Once upon a time, there was a beggar. People said about him, “By God! This man has more holes in his character than his pocket.”
However, handsome as he was, even without a penny to his name. he married one woman after another, trapping them by his words into his charms.
His fellow villagers became irked at his behaviour when he married three women at once.
"You've managed to get married to three women simultaneously! Surely you are capable of feeding them on your own!” they barked at him whilst he roamed his village, begging for money.
It wasn’t long before he became the eyesore of his wives whom he could not feed. The three women put their minds together and hatched a plan. One of his new brides saved up for flour, the second saved up for oil, whilst the third saved up for poison.Together, they made three parathas and laced them with poison.
"Here you go, take these and leave for another village. No one is ready to spare a coin upon seeing your face here, you might as well try your luck in the next village", they told him.
"Remember to eat on the way!"
"Don't waste the food!"
They smiled and waved at their husband as he left.
He walked for hours through the deep forest to reach the nearest village. It felt as if his feet had given up on him, and his stomach was grumbling with hunger. He stopped by an odd-looking well and sat right next to it.
The man might have enjoyed three wives but had never seen three parathas at once. The sheer amount of food in front of his eyes overwhelmed him. He kept the three parathas in front of himself and began to talk to them.
"Oh how delicious the three of you look,” he said.
"Hmm. Whom do I eat first?", he continued.
Little did he know that the well was abandoned, and the abode of three jinns. They heard the beggar’s words from the depths of the well and had begun to tremble in fear.
"Oh great creation of God!", they cried out, "please spare us!"
The beggar became confused and took a look in the well to see the jinns shivering like twigs. Before he could explain they made him an offer.
"Lower down your turban and we shall fill it with riches in return for our lives."
The beggar complied and threw in his turban for the jinns to catch. They filled it with jewels unknown to men and a vast amount of gold.
The beggar grabbed his turban and returned to the village as a wealthy man. Leave alone his village, he was now perhaps, he was the richest man in the kingdom sans the royalty and the nobility.
However, he decided that being rich wasn’t worth it, so he exchanged all his newfound riches for a fourth wife, and went back to being a pauper.
Notes:
A paratha is a round, oily, flatbread, a staple food in Pakistan.
This is a Baloch fable, with the intended moral of keeping one’s priorities and character in check.