The Platinum Paddy Field

Once upon a time a land in southern Sri Lanka lived a great wise chieftain that everyone knew around the world. He had two daughters, happy and evil. One day the chieftain told his daughters that he will grow old and die soon and gave them all his property. When he died Evil was relieved as she hated him while happy was crying all day long. One day while walking in her property, Happy found a platinum paddy field full with platinum rice. She was overjoyed with this blessing. She prayed to god and this pleased him so he made some of the rice gold too.

Happy lived a happy life; she shared the rice with everyone and also her sister. Evil never worked, she loved the rice and lived by selling it all the time. One day, a thought came to her; she could kill Happy and get the paddy field to herself. She asked Happy to walk with her in the paddy field and when they reached the middle she took out a farmer knife and killed Happy. The god and the chieftain’s spirit saw this; they were very angry with what Evil did and cursed the whole paddy field to not grow a single grain of rice ever.

Evil suffered for 4 years without money and soon died of weakness. Happy was reincarnated as an elephant as she was kind, gentle wise and caring while Evil was born as a monitor lizard- angry and a pest. All her life, Evil was chased away from other farmer’s paddy fields while looking for grain and Happy enjoyed a prosperous life with every human giving her loads and loads of rice to eat all day long.