A rocky rendition

A rather poky and ugly looking rock lay in the middle of a busy street. Passers-by often cursed the rock. It was a hindrance to commuters and an eye-sore to beauty lovers!

Some smart people used to park their luggage on the rock. But the general opinion was that the rock had to be moved out of the place, so that it stopped bothering the general public.

One day a sculptor happened to pass by. He heard people curse the rock and complain about its poky edges that bothered everyone around. He decided to make it into something beautiful using his knowledge of sculpture. With the help of people around, he moved it to a corner of the street and built a tent around it.

He chiseled away at the hard and unyielding rock. Many a times it poked him. He bore the pain and never once complained. He treated the piece of rock like a small child and spoke kind words to it as he chiseled away at the unwanted portions.

Soon the rock was turned into a beautiful piece of art. The sculptor wanted to convey a message to the public : When a bit of care and positive attitude combine with patience, any hindrance can become a thing of beauty!

One day, as he was giving the finishing touches, a storm blew the cover of the tent around the sculpture. When the storm had died down, people gathered around the sculpture and marveled at it.

“I knew the rock had the potential to look beautiful,” said one who had earlier called it an eye-sore.

“The rock is actually made of granite, one of the best rock-forms made by nature,” quipped a learned one.

In a very short time a crowd had gathered around the sculpture and people began talking. They praised the quality of the stone, its tenacity to withstand the sculptor’s chiseling and how in the end the stone had transformed itself so beautifully!

 One of the men even turned around towards the sculptor and reprimanded him for ruthlessly hitting the ‘poor rock’!

He aimed his question directly at the sculptor, "What if, in the process, it had broken beyond repair?"

The sculptor dropped his chisel and claw hammer and walked away from the crowd!

A few years later, the sculptor returned to the place where he had left his piece of art, unfinished.

As he reached the spot, he saw his work sitting in the corner, neglected and dirty. Before he could get any closer, he saw a couple of men walking past the sculpture.

“Why is this blocking our path? We must get this removed out of the way. It serves no purpose,” one of them told the other.

“True, the sculptor who made it should have taken it with him. It has become dirty and ugly. What an eyesore,” exclaimed the other!

After they had left, the sculptor took the man-and-wife sculpture that he had made to a nearby temple that was undergoing renovation. He washed and cleaned the art work and gave it some finishing touches.

As he finished his work, a priest who served at the temple walked past the sculptor. As soon as he saw the piece of art, he asked the sculptor if he could use it in the temple and the sculptor readily agreed.

When the temple was thrown open to the public, they were amazed to see the sculpture sitting pretty atop the temple! 

“It is the same sculpture that was lying on the roadside. The first day that I saw it, I knew that it belonged to the temple,” one woman told another.

“Yes, it possessed all the divine characters that made it worthy of the holy spot,” added another.

Picture courtesy: Anuradha Shankar @http://goo.gl/lZSRSO

The sculptor chuckled mildly to himself before leaving the place, this time with a sense of contentment at having completed his task!