Once Bhupendra Prasad asked his daughter-in-law, “Can you guess how much I spent on your wedding?” “About the cost of a sack of rice,” she replied. He thought she was a nitwit. He asked her to explain it. “What you spent on the essentials of the marriage amounted to a few hundred rupees only,” answered the woman, “The rest you spent to enhance your prestige that was not on the marriage but on yourself.” A few weeks later, they all met up with a funeral procession when the daughter-in-law asked a mourner, “Is it just one corpse or a hundred?”
Bhupendra was greatly embarrassed and asked the reason for her folly. She told, “Some people have many dependents. When they die, their dependents also die.” Then they came upon labourers working in a field. “Are you reaping this year’s harvest or last year’s?” asked the daughter-in-law. He was angry. But she explained, “These labourers are perennially in debt. I was enquiring whether they were working to pay off the last year’s debt or had paid it all and were beginning anew.” Bhupendra was highly impressed by her intelligence and wisdom.
