A story and a song

A housewife knew a story, she also knew a song, but she kept them to herself. Never told anyone the story or the song. But she kept them to themselves and never told anyone the story or sang the song.

Imprisoned within her, the story and the song felt choked. They wanted release, wanted to run away. One day when she was sleeping the mouth open, the story escaped, fell out of her, took the shape of a pair of shoes and sat outside the house. The song also escaped, took the shape of something like a man’s coat, and hung on a peg.

The woman’s husband came home, looked at the coat and shoes, he asked her “who is visiting?”

“No one” she said.

“But whose coat and shoes are these?”

“I don’t know” she replied.

He wasn’t satisfied with her answers. He was suspicious. Their conversation was unpleasant, that led to a quarrel. The husband flew into rage, picked up his banket and went to monkey god’s (hanuman ji) temple to sleep.

The woman didn’t understand what was happening. She lay down alone that night. She asked the same question over and over: “whose coat and shoes are these?” Baffled and unhappy she put out the lamp and went to sleep.

All the lamp flames of the town, once they were put out, used to come to the monkey god’s temple and spend the night there, gossiping. On this night, all the lamps of all the houses were represented here- all except one, which came late.

The others asked the latecomer, “Why are you so late tonight?”

“At our house, the couple quarreled late into the night,” said the flame.

“Why did they quarrel”

“When the husband wasn’t home, a pair of shoes came onto the verandah, and the man’s coat somehow got onto the peg. The husband asked whose they were. The wife said she doesn’t know. So, they quarreled”

“Where did the coat and shoe come from?”

“The lady of our house knows a story and a song. She never tells the story to anyone and has never sung the song to anyone. The story and the song got suffocated inside, so they got out and turned into a pair of shoes and a coat. They took revenge, the woman doesn’t even know”.

The husband, lying under his blanket in the temple, heard the lamp’s explanation. His suspicions were cleared. When he went home it was dawn. He asked the wife about her story and her song. But she forgotten both. “What story, what song” she said.