Folktales from Bengal
Page 6
After a while, he heard a noise in the kitchen. He thought, “They are making the payesh now.”
There was another noise. “They are serving the payesh now.”
Then there was another. “They sat down to eat now.”
The Brahmin and his daughter had indeed seated themselves to eat. But the payesh was so good, that they nearly finished it themselves. The Brahman’s wife was kind, so she gave some from her share to the neighbour’s kids, who were lurking greedily around. And after she was done eating, not a drop of the payesh was left.
When the crow saw that nothing was left for him to eat, he was very angry. He thought, “Cheat me off, did you? I am going to have my revenge very soon.”
There was a large forest near the Brahmin’s house. A tiger used to hunt there. The crow flew to the tiger and said, “Hello there, o king of the forest. I have a proposition for you. Such a handsome fellow as you should get a worthy wife. The Brahmin in the neighbouring village has a beautiful daughter. You should ask her hand in marriage.”
The tiger thought that the crow had a point. He was handsome and strong, so why shouldn’t he get married to the Brahmin’s daughter?
“But who is going to set up the marriage?” he asked. “The moment they see me, they will run for their lives. And they would be right to do so. I am not sure if I could resist eating them.”
“Don’t worry. I will take care of everything. Just send over some food to them.”
“Of course. I will kill a dog and leave the body at their doorstep.”
“No, no. they won’t eat a dog. But you can give me some of the lemons that grow on the tree near your cave, and I will take them to their hut.”
The crow took the lemons to the Brahmin’s place. He came back to the tiger and said, “They were very happy with your present. They said that they will surely marry their daughter to you if you keep sending them these lemons.”
Days passed by, and the crow kept feeding the tiger more lies about how happy the Brahmin was and how soon they were going to give him their daughter.
One day, the tiger asked, “My lemon tree has run out. When am I getting married?”
The crow said, “Any time you want.”
The tiger said, “Fine, go to them and tell them that if they don’t get me married to their daughter by midnight tomorrow, I will eat them alive.”
This was what the crow wanted. He went to the Brahmin’s place and told them, “If you don’t marry your daughter to the tiger, he will come and eat you. You have until tomorrow midnight.”
The Brahmin and his wife started to cry. After a while, the Brahmin thought it best to go to the head of the village. The head of the village listened to his problem, and thought about it for a while. After some time of thinking, he said, “Sure, let him come. We’ll give him the marriage he deserves.”
He sent a messenger to the tiger. “Come well dressed, our good sir. You will come to us, seat on your special seat, enjoy the ceremony, and then get married and return with the bride.”
Then he made his men dig a deep well, and set up a hundred drums of oil boiling. A carpet was laid on the well, and the villagers started to sing and dance, playing their flutes and drums.
Hearing the ruckus, the tiger thought, “There, the ceremonies have begun.”
He got suited up, put on a turban, and ran to the Brahmin’s place. Everyone surrounded him, shouting, “The groom is here, the groom is here,” and took him to his special seat. The moment he stepped on the carpet, it folded, and he fell down into the well.
The men poured the hundred drums of boiling oil into the well, and threw fire into the pit. The tiger burned to death, and the Brahmin sighed in relief.
The crow was sitting on the rooftop to see the fun. The boys of the neighbourhood threw stones at him till one cracked his head open.
The Tiger’s Wife
Once a tigress gave birth to a couple of cubs. When they grew a little older, they became so notorious, that their mother could not take it anymore, and died. Before she died, she told the father of the cubs to look after them.
A few days passed. The tiger was having no luck at looking after the cubs, or take care of the household chores. The cubs did not listen to him, and the tiger did not see how he could manage taking care of his home, and provide food on the table.
The other tigers heard of his problem, and said, “Just get married again. Let your wife take care of the kids.”
The tiger thought, “Yes. I should get married again. But this time, I will marry a human girl. I heard they can cook really well.”
He went to a village to get a girl. There was a family there, mother, father, and their son and daughter. The tiger caught the daughter, and brought her home. He told his cubs, “This is your new mother.”
The cubs did not buy it. They replied, “She does not have claws or teeth or stripes or even whiskers. How can she be our mother? Kill her, so we can eat her.”
The tiger roared, “Enough! If you say something like this once more, I am going to rip you apart.” the cubs stopped complaining, but they never liked the girl. Every day, they told her, “Wait a little longer, when we get stronger, we’ll break your neck first, and have you for breakfast.”
The girl was sad and scared beyond reckoning. When the tiger left to hunt, she rolled on the ground and cried for her brother, and mother and father. When the tiger returned, she stopped crying in fear. And thus the days passed.
Meanwhile, back at her home, her parents went nearly blind crying for their daughter. Her brother cried for some time, but after a while, he stopped. “Crying won’t help,” he told his parents. “I’ll go and bring her back, or die trying.” And before his parents could stop him, he was gone in the woods.
He walked in the woods for days, scavenging wild berries and fruits for food, and sleeping on treetops at night. Finally, he found the tiger’s house, and his sister there.
The girl was very happy to see her brother, but she hugged him and cried out, saying, “Brother, why are you here? The moment the tiger sees you, he will eat you up.”
The brother replied, “I don’t care. I am not going home without you.”
So the girl dug a hole in the kitchen, hid him there, and covered it with a rock.
The tiger came home with the food, and sat with his children to eat. But the children did not pay any attention to the food, and just kept saying,
“Listen to us, father dear,
Mother’s brother, he is here,
Lurk under a rock he does,
When you hunt, out he comes,
Move the rock and you can see him,
Meet him, greet him, and then eat him.”
The girl heard the cubs, and started sobbing loudly. The tiger did not understand what kind of insult his cubs had done her, but he slapped the two nonetheless, and they stopped singing. Before he left again, he called the girl and said, “I want some fried cake today. Fry them up, and fry them well.”
When the tiger left, the brother came out from under the rock, and said, “Now is our chance. Let’s get out of here.” But the cubs heard them, and jumped at them. They clawed them and bit them, until finally, the brother took out a kitchen knife, and cut both of them up.
They took some oil in a pan, and boiled the oil. Then they hung the bodies over the oil. Blood dripped from the bodies, and fell on the oil, making a hissing sound. Then they ran for their lives.
The tiger was coming back home, when he heard the hiss from the kitchen. “There, the cake is being made.” He thought. “If it’s good, then it’s good. But if it’s not, the three of us will tear her up and eat her.”
When he got inside the kitchen, he realized what had been done. He roared aloud, and looked around all over his home, and the forest, for the girl. But by then, the brother and the sister had returned to their village. The family packed up, and went far from the forest, where no tiger could ever bother them anymore.
The Adventures of Dhat-teri the Cat
One day, the fishermen’s cat went up to the Goala’s cat, and said, “Hello, friend. Aren’t you ever tired of drinking the milk and the ghee all day long?”
The Goala’s cat was napping on a tin-shed. He opened an eye lazily, to look at the thin excuse of a cat, and said, “No.”
“Ah come on,” said the fishermen’s cat, “Milk and ghee, curd and cream. It’s bound to get boring after a while. Why don’t you come over to my place for dinner tonight? We are serving fish, all kinds of it.”
The Goala’s cat did not like to move about much, but he liked to eat. “What kind of fish are they having?”
“All kinds. There are Hilshas, Pomfret, Koi, Magur, Tangra, Puti. Big ones and small ones, and all you can eat and more.”
So the Goala’s cat agreed to come.
That night, when he went to the fishermen’s home, the fishermen were alarmed beyond reckoning. “It’s the fat cat from the cow-herders,” they said, “Kill it quickly, before he eats all our fishes.”
And so, an angry mob surrounded the fat cat and beat it to death.
The fishermen’s cat now went to the cow herders’ place, and got to eat all the milk and curd he wanted. And soon enough, he became as big and fat as the Goala’s cat had been. Seeing himself grow so big, he felt proud and haughty, and soon, stopped hanging out with the other cats. But he got bored of the mollycoddling after a while, and began to miss the days he used to steal fishes from the fishermen. He decided that he needed an adventure.
And so, he went to the forest. There, he took out a pen and paper, and began to scribble down unreadables, looking very grave and important.
After a while, he saw three little tiger cubs playing around. He went ahead, and said, “Hey. Why are you playing in the king’s forest? Did you pay your tax?”
The tiger cubs had never seen a creature like the cat, small and fat, that looked like a tiger, but did not roar. They ran to their mother, and said, “Mother, mother. There’s this thing that looks like a small tiger that says it’s here to collect taxes.”
The tigress came to the cat now, and said, “Who are you, son? And what do you want from us?”
The cat replied, “I am Dhat-teri, the Terrible. I work for the king, and I am collecting his tax. Pay up quickly, or you’ll have to deal with me.”
The tigress replied, “I have never heard of this tax you are talking about. We are tigers. We don’t pay taxes, and we hunt what walks in here.”
“Isn’t your husband home? Maybe he has to say something different on the matter.”
“He is gone out hunting. But he will be back soon. Why don’t you take a seat and wait? But I must warn you. He is a very bad temper.”
After a while Dhat-teri the Terrible heard the tiger coming. He dropped his notepad and pen, and jumped to the top of a tree.
When the tiger heard of the cat, he was very angry indeed. “Where is he?” he roared. ”I’m going to break his neck.”
He looked around his home, and found the cat up on a tree. He tried to chase it, but as he got higher, the cat climbed higher still, keeping to the thin and weak branches, and crying, “Come on, little tiger? Where’s your tax? Pay up, or pay the price.”
The tiger was blinded by rage, and jumped up to slash Dhat-teri, but he missed and fell from the tree. The impact broke his neck, and he died. Dhat-teri climbed down from the tree, and made a few scratches on the tiger’s face with his claw. Then he called up the tigress, and said, “Look what I had to do to him. Do you have anything else to say, or should another die?”
The tigress was very scared now, and said, “Please, Mr. Dhat-teri, don’t kill us. We’ll stay as your slaves.”
Dhat-teri said, “Very well then. But don’t slack off, and see that I don’t get hungry.”
After this, Dhat-teri remained with the tigers. He had what the tiger hunted, and rode the cubs everywhere.
A few weeks passed like this. One day, the tiger came up to Dhat-teri, and said, “Mr Dhat-teri, this side of the forest is running out of game. I am worried we cannot feed you well at this rate. I think we should cross the river. The forest on the other side is very big, and got real big animals.”
“Let’s cross the river, then,” said Dhat-teri.
The tigress crossed the river with her cubs, Dhat-teri swimming close behind them. But on the other side, they noticed that Dhat-teri was missing. One of the cubs spotted him in the middle of the river.
Dhat-teri was drowning. He realized that he had no hope of swimming across, and he would drown before the next wave hit him. But luckily for him, one of the cubs swam to him and dragged him ashore.
The moment he felt solid ground under his feet, he jumped up, and said, “You scoundrel! Look what you did. I was counting how many fishes and crocodiles there are in the river. I was this close to finish. Why did you drag me up?”
The tigress quickly came up to him and said, “I apologize for him, Mr Dhat-teri. Please forgive him. He is just a cub. What does he know of your kingly affairs?”
“Humph.” Said Dhat-teri, and walked to dry land. There, he climbed up a tall tree, and looked around. He saw a large bull dead in a clearing. He ran up there, and bit and scratched the corpse. Then he took the tigress and the cubs there, and said. “This is our hunt for today. I know you must be tired, so I got the food. But don’t get used to it.”
The tigress and the cubs thought, “How strong Mr Dhat-teri must be to hunt his large bull all by himself.”
The next day, the tigress walked up to Dhat-teri, and said, “Today, we begin the hunting. What do you want to do? Chase the animals, or ambush them?”
Dhat-teri thought, “What animal in their right mind would be afraid of me?” he said, “You idiots. Do you honestly think you can hunt down the animals I bring about chasing? No. You chase the animals here, and I’ll ambush them.”
The tigress agreed. “Of course. How can we possibly hunt the horrible creatures Mr Dhat-teri chases here?”
They went about in the deep of the forest, and began to roar and thrash about, chasing animals towards Dhat-teri.
Hearing the tumult inside the forest, the roar, and the stampede, Dhat-teri hid under a fallen tree trunk, and shivering in fear.
An elephant was running his direction, and he stepped on the trunk Dhat-teri was hiding under. Under the pressure, a branch of the tree stabbed Dhat-teri and he lay there dying.
After spending some time chasing the animals, the tigress thought, “By this time, Mr Dhat-teri must have hunted a hundred of them.”
They returned to the cat, only to find him dying.
“Oh Mr Dhat-teri,” they said. ”What happened to you?”
“Don’t ask,” replied Dhat-teri. “When I saw the puny creatures you sent this way, I laughed so much that my belly burst. Ho ho ho ho.”
And then he died.
The Ant, the Elephant, and the Servant Boy
The ant and his wife were madly in love.
One day, the ant said, “Dear, if I die, will you take me to the Ganges and drift me away?”
“Of course dear,” said the wife. “And if I die, will you do the same for me?”
“Of course.”
Soon after this the ant’s wife died. The ant cried for seven days and nights, then thought, “Now I have to take her to Ganges.”
He carried his wife on his back and travelled towards the Ganges. The path was long and tiring. After walking for a day, the ant got tired
and sat to rest.
An elephant was tied to a pole nearby. It was the king’s favourite elephant. It was breathing heavily through his trunk, and the ant and his dead wife were almost blown away.
“Hey. Stop breathing! Stop breathing!” the ant yelled. But the elephant never listened, and in a ‘whoosh’ the ant’s wife was blown away to nobody knows where.
“You’ll pay for that, you scoundrel,” cried the ant.
The elephant opened his eyes to look at the ground. “Who is speaking?” he said. “I don’t see anyone.” Then he stomped on the ground where the noise was coming from. Luckily, there was a hole under the elephant’s foot, and the ant hid inside the hole and survived.