The Old Stag

This is the story 'The Old Stag' from your book, Santoor (Chapter 5). It comes from the Panchatantra, a very old book of Indian stories. A stag is a male deer. Here is the story, told in short.

In a green, thick forest lived an old stag who was known for his kindness. Every day he greeted the other animals and birds warmly, and they all loved him. There was plenty of food in the forest, but the stag liked to stay on a small hillock covered with soft, tender grass. Every day he came down from it to meet his friends.

One day the stag fell ill. He could hardly climb up to the hillock. He knew that fresh food and rest would help him get better, so he ate the tender grass and rested. He was too weak to come down, so his friends came up to see him. A deer asked how he was and wished him well. But before the visitors went back into the forest, they ate the fresh grass on the hillock.

An elephant said how tender and nice the grass was, and a giraffe said it had never eaten such juicy green leaves. Word spread, and every animal that came to visit the stag feasted on the grass. Soon there was hardly any grass left for the stag, and he grew weaker day by day.

Then his friends felt ashamed. They saw that their greed had made them forget their friend. They decided to find food somewhere else in the forest and leave the hillock alone, and some of them brought fresh leaves for the stag. That week it rained well, the grass grew back, and slowly the old stag got better. The animals learnt a lesson: nature has enough for everybody, but we must use it wisely.