The Blue Jackal

In a dense forest near the ancient city of Hastinapura, there lived a clever but hungry jackal named Chandarava. Like all jackals, he was a scavenger who survived by his wits, constantly searching for food scraps and easy opportunities. However, Chandarava was lazier than most of his kind and always looked for ways to get food without working too hard for it.

One particularly difficult season, when food was scarce throughout the forest, Chandarava grew desperately hungry. Day after day, he wandered through the woods finding nothing but dried leaves and empty burrows. The other animals had hidden their food stores well, and even the usual scraps from human settlements were nowhere to be found.

“I must venture into the city,” Chandarava decided one moonless night. “Surely there will be food scraps behind the houses and shops that even the dogs have missed.”

Under cover of darkness, the cunning jackal crept into the sleeping city. He skulked through narrow alleys and dark streets, searching for any morsel of food. His keen nose led him from house to house, but everywhere he looked, he found only empty spaces where food scraps should have been.

Growing more desperate with each passing hour, Chandarava noticed a faint light coming from a small house at the end of a quiet street. As he approached, he could smell something wonderful – the scent of food and cooking spices that made his empty stomach growl with longing.

The house belonged to Nilkantha, an elderly dyer who spent his days creating beautiful colored fabrics for the wealthy merchants of the city. Inside his workshop were large vats filled with different dyes – deep red made from madder root, bright yellow from turmeric, rich purple from indigo, and many other vibrant colors.

Chandarava peeked through a small window and saw that the old dyer had left some food on a table inside. There were leftover chapatis, a small bowl of lentils, and even some pieces of dried fruit. The jackal’s mouth watered at the sight.

“Just a quick dash inside, grab what I can, and escape before anyone notices,” he thought to himself.

The window was slightly open, just enough for a thin jackal to squeeze through. Chandarava carefully pushed it wider and slipped into the dark workshop. He could barely contain his excitement as he approached the table laden with food.

But just as he reached up to grab the first chapati, he heard footsteps approaching from the next room. In his panic, Chandarava leaped backward, directly into one of the large dye vats that stood along the workshop wall.

SPLASH!

The jackal found himself completely submerged in a vat of brilliant blue indigo dye. He thrashed and struggled, trying to climb out of the slippery container, but the more he moved, the more the thick blue liquid covered his entire body.

“What was that noise?” called the old dyer from the other room.

Hearing the man approaching, Chandarava managed to scramble out of the vat and leap back through the window, but not before the blue dye had completely saturated his fur from nose to tail. He was now entirely blue – a bright, brilliant blue unlike anything ever seen in nature.

Dripping with dye and still hungry, the unfortunate jackal ran back toward the forest as fast as his legs could carry him. Only when he stopped to drink from a stream did he see his reflection in the water and realize what had happened to him.

“By all the gods!” he gasped, staring at his transformed appearance. “I look like no creature that has ever walked the earth!”

At first, Chandarava was horrified by his bizarre appearance. How could he face the other animals looking like this? They would laugh at him, or worse, they might think he was some kind of monster and drive him away from the forest entirely.

But as he sat by the stream feeling sorry for himself, a brilliant idea began to form in his cunning mind. If he looked like no earthly creature, perhaps he could convince the other animals that he was something supernatural – something divine!

“Yes!” he said to himself, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Instead of scrounging for scraps, I could rule over the entire forest!”

The next morning, Chandarava walked boldly into the heart of the forest where all the animals gathered to drink from the main water hole. As soon as the first rabbit spotted him, a cry of amazement went up from all the creatures.

“Look! Look at that extraordinary being!”

“What manner of creature is this?”

“I have never seen anything like it in all my years!”

Animals came running from every direction – deer, monkeys, bears, elephants, tigers, and countless birds. They all stood in a wide circle around Chandarava, staring in wonder at his brilliant blue form.

“Fear not, earthly creatures,” Chandarava announced in his most majestic voice. “I am Kakudruma, a divine being sent from the heavens to rule over this forest. The great god Brahma himself has appointed me as your king, and he has given me this celestial blue form so that you will recognize my divine authority.”

The animals whispered among themselves in amazement. None of them had ever seen anything like this blue creature, and his explanation seemed to make sense. Surely only a divine being could possess such an unusual and beautiful color.

“Oh mighty Kakudruma,” said the elephant, who was considered the wisest of all the forest creatures, “we are honored by your presence. How shall we serve you?”

“And what do you require from us, divine one?” asked the tiger, bowing low.

Chandarava could hardly believe his good fortune. His plan was working perfectly!

“As your celestial king,” he declared, “I require that all animals bring me the finest food from their stores each day. I will use my divine powers to ensure the prosperity and protection of the entire forest.”

The animals were eager to please their new divine ruler. Each day, they brought Chandarava the best fruits, the freshest grasses, the most delicious roots, and the clearest water. He lived in luxury such as he had never imagined, sleeping in the softest beds of leaves and being waited on by all the creatures of the forest.

Days turned into weeks, and Chandarava grew fat and comfortable in his role as the false divine king. He made up elaborate stories about his heavenly origin and his special powers. The animals believed every word and competed with each other to bring him the most delicious offerings.

However, there was one group of animals that Chandarava was careful to avoid – his fellow jackals. He knew that if any jackal saw him up close, they might recognize his scent or his mannerisms despite his changed appearance. So whenever jackals appeared near his royal court, he would quickly send them away on various errands to distant parts of the forest.

“My divine nature is too powerful for creatures so similar to my earthly form,” he would explain to the other animals. “Jackals must keep their distance to avoid being overwhelmed by my celestial energy.”

This explanation satisfied the other animals, but it made the jackals curious and suspicious. Why would their new divine king specifically exclude them from his presence?

One evening, as Chandarava was holding court under a great banyan tree, enjoying his daily feast and receiving the adoration of his subjects, a pack of jackals gathered on a nearby hill. They had been watching their supposed divine ruler from a distance for several days.

“Something is not right about this ‘Kakudruma,’” said the eldest jackal, a wise old female named Dharani. “Have you noticed how he moves? How he sits? How he tilts his head when he’s thinking?”

“Yes!” exclaimed another jackal. “He moves exactly like one of us, despite his strange color.”

“And have you noticed,” added a third, “how he always sends us away whenever we try to approach? What kind of divine being would fear the presence of ordinary jackals?”

As they debated among themselves, the moon rose high in the sky, and the night air filled with the sounds of the awakening forest. Somewhere in the distance, a pack of wild jackals began their evening howl – that distinctive, haunting cry that all jackals make when the moon is bright.

The sound echoed across the forest, reaching the ears of every creature, including Chandarava. The moment he heard that familiar howl, something deep in his jackal nature stirred. It was a sound that called to his very soul, a sound that no amount of blue dye or royal pretense could silence.

Without thinking, without any ability to control himself, Chandarava threw back his head and let out a loud, unmistakable jackal howl in response to his distant kin.

“AWOOOOOOOO!”

The sound rang out clearly across the forest, and every animal in his court heard it. The elephant’s eyes widened in shock. The tiger’s jaw dropped open. The monkeys chattered in confusion, and the birds fluttered their wings nervously.

There was no mistaking that sound. It was definitely, absolutely, unmistakably the howl of a jackal.

“He’s a jackal!” cried the elephant. “Our divine king is nothing but a common jackal!”

“We’ve been deceived!” roared the tiger angrily. “This trickster has been making fools of us all!”

“A jackal has been eating our finest food while we went hungry!” squeaked the rabbits indignantly.

Chandarava realized his terrible mistake immediately, but it was too late. His true nature had been revealed by his own instinctive response to the call of his kind.

“Wait! I can explain!” he pleaded, but the angry animals were in no mood to listen to more lies.

“Chase him out!” shouted the bear. “Let’s see how divine he really is!”

“Make him pay for his deception!” cried the deer.

The furious animals charged toward Chandarava from all directions. The blue jackal ran for his life, dodging angry paws, snapping beaks, and trumpeting trunks. He barely escaped the forest with his fur intact, and never dared to return again.

Chandarava spent the rest of his days as a lonely outcast, neither accepted by the forest animals who knew of his deception, nor welcomed by his fellow jackals who were ashamed of his dishonest behavior. The blue dye eventually faded from his fur, but the memory of his foolish pride remained forever.

The forest animals learned an important lesson about not judging others by appearances alone, and about the danger of being too easily impressed by claims of divine authority. They became more careful and questioning when strangers appeared with extraordinary claims.

As for the jackals, they added a new saying to their traditional wisdom: “You can change your color, but you cannot change your nature. Truth will always find a way to reveal itself.”

And on quiet nights when the moon is full, the elders of the forest still tell the story of the blue jackal to their young ones, reminding them that honesty and hard work are worth more than all the clever schemes in the world, and that those who try to live by deception will eventually be betrayed by their own true nature.

The old dyer, Nilkantha, never did figure out what had happened to disturb his workshop that night, but he was pleased to discover the next morning that his blue dye had turned out to be the most vibrant and long-lasting batch he had ever created. He used it to make beautiful blue cloth that was treasured throughout the kingdom for generations to come.