The Story of Two Brothers

 Hello, everyone.

    I am reposting this story as for some reason it has been deleted.

    It's the story of two brothers who had some misunderstanding. Read on and find out how they got rid of that misunderstanding.

  

 THE STORY OF TWO BROTHERS

    Once upon a time, there were two brothers who lived in India. They had a grocery shop in one of the villages. The older brother whose name was Mahesh had a very lazy wife and the younger brother whose name was Ramesh had a very hardworking wife. They sold all sorts of foodstuff in their shop, e.g. lentils, beans, rice, sugar and so on. Both the brothers worked very hard.

    They both lived in separate houses. They trusted each other very much. The younger brother Ramesh kept the keys to the shop as he always managed to get to the shop very early and open it. The older brother Mahesh would come a bit later.

    Now, one day it happened that it was lunch time and both went home. The Mahesh had bought some sweetmeat earlier to take at home and he had forgotten that in the shop. He remembered that when he had nearly reached his home. He wanted the sweetmeat at lunch and so he turned and went to his brother’s house.

   He knocked on the door and his sister-in-law opened the door. She welcomed him warmly and led him to the dining room. What he saw there made him stand rooted to the spot. There were all kinds of dishes on the table. There was rice, curry, chapattis and sweet pasta as well. He went very pale and then anger surged in him because he thought that his brother had been stealing from the shop as his wife had cooked so many dishes, but he did not say anything.

    “Welcome, Brother!” Ramesh said, warmly. “Have lunch with us.”

    Mahesh not wanting to show his anger, just made an excuse.

    “No, I’m sorry I can’t have lunch with you,” he said. “My wife will be waiting for me. I just came to ask you to give me the keys as I have forgotten to take my sweetmeat that I bought in the shop.”

    “Of course,” said the younger brother. “Here you are. But why do you look so pale? Is anything wrong?”

    “No, nothing is wrong;” he said with a wry smile and added scornfully. “What can be wrong when your much loved ones stab you in the back.”

    Ramesh did not understand why his brother said such a thing, but he did not say anything and just kept quiet.

    Mahesh took the keys and went away.

    Now, what had happened? The brothers kept all the sacks of rice, lentils and other stuff on a sort of a wooden platform. When they were serving the customers some of the food was bound to fall down on it. The brothers used to collect all the stuff that had fallen on the platform and divided it between the two and took that home to their wives.

    Mahesh was shocked because his wife cooked the same thing every day. The reason being she was a lazy woman and she just tossed all the grains in a pot and boiled them together with some spices. When the older brother asked her why she did not cook anything apart from that she would make an excuse and say, “ How can I cook anything else? All the grains are mixed and it is next to impossible to separate them.”

   That is why when he saw his brother Ramesh eating all the good things he thought surely he was stealing from the shop. That is why he commented about being stabbed in the back.

    Now Mahesh began to treat his brother Ramesh very badly. He was scornful to him and he took away the keys from him because he thought that he came back later and took all the things that he wanted and that was why his wife was able to cook everything.

   

    Ramesh could not understand Mahesh’s behavior. It upset him and hurt him deeply to think that his own brother should treat him like this when he had done nothing wrong whatsoever.

    One day, the rice was almost finished in the shop and Ramesh reminded Mahesh about it.

    “Brother, the rice is almost finished in the shop,” he told Mahesh. “Don’t you think we should go and buy that as quickly as possible? We don’t want our customers to turn away.”

    “And why shouldn’t it get finished so fast?” He asked with a snort. “The way it is being used by us is enough to finish the whole shop.”

   This hurt the younger brother very much. He couldn’t take it anymore.

    “Brother, with due respect,” he said, “Why are you being so cruel to me? What have I done to deserve such treatment?”

   

 “Why don’t you ask yourself?” Mahesh replied. “You are enjoying yourself, aren’t you? You are eating all the good food that you steal from the shop.”

     “I don’t understand,” replied Ramesh very much, puzzled. “Why would I want to steal when what we share in the evenings is more than enough for us?”

    “Well, then, how come your wife is able to cook different kinds of food every day?” Mahesh asked, angrily. “We take all the mixed stuff. The rice and the lentils and everything are all mixed up. Can you explain that?”

    Now it dawned on Ramesh why his brother was angry. He smiled at his brother.

    “Do you want to know the secret of my wife’s cooking?” Ramesh asked. “You just go to my house in the afternoon and you’ll get the answer.”

    That afternoon, Mahesh made an excuse of going to see his sister-in-law on accounts of not seen her for a very long time.

    When he reached there he knocked on the door and his brother’s wife opened the door. She welcomed him warmly and offered him a seat. He went inside and he saw something very puzzling there. There was a big round tray on the floor and in this was the entire foodstuff the brothers divided in the evenings. After welcoming the brother she took the tray and sat down with it in her lap. Around her were many small bowls into which she was separating and putting different kinds of grains.

    “What are you doing, Sister-in-law?” he asked her.

    “I’m separating the grains so that I can cook many kinds of food,” she explained. “I get rice, lentils and wheat by doing that. Once I have separated the wheat from the other grains I will take it to the mill to grind it into flour so that I can make chapattis, you see.”

    Mahesh felt as if the earth would give way and he would fall in it. He felt so ashamed of himself. He understood now how his brother was able to eat good food and he couldn’t. His own wife was so lazy she just cooked everything together and did not bother to separate to make anything else. He felt a lump come into his throat and had to swallow hard.

    “I think I’ll go now,” he said. “I just came to ask after your health. Goodbye.”

    With that he left leaving his sister-in-law very much puzzled. She shrugged her shoulders and carried on with her work.

 

    He went straight to the shop and apologized to his brother for his mistake.

    “I am so sorry brother for being so mean to you” he said lowering his head. “It never occurred to me you could do anything with the foodstuff we got. I have gotten tired of eating the same things every day. Sorry brother it won’t happen again.” 

    “It is alright, brother,” said Ramesh. “It happens. How about if I invited you and my sister-in-law for dinner on Saturday?”

    Mahesh smiled and agreed.

    “Thank you, brother” said he. “I would certainly like to come and eat my sister-in-law’s cooking. Who could resist that?”

    Then both the brothers laughed.

    From that day onwards, the brothers always asked each other if they were in doubt about anything at all.