বুড়াবুড়ির কচু রুয়ানি

Long, long ago there lived an old man with his wife in a village near a small fountain. They were very kind, good and very simple. They were almost stupid in many ways. Moreover they were too old to do any hard work.

The nearby hill was the abode of the wild monkeys. They would often visit the vegetable garden of the old man and would eat almost half of the vegetables and fruits. The old man was childless; so he loved the monkeys. He never punished them. That was the season of harvesting mukkhi (bulbous roots of aurum). The old couple decided to dig a small plot of land near the cluster of bamboos, behind their house, to harvest mukkhi well. One day the old couple began their work of digging earth with a spade. The next day they dug the land further with a spade, dispersed dry cow dung over the land to make it fertile. The next day the old couple went there to plant aurum. When they had just finished sowing only a few rows of aurum, a group of monkeys came out of the forest and sat round the old couple with a pose showing curiosity over of the nature of their work. The eldest monkey said in a loud voice, "Oh grandfather, what do you do now?"

The couple replied, "We are sowing mukkhi."

"How do you do it?"- asked the monkeys.

"What else can we do? Just we draw lines, dig shallow holes at a very little distance, and put the sprout of mukkhi inside the holes. Then we cover the holes with earth."- Said the old man and his wife.

Then the monkeys thought of a plan. They said, "Yes, yes. It's all right. But mind that it will take not less than two months time for its growth. We know an easy way how to grow mukkhi within a very short period. If you are interested, we may disclose it."

Hearing this, the old couple jumped with joy.

They became anxious to know the way.

"Yes, first of all boil the mukkhi well; bind it with a piece of cloth along with a boiled lata fish, a dry fish and a handful of cooked rice. Plant the whole things and then cover it with earth. You will find that the mukkhi will grow up within a night; you can't imagine!"

As the old man and his wife were very simple, they believed it easily. The old man said, "My sons, we have no children to depend upon. We want that the roots of aurum be grown up quickly so that we may take its taste at the earliest."

They did according to the advice of the monkeys before sunset and returned home.

When the night deepened, the monkeys collected wild aurum plants and moved towards the field of the old man.

They dug out the aurum planted by him and his wife.

They further opened the bale of cloth and ate up the fish, rice and boiled aurum attached to each plant.

They planted the wild aurum plants there and went back.

The next day, the old man woke up early in the morning, visited his aurum field and struck dumb.

He rushed back home calling his wife.

Hearing in details, the old woman praised the intelligence of the monkeys.

She did not forget to express her gratefulness to the monkeys.

The old man cut off a few green aurum leaves with a sickle and handed it over to his wife.

He said, "Please prepare a curry of fish with aurum leaves. I am going out at catching fish."

The old man went out with a sot (an instrument to splash out water) for fishing. He got a small pond in a corner of his paddy field. He caused to perspire from his head to toe splashing out water; he found no trace of fish but a few frogs and tadpoles. The frogs jumped away with a harsh sound mocking at the old man. The old man said in rage, "Let me see for the next."

The old woman prepared the fish with aurum.

In the meantime the old man went to the river to bath.

In her life, the old woman was habituated offering meal to her husband at first before herself.

But she could not control her greed to have the larger pieces of the fish that day and she did not wait his return.

She ate larger pieces and slept in her bed.

The old man sat on a mat over the ground to have his meal, saw only few small pieces of fish in a kheri (pot of curry).

He asked his wife, "why are there only few pieces of fish inside my kheri?"

By this time, the old woman felt itching in her throat.

She felt more disturbed at her husband's grimace answered,

"Who knows? The cat might have taken it."

The old man began to beat the cat with a stick in rage.

The cat mewed weeping, "Miyau, miyau, the old woman ate fish, but you beat me up instead!"

When the old man enquired about it his wife replied casually, "How can I eat without giving you? The dog might have taken it."

The old man started beating his dog. The dog replied weeping, "gew, gew, the old woman ate fish, but you beat me up instead!"

In the meantime the action of the forest aurum (i.e. itching) started.

The old man ate little, but it did not spare him.

It started itching. He approached his wife to know the fact, but observed that she was restless due to itching in her throat.

At last the old woman confessed her guilt. The old man thought, "it will fruitless to make a quarrel now, rather let me have a way to find a remedy for it." Both of them drank a glass of tamarind juice mixing with water and after a while the feeling of itching fell away.

Now the old man and his wife sat together to make a plan for revenge. The old man said, "I shall lie down at the bottom of the tulsi plant like a dead and you will weep."

Hearing your cries the monkeys will come out of the forest and when they will come down to us to enquire about the happening, we shall beat them."

They set everything as per planning. The old man lay on the back near the tulsi plant and kept an iron stick close to him. The old woman covered his body with a piece of white cloth, started weeping and began to strike at her forehead.

In the afternoon, the monkeys were trading on the field of vegetables and cereals as part of their daily routine.

Hearing the cries of the woman they rushed out to her in a group with a sense of strangeness in their eyes.

They asked, "O, grandmother, what has happened to grandfather?"

"Alas! Your grandfather has died away. What will happen to me now?"

"We are still living, grandmother, we shall extend our all out support in any difficulty"

"It's all right. Leave all this nonsense at this juncture. At first we should cry for the salvation of his soul.

All of you start weeping, your grandfather's soul will go to heaven."

The monkeys started crying.

"My sons, get a bit closed and start weeping. You were deeply loved by your grandfather."

The monkeys started weeping very loudly.

The old woman gave her company with them and cried, "Just see, your grandsons arrived here to shed tears for the peace of your soul."

The old man silently observed everything and found everything in order. Slowly he brought out his stick concealed under the white cloth and he began to beat the monkeys mercilessly – dup, dap, dup, dap... The old woman beat them by a hammer; their dog bit them by its teeth and nails.

The monkeys could no longer stand there; some of them felt his legs were fractured, somebody felt their necks were broken. So they ran away limping wherever they could fly away. What about the leader of the monkey group? The dog had bitten into his tail. Somehow he could manage to escape deep in the forest. He rushed inside a cave and never came out of it.