Krishna, a sprightly boy of 16, had a lot of friends. Among them, four were close. Krishna was considered wise and clever by the villagers. Although he was young, he was always keen to acquire knowledge of every kind. He even studied gemmology. Sometimes, the village elders consulted him. His four friends began to get jealous of him.
Quick work
One day, they challenged him and asked him to prove his cleverness. He brought a bagful of stones, and distributed these among his friends. He said, “Each one of you has a handful of stones. There are many types of stones here and some are diamonds. Please identify and separate them and show me.”
The boys got excited and were in a hurry to find the diamonds. In the process, they dropped many stones. Krishna collected the fallen ones and separated the diamonds.
It took them a while to sort out the stones. One or two of them showed crystal-like stones and said they were diamonds. Krishna laughed and said, “They are crystals, and not diamonds.”
Finally, the friends confessed that they could not find the diamonds. Krishna said, “Before you searched, you should have asked me how a diamond looks and how to identify it. Instead, all of you immediately began searching and without care. You dropped a lot of stones and I picked them and sorted the diamonds. Here, you can see them.
The friends felt ashamed and understood why he was called the cleverest of all by the villagers.
