The Best Teacher!

It seems there is a crowd at Seema's place with three generation ladies gathered there - Riya the twelve year old girl, Seema, the pregnant wife of Preetham and Preetham's mother. Riya was preparing a card for her best teacher on the teachers day occasion when she popped up a question at Seema, "Did you had any favorite teacher?" Seema gave a naughty answer, "When I was in College, I liked the Hindi Teacher for his sweet nightingale like voice, the English Sir for the stares he gave me during the classes and the Commerce lecture for his height... " Preetham just cleared his throat hinting to stop her excitement while his mother was present.

The young girl turned from the daughter in law towards the mother in law, "Granny, Did you had any favorite teacher?" It was a complete wrong question as Preetham's mother didn't had that much education. Yet it didn't prevent her from answering, "Yes! Nature! She is the best teacher."
Seema said to herself, "This old lady will never fail to answer. And now, she will start a lecture"
Riya was confused, "Can you expalin to me how is nature a teacher! Does she have a cane like our teacher?"

The old lady laughed, "No! Gentle are her ways... Let me tell you a small story. In scotland some centuries ago, a brave king was defeated by his enemies many times and finally he retreated to a cave. The soldiers came looking for him. He prayed to God to help him out. That time he saw a spider which was trying to weave its web across the cave. He felt how this small spider could help him out with its web. As he saw, the wind howled and blew the web apart. It tried again and again relentlessly. When the enemies neared the cave, the spider web was successfully strung across the entrance of the cave."
The young girl reasoned out, "The soldiers must have thought, 'If anyone is inside, he should have broken the spider's web to enter the cave'. And so they didn't search the cave and the king was saved. Right!"
The old lady smiled, "Right, Cutie! and tell me what could be the moral of the story?"
While the young girl was taking some time to guess, the daughter in law volunteered to answer, "Try Try till you die... I mean.... till you succeed!"
The mother in law was not ready to accept the daughter in law's answer, "Hmmm... Look it from a philosophical angle. Where God is, a spider's web is as a stone wall. Where God is not, a stone wall is as a spider's web**"

The son Preetham joined his mother to give another example, "Not only western.... but in our history also there is instances of nature teaching great statesmen including the likes of Chanyaka. Do u know the story of the ant helping Chanakya to escape from being caught by the enemies?" Without waiting for a answer, he started narrating the story, "Legend has it that once Mauryan forces had to hide in a cave. They were starving there without food. But coming out meant being captured by the enemy. At that time Chanakya observed a ant taking a grain of nice. But there was no sign of grain or foodstock anywhere. He also observed that the rice grain was cooked. He ordered the mauryan soldiers to search. As they did, they found that the enemies had been dining under that cave. Immediately they escaped from there and saved themself"
When mother saw her child Preetham joining with his story, she got excited, "See my child Riya! This nature has always taught good men....."

Seema got somewhat uneasy with the way things went and had something to add and something definitely opposite, "Not only good men.... but also bad men take lessons from the nature and do evil things...:" The mother in law was irritated and demanded, "Do you have an example, Seema!"
Seema spoke in a mocking manner, "You must have read the Mahabharatha and other holy fictions an umpteen number of times and still you ask me?"
Mother-in-law's memory was deinitely fading as Seema continued, "I am honoured to explain to you, my dear Mother In Law. Remember the end of the Mahabharatha war.Remember Ashwathama! No one could be as cruel as him. In the enemy camp only three warriors were left including Ashwathama and that too without their king and they were pondering of their next strategy.Thats when, Ashwathama observed how an owl was attacked by crows in the day and how the owls attacked back in the night. Thus he attacked the Pandavas army camp after dark and killed the five sons of the Pandavas and all their allies. A bloody end to the war brought out by Ashwathama from the lesson he learnt from the owls." The last lines were uttered by Seema with a wicked but a victorious smile.

With that smile, the atmosphere suddenly turned into a very silent and eerie, somewhat like the Kurukshethra after the war end, with Mother in law and daughter in law looking at each other with intense eyes. No one was trying to break the ice. Young Riya turned to Preetham and slowly hissed into his ears, "Hasn't Mother Nature taught you of what to do in such a difficult and tense situation like this one"

** The quote taken from the web