The Dog Who Went Abroad

In a certain place lived a dog named Chitranga. A long famine came there, and for want of food whole families of dogs began to die. So Chitranga, his throat parched, went abroad.

In a city there, through a housewife's carelessness, he got into a house every day and ate all sorts of food to his full satisfaction. But on the way out the neighbourhood dogs would surround him and drive their teeth into him all over his body.

He thought: "My own country is better, where even in a famine one can live in peace and nobody picks a fight. I shall go back to my own city." And he went back.

On his return all his relatives crowded round him and asked: "Chitranga! Tell us about that foreign country — what is it like? What are the people like? What is the food, and what the customs?"

He said: "What is there to tell about a foreign country? The food is varied and plentiful, the townswomen careless — but a foreign country has one fault: there it is your own kind that turns on you."

सुभिक्षाणि विचित्राणि शिथिलाः पौरयोषितः । एको दोषो विदेशस्य स्वजातिर्यत्र दुह्यते ॥

Moral: Food plentiful and varied, the townswomen careless — a foreign country has just one fault: there it is your own kind that turns on you.

From the Panchatantra, Book IV — Loss of Gains.