This week, we’re going to do a folk tale from Rajasthan! We’ll meet a little girl who gets into big trouble just because she forgot to lock one door at night, even though there were 6 other locked doors between her and two hungry demons! The demons are stereotypically strong but foolish.
Our story begins in medieval India, in a tiny village in Rajasthan. In a hut in the village lived a widow with her three daughters. I called it a hut and that’s how it was described in the story, but in reality it must have been a palace! It had several rooms!
At the center was a room that all four of them slept in. You could call that a bedroom though there was no bed in it. All the other rooms were concentric around this bedroom, which means that the other rooms were all built around the bedroom with each new room completely containing the previous ones. To get to the bedroom, you had to pass through seven doors.
Now with so many rooms available, it may seem like an inefficient usage of space that the family slept together on the cold damp floor at the center. But there was a very good reason for it.
Just outside the village, in the desert two demons had started living! They were horrid beasts that strictly lived on a diet of people. The demons were nocturnal and would pick the plumpest human they could find. They would experiment different recipes every time.
The villagers really should have done something about it. But they continued to bicker amongst themselves. In the beginning after the demons had arrived, some people, including the Sarpanch, or village chief, claimed that the demons were just a hoax by a rival village and by the fake news media. A day or two later, the Sarpanch claimed the demons were going away.
Some villagers would have liked to move to another village, but no other village would accept them, for fear that the demons would follow them to their own village.
So while the Panchayat or the leaders(of whom the Sarpanch was one) endlessly debated how to tackle the issues, some villagers decided to take matters into their own hands. Some wore demon masks so that the demons might be tricked into thinking them as one of their own. Others bought all the toilet paper they could find, thinking that might somehow help them survive the demons.
A few others valued their right to live freely much more than plain common sense. So they continued to roam around on their usual late evenings, partying, dining out crowding the bars, until they got eaten one by one.
The widow and her daughters had a little bit more sense than the rest of the villagers. They picked up on the research available from other villages that the demons had previously been in, and they were taking the warnings by VIDEO very seriously. By Video, I mean V.I.D.E.O. – the Villages of India Demon Eviction Organization.
Before you ask, the answer is NO. The media for VIDEO’s outreach was not videos on Youtube or anything. This was medieval India after all, what do you expect?
Regardless, the lady and her daughters had looked up material they could find and concluded that for some mysterious reason the demons would not attack people if there were adequate layers of protection. 7 layers of walls and locked doors seem to do the trick.
They dropped their regular work for a bit, and began building seven concentric walls around their tiny single-bedroom hut. That’s how they ended up with a lot of space!
Others in the village laughed at them. But of course, that all changed when events proved the lady and her daughters right.
Eventually the bars and restaurants closed down as the potential patrons were all eaten. The ones who survived did so by copying the widow and her daughters.
The incompetent panchayat meanwhile continued to debate other topics like whether the pigeon that had…. done its business on the village statue should be fined or imprisoned, and which brand of beans should be allowed to advertise on the village streets.
The widow who was a good leader in her family, delegated well. Each daughter would be responsible twice a week for locking all the doors at night. The widow herself would do it on Sunday.
The situation was mixed for the family. There was the loss of their friends as they continued to get eaten, but hey this was medieval India. Its not like the life expectancy was anything to be proud of. As the village population declined however, the survivors had a bigger piece of the pie when it came to village resources.
One night when it was the youngest daughter, Chatur’s turn to lock the doors. Chatur had had a long day at work and was exhausted. She had practically sleep walked home. And as she yawned and began locking the doors one by one, she unfortunately dozed off just before she could lock the seventh and final door. You could hardly blame her for that. The floor at the entrance was no less comfortable than the part of the floor she slept on every night.
The demons meanwhile had just stepped out of their homes to go shopping together!
“I hope we get someone plump and juicy tonight!” said Bhooki the first demon.
“Yeah, not like the village jester from last night. That one tasted funny” replied Sookhi the second demon
“I will need to get salt and pepper as well from the grocery story, I’m running low. Maybe that’s why the jester tasted funny”
As they got closer to the village, Bhooki signaled to Sookhi.
“Hey wait” she said “do you smell that?”
“Why yes!” replied Sookhi “that smells exactly like an unlocked 7th door”
“What luck! That’s a family of four according to their census data, we’ll pick the plumpest of the lot”
So the two demons burst into the inner bedroom. The family woke up with a scream! Including Chatur.
Bhooki and Sookhi, mouths drooling, were trying to see who got to be their breakfast tonight.
“You mean dinner, not breakfast” corrected the oldest daughter who was known to be pedantic.
“No no” replied Bhooki. “We’re nocturnal. So for us our big hearty meal before sleepytime is actually breakfast. Here, its all in this handy pamphlet – Demons – misunderstood creatures”
“Thank you” said the oldest daughter “I’ll be sure to read it. I might even give it a good review on goodreads.com if you were to say, not eat me”
That was a weak attempt, but demons are easy to trick.
The middle daughter who had been glancing at the pamphlet said “Say, I don’t understand why you take only one person at a time? Don’t you have a fridge?”. She had the annoying habit of asking the most inappropriate questions.
As the demons began to ponder this suggestion, Chatur saw that the conversation had to quickly change direction or all of them were going to be eaten, and maybe the entire village would be killed and stocked all at once.
“Take me!” she said. “I volunteer as tribute”.
At this her mother jumped up and said “I am the head of this family. And I have just one thing to say: Take her”
The daughters were shocked – they’d been expecting a noble sacrifice by their mom to save Chatur’s life.
“What are you staring at open mouthed like that?” asked their mom. “It’s only logical. If Chatur is still around, she may forget to lock the doors again – you wouldn’t want that would you? Besides if she does get eaten, that’ll be a lesson to you both – it’ll make sure you will always keep those doors locked at night”
That was heartless, but there was some logic to it.
Bhooki put Chatur in a sack. But not before Chatur had cleverly sneaked a pair of scissors along. The demons returned to their homes quickly. Bhooki put the sack down and then realized – “Oh no! I forgot about the salt and pepper. Can I borrow yours?” she asked Sookhi
“No!” replied Sookhi “The rules are clear, tonight it’s your turn to cook, meaning you have to use your kitchen and your ingredients“
“At least please come with me to the grocery story?” asked Bhooki
“You can go yourself, I really need to get back to my Netflix” said Sookhi and went off to her TV.
So Bhooki went back to the grocery story. Meanwhile Chatur was hard at work, she’d used the pair of scissors to snip a hole in the sack. As soon as she was free, she sneaked out of the house, got a few rocks from the garden, put them in the sack and sewed it up.
She dashed home being careful to avoid Bhooki who was returning with the salt and pepper.
Bhooki began cooking and was surprised to see no Chatur in the sack. Instead there were rocks. Did… did Sookhi do something?
“Sookhi! Where is our breakfast?”
“What do you mean?” asked Sookhi
Bhooki showed her and the conclusion they reached is that the girl had escaped and probably headed back to her home.
Bhooki went back in a rage back to Chatur’s house.
Meanwhile, Chatur had indeed escaped back to her house. But this time she had a plan. She’d had time to observe the dynamics between Bhooki and Sookhi.
She instructed her family to leave all 7 doors open.
“Are you crazy?” they asked
“Trust me!” she said
“Well, seeing as we let the demons take you away we should probably not trust you. This might just be a trick to get the demons to eat us instead. But whatever, we’ll trust you anyway”
The plan was simple – the 2 daughters and mom would sit around pretending to cry about Chatur’s loss, while Chatur would stay hidden.
And then Bhooki stormed in – “where’s my breakfast?” she roared.
“You’re asking us?” asked Chatur’s mom. Go ask your buddy “She’s the one that ate Chatur, What a horrific sight! I saw it myself. I saw you from a distance. The moment you stepped away to the grocery story, Sookhi grabbed open the sack, and ate my daughter. She then filled it with rocks”
This enraged Bhooki!
The middle daughter asked, “I don’t understand something. Why are we sitting around crying about Chatur’s death now, when we didn’t bat an eyelid the first time she was carried off by the demons?”
Luckily Bhooki didn’t pay attention, she rushed back home and got into a big fight. Very conveniently for the whole world, Bhooki and Sookhi killed each other. That unrealistic outcome alone is proof enough that this is a work of fiction.
The Sarpanch meanwhile declared how his brave actions had killed the demons. And while most of the people who had voted for him in the last election were since eaten by the demons, a new batch of voters was ready to take their place.
That’s all for now
Notes
Again, I’ve used names that are appropriate for the roles. Bhookhi is a hindi word indicating a hungry woman, sookhi indicates someone who’s dried up. Ther’es no references to drying up, but its just a word that rhymes.
Chatur has a meaning appropriate to the role, its another hindi word that means clever
That’s all for this week.
Next Time
In the next mini-episode we’ll meet a giant fish that shows up in the Mahabharat. In , its the biggest creature ever, because it can swallow entire whales!
I’ll see you next week!