Once Upon a Time in Brahmanagar / Practice Makes a Man Perfect
Kafi Rashid, 05/08/14 (Previously published in Nabanna volume, MUSE, ULAB)
It is the story of many years ago. One day King Brahmadatta, accompanied by some members of his royal assembly, and Prince Pratul went to a deep jungle at the far end of the kingdom to hunt deer. After the hunt on their way back to the palace, the king and the prince somehow became detached from their group. For some time, they tried to trace the men. They alighted from their horses and climbed up a mountain to see if they could see the others. At the peak they saw a small frog swallowing and disgorging a large elephant continuously. After observing this unbelievable incident the king thought that the prince, returning to the palace, would disclose it to everyone. This disclosure could lead to the people questioning the soundness of mind of the king. So the king suggested that the prince not disclose this incident to anybody. At one stage the other members of the team saw the king and the prince on top of the mountain and they all came back to the palace together.
Several months passed after this incident. One day the prince sitting in the university told the story to his classmates, forgetting the advice of the king. When the classmates laughed, he told them to ask the king about it to verify the truth of it. If it was true, the classmates would be sent to the forest alone; otherwise, half of the prince’s property would be given to them. King Brahmadatta was working in the royal assembly at that time. When the prince asked the king to verify the incident of the day, the king hesitated in front of the members of the meeting and declined to answer. As a result the prince lost half of his property and the king grieved silently as he had betrayed his son. So he decided to stay in a lonely garden house by a large lake at the edge of the kingdom.
Having no job to do at the garden, the king acquired a cow with the assistance of the gardener. The king sat the whole day thinking about the ways of getting back the prince’s lost property. As he sat worried and upset, a message arrived for the king that the cow had given birth to a calf. Going to see the cow and the calf, the king lost his temper and threw away the calf into the lake. At the gardener’s cry of alarm, the king regained his senses and ordered the gardener to pick up the calf. At that time something unbelievable happened: the calf, without any assistance, crossed the lake and began suckle at its mother’s breast. Though King Brahmadatta was astonished, he did not say anything.
The next day, on walking from sleep, he took out the calf and like the previous day the king threw the calf into the lake and the calf crossed over and began to feed. In this way the king began to throw the calf into the lake every day and every day, the calf would swim across the pond to feed on its mother’s milk. After a few days of this, the king stopped throwing and saw that the calf became habituated of swimming the lake before drinking its mother’s milk in the morning, and then he returned to the palace.
After returning home, the king told the prince to describe to his classmates the story of the calf that would swim across a lake before drinking its mother’s milk. Accordingly, the prince went to the university and reported the incident to his classmates. The classmates laughed at him and thought he was mad. The prince declared that if he could not prove this incident he would give them the rest of his property; otherwise they would return his property to him. Expressing their concurrence the classmates arrived at the garden house with the prince and saw that there really was a calf which swam around the lake every morning before drinking its mother’s milk. The classmates of the prince admitted defeat and returned the prince’s property to him.