There lived once in the Punjab many years ago an old Sikh soldier who had gained much renown amongst his fellow countrymen for the many acts of bravery he had shown in the tribal wars that in those days used often to take place between the chieftains of the various independent states thereabout. We all know that the Sikhs belong to a sect whose founder was one Nanak, who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that the word "Sikh" means in the Sanskrit language a "disciple."
This old soldier had for his first name the distinguished appellation of Bahadur, which in the Persian language means "brave," so he was brave by name as well as by nature.
At the time the incident occurred which I am now about to relate to you all, he had retired from active service and had settled down on a small competence for a native in the village of Shumshabad.
In this village, as indeed may be found in many town and villages of Upper India [part of which now belongs to Pakistan], there was a little colony of blind men who subsisted on the alms of the benevolent, and they were generally to be found near the markets or bazaars or along the thoroughfares leading to them. They had moreover, a little settlement of their own situated on the confines of the town.
One of these blind men at Shumshabad, a wizen-faced, attenuated old fellow, clad in poor garments and wearing a kummul, or native blanket, thrown about him, used to sit daily by the wayside begging, and ever in the same spot. This old blind man had the habit of calling out in a piteous tone, "Friends have pity on the blind, and let him only fell and handle a hundred gold mohurs, and he will be made happy forever."
Now, as few people who passed that way had even one coin of that value, his wish never seemed likely to be gratified, but he made a pile of money for all that, as the sequel of the story will show.
Bahadur Singh used to hear this plaintive cry almost daily when he went to the bazaar, and being kind as well as brave, he often thought to himself, I should much like to satisfy that old blind man's wish, but I suppose I shall never be able to do so, for the little I have scarce supplies my own daily wants. So he contented himself, with others round him, in casting a pice into the blind man's wallet.
Months, nay years had passed by, when Bahadur Singh had occasion to visit a sister who resided at some little distance from Shumshabad on the high road to Jhelum [in Pakistan].
Upon his return he stopped to rest near a tank, as natives often do, and upon the bank his eye caught sight of a small dark object, and when he had picked it up he found it was very heavy. His curiosity was now greatly aroused, and what was his surprise on opening it, but to discover that it was full of gold mohurs, and when he had counted them over, lo and behold, there were exactly one hundred.
He was in quite a whirl of delight, and one might have thought that he would have kept the money and not have disclosed the secret to anyone, but as there were just the very one hundred gold mohurs that by their feeling and handling might make the old blind man of his village happy forever, the first idea that entered his head was to go straight to the spot where he knew he always asked for alms to let him run his fingers over them.
So without any further ado off he went, and upon reaching the old blind man who was calling out in his usual strain, Bahadur Singh said, "Here, good old man, this is a lucky day for you, for I have brought you one hundred gold mohurs to feel, and to handily, and to be happy forever."
Whereupon Bahadur Singh handed the gold mohurs one by one into the old blind man's hand, and he handled them and put them one by one into his wallet, repeating after ever one, "Oh, you blessed and good man!"
By the time the whole hundred had been counted out a very considerable crowd began to collect, so that Bahadur Singh thought it better to recover hi money and be off. He then asked the old blind man to give it back to him, but who would have thought it? The old villain set up quite another cry, howling and saying at the top of his voice, "Friends, help me. Help the poor blind man who is being robbed of his little all!" And laying fast hold of Bahadur Singh's dhotee, or cloth, he made it appear as if some of his money had already been robbed from him.
Of course the crowd took the side of the blind man, so it was all in vain for Bahadur Singh to try to get a hearing, and more than that, the crowd set upon him, and would have thrashed him unmercifully had he not made his escape, so he hurriedly left the scene and his money too.
But he was in a fearful rage, and vowed he would have his revenge, and going by a back way to his hut (for he found he was being pursued), he reached it unperceived.
Taking down his sword from the wall, he said to himself, "I know the place where the blind men live, and I know too that the old blind villain will be going home about dusk. I will lie in wait for him and cut him down."
Bahadur Singh's heart, however began to fail him, "For," said he, "is he not a blind man?" Yet the feelings of revenge had so worked him up that he was furious at being so cunningly deceived and robbed.
In partial hiding he took up his post by the roadside, and he had not long to wait, for very soon the old blind villain hove in sight, tottering along and leaning on his staff. Bahadur Singh drew his sword from its scabbard and looked first at it, and then at the old blind villain who was drawing nearer and nearer to him.
In an instant the brave feelings of his nature rose uppermost, for was he not Bahadur? And addressing his sword, as the custom of Orientals often is, he said, "Oh sword, thou hast been with me in many an honorable fight, and shall I now tarnish thy fair fame by using thee thus? No. I ask pardon and return you to your scabbard without a stain." And so saying he let the blind man pass.
But he determined upon following him, and if possible, to recover his money; whereupon he crept stealthily behind him and close upon his heels, and when the old blind villain arrived at his hut, Bahadur Singh saw him open the door, and before he had time to close and fasten it from the inside, the brave soldier had managed to slip in too, and quite unheard. Keeping very silent, he watched the old villain take off his kummul and his wallet, and then make his way to a corner of the hut. He there took up a tile flush with the floor, and removed from the hole beneath it a chattie, or earthenware vessel, in which he was proceeding to put in from his wallet the money he had collected during the day.
Bahadur Singh saw his own hundred gold mohurs going in one by one, and then overheard the old blind villain say, "I have done well today. I have here four hundred gold mohurs, and with this further one hundred, I shall have five hundred gold mohurs, and who so rich as I?"
And then he carefully returned the chattie and put back the tile, feeling it over and over again to be sure that it was in its right place. He then returned to his charpai, or cot, and sat down, apparently to think a bit.
It was now Bahadur Singh's turn to try his luck at recovering his money. So moving very noiselessly, he crept to the money corner, lifted the tile, took out the chattie, and was getting back to a spot he had selected behind the charpai, when as ill luck would have it, he struck against a shelf projecting from the wall, and the noise at once aroused the old blind villain, who rushed to the money corner, only to find that his store had vanished.
He howled, he shouted at the top of his voice, he brandished about him his staff, smashing the water-pots and deluging the hut with water, and it was only by great dexterity that Bahadur Singh could keep behind him, and so avoid coming in contact wither with him or his staff.
In a very short time, however, there came a knock at the door, and the old blind villain let in a stranger, who, to Bahadur Singh's relief, was, he noticed, also a blind man.
The stranger called out, "What is all this noise about?"
"Hai, hai! Booh, booh!" said the old blind villain. "All my money is gone, and I am ruined forever."
"Your money gone?" he replied. "How can that be? Where did you put it?"
"Here, here," he said, pulling the stranger to the money corner.
"But what a fool you were to keep it there! Why didn't you do as I always do? When I get enough together to make up a gold mohur I sew it up into my turban."
Bahadur Singh, hearing this, at once by a quick and quiet movement reached forward and took off the turban of the stranger and put it aside, whereupon the stranger rushed at the old blind villain and said, "Why did you take my turban off and where is it?"
"I didn't," he replied.
"But you must have done so, for there is no one else here, and you want to take my money now, do you?"
So saying he went for the old blind villain, knocked him down onto the slushy floor, and pummeled him until he cried hard for mercy.
Bahadur Singh, with something like a smile at seeing his enemy punished, then quitted the hut, leaving them to fight it out. He took with him the chattie and the gold mohurs, and left the turban behind.
He went straight to the village police, told the story, claimed only his own one hundred gold mohurs, and left with them the four hundred belonging to the old blind villain, which were there and then confiscated to the State.
So this old blind villain not only lost his money, but got a terrible thrashing into the bargain, and this tale is often told in the hûzrâhs, or places of meeting of the village storytellers as a capital instance of how best to retaliate, and cleverly the biter was bit.
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Revised January 19, 2002.