Rescuer, not real friend

When I read this recently, initially I felt it was rather a risible reading piece. Since, superficially skimming through this fictitious story, it’d seem like some scatological humour, but only on sinking deeper beneath its surface meaning would one sense the supreme profundity hidden in it.

Once, a small bird suddenly gets frost-bitten and comes crashing down. Soon, it gets shrouded by snowflakes and gets sunk in the ground. It so happens that a stray cattle, passing by, poops on that bird-buried area. The warmth of poop revives the bird, which then starts chirruping feebly. Hearing the cheep, a brindled cat, skulking around, digs into snow, drags and devours the bird.

Well, the subtext of the story is that, when stuck in sticky situations, the one who saves us needn’t necessarily be our sincere friend, and the one who subjects us to severe hardships (compare with cattle dropping the poop), needn’t be our enemy. Incidentally, I recollect the words of a friend saying, “I had unwittingly antagonised some of my building residents, since I seldom attended monthly meets organised by them. At that time, a neighbour had dived to my defence to dispel all misunderstandings. Only later, I discovered her devious designs, when she frequently started foisting on me the task of babysitting her five-year-old.”

Yet another friend was saying, “When I bagged the promotion at workplace, it was more like a pyrrhic victory, as somehow I had got alienated from many, despising my success. At that time, a colleague, who I had initially thought was quite supportive, was actually playing double games trying to exploit me by getting many of her official work done using my clout. Her seemingly sweet words were sort of Trojan horse, concealing her wily intents.” Apparently, many of us get hypnotised by honey-dripping words of heavily machinating human folks, which could be a hard ploy.

That supposed help we receive from them during some crisis may all be a premeditated move, too. On the contrary, we get highly irritated over harsh words from people, who in reality, maybe really concerned about our overall well-being. So, it’s time we discerned the deadly truth about outer appearances being highly deluding. And hence, to not go wrong in distinguishing our actual friends and foes.