The time rolled by. The days accumulated into weeks, months and years. Meanwhile the kingdom kept on prospering. The subjects were experiencing newer and news levels of happiness and contentment. There never was so much peace and progress in the entire land. Thus, seven happy years went by.
Vardhman no more crawled on the floors or toddled around. He had become a 8 year old.
In that early age itself Vardhman showed the signs of having an unusual characteristics. He was not a noisy prankster. The boy was serious, kind, patient and peace loving like an aged one. His wisdom and mature behaviour was extraordinary. Added to the above qualities was a generous dash of courage and valour.
Once Vardhman was playing a game called ‘Amalki’ with the boys of his age. In this game a tree was determined to be the focal point of the play. A boy was supposed to run from a specific point towards the tree, climb it to touch a marked place and climb down as fast as he could. The fastest to do the act were considered winners. The slowest one would be the loser. The winning boys and losers would become two groups. The losers had to carry the winners on their shoulders from the tree to the starting point as the penalty.
When the play started Vardhman too started running from the start point. In that game a peepul tree was the focal point. Vardhman led the field and climbed up the tree beating others to it. He touched the finish branch. Then he heard other boys screaming at him for some reason.
Vardhman heaved himself up on to the branch and looked down to see what was happening to the others. To his shock he found that the other boys had abandoned the game and they were running away from the tree.
Vardhman yelled, “Why are you not finishing the game?”
A boy shouted something to him which he could not understand. The disruption of the game had annoyed the young prince. In upset mood he jumped down and caught up with a boy and asked what it was.
The boy stopped and stammered something. Prince Vardhman looked at the tree because the boy was pointing towards it babbling unintelligibly.
A huge black cobra was slithering on the trunk of the peepul tree. It was hissing menacingly at them. It was a wonder how Vardhman was not met by it while he had gone up the tree. The cobra was there on the trunk at about 5 feet height.
Vardhman began to walk towards the tree. The boy cautioned, “Don’t go to the tree, prince please. It is a dangerous snake.” By that time other boys had also stopped and they were watching the prince walk to the death with horror on their faces.
Vardhman said, “Don’t worry, friends. I will just remove that spoil sport from our game so that we can resume our play.”
“No prince! It will bite you!”
“No, it won’t. Just watch!” Vardhman reached the tree. The cobra looked at him with its beady eyes. With raised hood it hissed. Vardhman took a swift jump and caught the cobra by its hood.
The boys screamed, “Well done prince! Now rub its head against a stone or the tree trunk. The monster must die.”
Prince Vardhman coolly said, “No friends! We have no right to take anyone’s life. When we can’t give life we don’t have the right to take as well. All the creatures of the world are equal. The life and the death is in the hands of God. It was disrupting our game. We can remove him from here and resume our play.”
Vardhman walked away with the cobra and released it in a bush some distance away.
The boys went to their homes with the story for their respective families. Whoever heard about it could not help admiring the audacity and compassion of the prince. It was amply clear that the prince was no ordinary one.
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