Vedantic Tales : The Discipleship
        of Ajay : The Osprey

Then suddenly there was a angry, commanding scream, and another body hurtled between them. Break it up! It was Sanyal. He struck at the falcon, driving him off with the sheer power of his authority.

Back in the rookery, Ajay shook uncontrollably. He bled profusely from his wounds, and the pain, blocked out during the battle, was now acute. There was no more practice for him that day, or the next. His classmates nursed him, and Sanyal looked in on him from time to time and sat by him at night.

Why?Ajay asked. Why?

He has been jealous of you from the start, Sanyal replied. Now you are a real threat to him.

Jealous of me?

Look, Sanyal said evenly, you have had a taste of how it will be out in the world. It is a lesson you had to learn. Consider it as a part of your training the final exercise. You have to be prepared for that kind of attack always alert. If you are going to compete, you'll have to expect jealousy and trickery. Anyhow, you have proved yourself to be a good fighter.

The ugliness of competition, the sudden vision of a lifetime of guarding against vicious attacks out of the blue struck Ajay with a stab sharper than any physical pain from his wounds. He felt his heart break. He knew he could never again know the wild, abandoned joy of free flying. Always alert! And worse, there was the uncovered well of his own violence.

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