Alibaba and forty thieves

     The story is from the famous Middle-Eastern folk tale collection, "One Thousand and One Nights ( Arabian Nights)"

 In Persia, there lived two brothers, Kassim and Alibaba. Kassim was very rich and Alibaba was very poor.

One day, while returning from market with his donkey, Alibaba reached a forest. He saw a group of forty men with donkeys. The donkeys were loaded with some heavy sacks. Alibaba was scared as he realized that they were robbers. He hid behind some bushes.

Then a man from the group walked toward a cave and said, “Open, sesame.” Then the door of the cave opened. The door was made of rock. All the forty men entered the cave with their donkeys. After sometime, they came out of the cave. Their leader looked at the cave and said, “Close, sesame.” Hearing this,the cave got closed. Then they left the place with their donkeys.

 Alibaba went near the cave and said, “Open Sesame.” The rock door opened. To his surprise, Alibaba saw a huge cave piled up with sacks and boxes of gold, jewels and gems.  He went inside and the door closed.

He took the gold coins in a sack. He said, “Open Sesame.” When the door opened, he put the sack on his donkey’s back and as he said, “Close Sesame.”, the door closed.

When he reached his house, he closed all doors and windows and showed his wife the bag full of gold coins. He asked her to keep this as a secret.  They needed something to measure the gold coins. His wife went to Kassim’s house to get the weighing scale. She told Kassim’s wife that they got some grains and they needed a weighing device to weigh the grains.

Kassim’s wife knew very well about Alibaba’s poverty. She became curious about what kind of grain they had got. So she put some glue under the weighing device.

When Alibaba’s wife returned the weighing device to Kassim’s wife, shelooked under the device and saw a gold coin sticking on it.

She told his husband, “Your brother became richer than us. Ask him how he got that much money.” Kassim became greedy for more wealth and became envious of Alibaba.

Kassim compelled Alibaba to reveal the source of gold coins.  Alibaba told him everything.

Next day, Kassim went to the cave with his horses. He said, “Open Sesame.” When the door opened, he went inside the cave. The cave door closed. He took all the money in huge boxes. Seeing all those money and gold, he forgot the word to say to open the door. He said, “Open Barley” instead of “Open Sesame”. The door didn’t open !

After some time, the robber’s came. They became suspicious, when they saw horses waiting outside their cave.  Kassim heard the sound of robbers and he got tensed. He hid behind a big box in the cave. But the robbers found him and they killed him.

Moral: Cleanse thy heart from greed, and thy foot shall remain free from fetters. (Arabian Proverb)

The target

This story is from the famous Indian epic, Mahabharatha.

Drona was the royal teacher of the Princes of ‘Kuru’ kingdom. One day, he planned to conduct a bow and arrow shooting test for his royal students. He made a wooden bird on the top branch of a big tree. He asked his students to shoot at the center of the bird's eye.

The princes waited for Drona to call their names. He called the oldest brother, Yudhishtira first. Yudhishtira stretched his arrow in the bow string to start shooting at the bird’s eye.

Then Drona asked, “First tell me what all things you can see. ”

Yudhishtira said, “I can see the tree, its branches, the leaves and the bird.”

Then Drona told Yudhistira, “Drop down your bow and arrow, you can’t hit the bird’s eye.”

He called each prince one by one and asked the same question to each one. Everyone answered all the things they could see. He asked them to put down their bow and asked them to wait.

Finally he called Arjuna, his favorite student. He asked, “Tell me Arjuna, What all things you can see?”

Arjuna replied, “I can see only the bird’s eye, nothing else.” Hearing this Drona asked Arjuna to shoot at the bird’s eye. Arjuna's arrow hit perfectly at the center of the bird’s eye.

All other princes were surprised to see this.

Then Drona congratulated Arjuna and explained to other students, “Arjuna hit the bird’s eye because he concentrated only on the target. He was not paying attention to other things that surround the bird.”

Faith in God

Once upon a time there lived a rich man who had no faith in God. He was searching for someone who also has no faith in God. He searched for years and couldn’t find one.

One day he saw a beggar. He was so poor that he had very dirty clothes, no house to stay in and not enough food. The rich man thought that the poor beggar might have no faith in God.

But the beggar said, “I have faith in God. I believe that my faith in God will get rewarded one day.”

The rich man lost all hope in finding one who has no faith in God.

After many years, the rich man lost all his wealth and he became poor. He went to the king seeking some help. When he reached the palace, the king came towards this man and hugged him.

The king asked, “Do you recognize me? I was the poor beggar you saw that day. After some years later, I was found out as the lost prince in this kingdom. Did I tell you that the faith in God will get rewarded? ”

The rich man understood his mistake and lived a happy life with faith in God.

Who bells the cat?

Once upon a time, there lived a family of mice, in the attic of a small house. But one day a cat moved in. He was a silent cat while hunting mouse.

 One day a young mouse cried to his mother, "Mom, I am scared of that cat. Now I was chased by the cat. He tried to catch me. Somehow I escaped."

 The mother cat hugged her scared son and said,"We must do something about the cat. We can call our family members and discuss this matter".

 In the family meeting, every cat shared similar scary experiences they faced from the cat. The old mouse said "Our main problem is that the cat is quiet.  We have to find a solution to hear him coming so that we will get some time to run and escape from him."

 All others agreed to the suggestion. They began to think about a solution.

 At last a young mouse stood up and said, "I got an idea. We can hang a bell around his neck. When he come near us, we can hear the bell ringing.  By that time we can run and escape."

 "Excellent idea!!!." Every one cheered happily and congratulated him to come up with the solution.

 But the Old mouse was not happy. He asked, "And who is the one among us going to tie the bell around the cat's neck."

Moral :: There are things that are easier said than done.