Sukhu and Dukhu

Once, in a little village in Bengal, there lived two sisters. The younger one was called Dukhu, and the older one Sukhu. Now, their mother loved Sukhu best, and gave her the sweetest food and the softest bed, while poor Dukhu was given the leftovers and all the hard work. But Dukhu never grew bitter. She stayed gentle and kind, the way some people simply are.

One morning Dukhu sat outside spinning cotton into thread, when a gust of wind came sweeping through and carried her whole basket of cotton up and away into the sky. “Oh please,” she called after it, “that cotton is all I have. I will be in such trouble if I lose it.” And she set off walking to find it.

Down the road she went, and soon she came upon a cow, mooing sadly. “Little girl, my back is itching terribly and I cannot reach it. Will you help me?” So Dukhu stopped and scratched the cow’s back until it sighed with relief. “Thank you,” said the cow. “The wind went that way.”

A little further on, a banana tree was bent over and tangled. “My branches are all knotted up and heavy,” it groaned. “Will you set me straight?” And Dukhu, though she was tired, gently untangled every branch. “Bless you,” said the tree. “The wind went that way.”

At last she came to a little house where an old, old woman sat, the mother of the Moon herself. Dukhu, seeing the floors unswept and the water pots empty, quietly tidied the whole house and filled the pots before she even asked her question. The old woman smiled. “You are a kind one, child. Go and dip yourself once in my pond.” Dukhu did. And when she rose up out of the water, she was covered head to toe in gold and jewels, shining like a small sun. The old woman gave her a little box too, and sent her happily home.

Well. When her mother and Sukhu saw all that gold, their eyes went round with greed. “Go at once,” her mother told Sukhu, “and bring back twice as much.” So Sukhu marched off down the very same road. But when the cow asked for help, Sukhu snapped, “Scratch your own back, I am busy.” When the banana tree asked, she said, “Untangle yourself.” And at the old woman’s house she swept nothing and filled nothing, only demanded her reward. The old woman sighed and told her to dip in the pond. Sukhu, greedy for more, dived in deep and stayed long. And when she came up, she was not covered in gold at all, but in mud and weeds and grumbling toads, and she had to slink home with nothing but a temper.