A short folklore

Growing up was filled with stories – some made sense and some didn’t but when you were a kid with a vivid imagination you fell for everything and every story that was told to you visualized it in detail. I think as I got older I realized what the stories were and the lessons that it entails. The following account about the crying rice crust is no exception. When I was told this story years ago – I actually visualized the voice of the rice and that it had a face – weird I know but I have always been the odd one out in the family for a lot of viable reasons but anyways I just wanted to share this story and the lesson that I think it brought me …

So a couple of days ago while I was cleaning the rice pot, there were rice crust from the previous nights rice, it was thick and I had to soak it to get it out (and the rice pot claimed it was non stick) anyways, while I was trying to get it out I remembered a story about it and I suddenly it was as if the rice said save us save us (yeah at this point people might think I’m nuts ), anyways, according to my grandmother, the kerak or the rice crust stuck to the pan has a story behind it. One upon a time a long long time ago, a cleaning lady was cleaning some pots and pans at a rich mans house. While she was doing that, she heard some cries, she wasn’t sure where the cries came from so she continued cleaning, then the cries got louder, this caught her attention and she went around looking for the source only to find a big piece of dried rice crying on the ground.

The rice crust said to her not to abandon it and to take it home and if the lady did she will be blessed with wealth and abundance. To good to be true the lady thought but she brought the rice crust home anyways. She kept the rice crust in a safe place. As days passed noting happened but suddenly it seems her wealth started to come from all directions and she became a very rich woman. In spite of her wealth she remained the humble house cleaner she once was and she still kept that piece of rice crust.

When I was told the story, I was imagining so many things, the talking rice crust, the look on the lady’s face, the voices of these two characters – I was so taken in by it and actually believed the story – whether it is true or not is yet to be known but I know the moral of it . It’s about not wasting food especially rice. Rice is ‘rezki’ or our bounty, fortune. Throwing rice away is like throwing our fortune away. I have been brought up believing that and now when I have left over rice, stale rice or rice crust, I pack in a little plastic bag and send it over to my grandma’s so the birds can eat it. Yup you read right birds, there is a flock of birds that keep coming to my grandma’s so my uncle gives them bread and when there is rice they get rice. No waste here just a bunch of birds getting food to eat – I think the rice is a happy camper …

And that was a really short folklore, an old wives tale or just a lesson to be learnt from the elderly whatever it is I think the story has served its purpose in reminding us about the ‘life’ in other things and how it directly or indirectly affect ours.