The Lucky Potter, Chattee Maker – Tamil Folk Tale – {Ep.135}

In this episode, we’re doing a folk tale from Tamil Nadu about a Chattee Maker or a Pot Maker. It’s a rather popular tale you might have heard before. In fact, one of you listeners requested it. 

The story begins with a poor simple man and his wife. Let’s call the man Atishtasaali, and his wife Teeya. As is usual on the show

His claim to fame was …. a lack of fame. He was an ordinary poor villager. Like all other people in his village he was born into a poor family, had absolutely no schooling whatsoever and began making and selling pots at the age of 5. Which seems like a very early stage to enter the workforce, but child labor laws in medieval India were not particularly favorable to children.

Atishtasaali grew up following societal norms. At the appropriate age, it was decided by his father that Athishtasaali needed to take on the role of growing their family. 

Which meant the lad had to get married first. So he did, to Teeya. But that’s where his family-extending attempts stalled. 

The couple were childless. This made everyone in Atishtasaali’s family very nervous. They decided that the only solution to this was to consult the Astrologer. Because they really wanted to know which planet to pray to? Was Saturn upset with Teeya for having eaten the two apples they were saving for Grandma? Or was it Jupiter? Was he angry that Atishtasaali had dropped the cup of tea so carelessly the other day?

Astrologers were in high demand back then. That meant they got the fussy one whom no one liked. In between constant complaints about everything, the Astrologer looked over the horoscopes.

“Was it because Teeya ate the apples?” asked Atishtasaali’s father, anxiously.

“Was it the cup of tea?” asked his mother.

“It’s always the girl,” said the Astrologer.

“Oh yeah, that totally makes sense,” said Atishtasaali’s father, who, coming from a patriarchal society, was a firm believer of male supremacy.

The Astrologer, another member of said patriarchal society, casually suggested that the solution was simple. Replace the girl. Or supplement her. He didn’t really care. He just needed to move on to his next client. Just a reminder, his bill was due by Tuesday. 

So Atishtasaali’s parents arranged a second wedding for their boy.

Teeya was clearly displeased, as you can imagine. She didn’t simply accept it and move on. However, Atishtasaali clearly lacked a voice of his own in front of his father. Unlike his wife, he accepted it and moved on.

Teeya was relegated to doing household chores including the cooking and cleaning.

As it turns out, the Astrologer’s suggestion actually worked. Because not long after their marriage, Atishtasaali and his new wife were expecting a child.

Now it was the custom for a new mother to bear her child at her parents’ place. Atishtasaali’s  parents weren’t complaining. Less mouths to feed even if it was just for a few months.

But Atishtasaali wasn’t in the best of spirits. He missed his new bride.

Finally one day he managed to get permission from his authoritarian father to go see her.

“Ask the cook to pack you some food so you can take it with you” his father said

“We have a cook?” asked Atishtasaali surprised.

“I was talking about Teeya,” his father said. “But you’re right. I can’t call her a cook. She’s also the maid, and the cleaning lady and the dishwasher and the washerwoman. I’ll think of a name, you go on, no need to hang around here”

Atishtasaali found Teeya doing the dishes. The lady who until recently had been treated like a Queen was now relegated to such a lowly position.

Atishtasaali had the decency to ask her politely for some food.

“Alright food for whom? For you to eat on the journey? Or for your wife?”

Atishtasaali didn’t know what his father had meant. So he just said – “both”

Teeya smiled at herself. This was what she was waiting for. A chance to take revenge. The pain, the indignity of her demotion had hurt her. It was wife number two who was responsible for her condition. So Teeya thought. Maybe it was because she had been conditioned not to blame the patriarchy.

She decided to take revenge on her replacement by poisoning her. This was an elaborate bit of poisoning because she made over a hundred Gulab Jamoons. Gulab Jamoon, in case you don’t know, is a very tasty fried dessert. Teeya poisoned all hundred of them. But she also made a dozen safe Gulab Jamoons for Atishtasaali and packed them in a separate box.

When she handed them to her husband, she cautioned him multiple times. He must only eat from his own box. Wife 2.0 would be getting all hundred of the Gulab Jamoons in the other box. He must not taste them. It was easy to explain why. Superstition. If his pregnant wife didn’t eat all hundred of those Gulab Jamoons her child would not be a healthy one.

Atishtasaali should not have bought that argument. Gulab Jamoons may be tasty, but there are no health benefits from eating a few. On the contrary, eating a hundred of them was a sure shot way of developing new health problems. To the extent, that maybe Teeya shouldn’t even have bothered poisoning them.

But Atishtasaali was lucky that she actually poisoned the 100 Gulab Jamoons. We’ll see why.

Atishtasaali’s journey towards his wife’s village took two days and crossed over a neighboring Kingdom. Yeah, so his second marriage had transcended several borders. 

That King in that neighboring had been having a particular problem. The problem was caused by a major disagreement between a Bandit chief and the King on whether or not said Bandit chief could marry the Princess. 

And just to be clear, it was not the King who was trying to force the Bandit to marry his daughter. The Bandit had promised to wreak havoc on the kingdom if his demands weren’t met. When the King refused the 25th time to let the Bandit marry the Princess, that was the final straw.

The Bandit decided the Princess would marry him, with or without her father’s consent. And without her consent too, but that didn’t matter. This Kingdom was just as patriarchal as Athishtasaali’s village had been.

The Bandit Chief had his group of 100 bandits take on a daring mission. The biggest heist of his, I mean their careers. They would carry off the princess herself. All 100 bandits would sneak into the palace, go to the Princess’s chambers and carry her off, still sleeping. in her bed. And if the Princess stayed sleeping until she was brought to the Bandits’ secret hideout, there would be a bonus for everyone – the Bandit Chief would contribute an extra thousand rupees to each Bandit’s retirement plan. Double that if they managed to do it without Palace security discovering it until the next morning.

That was motivation enough, so the Bandits sneaked into the palace in the dead of night. All hundred of them. It was a carefully planned and well-rehearsed heist, so no alarms were tripped and no sentries were alerted. The Princess herself continued to rest peacefully, not aware of the difference between sleeping indoors in a palace and sleeping on a bed being carried away by bandits.

The moment I said there were a hundred bandits, you probably guessed what happened next. 

Yes, the 100 bandits carrying off the Princess just by chance happened to pass by Atishtasaali.

Atishtasaali was sleeping under a tree. It was a long journey and Atishtasaali had polished off his share of Gulab Jamoons.

Bandit minion number one suggested they stop and examine this sleeping passerby to see if he had food on him. Carrying a bed for so long had made him tired and hungry. Bandits 2 through 100 all agreed. Except Bandit number 57 who thought that would risk waking up the Princess.

Bandit number 34 remarked that the box that the sleeping traveler had with him was full of Gulab Jamoons. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought there were exactly a hundred of them.

Hooray said all the other bandits. Each one grabbed one. But being polite, civilized bandits they waited until each had received one before eating. When they did, the effects were immediate.

The deadly poison instantly did what the King’s armies had been unable to. The Bandit Chief was no longer a Bandit chief, because there were no bandits to be chief of.

Atishtasaali luckily woke up before the Princess did. That way, when he did and looked around he saw the opportunity of a lifetime. Passing through this kingdom, he had seen enough wanted posters to recognize the Bandits for what they were. And seeing the Princess, he guessed their mission correctly as well.

The only thing he was uncertain about was why they had all passed away. He could see clearly that they had eaten the Gulab Jamoons Teeya had packed. But how did it come to be that they all simultaneously passed away. Maybe they were all allergic to Gulab Jamoons. 

Regardless, Atishtasaali woke up the Princess and told her an amazing and entirely fictitious tale of how he had single handedly conquered a hundred bandits to rescue her.

He repeated the story again to the King a few hours later. The King was initially sceptical. I mean how could one man defeat a hundred notorious bandits.

But then the circumstantial evidence started piling up. The nighttime footage from the CCTV cameras did not show Atishtasaali in the crowd of Bandits raiding the palace. And the guy even led them to where all the Bandits were still lying. Forensic science was not advanced enough to distinguish between poisoning and blows to the head, during autopsies.

The King marveled at this man. This man must be special. He spoke to the Princess, who wholeheartedly agreed with the idea of marrying this stranger. Even though she didn’t know anything about him. Including whether he was already married, whether he had the profession and the income to support her glamorous lifestyle. And for that matter, she didn’t even know his name.

Well, all those things could be rectified, and they were. Atishtasaali was married to the Princess while back home waiting for him were Teeya and his second Wife. And the child whom Athistasaali hadn’t even seen yet.

Athistasaali got used to palace life and seemed firmly on the path to inheriting the Kingdom. Everything was going fine and then things took a bit of a turn for the worse.

No it wasn’t the former-Bandit Chief trying to take revenge. That guy has passed out of our story. He opened a tea shop and started earning an honest rupee even if he did sort of cheat his customers by charging them too much for the cookies.

What happened was actually another long standing problem that the Kingdom had. This one was a man eating lioness that terrorized the Kingdom. When the King appealed to her, she agreed to stop killing indiscriminately. But in return, she demanded payment every week. The King had offered to pay by credit card, but the lioness insisted that the only currency she would accept would be a man. And to be clear this man would be eaten. It had to be treated like a proper meal delivery service. They must make sure to send with him forks, knives and napkins and a side of french fries. Although make it alternate between French Fries and Onion Rings. And last thing, don’t forget to include ketchup. Some men taste funny. She had just eaten a clown earlier today.

The King agreed to all the Lioness’s demands. And thanked his lucky stars that he had no sons.

But, one day, someone mentioned in court that young men were running in short supply in the Kingdom. They would have to import some for an insane price from the next Kingdom just to satisfy the lioness’s hunger.

A minister at court made a suggestion at this point. Couldn’t Athisthasaali solve the problem for them? I mean he had killed a hundred bandits single handedly and without any weapons. A single lioness should not be a problem, right?

It was a big problem for Athishasaali. He could not back out now. Not after he had just finished telling for the hundredth time how we had anticipated Bandit number 78’s clever trick and preemptively knocked him out with a single well placed blow.

“Well son,” said the King, “then you should have no trouble with dealing with this lioness for me. Just use the kick you used on Bandit 33 or the punch on Bandit 92”

Athishtasaali gulped once or twice with the sudden realization that he had gotten himself into a new pickle.

He weakly asked to be excused so he could go rest a while. He was suddenly feeling ill. Must have been something he ate.

But he couldn’t avoid the issue for long, and he couldn’t sneak out of the palace either. He didn’t possess the natural abilities of those hundred other bandits who had managed to sneak out without alerting anyone.

He decided to take his chances. He’d been lucky once. Maybe he could be lucky again.

He went to the spot where the lioness’s dinner was served. In his nervousness, he had forgotten to bring the fork and knife and napkins. The lioness would probably be upset and tear him limb from limb.

He arrived early and climbed a tree. He sat nervously waiting, his sword in hand. He’d insisted on taking one even though he had never used one before.

Athishtasaali got majorly lucky a second time in his life. The lioness approached and stood under the tree, wondering where her dinner was. She looked up and yawned. But when she did, Athishtasaali got so nervous looking at her sharp teeth that he dropped his sword by accident.

And that’s where his luck came in. The sword landed in the lioness’s open mouth, piercing her and instantly killing her.

Athishtasaali jumped for joy. Lots of celebrations later, he dragged the lioness back to the palace and instantly reinforced everyone’s notion of him as a hero. The post office issued a special stamp in his honor. Which is how his family and his two wives found out where he was. But before that, one other thing happened.

The King was so happy with his son-in-law. Athishtasaali had taken care of two long-standing problems in the Kingdom. Which must mean that he would succeed on the third as well.

“What third problem?” asked Athishtasaali nervously.

“Don’t you worry. I’ll explain it tomorrow”

And he did explain it the next day, but then it was too late. The King had to pay tribute to a neighboring more powerful Emperor. The Emperor was a bully and the King had given in so far. But seeing that he had such a powerful son-in-law who could kill a hundred bandits and a lioness with no effort at all, he should have no trouble against the emperor.

Again to not let himself be exposed as the coward that he was, Athishtasaali reluctantly went into battle. Him against the Emperor’s army. Because the Emperor had readied his army the moment he got the very insulting note from the King refusing to pay protection money.

Now Athishtasaali had asked for the speediest horse. And he’d gotten the beast. But it was also a bit inexperienced and not properly trained. Which meant that it hadn’t felt before what it would be like to have a human on its back.

The horse galloped like the wind. While the King and others admired Athishtasaali’s riding skills, the reality was that the horse was panicking, trying to throw this unfamiliar weight off its back.

Athishtasaali was hanging on for dear life. When he was out of sight of the King and Kingdom Athishtasaali tried to get the horse to stop. But it wouldn’t. He grabbed onto a passing tree. But such was the power of the horse and the fact that the reins had snagged onto Athistasaali’s armor, it was the tree that was uprooted from its spot. Rather than Athistasaali being able to get off the horse.

This was a lucky break. Because just then the horse and its rider were in the vicinity of the Emperor’s army. The Emperor had heard of Athishtasaali’s accomplishments, including killing 100 bandits and a ferocious lioness. All of whom had also been problems that the Emperor had himself been unable to solve.

He was still skeptical though. Until now.

Because now, he looked at the battlefield and saw a single warrior coming at them on a nasty looking horse and what was most impressive, he was carrying a tree! A huge tree in his hands.

In reality, we know of course that the Athishtasaali was merely hanging on for dear life.

Luckily for him, his appearance alone had an effect that he could not have dreamed of.

The Emperor panicked at the sight of this warrior and ordered his army to retreat.

He signed a treaty with the King that would start him paying tribute instead.

When the King and his hero son-in-law returned to the palace, the final and biggest ordeal awaited Athishtasaali.

His entire family had assembled there, including his previous two wives and the child he had never seen.

Teeya privately confessed her crime to her husband which finally clarified in Athishtasaali’s mind the reason the bandits had died. Athishtasaali forgave her. Because he thought that without her intervention he would not have had a string of great luck.

The two wives filed lawsuits alleging grievous mental trauma and divorced him and kept ownership of three fourths of the Kingdom, while Athishtasaali, the King and the Princess spent newly earned tribute money on parties. Well, that wasn’t true. The original story merely ends with all of them living happily ever after in the palace. Athishtasaali’s three wives simply accepted each others’ existence and lived a happy life together.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

The original story describes Athishtasaali as a pot-maker. But as is usual on the show I have named the characters based on literal translations of words that describe their fortunes and behavior. Atishtasaali is the Tamil word for Lucky. And Teeya means evil.

There is the usual element of threes that we have seen so often in many episodes of this show.

We saw the element of Bandits carrying off the girl while she’s asleep before in Episode 63 -Punjabi Folk Tale – Kill with a Billhook: The Bride’s Revenge

Gulab Jamun pictures

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll go back to the Singhasan Battisi. We’ll see Raja Bhoja prepare to sit on the throne, but get interrupted. Because a doll decided to tell him a story.