Panchatantra and the CIO: The Crocodile and the Monkey

2

A crocodile and monkey become friends. Then in a cruel twist of fate, their friendship is put to the test. What can the CIO learn from this tale? Read on…

Once upon a time there was a mighty river. On the banks of the river there was an apple tree. On the apple tree lived a monkey.

The tree was full of sweet apples and the monkey, full of those apples, lived a quality of life most CIOs would envy. His days were spent doing what he loved to do. He had plenty to eat. He had nothing to worry about – no bosses to answer to, no politics and absolutely no system outages.

The monkey’s joyous and uneventful life was about to take a very interesting turn.

One day a crocodile came to the river bank. He was hungry and despondent having travelled for days in search of food and finding nothing. He looked at those delicious apples glimmering in the sunlight and thanked his lucky stars: food at last, food at last. Thank God almighty, I have food at last.

The crocodile had just one problem. He could not climb the tree to get to those apples.

Just as the crocodile’s joy was turning into despair, he saw the monkey on his hammock. The first pang of excitement caused an inadvertent call to the monkey, “Hello there friend, can you help me?”