A Folktale from Kerala
FLASH! CRASH! BOOM!
That was the second lightning bolt which had hit dangerously close to the ship’s masthead. A loud rumbling echoed through the upper deck of the large wooden merchant ship. Shangren and his crew had set out from the port town of Ningbo in China to India.
Shangren was a successful merchant from China and he had been on several such voyages on the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. He would also cross the Indian Ocean to trade with some of the bustling port cities of India.
While he had experienced rough seas before, this time the storm was unrelenting. It had been raining heavily for over a week and the continuous downpour had not only flooded some parts of the ship, but also dampened the spirits of Shangren’s crew. They worked day and night to drain out the rainwater as the terrible storm raged on!
This evening, the strong winds were accompanied by massive waves which came crashing down on the ship’s front deck. Even Shangren, usually calm in the face of a crisis, looked rattled.
The storm was getting nastier and the ship was swaying worse than ever. Shangren instructed the captain, “Shut the cabin door and move all the expensive cargo to the basement along with all the sailors! Hurry!”
But, in spite of their best efforts, the ship was sinking fast.
“Abandon ship! Abandon ship! We are sinking!” commanded the captain.
Shangren and a few sailors managed to grab some life jackets and jump overboard. Others who were not so lucky slipped and fell into the sea. Shangren was fortunate enough to swim to a smaller rowboat and get inside. He saw the ship go down along with the brave captain, who continued to help his crew find safety gear until the very last moment.
Shangren struggled to stay afloat in the little boat and started rowing with the single oar he had been able to salvage. He tried to look for other survivors, but unfortunately found none. He somehow managed to reach the shore safely, heartbroken.
Exhausted, he dragged himself out of the boat and onto the sand. He simply lay still for a while, grieving the loss of his crew and cargo.
After some time, he sat up and said a small prayer for the souls of his brave captain and sailors. By now, the storm had passed and it was raining lightly. He looked around and realised that he had reached a coastal village in Kerala. He knew their last location roughly and where they had been shipwrecked and so made an educated guess.
Shangren noticed something else that had also floated ashore – a broken part of the ship. He was pleasantly surprised to find that it contained some of his most precious cargo – ten ornate ceramic jars!
He now felt a glimmer of hope and spotted a humble settlement in the distance. He tied the ten jars with rope, lugged them on his shoulders and decided to ask for help. “I do hope someone lives in that old hut and is able to give me some food and shelter tonight.”
The hut belonged to a very poor family. Pandaparrathu Bhattathiri and his wife, Padmini, lived there with their infant daughter.
Most days, they were unable to make ends meet and today was no exception. The husband and wife had just finished feeding the little one and put her to sleep. Bhattathiri was sitting down for dinner, when Padmini came up to him sadly, holding an empty container. “Look! I have used the last bit of rice to make gruel tonight. We will have to figure out something urgently for tomorrow’s meal. Sigh!”
Bhattathiri consoled her saying, “Don’t despair, my dear. We will figure something out. Tomorrow I will go meet my brother and…” He was interrupted by a loud knock on the door.
Shangren was standing outside, gasping for breath and clutching the ten jars. “Excuse me! Is anybody home? Please open up… I need your help… help me!”
“Oh! I wonder who that poor soul is…” Bhattathiri quickly got up and opened the door.
“My name is Shangren and I am a merchant from China. My ship sank and I lost everything in the storm. I am very tired and hungry as I haven’t had anything to eat or drink since yesterday. Please help me…” pleaded the merchant.
Shangren was very weak after his ordeal. Bhattathiri helped him into the house and asked him to sit. Both Bhattathiri and Padmini were kind-hearted souls and felt sorry for the poor shipwrecked merchant.
They served him the last pot of hot rice gruel, in spite of the fact that they would go hungry that night. “This is all the food we have at home. Please have it.”
Shangren ate the gruel hungrily and thanked the two strangers who had showed him such compassion. “You have saved my life! I do not have anything to reward you with right now. But I promise to make up for it on my next visit.”
Shangren then extended both his hands to hold Bhattathiri’s and continued, “But for now, I need another favour from you. Somehow, miraculously, these ten jars survived the storm and they are very precious to me. I would like to leave them with you for safekeeping.”
“Oh! No, no! My house is too small and old. It is in desperate need of repairs. We cannot keep anything valuable here. I cannot risk its safety,” replied Bhattathiri sincerely.
But Shangren insisted, “You misunderstand, my dear man! While the jars are precious to me, they hold nothing very valuable. They are only filled with lentils from my country.”
“Well… all right. Since it’s just lentils, we will keep them here for you.”
Early the next morning, the merchant bid farewell to Bhattathiri and his family and set off on a new journey. Padmini found a suitable spot for the ten ceramic jars in their kitchen and covered them with a sheet of cloth.
Bhattathiri also left home early to seek help from his brother, who lived in the neighbouring village. The money his brother gave them helped put food on the table for a few weeks, but it ran out soon.
One night, their little daughter was crying and refusing to sleep. Padmini figured that the poor child was just hungry and wanted more food. But whatever little food they had cooked for dinner was over. And there wasn’t a single grain of rice left in the house.
Overcome with sadness, Padmini wailed, “This is so unfair. Our little one is hungry and there is nothing to eat in the house. I cannot bear to see her crying face!”
“Let me go see if I can borrow something from Lata Ma,” Bhattathiri said and got ready to go to their kindly old neighbour.
“But it’s too late to disturb her. She must be sleeping…” Suddenly Padmini had a thought. “I know what we can do. We can take out a bowl of lentils from the Chinese merchant’s jars. I can quickly cook them and feed them to her.”
But Bhattathiri was a man of strict principles. He refused, “No, no! How can we do that? Shangren left his jars with us for safekeeping. We cannot use what’s inside the jars. It would be wrong!”
Padmini was at her wit’s end. “This is not the time to honour your principles! Tell me, is it really a sin, if we take a handful of lentils to feed our starving child? And besides, by the time the merchant returns, we will make sure to replace what we have taken…”
Just then their daughter started bawling even more loudly.
Looking at her tear-streaked face, her father finally caved in. “I guess you are right, Padmini. As long as we replace the lentils, there is no harm in borrowing.”
Bhattathiri went into the kitchen and brought out one jar. He opened it and Padmini used a ladle to scoop some lentils out. However, when she reached into it for a second scoop, the lentils made a curious sound.
Clink! Clink!
“I think there is something else in this jar. Let’s take a closer look,” Padmini suggested as they both peered into the jar.
Padmini held a lamp close to the mouth of the jar. The surface glittered and her jaw dropped!
“Oh dear! There is only a thin layer of lentils on the top of the jar. The rest is filled with gold coins!”
Bhattathiri too was stunned and he immediately checked the remaining nine jars. And sure enough, they too were full of gold coins.
Nervous and astonished, he absent-mindedly started resealing the jars, when Padmini had an idea.
“Listen! Why don’t we use just one gold coin for ourselves? We both haven’t eaten a full meal in ages!”
“But… but… that… if… if…,” tried Bhattathiri, struggling to find the right words.
“Stop ‘iffing’ and ‘butting’! Just take one gold coin and buy some rice, lentils and vegetables from the market. Tonight, we will eat a proper meal… rice, sambar and payasam!”
That night, Bhattathiri and his family ate to their heart’s content and slept peacefully dreaming of delicious food.
Over the next few days, they used the money they got from selling the single gold coin to buy different ingredients and food items and Padmini prepared a variety of traditional delicacies. It was the best week of their lives. With all the feasting, the money soon ran out. Now they would have to go back to living on rice gruel.
Padmini had always been an enterprising young woman and constantly came up with creative ways of making the most of their meagre situation. This time she had a new thought, “What if we take some more gold coins from the jars and sell them? We can use that money to build a better house, start a business, earn money and live comfortably. We can then replace the gold coins with our earnings.”
This time, Bhattathiri agreed without a second thought as he felt it was a good idea.
Padmini and Bhattathiri followed their plan to perfection. They built a fine house, started a coconut farming business and made a lot of profit. They also educated their daughter in a good school and helped other less fortunate families.
Eight years later, Bhattathiri and Padmini had not only replaced all the gold coins they had borrowed from the jars, but also filled up ten more small jars with gold coins as interest.
“Life has been good to us. We must always count our blessings!” said Bhattathiri, as he and his wife sat in their front yard admiring their farms.
“You are a good man, my dear. I am grateful for our good fortune,” agreed Padmini.
It was a full twelve years before the Chinese merchant, Shangren, returned to their village. This time he was not alone. He came with his crew in tow and another shipload of cargo.
He came to where Bhattathiri’s hut had once stood and was surprised to see the spacious mansion in its place.
“Hmm… So, I guess Bhattathiri and his family now live in this huge mansion. He must have found the gold coins in my jars!”
When he went inside and met Bhattathiri and Padmini, he was greeted with the same warmth with which they had welcomed him long ago on a cold stormy night.
Bhattathiri was delighted to see Shangren and told him all about using some of the gold coins from his jars to start a new life.
“…But, rest assured, I have replaced all the gold coins and have filled ten more small jars as interest for the coins I took. I hope you are not upset.”
“Upset? Not at all. I am very impressed with what you have managed to do using the gold coins. I do not want the small jars. In fact, I should be paying you for keeping my gold safe for all these years. You are certainly the most honest man I have ever met!”
“But I have made my fortune by investing your gold,” Bhattathiri said. “While that may be the case, I did not lose anything by leaving my gold with you. Whatever you have gained from it is because of sheer hard work, good luck and sharp business sense,” Shangren replied.
Bhattathiri and Padmini invited the Chinese merchant to stay for lunch and he happily agreed.
Soon it was time to leave. Shangren’s crew loaded their cart with the ten ceramic jars from Bhattathiri’s home.
The merchant then gifted him one ceramic jar full of gold coins. “This is the reward for your kindness that night, as promised. The mouth of this jar is slightly crooked, but it is a very lucky jar. The house that it is kept in will never want for anything. It will bring you and your family good fortune and abundance for generations to come!”
So it was that once they had used all the gold coins, Bhattathiri began to pickle mangoes and stored them in the lucky Chinese jar. The mango pickle remained forever fresh in the jar and was a sure-fire remedy for loss of appetite.
The pickle became famous and Bhattathiri bought many more jars and made lots of pickle. His new pickle business flourished. Shangren’s words had come true.
The lucky Chinese jar became an heirloom and remained in their family for generations as they continued to prosper!