Short Story: Crows And The Parrots

Once upon a time there was a contest in the bird kingdom to carry the most precious things in their beaks/wings and present it to the king. The bird which carried the best gift would get rewarded by the king. There were parrots and a crows living on the same tree. As soon as the contest was announced, one of the parrot got excited and planned with its fellow parrots to pick up the most beautiful & colourful things since parrot was associated to its colour in many ways.

As the crows overheard them, they too wanted to carry some colourful things. It discussed amongst themselves and they too came up with a secret plan.

The Finale

On the day of finale, many birds came with many precious collections… some had got rare/precious berries, fruits, vegetables others had got precious stones, diamonds, flowers… some carried the fragrance of beautiful roses other carried honey from the wild.. then came the turn of the crows.. as the announcement was made everybody settled down and waited for the crows to arrive; wondering what more can a bird bring…

Soon a couple of crows entered and a foul smelled accompanied them.. in no time, they began to shower a variety of garbage, twigs, animal and bird poop on the crowd. The crows kept flapping its wings and the garbage, poop kept on dropping everywhere, on everyone. They ended up spoiling the whole show.

King’s Reaction

The king was infuriated and he ordered to bring down the crows immediately; the soldiers did so. Crows were caged.

For days put together, crows were wondering what wrong did they do, why is the king so unfair to them. They made many appeals and then finally a saint came to hear their plea.

All the court men narrated the entire incident to the saint, he heard it patiently. Then he closed his eyes for some time to think. After 5 minutes or so he opened his eyes, looked at the king and said forgive the crows, set them free!

King was appalled he said “how can you say that?” These crows spoiled my entire courtyard, the show, they insulted the guests, they spoiled the fragrance of roses with their garbage and poop.. I feel insulted.

Wise men say

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The saint said, “crows eat from the garbage and play in poop. For them, its the best thing to carry. They do not know how disgusting it is to somebody else and we should also not look down upon them because that’s their nature. Expecting crows to carry something better was your fault. You need to be more prudent in choosing your guests the next time. Forgive the crows and set them free right away!”