Once there was a rich farmer named Prakash, who lived somewhere in Tamil Nadu. He had a big orchard with a nice house that he had built in it. Prakash lived with his wife, Sharada and his daughter, Ramaa.
The orchard was at the edge of a dense forest which was home to many animals such as monkeys, deer, an occasional stray bison and elephants. Prakash had put up a strong fence around the perimeter of his land. Even then, some animal or the other somehow got into the orchard, often leaving a part of the fence in shambles.
As a daily routine, Prakash and his workmen went around the orchard’s perimeter to check for any break-ins or loose wires. Once a moving herd of elephants was going through the forest and the family could hear their trumpeting.
One morning when Prakash went on his daily walk around the orchard, he found some banana trees which were bent in an odd way and severely rampaged upon. He found that all the bunches of bananas were gone! He and his men surveyed the surrounding area thoroughly but found only a few tree branches broken here and there and the grass had clearly been trampled upon. This happened again and again over the whole week. This had to be the work of elephants!! But how many were there? One? Two? A whole herd??? It was scary business.
So, Prakash thought up a plan. He and his men dug a large pit-just before the banana plantation began and spread leaves and hay inside the pit so that it would not be a hard fall for the culprit/culprits. Then they placed large leaves over it to camaflouge the pit.
