UNIT – 8
The Clever Ramalinga
Many years ago, there was a poet in the court of Vijayanagar. His name was
Ramalinga. He was a very clever man. There are many stories about him. Here is one
of them.
Ramalinga’s wife had a lot of jewels. She wore them in the day. At night she put
them away, in a box. She kept the box in her bedroom. Ramalinga had two servants.
They were rogues. One day, they decided to steal the jewels. One servant said, “We’ll
steal the jewels in the night.” The other said, “Yes, in the night, they’ll sleep. Then
we’ll take away the box.” Ramalinga was standing behind them and over heard what
they had said. It was dark, so they did not see him.
It was eleven o’clock in the night. The servants went to the bedroom and looked
in. Ramalinga and his wife were not asleep. Ramalinga knew that the servants were
near. He said loudly to his wife, “There are many thieves in the town. You have a lot of
jewels. We must keep them safe. I have a plan. We shall put all the jewels in a box.
Then we’ll drop the box in the well. Nobody will look there for the jewels.” The
servants heard this. “We can now take the jewels easily,” they thought.
Ramalinga quickly took out all the jewels from the box. Then he filled the box
with stones. He and his wife took the box out, and dropped it into the well. It fell into
the water with a loud noise. Then Ramalinga and his wife went back into the house.
After some time, the servants went to the well. “How will we take out the box?”
one of them asked. “Let’s draw all the water in the well,” the other said. “Then we can
take the box out.” They got two buckets and ropes and began to draw the water out. It
flowed into the garden. It was a very deep well. It was almost morning. But still there
was a lot of water in the well. “Soon it’s going to be morning,” said one servant. “The
master will get up soon. So let’s stop working. We’ll come back to the well again at
night.”
Ramalinga was watching all this. He saw the servants going away. He called them.
Then he said, “Thank you for watering the garden. There are no jewels in the box. You
are thieves. Get out of here!”
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