IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN PERFORMS A MAGIC TRICK (AND POOH GETS TO CHOOSE)

Sreekumar K

An Adaptation of the Pooh Stories of A A Milne

Inspired By The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

 

  It so happened that it was Thursday which followed Wednesday that week. Not that it had happened never before, but just that it disappointed Eeyore who wanted his expectations to go wrong. Pooh always cited Thursday (along with all the other days of the week) as the reason for doing THINGS.

     However, doing Nothing was a thing that Pooh always liked, but he needed Christopher Robin to help him do it. Soon Pooh was on his way to see Christopher Robin. Piglet accompanied Pooh as always. No, not as always, for there were times when Pooh had accompanied Piglet. (However Pooh said (as always) it was the same thing.)

     Curiously, this time each of them was accompanying the other. That meant both of them wanted to see Christopher Robin.

          “But it could also mean none of us wants to see him, which is not true. If we didn’t want to see him we wouldn’t be going to see him, which we are. Think, think, think”, Pooh said to himself.

     So Pooh thought and thought and thought and got a little confused. Piglet sympathised and sympathised and sympathised with Pooh, but didn’t say anything.

     By the time they saw Christopher Robin, Pooh had come to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter since it was a pity to go back without seeing Christopher Robin, both of them having come so far.

     Moreover, they had very little choice now.

     Christopher Robin, in fact, had already greeted them. Eeyore and Rabbit were also with him.     

     They looked like they just had a sumptuous meal.

 “Christopher Robin, I am glad to see you. But I am also thinking about this problem”, Pooh said.

          “Which one?” Christopher Robin asked.

          “The question whether it was Piglet accompanying me or I accompanying Piglet. For that, first I have to find out who wanted to see you more”, Pooh said.

          “It depends on who wanted to see him less”, said Eeyore.

     Rabbit put his chin up, closed his eyes, cleared his throat and began in his usual voice, “O.K., now there, since Piglet is smaller than Pooh it may seem Piglet wanted to see you less. But that cannot be, since both of them have travelled the same distance to come and see you. If Piglet wanted to see you less, he would have come only half the way or a quarter of it, since he is only a quarter of Pooh in size. But that didn’t happen. The proof: Both of them are now at the same distance from Christopher Robin.” 

            “Forget it my friends, because I wanted to see both of you more than you did”, Christopher Robin   said.

          “You can say that for me too”, said Eeyore. 

          “And now the problem is solved. It is funny how we solve problems before they gobble us up”, said Rabbit, relieved that he doesn’t have to think anymore.

      Piglet looked behind him and made sure there were no problems coming after him to gobble him up.

           “ It isn’t like that. We couldn’t solve the problem earlier since the problem wasn’t very particular about getting solved. We just waited till it got tired and had no other choice but to bow out. And now talking of choices, I would like to offer Pooh and Piglet something by way of choice. Eeyore and Rabbit already had their share”, said Christopher Robin.

            “Do you mean, in plain words, that you choose to offer us something?” Pooh asked.

            “No. I would like to offer you something if you know how to choose”, said Christopher Robin.

            “ Of course I know how to choose. You just say ‘Minnie meeny mainee moa’ and keep touching the items,” said Pooh.

           “Or ‘Inky pinky pomky, father had a donkey…..’. But I won’t insist on that”, said Eeyore.

          “That way of choosing again depends on where you start, or better, choose to start”, said Rabbit.

           “Which again is the same thing”, added Pooh.

           “But I want you to choose, just choose.”

           “Among what, or, as the case may be, between what?” asked Pooh.

           “Come into my room one after the other and see if choosing is a problem for you ”, said Christopher Robin.

     Piglet felt that it would be better to let Pooh deal with problems that gobbled up smaller animals.

           “You go in first or I can go in later”, said Piglet.

           “Which again is the same thing”, said Pooh.

     Finally Piglet gave Pooh the first turn. Rabbit and Eeyore offered to give Piglet company for some time. Christopher Robin took Pooh inside and closed the door.

    Inside the room there was a pot on each of the two tables set apart from each other.

    On one Pooh could read ‘honey’ and on the other something which Pooh managed to read as  ‘marmalade’.

          “Now Pooh, do you like honey or marmalade?” asked Christopher Robin.

    “It depends. If I have only honey I don’t like marmalade. If there is only marmalade I like marmalade. And if you have both honey and marmalade, I like only honey. That way, I like honey  two out of three times, which is to say I like honey more than I like marmalade.” Said Pooh.

          “But your cousin Paddington Bear likes only marmalade”, said Christopher Robin.

          “Maybe he never had any honey. Is there honey in Peru . But I doubt it.” Pooh said.

          “O.K., Pooh, here is the deal. Which of these will you choose?”

          “Of course, if you give me a choice between honey and marmalade, and if I am not Paddington Bear,

which I am not, I will choose honey”, Pooh said.

          “Are you sure?”

          “Almost.”

          “Do you want to change your mind now?”

          “The fact is, Christopher Robin, I don’t want my mind to change now.”

          “O.K. now you make your choice and it is all yours.”

 “But what is the magic?”

 “You will see it when you have chosen.”

     Pooh didn’t waste a minute. He moved towards the table on which the honey pot was sitting. He got up on the table and hugged the pot. Christopher Robin was behind him. Hugging the pot, he tried to see if it was the right pot. The marking was on the other side and however he tried, he couldn’t see it. He glanced at the pot on the other table.

     The other pot had strangely disappeared! There was no trace of it anywhere.

     Now there was only one way of checking whether what he got was really the honey pot. He got down and put the pot on the floor and moved back and looked at it. 

     He looked at the table where the marmalade pot was and then again looked at the pot on the floor.

          “Oh! This is wonderful, Christopher Robin”, Pooh couldn’t hide his surprise.

          “What?” asked Christopher Robin. He had been waiting for a response.

“You have spelt ‘honey’ correctly”, said Pooh.

 “But, Pooh, I mean it is amazing that the other pot has disappeared”, commented Piglet.

        “Oh! I didn’t think about that since it wasn’t the one I chose anyway. And now that you mention it, I feel happy I hadn’t chosen that.” Pooh felt relieved.

       “And I am happy you are the one who chose. I like marmalade. I would have chosen marmalade and it would have been the one that disappeared.” Piglet also felt relieved.

      “That means when your turn comes Piglet, you too choose honey. I don’t think these pots are that big anyway”, Pooh said. It always puzzled Pooh how the more he ate the less there was.

          “But how can a pot just disappear?” Piglet still couldn’t believe it.

          “But it didn’t”, said Christopher Robin handing the very same pot to Piglet.

          “I had just saved it for you.” Christopher Robin had made it appear from somewhere.

         “Wow! Where did it come from now?” wondered Piglet.

          “It is not that it came from somewhere. It didn’t disappear like it had done last time”, said Christopher Robin.

         “But I didn’t even choose”, said Piglet. He was still trying to figure things out.

         “But you had already expressed your preference”, said Christopher Robin.

“Which is the same thing”, added Pooh.

           “O, Pooh, you always have the last word”, said Christopher Robin.

     Pooh refused to say anything afterwards and Christopher Robin thought that Pooh was doing it just to prove him wrong.

     However on the way back, as they walked down the hill, and Christopher Robin could be seen waving at them still from behind the bushes on the hill, Pooh had his last word.

          “Tell me Piglet. Just how did the pot disappear?”

     Now it was Piglet’s turn to say nothing. He was wondering where much of the honey in Pooh’s pot had disappeared.

 

(Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. 

The Tao of Pooh is a book written by Benjamin Hoff. The book is intended as an introduction to the Eastern belief system of Taoism for Westerners. It allegorically employs the fictional characters of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories to explain the basic principles of philosophical Taoism. This book was followed by The Te of Piglet.}