Kalua’s Trick
Once upon a time, in a certain country, right in the middle of the gamarala’s field, lay a huge rock. It was the time to plough the field, and the gamarala wanted to get the rock out.
He tried to lift it himself. But the rock was too large and too heavy. He called his neighbours to help. But the couldn’t lift the rock either. They tied a rope around it and yoked it to ten oxen. The rope snapped, but the rock didn’t move.
Finally the gamarala offered a large amount reward to anyone who could carry the rock out of the field. The tom-tom beaters went into the village. “A big reward, a huge reward, an enormous reward! Five hundred rupees for anyone who can carry the rock out of the gamarala’s field. Hear one, hear all!” they cried.
Now in the village, there lived an enermous giant of a man called Kalua. He was nearly twice the height of an ordinary man and weighed three times as much. He had huge arms and legs and a thick neck. People thought he must be very strong, but they were never able to test him for Kalua was also the laziest man anybody had ever met.
He slept all day long. His snores filled the whole village and floated across the rice fields. He woke only to eat and then he slept again. He only worked to get enough money for food, and then he went back to sleep again.
It so happened that when the tom-tom beaters were calling out the reward, he was awake, wondering how to get his next meal.
“A reward, eh?” he thought. “That will be nice. I won’t have to think of where to get food for a long time. ” He asked the village money-lender to calculate how many months’ food the reward would get him.
“Three months,” the money-lender told him.
Kalua strolled over to the gamarala’s hut. “I’ll carry your rock away free,” he said, “but you’ll have to feed me the best rice and black-fowl curry for three months to build up my strength.”
The gamarala thought this would be a cheap way to get the rock moved. And Kalua was a big, strong man.
So for three months Kalua lived, rather slept, in the gamarala’s house, and the gamarala fed him the best rice and huge dishes of black-fowl curry. Kalua’s cheeks and stomach became rounder and rounder.
“How is he ever going to carry the rock away?” the gamarala wondered. “He’s just getting fatter, not stronger.”
But in Srilanka in those days people always kept their word. So the gamarala waited.
The great day came when Kalua was to carry the rock out of the field. All the village folk gathered to watch. But Kalua could not be seen anywhere.
Somebody found him at last, asleep under the bullock cart. It took them a long time to wake him up.
Kalua walked over the field and yawned. He looked at all the people and stretched his big arms.
“Now keep your promise,” the gamarala said. “Or else you know you’ll get a good beating from us.”
“Certainly, I will,” Kalua said. “I promised I would carry the rock out of the field. And I will. Now all you have to do is lift it on to my shoulders.”
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