Tales of the Sun Part 7

The tiger now discovered all the treachery of his wife, and his heart grieved for the loss of his son, that was now no more. He determined to be revenged on his wife, and to bring her back into the wood, and there tear her into many pieces in place of only two. But how to bring her back? He a.s.sumed his original shape of a young bridegroom, making, of course, due allowance for the number of years that had pa.s.sed since his marriage, and next morning went to his father-in-law's house. His brothers-in-law and his wife saw from a distance the deceitful form he had a.s.sumed, and devised means to kill him. Meanwhile the tiger Brahmin approached his father-in-law's house, and the old people welcomed him. The younger ones too ran here and there to bring provisions to feed him sumptuously, and the tiger was highly pleased at the hospitable way in which he was received.

There was a ruined well at the back of the house, and the eldest of the brothers placed some thin sticks across its mouth, over which he spread a fine mat. Now it is usual to ask guests to have an oil bath before dinner, and so his three brothers-in-law requested the tiger to take his seat on the fine mat for his bath. As soon as he sat on it, the thin sticks being unable to bear his weight, gave way, and down fell the cunning tiger with a heavy crash! The well was at once filled in with stones and other rubbish, and thus the tiger was effectually prevented from doing any more mischief.

But the Brahmin girl, in memory of her having married a tiger, raised a pillar over the well and planted a tulasi [62] shrub on the top of it. Morning and evening, for the rest of her life, she used to smear the pillar with sacred cowdung, and water the tulasi shrub.

This story is told to explain the Tamil proverb, "Summa irukkiraya, suruvattai kattattuma," which means--

"Be quiet, or I shall show you my original shape."

XI.

THE GOOD HUSBAND AND THE BAD WIFE.

In a remote village there lived a Brahmin whose good nature and charitable disposition were proverbial. Equally proverbial also were the ill-nature and uncharitable disposition of the Brahmani--his wife. But as Paramesvara (G.o.d) had joined them in matrimony, they had to live together as husband and wife, though their temperaments were so incompatible. Every day the Brahmin had a taste of his wife's ill-temper, and if any other Brahmin was invited to dinner by him, his wife, somehow or other, would manage to drive him away.

One fine summer morning a rather stupid Brahmin friend of his came to visit our hero and was at once invited to dinner. He told his wife to have dinner ready earlier than usual, and went off to the river to bathe. His friend not feeling very well that day wanted a hot bath at the house, and so did not follow him to the river, but remained sitting in the outer verandah. If any other guest had come, the wife would have accused him of greediness to his face and sent him away, but this visitor seemed to be a special friend of her lord, so she did not like to say anything; but she devised a plan to make him go away of his own accord.

She proceeded to smear the ground before her husband's friend with cowdung, and placed in the midst of it a long pestle, supporting one end of it against the wall. She next approached the pestle most solemnly and performed worship (puja) to it. The guest did not in the least understand what she was doing, and respectfully asked her what it all meant.

"This is what is called pestle worship," she replied. "I do it as a daily duty, and this pestle is intended to break the head of some human being in honour of a G.o.ddess, whose feet are most devoutly worshipped by my husband. Every day as soon as he returns from his bath in the river, he takes this pestle, which I am ordered to keep ready for him before his return, and with it breaks the head of any human being whom he has managed to get hold of by inviting him to a meal. This is his tribute (dakshina) to the G.o.ddess; to-day you are the victim."

The guest was much alarmed.

"What! break the head of a guest! I at any rate shall not be deceived to-day," thought he, and prepared to run away.

The Brahmin's wife appeared to sympathise with his sad plight, and said:--

"Really, I do pity you. But there is one thing you can do now to save yourself. If you go out by the front door and walk down the street my husband may follow you, so you had better go out by the back door."

To this plan the guest most thankfully agreed, and hastily ran off by the back door.

Almost immediately our hero returned from his bath, but before he could arrive his wife had cleaned up the place she had prepared for the pestle worship, and when the Brahmin, not finding his friend in the house inquired of her as to what had become of him, she said in seeming anger:--

"The greedy brute! he wanted me to give him this pestle--this very pestle which I brought forty years ago as a dowry from my mother's house, and when I refused he ran away by the back-yard in haste."

But her kind-hearted lord observed that he would rather lose the pestle than his guest, even though it was a part of his wife's dowry, and more than forty years old. So he ran off with the pestle in his hand after his friend, crying out,

"Oh Brahmin! Oh Brahmin! Stop please, and take the pestle."

But the story told by the old woman now seemed all the more true to the guest when he saw her husband running after him, and so he said,

"You and your pestle may go where you please. Never more will you catch me in your house," and ran away.

XII.

THE GOOD WIFE AND THE BAD HUSBAND. [63]

In a remote village there lived a man and his wife, who was a stupid little woman and believed everything that was told her. Whenever people wanted anything from her they used to come and flatter her; but this had to be done in the absence of her husband, because he was a very miserly man, and would never part with any of his money, for all he was exceedingly rich. Nevertheless, without his knowledge cunning beggars would now and then come to his wife and beg of her, and they used generally to succeed, as she was so amenable to flattery. But whenever her husband found her out he would come down heavily upon her, sometimes with words and sometimes with blows. Thus quarrels arose, till at last, for the sake of peace, the wife had to give up her charitable propensities.

Now there lived in the village a rogue of the first water, who had many a time witnessed what took place in the rich miser's family. Wishing to revive his old habit of getting what he wanted from the miser's wife he watched his opportunity and one day, when the miser had gone out on horseback to inspect his land, he came to his wife in the middle of the day and fell down at the threshold as if overcome by exhaustion. She ran up to him at once and asked him who he was.

"I am a native of Kailasa," said he, "sent down by an old couple living there, for news of their son and his wife."

"Who are those fortunate dwellers on Siva's mountain?" said she.

On this the rogue gave the names of her husband's deceased parents, which he had taken good care, of course, to learn from the neighbours.

"Do you really come from them?" said she. "Are they doing well there? Dear old people. How glad my husband would be to see you, were he here! Sit down please, and take rest awhile till he returns. How do they live there? Have they enough to eat and to dress themselves?"

These and a thousand other questions she put to the rogue, who, for his part, wanted to get away as quick as possible, as he knew full well how he would be treated if the miser should return while he was there, so he said:--

"Mother, language has no words to describe the miseries they are undergoing in the other world. They have not a rag to cover themselves, and for the last six days they have eaten nothing, and have lived on water only. It would break your heart to see them."

The rogue's pathetic words fully deceived the good woman, who firmly believed that he had come down from Kailasa, sent by the old couple to her.

"Why should they suffer so?" said she, "when their son has plenty to eat and to dress himself, and when their daughter-in-law wears all sorts of costly ornaments?"

With that she went into the house and came out with two boxes containing all the clothes of herself and her husband, and gave the whole lot to the rogue, with instructions to take them to her poor old people in Kailasa. She also gave him her jewel box for her mother-in-law.

"But dress and jewels will not fill their hungry stomachs," said he.

Requesting him to wait a little, the silly woman brought out her husband's cash chest and emptied the contents into the rogue's coat, [64] who now went off in haste, promising to give everything to the good people in Kailasa. Our good lady in accordance with etiquette, conducted him a few hundred yards along the road and sent news of herself through him to her relatives, and then returned home. The rogue now tied up all his booty in his coat and ran in haste towards the river and crossed over it.

No sooner had our heroine reached home than her husband returned after his inspection of his lands. Her pleasure at what she had done was so great, that she met him at the door and told him all about the arrival of the messenger from Kailasa, and how she had sent clothes, and jewels, and money through him to her husband's parents. The anger of her husband knew no bounds. But he checked himself for a while, and asked her which road the messenger from Kailasa had taken, as he said he wanted to follow him and send some more news to his parents. To this she willingly agreed and pointed out the direction the rogue had gone. With rage in his heart at the trick played upon his stupid wife, our hero rode on in hot haste, and after a ride of two ghatikas he caught sight of the departing rogue, who, finding escape hopeless, climbed up into a big pipal tree. Our hero soon reached the bottom of the tree and shouted to the rogue to come down.

"No, I cannot, this is the way to Kailasa," said the rogue, and climbed up on the top of the tree.

Seeing no chance of the rogue's coming down, and as there was no third person present to whom he could call for help, our hero tied his horse to an adjacent tree and began climbing up the pipal tree himself. The rogue thanked all his G.o.ds when he saw this, and waited till his enemy had climbed nearly up to him, and then, throwing down his bundle of booty, leapt quickly from branch to branch till he reached the bottom. He then got upon his enemy's horse, and with his bundle rode into a dense forest in which no one was likely to find him.

Our hero being much older in years was no match for the rogue. So he slowly came down, and cursing his stupidity in having risked his horse to recover his property, returned home at his leisure. His wife, who was waiting his arrival, welcomed him with a cheerful countenance and said:--

"I thought as much, you have sent away your horse to Kailasa to be used by your father."

Vexed as he was at his wife's words, our hero replied in the affirmative to conceal his own stupidity.