I grew up in India’s culture of oral storytelling. At the time, there were very few books, and stories were told by word of mouth.They were a living thing. No morals were told with the stories because each person at different times in their life drew different meanings or conclusions from these stories.
As long as my mother was alive, I looked forward to hearing her tell this story of The Dead Snake during every celebration of Diwali (the Hindu Festival of Lights). My mother had been told this story by her mother-in-law. My mother told it year after year with great reverence and solemnity—not with the lightness that I am going to tell it here. After all these years, this story still remains one of my favorites.
Once upon a time, a learned man had been out of work for quite some time. As a result, the family had used up all their savings, owed money to shopkeepers, and had to depend upon their neighbors and friends for their daily sustenance.
Tired and fed up with such poverty, one night the wife insisted her husband go and look for a job the next day. In the morning after the learned man had taken his shower and gotten dressed in his best white clothes, as was the custom of those days, she walked him to the door.
“Do not come back empty handed; take the very first thing you find,” she admonished him as he left the house. Personally, he had no hopes of finding a job.
The man had hardly gone a hundred yards from his home when he found a dead snake on the street.
The man picked up the lifeless snake and brought it home.
“What on earth is this?” croaked his surprised wife, who had just started to get ready for the day. “And what are you doing back home so soon?”
“You told me to take the very first thing I found. Well, I found this snake and I brought him home.”
“Stupid husband of mine, that is not what I meant,” shouted his wife.
The husband quickly changed into his house clothes and settled down to read.
Exasperated, his wife picked up the snake, took it out to the courtyard and gave it a hard and wild toss. She did not realize that the dead snake ended up on their roof.
Later that morning, the queen of that land was being readied by her maid servants for a bath in the garden tub. They had just removed her diamond necklace and put it aside when an eagle flying overhead saw her necklace glittering in the sunshine and swooped down to pick it up.
There was a commotion in the queen’s quarters, but the necklace was gone. The king’s town crier was sent out to make an announcement that the queen had lost her diamond necklace and anyone returning it would be handsomely rewarded. There was no internet or television news flashes in those days, so it took the town crier the whole day to make this announcement far and wide.
Meanwhile, the eagle realized that all that glitters is not food. It saw the dead snake on the roof of the poor couple’s house. The eagle swooped down once again, this time to trade the diamond necklace for the dead snake.
The roofs in India, where it does not snow, are flat. People often sleep on the roof during summer when it can get very hot inside the house. In those days there was no air-conditioning nor electricity for fans. That night, when the learned man and his wife went on the roof to sleep, they found the glittering diamond necklace. They knew whose necklace it was and were afraid that the king might think they stole it. All night long they could not sleep.
The next morning, mustering all his courage, the husband took the necklace to the king and, to his surprise, he was, indeed handsomely rewarded. Obviously, his wife was very pleased with this turn of events. She asked her husband to buy all kinds of food for a celebration and oil for their lights. She asked him to settle all their debts, and she spent the whole day preparing sweets for the friends and neighbors who had helped them during their hard days.
For months and months, they had had no mustard oil to burn in the diyas. Diyas were small, earthen candle-like lights that burned vegetable oil. During that time there was no kerosene and, of course, no electricity.
That night the couple decorated by illuminating each and every room with diya lights, including a light in the “mori,” a small hole in the wall where it joins the floor.
On that same night, Lakshmi, the angel of prosperity, went out into the universe to take a stroll and happened to pass by the earth. There she saw darkness everywhere but, in one house, she saw light. Curious, she stopped by and knocked at the door.
“Who is that?” asked the learned man, who was joyously reading by the new lights.
“It is Lakshmi,” came back the soothing voice of the angel.
“Go away,” the man answered. “Material prosperity is fickle. I do not want you. I would rather have knowledge.”
“Let me in; I will not leave you,” Lakshmi assured him.
“You always say that to every person you visit,” the man answered, more determined than ever.
Lakshmi was not used to being rejected. Instead, everyone prayed for her presence and welcomed her with open arms. She was curious to see the person who would reject her offers. She walked around to find an opening to the house. All doors were shut. Then, Lakshmi saw a little flicker of light in the mori opening. She went in through the mori and promised the man that she would never leave their house.
And, as stories go, the couple lived happily ever after.
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I’ve picked up a lot of dead snakes in my life! And I’m not unique.
I invite you, the readers, to share your story of how a small event led to a major change in your life: “What dead snake did you pick up?”
This will be an act of love for which I will be grateful.
Leave your comments here or send your story to balbir@treesforlife.org.
balbirmathur.com 