On the morning of a great battle, the warrior Arjuna looks across the field, sees his own family and teachers on the other side, and puts down his bow. What his friend and charioteer Krishna tells him next became the Bhagavad Gita.
Two young friends in New York promise to meet in the same doorway exactly twenty years later. One of them keeps the appointment. O. Henry's story of loyalty and duty.
At an age when most people retire, Harland Sanders lost the roadside restaurant he had spent twenty-five years building. He had a pension cheque, an old car and a recipe for fried chicken. So he started again.
One hot summer night, clever Tenali Rama spots two thieves hiding in his garden. Instead of shouting for help, he has a quiet chat with his wife, loudly enough for the thieves to hear.
All summer long, Grasshopper sings while Ant carries grain. Then the first cold wind blows across the field.
A bored young shepherd finds a funny way to bring the whole village running up the hill. It works once. It works twice.
Henry Ford was a farm boy who loved taking watches apart. His first two car companies failed. On his third try, he built a simple black car that ordinary families could afford, and the world began to move differently.
A government chemist in Ahmedabad began mixing washing powder in his backyard and selling it door to door from his bicycle, before and after work. He named it after the daughter he had lost.
As a teenager in Assam, Jadav Payeng found a bare sandbank in the Brahmaputra river, scorched by the sun. He began planting trees on it. Decades later, tigers and elephants walk through his forest.
Florence Nightingale was expected to marry well and live a quiet, comfortable life. Instead she walked the wards of a filthy army hospital at night, and then used numbers to change how the world cares for the sick.
A little red hen finds some grains of wheat and asks her friends to help her plant them. "Not I," says the cat. "Not I," says the dog. "Not I," says the duck. But at the end, everyone wants a slice of bread.
In December 1914, a fire tore through Thomas Edison's laboratory and factories. He was 67, and much of his life's work was in flames. What he did next is the story.
Tavi didn't mean to break his sister's kite. Hiding it seemed easy, but keeping a secret turned out to be much heavier than telling the truth.
A summer washing dishes in a busy restaurant kitchen taught more about work, respect and pride than any classroom did.
