An Indian Folklore
A man and his wife lived in a small town. The man thought no end of his cleverness. One day he said to his wife: “People say that a woman’s cunning is unbeatable —even the cleverest among men cannot match it.”
The wife said, “And so it is, without doubt. A victim of woman’s cunning can fret and fume but cannot wriggle out of it.”
The husband was cut to the quick and said, “If it’s so give me a demonstration of some trick of woman’s cunning.”
The wife tried to persuade him to withdraw his challenge but he refused to heed her counsel.
A few days later, when the man was having his afternoon nap, his wife went to the fish market, brought a big basket full of small fishes and scattered them on the roof and in the courtyard of her house. Then she woke up her husband, saying, “You’re sleeping and people have already collected and taken away all the fishes.”
Hearing this, the husband got up hastily because he was particularly fond of fish preparations. He asked, “Where did all the fishes come from?”
His wife smiled and said, “From where?! Today there has been a rain of fishes.”
The husband showed disbelief, “Have you lost your head?”
“Come out and see for yourself,” said his wife.
When he came out, he saw fishes lying on the roof and in the courtyard. He picked up all of them in a basket. And happy on this windfall of his favourite delicacy, left for work.
In the evening, he returned home and asked his wife to serve his meal. The wife replied, “Chapatis are ready but you didn’t get anything else to cook.”
Hearing this, he lost his temper and shouted, “What about the basket of fishes? What else did you want?”
The wife said, “What has happened to you today? Have you taken hemp? Where from was a basket of fishes to come?”
He got enraged and said, “What insolence? Wasn’t there a rain of fishes at noon today?”
The wife smiled slyly at first and then she started crying loudly — “Oh my fate, what has happened to him today? Did anyone ever hear of rain of fishes?”
Hearing this noise, some neighbours gathered. The woman pulled down her veil over her face and said, “l don’t know what has happened to him today. He is going on harping about the fishes that fell in the rain of fishes today.”
Her husband repeated again and again, “I’ve myself collected fishes, which fell on our roof and in our courtyard and put them in a basket.”
But no one was ready to buy his story. The people collected there thought he had gone mad. One or two of them took his wife aside and asked if such a thing had happened to her husband earlier also.
She said, “Yes, once when he had gone to fetch her from her parents’ house, he had a similar seizure. Even then, he would say — where are the fishes which rained from above?”
They asked, “What treatment cured him at that time?”
The wife replied, “I don’t know how they treated him, but he was cured all right. At that time his head was shaved, some cuts were given on the shaven head and some salt was sprinkled over them.”
The neighbours seized her husband and tied him to a pole. He shouted that he was not mad, “I collected fishes fallen from the sky with my own hands.”
But who would believe this? They also sent someone to bring a barber along.
Now he was in sheer quandary and pleaded with his wife, “Please listen, I beg of you to get me released from this situation. I admit defeat! I accept the superiority of woman’s cunning.”
His wife now told the people gathered there, “Today is not an auspicious day. We’ll have his head shaven tomorrow morning. Who knows he may get well by himself by tomorrow.”
People left for their homes. The woman untied her husband from the pole and served him a sumptuous meal.
The folktales of India are abundant with tales that represent women as more wise and confident than their male counterpart. It is a subtle way to suggest that running an entire household is no child’s play. It possibly requires far more vision and intelligence than earning money for the house which in general is considered the job of the male members. While it is true that the role of women had been quite strictly limited to the interior of the house, it generally did not make much difference to their position in the family or society. Innumerable tales were weaved around the power of women to change the fate of the entire family by their quiet yet sensible decisions and actions.
They are shown as strong enough to face any challenge of life. Here in the story the wife makes it clear with her clever ploy that a woman can earn her respect and position on her own terms.
These folktales suggest that there could be another lens to see the Indian society and not just the “colonial construct” of an “eternal victimhood of Indian women”.