A Tale of the Panchvan Forest
In the sprawling canopy of the Panchvan Forest, high above the paths where Gajaraj the elephant and Chitra the deer once walked, lived a young monkey named Bandru. Bandru was quick, clever, and endlessly funny — the kind of monkey who could make even the sternest old owl crack a smile. But Bandru had one habit that drove the entire forest to the edge of its patience.
He loved to scare everyone.
At least once a week, Bandru would swing down from the highest branches, eyes wide with fake terror, screaming at the top of his lungs, "TIGER! TIGER! A TIGER IS COMING!"
And every single time, the forest would erupt into chaos. Deer would bolt in every direction. Rabbits would dive into their burrows. Birds would scatter into the sky in a panicked cloud. Even Gajaraj, who rarely hurried for anything, would gather the younger elephants close and prepare to charge.
And every single time, after several minutes of pure panic, there would be no tiger at all. Just Bandru, hanging from a branch above, laughing so hard he nearly fell out of the tree.
"You should have seen your faces!" he would howl with laughter. "Sheru, you ran into a bush! Chitra, you knocked over three baby deer trying to escape!"
At first, some animals found it a little funny. But after the tenth time, then the twentieth, the laughter turned to real anger.
Buddhimati, the wise old rabbit who had helped save the forest from the tyrant lion Bhayankar not long ago, called Bandru aside one afternoon, her old eyes stern. "Bandru, this game of yours is dangerous. Fear is not a toy. One day, you will cry 'tiger' and there will truly be one — and by then, no one will believe you."
Bandru rolled his eyes and swung away, still chuckling. "Buddhimati worries too much. It's just a joke!"
Sheru the jackal, still nursing a bruised pride from his earlier bush incident, snapped, "The next time that little troublemaker screams 'tiger,' I am not moving one inch. Let him laugh at an empty forest."
Chintu, now a little older and wiser after his own famous adventure with the roaring well, tried to reason with Bandru. "You're clever, Bandru — cleverer than most in this forest. But you're using your cleverness to make fools of everyone instead of helping them. That's not the same as being brave."
Bandru waved him off. "I don't need a lecture from a rabbit, even a famous one." And he swung away into the trees, still grinning.
Weeks passed. Bandru's pranks continued, though the forest's reactions grew weaker and weaker each time. By the fifth week, when Bandru screamed his familiar warning, barely anyone even lifted their heads. Chitra kept grazing. Sheru didn't even open his eyes from his nap. Gajaraj simply flicked his ears, unbothered.
"You've cried tiger too many times, Bandru," Gajaraj rumbled without even glancing up. "We no longer run."
Bandru huffed, annoyed that his joke had lost its power, but he shrugged it off and swung deeper into the forest, sulking.
It was there, deep past the old stone well where Chintu's adventure had once unfolded, that Bandru froze mid-swing.
Because this time, there really was a tiger.
A massive striped tiger, thin and travel-worn, was padding slowly through the undergrowth. His name, though Bandru did not know it yet, was Sultan — a tiger who had once ruled a forest three valleys away, until a terrible dry season had turned his home to dust and driven every prey animal from it. Starving and desperate, Sultan had wandered for days searching for a new territory, and now he had found Panchvan Forest, full of deer, rabbits, and unsuspecting animals.
Bandru's heart pounded. This was no game. He could see the tiger's ribs beneath his fur, his eyes sharp and hungry, his massive paws moving with silent, deadly purpose — straight toward the meadow where the youngest fawns of the forest were playing, completely unaware.
Bandru scrambled through the branches as fast as his arms could carry him, screaming with everything he had. "TIGER! TIGER! A REAL TIGER! PLEASE, EVERYONE, THIS TIME IT'S REAL!"
But no one moved.
Chitra, grazing near the meadow with her own little fawn, simply sighed. "Not this again, Bandru. Go bother someone else."
Sheru didn't even open his eyes. "Save your breath, monkey."
Even Buddhimati, resting near her burrow, shook her head sadly. "I warned you this day would come, Bandru. But I'm afraid your warnings mean nothing to us anymore."
Bandru's stomach dropped. He looked back through the trees and saw Sultan the tiger emerging from the undergrowth, now barely fifty feet from the meadow full of playing fawns — including Chitra's own little one.
There was no time to convince anyone. Bandru realized, with a jolt of cold fear, that if anyone was going to stop this tiger, it would have to be him — alone.
He thought fast, the way Chintu once had at the edge of a dark well. His eyes fell on a large hive of red forest bees hanging from a branch just above the tiger's path, buzzing loudly, guarded fiercely by its swarm.
Bandru didn't hesitate. He swung hand over hand along the branches until he was directly above the hive, then, gritting his teeth, gave it one hard, decisive shove.
The hive crashed down, right onto Sultan's broad shoulders.
The tiger roared in shock and fury as hundreds of angry bees swarmed around his head, stinging every inch of exposed skin. Sultan reared back, thrashing and swatting, completely distracted from the meadow ahead.
Bandru didn't stop there. He raced along the branches above the tiger's head, screeching and pelting him with hard green fruit, drawing his attention further and further away from the fawns, deeper into the thorny thickets at the forest's edge, where the bees continued their furious pursuit.
By the time the commotion finally died down, Sultan the tiger had fled far from the meadow, stumbling out through the thorns on the forest's northern edge, stung, exhausted, and no longer in any state to hunt.
Only then did the rest of the forest come running — alerted not by Bandru's earlier warnings, but by the tremendous roaring and buzzing chaos that had followed. Chitra arrived first, scooping her frightened fawn into her legs, and saw Bandru collapsed against a branch, covered in scratches and a few bee stings of his own, utterly exhausted.
"Bandru," Chitra breathed, staring at him in shock. "Was that... was that a real tiger?"
Bandru, too tired to even manage his usual grin, simply nodded. "I told you. I told all of you. But nobody listened."
Gajaraj arrived moments later, his great trunk lowering gently to examine the scattered fruit, the fallen hive, and the deep tiger tracks leading away through the thorns. His old eyes were heavy with realization.
"He is right," Gajaraj said quietly to the gathering animals. "There truly was a tiger today. And it seems our young monkey, whom we all stopped listening to, was the only one brave enough to face it — alone, with nothing but bees and fruit, because none of us would help him."
Buddhimati hopped forward, her ears drooping with guilt. "Bandru, I am so sorry. You were right to warn us, and yet none of us came."
Bandru rubbed the back of his neck, wincing at a bee sting. "I understand why, though. I made you all stop trusting me. That's not your fault — it's mine."
Sheru, uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke. "You saved my nephew today, monkey. That fawn playing in the meadow — that was my sister's son. I owe you more than I can say."
Over the following weeks, Bandru changed. He still had his sense of humor, still made the forest laugh with his antics — but never again did he cry "tiger" without reason. Slowly, animal by animal, the forest began to trust him again, not because he demanded it, but because he earned it, day after honest day.
As for Sultan the tiger, Gajaraj and Buddhimati tracked him to the northern thorn thickets weeks later, and rather than driving him away entirely, they made him an offer — much like the deal once struck with Bhayankar, but built on compassion rather than fear. Sultan could live in the unclaimed hills at the forest's northern border, hunting only the wild boar and stray deer that wandered there naturally, never entering the heart of Panchvan Forest where the families lived. In exchange, the forest would leave him in peace.
Sultan, exhausted from his long, hungry journey, agreed gratefully, and true to his word, never once crossed into the meadows again.
From that day on, whenever the younger animals of Panchvan Forest grew restless or mischievous, their elders would tell them the story of Bandru and the real tiger, always ending the same way:
"A joke told too many times loses its power to protect you — but the truth, even when no one believes it at first, is always worth telling."
*
The End