The paddy seeds

Next morning in court. The court was bustling (busy and lively): carved pillars, sunlight on fine rugs, and on the ornate (richly decorated) throne, a king whose stern face showed the quarrel was still gnawing at him (troubling him).

The day's business was growing paddy (rice). Ministers stood up one by one with ideas: bigger irrigation networks, better manure. Rama stood at the edge of the court, watching with an amused smile.

The 'magic' seeds. When the king turned to him, Rama brought forward a plate of paddy seeds. He said they were a new kind: sow these, and the harvest will be three times bigger.

The courtiers did not believe him. 'Magic seeds! Next he'll claim they grow without water.' 'Perhaps he found them on the moon.' Snickers (laughs people try to hide) went round the court.

The king frowned. It sounded absurd (silly), and if something went wrong, the farmers would suffer.

The trap. Unfazed (not worried at all), Rama agreed, and then said: 'the real issue lies not with the seeds themselves but with the person who sows them.'

Seeds sown carelessly give no harvest, he explained. 'And what if the person had a habit of yawning while sowing? Wouldn't the seeds scatter unevenly?'

The court laughed, now with real amusement. And the king, caught off guard, sighed and yawned.

Rama watched him, then asked quietly: 'Is there anyone in this world who does not yawn? It is as natural as breathing.'

The king had proved Rama's point with his own mouth. He thought back to the quarrel and saw how unfair he had been.

That evening he told the queen: 'I have been foolish… I let my pride blind me. I'm so sorry.' The queen asked only one thing: to hear the poem at last.

The lessons: pride can blind us, and we should never judge in anger.