Once upon a time, in a pretty village in India, lived a happy little boy named Chintu.
Chintu had a magic mango tree in his backyard. Every morning, the tree gave him one sweet, yummy mango. Just one!
“Yum, yum, yum!” Chintu would say, eating his mango with his Dadi. “This is so good!”
His Dadi would smile. “One mango makes us happy, beta.”
One day, Chintu saw Bandar the monkey. Bandar had many, many mangoes in his arms.
“Look at me!” chatted Bandar. “I have lots of mangoes! You only have one tiny mango. Don’t you want more?”
Chintu looked at his one mango. Suddenly, it seemed very small.
“Yes!” said Chintu. “I want lots of mangoes too!”
The next morning, Chintu ran to other trees. He climbed up, up, up!
“One mango, two mangoes, three mangoes!” he counted happily.
But oh no! As Chintu reached for more, he slipped!
CRASH! Down fell Chintu. Down fell all his mangoes too!
Splash! The mangoes rolled into the river.
Crack! Some mangoes broke on the rocks.
“Oh no!” cried Chintu. Now he had zero mangoes!
Chintu ran back to his magic tree. But someone else was there!
It was Bandar, eating Chintu’s special daily mango!
“Mmm, delicious!” said Bandar. “You left this here, so I took it!”
Poor Chintu started to cry. “That was MY mango!”
“Don’t cry,” said Bandar. “You can get mangoes from other trees now!”
But Chintu had no mangoes at all. Not one!
Dadi found Chintu crying under the tree.
“What happened, my little one?” she asked gently.
Chintu told Dadi everything. About wanting more mangoes. About losing them all. About losing his special mango too.
Dadi hugged him tight. “Do you know what happened, beta?”
“No,” sniffed Chintu.
“You wanted more and more. So you lost what you already had. This is called being greedy.”
“What does greedy mean?”
“Greedy means wanting too much. When we want too much, we lose what makes us happy.”
Chintu thought hard. “So my one mango was enough?”
“What do you think?” asked Dadi.
“Yes! My one mango made me happy every day. It was sweet and perfect!”
“That’s right, beta. Being happy with what we have is called being grateful.”
That night, Dadi told Chintu more Panchatantra bedtime stories about being grateful.
The next morning, guess what?
The magic tree had one beautiful mango waiting for Chintu!
“Thank you, magic tree!” said Chintu happily.
He shared the sweet mango with Dadi. It tasted better than ever!
“This is the best mango in the whole world!” said Chintu.
“Why is it the best?” asked Dadi.
“Because I’m grateful for it! And because I share it with you!”
From that day on, Chintu was always happy with his one perfect mango.
Do you know why? Because he learned that being grateful makes everything taste sweeter!
