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The next day, Shashi Shekhara made a new proclamation, ‘The stepwell will be used as a
swimming pool for the prince and his friends. They can come any time they want. People
can also take as much water as they want. There will be no rationing from now on.’
Within hours, people were carrying as much water as they wanted. Rich people carried
more because they could bring a cart. In just two days, the water level started decreasing
rapidly and soon, an epidemic occurred in the entire kingdom. People started getting
high fever and vomited frequently. Their symptoms continued for days. No one realised
that this was because the water had been contaminated. Nothing could cure the
epidemic and people started dying.
Shashi Shekhara was taken aback. He spent money freely to get the best medicines for his
people and yet, he was unsuccessful at saving them. In four months, the kingdom was
reduced to just a few thousands of people who decided to boycott the prince. He lost his
parents, the kingdom’s crop and his soldiers.
Shashi Shekhara now became
worried about being conquered proclamation: a public or official announcement
by a bigger army. He hated the rationing: allowing each person to have only a fixed amount of something
epidemic: a widespread occurrence of a disease at a particular place or
stepwell. He thought it was the community
root cause of all the crisis and symptoms: indicators which might show the existence of something
contaminated: something that has been made impure or dirty
evil and ordered his guards to
fill it up with mud.
In less than a year, Somanayaka’s beautiful kingdom, Somanahalli was conquered by his
neighbours and all was lost.
I don’t know but this is what
I’ve heard from my elders.
Ajja, is all this
really true?
But one thing’s
for certain—never
disobey your elders’
words if they ask you
to take something
seriously.
And don’t forget, Nooni.
We should use our
natural resources like
water carefully.
—Sudha Murty
(Adapted from: The Magic of the Lost Temple)
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