by Soham Saha
She carved out the insides from a giant gourd, and then put the old woman in, with some sweets in a jar, so that she did not go hungry on the way. Then she rolled her downhill, and the gourd rolled away in the direction of her house, through the forest.
The old woman sang from inside the gourd,
“Dham kurkur dham kurkur
Eating sweets in a jar,
The old woman goes far and far.”
The bear was eagerly waiting by the path for the woman to return. He did not see the woman coming back, but saw something peculiar instead. A giant gourd was rolling down the path, and it was singing.
He stopped it and turned it around. He then sniffed it, and licked it. It did not seem edible at all, and all the while, the gourd kept singing, “The old woman goes far and far.” After listening to this for a while, he got frustrated thinking about how the woman had tricked him, and gave the gourd a kick, and it rolled about in its merry way.
About halfway through its path, the gourd was stopped by the tiger. He considered taking a bite out of it, but it smelled funny. And he was not a vegetarian, the tiger, so he decided that the old woman had somehow made a fool out of him, and let the gourd go.
The old woman had almost reached her home when the fox spotted the gourd. Unlike the other two, he was not so easy to fool. “A thing that rolls along by itself, and sings, yet has no mouth. Strange, very strange indeed.” The fox said to himself, and then placed a sharp rock in its path.
The gourd slammed into the rock with a huge crash, and burst open, and the old woman rolled a bit further down the road before she came to a halt.
“Ha! You hag, nice try, but I got you now.” He said, and proceeded to eat her.
The old woman brushed the dirt off her clothes, and stood up. She said, “All right all right, you got me fair and square. But why don’t you let me clean up a bit. Here, I’ll sing a song for you.”
“Fine, but be quick.” The fox said. He did not like dirt getting inside his teeth. It was really hard to clean afterwards. And he did not mind listening to a little music.
The old woman got up on a hillock, from which she could see her little hut. She sang loud and clear,
“Come on, come on, too too,
Ronga, Bhonga, Bhutu.”
And before the fox could say ‘darn’, the three dogs came running to her rescue, and tore up the fox into shreds. The old woman hummed a song, and went back to her hut, her head bobbing and her cane tapping on the forest floor.
The Old Woman, the Thief, and the Pantabhaat
Pantabhaat is a dish that poor people have for dinner every day, and these days, the rich people eat once a year as a delicacy. When dinner is finished, the leftover rice is placed in a small clay pot called the shanki, and soaked in water. The shanki is hung with a rope close to the ceiling so that the rice is not stolen by cats. In the morning, the shanki is taken down, a little salt is sprinkled on the rice, and if you’re lucky, you might even paste in a green chilli, and have the dish for breakfast, before you go out to work.
At least, this is what the old woman was planning on doing the night before she hung the shanki up in the balcony of her little cottage. In the morning, when she woke up, it was gone! The old woman we are talking about was very poor, so poor that all she had in the world was the small cottage, the shanki, and the one piece of cloth she wore, and so old that nobody would give her any work to do. All day long, she would have to walk around the village, begging for food, and at night, she cooked whatever she had collected, and ate half. The rest she left for breakfast, which she ate before heading out for begging again.
But not this day. The pantabhaat, her meagre breakfast, was missing today. The shanki was hanging from the rope in the ceiling, but the rice, not a grain of it was left. The thief had licked the pot clean.
What was the old woman to do? She headed out to beg again, hungry, and brought back what she collected for dinner. She cooked, ate, and hung up the pantabhaat. But next morning, it was gone again.
The next night, she decided she would stay up and guard the rice, but she was so tired from the day’s work, that she fell asleep, and the thief swiped it again.
The following day, she went to the king to complain.
The path was long and winded, and her joints creaked and her hip hurt from all the walking. But she went along anyways. She stopped by a pond to rest, and a catfish swam close.
“Hello, granny, what are you doing so far from home?” gurgled the fish.
“Going to the king to complain about a thief who eats my rice every night,” the old woman said.
“Why do you think the king will care?” said the fish, and blew a bubble.
“Because I am hungry for three mornings now. I can barely walk.”
“No, no. Why would he care? You are poor. He is rich. He won’t know your pain,” said the catfish.
“Of course he will. He’s the king.”
At this, the catfish shrugged, and said, “Pick me up on your way back. I might come handy.”
The old woman got up and started to walk again, and the fish swished its tail and swam deep into the pond.
A little further down the road, she saw a wizened thorn apple lying on the ground beneath a tree.
“Granny, where are you going?” the thornapple asked.
“To the king to complain about a thief,” she said.
“The king won’t listen to you. He’s got better things to do,” said the thornapple.
“Why is he king then?” she asked, annoyed.
“To be rich and have fun, like all other kings,” the thornapple said, wisely.
“He has to listen,” she said.
“Go if you are this stubborn. But pick me up on your way back. I might come in useful,” said the thornapple, and the old woman walked again.
She walked, walked, and walked, her joints creaking and cane tapping, until she saw a razor blade lying by the roadside.
“Granny, where are you off too?” the razor asked.
“To the king to complain about a thief, who eats my rice every night,” she said.
“He won’t listen,” said the razor, his edge glistening.
“He will,” said the old woman.
“Take me with you on your way back,” said the razor.
The old woman nodded and went ahead.
She was passing through the king’s stables when she came across some cow dung. They had the same conversation, and the old woman promised she would pick the dung up on her way back.
Finally, she reached the king. The king was in his court room, having a great intellectual discussion about philosophy and what not, with a bunch of old, bearded men who looked like prunes. She paid no heed to them, and went straight up to the king.
“Oh mighty king, please help me by catching this thief that eats my pantabhaat every night. I do not know what to do.”
The king looked at her angrily and said, “What is this pantabhaat, old woman? And more importantly, how did you get inside my court?”
“It’s the food I eat for breakfast. You take some rice that is left over and…”
“Seriously, how do these people get in here? Guards, show her out.” He yelled, then turned to the old woman and said, “If he eats your breakfast, just buy some more and eat yourself. Don’t bother me with these trivia. Can’t you see I have more important stuff to ponder about, like philosophy, music, and religion? Get out!”
The guards pushed her out, and she went back to her home, hungry more than sad, and sad more than hopeless. But she did not forget to pick up the cow dung, the blade, the thornapple and the catfish.
It was nearly night time when she reached home. She asked the strange bunch she had gathered what to do with them.
“Keep me hidden in the grass,” said the blade.
“Keep me on the balcony floor,” said the cow dung.
“Keep me inside the oven,” said the thornapple.
“Keep me inside your clay bot,” said the catfish
.
The old woman did all that, and went to sleep.
Deep in the night, came the thief. He did not know what arrangements she had made for him. He tiptoed to the clay pot, and put his hand in. And immediately, the catfish stabbed his finger with his bony whiskers.
Swallowing his yelp, the thief took his bleeding finger to the fire to seal the cut. No sooner was he in front of the oven did the thornapple burst, singing his face and eyebrows with its boiling insides.
Barely covering his shriek of surprise and fear, he ran out in the balcony, and slipped on the cow dung, landing on his face on the floor.
Cut, singed, burned, and covered in cow dung, the thief rubbed his feet on the grass to clean it before he ran. Needless to say, he stepped on the blade, and finally, cried out so loudly, that he woke up the neighbourhood.
Everyone in the vicinity came out of their houses and surrounded the thief, and who would lose such a golden opportunity to beat a thief up? The thief got beaten up so bad, that he could not walk for days.
And the old lady? The neighbours were so happy that she had helped catch the thief; they made sure she would never have to beg or go hungry again.
And the king? He went on with his daily wonderings about life, death, sickness, health, and of all others philosophical doodads there are. Although sometimes, he had a strange craving for pantabhaat, which he never found out the recipe for.
The Louse-lady
Once there used to be an old lady, who had a big louse problem. Her hair was filled with lice, and whenever she cooked, the lice fell on the rice. This used to make her husband very mad. One day, when she was serving his food, a lot of lice fell on the rice, as usual. So, the husband got really angry, and slapped her. She got really angry now, and slammed the rice pot on the ground into many pieces, then left home.
She was walking by the river, when a crane saw her. He asked,
“Hey, old woman. Where are you going?”
The louse lady replied,
“My husband got angry and slapped me,
I am leaving home now, let me be.”
The crane asked, “Why did your husband hit you?”
She said,
“All my head is full of lice,
Some of it fell into the rice.”
The crane said, “Lice? Wonderful. They taste just like ants. How about you live in my place, and you can cook for me.”
The old woman agreed. Every day, the crane brought back fish from the river, and the louse lady used to cook. When he served, the louse fell on the crane’s rice, and the crane loved it as extra flavouring.
One day, the crane brought back a large Hilsha fish. The old woman was cooking the fish, when she fainted, and fell into the fire.
When the crane got home and saw this, he was so heartbroken, that he did not eat for seven days.
The river saw this, and said, “My oh my, the crane has not eaten for seven days. Hey crane, what happened?”
The crane said, “Mind your own business.”
The river said, “Come on, please tell me.”
The crane said, “Okay. But if I tell you, your water is going to turn to foam.”
The river agreed, and the crane said,
“The louse lady burnt to death, and so the crane sat fasting.” And immediately, all the water of the river, turned to foam.
An elephant used to come to the river to drink water every day. He saw the strange phenomenon, and asked the river. “What happened?”
The river said, “If I tell you, your tail will fall off.”
The elephant said, “So be it.”
The river said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
And the crane fasted for seven days,
I asked him then what was wrong,
He told me, and now I am foam.”
And immediately, the elephant’s tail fell off.
The elephant was walking under a tree, and the tree asked him, “Wow. What happened to your tail?”
The elephant said, “If I tell you, your leaves will fall off.”
The tree said, “So be it.”
The elephant said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
And the crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
And left without a tail I roam.”
Just as he finished, all the leaves of the tree fell off.
A dove used to live on the tree. When he got back to his nest, he saw the tree all bald and bare. He asked,” What happened here? How long was I gone?”
The tree said, “If I tell you, your eyes will go blind.”
The dove said, “So be it.”
The tree said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
The crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
Without a tail the elephant roams,
I had to ask him what had got him,
And now all my leaves have fallen.”
Immediately, the dove turned blind.
The blind dove flew to a field, where a cow herder asked him, “Hey dove, how did your eyes get blind?”
The dove said, “If I tell you, your stick is going to get stuck to your hand.
The cow herder said, “So be it.”
The dove said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
The crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
Without a tail the elephant roams,
He told the tree and its leaves fell,
The tree told me, and now my eyes aren’t well.”
And of course, the cow herder’s stick got stuck to his hand. No matter how he shook his hand, it would not fall.
He went to the king’s barn, twisting and pulling the stick. The maid was taking out the trash with a dusting pan, saw him, and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
The cow herder said, “If I tell you, your pan will be stuck to your hand.”
The maid said, “So be it.”
The cow herder said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
The crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
Without a tail the elephant roams,
He told the tree and its leaves shrivelled,
The dove went blind before it drivelled
To me, and I asked him about his bad luck,
And now, to my hand, this stick is stuck.”
And the pan got stuck to the maid’s hand.
When the maid went to the queen’s home, she still had the pan on her hand.
The queen was holding a plate to serve food to the king, and asked her, “Why are you holding on to that silly thing?”
The maid said, “Your highness. It’s a long story. If I tell you, the plate will be stuck to your hand.”
The queen said, “Let’s see how that happens. Tell me.
The maid said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
The crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
Without a tail the elephant roams,
He told the tree and its leaves shrivelled,
The dove went blind before it drivelled,
To the cow herd, his stick is stuck to his hand,
I talked with him, and now I hold the dustpan.”
And the plate got stuck to the queen’s hand.
She had to serve food to the king in a separate plate, and had to use her other hand to serve the food.
The king noticed this oddity, and asked her, “Why are you holding that plate in your hand?”
The queen replied, “If I tell you, you will be stuck to the mat you are sitting on.”
The king said, “So be it.”
So the queen said,
“The louse lady burnt to death,
The crane fasted for seven days,
The river’s water turned to foam,
