A hare and a tortoise lived in Ahmedabad. They are good friends and like all good friends, sometimes have a dig at each other. One day, in a light mood the hare ridiculed the tortoise for his slow pace. The tortoise reacted by challenging the hare for a race between Paldi to Navarangpura.......and you all know what happens in this story.....

Lesson Learnt: "Slow and steady wins the race."

However, the story does not end here.....

The hare goes home and soon understands that complacency and overconfidence were the reasons of his defeat. He vows not to repeat the mistake again. He then invites the tortoise for another race. The tortoise agrees to his friend's request.

They meet at the appointed day and time at the starting point. The race starts. This time the hare dashes off to the finishing line without taking a break and wins the race comfortably.

Lesson Learnt: "Fast and Quick Learner wins the race".

Still the story does not end here.....

The tortoise goes home and thinks hard. He was aware that the hare couldn't be defeated in speed. He then ponders over his core competence.

At last he finds a solution and invites the hare to another race. This time the course is changed. It is from Paldi to Airport. The hare agrees.

At the appointed day and time the two meet at the start line and the race begins. The hare dashes off like a flash. Soon he arrives at the banks of river Sabarmati and is overwhelmed by a sense of dejection as he did not know how to swim. The tortoise comes to the bank, looks at the hare with sympathy and coolly gets into the water. He swims to the other side goes to the airport and comes back.

Lesson Learnt: "Core Competence wins the race."

Yet again the story extends to its finale.....

Both the friends decide it was enough of racing against each other. Why not think hard and find a way by which they together could travel from Paldi to airport at the minimum possible time. At the end of a brain storming session they come out with a solution and decide to try it out the next morning. At the appointed time they meet at the starting line.

The tortoise sits on the back of the hare. The hare dashes off form Paldi to the banks of Sabarmati. There the hare gets on the back of the tortoise and the tortoise swiftly crosses the river. On reaching the other side the tortoise again sits on the back of the hare. The hare runs as fast as he can to the airport. Thus they both reach airport in the fastest possible time.

Lesson Learnt: "Innovation, Smart Thinking and Teamwork wins the race"

In July 1981, a tortoise was sentenced to death for murder. Tribal elders in Kyuasini, a village in Kenya, formally condemned the tortoise because they suspected it of causing the death of six people, apparently through magic. However, because none of the villagers was prepared to risk the tortoise's wrath by carrying out the execution, it was instead chained to a tree. The tortoise was later freed after the government promised an official inquiry into the deaths.

A baby hippopotamus, swept into the sea by the tsunami is finally coming out of his shell thanks to the love of a 120-year-old tortoise.

Owen, a 300kg, one-year-old hippo, was swept down the Sabaki River, into the ocean and then back to shore when the giant waves struck the Kenyan coast. The dehydrated hippo was found by wildlife rangers and taken to the Haller Park animal facility in the port city of Mombasa.

Pining for his lost mother, Owen quickly befriended a giant male Aldabran tortoise named Mzee - Swahili for "old man".

"When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour similar to grown up hippos," Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at the park, told Reuters on Thursday.

Haller Park ecologist Paula Kahumbu said the pair were now inseparable.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatised. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.

"The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo was left at a very tender age. Hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years."

She said the hippo's chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.

Officials are hopeful Owen will befriend a female hippo called Cleo, also a resident at the park.