Clever Businessman
This blog contains many Inspirational and Motivational Short Stories With a moral. This is a Short Story for Children and Kids.
In the town of Agra there lived a rich businessman. But he
was also quite a miser. Various people used to flock outside his house everyday
hoping for some kind of generosity, but they always had to return home
disappointed. He used toward them off with false promises and then never lived
up to his words. Then one day, a poet named Raidas arrived at his house and
said that he wanted to read out his poems to the rich man. As the rich man was
very fond of poetry, he welcomed him in with open arms.
Raidas started to recite all his poems one by one. The rich
man was very pleased and especially so he heard the poem that Raidas had
written on him. In those days it was a custom for rich men and kings to show
their appreciation through a reward or a gift, as that was the only means of
earning that a poor poet possessed. So the rich man promised Raidas some gifts
and asked him to come and collect them the next day. Raidas was pleased.
The next morning when he arrived at the house, the rich man
pretended that he had never laid eyes on him before. When Raidas reminded him
of his promise, he said that although Raidas was a good poet he liked the poem
which was written on him and the rest of the poems were very ordinary. He also
said that he had earlier promised a reward to Raidas not because he was really
pleased or impressed, but to simply encourage him. Raidas was extremely upset,
but as there was nothing that he could do, he quickly left the house. On his
way home he saw his brother Kuber riding a horse. So he stopped him and asked
for his help after narrating the whole incident. Kuber took him to his own
house in order to come up with a plan. After giving it some thought he asked
Raidas to go to a friend’s house with five gold coins and request the friend to
plan a dinner where the rich man would also be invited. He then narrated his
plan to him.
Raidas had one trustworthy fried whose name was Mohan. So he
went up to him and told him the plan. The next day, Mohan went to the rich man’s
house and invited him for dinner. He said that he intended to serve his guests
in vessels of gold, which the guests would get to take home after the meal. The
rich was thrilled to hear this and jumped at the offer. After the rich man
arrived at Mohan’ house, he was surprised to see no other guests there but
Raidas. Anyhow, they welcomed him in and started a polite conversation. The
rich man had come on an empty stomach and so was getting hungrier by the
minute.
Finally at midnight the rich man could bear his hunger no
longer and asked Mohan to serve the food. Mohan sounded extremely surprised
when he asked him what food he was talking about. The rich man tried to remind
him that he had been invited for dinner. At that point Raidas reminded the rich
man of the same treatment that he had meted out to him. The rich man realized his
mistake and begged for forgiveness. He said that Raidas was a good poet and had
not asked him for any reward. He himself had promised to give him some gifts
and they cheated him out of them. To make up for his mistake he took out the
necklace that he was wearing and gifted it to Raidas. Then they all sat down to
eat a happy meal.
Read more short stories for children and kids.
Moral : Never Cheat Any Person.
