Animal Story For Children: Black Stripes Of Tiger

Many years ago the tiger did not have black stripes on his tanned body.

Very few people know the secret story behind the appearance of these stripes.

Once, long ago, a monkey had a birthday party and invited many of his friends, rabbit, squirrel, cat, dog, bear and of course, his best friend tiger.

Monkey had decorated his house beautifully, with colorful balloons and twinkling stars.

His friends enjoyed delicious snacks and mouth watering sweets.

Rabbit suggested that they played some games to add more fun to party.

All the animals agreed and started playing happily; everybody was singing, dancing and laughing loudly.

Monkey was also very happy to see his friends thoroughly enjoying his party, until he noticed that tiger was sitting alone in a corner.

Monkey went over to him and asked, “My dear friend, why are you not playing games with us?”

The tiger replied rudely, “Oh! I don’t like these games. As you know I am a good artist so you should have organized a drawing competition too.”

Monkey immediately stopped the music and announced a drawing and painting competition.

All of Monkeys friends were disappointed, nobody was interested in drawing and instead wanted to enjoy other games and dance.

The naughty squirrel decided to teach the tiger a lesson.

She said, “I will compete with the tiger, let’s see who is the better artist.”

The tiger agreed and said, “Bring a piece of paper and coloring pens.”

Unfortunately they could only find one piece of paper.

Tiger said, “I will make the first drawing,” and he snatched the paper from monkey.

All the friends felt very upset at the rude behavior of tiger but they kept quiet with sad faces.

When the tiger had drawn a beautiful flower he asked the squirrel to draw something.

Clever squirrel had an idea, and she said, “I want to make beautiful black stripes on you.”

Seeing that the tiger was puzzled the squirrel continued, “you can wash them off at any time.”

The tiger agreed happily.

The squirrel climbed on Tiger’s back and made black stripes on him with a dark permanent paint, which could not be removed by the tiger!

The tiger became the enemy of the squirrel from that day onwards and he carries those black stripes on his body to this day.

~ Dr. Manjari Shukla