The idiom ‘Like Kaluwa went to Marapana’ is from Sinhalese folklore for recognizing the visionless actions of people. The backstory of this idiom is quite interesting, and it is one of the idiom stories that also brings a moral lesson as well as a good sense of humor. If you are looking for folktale stories with moral lessons or funny folktales, this will meet your requirements. And also, since this story is appropriate for any age group, it will make a good funny story or bedtime story for kids too.
Since ancient times, in most of the Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, there are fellow men who serve the priests and stay in the temple. They do whatever the monks ask them to do and depend on the temple for food and shelter. Once upon a time, in one temple, there was such a man. His name was Kaluwa. He was quite famous in the village for his carelessness and silly actions. However, the head priest of the temple kindly let Kaluwa depend on the temple and took Kaluwa’s support for daily tasks in the temple.
One day, the head priest of the temple needed to send Kaluwa to Marapana, a distant village, the next morning. So, the monk went to inform Kaluwa about this much-needed journey in the evening, as he had to be ready for it by the early morning. The monk looked for Kaluwa. He was sweeping the compound. So, the monk walked to Kaluwa.
“Kaluwo, remember you have duty tomorrow morning. You have to go to Marapana,” the head priest said.
“Okay, our priest.” Kaluwa replied politely.
The monk went back to the temple house and prepared the essentials for Kaluwa’s journey. Kaluwa continued cleaning the temple yard.
Then the next morning, the monk woke up and started looking for Kaluwa to send him to Marapana. But Kaluwa was nowhere to be found. The monk thought he had gone somewhere, even though he was reminded of the important journey.
In the evening, when the monk was sweeping the compound, Kaluwa came. He was breathing fast. “Where have you been?” the monk asked Kaluwa. “I went to Marapana,” Kaluwa replied.
Monk reminded Kaluwa early that he has a job to do tomorrow. But Kaluwa had taken it wrong. He had gone to Marapana early in the morning and came back. From this incident forward, when someone is doing something without brains, without proper attention, or without vision, people say, “Kaluwa Marapana Giya Wagey,” like Kaluwa went to Marapana.