The brass pot

There was a village diver to whom everybody turned whenever something valuable fell into the pond. He was the one who would find the object for them, and the villagers would pay him for his work. This is how he earned his living.

One day the wife of the village head saw the diver carrying a very beautiful brass vessel. Somebody had given him that beautiful brass pot as payment for his finding something in the pond. As soon as she saw the pot, the wife of the village head became very excited and said, “Will you give me that beautiful vessel? Tonight many people are coming to my house for a special dinner, and I want them to see that I have such an expensive vessel. I will keep the pot only for two or three days, and then I will return it to you.” Because her husband was the head of the village, the diver had to give it to her if he wanted to stay out of trouble.

O God, two or three days passed and the lady still did not return the pot. The diver was afraid and embarrassed to ask her for it because she was the wife of the village head. He said, “Something has to be done, but what can I do? I am helpless.”

Finally, the wife of the village head sent a vessel back to the diver. It was not a brass pot but an earthen pot, with a note inside. The note said, “One of my servants washed the pot and as soon as water touched it, it became earthen. I am very sorry that I am unable to return the pot to you the way I got it.”

When the diver got the note, he felt miserable. He said, “O God, she has played a trick! But how can I fight with the wife of the head of the village?”

Two years passed. One day, the wife of the village head was showing off her beautiful brass pot to her friends. She had just had another dinner and she was bragging to her friends while washing the pot in the pond, when all of a sudden the vessel dropped into the water.

Now it was necessary for somebody to dive into the water and find the pot. The village head was very clever. He told his wife, “If we call the village diver and he finds it, he will know that we told a lie.” So they called in another diver to look for the brass vessel. The diver spent hours and hours, but he was not as expert as the village diver and he could not find it. The village head was very mad at him and didn’t want to pay him.

The diver said, “I have spent so many hours looking for the pot. You didn’t say that you wouldn’t pay me if I didn’t find it. No! You must pay me.”

Finally the village head threw some money at him and said, “Get out! You are useless!”

The wife was feeling sad. She told her husband, “By this time I am sure that the village diver has forgotten that I took his pot. Anyway, he won’t be able to prove that it is the same vessel, and if our guards are watching him when he dives, how will he be able to take it back?”

So the village head called the diver and said, “Can you help us? We have dropped a beautiful brass vessel into the pond.”

The diver, who felt certain that it was the vessel they had taken from him, said, “Certainly I can help you. There is only one problem. Today I am running a very high fever. Do you think that tomorrow I will be able to do it? If you insist, I can do it today, but I am quite sick. If I go into the water, my condition will become infinitely worse.”

The village head said, “Already it has been sitting in the pond for a week. We can wait one more night.”

The diver said, “I will come back tomorrow without fail to find it!”

When the diver left, the wife of the village head began trembling. She said, “O God, what will happen if he tells people that we have taken this pot?” But after thinking for a moment, she continued, “We are so rich and powerful. We will easily be able to silence him if he argues with us.”

That night the diver secretly entered into the pond and found the lost brass vessel. Then he put into the water the earthen pot that the wife of the village head had given him two years before and took the brass pot home.

The following day the diver came to the village head and said, “Do you still want me to try to find the pot?”

“Yes,” said the village head.

The diver said, “I can’t assure you that I will be able to find it. In this world nobody is such an expert. If it is God’s Will, then only will I be able to find it.”

The village head said, “It is not God’s Will; it is my will that you find it. That is enough!”

“Certainly,” said the diver. “You are my lord, so there is no difference between your will and God’s Will.”

The village head was so flattered! He and his wife and children all went to the pond to watch the diver look for the pot. In ten or fifteen minutes the diver brought up the earthen pot.

The wife cried, “How can the pot be earthen? It was brass. How could this happen?”

The diver said, “I am sorry. This is what I found. You can ask somebody else to look if you like. Anyway, two years ago, when you were washing a brass pot that you had borrowed from me, it became earthen. If a brass pot turned earthen just from being washed, how can you expect a pot to remain brass after staying in water for a week? If you still feel that your brass vessel is inside the pond, then send someone else to find it!”

The village head and his wife got the point. That night, the village head went to the diver’s house and said, “What can I do? My wife is so fond of that brass vessel. I know my wife told you a lie about the pot two years ago, and I had to stand up for her. Now, for God’s sake, I want to keep my prestige. Take money from me, as much as you want. But just give me back the brass pot. I know it is yours, but let me buy it from you.”

The village head bought the pot and took it home. The following day he asked his friends and neighbours to come to his house to see the pot. He was such a rogue! He told them, “I gave the diver a very large amount of money to go look in the pond once more. You people were not there, but he went there and found the one that we had lost.”

The village head showed the pot to his wife and their friends and they all agreed that it was the same brass pot. “You see,” said the village head, “money talks!”

Deception started with the village head and his wife. The poor diver thought, “Tit for tat.” Afterwards, the village head made everybody think that the diver was a rogue, but the village head was the real rogue!