A [Not So] Grimm Tale

The elders were happy, not just because they’d succeeded in getting all Titans to think new thoughts, but also because they realized that good ideas were not the preserve of only the most qualified of their tribe.

Many moons ago, in the fair land of Bengaluru, fire was used only for boiling the beans that gave the kingdom its name. The king promised a big reward to anyone who would use it otherwise.

Now there lived in the kingdom a band of intrepid souls, hard-working men and women, calling themselves the Titans. They declared that they were willing to undertake the enterprise. We shall make trinkets with it, they said. Trinkets that tell the time.

Before long, they succeeded in doing so and were indeed rewarded by the king. But even as he did so he set them a new task. The trinkets, he said, must be made of gold as well, and not just tell time. The Titans swore to do so, but wondered how.

To this end, The Titan elders sent word to each group that worked on the trinkets; to those who stoked the fires, and those who sold them, and even to those who shaped the baubles. All new thoughts, big and small will be rewarded, they said.

And, the thoughts did flow, first rapidly, then more slowly. But a time did come when the elders realized that only a few were thinking new thoughts. So they helped the rest of the Titans to improve their thinking and set them challenges to do so.

Along the way, they also passed on lessons to all Titans big and small, elder and young, on why it was also important to fail and learn from it; to not be afraid to think new thoughts.

They found that gold could only be melted in hard, black crucibles of carborundum and succeeded in shaping the gold into beautiful ornaments.

But the crucibles had to be discarded after a while, with gold trapped in them, that could just not be removed despite many attempts.

One fine day, a young Titan called Rajsekhar rented a dragon from one of his neighbors who used the dragon for stomping roads into shape. Riding the dragon, Rajsekhar crushed the crucibles into fine dust, from which the gold could now be melted out—all five kilos of it!

The elders were happy, not just because they’d succeeded in getting all Titans to think new thoughts, but also because they realized that good ideas were not the preserve of only the most qualified of their tribe.

Here begins another story…