A man and his wife had seven sons and a single daughter. The family found a good match for her daughter and she was married into a good family. A while later, the young woman returned to her home to rest as she was pregnant. After a month’s stay, one of her younger brothers suggests she was sent back. Agreeing, the parents adorned her with new clothes and beautiful jewels and sent her back to her husband with her brother. This brother who was accompanying her was greedy, he killed his sister and stole her jewels and buried her in the forest. On his return he simply said that he had completed his task successful and dropped his sister off at her husbands.

Three months passed. The husband grew concerned and started questioning why his wife had not yet returned. He set out to visit his in-laws. On the way, he came across a flowering rose bush. Thinking to pick some flowers for his wife when he meets her, he reached out. Before he could pluck the flower, he heard singing-

“Don’t pluck me, my husband,
Don’t touch us!
My child and I were cut down.”

Startled and wondering if there was something wrong with the flowers in the first bush, he moved towards the second bush, but again a voice came:

“Don’t pluck me, father,
Don’t touch us!
Mother and I were cut down.”

Realising the truth, that she had been killed, he rushed to his in-laws. “She hasn’t returned in all this time. I haven’t been able to eat properly,” he said. Her family stood confused and said “Her brother took her home weeks ago.”

The husband requested his wife’s family, “Come with me. There’s something you must hear.”

They all went together to the place in the forest where the rose bushes stood. As each family member stepped forward to pick a flower, the bushes sang, calling them by their relationship to the murdered girl:

“Don’t pluck me, grandfather,
Don’t touch us!
My mother and I were cut down.”

“Don’t pluck me, grandmother,
Don’t touch us!
My mother and I were cut down.”

One after another, they all heard the singing. Finally, the murderer himself approached. The large bush cried out:

“Don’t pluck me, murderer,
Don’t touch me!
My child and I were cut down.”

And the smaller bush echoed:

“Don’t pluck me, murderer,
Don’t touch us!
My mother and I were cut down.”

The truth had come out, clear as day. The parents were furious and they cursed the brother- “You’ve murdered your own sister. Now you must die!” They beat him, cast him out of their home, and he too met a similar fate as his wronged sister, he soon perished.

A folk story from Tamil Nadu, sourced from ‘Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktale from the Oral Tradition‘ collected by Stuart Blackburn.

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