Here’s a folk story that was told by a Christian from south India. It’s about young boy who walked through his neighborhood with a pocketful of marbles, hoping to find opponents to play. One marble was especially important to him, a blue one with which he had won many matches.
One day on his walk he encountered a young girl eating a bag of chocolate candy. Though the boy loved marbles, he had a weakness for chocolates, and as he stood there talking with the girl, he had a huge craving to get his hands on the candy. A plan formed in his mind so he asked the girl, “If I give you all my marbles will you give me all those chocolates?” She replied, “Sounds fair to me.”
So the boy put his hand in his pocket, searching for a distinguishing crack on the surface of his favorite blue marble, and when he felt it, he pushed it to the bottom of his pocket and pulled out all the other marbles. He handed them over to the girl, received the chocolate, and as he walked away he congratulated himself on having gotten what he wanted without having to give up what he cherished most.
Then, as he began to eat the candy, a disturbing thought came to mind, so he turned back to the girl and asked, “Hey, did you give me all the chocolates?”
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S. Kamaleson, “Mangoes and Marbles,” Decision , January 1978