Chandrakanta – Aiyyar Diplomacy {Ep.260}

In today’s episode we’ll continue Chandrakanta’s story, with Tej Singh and Chapla’s politics, lies, diplomacy, and deception to get the kingdoms of Naugarh and Vijaygarh to become friends again

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 continuing the story of Chandrakanta. If you haven’t heard previous Chandrakanta episodes, that is fine because I’ll give you a quick recap of the story so far. But I do suggest listening to previous Chandrakanta episodes. They are linked in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com.

Prince Virendra of Naugarh and Princess Chandrakanta of Vijaygarh were in love with each other. But Kroor Singh was the Kabab Me Haddi, or spoilsport if you prefer the English version of that phrase. He turned a happy situation with a consenting prince and princess, and consenting sets of parents into a very Romeo and Juliet like situation. Chandrakanta’s father Jai Singh severed all relations with Virendra Singh and his father Surendra Sigh. Virendra was also banned from his Kingdom, with shoot-on-sight orders.

Kroor Singh didn’t stop there. He was the frontrunner to be Vijaygarh’s next minister considering his father had the job right then and this was a very Nepotistic society. But he wanted to hurry things along. So he poisoned his father. All Kroor Singh wanted was money, love, and power. He figured he’d get all three by marrying Chandrakanta, and becoming the next King.

Kroor Singh, Virendra, and Chandrakanta all had Aiyyaar sidekicks. These Aiyyars did most of the actual work in the story. Aiyyars were experts at disguise, at chemistry and they also had access to futuristic technology.

Virendra’s Aiyyar Tej Singh was so far ahead on the leaderboard. He had outwitted and imprisoned Ahmed who was one of Kroor Singh’s aiyyars. Tej Singh was theoretically assisted by his brother in law and fellow Aiyyar Devi Singh. But Devi Singh hasn’t really featured much in the story so far.

After an embarrassing episode of misunderstandings, Kroor Singh, resenting a punishment from his King, ran off to neighboring Chunargarh. Chunargarh was ruled by Maharaj Shivdutt. Shivdutt agreed to an alliance with Kroor Singh and the two plotted to topple Vijaygarh. That wasn’t a difficult task because Shivdutt’s armies quite outnumbered those of Vijaygarh. But Shivdutt had an 7 Aiyyars as well. And he sent 5 of them with Kroor Singh and Nazim to overthrow Vijay Singh.

Tej Singh meanwhile had infiltrated Vijaygarh’s administration by abducting Hardayal Singh and taking his place. Seeing as Hardayal Singh was the Diwan of Vijaygarh, that put Tej Singh in a powerful and influential position. Enough to convince Jai Singh to extend an olive branch towards Naugarh.

We’ll continue our story with that Olive branch in hands of the very competent Tej Singh. Just to be clear it wasn’t an actual olive branch. It was a Palm Leaf. Which should not be surprising because that was the paper of that day and age. The palm leaf was a letter dripping not just with ink but with milk of human kindness, as Shakespeare or Kalidasa would have put it. It described how Jai Singh wanted to establish friendship with Surendra Singh right away. And to hurry up with the reinforcements, because Shivdutt’s Aiyyars were knocking on their doors. Please.

There was definitely a note of urgency in the letter. And yet, Tej Singh did not go to Naugarh right away. He knew he had to do something very important first. Chapla had to be informed.

But how could he summon her? It was highly unusual for the Diwan of the Kingdom to summon the Princess’s maid/friend to his chambers. The tabloids would be full of the news the next day – about the Midnight Maid Mystery, or the Royal Rendezvous Reveal. More than anything, Virendra would be far from pleasant if there were the slightest of aspersions on Chandrakanta’s character.

So he did something. He sent a letter of his own. A secret coded letter that would seem perfectly harmless to anyone else who read it. But it would have special meaning to Chapla and no one else. This letter was also on a Palm Leaf, but not to worry. This isn’t a comedy of errors that results in Chapla reading Surendra Singh’s letter and vice versa.

After several minutes of deep thought, Tej Singh, in his Hardayal Singh character hit upon the solution. And he was proud of it. The letter went. “Chapla – Raat akeli hai, bujh gaye hain diyen. Aake mere paas, kaanon me mere, jo bhi chahe kahiye.” 

Though the letter was addressed to Chapla, he put it in an envelope that was addressed to Chandrakanta. And if Chandrakanta, or anyone else but Chapla read the letter, they might think Hardayal Singh was merely sharing the lyrics for a song they both liked. Kinda like one Bollywood song enthusiast sharing something with a fellow Bollywood song enthusiast.

And he put all kinds of Top Secret classification markers on it. That way, if anyone saw the envelope they would think this was official business.

That’s exactly what the messenger thought. Actually even Chandrakanta thought the same until she broke the seal, opened the letter and read it. And then she read it again, and studied it some more. “Here Chapla, a letter for you. It’s from Tej Singh, who is disguised as Hardayal Singh. He wants you to go meet him at Hardayal Singh’s home right now for a conversation”

Chapla took it, read the letter, and looked suspiciously at her employer. “Chandrakanta, I’m not against you reading my letters. The envelope was addressed to you, so it’s understandable that you read it. But how did you figure out from this message that Hardayal Singh is impersonating Tej Singh, and that he wants to meet me?”

Chandrakanta said dryly, “not the message itself. It’s all the scratchwork on the back of the letter that he forgot to erase. Say, if you’re meeting Tej Singh, would you find a way to pass something on to Virendra?”

Chapla replied “Sure! Even if I have to go to Virendra myself”

Hardayal Singh greeted Chapla with obvious surprise on his face that sent a chill down Chapla’s spine.

“You – you’re the Princess’s maid aren’t you? Chapla? What are you doing here, at this time of night? Do you need something?”

Chapla fumbled for an explanation but then Hardayal laughed and said, in Tej Singh’s voice “Relax, it’s me. I was just kidding”
If he noticed Chapla’s glare, he didn’t show it.

Instead he caught Chapla up on all that had happened. Chapla rolled her eyes. Had all this really been necessary? Did Tej Singh forget that Chapla, as a member of Chandrakanta’s entourage, had been present at court and witnessed everything? Including the spy who slunk away, she had heard the decision Maharaj Jai Singh had made. And she knew what the King put in the letter. Because she had read the carbon copy that was stored in the archives. So what exactly was Tej Singh telling her here?

Tej Singh recovered quickly. All that had just been context setting, he explained. What he really wanted to tell her was that he was going to Naugarh.

Chapla rolled her eyes. “Hello, it would be a shocker if you didn’t go.”

“What I mean to say, Chapla, if you stop interrupting me, is that you should hold down the fort here. Shivdutt’s aiyyars may already be here. You don’t have to take them on yourself. They might be too strong for you to handle. But just keep an eye for anything unusual”

Chapla had had enough of this condescension.

“Listen now, you. I will do just what I please. If I feel like it, I’ll take on as many of Shivdutt’s Aiyyars as I like. If they aren’t here, I’ll go find them in Chunargarh myself, or I’ll go to Naugarh. I don’t need any more advice from you” She stormed out, leaving Tej Singh a little puzzled.

If Chapla had visited a spot not far, just outside town where a few people were clustered around a fire, she need not have speculated about having to go to Chunargarh. The Chunargarh Aiyyars were right there by the fire. There was a debrief happening. And all the aiyyars were in disguise. 

A rich merchant with a walrus mustache called the meeting to order. He wasn’t a rich merchant at all. He was Badrinath. Each aiyyar went in turn detailing what they observed. Everyone except Nazim. Nazim had been relegated to tea and biscuits duty. Naturally, no one trusted him anymore. Not when the real aiyyars were in the field.

A beggar explained that he had been observing everything that went on across the street from his perch outside of the palace gates. And could they all please give him a rupee? He had been starving all day. And his wife and children were hungry, and ill.

A couple of them were about to give Pannalal a rupee, when Badrinath interjected and said he didn’t need to starve for real, you know. This was just pretense.

Pannalal took offense at that. He stood by what he called his “method acting”. Badrinath shrugged and moved on to the next aiyyar.

The next aiyyar was in a soldier’s uniform and he explained that he had it on good authority that Jai Singh was asking Naugarh for reinforcements. They had been asked to clean up all the flags and shields of collaboration.

“I agree,” spoke up a maid who was really Bhagwandutta in disguise. “I read the letter that Jai Singh wrote. It’s a matter of public record, you know. It’s in the archives”

Badrinath felt something needed to be done about this. Even with reinforcements Vijaygarh was no match for Shivdutt’s armies and aiyyars. But that didn’t mean they had to make things harder for themselves. So the solution quite simply was to ensure that the reinforcements never arrived.

One aiyyar should be able to do it. Bhagwandutta was just the aiyyar for the job.

Let’s cut over to Naugarh now, after a deliberately indeterminate time period after that last conversation.

Virendra Singh sat in his chamber, moping. He hadn’t heard from Tej Singh, and he was missing Chandrakanta hoping for some letter or some message from her either through Tej Singh or through Chapla. Virendra and Chandrakanta were two love birds that were always missing each other, so what was different on this occasion, you may ask?

Well, what was different was that this time it seemed his wish came true, when his servant announced that Chapla was here and wished to see him.

Of course Virendra had her brought in right away. When she entered, he bombarded her with a hundred questions. How was Chandrakanta? Was she missing him? Did she have a message?

Chapla raised a hand to stem the flow. Yes of course Chandrakanta was missing him. She felt exactly the same way, and had asked pretty much the same questions.

“Yes, Prince. Chandrakanta is pining away for you. She is worried that you don’t care about her. You’re probably so busy with your Princely duties you’ve forgotten that she even exists” 

Virendra was about to protest, when Chapla raised another hand. “Stop. She did send you something. A gift. These two pears that she peeled and then cut herself with her own two hands”

“Why did she have to do it herself? Is something wrong with the Vijaygarh kitchen staff?” inquired Virendra. “And why two hands, she could have just taken out her sword and cut the pears no?”

Evidently Virendra neither understood emotional response to missing someone, nor had he even elementary knowledge of the mechanics of chopping pears. He probably just focused on eating them. That’s what he proceeded to do now.

Part of him was ready to put these chopped pears on a pedestal so he could worship them. But the other part wanted to fulfill Chandrakanta’s smallest wish and to eat them.

He grabbed a slice from Chapla’s, really Bhagwandatta’s, outstretched hand and took it towards his mouth.

Bhagwandatta, who was disguised as Chapla, smiled inwardly. Go on, go on. Just one bite and you’ll be out like a light, he thought. The sleeping potion I put in there will have you sleeping like a baby, while I carry you back to Badrinath. With you gone, Surendra singh wouldn’t be able to help Vijaygarh. He’ll focus all his energy trying to find you.

Virendra raised the pear to his mouth and was about to sink his teeth into it.

We’ll leave it there on a cliffhanger. We’ll see what happens to Virendra, but in a future episode.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Devaki Nandan Khatri did not portray Aiyyars as magical unlike how they were shown in the television series. Aiyyars were just really really good at using three things – futuristic technology, chemistry, and stealth. 

A huge appeal of the book is in how Khatri keeps the reader guessing about who’s using Aiyyari and what their true intentions are, sort of like a murder mystery where you keep changing your guess about whether it was the butler or the cook or the driver who did it.

Previous Chandrakanta episodes are linked in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com, check them out:

https://sfipodcast.com/category/chandrakanta

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll go back and do one of the Vikram Betaal stories. We’ll see Vikramaditya answer yet another tricky question. 

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Kaira – thank you for all your comments including on the much older episodes. Re: what happened in episode 2.5 to Aji, she made it out of the pumpkin. In the original story she wasn’t really stuck in there. But that was a little creative liberty from me.

Kaira, if I do as many episodes as you requested it’ll take considerably longer than the age of the Universe, or even the age of the Universe times a million septillion, which is a 1 followed by 42 zeroes. It’ll be much larger than a septillion times the age of the Universe even if I make a new episode every second. So I don’t want to say that that’s unlikely to happen. So I’ll guarantee it won’t.

Madhu Kumar Challa – we did cover Shivaji and Aurangzeb’s brief encounter back in Episode 39.

Shalu – yes, the story of Hanuman and Ahiravana is not as widely known. It doesn’t appear in most versions of the Ramayana and that may explain the obscurity.

Sharath – awesome work in listening to all the episodes and catching up fully. Considering there are almost 300 episodes, that’s a lot of your time invested and I’m deeply grateful for it.

Aniv – you are getting your wish. Vikram and Betaal is next week.

Samay – I agree. Let me line up an episode featuring parrots soon.

VDC Spotify – wonderful idea! I’ll get started on the category-based playlists and post an update soon.

Moneesh thank you for the feedback.

Hiranmayee – thank you for your support as always

Libby, I have received other requests for a Panchatantra story as well. So that will come up soon too.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook. You can listen to the show on all podcast apps, and that now includes Youtube. If you want to send me an email it’s stories.from.india.podcast@gmail.com.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!