Submitted by Kavyta Raghunandan
In a forest in Mauritius, long ago, there lived a proud jackal who thought himself above all other creatures. He wore what he called gold earrings, which hung from his ears as if they were treasure. Every day, he would plant himself in the middle of the track and block the way of a small rabbit.
“Stop,” he would say. “Before you pass, you must bow before me and greet me as The King Who Sits on the Golden Throne.”
The rabbit was small. The jackal was not. Though the jackal had no throne, no crown, and no kingdom, day after day, she would lower her head and whisper the words, just to get by in peace. From the trees and the bushes, the other animals watched. No one said a word. But everyone saw. Until one day, the rabbit had enough.
That morning, she dug her burrow deeper, with a second exit on the far side. Then she set off down the path as usual. As expected, there sat the jackal, chest puffed out, blocking the way, his earrings catching the light.
“Stop,” sneered the jackal. “You know what to say.”
This time, the rabbit did not stop. She did not slow. She walked past him as though he were a fallen branch, as though he were nothing, as though he were not there. The animals in the trees held their breath. She’s going to get it today. The jackal stepped directly into her path.
“I said – STOP. Bow and call me The King Who Sits on the Golden Throne.”
The rabbit looked up at him. She looked closely at his earrings. She looked at where his feet were planted. Then she stood tall. Her nose twitched, and with a steady voice she spoke so that everyone in the trees could hear:
Sonē ki chautra, goohē lipalba; Dono kaane Ghongha Siyaar Sarwa Baithal ba.
Your golden throne is plastered with dung; Snail shells on both ears, damn rascal, you’re done.
The jackal’s jaw dropped. His fur bristled. “What?! How dare you!”
“Those earrings? Snail shells! That throne? A dunghill! You are nobody, and you have always been a nobody, and every creature in this forest has always known it.”
The jackal’s jaw dropped. Then his eyes narrowed. He lunged. But the rabbit was already running into her burrow, through to the other exit, out into the open air and gone. The furious jackal clawed and clawed at empty earth until his snail shell earrings shook loose and fell into the mud where they belonged.
From that day on, he never blocked the path again. And slowly, one by one, the animals came down from the trees.
The moral of the story is: Courage to speak truth can break a bully’s throne – even one built on nothing.
Notes:
This tale was told in Bhojpuri by a Hindu pandit to his grandchild in Mauritius, around the 1950s. It was told on a specific occasion. One of his grandchildren had been bullying smaller children at school. Her grandfather did not punish her. Instead, he picked her up from school and on the walk home, told her this story. His lesson: do not think yourself bigger than others, for the small one will always have their day, and no matter how big or small we are, we will all be humbled.
The phrase sone ki chautra, goohe lipalba — the rabbit’s words to the jackal — is what the family remembers most vividly, and still with laughter, sixty years on. The jackal’s gold earrings, it turns out, were never gold at all, just snail shells hung from his ears as if they were treasure. His throne, his jewels, his authority: all of it dung dressed up as gold.
The chautra — a raised mud platform, the traditional seat of the zamindar and village elder — carries particular weight in the context of an indentured community in Mauritius. The jackal’s golden throne is the coloniser’s judgment seat. The rabbit’s words dismantle it.
Sarwa, can mean brother-in-law in Bhojpuri, is used here as expressive slang, equivalent to rascal or damn fool. It is the word that tips the proverb from critique into full contempt.
This story has not been previously published. It is submitted from oral family memory, with its transmission context preserved as part of the record.
About Kavyta:
Dr Kavyta Raghunandan is a London-born and based writer and academic. She is a Senior Lecturer in Race and Education at Leeds Beckett University and an Associate Research Fellow at Institue of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Social Policy and a Senior Fellowship of Advance HE. Kavyta is of Mauritian and North Indian heritage, and her research spans decolonial education, South Asian cultural studies, and ecological knowledge. This submission is drawn from her mother’s oral memory of a story told by her grandfather, a Hindu pandit, in Mauritius in the early 1950s.