Anand Van

Long before man was born on this earth, there was a dense jungle in the south of the Himalayas known as Anand Van. All kinds of animals lived there happily. No one had any friction with the other. Everyone had a right, and everyone's voice was heard. The time was going smoothly when one day the king, Sher Singh, noticed a crop of hair that had turned gray beside his ears. It was a matter if great concern for him and his kingdom. It was his duty to give his kingdom an able successor who would rule over it after him, but even after many years of his marriage, none of his three queens could beget him his successor. So far he believed that he was young, but the crop of graying hair belied his belief and put the reality before him. " Who'll rule over Anand Van after him? " was his constant thought.

Sher Singh was so sad that he did not attend his court for consecutively three days nor did he meet anyone in the palace. All his ministers got worried of it. They wanted to know what had happened to their king. So they all went to the palace and requested him to tell them the cause of his sadness. Though the king initially tried a lot to hide the truth, he failed to do that.

The next morning Sher Singh with his minister and most trusted friends went to the see the Great Bear, the priest of his dynasty. He was regarded to be the wisest and most intelligent man living on earth. It was supposed that he had some sort of supernatural powers and could solve any problem brought to him. It was true also, because no sooner did the king put his problem before him than he closed his eyes for sometime and then suggested to him to go to the farthest corner of Anand Van and pray to an ascetic Aja, who was the only scientist in the whole world qualified to produce him a son through an experiment in his laboratory.

The king, as suggested by the Great Bear, walked to the farthest corner of the jungle. It took him a whole month to reach the place and find out the scientist, who after much convincing agreed to conduct the experiment in his laboratory.

After months of experiments, the scientist one morning came out of his laboratory shouting "Ureka...Ureka...!" He had a vessel of some medicine in his hand, which was soon sent to king Sher Singh with an instruction to distribute it equally among his three queens.

The king and his three queens got so happy to have received the good news and the vessel of medicine. The medicine was equally distributed among the queens, but out of their love, the eldest queen, Jaya, and the youngest queen, Ratna, took out a portion from their own and gave to the second queen, Kamla. Thus they all got pregnant, and right after ten months, gave birth to four successors of Anand Van. The entire jungle was decorated with beautiful flowers and vines. A big celebration was held in which there was a lot of singing and dancing. Everyone was invited to be a part of this celebration and enjoy themselves a lot.