Radha Prathi

Children Stories Comedy Inspirational

4.0  

Radha Prathi

Children Stories Comedy Inspirational

Avial and the Soupstone

Avial and the Soupstone

3 mins
289


Long, long ago, a clever go-getter who was not very fond of working very hard but wanted to eat an appetizing meal at the cost of others worked out an idea and tried it out on the various village folks of Kerala. He found a pure white, nicely rounded, smooth pebble in one of his jaunts along a stream and he picked it up. He thought of ways and means he could actually put the stone into use, so that it could fetch him a nice large meal. Then he hit upon an idea.


One early morning, he went to the outskirts of a village and sat there with the stone and really huge pot. He built a little fire and put the pot on top of it. It was around the same time, old and young women of the village who had bathed in the river nearby were returning home with pots of water. They ere amused to see the man who had lit afire under an empty pot. They decided to get into conversation with him and asked him what was he up to? The man gave them an enigmatic smile and extracted the pebble from the folds of his dhoti and flashed it in front of the. He told them that the nugget had magical properties and was capable of cooking scrumptious fare. The women became curious and he tossed the pebble into the pot and asked them to pour water into the same. Then he placed a lid over the pot and told the women to be gone and come around during lunch time because the little pebble needed both time and privacy to cook up the delectable dish.


The women went their way and soon enough the word about the pebble made its way in the village. Old and young, men, women and children went to see the mean and his magical pebble. The man cautiously lifted the lid a little and closed it mysteriously and smiled at the villagers.

His baffling smile made the villagers eager to taste the dish. Hence they came one by one alone to the stranger and asked him if they could partake in the fare. The stranger told them individually that everyone could taste his yummy magic dish provided they dropped a piece of vegetable in the size of the pebble into the pot.


Each one furtively came with a piece of vegetable that grew in his yard. Soon there were pieces of yam, raw plantain, ash gourd, sweet pumpkin, drumstick, beans, snake gourd, chillies, peanuts, and a whole lot of other vegetables. The man who owned the coconut farm grated the kernel of one coconut and added it to the pot. The cumin merchant dropped a fistful of cumin seeds into the pot. The air was filled with the aroma of cooking. It was around this time the lady who sold curd was coming home from her morning rounds. She felt very left out because she could not contribute her piece of vegetable to the pot, the stranger consolingly told her that she could empty the rest of the curd into the pot. It was well past noon and the fire under the pot died. The villagers assembled around the stranger who ladled out delicious hot avial which was prepared out by a magical pebble.


 The clever villagers who understood the trick that the stranger played on them forgave him because he had improvised a new dish and brought the village together in his unique way. The enterprising women of the village who tried out the dish on their own were told that the flavouring had to be improved –perhaps the pebble would do the trick.

 


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