There was a king.

He had only one daughter.

Her name was Hema.

When she came to marriable age, her parents started considering a prospective groom for her.

They thought that the prince of the neighbouring country, Jay would be the best husband for her.

But Jay was the seventh son of that king.

That means he would never inherit the kingdom.

An astrologer had predicted that Jay would definitely become a king some day.

But Jay’s father when considering a bride for him, never even thought about Hema.

In fact, he ignored them.

Hema’s parents thought, may be they don’t consider us as equal to them.

They had no option but to look for grooms from other kingdoms.

They found two princes, belonging to different kingdoms: Gunesh and Dhanesh.

But each one had a problem.

Gunesh was learned, but his kingdom was poor.

He had no money.

Dhanesh was rich, but he was also stupid.

Hema’s father wanted her to marry Gunesh.

But her mother thought that she will not have any comfort in her life since he was not wealthy.

She wanted her to be married to Dhanesh.

The king and the queen fought with each other about this.

Finally the king’s opinion prevailed.

Hema’s wedding with Gunesh was fixed.

But her mother had another plan.

She secretly sent a messenger to Dhanesh and asked him to come on the previous day of the wedding.

She would hand over Hema to him.

On the previous day of the wedding, Gunesh with his people arrived.

They were accommodated in the palace.

Dhanesh and a few of his people came in disguise and stayed in a guest house.

At night, Hema’s mother managed to squeeze her into a big cane basket and asked a maid servant to deliver it to the guest house.

Hema was in bridal clothes and her mother had decorated her with a lot of ornaments.

The maid carried the basket on her head and proceeded towards the guest house.

But when when she reached near the guest house, the whole place was on fire.

People were running here and there trying to save whatever furniture and other stuff from their houses.

A lot of things were strewn around all over the place.

At that time when they saw the maid with a basket on her head, they thought that she was trying to steal something.

They shouted: thief, thief.

The maid became scared.

She left the basket and ran away.

Nobody knew that the princess was inside the basket.

After some time, some real robbers came on horses and started loading their horses with whatever they found.

The basket was also kept on top of horse.

They sped away with whatever they could collect.

After riding for a few hours, they reached a forest and started looking through whatever they had collected, robbed.

They thought that since the basket was so big, there can’t be anything valuable inside.

Precious things such as gems are always very small.

This must be some clothes or fruits or vegetables.

They did not even bother to open the basket and see.

They kept it down and went away.

They didn’t want to carry unwanted load anymore.

After some time, Hema managed to come out of the basket.

It was a dense forest.

Suddenly a tiger attacked her.

She closed her eyes in fear.

She heard a sound and when she opened her eyes, she found tribesman.

The tiger was lying dead.

He had killed the tiger with his spear.

Hema told him her story.

He said: now night is approaching.

It is not safe to move about.

I will take you to my home and leave you outside the forest in the morning.

The tribesman’s wife was enraged as he walked in with a girl in bridal clothes.

She thought that he must have married her.

She started screaming and fighting with him.

All the tribesmen assembled.

He told what happened.

But the wife was not willing to listen.

If you had killed the tiger to save this girl, then why didn’t you bring its body?

Tribesmen always carry home whatever they kill.

He swore that he did not have any connection with the girl; he was seeing her for the first time in the forest.

They all said: if there is nothing between the two of you, then you should not have any problem if we drop her into a well.

Hema was thrown into a well in the forest.

The brave girl that she was, she managed to stay afloat.

In the meantime, Jay had come to that forest with his friends for hunting.

He got separated from his friends and spent the night in the forest alone.

In the morning he started looking around for water and found the well.

Not only water, she found a beautiful girl also in the well.

He helped her out of the well.

After hearing out her story, he told her: don’t worry, I will take you home to your parents.

They got out of the forest and started going towards her home.

It was far away.

The robbers had taken her on horse.

Now they were walking.
On the way, while taking rest under a tree, they overheard a few other travellers talking.

They were talking about what happened during Hema’s wedding.

When Hema’s parents and Gunesh came to know that Hema was missing, Dhanesh also came out and told that he was secretly called to take Hema away.

Gunesh and Dhanesh thought that Hema’s parents were trying to play some trick on both them.

They became friends.

They imprisoned Hema’s parents and took over as rulers of the country.

Jay consoled Hema: don’t worry, we will find a way out.

They reached the capital and took room in a guest house secretly.

Hema changed into ordinary clothes so that nobody could recognize her.

Jay started going to the court on a regular basis and won the confidence of both Gunesh and Dhanesh.

One day, he told Gunesh: do you know where Hema is?

She is with Dhanesh.

He has kept her hidden somewhere.

He is cheating you.

Same he told Dhanesh also.

Both were keen to find the truth.

Jay took one more room in the guest house next to his.

At night, he told Hema to dress up, keep the lights on.

First, he took Gunesh, showed him Hema through the window of her room and said: if you wait in the adjoining room you can see Dhanesh coming and you can catch him red handed.

After some time, Jay sent Dhanesh also there and asked him to look through the window.

When Guensh saw Dhanesh, he came out and both started fighting, accusing each other.

They killed each other.

Jay released Hema’s parents from the prison.

They were happy to see Jay himself whom they had originally wanted as the husband for their daughter.

They requested Jay to marry Hema.

He agreed.
They also asked him to become the king.

The prediction turned out to be true.

This story shows the importance of intelligence and smartness, also presence of mind.

Gunesh was educated, but he was not smart.

He had no wisdom.

Wisdom is different from education.

The quality that Jay had is wisdom.

Dhanesh, of course was stupid.

You can develop wisdom only if you face difficult situations in life.

Then only your brain will work to find solutions.

Always be ready to take up challenges in life.

Then only you can become smart and successful like Jay.