An Indian Folktale (In Search of Fire)
It was a winter night. The chowkidar (the village guard) had already made two rounds of the village. He was carrying a kalke, a handy earthen pipe through which one smokes. He had filled it with tobacco, but he could not light it as he had no match-box with him.
He called out to the inmate of a hut. An old lady opened the bamboo door.
“Can I have a small ember from your oven, Granny?” he asked.
“My son, my oven has not been lit for days. I am given a meal a day at the zamindar’s Head Office. At night, I manage with a handful of prasad or food the temple priest gives me. I rarely cook. How can I have embers in my oven?” said the woman.
The village-guard moved on to the next house.
“Would you lend me your match-box?” he asked the man who came out at his call.
“But we don’t have any! We had lighted a twig at the neighbour’s kitchen for our cooking purpose. Once everyone had their food and the day’s chores were over, my wife sprinkled water on the oven to extinguish the fire!” regretfully said the man. “Try at the next house.”
At the next house, it seemed all had fallen asleep and nobody responded to the village-guard’s call.
“The best thing will be to go to the village Head Office. The landlord’s staff would still be awake and even if the oven is not lit, someone would surely have a match box,” the village-guard thought and reached the landlord’s Head Office.
Reaching the Head-office, the village-guard saw the landlord’s manager sitting in an armchair in the veranda talking to the clerk.
So he saluted the manager and humbly said, “ Sir, forgive me for disturbing you but I came only to find a little fire to light my pipe.”
The manager laughed and stated: “Are you looking for fire to light your pipe? But what about the lantern you are carrying? Can you not see the flame burning inside it?”
The guard woke up to the horror of his own ignorance.
“Oh God, oh my accursed wit! It never struck me that I was carrying fire myself,” he grumbled against himself as the manager and the others laughed.
The message of the story is: What we search outside ourselves is already within ourselves — call it God or the Truth or the Soul. Ignorance that shrouds us does not let us find it.