Bengal Fairy Tales/The Man who was enriched by Accident
XI
THE MAN WHO WAS ENRICHED BY ACCIDENT
THERE once lived a Brahmin and his wife, who were very poor, wanting even the bare necessaries of life. The husband was a great dolt, and his wife possessed as little sense as he. One day she spoke to her husband thus, "O lord of my life! I have heard that our king is very fond of poetry, and that he rewards every Brahmin who approaches him with a clever sloka.[1] Why don't you see him with one of your own compositions?"
The Brahmin replied, "Darling, am I fit to approach the court in my dirty clothes, and this dirty poitá?"[2] The Brahmini thereupon washed a suit of clothes for him and prepared a new poitá also, and the next day her husband started for the king's presence, though the sloka was not yet ready. He thought that he would compose it on the way, and thus went along ruminating. He racked his brains, composed some lines, and then finding them not to his satisfaction, rejected them altogether. A thousand attempts like this were made, but nothing came of them. When he was hesitating whether he should proceed forward or return, he accidently saw something that supplied him, as he thought, with the materials for a good sloka. What he saw was a bull rubbing its hoofs on a stone moistened by the water of a fountain, and he at once uttered the two following nonsensical lines:
"Khúr gharsan, khúr gharsan chikir chikir páni
Tomár moner kathá ámi sab jàni."
Great was his joy at what he considered to be the inspiration of Saraswati,[3] and with a bold heart he made his appearance in court, thus addressing the king, "O blessed of the goddess Saraswati, I have a sloka for your hearing, and I crave permission to repeat it." Permission being granted, the two lines were repeated. The whole court burst into laughter, even the gravest there failing to maintain his gravity. But the king, with greater control over his feelings, soon put a check to this risibility, and with seeming approval dismissed the Brahmin with a handsome sum of money, not as a reward for his poetic genius, but as a gift in consideration of his poverty.
Inflated with pride at his achievement, the Brahmin went home, and finding his wife waiting for him in anxious expedition, lavished a thousand caresses on her as his good angel. They then passed the day in conversation as to the best way in which the money in their hands should be utilized, and the next morning the Brahmin went to the bazaar and returned with the necessary articles of consumption.
A few days after the Brahmin's visit to the king, affairs in the court took a very unpleasant turn. The heir-apparent, in conjunction with his friends, formed a plan to kill the king. None of the conspirators, however, could call up sufficient courage to do the monstrous act openly. Some suggested that the king should be quietly assassinated at night when passing into the zenana, others that he should be removed by poison. But neither of these plans was deemed sufficiently practical, for on his way into the inner apartments the king had always a guard with him, while the food that he took was always tested beforehand by a chemical examiner. At length it was proposed by the prince that the family barber should be bribed to commit the murder while shaving his Majesty; for in that case the act would be considered an accident, and no suspicion would fall on any one.
Next day the barber was called in, and after a good deal of opposition, he succumbed to the temptation in consideration of the immense sum put into his hands as earnest money, and when next it was his duty to shave the king, he approached his royal master determined to carry out the wicked plan.
A human life was going to be terminated by a swift stroke inflicted by the razor, and so it was necessary to sharpen it with peculiar attention. The barber, on standing in front of the king, put a few drops of water to his razor and began rubbing it against the hone, as barbers invariably do before shaving. The act reminded the king of the Brahmin's sloka, and he said, "You see, barber, that what the Brahmin said the other day may be fitly said by me also on the present occasion. By khúr he meant hoof, but it means razor as well. So now there is Khúr gharsan, khúr gharsan with chikir chikir páni. I know all the intention with which it is being done, so the other line, Tomár moner kathá ámi sab jàni, may be added as well."
The barber was beside himself with fear at what he heard. He thought that the Brahmin's sloka was an invention of the king's, and that he had used these words to intimate that he knew his thoughts at the moment. The poor man, who was not naturally dead to better feelings but had been gained over by a very large sum of money, quaked in every limb, and ultimately regaining the power of speech, implored his master's pardon in piteous terms. The king was thunderstruck at what he saw and heard, and at length asked the barber the reason of his being thus moved. Thereupon the man, with tears rolling down his cheeks, made a clean breast of everything, and the conspiracy being thus found out, all the persons concerned in it were adequately punished.
The Brahmin, whose sloka had thus accidently been the cause of saving the king's life, was invited to the court, and granted a jagir for himself and his heirs to enjoy for ever.