bed time story

BED TIME STORY J K SIVAN

13. MIND YOUR BUSINESS

As you all know, Summer vacation and story to children go well together. Children are lucky if their grandparents are available to tell them stories as parents dont find time to tell stories or dont have the patience to sit and tell them. I have offered to be the grandpa for many children who are able to read stories themselves and shall be very happy if someone is there to tell these to the children on my behalf.

I am relaying the story which I am telling the children surrounding me here as usual. Join them.

''Thatha there is a monkey story you said you will tell when we met last. What is it.? asked Banu.

''Yes I will tell you all the story of the monkey.

There was a rich man who was building a small temple. So there were many artisans like carpenters, masons and painters busy with their work in raising the temple.

The temple was to be built to be built at a place where there were a bunch of trees and some monkeys lived on them. Monkeys are mischievous as you know. So they used to play with the tools the workers left on the place where the temple was beig constructed. A group of monkeys approached the worksite when the labourers had gone away for lunch and handled the tools. A monkey was attracted by the wedge, that was fixed into a partly sawed log of wood by the carpenter Somu, to prevent it from closing up, until he came there again to continue with his work. The monkey was wondering what the wedge was and for, and he tried hard to pull it out of the wood,. It sat on the log of wood and was busy to pull out the wedge. Its tail was inside the gap created by the wedge in the wood. Atlast the monkey succeeded in pulling out the wedge and as result the partition created by the wedge on the wood closed with the tail of the monkey caught in between.

The monkey cried as its tail was caught in the wood and could not pull its tail out of the closed wood. The poor monkey died out of pain .

''I dont like this story as I dont want the monkey to die. I like monkeys ''shouted Shankar.

''Stop it Shankar, it is only a story and no monkey was killed or died''

''Ok then'' said happily the little boy.

''Thatha, you will tell some moral in each story, what is the moral in the monkey's story? shouted Meena.

''Well, can there be a better story to advise that ''wise people dont poke their noses into affairs with which they are not concerned. Many, mostly politicians suffer out of this''.

Tell us another story thatha said a girl.

Yes I will but you must write this story whch I told you now in your own language and bring tomorrow for me to see.