One day, a man climbed up a tree. While climbing up, he did not realise how tall the tree actually was and kept climbing up. On reaching the top, when the man looked down, he realised that climbing down from the tree would not be as easy as climbing up. He could not think of any way of getting down without injuring himself seriously.

He asked the people who were passing by to help him. But nobody could think of a way of bringing him down safely. Soon, quite a few people gathered around the tree and tried to help the man, but no one knew what to do. The man remained stuck on top of the tree.

Just then, Mulla, who was walking by, saw this scene and wondered what was going on. The people standing around the tree told Mulla about the situation. “Oh!” Mulla said, “I’ll get him down in no time.” He took a long rope and threw one end of it up to the man telling him to tie the rope around his waist.

Everyone wondered what Mulla’s plan was. When one of them asked him, Mulla replied, “Just leave it to me. It’s a great plan.”

When the man on the tree had tied the rope tightly around his waist, Mulla pulled the rope with all his force. As soon as Mulla did this, the man fell down from the tree and hurt himself badly. The bystanders were shocked at this. They turned to Mulla and asked, “What did you do? What a silly plan you had?”

Mulla replied, “Well, once I did exactly the same thing and saved someone’s life.” One man asked him, “Is that true?” “Absolutely!” replied Mulla, “The only difference was I saved him from a well and not a tree.”