There were three tanks on the point of a thorn. Of these, two were dry and the third had no water. In the one that had no water, three potters settled down. Of these three potters, two had no hands and the third was handless. The handless potter made three pots. Of these, two were broken and the third had no bottom. In the last he cooked three grains of rice. Two turned out raw and the third was uncooked. He invited three guests to eat the one uncooked grain of rice. Of the three guests, two were angry and the third could not be calmed down. The third guest, who could not be calmed down, was given three blows with a shoe. Two blows missed him and the third did not hit him. To avoid getting beaten with a shoe, the guest fled. The host pursued him.
On his way, a wild elephant attacked the host. He struck the wild elephant with his fist and broke two ribs and a half of the elephant. The wounded elephant fled and the host chased it. The elephant ran up a tree and crawled from branch to branch and from leaf to leaf. At last the elephant jumped down from the tree and saw a spouted cup, got into it by way of the mouth and came out through the spout. The body of the elephant got through all right, but its tail got stuck. The man who was attacking it didn't want to kill such a helpless brute and went his way.
Then he saw a little girl lift the carcass of the elephant on a straw and ask her mother where she should throw it.
"It's only a little mouse," said the girl.
The man who was watching this said to himself, 'How powerful must be the father of such a girl!' So he asked her where her father was.
She said, 'He is away in the jungle grazing the oxen of seventy thousand treasure-carts, all tied up in a string that he carries around his waist. '
The man went to the jungle and saw the girl's father, with seventy thousand treasure-carts tied around his waist. He went up to him and challenged him to combat.
'All right,' said the father of the girl, 'but we are alone here and we'll never agree who is the winner. Let us find a third man to act as umpire.'
Just then they saw an old woman with a bent back passing by. She had some food in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. They spoke to her and asked her to act as umpire.
'O my sons! An old woman like me is not fit for such a job. But I have a grown up son, not very far from here. He would be a better person to judge because he carries about, tied to his waist, a string of seventy thousand camels.'
The combatants agreed. The old woman put the bundle of food on top of the pitcher, which she placed on her head, and invited one of the men to sit on each of her hands. The man with the seventy thousand carts tied them carefully around his waist and sat on one of the old woman's hands; his opponent sat on the other.
Now, the old woman, when she was angry, used to threaten her son and say she would hand him over to the qazi's bailiff. The son saw her coming from a distance, and saw two men perched on her hands. He concluded that these were the qazi's men, so he spread his sheet on the ground and quickly tied his seventy thousand camels in it and took to his heels. The neck of some of the camels stuck out of the bundle, and one of them had its tongue out of its mouth. A kite, thinking it was a piece of meat, came swooping down and flew away with the bundle. It was too heavy, and by and by the bird had to drop it.
It so happened that the queen was walking on the roof of her palace and she chanced to look up just at that time and the bundle fell into her eye. She felt pain in her eye, so she called for the midwife. The midwife examined the queen's eye, and to her surprise, saw seventy thousand camels walking about inside. She seized the camels one by one and hid some of them in her pockets and some in the folds of her dress. The queen was no longer in distress, and the midwife hurried home in delight and counted all the camels, but found only sixty nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine. The midwife was convinced that there had been seventy thousand camels and that she must have left one in the queen's eye. So she hurried back to the palace and examined the queen's eye, but couldn't find the missing camel. So she searched in the gram field through which she had passed, but could find no trace of the camel and gave up the search.
One day she made some phulkis, or small cakes of gram flour, and when she tore open the first one that was ready, she found the camel inside, but minus its head and neck.
'Where have you been all this time?' asked the midwife.
'I am here', said the camel, 'But my neck and head are at Agra, and they will come to you in due time.'
Now,the king of Agra had made a lovely garden, and for a time it was found that some animal ate up the plants every night. He ordered a search, but the animal could not be found. At last the king ordered the wazir himself to keep guard. The wazir did so, and he cut his little finger and put salt and pepper in the wound so that the pain will keep him awake.
At midnight he saw the neck of an animal appear and eat the plants. The wazir quickly ran up and caught the neck and asked who it was.
'Never mind who I am,' said the camel's neck, 'but take this and do as I tell you.' The neck gave him a seed and said, 'Take this to the king. Sow it before him at the first ghadi, the first half hour of the day. It will germinate in the second ghadi, grow in the third, flower in the fourth, bear fruit in the fifth, ripen in the sixth, and the fruit will be eaten by the king in the seventh.'
The wazir did so and the seed was planted, and seven ghadis later a ripe watermelon was placed before the king.
At that moment some astrologers announced something unprecedented. They informed the king that a tremendous rainstorm was approaching, and that unless the king and his people took refuge in a safe place or a safe thing, all of them would be killed. They were all alarmed, but the astrologers saw the watermelon and cried out in chorus:
'This is the very thing!'
So they advised that the insides be scooped out and everyone should enter it.So the king and his people and all their goods and cattle went into the watermelon, and the two halves shut together when they were all in. Soon the rain came down in torrents, and it rained for days and nights and days and nights and all the land was flooded, and the watermelon, with the king and all, floated on water.
After the storm was over, a big fish that was very hungry saw the melon and devoured it, but the melon was so big it stuck in the fish's throat. So the fish came out of water and lay gasping on the bank, when a crane that had eaten nothing for days ate the fish. But it would not go down, and the crane fell down exhausted and was soon devoured by a cat, which too could not move and was eaten by a dog, which also lay down unable to leave the place.
Now, there was a kanjar, a wandering Gypsy, whose wife was pestering him to go and get something for the family to eat.
'Don't nag me,' he used to say, 'One of these days I'll find you food enough to last four days.
So he went out to hunt on the day the dog had swallowed the cat. He found the dog half dead and killed it with one blow of his bludgeon, and took it home in delight. His wife cut open the dog and cried out, 'Why, husband dear, there's a cat inside the dog.'
'Didn't I tell you, I would bring four days' food? Keep the cat for tomorrow.'
Next day she cut open the cat and found the crane , and she told her husband, who said, 'Keep the crane for tomorrow.'
The following day, she cut open the crane and found the fish and the next day she cut open the fish and found the watermelon.
At the end of it all, when she cut open the watermelon, out came the king and his people and their goods and their cattle and all of their everything. And the king gave the Gypsy a piece of land rent-free and lots of money, and went back to his kingdom.
( A folktale adopted from FOLKTALES FROM INDIA by A.K. Ramanujan)
