Bear Market for Khichdi – Punjabi Folk Tale – {Ep.133}

First of all, I wish all of you a happy new year! I know what you’re thinking. Given my knowledge of the future, you might be expecting me to tell you what 2022 has in store. But I’d rather not ruin the element of surprise! And besides, it’s harder to So anyway, on to the show.

In this episode, we’re doing a Punjabi folk tale again. This one is set in medieval India. It’s about a poor woodcutter, and how he gets lucky with fruits from his rich neighbor’s tree and outwits a bear that tries its paw at trading without being very good at it.

The story begins with a poor woodcutter and his wife, living in a tiny shack. In an unexpected twist that can’t be explained by typical urban demographics, As mostly only happens in folk tales, the poor couple lives right next to a rich neighbor.

The rich neighbor had fruit trees – lots of them. One of the branches of one of those trees leaned over into the poor woodcutter’s backyard. It was a pear tree. The rich neighbor was generous. He let the woodcutter collect all the pears from the tree that fell on the woodcutter’s side of the fence. While the woodcutter interpreted that as a very generous gesture, his neighbor was only doing it because the only part of the tree that extended over the woodcutter’s property was one solitary branch. The woodcutter and his wife would get 2 or 3 pears every year. If the squirrels and birds didn’t beat them to it first.

The thing about being a poor woodcutter is that it limited his future prospects of earning as well.

If he didn’t have the money to invest in a good ax, he couldn’t chop down more wood. And if he didn’t have money he couldn’t also invest in a cart to carry his wood in, or even something as basic as safety goggles and gloves.

If the woodcutter didn’t pay his dues to the SAW, or Society of Advanced Woodcutters, he couldn’t receive a monthly magazine and car sticker, depriving him of expert opinions about the best cutting angle and proper cutting posture. I meant expert opinions from the magazine, not the car sticker. The car sticker was a bonus. Sometimes the society sent a refrigerator magnet. Even though cars and refrigerators did not exist in medieval India.

The woodcutter’s wife did not really understand the economics of the woodcutting industry, or the necessity of seed capital before increasing production volumes. So her way of dealing with their penniless situation was to tell her husband to work harder.

“Umm, sorry no. I mean look how it worked out for the horse in George Orwell’s book Animal Farm. He was told to keep working harder by the Pigs and look at what happened to him”

When the woodcutter’s wife reminded him that the book had not been written yet.

When he told her that the pigs sent the horse to the butcher in exchange for money, he knew he had made a mistake. Because his wife began looking through the yellow pages for butchers who might offer cash in exchange for individuals who couldn’t work harder.

The woodcutter told his wife she was approaching this all wrong. “You’re really bad at motivating people. You might be a competent cook, capable of winning the MasterChef competition – more on that later. And you might be a wonderful wife and a hardy homemaker, but you are quite terrible at motivating others. Now you should know that if you want to motivate a man, you have to go through his stomach.”

She was repulsed at the thought of literally going through his stomach until he clarified that what he meant was for her to cook his favorite dish. The one he hadn’t eaten since that day long ago when their rich neighbor had shared some leftovers. He was talking about Khichdi.

Khichdi, in case you don’t know, is a famous dish in India made of rice and lentils, all cooked together.

His wife relented, but she was smart enough to put the wood before the khichdi. She said that he would have to cut twice his usual amount of wood if he wanted Khichdi for dinner that night.

The woodcutter was certainly more motivated now than he had been when his wife was nagging him. He cut down not his usual, but 3 times his usual amount of wood. It should fetch twice the money he thought. People were always in the market for food. They were carving it, their children were playing with it, they were using it to build furniture. Who knows, maybe they’d be burning it next.

1. The woodcutter was walking back home, whistling a tune despite the unusually heavy load he was carrying. His mind was fully on the khichdi. That’s when he met a bear going the other way.

Now Indian bears are not as large as other varieties, like Grizzlies or Polar bears. But they are incredibly powerful, similar to their international cousins. And just like those international cousins, bears from India can’t talk. But this is a folk tale, so the bear that met the woodcutter could absolutely talk.

And because this is a folk tale, the bear didn’t attack the man.

He said “Good afternoon. That’s a heavy load of wood you are carrying!”

“Yes,” replied the woodcutter. “That’s my job. I’m a woodcutter. It’s what I do. As for the load of wood I’m carrying – you’re right it is unusually heavy. But I’m doing it for khichdi!”

“I suppose I should feel outraged that you’re decreasing my habitat. But I’m not one of those environmental bears. I say live and let adapt. And talking about adapting, I’m keen to learn the ways of humans. So tell me what is this khichdi that you speak of? I did notice as you said the word that you were drooling”

“Oh man, I mean, oh bear, you’re really missing something.” replied the man. It’s this amazing dish that is made of rice and lentils and it has all this butter”. He went on and on, and the bear began salivating as well with visions of tasty dishes floating in his head.

“Say, is it possible for you and your wife to share some of the khichdi with me?” asked the Bear.

“Maybe, maybe” replied the woodcutter. “What can you do for me in return?”

The woodcutter had an ax to grind here, and I don’t mean that literally. But yeah, after the day’s hard work his ax also needed re-sharpening, so yeah maybe I did mean that literally also. If he could get the Bear to bring him some wood, it would mean he could sell it all and reinvest the money into a better ax, which would enable him to cut even more wood and make even more money. So he proposed the idea.

The Bear reacted well to the idea. “Sure, I can get you wood. Now would 100 kilos be fair? You seem to be carrying around 50 kilos, so I can bring twice of that”

“No, no, no dear Bear,” said the woodcutter. “I can easily see you don’t know the first thing about woodcutting economics and exchange rates. About a ton should do it. Normally I’d say two tons, but you seem like a nice bear, so I’ll offer you a friends-and-family discount. And you can’t compare that to my exchange rate, because I’m married to the khichdi-maker. Naturally, I get a substantial discount”

The Bear thought one ton was pricey, but he didn’t know anyone else who could counter-offer a lower price, so he accepted. And got to work, with just his paws.

The woodcutter meanwhile hurried home to tell his wife the good news. He had guaranteed themselves a huge profit on the deal. Even if the physical commodities market experienced a very unlikely flash crash. This was sure to make his wife happy. If they managed to show up in the market with a whole bunch of extra wood, several rich buyers would be happy to sign lucrative contracts naming the woodcutter their sole supplier.

Well, his wife was happy. Only a little bit. Because she spotted the obvious flaw in his deal. He hadn’t specified the exact quantity of Khichdi the Bear would be getting.

“Bears eat up to 10 kgs of food a day on average. Now think about a bear who’s done enough hard work to chop down a ton of wood.”

“Oh well, we’ll manage somehow. But you know it’s an interesting point you bring up. If the Bear is going to eat up most of the khichdi, we might not have any left for ourselves, so let’s eat now”

That seemed like a good idea, so the two began to eat.

The woodcutter’s wife was really the most excellent cook. The Khichdi tasted wonderful!

After all his hard work the woodcutter was hungrier than usual and he attacked the food so vigorously that the Bear would have looked up to.

The wife ate as well, of course, and she loved her own cooking as well.

They served themselves second, third and then fourth helpings, muttering about how they must leave some for the Bear.

But finally, when the woodcutter aimed to grab a fifth helping, he was dismayed to realize that the pot was completely empty.

Husband and wife looked at each other in alarm! What were they going to do when the Bear arrived expecting his share of the khichdi?

“You’ll just have to make more khichdi then,” suggested the woodcutter

“With what?” asked his wife. “You seem to be forgetting we’re basically living from one meal to the next. We can’t break into our retirement funds for this, since they don’t exist”

But then their alarm turned to panic as they heard the Bear whistling a tune.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, he’s here!” shrieked the woodcutter.

His wife was a little more practical. “Leave the pot on the stove and let’s hide in the pantry. The bear will think we’ve gone out and left the khichdi for him. But before that, he’ll smell the khichdi so he’ll have dropped all the wood he’s carrying. He’ll get angry when he sees the empty pot, but he won’t bother picking up the heavy load again”

The woodcutter would have remarked that this was clever, but there was no time to be lost, the Bear was ringing the doorbell now.

The couple quickly dashed for the pantry and closed the door from the inside. As they were rather poor, the pantry was completely empty. Which made it very suitable as a hideout.

The Bear got impatient and pushed hard on the door and realized that it was unlocked. He followed his nose and went straight for the pot on the stove. This smell was amazing. He was sure had never smelled anything as delicious. He was howling in excitement. And that soon turned into howls of rage as he saw the empty pot. There was nothing in it. Not even a single grain of rice. The best he could do was to complain to the better business bureau.

But for now, the Bear decided that he would take the smell with him. He had seen a pear tree. He would collect all the ripe pears in the pot and take them home with him. To his bear friends. 

For a price.

Yes, he had learned a valuable lesson from his encounter with the woodcutter. 

He was going to charge ridiculously high rates for the pears. And with that, he would buy himself a lot of Khichdi. From the best Khichdi retailers in the country.

Yeah, he had really gotten the hang of this whole economics thing.

He stepped out with the Khichdi pot. Being a bear, he didn’t respect human fence boundaries. He climbed the pear tree on the rich neighbor’s side and began collecting the pears. He also decided to do a bit of quality control. He tasted a little bit from each pear. He kept the best pears in the pot – to maximize his profits. The ones that didn’t taste very good he decided to eat because he didn’t want to let them go to waste.

Just when he had stuffed the pot full of the best pears he had, something happened. The woodcutter’s wife who had been in the pantry too long sneezed. She couldn’t hold it anymore.

To the Bear, the sound of the sneeze sounded like a gunshot. It scared him. It scared him so much that he fell out of the tree, dropped the pot, and scrambled for dear life!

He didn’t dare turn back until he was back home. With no pears, of course.

The woodcutter and his wife lucked out though. They got to keep all the wood. And they got to keep the wood, they got to keep all the pears.

The Bear had realized that when word got around of his misadventures the performance of the financial markets for khichdi was going to be …. well… bearish. 

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Some pictures of Khichdi are linked here:
Rice, lentil, and vegetable khichdi
Sweet khichdi
Sago khichdi

At one point there were claims in the media that khichdi was going to be designated the national food of India. Not true of course.

We have by the way encountered Khichdi before, with Akbar and Birbal in Episode 22 – Slow Cooker  

Also here are some links to other Punjabi folk tales we’ve covered before:
Punjabi Folk Tale – Two Truths and a Lie [Ep. 128]
Episode 93 – Punjabi Folk Tale – Sting Like a Bee
Episode 63 – Kill with a BillHook: The Bride’s Revenge!

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a story about a special kind of fire that can destroy the Universe. There’s a tie-in with Episode 86 – Vishnu – Parshuram and Parshuram’s story. And the story will also feature my mom. Sarasvati, the Goddess of Wisdom.