Bhima: The Bandit with Arithmetic

 

Bhima: The Bandit with Arithmetic

Almost every community carries legends of a Robin-Hood-like figure, passed down from generation to generation, polished a little each time. Such a figure is tough on the rich but gracious toward the poor, robbing the former to provide relief to the latter.

In my locality, we have such a legend: Bhima. His stories still run from mouth to mouth, one of which I recount here as I heard it from a beneficiary himself.

The poor fellow was called Babaji. Ten years earlier, he had borrowed fifty rupees from the moneylender, mortgaging his half-acre of land. The condition was simple yet cruel: as long as Babaji paid five rupees interest each year, at the rate of ten per cent per year, he would be allowed to till his land.

But the moneylender had his own peculiar arithmetic. It was nothing like the great Indian invention of zero that once expanded the horizons of human knowledge. His arithmetic was designed only to fatten his trade and tighten his grip. He would say:

“You took fifty rupees. The interest is five rupees. You pay me five rupees? Good. That makes your total outstanding fifty plus five plus five, which equals seventy. Next year, we will have the calculation afresh.”

Thus, every payment Babaji made, whether of interest or toward the principal, was perversely added to the outstanding. Over the course of a decade, Babaji had already paid a hundred rupees, yet the moneylender now demanded one hundred and fifty rupees more.

Babaji wanted to break free of this endless trap. He thought of selling his big brass pot, used for feeding the cow. On a Sunday, he walked eighteen kilometres to the weekly hat (market), determined to sell it for nothing less than one hundred and fifty rupees.

It was a full-moon night, so business stretched until late evening. But no one offered more than fifty. Finally, Babaji sold the pot for that amount and started walking back home, worried about how to arrange the remaining one hundred. Worse, he feared being waylaid by Bhima, the dreaded outlaw who was said to prowl even under moonlit skies.

Near midnight, Babaji reached the big banyan tree near Bhima’s village. To his horror, there stood Bhima himself. Babaji nearly collapsed in fright.

But Bhima did not snatch his money. Instead, he touched Babaji’s feet—a mark of respect for elders. He asked where Babaji was coming from and why he was so late. Villagers always had stories of woe to tell, and Babaji poured his heart out: the brass pot, the debt trap, the desire to breathe free like any citizen.

Bhima listened, calculated quickly, and declared: “By my reckoning, you have already paid five hundred rupees in these ten years.”

The storytellers in our area still praise Bhima’s arithmetic as much as his daredevil raids on the British treasury. In fact, he was imaginative, devising a suitable formula on the spot to achieve the desired result. He was going to apply one of his patented formulas in Babaji’s case to match, nay outdo, the moneylender’s.

That very night, Bhima marched Babaji to the moneylender’s house. The man trembled, expecting robbery. But Bhima reassured him:

“I haven’t come to loot you. I’ve come to teach you arithmetic.”

Under Bhima’s fierce gaze, the moneylender admitted every twist in calculation. Finally, he agreed—very reluctantly—to return three hundred and fifty rupees that he had unjustly taken over and above the ten per cent annual interest.

Even after admitting his trickery, the moneylender protested. “But, Bhima, the agreement was not ten per cent per year but ten per cent per month.”

Now Bhima raised his voice:

“In five minutes, you’ll see what comes next if Babaji doesn’t get his money.”

Fearing the worst, the moneylender yielded. Babaji was free at last from his decade-old debt. Besides, he got three hundred and fifty rupees from the moneylender, thanks to the fantastic arithmetic knowledge of Bhims.

As Bhima departed, he smiled and said, “I don’t usually practice my trade on full-moon nights. But for you, Babaji, I made an exception.”

Thus, lives on the legend of Bhima the outlaw—a man of courage, respect for elders, and uncommon arithmetic—who made the poor breathe freely again.

Even after finishing my story, I feel like saying something more:

Legends are not just stories; they are the mathematics of hope, recalculating justice where injustice multiplies unchecked.

-------------------------

By

Ananta Narayan Nanda

07-09-2025

Bhubaneswar

---------------------------