Who Will Bell The Cat? - A Panchatantra Story

Who Will Bell The Cat?

Once upon a time, there lived many mice in a grocer's shop. There in the shop, they ate delicious wheat and rice, pulses and nuts, bread and butter and biscuits. They grew fat day by day.

One day, the grocer thought about the heavy losses that he had to suffer because of the menace of the mice. This angered him so much, that the next day, he brought a big fat cat to his shop.

The big fat cat began to catch and kill the fat mice everyday.

The mice became worried. They called a meeting to discuss the problem.

"Let's get rid of this cruel fat cat," the leader of the mice said.

"But how?" the other mice asked.

All of them began to think. Then one mouse said, "We should tie a bell round the neck of the fat cat. So, whenever she would move towards us, the bell would ring and we will run into our holes immediately."

All the mice became very happy to hear this. They began dancing with joy. But their joy was short-lived. An old and experienced mouse interrupted their merry-making and shouted, “Fools, stop it and tell me, who'll bell the cat?”

No mouse had the answer to this big question.

Moral: It is easy to propose impossible solutions, but hard to find someone to carry them out.