Long ago, in a small village near a forest, there lived a woodcutter named Hari Chand. His life wasn’t complicated, but it wasn’t easy either. Every morning, he would pick up his axe and head into the forest, cut wood for hours, tie it into a bundle, and carry it all the way to the town. By the time he reached there, he would already be tired. And still, most days, what he earned didn’t feel like enough.
It wasn’t that he didn’t try. He did. Every single day. Still, things didn’t really change. After a point, he started thinking about it more often than he liked—about the importance of hard work in life, and whether it really worked the same way for everyone.
One day, in the middle of summer, things went worse than usual. He spent the whole day working in the heat, but in the market, no one wanted to buy his wood. He waited for a long time. Then finally, someone agreed, but at such a low price that it barely made sense. He stood there for a moment, thought about saying no, but didn’t. He needed the money, even if it was less.
That evening, when he got home, he sat down next to his father and asked him something he had been holding in for a long time. Why did life feel like this all the time? Why did he have to struggle so much, while others seemed to be doing just fine? It was the same question people still ask today—why some people are rich and others are poor, even when everyone is working in their own way.
His father didn’t answer right away. He took his time, then said something that didn’t really make things better. He told Hari Chand that he, the village money lender, and even the king were all born on the same day. And still, their lives were completely different. Some things, he said, were decided by fate. You just had to wait.
Hari Chand didn’t like that. Not at all. It stayed in his head. If everything was already decided, then what was the point of all this effort? It started to feel like a question of fate vs. hard work, and the more he thought about it, the more confused he got.
The next day, instead of going to the forest, he went to the money lender. He thought he would get a simple answer, maybe even be laughed at. But that didn’t happen. The money lender surprised him. He said he wasn’t really happy either. The work felt the same every day. The money didn’t change much. It just looked different from the outside.
That made Hari Chand pause for a moment.
They decided to go to the king and ask him the same thing. When they met him and explained everything, the king didn’t dismiss them. He listened. Then he said something simple—let’s go and see. Maybe the answer isn’t something you can explain in one place.
So the three of them left together.
They didn’t have a proper plan. They just decided that each day, one of them would go out and earn food for all three.
On the first day, Hari Chand went. Nothing surprising happened. He worked, like always, and earned just enough to buy some food. It was the same as before. No change.
The next day, the money lender went out. Things went differently for him. He met a group of merchants on the way, spoke to them, made a deal, and earned good money in a short time. It didn’t even seem that difficult. Watching that, it was hard not to think about luck and hard work, and how differently they show up for different people.
On the third day, it was the king’s turn. He walked to a nearby town. When he reached the gate, it was closed, so he just sat down and waited. He didn’t know anything about what had happened there.
The king of that town had died the previous night. There was no heir. So the people had decided that whoever entered the town first when the gates opened would be made the new king.
When the gates opened, he was right there.
He walked in.
And that was it.
Within minutes, everything changed for him again.
Later, when the three of them met, no one needed to explain much. They had all seen enough.
Hari Chand didn’t react immediately. He just sat there for a while. Things felt different now. Not clearer, exactly. Just… different.
He understood one thing, though. His hard work had kept him going all this time. Without it, he wouldn’t have managed even the little he had. At the same time, he had seen how quickly things could change without warning. It made him think differently about how to get out of poverty, and what really makes a difference.
The king later offered him a place to stay and work, along with some land. It was more than Hari Chand had ever expected.
But by then, the question he had started with didn’t feel the same anymore.
Understanding how to become successful in life didn’t seem like something with a single answer. It wasn’t just effort. It wasn’t just luck either. People move at different speeds—some take time, others seem to get there all at once. There are things you can control, and then there are parts you simply can’t.
He stopped trying to argue with it.
And just went on with his life.
If You Liked This Folk Tale…
If this story stayed with you—the quiet way it explores luck, effort, and the unexpected turns life can take—you might enjoy another tale that carries a similar feeling, but in a very different setting. Our previous post unfolds in the hills of Mizoram and looks at what people truly find when they go searching for something more. It’s a different journey, but it leaves you with the same kind of lingering thought—that sometimes, what we discover isn’t what we were looking for in the first place. You can read it here.
Kalai is passionate about reading and reinterpreting folk tales from all over the country. Write to her at kalai.muse@gmail.com to know more about her.
Folk tale adapted and abridged from Internet Archive.