Ganesha and the Little Mouse

Ganesha had a long way to go, and he did not feel like walking. "I need someone to carry me," he said. An elephant came at once, because an elephant is strong. A big white bull came, because a bull is steady. A tall camel came, because a camel can walk all day without stopping. They stood in a row on the path and waited, very pleased with themselves.

Then something moved down near Ganesha's foot. It was a mouse. A small brown mouse, standing up on its back legs, with its front paws held together. "I could carry you," said the mouse.

Well. The elephant laughed so hard he had to sit down. The bull laughed until his bell rang. The camel made a noise like a kettle. "You?" said the elephant. "He is the biggest god in the village. You would fit in his ear." The mouse did not run away. He did not argue either. He just stayed where he was, standing very still, and waited to see what Ganesha would say.

Ganesha looked at the mouse for a long moment. Then he said, "Yes. Thank you." And he climbed on. Nobody ever quite explained how it worked. But off they went — and at the end of the road was a lane so narrow that no elephant, no bull and certainly no camel could have squeezed into it. The mouse went straight down the middle without slowing down at all.

They got there before anybody else, and Ganesha was not even out of breath. And that is why, even now, when you see him — with his big round belly and his one short tusk — there is a small brown mouse somewhere near his feet, waiting to go. The big animals were not wrong. Ganesha is very large, and the mouse is very small. They were just measuring the wrong thing.