Read Online Folktales from Bengal by Soham Saha - Free Book Online Page B

But first, I need to have a little
snack.”
    “ Somebody get
this man a loaf of bread and a bowl of dal. I got to see this,”
said the king.
    “ A loaf of
bread? An ant can eat that. To pull an elephant you have to eat a
bit more,” said the servant.
    “ What do you
want?’
    “ Nothing
much. A ton of rice, a couple of goats, and a bucket of
curd.”
    “ I’ll give
you that. But you’ll have to eat it all.”
    And so, it was done. The
man ate up a tonne of rice, a couple of goats and a bucket of curd,
and had a nice little nap.
    Then he spread out his
towel over the elephant to make a nice little bundle, put the
bundle with the elephant at the end of a stick, and walked towards
Ganges, whistling. The king and his men gawked at him all the
while, until he disappeared from sight.
    After walking for a long
while in the sun, the servant got very thirsty. He saw that there
was a hut near a pond, and a little girl was sitting
inside.
    “ Hello,
little girl. Can you give me some water?”
    “ My father
told me not to talk to strangers.” The girl replied.
    “ Such
manners! Fine, if you don’t give me water, I’ll take
it.”
    He went down into the
pond, and began to guzzle it down. First he reached the size of an
elephant, then a hillock, and finally there was no more water left
in the pond. But he was having some difficulty keeping the water
down. So he ate a banyan tree, which stuck in his throat like a
cork, so the water could not get out.
    After this, feeling very
happy with himself, he lay down beside the pond, and fell asleep.
His belly rose up like a mountain. The girl’s father was working in
the field when he spotted the mountain-like thing, and came running
home.
    The girl told her what
happened. “Father, what an evil man he is! I didn’t give him water,
and so he drank our pond up. And now he is sleeping like nothing’s
wrong.”
    They were walking towards
the servant as they were talking. When they reached close, the girl
yelled. “Oh my. What a horrible smell. Look father, he has a dead
rat or something stuck in a bundle in there.”
    She took the bundle,
turned it around once, then threw it far into the air, and it
landed straight into the heart of Ganges.
    And the girl’s father, he
mustered up his strength to give a mighty kick to the servant’s
belly. All the water came gushing out, flooding his
home.
    The servant woke up,
laughing, and the farmer started to laugh to. They hugged each
other and said. “What a strong man you are. We should
wrestle.”
    So they decided to
wrestle over who is stronger. To decide the winner, they needed a
judge.
    They were walking towards
the market when they saw an old hunch-backed woman walking towards
them, carrying a basket on her hump. She was taking lunch, dried
fishes, for her nephew who worked in the fields, herding the king’s
seven hundred cows.
    The woman heard of their
problem and said, “Why do you need to go to the market. Just hop
into my basket of fish and fight. The one who falls
loses.”
    The fight began. It went
on and on and on, and there were kicks and punches and pokes and
jabs. But neither could make the other fall.
    Meanwhile, there was a
horrible kite in the country. It flew away with everything, cows,
goats, and anything that was not tied down. The old woman was its
arch enemy, and it wanted to steal her basket.
    This day, the kite was
flying to get its prey. The woman’s nephew heard the sound of his
wings, and took all his seven hundred cows in his pocket and ran
for it. He went to his home, locked the door, and sighed in relief,
saying, “Almost got me today.”
    The kite saw the basket
on the back of the old woman. He dived and finally, took the basket
high up. The men inside did not like the interruption, so they
punched the kite, who dropped the basket, and resumed the
fight.
    Meanwhile, the king’s
daughter in the country was sunbathing in her balcony, and her maid
was combing her hair. Suddenly, something fell in