Once upon a time, a beautiful princess was out on a hunting trip on her horse. While hunting, she got lost in a dense forest. To look how far her followers were, she climbed up a tree. She was shocked to see a wild forest fire brewing up in a distance. Many animals were running to save their lives and many were trapped in the fire, they were burning alive. She watched in horror, as a family of deer were struggling to save their little ones, as the babies didn’t have any strength to flee to safety yet. Finally, the male deer gave up and flew away to safety. While the mother deer covered her little ones as much as she could and sacrificed her life trying to protect the little ones. They all perished in the fire ultimately. And the male deer survived the fire! The princess watched all this in horror and rode safely away on her horse. But she was very moved by the way, the mother deer was trying to protect her little ones and angered with the male deer for abandoning his family. She said to herself, ”How selfish and unreliable these males are! I am sure they are same all over the world. Whether they are birds, animals or men, I will never trust them.” And she made up her mind never to marry, ever! Now the prince of the neighboring state had met the princess in a royal festival of the 2 neighboring kingdoms. And he was madly in love with this beautiful princess. So he sent out a marriage proposal to this princess father but the princess since was not interested to marry anyone the proposal was denied. The prince decided to disguise himself and traveled to the princess’s kingdom to understand why she didn’t want to marry anyone. Soon through his sources, he found out about princess’s forest fire adventure from her confidant maid servants and also her reason for not wanting to marry anyone. The prince was disguised as an old man who was a story teller and one day he told princess of his own story of watching a family of bears how the father bear perished in fire, saving his young ones . The mother bear ran away to save herself from the forest fire while the father bear was trying to protect little ones from the fire by staying with them as they were just born and couldn’t run to safety. He told her that after witnessing such a selfish mother bear he had not married at all as he didn’t trust any women after this incident and had lost faith in all women kind.
“what a coincidence!” cried the princess. “I had the same experience but the in my experience I saw the father deer abandoning his family! Can men be faithful and not women? I’ve always believed that men were unfaithful and not worth trusting, but now I see there are 2 perspectives to this situation. after hearing your story I think I will change my mind about men from today onwards!”
“I’m glad you are rethinking about your wrong belief in men, my princess. But, I have to also change my wrong perception of women I had after hearing your experience! It is too late for me to marry any woman at this old age but I am sure you still have a chance to correct yourself and marry as soon as possible without any delay! Now that I see my mistake, as you do yours I will certainly change my plans of marriage!.” said the princess. The prince then removed his disguise and introduced himself and proposed to the princess again after explaining that he was in love with her and he had decided to pursue her and win her heart! even though she had rejected his first proposal of marriage!
The princess too, had fallen in love with the handsome prince and without wasting any more time both had a grand royal wedding and lived happily ever after!
Wisdom, life lessons and rules: There are always 2 sides to a coin. We have to keep open mind and not judge others instantly. Understand both sides of stories or perspectives and angles and not jump to hasty conclusions and belief systems.
“Neelu, today I received a letter from the teacher, she told me you were not being punctual to the classes at school tree! Whats going on?” asked Nishu tree. “No mommy, that was just last semester. This semester I am making an effort to be very punctual. I am not sure why the teacher always seems to find fault with me. She is always scolding us and telling us we are pampered, and are acting like spoilt brats. Mom, I am not a spoilt brat then why did she say like that to me?” asked Neelu Tree. “No, dear, do not jump to wrong conclusions!… she was not telling you, but she was saying generally to other people in the class. You have to keep an open mind. A teacher has a huge responsibility to train so many kids and all of you children will be future of our nation! So always respect a teacher and think about why any one would scold you? Because they mean well for you and want the best for you as they are our well-wishers. They don’t have any selfish gain by scolding you. You must think from her angle and figure out if what she says will benefit you in the long run. If she scolds you for being punctual then it will benefit you later in life.” explained Nishu tree. “When we interact with people, everyone has different views and perspectives. We must not be stubborn and jump to wrong conclusions and beliefs. Let me make you understand with a story how people think from different perspectives”…