In this episode, we’re finally going to start on a series that I’ve waited to begin on for a while. It’s the Singhasan Battisi. This is a series of 32 stories, all featuring a Throne, and that’s literally what Singhasan Battisi means. Today we’ll start by introducing the framing narrative and then cover one of the stories. But the remaining 31 stories we’ll cover gradually over future episodes.
The chief character today, besides the throne itself, is Raja Bhoj. Raja was not his first name. Raja is the Hindi word for King. Now, you probably want to know what kind of a King Bhoj was. Where did he fit on our King scale? The answer is that so far he has been a very middle-of-the-road or 50th percentile, King. He hadn’t been evil enough to abandon his child in a dark forest or to unleash a deadly scorpion on his brother. But on the negative side, he hadn’t done anything to earn much of a reputation, which was because he hadn’t abandoned a child or murdered a sibling. He had never made Page 3 – the gossip page. He was a mediocre King at this stage of his rule. That would change, but the catalyst for that came from the legacy of an older and wiser King who did make Page 3 regularly, and who in fact did relieve his brother of the potential stress of managing a Kingdom. By killing him with the scorpion I mentioned earlier. This was King Vikramaditya.
Now Bhoj’s story is several centuries after Vikramaditya’s. Vikramaditya is well known for the Vikram and Betaal stories, several of which we have covered before. But Vikram was also quite a legend, known for his wisdom and bravery.
Bhoj would have liked to be a great King himself like Vikram had been. Little did he know he was soon going to get that opportunity. It happened one day, as he was taking a walk in his Kingdom. It was a good pastime for a King to connect with his subjects. So he would pick a different section and stroll there. With his usual followers of ministers, soldiers, water boys, tourist guides, cartographers, and a bunch of other people.
They passed by a farm they had not crossed before but the farmer there had a bit of a reputation. He was a cantankerous guy who would get easily annoyed at the slightest of things.
To take an example, the other day he had beaten his cow for giving him 3 buckets of milk instead of 2. He had shouted at his shoeshine boy for polishing his left shoe before his right one. And he had sent an angry letter to the King whom he considered solely responsible for the lightning strike that hit an old oak tree in his yard.
These visits were usually a surprise, so the farmer had no idea they were coming. The King and his companions saw the farmer sitting on a kind of little hill. Knowing the farmer’s temper, they approached cautiously. But something seemed a little off. The farmer seemed a little cheerful. An odd emotion for someone who was supposed to be a very unfriendly person.
The King introduced himself, which strictly speaking was not necessary when your face is stamped on all the currency. But I guess he did it quickly and strictly for the record.
The farmer introduced himself as Krodhi, at which the King thought the name certainly checked out. Because Krodhi means angry.
But this guy they were speaking to was not angry in the least. He welcomed the King heartily
“Welcome your majesty! It’s a pleasant day, isn’t it? All of you are welcome. I must insist you all must have lunch at my humble house. What the heck, you must have Dinner too, tonight,”
While saying this, he was descending from his perch, but the moment he was off of the hill Krodhi changed his tune.
“Rogues, Trespassers, What are you doing here? How dare you enter my field. Begone, you rascals”
An official in the King’s team who tended to give people the benefit of doubt tried to mediate things. Maybe Krodhi had some short-term memory loss. “This is the King”
“I don’t care if he’s the King. What has the King ever done for me? Why are you all standing on my land? You’re upsetting the delicate ecological balance in my farm”
Everyone was surprised by this because a minute ago Krodhi had himself beckoned them over.
But the King realized that Krodhi was legally justified in saying that. Krodhi could withdraw his consent anytime he wanted. So yes, the King and his team needed to step away from Krodhi’s farm.
They began walking away, some officials grumbling about what a crazy man Krodhi was.
As if in response, Krodhi did something crazier at this point. He had picked his spot again.
“Your majesty, you’re walking away from here. Please don’t go. What about lunch and dinner? I promise I’ll lay out the red carpet for you”
“Paranoid Schizophrenia! And we’ve got a live specimen” the King’s doctor whispered in the King’s ear. “We’ll need to commit him to my clinic for several years so I can study him!”
“He’s possessed!” whispered the priest. “We must do a yagnya right here on this spot. I’ll get the fire started”
If you’re unaware of what a yagnya is, it’s a prayer said around a fire. The prayer is said by a priest on your behalf so that some god somewhere listens to you and grants you your wish. It’s usually a sign that you’re desperate. Like when Dasharath did one in order to get the Ramayana started.
But the King thought that Krodhi’s responses were not the result of chronic mental illness, nor were they caused by demonic possession. It was a situational and temporal one. Completely dependent on his exact geographic location. Bhoj was certain it was the little mound he was sitting on. When the farmer was on it his attitude was a complete U-turn compared to when he was not on it.
The first thing to do was to get Krodhi out of the way. For his own good of course. So he was arrested by the Bhoj’s guards. Krodhi quietly accepted it when the guards handcuffed him as he sat on the mound. He put up a huge fight after he got off of the mound. He found that he couldn’t really fight against a dozen guards, especially when handcuffed. So he resorted to calling them all names, which, for the sake of decency, I will choose not to repeat here.
The King had some of his soldiers dig the mound. He made a pretty serious assumption there. That whatever was causing the change in Krodhi’s behavior was not in the dirt itself but underneath it. Events proved him right though. Because when they excavated the dirt, they found something!
A particularly nerdy-looking official exclaimed – “I know what it is! It’s a flat seat with four perpendicular legs at each corner”
“You mean it’s a chair!” said another official.
“No, it’s a throne,” said Bhoj. He recognized it by its distinctive cup holder, footrest, and a side clip to hang a crown. It made sense that he had been the one to identify it, after all, he had had first-hand experience with thrones and crowns.
When they cleared all the dirt around it, the historian in the group gasped in surprise.
Bhoj looked around and said “Now, come on. This was already stretching it with Doctors and Priests, but seriously a Historian? Do I want people to go around thinking I can’t do a simple thing on my own without a whole bunch of people accompanying me everywhere?”
No one replied. No one wanted to own up. Least of all the Baker, and the Candlestick maker who were both trying to make themselves invisible after the King’s last remark.
Finally, Bhoj realized that since the Historian knew what he was talking about might as well use his knowledge. At which point, the Historian explained that the throne was that of King Vikramaditya.
Now it was the King’s turn to gasp. At which, most of the crowd gasped as well. Though they weren’t sure why. In fact, the Gardener nudged the Fisherman and asked who “Vikramaditya” was.
The Fisherman replied that Vikramaditya was a powerful ruler from probably a couple of thousand years ago.
“Still not ringing a bell,” the Gardener replied.
“Narada refers to him as Vik. He was featured in episode 110 a few months ago” the Fisherman said.
“Oh, that guy! The one with the Betaal”.
“Yes, indeed the one with the Betaal” the historian responded to the King’s unspoken question.
“Legend has it that the Throne of Vikramaditya grants wisdom, judgment to whoever sits on it”
“Is that how he answered all the Betaal’s questions?” the King asked.
“No. Vikram was with the Betaal in the cemetery and the throne must have been left behind in the palace. I don’t see any attached wheels. He couldn’t possibly have lugged this around everywhere. Which makes total sense anyway because the throne got those qualities from Vikram, not the other way around”.
“How do you know all this?” Bhoj asked.
The historian held up a book he had been glancing through. “It’s in here,” he said. “It’s the operating manual, which was in this secret compartment built into the throne itself”.
Guess Vikram didn’t know everything about thrones. He must go and check if his own throne had a secret compartment too.
“What else was in there besides the manual?” Bhoj asked
“A lottery ticket, some photos of Vikram. Oh wait, these are currency notes. There are also some post-it notes and some chewing gum and a discount coupon to a Big Bazaar store somewhere in Ujjain. And there’s a warranty card too. But it has expired. There’s also a card that says “If found please return to Vikramaditya”
“It’s 2-3 millennia too late. Oh well, finders keepers! So it’s mine now!” Bhoj said.
At which point Krodhi tried to object, but was completely ignored. He was given Vikramaditya’s chewing gum and discount coupon though. Those were considered adequate compensation.
Bhoj ordered that the throne be cleaned, and sanitized, and brought to the palace. He loved his own throne, but it was time for a change. He had meant to get it serviced. It probably needed an oil change, and the reclining feature was not working a hundred percent of the time. He’d sit on Vikramaditya’s throne and then decide which one he liked better.
Now, when you have almost your entire country’s GDP going towards your own treasury it’s totally fine to be extravagant. So it happened that to make an adequate home for the throne, a new palace was constructed. The Throne room in this palace was huuuge! The Throne was placed up high where it had a bird’s eye view of the remote corners of the room. There were a number of steps leading up to the throne itself.
Everything was decorated, and everything looked spectacular for the inauguration of this new throne room. There was an elaborate ribbon-cutting ceremony. There were speeches and even Krodhi was recognized. He was given a Giant check. Because Bhoj’s lawyers made him do it to avoid a future lawsuit. Krodhi was appeased though he did complain all the way about how ridiculously oversized this check was. He didn’t think his bank would cash a check this size.
Considering the amount on it was really small, the lawyers assured him they would.
Finally, after a late evening of celebrations, concerts, and stand-up comedy, when everyone was already dead tired, the party moved on to the main event. The moment Bhoj would ascend to the throne. He looked at his path to Vik’s throne.
He had wondered earlier why there were so many steps and was told that the craftspeople had done that to match the number of little idols on the throne itself.
Strange that Bhoj had not even noticed the idols.
But he began his ascent. But the moment he placed his foot on the first site, something happened. There was a noise and suddenly a figure swooped down from the throne towards Bhoj.
“Bat!” screamed one courtier.
At which the figure halted mid-flight and glared at him.
And the King looked up to see. It was a lady, probably an Apsara. She was more beautiful than anyone the King had seen.
“Password?” she asked him.
“Er, um I’m not sure” the King replied
“Wrong answer. You have 2 attempts left. Try again,” the Apsara said.
“Look, I don’t even know what the password is supposed to do,” the King said.
“Wrong answer. You are down to your last attempt”
“Vikramaditya?” asked Bhoj tentatively.
“Wrong again. You have exhausted all your attempts”, the Apsara said.
“I must be allowed to try again. Or just override the system somehow” Bhoj suggested.
“You mean if you would like to reset your password, that is totally possible. Just answer some security questions,” the Apsara said.
Bhoj asked – “What kind of questions are these? Like what was my mother’s maiden name, the street I grew up on? The license plate of my first chariot?”
“They are situational questions. They will test your judgment, and you must answer them truthfully. I have an inbuilt lie detector. So you can’t fool me.”
Bhoj considered going past the Apsara. But the whole court was staring at him to see what he would do next. This was a matter of public image. The only way to make this work was to get the questions absolutely right. Or his subjects would never forget. Maybe he was going to regret doing a live telecast of this event to his whole kingdom.
We’ll leave it there with Bhoj standing on the very first step, and pressure mounting on him to get everything right.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
The throne was made by King Indra, gifted to Vikramaditya. It did grant the King a lot of powers, but that was not how we solved the Betaal’s problems.
Previous Vikram and Betaal episodes:
Episode 5 – Kingly duties
Episode 8 – Vik and the Vampire Redux
Episode 32 – The Call of Duty
Episode 34 – A Damsel in Distress
Episode 56 – The Three Sherlocks
Episode 95 – Vikram-Betaal – The Blame Game is Afoot
Episode 110 – Vikram-Betaal – The Bachelorette
The Betaal was also featured in Mini-Episode 46.5 – Betaal
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll continue the story of the Ramayana. Now that Ram and Laxman have met Hanuman, they will talk to Sugreev and continue their search for Sita.