A DROP OF HONEY

A man in distress was hurrying up to another village to meet a man who would
give money to solve all the financial problems that had almost ruined him. 
He had to cross the forest before he reached the other village – that too in a few
hours before the light falls. 
Few minutes after he entered the forest the clouds gathered and the light began to
fall. He scurried fast but it started to drizzle making his movement slow and
uncomfortable. As he took his steps forward, though slow, he heard a feeble roar.
The sound of the roar became louder in a few quick seconds. 
It was the roar of a tiger that came behind him. 
He started running for his life unmindful of the drizzle or the insufficient light. The
tiger too chased him for its hunger. 
The man saw a pit ahead of him that was enough to hide and save himself from the
tiger. He jumped into the pit. 
Alas! It wasn’t a pit but a dilapidated large sized well. He hit the raised small
platform of the well when he went tumbling down. He caught hold of a branch of a
tree that had grown surreptitiously from the inside wall of the well. 
He hung precariously taking a tight grip of the branch. Since the branch was wet
from the drizzle the grip started loosening. He looked down to see what was in
store if he fell down. Water! The sight of the water that should be deep enough
gave him some respite. 
But suddenly he remembered that he didn’t know swimming. The looming risk
took him to move his other hand upward on the branch. The sudden weight that fell
on the branch started breaking it, though slowly. 
Couldn’t swimming come naturally when a person was drowning? It was so, he
remembered someone asserting a long while ago. He looked down again at the risk
he might have to take. Now it was not just a risk but clear and present danger of
greater magnitude. 
A crocodile swam on the surface of the water and opened its mouth for the man to
fall. In a reflex action, he made another movement of the hand to grip above the
breaking portion of the branch only to see a snake slithering down near his hands. 
He hung from the branch and it swung from side to side. The swinging disturbed
the honeycomb that perched on the top of the tree. Hordes of agitated bees
swarmed over and began to sting him. 
A tiger on the wellhead above. A crocodile with its mouth agape down below. The
branch that he held was giving way. A snake slithering perniciously down the
branch. And the killer bees stinging him mercilessly on all. 
Boy! Was his life in danger? 
The sudden freeing of bees from the honeycomb loosened its tight weaving and
honey began to seep out.
A drop of honey fell on the man’s lips. 
Another drop. 
He tasted the drop of honey with the tip of his tongue while hanging precariously
from the branch that was giving way. 
Sweet. It wasn’t just sweet. It was nectar; drink of the Gods. 
The man forgot the tiger, the crocodile, the snake, the breaking branch and the
stinging bees. 
All that he sensed was the drop of the honey and nothing else. 
The moment was bliss. 
The momentous second made the meaning of his life. 
If the tiger, the crocodile, the snake, the breaking branch and the stinging bees are
the frights and threats of life that we face in everyday life the drop of honey that
made the life blissful is the literature.