Kupti and Imani

There was once a king with two daughters named Kupti and Imani. He loved them both dearly and spent hours talking with them. One day he asked Kupti, the elder, “Are you content to leave your life and your fortune in my hands?”

“Of course,” said Kupti, surprised that he should ask. “Whose hands should I leave them in, if not yours?”

But when he put the same question to Imani, the younger, she said, “No, indeed! If I had the chance, I would make my own fortune.”

The king was very displeased with this answer. “You are too young to understand what you are saying,” he said. “But so be it. I will give you the chance you want.”

He sent for an old lame fakir, a holy beggar who lived in a tumbledown hut at the edge of the city. When the old man arrived, the king said to him, “You are very old and nearly crippled, so I am sure you would be glad of a young person to live with you and look after you. I will send you my younger daughter. She wants to earn her own living, and she can do it with you.”

The old fakir had nothing to say, or if he had, he was too astonished and worried to say it. But the young princess went off with him smiling and skipped along quite cheerfully, while he limped home beside her in puzzled silence.

As soon as they reached the hut, the fakir began wondering how to make the princess comfortable. But he was a fakir, after all, and his home held nothing but one bed, two old cooking pots and a clay water jar, and there is not much comfort to be had from those. The princess soon put an end to his worrying.

“Have you any money?” she asked.

“I have a penny somewhere,” said the fakir.

“Very well,” said the princess. “Give me the penny, and go out and borrow a spinning wheel and a loom for me.”

After a long hunt the fakir found the penny and went off on his errand, while the princess went shopping. She bought a farthing’s worth of oil and three farthings’ worth of flax. When she came home, she sat the old man on the bed and rubbed his lame leg with the oil for an hour. Then she sat down at the spinning wheel and spun all night while the old man slept, and by morning she had spun the finest thread anyone had ever seen. Next she went to the loom and wove all day, and by evening she had made a beautiful silver cloth.

“Now,” she said to the fakir, “take my cloth to the market and sell it while I rest.”

“And how much shall I ask for it?” said the old man.

“Two gold pieces,” said the princess.

So the fakir limped off and stood in the market with the cloth. Before long the elder princess drove past, and when she saw the cloth, she stopped and asked the price. “Two gold pieces,” said the fakir, and she paid them gladly, and the old man limped home with the money.

Imani did the same thing day after day. Each day she spent a penny on oil and flax, rubbed the old man’s lame leg, and spun and wove the most beautiful cloths, which sold for high prices. Little by little the city became famous for her lovely fabrics, the fakir’s leg grew straighter and stronger, and the hole under the floor of the hut where they kept their savings filled up with gold.

At last the princess said, “I really think we have enough now to live more comfortably.” She sent for builders, who built a beautiful house for her and the old fakir, and in the whole city only the king’s palace was finer. Word of it soon reached the king, and when he asked whose house it was, he was told that it belonged to his daughter.

“Well!” said the king. “She said she would make her own fortune, and somehow she seems to have done it!”

Some time later the king had to travel on business to another country. Before he left, he asked his elder daughter what present she would like him to bring back. “A ruby necklace,” she said.

Then the king thought he would ask Imani too, so he sent a messenger to find out what she wanted. The man happened to arrive just as she was trying to undo a knot in the threads of her loom. He bowed low and said, “The king has sent me to ask what you would like him to bring you as a present from the land of Dur.”

Imani, who was thinking only about how to loosen the knot without snapping the thread, said, “Patience!” She meant that the messenger should wait until she was free to listen to him. But he went away with that as her answer and told the king that the only thing Princess Imani wanted was patience.

“Oh!” said the king. “I don’t know whether that is something you can buy in Dur. I never had any myself. But if it can be found, I will buy it for her.”

The next day the king set off, and when his business in Dur was done, he bought Kupti a beautiful ruby necklace. Then he said to a servant, “Princess Imani wants some patience. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but go to the market and ask, and if any is for sale, buy it and bring it to me.”

The servant bowed and left. He walked up and down the market calling, “Has anyone patience to sell? Patience for sale?” Some people laughed at him, and some, who had no patience, told him to go away and stop being a fool, and some said, “The man is mad! As if anyone could buy or sell patience!”

Before long the king of Dur heard that a madman in the market was trying to buy patience. The king laughed and said, “I should like to see this fellow. Bring him to me!”

His attendants went at once to find the man and brought him before the king. “What is it you are looking for?” the king asked.

“Sire,” said the man, “I have been told to ask for patience.”

“You must have a strange master!” said the king. “What does he want it for?”

“My master wants it as a present for his daughter, Imani,” said the servant.

“Well,” said the king, “I know of some patience that the young lady might have, if she wants it. But it cannot be bought.”

Now the king’s name was Subbar Khan, and Subbar means “patience”. The messenger did not know this and had no idea the king was making a joke. But he told the king that Princess Imani was not only young and beautiful but also the cleverest, hardest-working and kindest of princesses. He would have gone on listing her good qualities if the king had not raised his hand, laughing, and stopped him.

“Well, well, wait a moment, and I will see what can be done,” said the king.

He went to his own rooms and took out a little box. He put a fan inside it, closed it carefully and brought it back to the messenger. “Here is a box,” he said. “It has no lock and no key, yet it will open only at the touch of the person who needs what is inside. Whoever opens it will get patience, though I cannot say whether it will be quite the sort of patience she wants.”

The servant bowed and took the box, but when he asked the price, the king would take nothing. So the man went back to his master with the box and the story of his adventure.

As soon as their father came home, Kupti and Imani were given their presents. Imani was very surprised when a messenger brought her the box. “But what is this?” she said. “I never asked for anything! I didn’t even have time, because the messenger ran off before I had untangled my threads.”

The servant insisted that the box was for her, so she took it with some curiosity and brought it to the old fakir. He tried to open it, but he could not. The lid fitted so tightly that it would not move at all, although there was no lock, bolt, spring or anything else that seemed to hold it shut. When he grew tired of trying, he handed it to the princess, and at her lightest touch it opened easily. Inside lay a beautiful fan. With a cry of delight, Imani took it out and began to fan herself.

She had made only three strokes with it when, out of nowhere, King Subbar Khan of Dur appeared in front of them! The princess gasped and rubbed her eyes, and the old fakir stared in such amazement that for several minutes he could not speak. At last he said, “Who may you be, kind sir, if you please?”

“My name,” said the king, “is Subbar Khan of Dur. This lady,” and he bowed to the princess, “has called me, and here I am!”

“I?” stammered the princess. “I called you? I have never seen you or heard of you in my life, so how could I?”

Then the king told them how he had heard of a man in Dur trying to buy patience, and how he had given him the fan in the box. “Both are magic,” he said. “When anyone waves the fan, I am with them by the third stroke. If they fold it and tap it on the table, I am home by the third tap. The box will not open for just anyone, but it was this lady who asked for patience, and since that is my name, here I am, at her service.”

Princess Imani, who was proud and high-spirited, wanted to fold the fan straight away and tap it three times to send the king home. But the old fakir liked their guest very much, so one way and another they spent a pleasant evening together before Subbar Khan said goodbye.

After that he was often called, and since he and the fakir both loved chess and were good players, they would sit up half the night over the board. In time a little room in the house came to be called the king’s room, and whenever he stayed late, he slept there and went home in the morning.

Before long Princess Kupti heard that a rich and handsome young man was visiting her sister’s house, and she was very jealous. So one day she went to visit Imani. She pretended to be very loving, and very interested in the house, in the way Imani and the fakir lived and in their mysterious royal visitor. As the sisters went from room to room, Kupti was shown the king’s room. A little later she made an excuse, slipped back in alone and quickly spread under the sheet on the bed a handful of finely ground poisoned glass, which she had hidden in her clothes. Soon afterwards she said goodbye, declaring that she could never forgive herself for staying away so long and that she would make up for it from now on.

That very evening Subbar Khan came and sat up late playing chess with the fakir as usual. At last, very tired, he said good night, but as soon as he lay down, the tiny splinters of glass pricked him all over, and he felt as if he were burning. He could not understand what was wrong, but he said nothing. He sat up all night, sick and miserable, and even more unhappy at the thought that he had been poisoned, as he guessed he had, in Imani’s own house. In the morning, though he was almost fainting, he still said nothing, and the magic fan carried him home. There he sent for every doctor in his kingdom, but none of them could tell what his illness was. For weeks and weeks he tried every cure anyone could think of, with sleepless nights and feverish days, until at last he was close to death.

Meanwhile Imani and the old fakir were very worried. However often they waved the magic fan, Subbar Khan did not come, and they feared he had grown tired of them or that something terrible had happened to him. In the end the princess was so unhappy with not knowing that she decided to go to Dur herself and find out what was wrong.

She dressed in men’s clothes, disguised as a young fakir, and set out alone, walking as a fakir is meant to walk. One evening, deep in a forest, she settled for the night beneath a huge tree. She could not sleep for thinking about Subbar Khan. After a while she heard two big monkeys talking in the branches above her.

“Good evening, brother,” said one. “Where have you come from, and what is the news?”

“I come from Dur,” said the other, “and the news is that the king is dying.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” said the first, “for he is a fine hand at hunting leopards and other creatures that ought not to be allowed to live. What is wrong with him?”

“No man knows,” said the second monkey. “But the birds, who see everything and carry all the news, say he is dying of poisoned glass that Kupti, the king’s daughter, spread on his bed.”

“That is sad news,” said the first monkey. “If only they knew it, the berries of this very tree we are sitting in, soaked in hot water, would cure that illness in three days at most.”

“True,” said the other. “It is a pity we cannot tell some man about such a simple medicine and save a good man’s life. But men are so silly. They lock themselves inside stuffy houses in stuffy towns, when they could live up in pleasant breezy trees, and so all the best things pass them by.”

When Imani heard that Subbar Khan was dying, she began to cry quietly. But as she listened, she dried her tears and sat up, and as soon as it was light, she gathered berries from the tree until her cloth was full. Then she walked on as fast as she could, and two days later she reached the city of Dur.

The first thing she did was walk through the market calling, “Medicine for sale! Is anyone ill who needs my medicine?”

One man said to his neighbour, “Look, there’s a young fakir selling medicine. Perhaps he could do something for the king.”

“Pooh!” said the other. “Where so many old greybeards have failed, what use would a boy like that be?”

“Still,” said the first, “he might try.” He went over and spoke to Imani, and together they went to the palace and announced that another doctor had come to try to cure the king.

After some delay Imani was taken to the sickroom. She was so well disguised that the king did not know her, and he was so thin and worn by his illness that she hardly knew him. But full of hope, she began at once. She asked for some rooms to herself and a pot to boil water in. When the water was hot, she soaked some of the berries in it and gave it to the king’s servants, telling them to wash him with it.

After the first washing the king slept peacefully all night. On the second day she did the same, and this time the king said he was hungry and asked for food. After the third day he was quite well, though very weak from his long illness. On the fourth day he got up and sat on his throne, and he sent for the doctor who had cured him.

When Imani came in, everyone marvelled that so young a man could be so skilled a doctor, and the king wanted to give him huge sums of money and all kinds of treasures. At first Imani would take nothing. At last she said that if she must have a reward, she would ask for the king’s signet ring and his handkerchief. Since she would accept nothing more, the king gave her his ring and his handkerchief, and she left and hurried home to her own country.

A little while after she got home, when she had told the fakir all her adventures, they called Subbar Khan with the magic fan. When he appeared, they asked him why he had stayed away so long, and he told them all about his illness and how he had been cured. When he finished, the princess stood up, opened a cupboard, took out the ring and the handkerchief and said, laughing, “Are these the rewards you gave your doctor?”

The king looked, and he knew her, and in a moment he understood everything. He jumped up, put the magic fan in his pocket and declared that nobody would ever send him back to his own country unless Imani came with him as his wife.

And so it was settled. The old fakir and Imani went to live in the city of Dur, and Imani married the king, and they were very happy.

Where this tale comes from

Andrew Lang printed this tale in The Olive Fairy Book (1907), marking it at the end as a Punjabi story. His text explains the joke at the heart of it: the king’s name, Subbar, means “patience”.

Kupti’s attempt to poison the king with ground glass is kept, because Imani’s journey to cure him depends on it, but the king’s suffering is described much more briefly here than in Lang’s version.

Read the original: Andrew Lang, The Olive Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg #27826, Kupti and Imani)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult preview; includes a parent’s punitive rejection, an attempted poisoning with glass and a prolonged near-fatal illness. The cure is magical fiction.

A closer reading

Imani’s first success is collaborative as well as industrious. The fakir supplies the penny and borrows tools; she spins and weaves; he carries the cloth to market. Her father had treated independence as a punishment, but the new household becomes a partnership. Making one’s fortune here does not mean having no help.

The word ‘patience’ travels without its context. Imani asks a messenger to wait while she untangles thread; he turns that request into an item to buy. The joke works because each person acts confidently on an incomplete understanding, until Subbar Khan recognizes a possibility that the messenger misses.

The second half changes Imani from a skilled maker into an investigator. She travels because the fan’s failure does not explain the king’s absence. The monkeys supply information, while the ring and handkerchief later establish her identity through objects the king can recognize. The magical cure is a fairy-tale device, not evidence that unidentified berries can treat poisoning.

The ending gives Imani a marriage but leaves Kupti’s accountability unresolved. Readers can also question Subbar Khan pocketing the fan and declaring his terms: his gratitude does not replace Imani’s choice. A happy closing sentence need not prevent discussion of whose wishes are spoken and whose are assumed.

Try this with the story

Trace the message ‘patience’ through Imani, the messenger, her father and Subbar Khan. Write what each thinks it means. Then compare two kinds of proof: the messenger’s report and the ring with the handkerchief. Which misunderstandings could a follow-up question have prevented?

Talk about it

• Who contributes to Imani’s first business success?
• Where does the meaning of ‘patience’ change?
• Why does Imani travel when the fan no longer brings the king?
• What do the ring and handkerchief prove?
• What remains unresolved about Kupti and the marriage decision?

Related stories

• Jackal or Tiger? — another tale from The Olive Fairy Book with talking animals who give away a secret
• Dorani — another Punjabi fairy tale from the same book
• The Clever Wife — another Indian story about a clever woman who puts things right