The Foolish Ones From Kadambawa
A group of men from Kadambawa were on their way to Putallam. They had some important business there. They had started early in the morning from Kadambawa and hoped to reach Putallam by nightfall. But when darkness came, they were still quite far from Putallam. So they decided to rest in a clearing in the forest. They cooked and ate their evening meal together. Then each man spread his mat and went to sleep.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night there was a terrible shout, “Haihaihai ! Yaiyaiyai !”
The men jumped up and looked around. One of their companions was sitting up on his mat. His eyes were round and staring out of his face. He was screaming, “Haihaihai ! Yaiyaiyai !”
“What’s the matter? What’s happen?” the other ran to him and asked.
“I just saw an elephant with huge tusks,” stammered the man.
“Where? Here? Over there?” the others cried as they picked up sticks and stones.
“No, no, no, not there. It was in a dream, a terrible dream,” answered the man.
“Well, tell us about it, then you’ll be able to sleep again,” said the other.
“I dreamed that I was lost in a thick, dark jungle,” the man began. “The branches of the trees were spread out about me like umbrellas. It was so dark that I couldn’t see. I was like a blind man, then suddenly out of the trees came an elephant with huge tusk. He raised his trunk and trumpeted. Then he charge at me. His feet thundered and the ground shook as he came. I know he would lift me up in his trunk and throw me down and trample over me. I thought I would die.. I screamed .. ” he began to tremble.
“It’s only a dream,” shoothed the other to him. “Now go back to sleep.”
The next morning, as they ate their breakfast, the men discussed the meaning of the dream.
“Where there’s an elephant there’s always elephant dung,” one man said.
“When there’s elephant dung it means the elephant has just eaten,” another added.
“Elephants eat paddy,” a third said.
“Paddy means uncooked rice ..”
“Where there’s uncooked rice, there’s also cooked rice.”
“Cooked rice is found in villages.”
“We live in a village. A man from our village had the dream.”
“It was a bad dream so something bad must have happened in our village,” someone shouted.
“Any deviyane! Oh my God!!” The men were now frightened.
“Something terrible must have happened in oir village.”
“Our wives and children … ” the men jumped up.
“Let’s go back, let’s go back ..”
And crying and screaming and shouting the men of Kadambawa started running back toward their village.
In the evening, the women of Kadambawa heard their menfolk return. They heard them crying and screaming and shouting.
“Oh! Oh! Something terrible has happened to our menfolk,” the woman cried.
They gathered their children and ran, sobbing and wailing down the road to meet their husbands.
When the men saw their wives and children sobbing and wailing, running to meet them, they cried, “We were right, something terrible has happened to our wives and children.” And they stopped on the road and beat their chests and pulled their hair and cried louder.
When the wives saw their menfolk stop on the road and beat their breasts and pull their hair, they cried, “Aiyoyo, we knew it! Something terrible has happened to our husbands.” And they too stopped on the road and tore their clothes and sobbed and wailed louder.
And there they stood, these two groups of people from Kadambawa, crying and shouting and wailing and sobbing on the road, the menfolk facing the womenfolk where they had stopped.
And there they might still be standing, today, if the nearby villagers had not heard them and come to find out what the noise was about.
They went to the men and said, “What’s happened? Who has died?”
“We don’t know who was died,” the men of Kadambawa cried. “But we know something terrible happened to our womenfolk while we were away.”
They went to the women and asked, “What happened ? Who has died ?”
“We don’t know who has died,” the womenfolk of Kadambawa replied. “But we know that something terrible happened to our menfolk on the way to Puttalam.”
The eldest of the neighbours shook his head. He stood on the road between the men and women of Kadambawa and raised his arms above his hand.
“Quiet!! he shouted. “Nothing has happened. Stop crying and screaming. No one has died. Why don’t you find out first if there’s cause for this noise ?”
You can image how happy and foolish the people of Kadambawa felt when they realized what had happened, or rather, what not happened.
The neighbouring villages heard the story at the next market fair, and more people heard it at other market fairs. And soon the people of Kadambawa came to be known as “The Foolish Ones”.
And even today, if you ask the way to Kadambawa people will say, “Oh, you mean the village of “The Foolish Ones” ??
And they will grin and point the way.
