When Ka Panshandi found herself a rich wife, having unexpectedly won one of the noblest husbands in the world, her vanity knew no bounds, and she grew more indolent and idle than ever. Her house was squalid, and she minded not when even her own body was daubed with mud, and she felt no shame to see her husband’s meals served off unscoured platters. U Lurmangkhara was very disappointed; being patient and gentle, he tried by kind words to teach his wife to amend her ways, but it was of no avail. Gradually he grew discontented and spoke angrily to her, but she remained as callous and as indifferent as ever, for it is easier to turn even a thief from stealing than to induce a sluggard to renounce his sloth. He threatened to leave her, her neighbours also repeatedly warned her that she would lose her good husband unless she altered her ways, but she remained as unconcerned as ever. At last, driven to despair, U Lurmangkhara gathered together all his wealth and went back to his home in the sky.
Ka Panshandi was filled with remorse and grief when she found that her husband had departed. She called piteously after him, promising to reform if he would only return, but it was too late. He never came back, and she was left to her squalor and her shame.
To this day Ka Panshandi is still hoping to see U Lurmangkhara coming back to the earth, and she is seen crawling about mournfully, with her neck outstretched towards the sky in expectation of his coming, but there is no sign of his return, and her life is dull and joyless.
After these events Ka Panshandi’s name became a mockery and a proverb in the land; ballads were sung setting forth her fate as a warning to lazy and thriftless wives. To the present day a forsaken wife who entertains hope of her husband’s return is likened by the Khasis to Ka Panshandi in her expectant attitude with her head lifted above her shell: “Ka Panshandi dem-lor-khah.”
XXIV
The Idiot and the Hyndet Bread
Long, long ago there lived on the Khasi Hills a certain widow with her only son, a lad possessed of great personal beauty, who was mentally deficient, and was known in the village as “U Bieit” (the idiot).
The mother, being very poor and having neither kith nor kin to help her, was obliged to go out to work every day to support herself and her hapless child, so he was left to his own devices, roaming at large in the village. In this way he grew up to be very troublesome to his neighbours, for he often broke into their houses to forage for something to eat and caused much damage and loss.
Like most people of weak intellect, U Bieit showed wonderful cunning in some directions, especially in the matter of procuring some good thing to eat, and the way he succeeded in duping some of his more sagacious comrades in order to obtain some dainty tit-bits of food was a matter of much amusement and merriment. But there were so many unpleasant incidents that people could not safely leave their houses, and matters at last became so serious that the widow was ordered to leave the village on his account.