Story of the foolish Carpenter
Once upon a time, a carpenter lived in a
village with his wife. He had heard bad stories about her and wanted to know
the truth about those rumours.
Next day, pretending he was going to the
village nearby, he told his wife, “I have to leave the place early morning
tomorrow for a village not far away from here. I may have to stay there for
a few days. Please get things ready for my travel.”
The wife’s joy knew no bounds. She cooked
his favourite dishes and packed some of it for his travel.
Next morning the carpenter left. His wife
put on her best clothes, daubed perfume on her body and thrust flowers in
her hair and spent the rest of the day with great difficulty.
When it was dusk, she went to her lover’s
house and told him, “My wicked husband has left for some place and will not
come back for a few days. So, come to my place after every one has gone to
sleep and we will have a happy time.”
After this invitation, she returned home.
Meanwhile, the carpenter spent the day in
a nearby forest and came back before his wife had returned from her lover’s
place. He hid himself under a cot. Soon, his wife’s lover came and joined
her. As the wife was talking to her lover on the bed, her dangling legs hit
something hard. She at once thought it could be her husband hiding under the
bed to test her.
“I will show my husband how clever I am,”
she thought.
When her lover moved close to her, she
told him through signs that her husband was under the bed and said, “Sir,
you should not touch me. I am a very faithful wife. If you touch me I will
turn you into ash.”
“In that case, why did you invite me,” he
asked her angrily.
“Please listen, this morning, I went to
the temple of the goddess where I heard a divine voice saying, “O woman, I
know you are my devotee. But you will become a widow in six months.”
Then I prayed her to tell me the way by
which I could save my husband and make him live for hundred years.
“There is a way which is in your hands,”
the goddess told me.
“If that is so, I would give my life to
save my husband”, I told the goddess.
She told me, “If you go to bed with a
stranger, the danger to your husband’s life will shift to the stranger who
will die soon.”
The foolish carpenter believed every word
of his wife and happy that he had such a faithful wife, he came out of his
hiding and told her, “O sacred woman, I paid heed to rumours about you and
doubted your character. I wanted to test you and put you on the wrong track
making you believe I had left the village. Now I have seen what you are.
Come, let us enjoy,” he said and embraced her. In that happiness he carried
his wife and the carpenter on his shoulders and paraded the streets of the
village.
Moral of
the Story :
People never hesitate to lose their wealth and friends for untrustworthy
wife sake. |