ear studs—confident, casual, as if he had always been this stylish creature. I looked at him. He looked at me. The studs looked back at me and whispered, “Upgrade pending…” My wife sealed the matter in one line: “You will look good.” That was it. Proposal passed. No further discussion. A few days later, we went to the jeweller’s shop to buy a chain for our daughter. A normal, respectable outing. But destiny had other plans… and a small device that makes a sound like a stapler with attitude. My five-year-old grandson came along, purely for moral support—his own, not mine. The jeweller inspected my ears like an archaeologist discovering ancient ruins. “Ah! Old holes are there,” he declared, as if announcing hidden treasure. My wife took charge. She marked the exact spot on my earlobes with the seriousness of a surgeon and the confidence of ...

Same ease. Same certainty. No performance.

We went to the community departmental store, my grandson and I. I like walking with him. I’m quietly proud of it. Long ago, when I was young, I travelled in a car with a prominent man from our small town. My uncle sat beside him; I sat in front with the driver. He wasn’t loud. Didn’t instruct much. Authority sat on him like it had always belonged there. We had gone to a bigger town for Deepavali shopping. At one stop, my uncle got down, ran into a shop, and brought back two veshtis. The man didn’t touch them. Didn’t examine. Just glanced and said, almost lazily, “Take the one with the green border.” That was it. Decision made. No noise, no effort. Now I’m in a store again. Different time. Different company. My wife has given me a list. My grandson walks beside me, scanning shelves. At the biscuit aisle, he doesn’t fumble through brands. No debate. His eyes settle on a purple pa...

BLOGGING TO SOOTHE THE NERVES.

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