V
LUCKHINARAIN, THE IDIOT
THERE once lived a Brahmin, respected as both learned and well-to-do. He was blessed with a wife and a young son, named Luckhinarain. Unfortunately, however, the latter in time grew into a young man so thick-headed that the like of him had never been seen before. But in spite of this his mother had a very high opinion of his intelligence, and she often quarrelled with her husband, who, knowing his son only too well, never gave him credit for even the least spark of common sense.
The Brahmin one day desired to give a feast to his neighbours, and in the morning he set out to invite them, instructing his wife meanwhile to prepare the food. Believing her son to be a clever bargainer, though he had never purchased anything in his life, she gave him a rupee and told him to fetch some live fish worth eight annas and some tari-tarkari (green vegetables) at the same price. He went to the Bazar, and bought some twenty fish with half a rupee; and then the question how to send them home puzzled his brain. He would not hire a coolie, for that would entail on his mother an additional expense. He rejected the idea of carrying them home himself, for that would not look well for one of his position. What was to be done with them? His prolific brain soon solved the difficulty. There was a canal flowing between the market and his house, and whispering to the fishes where the latter was, he threw them into the canal with orders that they should stop at the ghat close to his house
