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.
"To be frank, I have come to this part of the world for the first time," confessed the giant, looking quite impressed with Kitu. "And I hope, you go back safe," sighed Kitu, and then, lowering his voice, he muttered as if to himself, "I don't understand why my father must make a dinner out of every foreign giant that strays into our land. They hardly taste better than human beings, I bet." "Little giant! I've observed what you told yourself just now. Where is your father, by the way?" asked the giant with some anxiety. "Enjoying a nap. Why, can't you hear him snore?" said Kitu pointing a finger southward. The wind blew from the south and the roar of the sea could be distinctly heard. The giant heard the sound attentively for a moment. His face grew longer and longer. However, he managed to smile showing a lot of his shovel-like teeth and said, "Little giant, I'm no fool. I'm not going to loaf about here till your father wakes up. I will soon depart if you help me just a little." "What do you want me to do?"
"Well, I'm a bachelor and I heard from some traveling crows that the princess of the castle yonder should make an excellent bride for me. That brought me here. But the foolish king won't agree to my proposal," the giant sounded sad. "But, listen to me, bridegroom giant, the princess is so small! How can she suit your stature?" "Ha, ha!! Now, look at my nose. This, to tell you in confidence, is my powerhouse. If I breathe out on any creature for seven and half times, he or she shall become as large as myself. My nose can also emit a kind of vapor which puts people to sleep. In fact, I have sprayed all the inmates of the castle with the vapor. But the pity is, I can't enter the castle. The giants of my race are scared of nothing except the dogs, and the king has a ferocious dog inside the castle." "What do you wish me to do?" Kitu repeated his question. "If you too are not scared of dogs, I will drop you into the castle. If you can kill the dog and open the gate for me, I can steal away the sleeping princess," was the giant's reply. "That is easy. Should I not do this much for a friend?" "O little giant, I am so grateful to you. Now, come on, let's run towards the castle," said the demon and he began to run. He would have far outpaced Kitu had Kitu not been smart enough to hand on to his belt as soon as he turned back. The woodpecker flew overhead. The giant crossed the forest in strides and hopped over the river and ran up the mountain till he came to halt before the castle. Instantly Kitu left his hold of the giant's belt and jumped on to the wall that encircled the castle.
The giant got no chance to lift him up and drop him into the castle, feeling his real weight in the process. The giant was amazed to see Kitu already standing on the wall with his hands on his waist. "I see, you can run as fast as myself!" commented the giant. "And without gasping for breath as you do!" said Kitu proudly. "You are remarkable, really!" the giant complimented, "Now, please slip into the castle and do the needful." Kitu found a place high enough to make a safe landing. All was quiet in the castle. But soon he heard a bark. "There must be a sword galore near the sleeping guards. Pick up one and kill the dog," shouted the giant from outside. But instead of killing the dog, Kitu looked at it with love and the dog soon stopped barking. Kitu fondled it and the dog realized that a friend had arrived. The woodpecker gave out a screeching sound. "The dog is killed, is it? Fine. Now, open the door for me!" The giant's voice betrayed impatience. The woodpecker set about to carve a round hole through the door. As soon as that was done, Kitu shouted to the giant, "I can't reach the keyhole. Will you please thrust your nose through this hole and breath out seven and half times on me so that I can grow big enough to open the door? I do not hear my father's snore. As your wellwisher, I should like you to depart with the princess before he arrives here." The giant thrust his nose in and breathed out seven and half times. But it was on the dog that he breathed. The dog swelled up to a terribly big size. Then suddenly it clamped its teeth on the giant's nose and bit it off!
The giant gave out an ear-splitting and appalling shriek the like of which had never been heard. All the inmates of the castle woke up from the spell. Some of them swooned away again when they saw the dog. But Kitu hurried to present a brief report of all the events to the king and the amazed courtiers. As they heard him, the dog slowly but surely returned to its old familiar size. At last, when the castle door was opened, what they saw was not a dead giant but a living one, although shrunk to the size of an imp. "With my nose gone, gone is my stature," lamented the puny creature. "As I am now, I cannot return to my faraway land. I will remain happy if the king gives me a handful of rice to eat every day and a few boiled potatoes." He was duly maintained by the state in a glittering cage, till his death. Thousands came to see him a little being with all the features of a giant something like the Japanese pygmy trees. Kitu was hailed as the savior of the royal family and people. He lived in the finest guest house of the castle until he moved into the inner apartment, as the husband of the sweet princess. And, on becoming the king, he did not dismiss any of his father-in-law's old ministers but, the princess excepting, none knew that his real adviser was the woodpecker who lived in the royal garden.
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