The roaring tiger

Once a young man was returning after visiting his maternal uncle’s home. It was getting dark and he still had to cover five more miles, so he was getting a little worried. Then he saw a carriage and a driver about a hundred metres in front of him. The driver was sleeping inside the coach and his boss was resting in a field nearby.

The young man said to the driver, “Will you give me a ride in the carriage? Still my home is quite far and it is getting dark.”

The driver said, “How dare you even ask such a thing! I have to stay with my boss. What kind of audacity you have!”

The young man said, “Will you take me if I pay you?”

The driver asked, “How much can you pay me?”

“One rupee,” said the young man.

The driver laughed and laughed and laughed. Then the young man said, “Can you not ask your boss? Your boss may be generous.”

The driver saw that his boss was still sleeping and he didn’t dare to disturb him. So he told the young man, “I am sorry, but how can I wake up my boss? I can’t ask him.”

Then the young man started coughing uncontrollably. The boss heard the coughing and woke up. With folded hands the young man went to him and said, “Please forgive me for waking you, but I have no control over my cough. I understand that you are going past my village. You live a little farther away than I do. Will you be able to take me? I will give you money.”

The boss laughed at the young man. He was such a rich man that he certainly didn’t need this poor man’s money. But he didn’t want this fellow to go with him, so he asked him, “How much can you give me?”

The young man said, “One rupee.”

Again the rich man laughed and laughed. Then he said, “Unless you give me a hundred rupees, I will not take you.”

“How can you ask for a hundred rupees?” said the young man. “At most I can pay only three or four rupees. I have very little money. That’s why I am offering you only one rupee.” Then the young man said, “I tell you, I have a very special capacity. If you take me, I will be able to show you this capacity.”

The rich man asked, “What special capacity do you have? Why don’t you show me now?”

The young man said, “No! Only if you take me in your carriage will I show you.”

The rich man said, “Either you have to show me the capacity now or pay one hundred rupees if you want me to take you home.”

The young man said, “I don’t have one hundred rupees and I will show you the capacity only after we are in the coach.”

By this time it was quite dark. The rich man said, “Then I am going away.” Then he said to his driver, “Let me take a little more rest. Don’t bother me again with this kind of rascal! For half an hour I will lie down in the field and get some proper rest. In half an hour wake me up and then we shall go home.”

After five minutes, all of a sudden the rich man and his coachman heard a tiger roaring nearby and they started trembling. They looked around to see where the noise was coming from. The tiger roared more and more powerfully. The carriage was about a hundred and fifty metres away from them, so they didn’t dare run to it.

At one point the roaring stopped. The rich man said, “This is the time for us to enter into the coach. Then please drive as fast as possible before the tiger comes back and attacks us.”

They ran to the coach and drove away as fast as possible. When they came to the village where the young man lived, all of a sudden they saw the young man jump off the rear of the carriage. He had been secretly standing there while they were driving.

As the young man jumped off, he started roaring like a tiger. The young man said, “Now you have found the tiger. I told you that I had a special capacity. My special capacity is that I can roar like a tiger.” Then he threw one rupee into the carriage.