Friday, March 26, 2010

To greed, all nature is insufficient

Note: This story is told in rural india to children before going to sleep. Its kind of fairy tale with a moral in it.
                            One hair queen

Once upon a time there lived a King who had two beautiful wives. First wife had only 1 hair and second wife had 2 hairs. King wasn't happy with the first wife having  only 1 hair and sent her to exile. First wife, devastated by the kings behavior was crying horribly in the jungle when from no where appeared an old woman and asked what was wrong with her. She told the whole story to her. After listening to the story, the old woman has told her to follow few steps. First to stop crying and be brave. Second, to walk 3 miles north to find a lake and to take a dip 3 times in its water. She wished her good luck and disappeared.
First wife followed the steps told by the old woman and took 3 dips in the water. She got her complete hair back and was looking more beautiful than before. She was more happy than one could imagine.She went back to the kingdom, bowing before the king and asked him to accept her as his wife again. The king was amazed and accepted her.

Meanwhile he sent second wife to exile on the same grounds. She followed the foot steps of the first wife and met the same old woman on the way.
She gave the exact same steps as told to first wife. Second wife turned into a beautiful lady after 3rd dip. The next moment she thought she would become more beautiful by taking few more dips. Alas!!! Her greed had ruined everything. She lost her beauty,hair and looked wrecked. She cursed herself for being greedy.
Finally she went to the king for his forgiveness and asked him to accept her. The king couldn't forgive her and told her that her greed has taken everything from her. The king and his first wife lived happily ever after!!!!

Moral:There is no cure for greed. We just have to be content with what we have. The more we want, the more we are losing our SELF. 

3 comments:

Suman Y said...

just to play a devils advocate :) .. wouldn't that make ppl lazy .. to be content with whatever one has ..

lets say I have only 1 roti to eat and my family is sleeping hungry .. should i tell myself that I should be content or should I work for meeting the needs of my family?

I meant to ask where and how do we draw that line of greed vs need :-) ..

Mural! said...

Yess I too agree on that with suman, greed is bad but working extra hard to expect fruitful n fair returns isn't that bad......

Deepthi Pola said...

@Suman: Ofcourse one would work for family to fulfill their needs. its for urself to draw that line of greed vs need. Do really people ask the question,"DO I REALLY NEED THIS??" before buying or wanting anything??

@Murali: It isn't bad as you say. But how far would you go with that?? Its a never ending road. Greed shows you things saying,"I m free, but at this expense".