Nagu, Googu and Thiyagu!

There lived in a town called Nagapuri a snake charmer named Thiyagu. He kept a cobra and a mongoose. His profession was to go from village to village and town to town to conduct open-air shows under trees using these two poor beings.

Thiyagu was a cruel man. He fed the cobra, Nagu, an egg only once a week on Fridays. Due to this poor diet, it was in perpetual hunger. The plight of the mongoose, Googu, was worse; a mouse or a frog a week was all that it got. Thiyagu fitted a collar around its neck and tied it to a peg driven into the earth, allowing only a meter of radius to move about.

Wherever he went, Thiyagu selected a location—mostly near a marketplace under a peepal or banyan tree—to conduct his show. First, he would display his "tools of trade," which included Nagu the snake and Googu the mongoose. Playing his damaru vigorously, he would attract people.

In those days, people had very little entertainment. They had no cinema, no TV, or even radio. People like Thiyagu exploited their hunger for distraction. First, he would unleash a lecture on snakes and mongooses, dwelling at length on their never-ending enmity. Then, it was time for a duel between his cobra, Nagu, and mongoose, Googu.

With a barking command, he would rudely wake up the cobra from its hunger-induced sleep. Then, he would untie the rope with which he secured the mongoose to a peg. The spectators would gasp when these sworn enemies met—Nagu breathing fire through its nostrils and Googu ready for assault, its red-button eyes burning.

The cobra would try to bite the mongoose; the mongoose would try to scare the cobra by baring its dagger teeth. Nagu, inflating its hood, would strike at Googu like a flash. Googu would dodge it with agility and go for Nagu’s neck. The ding-dong battle would last some time, but on no account would the fight be allowed to escalate further.

Thiyagu would intervene and separate them. Nagu would be thrown back in its basket, and Googu would be tethered to the peg once more. After collecting coins from gullible spectators, Thiyagu would leave, carrying the snake basket on his head and dragging Googu behind on a leash.

While life was going on like this, a strange thing happened. One day, when the cobra and the mongoose faced each other in the arena as usual, the cobra hissed:

"Are we not tired of this drama? This human is exploiting the enmity between us. Instead of hating each other, let us hate him together. He is our common enemy. Let us become friends and jointly find a way to escape from his clutches. If you are ready to hear, I have an idea. In our next duel, when he takes me out of the basket, I will break free and start sprinting away. He will set you in pursuit of me. Then, we both will escape, cocking a snook at our common foe."

“Great idea!” exclaimed Googu.

"What is going on? Are you two rascals romancing?" yelled Thiyagu as he separated them.

At the very next show, as soon as Thiyagu removed the lid of the basket, Nagu sprang up like a spring and started wriggling away at lightning speed.

As expected, Thiyagu released Googu and shouted at it to go after the fleeing Nagu. "Bring him back dead or alive!" he screamed.

But Nagu and Googu both got away, leaving Thiyagu, their common enemy, dumbfounded. The great escapees, Nagu and Googu, met at the outskirts of the village and went their own separate ways after a big high-five.