The Story of the Mouse-Merchant - and Lessons for Telangana and Seemandhra/Andhra Pradesh

I am sure you all read the famous tale of the mouse merchant from Amar Chitra Katha series. In case you like me to retell, here goes:

Seeing a dead mouse on the floor, a merchant Vishakila says angrily to his son: "See that dead mouse? A clever man would be able to use even that as a means to increase his wealth. I gave a stupid fellow like you so many dinars, and far from multiplying that money, you have not even been able to keep what you had!". 

An enterprising onlooker asks Vishakila: "Sir, Can I take this dead mouse from you as the capital investment for my business?"

"Of course!"

Vishakila gives the onlooker, Gunadhya, the mouse, wrote him a receipt for it and left. 

Gunadhya sold the mouse as cat food to another merchant for two handfuls of gram. He ground up the gram and took a pot of water and sat under a shady tree at the crossroads outside the city. He offered the gram and the water humbly to a group of tired wood-carriers. Each of them gave him two pieces of wood. Gunadhya then took the wood to the market and sold it. He used part of the money form the sale to buy some more gram, and in the same way, the next day. He got some more wood from the carriers. He did this every day, and soon had enough capital to buy all of the wood-carriers' wood for three days. Suddenly, there was a great shortage of wood for a lot of money. He opened a shop with that money and became a merchant. He soon became a rich man through his own ability and business acumen. 

A few years later, Gunadhya ordered a mouse of gold to be made and returned it to Vishakila who gave his daughter in marriage. He became famous as the Mouse-Merchant because of this story. He became a rich man without having had no money at all.

                                                                                                           

Moral of the story? If you are enterprising and resourceful, you will convert a dead mouse into a golden mouse. If you are not and instead mess around, you can convert a golden mouse into a dead mouse. Wake up and smell the coffee!

#Telangana #AndhraPradesh #Seemandhra #KCR #Naidu #Entrepreneurship