The Small Vial

One of my many memories of childhood includes listening to cassette tape of aesops fables. I learned many valuble and fun lessons about how to behave and how to deal with sitiations that I still apply to my life today. After reading The Prophets Hair by Salmon Rushdie I had the same kind of reaction that I did when I listened to that cassette. I recognized that there is a moral to the story, but maybe it is not quite as easy to detect as my childhood fables.

The story is about a money lender and his family that fall upon misfortune when the father Hashim finds a stolen relic from the temple. Instead of gving the relic back, he keeps it and says that he is really doing the people a favor by not letting them be tempted to worship a false image.

Almost as soon as he brings this vial into his home, everything about their lifes is turned upsidedown. Hashim begins to be very cruel to his wife and kids and also begins to take his religion much more seriously then he ever did before. He beats his children so badly that one goes into a coma and one is bruised all over.

THe daughter decides that the only way to get rid of the object is to have it stolen from the house, so she hires a theif. The planned robbery goes wrong and disaster strikes the home even greater than before killing the father and both children and driving the mother into madness. The theif ends up dying as well and in the end the only one who benefits at all is the wfe of the theif, because she regains her sight.

I know that there is a good moral to this story but I dontknowif I am picking up on it the right way or not. The only thing that I can guess is that you shouldnt ever take anything sacred or cherished just for your own selfish benefit. Things arent always as they seem.