Where there is a will, there is a way.

Long ago in the far and distant mountains, a small boy Rammu lived with his mother, father and paternal grandmother. Rammu's father had a small farm and a fruit and vegetable orchard which met almost all the needs of Rammu's family. Rammu was a hard working young boy and would often help his father on the farm.

The hill on which Rammu lived was surrounded by a densely wooded forest. In this forest there were succulent red apple trees, walnut and apricot trees as well as huge trees with thick black trunks of ebony and the fruits of these trees fed the sparsely populated village where Rammu lived. The woods also had many mountain goats, yaks, wild deer and jackals but they were no threat to the humans because they knew the inhabitants of the hill and thus never attacked them.

However, there was a clever and greedy fox that had recently come to live in these dense woods.This proved to be a big problem for Rammu because after crossing these woods, at the foot of the hill was the his maternal grandmother and maternal uncle's house and if Rammu wanted to visit them, he would have to go with his father as he could be attacked by the sly fox.

For the last few days, Rammu had been dreaming a lot about his maternal grandmother and maternal uncle, and Rammu also knew that his Nani loved to eat the juicy gulab jamuns and dry fruit sweets that his mother had just made.

So, Rammu made up his mind to visit his Nani soon and to also carry along with himself her favourite sweets.

Rammu requested his father to take him to his maternal grandmother's house, but his request met with a refusal because it was the main farming season and his father had to complete the work of weeding and hoeing in the vegetable and fruit orchard so that their family would have enough for the approaching winter.Also, Rammu knew that there was no way that they would allow him to cross the dense woods alone with the evil fox on the prowl.

Rammu was very disappointed and sat down in a corner of his room, his head in held in despair but at the same tiime he also wanted to find out a way through all of this. 

Suddenly, he came up with an idea, running to his mother, he asked her to get him one of the biggest and chubbiest pumpkins from their vegetable garden. Mother asked him the reason for but he just smiled his all-knowing smile at her and knowing her headstrong son she too smiled her mysterious and loving smile and went about doing as she was told. 

The next day, early in the morning, Rammu cut up the pumpkin into two equal halves with a sharp knife and throwing out the pulp inside it, made four holes in its wall so that air could enter inside the pumpkin and then carefully crouched inside leaving instructions to his mother to tie both the pumpkin halves with a thin strong rope and roll the pumpkin downhill. His mother saw through his clever plan and pleased with her son's intelligence and quick thinking very willingly kicked the pumpkin downhill.

The rolling pumpkin crossed the dense forest and reached the foot of the hill in no time and when Rammu peeped through it, he saw his Nani's house right in front of his eyes.

Rammu's happiness knew no bounds and he quickly cut the rope with a knife he had and ran to his Nani's house. Seeing him his Nani's and Mama's happiness knew no bounds.

Rammu was pampered lots by his Nani and uncle and did not realise how time flew and one fine day he saw his father on the doorstep, who had come to fetch him back home.

Rammu was crestfallen that he would have to leave the next day, so he pestered his Nani to tell him all her stories till late into the night that last day. He was glued to his Nani when suddenly they heard an evil grinning whine of a fox and they immediately realised that it was the greedy fox waiting outside their house ready to pounce on Rammu and his father once they stepped out.

Rammu began to shiver with fright but his Nani kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear that she had a nice trick up her sleeve to get rid of the evil fox.

Nani laughed out aloud and said very loudly, "I am not angry with the lion, nor with the jackal or the fox, I only fear the thuck-thuck of the thuck-thuck beast who often threatens to eat me by jumping and thumping on my tin roof at night."

These words fell into the sharp ears of the fox and he too started to shake with fright and thought that this thuck-thuck beast seemed to be very powerful and fierce and could very well be round the corner or somewhere nearby. With this thought, he scooted away from the woods forever, tucking his tail between his legs like a coward that he was.

When the animals of the forest and the inhabitants of the foothills did not see the cunning fox for several days, they assumed correctly that now the greedy fox had run away from the woods for good.

All the villagers were now beside themselves with joy and heaving a big sigh of relief they all came together to celebrate their unbounded happiness with a lot of dance, song and merry-making . And then all of them started living happily ever after, little knowing that the hero of their story was a little boy amongst their own who just refused to give up and proved that , " Where there is a will, there is a way"

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-©️ juhi prakash singh

Insta id; @ juhi.prakashsingh