Three Frogs Right After the End of Lockdown in Nepal

It was a rainy season. In the moonlight night, a group of frogs came out from all the corners of paddy fields making sounds – “ribbit, ribbit….”

The senior oldest frog summoned all of them to assemble in the open area – “Ribbit, ribbit… Please join the assembly, We are planning to visit nearest city as the government has ended the lockdown after 120 days in Nepal. …Ribbit, ribbit… And we had got to breathe easily after so many days— raining, raining and raining. It was hard time we had cause of Coronavirus outbreak, deadly disastrous flood and landslide … Ribbit, ribbit.” But three frogs out of them didn’t listen and they hoped and hoped and hoped. They didn’t care about anything, they were freely leaping as a competition one after another.

Little farther, there was a deep pit made by the landslide and flood on the way to jungle. It was full of sticky mud puddle deep inside. The three frogs were younger one who were much excited and leaped showing their tremendous energy. Suddenly, three of them fall into that deep pit. Their craziness made them realize the troublesome situation they had brought themselves. They said, “Ribbit, ribbit… How do we go out of it? … Ribbit, ribbit… We are in trouble.”

They tried so many ways to go out of that deep pit. They were taking a good bath of mud like people enjoy while planting rice in the paddy field. They were continuously jumping as much as they could harder, harder and harder. One of the frogs became unconscious as he could not dare to go out of that. He lost his will power and died. Two of them were vigorously tried jumping up, up and up high.

The senior oldest frog once he finished his statement, ordered to roll call in the assembly line. And soon, they knew that three frogs were missing. Then, all of them were mobilized to search the missing frogs here and there. They were too late to visit the city because of the three frogs. They were so disappointed. At last, they found them near the jungle inside the deep pit where they were jumping to come out.

One and after, everyone jumped there together side of the deep pit to see the missing ones. All of them made a circle tossing one another, climbing one above another, … ribbit, ribbit…. around the deep pit looking at the missing ones jumping inside that deep pit to come out. The crowd of frogs saw one of the frogs dead as that was leaning on the muddy wall. Two were trying harder to come out.

The crowd of frogs shouted at both of them, “Ribbit, ribbit… stop jumping, it is better to die, it’s impossible to come out. … Ribbit, ribbit…” And waved the hand by the crowd as a signal that both of you cannot come out. They had also thought that it is better to be dead as they had ruined the plan to visit city after the lockdown lifted by government. And it was cool moonlit night after the rainy days that lasts for many days.

As the voice of crowd roared high, high and high as they kept telling them to stop, they were good as dead. Finally one of the two alive frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died. Two were dead and only one was trying harder and even harder to go out.

The huge crowd of frogs were yelling at that one frog again and again, “Ribbit, ribbit… stop the pain and just die. Ribbit, ribbit…” They made a sign of their hands waving and nodding head as “coming out is not possible for you.” But, he was boosted with power due to the yelling crowd to jump again and again, higher than higher.

Finally, he did it with the speed of supersonic fighter plane and fell onto the distant heap of leaves in the jungle. Though he was too tired and hurt so much all over the body, he achieved to get his life back after getting into hell.

The Senior oldest frog came closure and said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time by crying, by waving hands and nodding heads, “You can come out…. come on frog, come on.” Though they did not got time to visit the city as they had planned. All of them had learnt a lesson— “A power of life and death in the tongue. The power of words can lift anyone up who is down.”

Moral: People’s words can have a huge impact on others’ life.

(Story based on the Aesop’s fable)