The Wise Man of Naranam and the Great Stone

In the hills of Kerala, long ago, there lived a man whom everybody thought rather strange. He came from a place called Naranam, and every single day he did the same peculiar thing.

Each morning he would walk to the foot of a tall green hill, and there he would find a great heavy boulder. He would set his shoulder against it, and he would begin to push. Slowly, slowly, grunting and straining in the sun, he rolled that enormous stone all the way up the hill, step by aching step, until at last he reached the very top.

And then, at the summit, with all his work finally done, he would give the boulder one last push. And he would watch it go rolling, bouncing, crashing all the way back down to the bottom of the hill where it had started. And the strange man of Naranam would throw back his head and laugh out loud with delight, and then walk home, perfectly content.

The villagers shook their heads. “What a foolish way to spend a life,” they said. “All that work, every single day, and at the end of it he has nothing. No wall built, no field ploughed, nothing to keep or sell or show. He pushes a stone up only to let it roll down again. What on earth is the point?”

One evening a small girl from the village followed him up the hill and watched the boulder go thundering down. “Uncle,” she asked, “why do you do it, when it all comes to nothing in the end?” The man of Naranam smiled and wiped his brow. “Little one,” he said, “the stone was never the point. I love the pushing. The morning air, the strong feeling in my arms, the game of it. The stone only gives me a reason. Nothing to keep, nothing to lose, and a whole hill of joy in between.” The girl thought about that all the way home.

The wise man of Naranam only laughed his big, happy laugh. And the next morning, there he was again at the foot of the hill, his shoulder set against the stone, pushing it up into the warm sun. At the top he watched it go bounding all the way back down to the bottom, and then he stretched his tired arms, smiled out at the green country below, and walked home humming.