Listen First

Listen First

Long ago in Bengal, there lived a king who was proud that every dispute in his palace was decided fairly. He had three sons. The eldest loved order. The middle son noticed the smallest details. The youngest most often asked, “Are we certain it truly happened that way?” Sometimes his older brothers laughed. “If you think about every little thing for so long,” they said, “the day will end before you make a decision.” The youngest smiled. “But then we will not have to mend that decision tomorrow.” One day, the townspeople complained to the king that their streets had become uneasy at night. A shopkeeper would find a basket missing; someone would try the door of a neighbor’s storeroom. “Patrol the city in turn,” the king told his sons. “I want to know what is truly happening.” The eldest rode out first and saw nothing strange. The middle son’s night was quiet as well. Just before dawn, it was the youngest prince’s turn. He had nearly returned to the palace when he saw a woman in pale clothing leaving through the gate, though the guards seemed not to notice her. “Who are you?” he asked. The woman stopped. “I watch over the well-being of this house,” she said. “Danger hangs over the king tonight, and so I am leaving.” The young prince did not argue about whether she was a dream or a spirit. “If I can turn the danger aside, will you stay?” “I will,” she said, and vanished beyond the palace gate. The prince ran to his father’s rooms. The king was asleep. A small lamp burned, and the queen dozed nearby. Then the prince saw a great cobra sliding toward the royal bed. He did not want to raise an alarm. Taking a long curtain rod, he used it to guide the snake away from the bed and toward the open balcony. For several tense moments the cobra darted this way and that, but at last it slipped out into the garden. In the confusion, a dark drop had fallen on the edge of the queen’s blanket and sleeve. The prince feared it might be venom. He wrapped several layers of cloth around his hand and bent down to wipe it away. At that very moment the queen woke. She saw the prince close beside her, cloth in hand and a toppled basket nearby. Before he could explain, she cried out in alarm. “I can explain—” said the prince. But the queen was frightened. “Why are you here in the night? What were you doing beside the king and me?” The king woke to see his shaken wife and his son, who had scarcely spoken a word. Fear quickly became suspicion, and suspicion became anger. “Leave,” the king said sternly. “In the morning I will decide what must be done.” The young prince bowed and went silently to his brothers. At dawn the king called the eldest son. “Tell me,” he said, “if someone you trusted appears guilty of a grave wrong, how should you act?” “If the fault is truly proven, there must be a fair consequence,” said the eldest prince. “But first, we must be sure that we understand what we saw.” “Why do you say that?” “I will tell you a story.” There once lived a goldsmith with his grown son. The son’s wife could understand the voices of animals, but she told no one of her gift. One night she heard a jackal calling outside the window. The jackal said that the current had carried a lost bundle down the river and that a shining ring lay inside. The young woman rose quietly, went to the riverbank, and drew the wet bundle ashore with a branch. Her husband woke, saw that she was gone, and followed. From far away he saw only a shadow by the water and heard the jackal. He decided the worst: that his wife was doing something dangerous and hiding it from him. He returned home before she did and told his father. “I do not even want to hear an explanation,” the old goldsmith said. “If she slips to the river at night, nothing good can come of it.” The next day the husband was ready to take his wife to her relatives and forbid her to return. On the road, she stopped beside a tree. “Wait,” she said. “There is something beneath those roots.” “How do you know?” “A snake has just told a frog that an old pot of coins is hidden there.” The husband thought she was teasing him. But under the roots they found exactly such a pot. Then the woman explained her gift and showed him the ring she had rescued the night before. The husband was ashamed. “I saw only one small part of the story,” he said, “and invented the rest.” They returned home, and the old goldsmith asked his daughter-in-law to forgive him. “That is why,” the eldest prince finished, “what we see does not always mean what we think it means in the first moment.” The king thought, but said nothing. He called the middle son and asked the same question. “I know a story too,” said the middle prince. Once a king traveled far from his palace and lost his way in the forest. The day was hot, and he had no water. Beneath a great tree he saw drops falling from a branch into a small hollow. “At last, water!” he said. He held out his cup and patiently gathered drop after drop. His horse grew restless, stamped, and turned its head away. “Stand still,” the king scolded. When the cup was almost full, the horse knocked it over with his muzzle. The water spilled. “What have you done?” the king cried. He was so angry that when his servants soon caught up with him, he ordered them to take the horse away and never bring it to the royal stable again. But one servant looked up and saw a cobra lying on the branch. The drops had not come from rain. They had been falling from where the snake lay. The king went pale. His horse had not ruined his water. The horse had saved him. The king called the horse back at once. From then on, whenever anger rose in him, he first asked himself, “Do I know the whole story?” The middle prince finished, “Sometimes the one who seems to hinder us is trying to help.” Then the king called the youngest son. “And what do you say?” “Listen first, and decide afterward,” said the youngest prince. “I too have a story.” A wise parrot named Suka lived with a king. The king loved Suka for his bright mind and cheerful voice. One day the parrot asked to visit his parents, who lived far away. “Return in two weeks,” said the king. Suka kept his word. Before he left, his parents gave him an unusual fruit from a tree said to restore strength and health. He carried it home as a gift for the king. The road was long. One night Suka hid the fruit in a hollow of a tree and slept on a branch. A snake lived in that hollow. It bit the fruit and left venom on its skin. Suka knew nothing of this. The next morning he brought the gift to the palace. A careful adviser said, “Do not taste an unknown fruit in haste. Let us first make certain it is safe.” A tiny piece was given to a crow. The crow ate it, staggered, and fell into a deep, motionless sleep. The king was frightened. “Suka meant to poison me!” The parrot tried to say that the fruit came from his parents and that he did not know what had happened on the journey. But the king was too angry. “Leave my palace!” he commanded. Suka flew away. The seed of the fruit was planted in a far corner of the garden. A tree grew, but no one was allowed near it. Much time passed. One day, an elderly couple working beside the garden found a ripe fruit that had fallen beyond the fence. They knew nothing of the old warning, shared it, and ate it. The next morning they woke unusually full of energy. Their backs no longer ached so much, their hands felt strong, and their eyes were bright. The king heard of it. The gardeners tested other fruits and found them good. Then everyone understood: only the first fruit had been spoiled, by accident, during Suka’s journey. The king was silent for a long time. “I did not even let Suka finish speaking,” he said. “My anger ran ahead of my mind.” He sent people to find the parrot, and when Suka returned, the king said, “Forgive me. I saw an outcome and decided that I knew its cause.” The youngest prince looked at his father. “Now allow me to tell you what happened last night.” He spoke of the woman at the gate, the warning, the cobra in the royal rooms, how he had guided it into the garden, and the dark drop on the queen’s sleeve. “I bent down only to wipe away something that might be dangerous. The queen woke at that very moment.” The king ordered the room examined. The servants found the toppled basket, the snake’s trail by the balcony, and the cloth the prince had used to wipe the drop. Everything fell into place. The king rose and embraced his youngest son. “You saved me, and I nearly punished you without even listening.” The queen lowered her eyes. “I was frightened and decided I understood everything. Forgive me.” The young prince smiled. “The important thing is that today we know more than we knew yesterday.” From that day a new rule was kept in the palace. Whenever anyone brought a complaint, the king would not allow a decision after the first words. He said, “First we will hear the other side. Then we will ask questions. We will check what we know for certain. Only then will we decide.” And sometimes the youngest prince added quietly, “For the shortest path to a mistake is believing you know the end of a story when you have heard only its beginning.”

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨