Chapter 19: chapter 19

Two Stupid BrothersTwo brothers, Dheeru and Beeru, lived in a village near Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Both brothers were so stupid that their fellow villagers couldn’t decide who was more foolish—Beeru or Dheeru.Once, their father asked them to spread the harvested corn in the sunlight so that it would ripen. Dheeru waited for the sun to be overhead at noon and went and got a shovel. He opened the barn door and began shovelling air inside the barn, where the corn was stored. When his father came, he saw Dheeru sweating profusely and breathless from exertion. Dheeru’s father was puzzled.‘What are you doing with that shovel, Dheeru?’ he asked.Dheeru turned and replied, ‘Father, I am shovelling sunlight into the barn to ripen the corn, just like you said.’Aware of his son’s long-standing stupidity, Dheeru’s father patiently suggested, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you lay the corn out in the open, under the sun?’‘Of course, what a wonderful idea. I never thought of that. You have saved me so much hard work today,’ replied Dheeru, who thought it was a brilliant plan. He went on to bring the corn out of the barn.Unfortunately, Beeru was no less. Once, their mother instructed him, ‘Beeru, go take the cow grazing. Make sure she eats clean grass.’Beeru unlocked the paddock and took the cow out. But the cow was interested in the tuft of grass growing on the barn roof more than the meadow outside. When Beeru saw the cow looking up at the grass, trying to reach it, he immediately got a ladder and a rope. He was happy it was clean grass. So Beeru tied the rope around the neck of the cow. He climbed the first two rungs of the ladder and tried pulling the cow, urging her to get onto the ladder behind him. The cow, of course, resisted noisily.Hearing this commotion, his mother came out and saw Beeru trying to pull the cow up the ladder, which was shaking dangerously. His mother was shocked.‘What are you doing, Beeru? Why are you pulling the cow like that?’ she asked in horror.Beeru replied, ‘I am trying to pull the cow so she can climb the ladder and get to the fresh tuft of grass on our roof. She is so dumb that she is not listening.’Beeru’s mother knew that her son was capable of great foolishness. She suggested gently, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you climbed up the ladder, cut the grass and brought it down to feed the cow?’Beeru slapped his forehead. ‘Now why did I not think of that? That is the best solution. I will climb up and cut the grass in a jiffy.’It was difficult for Dheeru and Beeru’s parents to decide which one of their sons created more trouble. Because of their foolishness, both sons got into many scrapes.One fine day, Dheeru had to go to the mountains to collect some branches and dry wood for the Holi pooja. While trekking through the wilderness, Dheeru stumbled upon a hidden entrance camouflaged in the slope. When he pushed the entrance gently, it opened into a cave.The cave was dimly lit, but Dheeru found heaps and heaps of gold. He was dumbfounded. He realised that he couldn’t carry the gold out with him because he had neither bags to stash it in nor a horse to carry it on for the distance back home. But he didn’t want anyone to spot the treasure he had discovered. So he gathered all the leaves that had fallen to the ground and piled them on top of the gold.But before he left, he wrote a note that said, ‘THERE IS NO GOLD IN HERE! –DHEERU’ and placed it in front of the cave’s entrance! Then he happily left for home, planning to return sometime later to take the gold home.Since Dheeru’s discovery of the treasure had cut short his collection of wood and branches for the pooja, his mother sent Beeru to do the job properly the next morning.As Beeru painstakingly collected dry wood, he came across the note that Dheeru had put up so carefully against the pile.He read, ‘THERE IS NO GOLD IN HERE! – DHEERU’.‘Uh-huh, there is definitely gold in this place. I must check where,’ Beeru thought. He pushed the door open and saw the gold partially concealed under the leaves. He quickly collected it in the bags. Unlike Dheeru he had brought bags for the dry wood. But he didn’t want Dheeru to know he had taken the gold.So he wrote another note: ‘BEERU DID NOT TAKE THIS GOLD!’ He left it in front of the cave and carried his loot back home.The same day, Dheeru rode up on a horse to the cave to retrieve his treasure. He spotted the note Beeru had left. Furious, he took the note and rushed home.His parents were concerned when they saw him hopping mad, so they asked him what had happened.Dheeru replied angrily, ‘You wait. Someone looted the gold I found. I am going to kill him. See this note.’ He handed Beeru’s note to his parents and left for the village chowk. He climbed up to a high post overlooking the chowk and shouted, ‘Listen, everyone, come out of your houses. I am looking for a thief. Someone has stolen the gold that I had found. Come right out and confess. Everyone is a suspect except Beeru, because the note said it wasn’t him.’Dheeru’s parents had read the note Beeru had written before chasing after Dheeru. Now they stared at Dheeru, challenging the thief to come out and confess. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They truly weren’t sure which one of their sons was more foolish.