Sura Loses his Way[i]
Sura and
his family had fallen on bad times. They had finished all the produce of
their fields and it was not yet time to gather the year’s harvest. They
pondered for a long time what they should do. Now, there was a very large
earthenware vessel in the house of which they were very proud of. But now
because their poverty, they decided to sell their valuable vessel in order to
buy rice.
The next morning, Sura prepared to set off to
the nearest village, which was a one day’s journey from his village and to try
to sell the vessel there. Before he left, his wife warned him to be very
careful with the vessel and told him that he was not to put it on the ground at
all, for fear of breaking it. To avoid setting it down, he was to just change
shoulders when he got tired.
Sura went off very early, carrying the huge
vessel on his right shoulder. His load was heavy, but as he had been so
carefully warned not to risk breaking the pot, he did not dare to halt on the
way for a rest, and put the pot on the ground. So, when he had gone about
half-way, his right shoulder began to ache very badly and he decided to make a
change. It was at that moment that he remembered what his wife had told him. He
wondered and scratched his head on how he could get it to the other side
without putting the pot on the ground. He was indeed very puzzled about the
matter. After thinking intensely for some time, he hit upon an idea. So, he
turned himself around and said to himself, “There! The pot is on the other side
now” and went on walking. Sura thoroughly prided himself on his cleverness but
what he did not realize was that by turning around, he was going back to his
own village. Without realizing what he had done, he went on until the shadows
grew very long.
Finally,
he reached his own village but he thought it was the place towards which he had
set out in the morning. When his little children saw and called out to him, “Father!
Father! How glad we are that you have come home”, Sura merely mused to himself,
“What nice and friendly little children in this village. They are calling me
father. I am glad I have reached such a warm friendly place at the end of my
long day’s journey.” He did not recognize that they were his own children.
Incidentally he put up in the house next to his own house. In amazement,
surprise and incredulousity, the children informed their mother ‘Father is next
door trying to sell the vessel’. Their mother was shocked and surprised and replied,
‘What? Go and ask him to come home’. The children did, but Sura remained
adamant and when his wife came to the house to call him, he calmly replied,
“Oh, you think that I am your husband, no I’ve got my own wife in my village
and I cannot marry another’.
Such
was Sura, a man so loyal to his wife.
[i] Laltluangliana
Khiangte’s edited “Mizo Songs and Folk Tales”, published by Sahitya Akademi,
New Delhi, 2002 was heavily referred while translating this tale from Hmar to
English.
