Himachal Pradesh Folk Tale – A Family Affair – {Ep.179} – Stories From India – Podcast

In this episode, we’re doing a folktale from Himachal Pradesh. It’s a story featuring an evil stepmother, her seven not-so-evil step daughters, a tiger who is a bit of a picky eater, a King who couldn’t care less whom he marries, and finally revenge

A not so happy family

The story begins several centuries ago in a little village in Himachal Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India which is famous for its association with…. You guessed it…. The Himalayas. Bereham was a simple man who lived just outside the village. That alone should tell you that Bereham was not very well off. Property in the center of the village was obviously much more expensive than in the outskirts. On top of his limited assets, Bereham had major expenses. He had seven more mouths to feed in his home. Seven daughters from his marriage with his wife. The youngest was Saahasee, and you’ll see later why she’s the only one of the daughters I bothered naming. 

Bereham’s wife had recently passed on. Which made matters incredibly complicated for Bereham. He had never learned so much as to boil water. The only thing he knew how to do was to sprawl out on the couch, sipping a jal jeera while staring at a blank space on the wall where a television might seem appropriate centuries later.

A tried and tested solution

Bereham was poor, and friendless, but he wasn’t short of advice. Because this advice came from the Panchayat, which was the 5-person governing body of the village, it really meant that at least 5 people stood by the advice. That’s more consensus than Bereham had ever experienced before. The Village Panchayat advised him to do what had worked so well for everyone in similar situations. Marry again, of course.

That would ensure that he could go back to sprawling on the couch, while his new wife could deal with the children, and with all the household chores.

“But where will I find such a wife?” Bereham asked. “The Internet hasn’t been invented yet, and I’m too poor to afford a newspaper to look through the classifieds.”

The Sarpanch, the chief of the Panchayant said that he could loan Bereham his newspaper for free.

“There’s a startup idea,” said Bereham, “a government backed way of loaning out reading material to interested citizens for free. I call this clever idea a library”

The Sarpanch’s reacted not quite the way Bereham hoped. “That’s not clever, that’s silly dude. If you didn’t waste all your time in thinking up impractical schemes, you might actually make a living”

Choosing a wife

Bereham looked through the classifieds. He short listed them down to two. The first said – “Father of simple spiritual caring girl seeks any age boy, for whom she can cook and clean. Solid experience as governess and cook, and has a diploma in fetching well-water. Loves pets, and the dogs are a free bonus with the dowry!”. That seemed to tick all the boxes, but there was a catch. Dogs. Bereham couldn’t stand them. That’s why he was leaning towards the second candidate. Her description was brief and it read “Daayan seeks replacement husband. Last one accidentally fell into the oven. Loves desserts and children for dinner. Cannot stand dogs. Bats are okay.”

Berehman thought for a while and decided that Daayan was the one for him! Sure, she didn’t mention anything about cooking or cleaning or well-water fetching, and she could certainly use some help with her diction. She should have said she loved having children over for dinner. Maybe she omitted the word to economize, given how expensive these classified ads must be. 

Sure those were all cons, but on the positive side she disliked dogs, and his children would stand a reasonable chance of being okay if she loved children.

Blushing Bride turns evil Stepmother

Bereham’s situation was a little bit like a poor man’s version of Captain Von Trapp, if you’ve watched the Sound of Music movie. But all hopes of Daayan teaching his girls how to sing Do Re Mi were dashed pretty much the moment the newly married couple entered their home.

Daayan started by assigning the girls one set of chores after another. Like a true manager, kind of like the Pointy Haired Boss from Dilbert, she was sure to take credit for all their work.

And soon, just like the pointy haired boss might have done, Daayan started blaming the daughters for everything. If the Shrikhand was just a little too sugary, or if the one of the girls took just a few extra seconds in fetching water from the well, or if they didn’t take her of her pet bats exactly right. Her reaction wasn’t just verbally directed towards the sisters. She also poisoned Bereham’s mind. 

A plan is hatched

Everyday and every night Daayan complained to her husband about what a pain it was to manage the girls. Did he have any empathy, any understanding of what she had to deal with?

Once Bereham tried to sneak in a word edgewise, that objectively she was just commanding the girls wasn’t she? The girls were the worker bees and Daayan didn’t actually cook or clean anything herself.

That was the only time he ever brought that up. Because when he did, Daayan turned her fury on him. Didn’t he know how much harder it was to be a manager than an ordinary worker? It’s the conductor of an orchestra that deserves all the credit. Did Bereham realize how many thought cycles she had to burn to think of something for the girls to do next?

Finally the conversation took on a darker tone when Daayan suddenly said what if they had one less mouth to feed? Wouldn’t that make their finances easier? Bereham agreed that yes, their expenses would be cut by a ninth, or almost 11%. Not including the bats. 

“Now imagine,” persisted Daayan, “what if they had seven less mouths to feed? Don’t take this the wrong way, I know you love your kids and all, but imagine, just imagine for a second that it was just the two of us – we’d practically jump up the socio-economic ladder, even with the pittance we’re earning”

“Yeah,” Bereham said, “you’re technically correct”.

Daayan handed him a book and said, “Here’s my personal copy of a German Fairy tale that you might find interesting. It’s called Hansel and Gretel. Read about what happens to these kids and consider if something similar might befall our children, purely by accident. Wouldn’t that have its advantages? This is all purely hypothetical, of course.”

Daayan went on to cite examples from history. “Didn’t Dasharath send his own sons and his daughter in law into exile? Didn’t Harishchandra practically murder his own family? And not just Indian mythology these stories were all over other cultures too.”

Bereham tried to say that that wasn’t exactly what happened with Dasharath and Harishchandra, but he was asked to stop interrupting.

The Hansel and Gretel Fate

Daayan went out, she said she needed some air. It’s funny how she took a broomstick with her. Was she going to sweep the forest floor at this time of night? But Bereham didn’t ask. He sat and read the book all night. He read it over and over. If you haven’t read the story yourself, here’s a quick synopsis. Hansel and Gretel are brother and sister. Their parents are under intense economic pressure. So Mom and Dad hit upon a plan. Dad abandons the kids in the middle of the dark forest. They try to find their way out and in doing so come across a hut made of desserts and candies and such. But it really was a witch’s home. The witch tried to eat the children, and got all prepared to do so. Before Gretel tricked the witch by shoving her into the oven. But then…. that last part in Daayan’s copy was torn out. In anger, it felt like. Instead there was a handwritten note on the back cover that said  “And so the witch ate Hansel and Gretel, baked a lot more cookies and cake to repair all the damage to her home that those pesky little kids had done. And then she lived happily ever after”.

Now, Bereham thought he could read between the lines. He thought he understood exactly what Daayan wanted him to do. Daayan wanted him to abandon his children in the middle of the forest. 

Which was totally the wrong conclusion to jump to. Daayan only wanted to eat the girls up. Bereham’s mind did not go back to all the other signs he had seen. Starting with the missing word in the classified ad, all the collectibles Daayan kept from other children she had dined on. Even her bullock cart’s bumper sticker which said Children should be seen not heard, was meant to be an admonition to fellow witches on table manners. It wasn’t directed towards children’s behavior.

Lions! And Tigers! And Bears, oh my!

The very next morning, Bereham took his seven unsuspecting daughters and took them into the dark forest. He told them they were going to gather some fruits and berries, which he was sure grew someplace remote they had never been before. And not to worry about rumors of wild beasts roaming in this very forest. Those were just lies and rumors spread by the fruit and berry sellers who wanted to dominate the fruit and berry market.

Bereham and his daughters walked for hours and hours. Until finally, the girls complained about how they were too tired to move. And thirsty too. Bereham said that he would go fetch them some water. 

One or two daughters offered to go with him. The suggestion almost made him jump. He chuckled nervously and said that oh guess what it was bad luck to fetch water in a forest if you were a woman. “All those of you who are not women can come with me. Oh no one? Alright I guess I will have to go all alone.” Superstition was an effective tool for a parent to justify practically anything. And in the absence of Google searches to verify and debunk any such ideas, the girls accepted this fact just like they had everything else in their lives.

“Just sit tight right here under this massive tree, with the freshly killed deer carcass nearby. Don’t worry – the Tiger won’t come back for its prey. That was just a myth.” Or so Bereham said.

The girls were scared. But they trusted their father. And so they waited. And waited. And waited. But he did not come back. At least not immediately. When Daayan discovered how wrongly he had interpreted her Hansel and Gretel instructions, she went with Bereham to fetch them so she could eat at least seven more meals.

Where is Saahasee

But when they got there, there wasn’t anything left. There was a tiger that had a pretty swollen belly. He was stretched out like a pussy cat lazily after what was definitely a long meal. The tiger didn’t even mind Bereham’s and Daayan’s presence. He didn’t want to kill them. He was already too full of humans.

“Please no more. I am full. If you do want to be eaten, I can refer you to a tiger friend of mine. He lives over by the hill and here’s a referral bonus code so we can both earn rewards”

“No, no. You’ve got us wrong. We’re looking for our daughters” Bereham and Daayan corrected.

“your daughters?! Well, you’re too late. I already ate them.”

“All of them?!” Daayan asked, shocked. “Didn’t even leave us a bite?”

“Odd way to talk about your own children. But yeah. I ate them. I must compliment you. They were all very tasty. Say, do you think I can have your address in case you have any more children? They were all so yummy. Well not all of them. I didn’t eat the one who smelled like roses. I’m allergic to roses. She ran away over there.” He pointed in one direction. And then paused. “Or maybe it was over there. Or there. Who knows?” he dozed off back into his sleep.

Saahasee was the one who had escaped her sisters’ grisly fate. In reality, she didn’t know that the Tiger was allergic to her rose perfume. As she and her sisters had sat there under the tree waiting for their father, the tiger had pounced on the lot of them. It gobbled up her sisters, but did not chase Saahasee.

A King on a hunt

Saahasee stumbled through the forest jumping over this and that. She didn’t care about alerting any other wild beasts in the forest. The clear and present danger was the tiger that may or may not be chasing her from behind. It’s fortunate she thought that way, because the racket she made actually scared away a few other lions and bears. And those other lions and bears were not allergic to rose perfume.

She might not have run into any other wild animals but Saahasee did stumble into a horse though. The surprised horse was a royal horse and therefore more than a little offended by Saahasee’s clumsiness. It neighed loudly in protest and reared up on his hind legs. So much so that the King who sat on its back almost fell off.

The King got off and calmed his horse with promises of a bonus bag of oats when they got back.

The King had been on a hunt. But he found something a lot more interesting than just chasing down defenseless deer for sport. He was curious what this girl was doing all by herself in the middle of such a dark forest. And why was she dressed in these strange clothes? They looked like regular clothes but there was something different about them. They had some decorations that almost looked like mud, and the clothes had fashionable rips and cuts in various places. The King had never even seen a poor person up close before.

Saahasee explained her story to the King as they rode back to his palace. How she had only come to the forest with her father and her sisters to pick fruits and berries. How her father had gone to fetch water and probably gotten lost or maybe killed by other beasts. How a mean tiger attacked them.

Long Live the New Queen

By the time they returned, the King had made up his mind. She would be his new Queen. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a princess. He was the ruler of the land, and he made all the rules. If he decided that this girl of unknown origin would become queen, everyone would have to comply.

Saahasee didn’t mind marrying but she needed some kind of closure on her whole family situation.  Did any other sister survive? What about Bereham and Daayan? So the King launched a new taxpayer funded project to find the tiger, to teach it how to speak sanskrit and then learn the fate of his sisters. They called it Project Tiger.

“That’s ridiculous,” Saahasee said. “I know the exact location of my parents’ home. We can just go there or mail them a letter”

But because she was a woman, the patriarchy did not even consider the idea. They captured the tiger after a long and painful search. A few dozen people lost their lives and they ended up endangering the species by killing all the Tigers that were definitely not the one Saahasee encountered, but hey – they found the tiger in the end! There were promotions all around for everyone.

And they didn’t even have to teach the Tiger Sanskrit. It said that it had been previously captured in another kingdom in similar circumstances and they had taught it to speak.  He could even read and write to some degree.

But the Tiger told them what they wanted to know. The sisters were all dead. “Sorry,” it said to Saahasee. “If I had known how much you cared and how much your mother cared about it, I would have definitely spared you one girl each.”

“You monster!” Said Saahasee.

But the Tiger went on. “That’s a more normal reaction tbh. Your mother reacted oddly. She said she had been saving you all up for a big feast and was angry that I hadn’t left her any scraps”

Saahasee was taken aback. She knew her stepmother was mean, but she didnt realize until now that she was evil.

Revenge. That is what she wanted. Revenge on the Tiger, and on her evil stepmother. It was easy with the Tiger. She just sent him to a circus. That was slow torture. He could see all the food around him but they would all gloat at him as he was confined In a tiny cage where he could barely even stretch.

The evil stepmother needed a different kind of handling. But first she needed to establish political superiority.

And so Saahasee and the King were married. In a great big ceremony. All the Kings and Queens of all nearby Kingdoms were invited. Normally it would have been customary to invite the parents of the bride to, but that did not happen. 

Naturally, the presence of a cannibalistic step mother and a merciless father would not add to the joy of the wedding festivities.

A letter to her parents

But Saahasee had a plan. She soon wrote an elaborate letter. Sealed in an envelope with a couple of gold coins. She also had a messenger hand deliver it. The weight of the envelope itself would have tempted the postal worker delivering it, if she sent it by regular post.

Bereham and Daayan were shocked at receiving such a rich and ornate letter, hand delivered by no less than a messenger of the King himself. Why, this King’s messenger likely earned more in an hour than Bereham and Daayan did in an entire month. The messenger was upset at the assignment. Understandably because during his other assignments which were typically to other Kings and Queens, he got tipped horses, camels, and all kinds of jewelry. He expected and got nothing from Daayan and Bereham. And all he got from Saahasee was a second hand four horse chariot.

Anyway, back to the parents. The letter was very cordial. It told them that she was sorry to have been separated from them. Yeah, she had riches and all kinds of great food to eat and servants at her beck and call, but hey, family’s family, am I right? So anyway, she fondly remembered their time together and would love to see them both. Could they please come visit her? She was sending some Gold so they could afford the cost of the journey. She knew it cost about 2 copper coins, but the palace didn’t stock copper coins, so she sent them gold instead. And don’t worry if the conductor on the cross-forest bullock service did not have change for the Gold coins. They could let him keep the change and she could always give them plenty more Gold when they arrived.

The Father visits

Daayan wasn’t sure if this was a trap. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. So she picked a compromise solution, by sending only Bereham to the palace.

Bereham had a great time! He was treated like royalty. He had every kind of luxury and comfort at the palace. To the point that after a while Saahasee had to provide several hints about how he must be missing Daayan, how excellent the cross forest bullock service was, and all that before Bereham reluctantly said he had to go back home.

Saahasee sent lots of presents. She could afford all that now. There was lots of Gold, sweets, and loads of good food. And even some servants to help remodel their home, and to help make their lives comfortable.

Revenge

But all the presents, the gold, the sweets, the food, the servants, were simply misdirection. There was one other package Saahasee sent. It was a specially wrapped one. Saahasee strictly warned her father not to open it himself. It was meant for Daayan and for Daayan only! Daayan must open it when she is alone. Though on second thoughts, Saahasee added that it didn’t matter if he was with her. She did not explain that those second thoughts were because she remembered how he had a pretty major role to play in her sisters’ death.

Bereham got home without incident. He went back to sitting on his couch and staring at the blank wall, but this time the couch was a fancy one, with cup holders and in-built massagers.

Daayan, looked at all the presents and looked at Bereham’s significant weight increase and concluded that it hadn’t been a trap after all. Saahasee must genuinely believe that Daayan and Bereham were blameless. And Saahasee’s letter, and all these presents meant she was ready to be taken advantage of, again. Daayan was totally ready to take advantage.She must visit her stepdaughter next time. But for now, she would have to be happy with this very nice looking box that Saahasee had picked for her. It was heavy as well. She opened it. And froze. 

Out of the box came an assortment of the deadliest creatures known to the Royal zoologists. Saahasee had had them assemble the angriest of snakes, scorpions. It was a miracle that inside the box these creatures hadn’t attacked and killed each other. Daayan did not last more than a few minutes. But she had a painful end. Just like Saahasee had planned.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

A lot of themes in this story are things we have seen before. Evil stepmothers are practically a staple ingredient in most folklore. For example, we’ve seen one before in Episode 71, which was another folktale from Himachal Pradesh. We met an evil step mother who convinces her husband to abandon his daughters in the dark forest. Though that story began in a similar way, it completely diverged past that point.

The theme of an evil stepmother trying to eliminate her stepdaughter is another we’ve seen in Episode 170. We’ve also seen a similar plot in Episode 65, where the evil stepmother tried to profit from her stepdaughter becoming Queen, but through some drastic violence, as opposed to simply hoping for a handout, which happened in today’s story.

As is usual on this show, the characters are named for the roles they play. Not exactly, because Daayan means witch, and the evil stepmother wasn’t a witch, professionally speaking. But calling someone Daayan, implies malignant intent, which the stepmother in today’s story certainly had. Bereham means heartless, and that’s an appropriate name for the father. He readily put his seven daughters in danger just on his wife’s instructions.

Saahasi means courageous, as you might have guessed. She showed some courage in running away from the Tiger even when all her older sisters were killed.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

Next week it’s time for a Tenali Raman story. It’s been over a year since we last did one, so I figured we could cover a couple of stories of this jester in Krishnadevarayar’s court. We’ll see why it’s a bad idea to say something patronizing to the King. And if you end up in the situation, Raman has some advice for you on how to escape exile and even execution.