PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE

PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE

His name was Haricharan abot 3o years of age wnen this story started,. It was1940 -41 and I was a village-boy of 10 --11. It was the time of war beyond ,on the world -stage and Starvation and Famine all around us .Haricharan was a boat- man handsomely tall , strongly bulit but known to be lazy . He with his wife and a child was living in a kachha -house about half- a- mile from our place and on the bank of a narrow canal and his land -lord happened to be our close relative where I often used to visit to play with the boys of my age.
Harcharan had no land nor garden -space .He would have to be pushed out often by his wife to go to the near by river for getting some one to be carried to the other side or beyond for his earning . But he had great craze for the meat of totoize and would often borrow eight anas or a rupee for a feast

That day , when this story unfolds , they had no rice nor vegitable in the house and Haricharan's wife was shouting at the top of her voice with all permissible, even disallowed adjectives to tell him about his sense of irresponsibilities and lazyness. Haricharan was silently enjoying his hukka while all the abusive words slipped past him .

Finaly when his temper themostatically went up heated enough , he got up quick ,left without returning wife's verbal assault and reached my aunty's house..waited . pleaded and got one rupe as a loan and rushed to the market about 2 miles from our place to buy some rice and salt.
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It was a day of good luck for Haricharan. A man came to th market with 3 or 4 tortoises to sell. He got one with 10 anas ,also some potato -onion and even some sweet. and came back home --proud..
Seeing only turtle and no rice his wife started firing her missiles onece again and more noisily. Haricharan went on preparing his hukka for anothr jolly-good-smoke and finally shouted bsck on her and told her to' shut up' and retuned --"what is the issue now ?'
His wife shouted back - are you ever going to have anything worth in your head. There is no rice to eat in the house and you have come back with a turtle borrowing that ruppee from the sahab. What shall you chew it with ? '

Haricharan looked calm and confident and poured his wisdom at last --' see you fool ? I have my better plan . You prepare the meat . Now I shall go to Some other babu- to borrow 2 seers of rice and shall come back soon. Can 'tyou ,fool, see my plan ? I can borrow rice from any one in my village but can I ever borrow a turtle ? '

She stared dumb and fumbled for something to say but was made siilent by his wisdom.