The Wooden sculpted Lady- Una saba Nupi

Once there lived a middle aged poor man in the outskirt of a village. The man had no one to called his own and so he was all alone in the house doing all the household chores and working to feed himself. There  was no one to look after him when he get sick, no shoulder to lean on when he felt tired and no one to share and cook delicious meal with him. He so longed for a company that he decided to go to the architect and get sculpted a lady made of wood. The sculpture was so beautiful that it looked like a real woman and the poor man was so happy to see it. He bought the sculpture home and begin to treat it as his wife. He started talking to the sculpture and pretended it to be alive. He would often asked “Dear, have you cooked the meal?” to himself and at the same time he would reply in a woman voice, “Yes, yes dear! Thus he lived happily in this way with the sculpture.

One day he told the sculpture, “Dear I am going out to meet some of my friends, get the meal ready when I get back home”. So saying he left and co-incidentally he met one of his friends on the way who was a rich man. His friend asked, “ How are you my friend?  Have you got married?” The poor man felt ashamed and said, “I am good my friend and yes I have got married lately”. His friend was happy to hear this and said, “ As you have not invited us in your wedding, let’s go to your place today to meet your wife.” And they started walking towards the poor man’s house.

While walking, the poor man became so tensed with the thought of lying to his friend, What am I going to do? O God! Please save me, he said to himself. As they reached the gate, he became more worried and all of a sudden he was surprised to see that from the courtyard to the veranda of his house the surrounding was so clean and fresh. The floor was completely shining and there was candle and incense sticks lit in the corner of the house. The poor man was nervous and terrified to see such changes in his home. He told his friend to wait outside the house and he entered the room and he was shocked to see that his wooden sculpted wife had turned into a real beautiful lady. The poor man was overjoyed and he called his friend inside. The rich man was speechless to see such a beautiful lady and felt jealous of his friend. He began to create an evil plan to snatch the poor man’s wife from her husband.

The rich man said, My friend let’s invite each other for a meal consecutively and after having meal one can touch anything from one’s house and become the owner of that thing. The poor man happily agreed  to his friend’s decision unknown to the fact that the rich man was intentionally making plan to take his wife away from him.

Some days later, the rich man invited the poor man to his house for the meal. After the meal the poor man touch a box which contains all the wealth of the rich man and as agreed before, the poor man took the box and now he was the owner of all the wealth in it. Now it was the poor man’s turn to invite his friend for the meal. The rich man was so excited of getting the poor man’s wife that he was not even focused on the food. The rich man kept on staring at the lady and unnecessarily called her to give extra water just to stare at her. The wise lady came to understand his evil intentions and she thought of a plan to get out of his reach. She took out a ladder from the backyard and placing it in her room she climbed up the roof and sat there.

After having the meal, the rich man searched for the lady and when he saw her on the roof he hold the ladder to climb up to her. Suddenly the poor man said, “Friend, you want the ladder. You should have touched something valuable”. “Maybe you felt pity on your poor friend and that’s why you choose the ladder “. Alright, take the ladder, it is very useful and still very strong. The helpless man left with the ladder while the poor man and his wife lived happily with all the wealth.

pic courtesy: Internet