Kathasaritasagara – Putra’s Paisa Pillow – {Ep.271}

Today’s story is from the Kathasaritasagara, or the ocean of the steam of stories. It’s about a King who escapes assassination, acquires magical powers, finds true love and builds the entirely new kingdom of Pataliputra!

Namaskar and welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re doing a story from the Kathasaritasagara, or the ocean of the stream of stories. Let’s dive right in.

There was a little village in Ancient India where a couple lived. They were childless, and that made them very unhappy. For years they prayed to the gods. And finally, the gods did listen. The couple had three boys in quick succession. For simplicity let’s call them Pani Puri, Sev Puri, and Dahi Puri. Sorry, I am just very hungry right now. Eternal life can really mess with your digestive system, so I find myself feeling hungry much more often than your average person.

So Pani Puri, Sev Puri and Dahi Puri grew up to be okay kids. If this were the Harry Potter Universe the sorting hat would definitely sort them into Slytherin. They were ambitious, cunning, resourceful. And yet, being ambitious, cunning, and resourceful didn’t help them earn a living through a series of famine, drought, floods, earthquakes and wildfires.

The parents had it much worse. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t earn a living. It’s that they literally couldn’t go on living. Newly orphaned Pani Puri, Sev Puri, and Dahi Puri decided that the only path forward for them was the one leading out of town. But the question was what other town should they go to? 

Pani Puri suggested that they should go to the city of Puri in Odisha. He felt a kinship with that place, maybe it was just the name, or maybe the prospect of eating Puris when he was feeling especially hungry. Sev Puri said that they should go to Mysore, where they could surely eat some Mysore Pak. Dahi Puri, who was more practical, suggested that they should go to that rich town called Savkarpur whose name roughly translates to Rich-ville.

Sev Puri and Pani Puri agreed and the prospect of earning bags of money even made them forget how hungry they were.

Living in Savkarpur turned out to be fantastic for the brothers! For the first time in their lives there was no natural disaster knocking on their doorstep, and knocking down their homes!

Thanks to what little knowledge of the scriptures they had learned from their parents, Pani Puri, Sev Puri, and Dahi Puri became quite popular in Rich-ville! The residents of Savkarpur had spent so much time attending to their physical needs that they hadn’t paid any attention to their spiritual needs. But that changed… right now! Because now three reasonably educated and unemployed brothers had strolled into town, they could cleanse everyone’s soul.

Pani Puri, Sev Puri, and Dahi Puri imparted their limited knowledge freely, perhaps taking considerable creative liberties with the shlokas they had learned in their childhood.

But it was a win-win. It made the Savkars of Savkarpur happy, and the brothers were not complaining.

Also not complaining were the 3 daughters of one of the local merchants. Let’s call them Gajar Halwa, Sooji Halwa and Moong Dal Halwa. They were sisters, not surprising that they had the same last name. The three Halwa sisters were the three most eligible bachelorettes in town. They were happier now because they weren’t going to remain bachelorette. They were getting married. And soon, to the three brothers.

The villagers couldn’t be more pleased and the father of the brides in particular was rejoicing over the free spiritual advice he would be getting out of the trio.

Things went smoothly for everyone for several months. The icing on the cake – or rather the rabri on the jalebi – was that Pani Puri’s wife, Gajar Halwa, was now pregnant.

But that’s when things started to take a turn for the worse. There was a drought, and that led to famine. The brothers all experienced a dreaded sense of deja vu. 

“It’ll be earthquakes next,” grumbled Pani Puri. Sev puri insisted the next item on the calendar was a wildfire, and Dahi Puri was confident there would be a volcano. But they all agreed that Richville was soon going to turn into Disaster-ville.

They agreed that the only solution was to move on. To Puri, or Mysore, or anywhere else but here. Another point they were completely in agreement on was that they would leave their wives behind. Each brother was convinced the Halwa sisters would only slow them down. To use an analogy they thought the speed ratio was like comparing fiber optic internet to dial-up.

And so, the trio left without so much as a goodbye or a forwarding address or updating their relationship status on Facebook. Needless to say, the wives were pretty distressed to find their husbands missing. They did realize that their husbands hadn’t been abducted or something. There were too many clues to the contrary. Mainly, that all their clothes, shoes, and even their toothbrushes had gone. It had to be premeditated.

So much for their wedding vows promising to look after each other in sickness and in health.

Well, there was nothing to do except to manage by themselves somehow. So Gajar Halwa, Sooji Halwa and Moong Dal Halwa managed somehow. They took up jobs – a difficult thing to do during a famine, when there were no prospective employers, because no one had any money to spare, nor any food. And yet, the Halwa sisters managed somehow, by growing what meager amount of vegetables they could scrape by. They ensured that Gajar Halwa got the lion’s share, seeing as she was eating for two. The baby was born, and despite their best efforts, the baby as well as the sisters were quite undernourished.

That’s the condition Parvati spotted them in. Now hang on, if you’re wondering “who’s Parvati?,” this is the time for a quick sidebar. Shiva is the destroyer of the Universe, part of the Holy trinity with Brahma its creator and Vishnu the preserver. Shiva lives with his wife Parvati on Mount Kailash. Kailash is quite far from the scene of the action, but not so far away that a goddess the caliber of Parvati can’t see what’s going on.

Parvati was unhappy with the baby’s condition and urged Shiva to intervene.

Shiva protested that as a destroyer, self-destruction was a good thing, it made his job easier.

But after Parvati continued to plead, Shiva gave in. He appeared in Gajar Halwa’s dream that night. He chose this so as not to startle her.

“I’m pleased with your devotion Gajar Halwa,” he told her. “And I’ve decided to reward you.”

“Well, we have decided to reward you,” he added hastily in response to what seemed to be an offscreen nudge. “When your child is born tomorrow, he’s going to have a special power. Every time he wakes up from sleep, there will be a thousand gold coins under his pillow. Well, that’s it. Oh and his name. Call him Putrak”

The next morning, Gajar Halwa decided that was just a dream. Except later in the day when she realized her baby was indeed ready to be born. Was it in fact, just a dream when Siva had pinpointed the date exactly? It couldn’t be a lucky guess, even Gajar Halwa’s doctor had estimated that the baby would take an additional week or two.

The baby was also a boy just as Shiva had said, but that part was a 50% chance, so it was less impressive.

Just to play it safe, she named her boy Putrak. Putrak or Putra is the Sanskrit word for son. Not the big yellow fireball in the sky, but a male child. That wasn’t a bad name for a boy, but it did break away from the pattern of naming characters after food items.

Well that was that. Somehow Putrak, his mother and aunts pulled through for the next couple of years. And then their fortunes changed. The main reason for that was that Putrak started sleeping on a pillow, something that Gajar Halwa had made herself from her old sarees – a trick she saw on pinterest. 

Perhaps you may wonder why Putrak didn’t sleep on a pillow earlier. It’s because the Pediatrics association strongly advises against children using a pillow until they are 2 years old. And Gajar Halwa had great faith in their collective wisdom.

The morning after he turned two, the Halwa sisters were shocked to see Putrak in a very uncomfortable position because his pillow had suddenly raised about a foot in the air. And underneath it all, was a pile of shiny gold coins. The Halwa sisters were thrilled! They did what was most sensible in that time of economic hardship – they invested the money in food not only for themselves but everyone that was hungry in the village, which was basically everyone! That day, every villager’s gofundme targets were easily crossed!

Their surprise doubled the next morning when there were again gold coins under Putrak’s pillow.

The morning after that they were ready, with a wheelbarrow they had bought to cart away all that money.

The following week they had invested in infrastructure projects, and manufacturing plants designed to bring new jobs and jumpstart the economy again.

A few months later, Moong Dal Halwa suggested digging a hole under the pillow so that at least their poor baby wouldn’t have neck pain everyday. Which was a good idea. So with the help of their newfound wealth, they were able to hire a contractor who gave them an estimate of 1 year to build that small hole and asked for half the money up front. 5 years later, Putrak could finally sleep without the awful neck pain everyday.

The Halwa sisters, and later Putrak himself did not bother figuring out where the money came from. Gajar Halwa had heard it from Shiva himself. There was no need to look for a physical explanation when a metaphysical one was so readily available.

A few years passed. All this while Putrak continued to find money under his pillow. And that allowed Savkarpur to evolve into a Kingdom, with Putrak himself as King.

The Halwa sisters did tell Putrak and warn him about his irresponsible father and uncles. But when the Puri brothers showed up to his doorstep, Putrak did the civil thing and did not just turn them out.

He welcomed them with open arms. And he placed them in the best rooms in his palace, instructed the chambermaid to use the best linen, and the kitchen staff to bring out the fine china. His mother and aunts cautioned him against doing anything rash, but Putrak had complete faith in his father and uncles. After all, family was family. They might be irresponsible and careless, but they weren’t malicious.

Spoiler alert – they were malicious. Within a few days, the Puri brothers had realized that they could take over the Kingdom by simply getting rid of the King. What did it matter if he was their son/nephew? They hadn’t known the child at all, all his entire life. 

So they hatched a plan. They urged Putrak to visit the Durga temple at the edge of the forest. They had had great luck praying to Durga there, and if he wanted to be lucky he should go and pray there as well. But wait, that was not all. They had one more bit of advice for him. They had found by, trial and error, that Durga’s blessings were most effective to people who went alone, unarmed, and in the middle of the night. And specifically on full moon nights.

“But today is full moon night,” Putrak said.

All the more reason to hurry, they all said and urged him to go there.

If Putrak had consulted his mother or his aunts, they would have googled “Durga temple Amavasya midnight solo visit” and immediately talked him out of it. But the King suspected nothing, and went along with his father and uncles’ suggestion.

When he got there, he saw it was a very isolated place. There was no one at all. This must be a very well kept secret he reasoned, still not suspecting that there were assassins waiting behind the temple doors.

Those assassins jumped out at him, swords in hand. Instead of striking down Putrak as the Puri brothers had instructed, the assassins stopped to gloat.

“The boot’s on the other foot now, Putrak. Your days are numbered!” said Assassin 1.

“And that number is zero!” Assassin 2 added, just to avoid Putrak coming up with an outrageous number and taking the sting out of Assassin 1’s comment.

Putrak did something he was great at! Not martial arts, as some bollywood films may lead you to believe. Putrak’s superpower was negotiating. I mean his superpower besides creating gold out of nothing everytime he slept. 

His negotiating skills were sharpened from long trade discussions with other Kings.

Putrak promised to pay the Assassins more than the Puri brothers could ever pay them. He promised to go away, and not return. Let his father and uncles think that they had succeeded, that would keep the assassins out of trouble. The Assassins accepted, though they thought it was odd that Putrak had to borrow the priest’s pillow and that he had to take about 3 or 4 power naps before he paid them the money he promised. The Puri brothers were happy when they got the whatsapp message of the smiling assassins in a very gory scene. They didn’t realize that the assassins had captured and killed a deer, and passed it off as evidence of Putrak’s untimely demise.

Putrak walked away from this scot free. He paid the priest a bit of money in exchange for the pillow. I mean he made a donation to the temple.

He was walking away from his kingdom just as he promised, but that meant going through the forest. He wasn’t afraid of wild animals, demons, bandits. He could handle anyone or anything, as long as he could convince those predators to let him take a quick nap. Money had universal appeal.

In the end, he managed well without needing the pillow at all. The first creatures he met were two demons. They were brothers but they were fighting over something. Putrak was genuinely curious, despite the possibility of being eaten by them. So he asked what was going on. The demon brothers explained that they were the children of Mayasura. The same Mayasura who was an architectural genius – he had created the golden city of Lanka, he had created the three flying cities that were almost indestructible. He had also created the Mayasabha for the Pandavas. Anyway, they came from such a fantastic background. But right now, all that didn’t matter. Right now, they were fighting over their inheritance. They had 4 items here, each was incredibly fantastic. There was a bowl that could create any food that the owner wanted. A glass that could instantly fill up with any liquid. And a pair of shoes that could fly anywhere. There was a stick that could draw anything and it would become real.

Did that mean Mayasura was really good at drawing and that’s how he was creating his fantastic architectural feats? Putrak was hesitant to ask.

Each demon brother wanted all four for themselves. Neither was willing to share.

“Why don’t you run a race?” Putrak asked. “Whoever wins gets to keep everything”

The demon brothers both thought this was a brilliant idea. And would Putrak please be the judge?

Of course, Putrak was happy to stand by here right besides the incredible magic gifts and judge them. They had to run 10 kilometers and back. And they could start right now! “Ready, Steady, Go!” Putrak announced, and both demon brothers shot off like an arrow.

Putrak was not a good judge. He seemed to have misunderstood the responsibilities of a judge. A judge would have waited until the demon brothers returned and closely watched the finish line to see who crossed the line first. A judge would not have put on magical flying shoes on his feet, a judge wouldn’t have pocketed a bowl, a glass and a stick and wouldn’t have disappeared inot the sky.

The shoes were amazingly fast. They soon took Putrak to a far away kingdom. Putrak landed somewhere near the palace and took shelter with an old woman who reminded him of Gajar Halwa. The dish, not his mother. Maybe because the old woman had been cooking Gajar Halwa just that day. Putrak could of course get Gajar Halwa out of his bowl, but maybe he was simply longing for the human touch.

The old woman might have intended to kick out Putrak after one night, but changed her mind when he thrust so many gold coins into her hand the next morning.

They got to talking, and Putrak found out about the Princess – Patali. The old woman hadn’t actually seen Patali, but rumor had it that she was the most beautiful princess of all.

Putrak decided that he needed to test this first hand. So that night, he put on his slippers and flew straight into Patali’s window. Patali was shocked initially, of course. But she soon realized that this wasn’t a burglar or even just an ordinary man. This was a King. And he was all decent and respectful. Other than entering her bedroom without permission. But after that initial hurdle, the two of them got to know each other better and better. Every night, for several nights. They decided that the sneaking was only necessary until the moment that Putrak amassed enough wealth to approach Patali’s father with an offer to marry her. Putrak even tried a larger pillow to see if he could collect more gold coins in the same short time instead. But no, there was a only a fixed number of coins to be earned every night. So it would take some time. But not long now. Just a couple more nights and then Putrak would approach Patali’s family.

The best laid plans often have unexpected twists, like in a Sriram Raghavan movie. Putrak was seen in the Princess’s chambers that very night. The chambermaid who saw him there promptly informed her employer, the King. Who then sent a bunch of soldiers to arrest and execute Putrak right away. And that’s how the King’s elite guard stormed into the old woman’s hut, surrounded Putrak and roughly shook him awake. These soldiers were driven by loyalty to their King, and all those gold coins under Putrak’s pillow did not in the least tempt them. They were only decent enough not to execute Putrak here in the bed. They knew the old woman, and that she meant no harm. If this were the scene of a killing, even a legal one, that would drastically reduce the value of this home.

So they let Putrak get dressed and wear his shoes so they could execute him in the courtyard outside. Of course, with his shoes on and the moment he set foot outside the door, Putrak didn’t give them a chance. He flew straight into the air, straight for the Patali’s window. Patali had been nervously pacing in her bedroom dreading the news she was about to receive. But she was thrilled to see Putrak back in her chambers. They didn’t stop. They didn’t need anything else. He carried her and the two flew off into the distance. 

Patali and Putrak touched down far away near the banks of the Ganga. An area that was fertile and beautiful and yet uninhabited. Putrak thought this was the perfect spot for them to build a magnificent palace. Which he did of course, with his stick. All he did was to draw the palace in the sand. And right away in front of their eyes was formed the most amazing palace of all.

They called this city Pataliputra, and immediately registered the domain name, the chamber of commerce billboards and such. They lived happily there. Not ever after, because that would be impossible. But for a long time. When there was such a large and fantastic city, people came as well. Especially when they had a King who was willing to shower gold coins on anyone and everyone. “Trespassers would be recruited,” the signpost said, complete with a QR code.  

You might wonder what happened to the Puri brothers and Halwa sisters. The Halwa sisters realized what their husbands must have done, when Putrak failed to return, and especially when they saw a record in Pani Puri’s checkbook of having paid S.A.V.E. – which was the acronym for the Savkarpur Assassins and Villains Enterprises. The memo clearly said Putrak decapitation. They had the Puri brothers thrown out of the Kingdom before the Puri brothers could complete their coup. Gajar Halwa ruled the Kingdom instead. You might think this would have led to her meeting her son at the next monarch trade conference. But curiously, the story doesn’t say anything about it.

That’s all for now 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a Tenali Raman story, since it’s been a while!

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