This tweet of Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji of The Art of Living Foundation reminded me of a nice story.
There was this lady who eked out a living working in a country side, who married a Prince of another Kingdom, who by his heredity rights and force of circumstances was bulldozed on to the throne.
Unfortunately he had an untimely death and the Tyrannic Queen who was by then feared a lot by her Ministers and coterie as also by the citizens for her cruelty, tried to usurp the throne. It did not matter to her that as per the traditions of the kingdom she was not eligible to be the Queen, nor by virtue of her qualifications. But sycophant coterie that she was surrounded by, forced her to make an attempt to hold the reign of this great kingdom. An old sage saw the futility of the attempt which would cause her already infamous background even more damage.
Alternately, she was suggested to appoint a native proxy, a known sycophant as the King, and get him to rule the kingdom as per her whims.
This queen had a pet dog, she loved it more than the children – both of whom turned out to be wastrels and no-gooders. She loved the dog so much that every visitor had to treat that with reverence only exceeded by their reverence to her.
Laws of the nature caught up and the pet dog dies. She organizes a grand funeral and every citizen of the kingdom were in attendance, lest they displease this tyrannical queen – such was the stranglehold she had over them. Eulogies were sung for the dog by the coterie. And Queen was mighty pleased.
Soon after, the queen afflicted by a fatal disease passes away. Surprisingly, since she was not alive to be feared, there was not many to attend her funeral.
Moral: Fear and Respect are not necessarily the same 😛
Disclaimer: Any resemblance of any of the characters, living or dead is not necessarily co-incidental
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