A Princess to remember

Young years of dev

It was a celebrated year for the entire kingdom as the kingdom witnessed prominent rains after a suffering of an year and half. People believed that there would be no shortage of any resources in the kingdom as was boy is born( which was considered very auspicious in olden days) and when they were gifted with enough rains and were freed from drought their belief became stronger. There was no unhappy person in the kingdom and everything was going just perfect.

Years passed by and Maldev turned 6 , the king and queen felt sad that six years had passed away so soon just like six days.They were lost deep in the thoughts cherishing the old happy days which had passed by.

Raja Jaydev and Rani Samyukta were recalling those beautiful moments -

"Remeber how Dev used to stop crying as soon as I used to take him in my arms?" asked the king ,smiling.

"Yes , and remember how he once took away your favourite ring and hid it under the almirah ?" Asked the queen , smiling back at the king.

"Ha, and when he started crawling , the first thing he caught was bow & arrow".

"And , how hard it used to be to feed him dinner then , he wouldn't eat without seeing his chanda mama".

"And after playing , how he used to rush to us to describe the events of the day".

" Those were the best days of our life , we didn't even knew how soon the days were passing looking after him".

"But now.....now it's time for him to be sent to gurukul to learn about various scriptures , master the art of warfare". Told the king with clear depiction of sadness on his face for he couldn't see his beloved son for atleast 7-8 years , till his studies were completed.

      Hence the king pleaded his kul-guru to accept his son as his disciple and bestow his knowledge and blessings on the prince. Kul-guru Bharadwaj happily accepted Maldev as his shishya and he had fixed an auspicious day to take Maldev with him to his gurukul.

        Later that evening , Maharaj called Maldev and told him that he had to leave the kingdom for gurukul in a week to learn various shastras , warfare and other knowledge required to become a great king. Though Dev was sad on the thought that he had to stay away from his parents , he was much more interested in learning all the subjects well as his aim was to become people's king and serve people selflessly. But before he left for gurukul , he wanted to spend that one week solely by playing with his friends , exploring his kingdom and most importantly spending quality time with his dear parents.
    
Next morning -
"Pitashree may I please go and explore the kingdom ?".

" Yes , do ho but return before lunch".

Saying thus ,  the king called his rath-sarathi and also few of the most trusted and powerful men and handed them the responsibility of his son , to keep Dev away from any danger. Maharaj also gave them an order to return to the fort by afternoon.

"Ji pitaji , dhanyavad" ~ saying thus Dev along with his bodyguards started off to explore the places in the kingdom.

As they went through the streets , dev found people on both sides of the road , stopping & bowing down to him. He never had experienced such attention before & hence wondered that if being a yuvraj of the kingdom if he was getting so much attention , how much attention he would receive when he becomes a king.

They took Dev to all famous places through the busy streets of the kingdom , The famous Suvarnagiri Market where there were all types of items , sweets , jewellery , clothes , delicious food etc.

Then they went to Gayathri devi temple & ate prashad , went to see the handicrafts made by villagers.

    After seeing all the important places , they reached the outskirts of the kingdom where they stopped for sometime on the order of yuvraj. They went inside the forest as Dev wished to spend sometime under those lush green trees , before returning to the fort. He wished to eat the blackberries which grew on the nearby trees. So , the bodyguards climbed the trees to collect those berries. Dev went wandering in the forest till they collected the fruits , and suddenly came across bushes , and when he tried to push the bushes aside , he found a tunnel behind the bushes , without wasting a moment , he entered into it but he didn't even go half way when his bodyguards  started calling out for him , so he hurried back to them. 

  Of all the places , he visited on that day , he loved forest the most , he wanted to explore the forest more deeply ,  particularly he wanted to look what existed on the other side of tunnel but he didn't had the opportunity to go to the forest again and slowly that one week came to an end , so as per the plan , he took blessings from his parents and proceeded with his kul-guru to his ashram to start his studies.