The Bachelor Giant And The Orphan Kitu
On the beautiful hill stood the more beautiful castle. There lived the king, the queen, their wise ministers, and smart soldiers, and the most beautiful sweet little princess. Kitu could see the castle from his distant village when fog or cloud did not blind the horizon. Often people from faraway villages went in batches to the castle to pay their respect to the kind king, to marvel at the queen clad in gold, and to say hello to the princess who always smiled and smiled like the rainbow. "Will you kindly take me with you?" Kitu at times would propose to the travelers. "I want to play with the princess." "Listen, kid, we have to cross a forest where tigers frolic as freely as the kitten does in your village and beyond that a river in which crocodiles swim as freely as fish in your village ponds. There is then a mountain to climb. And, for your information, a princess does not play. She only shines. You better keep playing with your woodpecker, haha!! Keep playing with your woodpecker, do you understand?" This is all Kitu had for a reply. A little embarrassed, he would keep quiet. He no doubt had a great friend in a woodpecker. But he did not understand why people should make fun of it. He knew so many fellows who, human in form though, were as cunning as jackals or as greedy as pigs. What if a woodpecker was as wise or as clever as a man?
It was near a brook on a small hillock behind the village, where a variety of wildflowers bloomed, that Kitu had made friendship with the woodpecker. He had no father or mother, no brother or sister to give him company and a little love. The villagers very kindly gave him food, but that was all they did. The children looked upon him as some sort of an outcast, for, while they had parents to buy them frocks and ribbons or pants and shoes, he had none. What should he do if not pass time near the brook in the company of the woodpecker? What the villagers did not know was that Kitu could understand the language of the woodpecker. The bird rose high, sometimes even needling up its way through the clouds, and saw a lot of things around and told about them to Kitu. True, Kitu did not see when a fire broke out in a part of the forest or when an infant eagle soared into the sky for the first time. But he was so thrilled to hear of all that from his friend that soon he believed that he had seen them himself. And in course of reporting the events that took place around, while perched on the top of a palm tree, one day the woodpecker suddenly fell silent in the middle of a sentence. After an ominous pause, it said, "I'm afraid, a great calamity has befallen the king. I can see a giant confronting him." "A giant is it? They are rather cruel, I've heard. I hope the one you see doesn't harm the good king," Kitu expressed concern. "They hardly do anything if not harm people. I'm sorry to say, he seems to have grown angry with the king. The king has fled into his castle. My God, he and all the inmates of the castle seem to have swooned away. The giant has no doubt thrown a spell on them," informed the woodpecker.
"That is sad. What might have happened to the princess who smiles like the rainbow?" Kitu asked. But the woodpecker, instead of replying to Kitu, shrieked out, "The giant is heading this way. If he continues doing that he will no doubt reach your village before long. And who does not know that gulping down human beings was a great sport for the giants!" "I must warn the villagers," said Kitu and he ran and told whoever he saw in the village, "A giant is rushing up this way, Beware!" "Haha! Hear the madcap! We haven't heard of any giant since our great-great-great grandfather's time!" observed the people. But soon there were some woodcutters who came running from the forest reported while struggling for breath, that they indeed heard a terrible roar and the sound of trees being uprooted and trampled upon. The people lost no time in deserting the village. They carried away their children and their aged with them, but no one cared to think of Kitu. "What should I do?" Kitu went back to the hillock and asked the woodpecker. "Hm! That is the most serious question I've hitherto heard," said the woodpecker. "You can't possibly hide from this giant. As it is, the giants are good at smelling, but this particular giant is sporting an extraordinary nose. Better you meet him before he finds you out." "Meeting the giant, is it? No, no, my friend, I'm least willing to do that," Kitu protested, on the verge of tears. "A woodpecker does not befriend a coward!" uttered the bird gravely and that made Kitu exercise greater control over his facial muscles.
The woodpecker then hopped down to Kitu's shoulder and, believe me, not even the flowers or leaves around could hear what were the words its beak delivered right into the inner chamber of Kitu's ear. The giant was relaxing against a rock when Kitu climbed it and jumped on to his head which was neither smaller nor softer than the rock. "Hello, giant, I'm Kitu here, another giant, right on your head!" Kitu announced. "Another giant? On my head? But I feel no weight!" remarked the giant with surprise. "How can you? Am I not holding on to a cloud so that I do not crush you?" answered Kitu. The giant was about to move his hand on his head. But Kitu jumped down just in time. As he did so he upturned a bag of dust which he carried. He stood on a slab of stone and the dust hung around him for a moment. "This is the trouble. Whenever I jump on to a rock, much of it goes up in dust. It is my weight, you know!" said Kitu. "I should say I don't know! You are so small, not unlike a human child, yet you mean to say you are so heavy!" observed the giant. "We are a species by ourselves. We remain small for the first four hundred years of our life. Then we begin to grow and grow into twice the size of the banian trees. In fact, in our community, I am the only child giant. All others have grown big. You are the closest to me in size and that is why I came to befriend you," said Kitu. "But only equals can be friends. Don't you see how bigger and stronger than you I am?" said the giant. "Bigger you are at the moment, but not stronger. Look here!" said Kitu and he leaped up and pinched the giant's navel. At first, the giant did not feel anything. But "Ouch! Ouch!!" he cried out the next moment. What had happened was, the woodpecker had entered the navel and had started pecking into it. "Ouch! Ouch!!" the giant screamed again and the woodpecker quietly crept out. The giant's tummy was too gigantic to show the woodpecker to him.