A very long time ago, a troop of monkeys lived happily in an enormous jungle. Their leader was a very wise monkey who took good care of his monkeys. They had enough fruit to eat and spent most of their time leaping from tree to tree and having fun.
Unfortunately, there were also many poisonous trees in this forest and diya rakusas (water ogres) lived in ponds and water holes.
Because of all this, the leader of the monkeys told his troop” never eat or drink anything you have not seen before without asking me first”.
One day, the monkeys ate many fruits and became very thirsty. But there was no water in sight. They leapt from tree to tree looking for water.
They finally saw a pond filled to the brim with water. The pond was so deep that its bottom could not be seen.
The water too was dark and murky almost black. Whether it was safe to drink from the pond.
The wise leader looked around and saw that though there were footsteps going down to the pond there were no footsteps coming back from it. The leader told his troop, “can you see?” There are footsteps going down to the pond but there are no footsteps returning. There is some mystery here. Don’t get into the water to drink it.”
The monkeys looked and saw that what their leader said was right.
“How can we drink water?" The monkeys asked their leader.
Now, hidden in the depths of the pond was the diya rakusa (water ogre) who lived there.
When he realised that the monkeys were not getting into the pond he rose to the surface and disguising himself as an innocent person, kindly invited the monkeys to get into the pond and drink the water.
The wise leader of the monkeys was not fooled and he thought about a way for the troop to drink the water safely without becoming victims of the diya rakusa.
His eyes fell on a clump of bamboo and he instantly had a brain wave. Staying on the ground, he broke a hollow bamboo shoot and putting one end into the water and placing the other end in his mouth, sucked the water through the bamboo shoot and drank it.
When they saw their leader doing this the other monkeys too did the same. Now, all were safely drinking water without getting into the water.
The intelligent monkey leader’s wise action saved all the monkeys from being harmed by the diya rakusa. An angry and disappointed diya rakusa sank down to his home in the murky depths of the water.