How did the tiger king put his kingdom into danger and later safeguarded it?
Answers
When the king was ten days old, an astrologer had predicted that since, the king had been born in the hour of the bull hence, he would meet his end at the hands of a tiger. Not only this, he also predicted that the king might kill ninety nine tigers but he must be cautious with the hundredth one because it was to be the real cause of the king's death. The ten days old baby challenges the astrologer and vowed to kill a hundred tigers and defeat death. To achieve his target without any hassles, the tiger king banned the hunting of tigers in the State of Pratibandapuram by anybody else except him, irrespective of the status of the person. A British officer had once expressed his desire to kill a tiger and snap a picture along with it but the tiger king refused to oblige him and thus, put his kingdom into great danger. However, he averted the danger by impressing the officer's wife by sending samples of 50 expensive diamond rings. Though he had expected that she would choose one or two out of the lot, the Duraisani accepted all of them. The gift cost the king 3 lakh rupees but he was able to safeguard his kingdom. The Maharaja vowed that he would attend to all other state matters only after killing the hundred tigers. The King of Pratibandapuram decided to marry because his province had ran out of tigers and he needed to kill thirty tigers more, in order to prove the astrologers wrong and defeat death. The king did not seem to have paid much attention to his wife, his marriage had been an alliance formed to fulfil his objective of killing a hundred tigers and that is what he devoted his attention to. He married, not out of love, but to have more tigers to kill by forming an alliance with a neighbouring kingdom which had a considerable tiger population. When he had killed ninety nine tigers and he was just a tiger away from defeating death and proving the astrologer wrong, all the provinces under his jurisdiction had lost their entire tiger population. He then summoned his Deewan and told him to get him a tiger from anywhere possible otherwise, he would loose his job and property. The Deewan obeyed and got the king a tiger from a zoo and left it in the jungle so that the king could hunt it down. The king fired a bullet at it and being extremely fragile, the tiger fainted at the loud noise of the bullet, which had gone past it without actually hitting it. The king went away satisfied but the Deewan noticed that the tiger was alive and fearing that he would loose his job if the king came to know about it, he shot the tiger himself. In a way, the king had not killed the hundredth tiger but since, he did not know about it he gave up hunting after that. Later, when his son had turned three years old, he got his son a tiger made of wood. It was crafted by an unskilled craftsman. A tiny silver rough wooden surface pierced through the king's right hand leading to an infection. Eventually, the cause of the death of the king was a tiger, though not a real one.