The wicked and the wronged
A famous South Asian folk tale about the 'sparrow' and the 'khichri'turns an act of wickedness into an act of defiance
Narratives have the power to tie us to characters and our perception of them in such a way that we can become blind to their cruelty, and cruel ourselves.
A famous South Asian folk tale which turns an act of wickedness into an act of defiance begins thus: “There was a sparrow. And there was a male sparrow. The sparrow brought a grain of rice. The male sparrow brought one of mung. Together the two of them made khichri."
Once the khichri is cooked, the sparrow goes outdoors to fetch water. As soon as her back is turned, the male sparrow eats up all the khichri and goes to sleep covering his eyes with a strip of cloth.
After some time the sparrow arrives at the door of her house carrying two pitchers of water, one atop the other, and calls out to the male sparrow to help her set the top pitcher down. The male sparrow is in no mood to help. He shouts that she should throw down the top pitcher; then she could set down the bottom pitcher herself.
The sparrow does as she is told. Then she goes into the kitchen and finds the khichri all gone and the pot empty. When she demands to know who ate up all the khichri, the male sparrow accuses the raja’s dog of eating it.
The two sparrows now go to the raja. When the sparrow complains to him about his dog stealing her food, the raja asks her to prove the accusation, in order that he may do justice. But first of all the raja tests their own innocence in the matter. He holds out a string of flimsy thread and orders that each of them must swing across the well tied to the string. He tells them that the one who falls inside will be the one who had eaten the khichri.
First the sparrow swings from the string. She keeps swinging without the string breaking. Then it is the male sparrow’s turn. No sooner does he swing than the string breaks and he falls into the well.
The sparrow begins crying. Hearing her cries, a cat arrives on the scene and asks her why she is crying. The sparrow tells her that she is crying because her mate has fallen into the well. The cat offers to bring him out of the well and wants to know what she would get in return. The sparrow promises to feed the cat some roti and rice pudding. The cat likes the offer, and fetches the male sparrow from inside the well.
The cat now demands the rice pudding and the roti promised her. The sparrow tells her to come to her house on the day she sees smoke coming out of it, and the cat goes away to wait.
One day the sparrow makes a big fire and puts an iron plate to heat in the oven. When it is blazing hot, she takes it out and puts a frying pan next to it, covering it up as if it had the pudding of rice and milk in it. The cat sees a lot of smoke coming out of the sparrow’s house and rushes there, all ready to feast on the food promised her.
Seeing the cat at the door of her house the sparrow welcomes her. The cat asks where she may sit. The sparrow points towards the hot iron plate, and tells the cat to sit there.
No sooner does the cat sit on the hot iron plate than she jumps high into the air as her backside starts burning. She runs away and never again asks the sparrow to feed her.
There are a number of variants of this story. The version given above is one of them, compiled from the Sindhi by the scholar, philologist and folklorist Nabi Bakhsh Baloch (1917-2011).
As the story unfolds, our sympathies align themselves with the weaker of the two parties in the bargain. By the time the sparrow has been vindicated against her mate, she has won our sympathies. It is at this point that the cat, a natural enemy of the sparrow, enters the story. The cat never threatens to hurt the sparrow, and only offers help, but our perception of her is unsympathetic regardless: She has demanded compensation for saving the sparrow’s mate.
We ignore that the cat left it to the sparrow’s discretion to set the reward, and accepted what had been offered; we see it as an imposition, and the cat’s humiliation and her cruel punishment brings a smile to our faces. There is the perception that the sparrow has defied a tyrant.
It is also one of those stories where the deus ex machina is punished by the one succoured.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author, novelist and translator. He can be reached at www.mafarooqi.com and on Twitter at @microMAF.
This monthly column explores the curious world of the myths and folk tales of South Asia.
Also Read | Musharraf’s previous Lounge columns
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