Bihar Folk Tale – Girls vs Bears – {Ep.219} – Stories From India – Podcast

A Bihar folk Tale with a surprising amount in common with European folk tales including Hansel and Gretel and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, except here there are Seven Goldilocks and Seven Bears, and Aliens and Ghosts!

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

This folktale from Bihar is going to sound like a mashup of a number of popular European Folk Tales. We’ll discuss that in the show notes. But for now, let’s jump straight in.

Several centuries ago, there was a family that lived in a village. The family members included a father, a mother, and their seven daughters. The parents were called Bhooka and Bhookhi. Before you marvel at the strangeness of two people with similar names getting married, let me clarify that I’m simply following the tradition of this show and naming the characters based on the role they play. Bhookha and Bhookhi are simply the gender-specific Hindi words that mean a Hungry person. As for the children, I’ll name them Pehli, Doosri, Teesri, Chauthi, Panchvi, Chhati and Satavi, which are the hindi words counting from first to seventh.

The family had no stable income and they’d often go hungry.  Their hut could scarcely shield them from the monsoon rains, let alone from the judgmental gaze of the other villagers.

Bhookha was the breadwinner of the family, if you can call him that. Because he wasn’t bringing home any bread in baked form. At best sometimes he’d bring home some of the ingredients of bread – sometimes some wheat, sometimes just water. You see, Bhookha was a scholar. And if you were a scholar in medieval India it might be a lucrative profession, but only if you got to tutor the children of a King. Otherwise you were out on your own, begging in the street, and hoping for handouts from anyone you managed to impress with your knowledge of sanskrit.

Their worsening conditions may have dampened the family’s spirits, but it did little to change the girls’ appetite. Between the seven of them, their gluttony could put a herd of starving pigs to shame. At least that was Bhookha and Bhookhi’s impression as they went to bed, again on an empty stomach.

The next day, again, with their daughters snoring in the background, Bhookha secretly beckoned his wife over. He took out a wrapper from the secret pocket in his dhoti and carefully unfolded it. “Look what I have, it’s a peanut”

Bhookhi could have cried tears of joy as she savored the taste of her half of the peanut. She would remember this feast for a long time! That was before Bhookha threw a wrench in the works with a new idea. I really want to eat porridge. He said.

Bhookhi did not take it well “Porridge, seriously?”. She then softened her tone and her voice to avoid waking their daughters. “Do you mean like the dish Goldilocks had at the three bears’ house?”
“No, I meant Kheer,” her husband replied. “I meant the sweet dish made from slow cooked rice, milk and sugar. I only used the word porridge in case any of the listeners on this show hadn’t heard the word before”

Which was a reasonable explanation.

She pointed out the practical difficulties – to make Kheer, we need rice, milk and sugar. The street you’ve been working doesn’t have those types of ingredients. 

“That’s true. But something has happened. You remember Pyaasa? He works the rich neighborhood. It so happens that he has to go on a business trip. There’s the beggar’s convention in the town where they are doing a workshop on refining begging practices for the 15th century”

“Yes, I know – I saw the posters and heard the taglines everywhere – Incantations to open Hearts and Purses”

“Exactly. So while he’s away, he’s asked me to cover his route. We can’t afford for the homeowners get used to the idea of no one showing on their doorstep”

“No we can’t,” she agreed. “Imagine if people cut down on their charitable donations budgets?”

And they both shuddered at the thought.

So it was settled. The day of the convention Bhookha came back not just with the usual wheat, but this time with some rice, milk and sugar.

Bhookhi had a little bit more trouble cooking the Kheer without alerting her sleeping daughters. But she managed it. There was only a tiny bowlful of it, but they were optimistic. Even that small quantity would be enough to keep them energized for several years, by which time maybe there’d be another beggars’ convention. So they pulled out their spoons and were ready to take their bite of this deliciously sweet smelling kheer.

“Is that kheer?” Pehli said, she was standing next to them, rubbing her eyes.

They shushed her and told her to go back to sleep. But she wouldn’t so they gave her a spoonful to taste. She went back to sleep.

Bhookh and Bhookhi breathed a sigh of relief when they heard Pehli’s distinctive snore. That was a close call, they thought. But they’d better finish the kheer before any of the other girls woke up.

“Is that Kheer?” Doosri said. She had woken up too. Again they gave her a spoonful and sent her off.

Well, this is a folktale, and you can imagine that if it happens to the first and second child, it happens to the rest of them too.

Within minutes, all seven girls were sleeping, snoring loudly with satisfaction now that they had had dessert. And Bhookha and Bhookhi were left staring at the tiny bowl that had been scraped completely clean. They didn’t even get to taste the Kheer.

“That’s the last straw!” Said Bhookha frustrated.

“Where?” asked Bhookhi, suddenly excited. She was so hungry, she would have actually eaten straw.

But Bhookha clarified that he was speaking figuratively, much to her disappointment. He could have used some straw himself.

“But what can we do when we have those seven mouths to feed? We must accept our situation and eat humble pie”

At that, Bhookha’s eyes lit up, until Bhookhi clarified that they didn’t really have any pie. That was just an expression – call it payback for tempting her with straw.

“But there was one thing they could do. Sort of like Hansel and Gretel’s parents. In that European folk tale the parents gave their kids a crash course in independence and survival – by abandoning their children in the middle of the forest”

“No wonder I hadn’t heard of it” Bhookha said “that story won’t be written for a couple more centuries.” But he agreed with the plan.

The next day, he took his daughters to the middle of the forest, where there was apparently a tree full of mangoes. He reached there and saw that it was indeed full of mangoes, to his surprise.

He was very very tempted to eat some of those or at least take them back home to Bhookhi. But he was on a mission. And any distractions might cause delays and that might allow his daughters to follow him home. He made an excuse that he needed to rinse his mouth before eating. He said he’d be right back. But he wasn’t. Evening came on and darkness began to fall, but still no sign of Bhookha. The girls weren’t yet worried though. But a few minutes later, when they had finished every last mango – that was when they began to worry. There weren’t any more fruit trees around. What were they going to do for their midnight snack? And if they somehow managed to overcome that, what about breakfast? And second breakfast? 

They were debating between sleeping on the ground and on the tree. But just then Doosri excitedly pointed at something in the distance. A faint light. 

Panchvi said it could be just a firefly, to which Teesri asked if Fireflies were tasty?

But Pehli thought it was worth a shot. Could be no worse than here, she reasoned.

So the girls made their way towards the light. The fact that the light didn’t move and didn’t flicker as they got closer disproved the firefly hypothesis.

When they got closer they saw that it was a home. 

They knocked but no one answered. Pehli looked under the mat and found a key.

Satavi protested that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

But Pehli shook her head patiently and explained why Satavi was wrong. “Two reasons. One – there is a welcome mat here at the door – if that’s not an obvious invitation I don’t know what is. Second – if you’re worried about us being arrested for breaking and entering – observe that we’re not breaking anything. We’re simply entering”

Everything looked perfect inside. This was clearly the home of seven individuals. But they were not dwarves, like Snow White had found. And there wasn’t a size hierarchy like in the case of Goldilocks and the three bears. Because all the furniture was equally sized. There was seven very large chairs, seven very large beds. There were seven different kitchens. And at the table, seven very large bowls. All filled with Kheer.

The girls didn’t hesitate. It had been a whole hour since they had had their last mango. So they seated themselves and finished off the Kheer.

Each girl went into one of the kitchens and helped themselves to more until each had finished the whole pot. No one worried at that point why there were seven kitchens. But they did realize that the Kheers had been cooked independently, probably by each of the residents.

They debated between sleeping in the seven beds, but ultimately decided that it might be better to sleep out in the loft in the barn. The residents might return and be surprised. And do something quite unsafe. So the loft in the barn was better. They did notice that the barn had seven buffaloes – no doubt these were the ones that the milk had come from.

The girls went to bed in the loft. In the morning, as they woke up they saw something very strange. There were seven men in bear costumes milking the buffaloes.

That made the scene odd enough that the girls resisted the urge to jump down from the loft, apologize for the intrusion and ask for directions home. 

“Why are they wearing bear costumes?” Chouthi whispered. 

“It’s not Halloween,” Doosri replied. “Fancy dress party maybe?”

Pehli shushed them both. They aren’t in costume. They are actually bears.

Their hearts skipped a beat as the other girls realized Pehli was right. The size should have been an indicator. These bears were at least 12 feet tall. Bit hard to do that with costumes. That explained the very large furniture too. It was still awkward that the doors were all normal human sized. Maybe the contractor who had built the home had had trouble getting Bear sized doors. Anyway, that was irrelevant. Right now, they needed to observe. And funnily this was made easy by the realization that they somehow seemed to understand the Bears.

“It’s very strange how all our Kheer disappeared. And how the door was left unlocked.” said one of the Bears.

The littlest bear, who was still a giant by human standard, said that it wasn’t strange. Someone walked in, ate the kheer and left. They should learn from this and stop leaving the key under the welcome mat.

But he was dismissed by the others. The largest, oldest bear of the lot stroked his beard and said it couldn’t be anything like that. Personally he was convinced that there was an alien that had teleported into the home and teleported out. The others agreed.

“Teleport, seriously?” the youngest bear asked. “They how do you explain the Key? We left it under the doormat, and when we returned it was on the table, and the door was unlocked. How did that happen?”

“It’s easy,” replied the wise old bear. “Telekinesis. The Aliens used their mental powers made the key sail travel through the solid welcome mat and the solid door and land here on the table. And they unlocked the door with those mental powers too”

The littlest bear shrugged and gave up. The bears all went back into the house with the milk they collected. They cooked it and made Kheer, the girls could smell it all the way in the loft.

That evening the Bears went out again. The girls rushed in and ate up all the Kheer again. And went back to the loft for the night. You’d think, having seen the sharp teeth and claws on the homeowners, the girls might have chosen a different camping spot for that night. But the Kheer really was delicious. And every girl really wanted to try out every Bear’s Kheer – since they were all different.

A few days passed, and the Bears began to get increasingly worried.

Then one day, the wise bear apologised to the youngest one – “You’re right. It can’t be aliens”

Finally they were starting to talk some sense. “Right, so we stop leaving the keys under the welcome mat, yeah?”

“It won’t help,” the wise bear said. “These are ghosts”

The littlest bear facepalmed.

The wise bear didn’t seem to notice and continued his explanation. “They did some things that would be highly odd for an alien to do. They’ve been using the bathroom. Aliens with their own physiology cannot know how to effectively use an anthropomorphic bathroom. But there were signs – the shampoo and conditioner levels have been dipping a lot faster than if we were the only ones using them. And then yesterday, we had hot water before we had even switched on the water heater.

The littlest bear wanted to suggest that some human person was using their home, and this was proof. But as usual no one listened to him.

“No, this is the work of ghosts. I’m sure of it. And I’ve seen enough movies to know that the Ghosts will not give up this place. We have to leave it.”

That wasn’t such a bad thing – the littlest bear made a silent resolution to use this opportunity to get himself smarter roommates. He wanted to pack, but the wise old bear stopped him.

Ghosts can possess things, we have to leave without anything at all. Not even the clothes on our back.

One of the bears, who was a bit pedantic pointed out that they had no clothes on their back. It was a little disappointing to them that they couldn’t take their buffaloes with them. But it didn’t matter. What was the use of having buffaloes if you never got to taste any dish you made using Buffalo Milk?

So they moved out right then and there.

The girls were happy of course. And they moved right into the Bears’ lifestyle. They already had the Kheer-eating-part down perfectly. Any thoughts of finding their lost parents were forgotten.

Meanwhile, their parents thought nothing other than how to find their lost children again. They severely regretted abandoning their children. And they decided, good or bad, they would stick together. So they spent most days searching the forest for any sign of the girls.

It was a well planned operation. Maybe years of working in a grid based set of streets had guided Bhookha’s thoughts as he systematically worked through every area of the forest. And maybe that was what slowed him down. If he had started from the mango tree instead of going left to right, top to bottom on the forest map, he’d have found them a few months earlier. 

But he did find the Bears’ home. Which was now his daughters’ home.

Instead of moving in to this comfy cozy home, they all moved back to the village. They did take the buffaloes with them.

With the daily supply of milk and their daughters’ new cooking skills Bhookha and Bhookhi soon opened up a Mithai shop – a sweet shop and made a huge pile of money.

In a strange departure from other traditions in that day and age, getting their daughters married was less of a priority to the parents compared to keeping the mithai business prosperous.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll continue on with the war in Lanka as we go back to the Ramayana.

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