Worm in ear of the king

Worm in   ear of the king

Rewritten by

P.R.Ramachander

(Based on a folk story posted in face book, by my friend  Sri Guru Moorthi . Thanks to him)

Promadha  was a very great  king,

Fighting umpteen wars  to expand his kingdom,

And one day  when  he was  sleeping  ,

In the  military tent , a worm entered his ear.

All the doctors who accompanied  his army,

Tried their best   to take out  the worm from his ear,

They got the best medicines for that  from  all places,

But the king felt that the worm was moving within his ears.

Huge awards   were announced   for  taking out the worm from the king’s ear,

And several great  doctors   came  from all parts of the world,

And they all failed and because  of   the movement of the  worm,

Inside his ear , the king was not able to sleep and started becoming weak.

At that time  a great sage from Himalayas visited  his kingdom ,

And the wife of the king met him and requested him to cure her  husband ,

And the sage visited the palace  and  examined the ear of the king  and told him,

“This is a rare worm  and only the juice of a rare herb  which grows in a far of  forest can kill it.”

And he continued, “I would send my chief disciple   to get the herb ,

And he would come back within a  month   with that rare herb.”

The king provided a horse to his disciple   and also sent people  to assist him,

And the  sage;s disciple   returned back in  three weeks, making the king happy.

Next day early morning  even when the king was sleeping deeply due to hope,

That medicine was  poured in his ears and with in seconds the dead worm fell out ,

The King  became greatly healthy  and thanked  the sage  profusely  ,

And after  a few days the  sage along with his retinue   bid farewell to the king

After the left the kingdom , the  disciples asked the sage  about  the worm,

As well as  the great medicine used  to  kill it   and then the  sage told them,

“The herb is only a type of grass available everywhere and the worm was already dead .

Inside the ears of the king and I acted as if I am getting  a great medicine from a far off place .”

“I simply poured the medicine and placed a dead   worm by his side  and he got cured,

Because I knew no worm can live this long and the king due to strong belief,

Felt it was  alive and moving and what I did was to  act in a drama ,

Which would convince him   that   the worm was taken out and is indeed dead.”

When the disciples   were surprised  the sage continued , “the worm in the ear was dead,

But not the worm that  had entered  his mind , and in fact most of the sickness  that we suffer,

Are not sickness of body but that  of the mind., but all of us  never understand this ,

And these   type of drama would cure  most of the  diseases of most of us.”