Long ago, a flock of birds stayed on the trees near a lake. The flock was ruled by an old queen bird. Every morning, she would divide the birds in groups and send them in different directions in search of food. All the birds worked equally hard all day long.
Whenever a bird found food anywhere, she would promptly bring the food back to the nest where the queen bird lived. If the food was too much for a bird to carry alone, she would inform the whole group. The birds in the group would then carry it back to the nest.
Every evening, the queen bird would divide the food equally among all the birds as they had all worked equally hard in search of food. This made sure that no bird would go hungry.
One day, while searching for food, a young bird came to a village. She saw many bullock carts carrying sacks of food grains from the fields to the nearby market. She noticed that a lot of grains were falling on the road as the carts moved.
She was delighted to see this. She became greedy and thought to herself, “Every day I fly far and wide in search of food. Maybe God has rewarded me with such abundant supply of food. These grains belong to me and I should not share it with anyone else”.
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She immediately thought of a plan. She flew back to the nests and met the queen bird and told her,” O’ Queen, not far away from this place, I saw a village road strewn with fresh grains”. She told the queen about the carts that were carrying the grains from the fields to the market.
“But I must warn that it is very dangerous to fly down on the road to peck at the grains as there are plenty of carts on the road”, she continued.
“It is very likely that any bird which tries to pick the grains may get crushed under the wheels of the cart. Hence, my suggestion would be that no bird should go in that direction”.
The queen thought that the young bird was talking sense. She called up all the birds and warned them not to go in the direction of the village.
The young bird was very happy to see this. All the food on the village road now belonged to her. She was confident that she would face no danger from the carts. She would watch out for the carts and move aside whenever she would see an oncoming cart. Her young age and agility would help her in this.
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Every day, the young bird would secretly fly in the direction of the village and enjoy the fresh food grains alone. She did not have to work hard in search of food now and had plenty to eat without much effort.
Soon the young bird became very fat as she didn’t have to fly much. She also lost her agility.
One day while the bird was busy pecking, she did not notice an oncoming cart. While she was busy pecking at the grains, the bullock cart crushed her under its wheels.
The greedy bird lay dead on the village road.
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