96. The Three Fishes

The Panchatantra, originally written in Sanskrit, is a collection of folklore and fables about anthropomorphic animals, intended for moral instruction in matters as varied as statecraft, war strategy, interpersonal conduct, and advice on swaying enemies, making friends, and profiting financially and spiritually. But at its core, these are stories bristling with danger, never losing sight of what survival is: to eat or be eaten, to kill or be killed. No animal is consistently the hero. Every jungle is bright leaves and shadow.

In the story of the three fishes, three fishes — close friends with very different philosophies — live together for many years in a pond. One fish, Thalaiyeluththu, believes that fate is predetermined, that all things that come to pass are as predestined as the writing divinely placed on the head of an infant at birth. The second fish, Thanthiram, feels that problems must be solved as they appear and believes herself cunning enough to do so. The third, Moolai, is old and wise and approaches her life on the basis of prior experience.

One day, Moolai is splashing by the riverbank when she overhears two fishermen talking nearby. "Ah, what large fish live in this lake!" one of them is exclaiming, to which the other agrees, "Bigger than any in the lakes we dredge. Let us come back tomorrow with our nets and catch them, and our families shall eat well."

Moolai returns home in a hurry and breathlessly reports this to her friends. "Let us escape before those fishermen come back," she says. "I know of a canal that will take us to another lake, where we can begin anew."

But Thanthiram does not want to yield her ancestral home to these encroachers and says, "I am cunning and resourceful and not without defenses. If the fishermen catch me, I will survive."

To which Thalaiyeluththu says, "I was born here, and I will not abandon my home. What is meant to be is meant to be."

Unwilling to risk her life, Moolai bids them a tearful farewell and departs for the canal. The following day, the fishermen return and cast large, strong nets into the lake, dredging in a vast haul of fish, among them Thalaiyeluththu and Thanthiram. "What a catch!" the fishermen exclaim, separating those fish that are dead or sickly and tossing them back into the water. Seeing this, Thanthiram holds her breath and lies very still, not moving even as the fishermen untangle her fins from the net, and through this pretense, she too is tossed back into the lake. Thalaiyeluththu, instinctively thrashing for freedom, meets her fate as she is clubbed to death.

The moral of this Panchatantra story is that victory is found through cunning and adaptability, extolling Thanthiram's approaches alone. However, to be misabled is to value something in each fish's philosophy. To be like Thalaiyeluththu, and accept and welcome sickness as you would the spirit of an ancestor who is as irritating in death as they were in life. To be like Moolai, and seek escape through new tests, new medications, new forms of bodywork and alternative medicine. To be like Thanthiram, the fulcrum on which the misabled bodymind pivots, an identity of "manyness" and elusiveness, and engage in disability masquerade, pass as "well" or "sick" as circumstances demand, comply with medical standards — play dead, so to speak — when clinicians refuse to perceive anything else, and revive in your true aspect when tossed back to the rest of the world (Detienne & Vernant, 1978/1991; Siebers, 2004).