________________
NOVEMBER, 1896.]
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA; No. 42.
313
the ascending san, and went on singing and singing till it was midday. And why should be not ? For, as soon as he finished singing, he had only to bathe in the crystal water that was running in a small part of the river and eat the food he had with him. So, without any anxiety about his going without food in consequence of singing his favourite tune, Mahasena went on exhausting all the several minute departments of the Åkiri. . The more he sang the more he enjoyed his music, and above all the means devised by him to upset a prejudice. At last the song was finished, and our hero looked for his bundle of food.
Alas! Prejudice had won the day. His bandle was no more within his reach, but was hanging high above him just as he had tied it on the tip of the bamboo. Now the bamboo -reed has the peculiarity of bending down low at night. As the sun advances in the morning the bamboo too advances from its pendent posture, and stands almost erect during midday. This Mahasena did not know, nor had he brains enough to suspect it.
"So, after all, what they say about Akiri is too true," thought he. And as the bamboo is not a plant which one can easily climb up, Mahasena had to give up his bandle of food. His upper cloth too was lost. So, with only a single cloth remaining with him, he proceeded to the waterside, bathed, finished his ablutions, and proceeded to the nearest village to beg a meal from some charitable person.
Fortunately for him he had not far to go. At a ghatiká's distance there was a Brâhman village, where a rich Mirasadêr' was celebrating the birth-day of his first-born child. On such occasions every Brålman is freely fed, provided he is present at the time of eating. Our hero thought that an opportunity of proving to the public that by singing Akiri a person does not go without food for the rest of the day was not yet lost. So be at once approached the host and requested to be fed. The Mirásadár in reply explained to him that all the available space in the house was taken up by the Brahmans who had already commenced to eat, but said that if he would wait for half a ghafiked he could join in the second batch for meals. "As you please, Sir," said Mahasena, inwardly delighted, as so short a time did not make much difference, and that he would soon have his food. And was he not right? Who would refuse him food on the occasion of public feeding?
Soon the first batch of meals were over and the guests left the house after receiving betelleaves and areca-nuts. Only a select few, about a dozen, remained for the second batch : and all these, with the exception of Mahasena, were the inmates of the house. Ten or twelve leaves were spread now in the hall of the Mirâsadâr's honse, and all the remaining diners sat down. before them. Mabâsêna occupied one corner. The moment the food was served in his leaf his. heart leapt with joy, not at the sight of the food itself, but at the idea that he had secured food to eat, notwithstanding that he had sung Åkiri that morningNow after serving food to all, the lady of the house pours apochana-water into each diner's hand as a sign to commence, and according to this custom the Mirâsadâr's wife poured a spoonful of water in the up-raised palm of Mahâsêna, with whom she commenced the apôchana-ceremony that day. As soon as Mahîsêna received the ápôchana, he attered aloud and in joy, even before drinking it," A knock on the head of Akiri.” But, alas! before he finished the words and before he had lifted up his right palm to drink the kpôchana, he received several blows on his back from one or two servants of the house, who lifted him up from 'his seat, notwithstanding his cries and lamentations, and pushed him out, bolting the door behind. Mahasena cried out from the street to be allowed to explain : he wept : he begged. But no one would pity him. No one would open the gate for him.
What a world of misery! He had sat before his leaf, he had witnessed the serving of the food, he had received even the ápôchana, and yet he had not tasted one grain of food. “JB this all for having sung Akiri? Why shonld I have been thus thrashed and pushed out ?" Thus argued our hero.
• A landed proprietor.
