What Innocence Can Reveal.
Of children, and beliefs.
Ancient tales retold.
A poor widow lived near the forest in a small hut, situated far from the village. Her five-year-old son had recently started school. To reach the school, he had to walk through a dense forest to the nearest village that housed the school.
The mother, like all mothers universally, worked hard to provide for her little one. Unable to afford to walk her son to school and forgo her income, she accompanied him to the edge of the forest. Once inside, he would sprint to reach the other end, seeking safety.
The sounds of the forest scared him daily. Never had nature seemed so unfriendly to a tiny soul. The animals, the leaves, the wind rustling, the water gurgling somewhere—these were sounds he would strain to distinguish. But not for long; running as fast as he could, he would arrive panting at the other end, glad to have survived the walk.
When school ended at 3 pm, he dreaded the walk back home through the late afternoon, as the forest grew darker quicker than the outer world.
The more he thought of entering the forest, the more his fear grew, as is usually the case with fears.
Soon after, he began to dread waking up in the morning. His mother, unaware of his fears, would admonish him to get ready quickly as she had to get to work too.
Each evening, after dinner, his mother gathered him in her arms, hugged her dearest, and put him to bed by telling him stories.
One day, not long after a very scared walk back from the forest, the little one cried to his mother, “Mother, I do not want to go to school tomorrow. Let me stay at home with you and help you.”
Surprised at his words, she asked, “But why would you want to do that? Don’t you enjoy playing with the other children at school and learning ?”
The child answered, “I like it, but I don’t like walking to school through the forest each day. It scares me.” At the thought of the forest, the boy cried, pleading with his mother not to send him to school.
For most of the poor in this land, and perhaps, everywhere in the world, belief in a benevolent Universe makes faith the only resort.
So it was with the mother. She thought of her God and prayed for wisdom. Then, she comforted her son, and told him, “But why are you scared? All you have to do is call your brother, Shyam, and he will come to take you through the forest to your school.”
The boy, whose tears his mother wiped with her saree’s end, sniffled. “My brother? I have a brother?”
“Yes, he lives in the forest. He will come when you call him and help you.”
Then the mother described his brother to him and told him to call for him whenever he was scared. The child’s sniffles slowly ceased. His eyes brightened with confidence. He had a brother who lived in the forest. His brother would come to help him walk through the forest.
So thinking he fell asleep, tired from his exertions, as his mother sang a lullaby.
After his breathing deepened, the mother went to the lone photo frame she had on a crude wooden ledge on the wall held together by two nails, with a small lamp lit still burning slowly from the teaspoon of oil she saved to feed it daily.
She cried as she prayed, “Krishna, please help my boy.”
The next day, the boy woke up excited and got dressed chattering as usual. He skipped and hopped to the forest holding his mother’s hand.
At the edge of the forest, he grew silent. His mother kissed him on the head and nudged him forward.
He waved goodbye and slowly made his way inward. He kept walking and talking to himself. “My brother is here.” But soon after a hundred or two hundred yards in, a rhesus monkey yelled. The boy froze. Then, crying, he began to call out to his brother pitifully, “Where are you? Mother says you will help me walk through the forest. I am scared, please come soon. Shyam, where are you? Please come soon, I am very frightened. I am also getting late to school.”
He began to slowly walk, hesitant, looking behind every tree, for fear of the unknown. As he walked, he kept crying out, “Shyam, please come soon. Shyam,” the tears accompanying his cries.
Suddenly, he heard the sweet sounds of a flute. He ran towards it and in an open clearing, he saw an older boy, playing his flute. His heart jumped with joy and he went and hugged him rightly. “Shyam, you have come. Mother was right. You came.” He would not let go,
Shyam laughed, “Of course, don’t you know? Mother is always right. Come, let us walk to school.” Shyam took the boy’s hand, and the boy, his cares dissipating, with his big brother next to him, skipped, and smiled like he had never before skipped and smiled on his way to school. As they reached the edge of the forest, Shyam stopped and wished him a good day at school.
But the boy then shyly asked him, “Will you be here in the evening when I have to return home.” Shyam nodded, and said, “All you have to do is call my name. I shall come.”
The boy left happily confident in that promise. When the day ended, he could not wait to run back excited to see his brother again. After entering the forest, he again called his brother, and immediately, Shyam appeared. Emboldened, the boy managed to enjoy the forest, and even laugh at squirrels scurrying about, as he walked alongside Shyam holding hands.
When he sat at dinner on that floor that evening with his mother, she asked him if he was better now as the boy had a normal easy manner about him.
The boy nodded, “Mother you were right. My brother came to take me through the forest.”
The mother puzzled asked him to explain. The boy told her all that happened. Amazed, she stayed silent, but that night she thanked Him for helping a poor widow like her.
And so, the days passed. The boy was happy to go to school and play in the forest with his brother while his mother’s conscience eased at his banished fears.
One day, in school, the class teacher announced a special potluck lunch the next day. All the kids had to bring something.
The child went home excited as most kids are when the thought of such picnics arises.
He asked his mother to make something for him to take to school.
The mother looked through all her rations. Whatever she got was enough just for the day. She had nothing to send with her kid for a class of thirty students.
She comforted her son, saying he should ask his brother for something. The son nodded, unsure why it made his mother sad.
The next morning he was eager to get to the forest. When his brother appeared, he immediately told him his dilemma. How was he to go to school without something to eat? Surely the other boys would laugh at him and his mother, and the teacher may beat him.
With child-like wisdom, and unsure what Shyam could do about the whole situation, he informed his older brother, “I will play here with you and not go to school.”
Shyam smiled and assured him that was not necessary, as per his mother’s instructions, he did have something for the boy to take to school. “Take this pot of kheer (a sweet dish made with milk), and your teacher will be happy.”
The boy was ecstatic. He carefully bid his brother goodbye at the edge of the forest and took his small pot to school.
When the other kids saw the small pot, they all laughed. Their parents had prepared huge dishes and some had sent household help too, to assist the child in carrying the potluck inside. A veritable feast was laid out on the table as each child approached the teacher and submitted his dish to be set on the table.
The boy, when called on, hesitatingly approached the teacher and gave his pot. The teacher looked at him kindly and took his dish too to set it aside.
The kids were excited and sat down on the floor in line for the food to be served. After the appetizers and the main dishes were served, it was time for dessert. The teacher took the small pot of kheer and began to serve the child starting with the first row. He expected it to serve about five kids so he served only a little to each child.
When he came to the sixth child, he saw the pot had filled up again with kheer. Puzzled, he shook his head and served some more kids. When he thought he was done, he saw that it filled up again. As he kept serving the dish, the pot began to fill up with more kheer. Even after serving all of the thirty children, the pot remained full.
The teacher sat down by his desk and quickly called the boy. He quizzed him as to how he got this magic pot. The boy said, “From my brother.”
The teacher knew he was the lone child of the poor widow. He asked, “What brother?”
The boy told him of the brother in the forest. The teacher asked the boy to describe his brother. The boy replied, “He is this tall,” motioning to a height a little taller than himself, indicating a child of ten years old, “wears a dhoti like me, with no shirt, but he has darker skin than me. He also wears a special peacock feather,” the boy gestured with his hand to indicate how high the peacock feather was on his brother’s head.
The teacher was shocked. What was this boy saying? Initially, the teacher accused him of lying and then intimidated him, warning that if he didn’t speak the truth, he would get a beating. The child started crying, and swearing that he was telling the truth.
The teacher handled him roughly, and asked him to take him to the forest to meet his brother. The boy eager to prove to the teacher, agreed and took him to the forest edge. He called out to his brother, Shyam, as usual.
But the woods remained silent.
The boy tried multiple ways to call for his brother, but there was no answer.
Finally, he started crying, “Please come, else they think I am lying. Please come and tell them you are my brother and gave me the pot.” His tearful voice filled the empty forest.
The teacher now was no longer amused.
He raised his hand to hit the child for lying, and from the forest, came a voice, loud and clear, “Stop. I am indeed the one the child speaks of but you cannot see me yet, not until you possess the faith and innocence of the child.”
Culture Notes: This story is not from a mythological period, but when Gods were no longer visible on Earth. Krishna, the Preserver-God’s incarnation, has many names including, ‘Shyam’ - which means dusk - for his darker skin. He always wears a peacock feather in his hair, or on his crown and you will not find any image of Him without it. He also always sports a flute as its foremost player. Many musicians, including the famous, wish to compare their flute skills to rival that of Krishna’s.
I hope you enjoyed this story.
Jayshree, Simply lovely. D
Lovely story, Jayshree. The point in time when we lose our childhood innocence, absolute trust and faith in the Universe is the start of a journey of descent into pain, sorrow, anxiety and all other negative emotions. Despite being given the magical gift of consciousness, I often wonder why we lose the spirit of children as we start becoming more aware of the world. Mahesh Yogi advised us to remain child-like but not childish: a quality that I have seen very rarely, if ever.