The Son Who Delayed

The sages told the Pandavas the tale of Chirakari, the son who saved his mother's life and his father's soul by the simple virtue of doing things slowly - a tale that stands as the deliberate opposite of all hasty obedience.

There was a sage named Gautama who had a son so given to slowness and long deliberation that he was named for it: Chirakari, which means 'one who takes a long time to act,' the slow-doer. Whatever he undertook, Chirakari did with great care and after long thought; he never acted in haste, never did anything on impulse, but weighed and considered every deed at length before he performed it. His family and others sometimes mocked him for this slowness, thinking it a fault, a sign of a dull and dithering nature. But the day was coming when this very slowness, so often derided, would prove the saving of them all.