The Princess who wanted the Moon

One of my favourites, from the stories which were part of the curriculum during my primary school... comes handy now to tackle my kid :)

There was a princess who wanted the moon and she communicated her wish to her dad, the King! The King, like most of the spoilt dads, gets whatever the Princess wanted. This time, not knowing what to do and how to get the moon for his little angel, he called his best team of ministers to work on this request. Unfortunately, they were also blank on how to get this done. A court jester came to help his majesty and placed a request to meet the princess to tackle this issue.

The jester said, "Hello Princess! The moon is huge, dirty and could not be placed on your little hands. Can you tell me if you have a method to get the moon to you?"

The Princess said, "Oh oh! You have grown-up so big but you have very little understanding about the moon. First, the moon is not huge and is very little such that I can hide the full moon with my thumb. Next, it is not dirty and it is as white as silver. I can very well play with it if I have it on my hands."

This gave some idea to the jester and the King got his finest workmen to get a shining silver ball of the size little less than the princess' thumb. The Princess was very happy to see 'her' moon and was enjoying a lot playing with it. Unfortunately, for the adults, they did not realize that the moon would appear the next evening. As soon as the moon was seen on the sky, the King was upset on how his daughter would react by seeing the moon again on the sky. He consulted the court jester again and he was also blank on what could be done to control the damage in their act.

Being a wise jester, he said, "Oh King! When we were struggling on how to get the moon to the Princess, it was she who gave us the idea on how to get it. I suggest we speak to her regarding this problem as well. May be we will get some idea on what could be done next."

The King was not convinced but half-heartedly agreed and arranged a meeting with the Princess.

The jester said, "Hello Princess! I hope you are enjoying your moon. But I have a small doubt. When you are having the moon on your hand, how come I am seeing a moon on the sky tonight?"

The smart Princess said "Don't be so dumb! When you pluck flowers from a plant in the morning, don't you see another flower on the same plant the next day? Same way, my daddy plucked the moon for me yesterday and today we see another moon."

Problem solved!

Lesson learnt: Perspective matters!