A Bottle of Dew By Sudha Murty

Class 06 English

Rama Natha was the son of a rich landlord. His father left him large tracts of land when he died. But Rama Natha did not spend even one day looking after his land.

This was because he had a funny idea - he believed there was a magic potion that could turn any object into gold. He spent all his time to learn more about this potion. People cheated him often, promising to tell him about it, but he did not give up. His wife, Madhumati, was tired of this and also worried because she saw how much money Rama Natha was spending. She was sure that soon they would be without money.

One day, a famous sage called Mahipati came to their town. Rama Natha became his follower and asked him about the potion. To his surprise the sage answered, “Yes, in my travels in the Himalayas, I heard how you could make such a potion. But it is difficult.”

“Tell me!” requested Rama Natha, not believing his luck.

“You have to plant a banana plant and water it regularly with your hands. In winter, the morning dew is on the leaves. You have to collect the dew and store it in a bottle. When you have five litres of dew, bring it to me. I will chant some magic words, which will turn it into the magic potion. A drop of the potion will change any object into gold.”

Rama Natha was worried. “But winter is only for a few months. It will take me years to collect five litres of dew.”

“You can plant as many banana plants as you want. But remember, you must look after them yourself and collect the dew with your own hands.”

II

Rama Natha went home, and after talking to his wife started cleaning his large fields, which had been lying empty all these years. There he planted rows and rows of banana plants. He tended them carefully and during the winter months collected the dew that formed on them with great care. His wife helped him too. Madhumati gathered the banana crop, took it to the market and got a good price for it. Over the years, Rama Natha planted more and more plants and they had a huge banana plantation. At the end of six years, he finally had his five litres of dew.

Carefully, he took the bottle to the sage. The sage smiled and muttered something over the water. Then he returned the bottle and said, “Try it out.” Rama Natha sprinkled a few drops on a copper vessel and waited for it to turn to gold. To his surprise nothing happened!

“This is cheating,” he told the sage. “I have wasted six precious years of my life.”

But sage Mahipati only smiled and called Madhumati to come forward. She came with a big box. When she opened it, inside shined stacks of gold coins!

Now the sage turned to the very surprised Rama Natha and said, “There is no magic potion that can turn things into gold. You worked hard on your land and created this plantation. While you looked after the trees, your wife sold the fruits in the market. That’s how you got this money. It was your hard work that created this wealth, not magic. If I had told you about this earlier, you would have not listened to me, so I played a trick on you.”

Rama Natha understood the wisdom behind these words and worked even harder on his plantation from that day on.