Last night GG wanted me to tell her a story and this is what I came up with. This is a the retelling of an old story which probably everyone has heard of atleast once. For me, this was one of the stories which my paternal grandmother (‘ammama’ as I called her) used to tell me a long time ago.

Chica and Chiki learn a lesson

Once upon a time, in a forest bordered by rivers and beautiful lakes, lived two monkeys – Chica and Chiki with their parents and friends. Chica was a girl monkey and Chiki, a boy monkey and they loved to play together. They went to the jungle school with all their other animal friends.

One day, Chiki found a huge piece of puri which was left by some picnickers. He had never seen something like this before, it was that huge! He quickly picked it up before anyone else could and ran to show it to his sister. Chica marvelled at the size of the puri and wanted to have a bite of it. They then decided to divide it into two so that both could get an equal piece.

“I will divide it into two halves since I was the one who found it” Chiki said as he took the puri into his hands to break it into two. “Noooo!”, shouted Chica, “you will not divide it into two exact pieces, but will take the larger piece for yourself”, she cried. Chiki could not take this accusation lying down and started fighting with his sister about how she was the one who would take the larger piece should she be the one who gets to divide the puri. This went on for a while and all this time, the poor puri was uneaten.

Finally unable to bear her hunger pangs any longer, Chica suggested they walk down the path and the first person they saw would be the arbitrator in this argument and that person would be the one who would divide the puri into half. So they walked on a path that led them home. When they had walked a while, they came across a black hare. “The hare looks honest”, though Chica and looked at her brother. He seemed to know what she was thinking (as he would as Chica and Chiki were twins) and decided to ask the hare if he would divide the puri for them.

“Mr. Hare, we have a small problem here”, Chica said “and we wanted to ask if you would like to help us solve it”. The hare had, in the meantime, had spotted the puri in Chiki’s hands and was drooling as he had not had lunch that day and was very hungry. He forced himself to look at Chiki and listen to what he was saying. “Sure little monkey, I will be glad to help you solve your problem. How can I help you?”.

“Mr. Hare, can you divide this puri into exactly two halves so that both me and my sister can have equal pieces?” asked Chiki. Mr. Hare said he would be glad to do the job and took the puri from Chiki to cut it up. He cut it into two pieces and held it out to Chiki. Then suddenly he stopped and said, “Oh, I think one piece is slightly smaller than the other, let me cut it up a bit so that both are the same”, saying this he took a small bite from the larger piece. He then held it out to Chiki and Chica and once again said one piece was smaller than the other and took a bite to make them equal. This went on another three times when he was finally satisfied that both pieces were exactly alike.

When he gave the pieces to Chiki and Chica, they took it back with such an expression on their faces, that it needed to be seen to be believed! That was because the once huge puri has become two tiny pieces. Chica and Chiki had no choice but to accept the pieces from Mr. Hare as they had decided they would accept the verdict of the person they met and that was Mr. Hare. They popped the pieces into their mouths and left from there without a word. Mr. Hare, on the other hand, gave a nice long burp of satisfaction as his hunger was now over and he was full.

Chiki and Chica now walked back home, feeling sorry for themselves. When they reached home and told their mama the story, she just laughed and said, “serves you both monkey right. You did not trust each other, were greedy and in the process a third person took advantage of you.” With heads low, Chica and Chiki vowed never to be greedy and to always trust each other so that noone can take advantage of them ever again. They had learnt their lesson – and how!