The "fair" sex

[pavalamani pragasam]

The “Fair” Sex
(An interesting folk tale)
Once upon a time there lived a lazy man whose only pastime was listening avidly the whole day to the stories told by a tale-spinner of his village. The stories told by the tale-spinner were exclusively about women. Each story warned men to be always careful with women and beware of their wiles. Women were notorious, he insisted, for their beguiling ways. He had a favourite phrase about the 36 wiles of women which he used to repeat throughout his story-telling. It was the lazy man’s habit to return home after each session and beat his wife rudely, demanding her in coarse words to show him her 36 wiles. His wife tried for some time to bear with him. Her attempts at stopping him from going to the tale-spinner totally failed. She finally decided to teach a good lesson to her foolish husband.
It was a rainy season. Everybody in the village was busy farming in their fields. So the story-telling had stopped temporarily. Consequently the wife did not receive the regular beatings. She started to think about ways of making this respite permanent. Their field was situated on the slopes of the hill. Everyday her husband drove their cattle to their field early in the morning. She followed him at noon with lunch, after tending to her household chores. One day she saw some fish in a field at the foot of the hill. She caught a few, put them in her water pot and climbed the hill. On reaching their field she stealthily put out the fish in the field when her husband was not watching being engrossed in his farming work. She called out to him, ”Look! What have we got in our field!” He was happily surprised to see fish there. They caught the fish one by one. He wanted to celebrate the event. He asked her to hasten to their house first and get the fish cooked ready. He proceeded to buy liquor for himself.
She cooked the fish and hid it in the loft. He returned home in good spirits full of eager expectation. He asked her to bring the fish. She pretended to be surprised. He got very angry and started to beat her. He abused her for eating all the fish. She ran out of the house and cried for help. All the neighbours gathered there. At first all men spoke in favour of the husband. He explained how he found the fish in their field. Everybody knew fish is never found in the fields on high slopes. They realized he was drunk. And so they thrashed him well.
After everybody had gone and the couple were left alone she brought down the fish from the loft and placed it in front of him. She said, “Today you have seen just one of my 36 wiles. Better be careful. I have 35 more tricks.”

[Surya]

Nice. I enjoyed it again.

[PSundar]

Hey... a real good one[/quote]

[Querida]

Hello Madame PP, very nice story...i have heard of a story such as this when a little gurl...it was about the husband who found gold and didn't want anyone to find out so especially because he had an overly-gossipy wife...so he cooks up all these impossible situations and makes her believe they are true...in the ending whatever the wife does say seems impossible and everyone passes it off as her insanity..

[nirosha sen]

Sounds ala Arabian Nights, Pa!! Remember Sheherezade and her 1,0001 stories to keep her husband in suspense so as to keep him interested to keep her head on her little neck???!!! Otherwise, it was the chopping block if not for the cliff-hangers each night when she trailed off from her story-telling Pa!!

[Wibha]

Nice one

Reminds me of the good old Aesop's fables and Tinkle

[viraajan]

Nice one

Reminds me of the good old Aesop's fables and Tinkle

4 varushathukku appuram vandhu reply pandriye. idhu unakke gnayama irukka?

// Oops... dig started,... Shift it to CC

[sarna_blr]

nice story ::P

[pavalamani pragasam]

Stories have an evergreen charm!

[Shakthiprabha.]

From the ages unknown, men are always foolish and try nasty things, and women instead of disowning them, would take the grand job of TEACHING them lesson, as though thats her primary job for being created. This would be educated thro all tales to the next gneration.