In this episode, we’re beginning with Chandrakanta. Chandrakanta is a fantasy novel written by Devaki Nandan Khatri. I’ll explain some of the context towards the end of the episode, but for now, let’s dive straight away into the action.
But strictly speaking, there wasn’t much action on the evening that this story begins.
It started one evening with two men sitting on some rocks overlooking a field. A horse was tied to a tree near them.
“15 miles, that’s all that separates our Kingdoms” the first one spoke. He was Virendra Singh. His buddy was Tej Singh. Virendra’s father Surendra was the King of Naugarh. Given Surendra was the ultimate boss, or super-employer of everyone in Naugarh, it should not come as a surprise that Tej’s father Jeet was employed by Surendra. Jeet was some kind of unspecified adviser or secretary in Surendra’s court.
Tej replied to Virendra’s question “You mean to say – the girl you love, Chandrakanta, is just 15 miles away from your Kingdom”
“Oooh, are we doing the exposition thing?” Virendra asked eagerly. “I’d love to play too! Yes, Tej, my friend, I can confirm that it is indeed Chandrakanta I am thinking of. And this is the very same Chandrakanta who was my childhood friend. Lately, she’s been a pen pal of mine. We’ve exchanged several letters expressing our love for each other. In the most recent of those letters, she urged me to visit her. And that’s why I’m tempted to cover this distance to go meet her.”
“15 miles may seem like nothing, Virendra,” Tej replied. “But I must caution you here. Don’t do anything rash! Chandrakanta’s father, Jay Singh, has doubled the guard around her palace. No doubt he has done this under the influence of his evil minister Kroor Singh”
“That’s very disturbing, Tej” Virendra replied
“Yes,” his buddy replied, shaking his head “the poor girl must feel like she’s on house arrest”
“Not that.” Virendra replied “Kroor Singh is the 7th character mentioned in the story so far, and 6 of them have the same last name – Singh. Do you suspect we might all be related?”
“Well, if you want to get technical about it, all 7 have the same last name. Chandrakanta’s father is Jay Singh, so that makes her Chandrakanta Singh, don’t you think? But the princess goes by just her first name.
To get even more technical in answering your question – yes. We are all related. We all did evolve from the same simian ancestors according to the famous biologist Darwin Singh. So yeah, we’re all really related. But you’ve got no worries. You aren’t related as far back as the archives go”
That satisfied Virendra for a bit. But he really wanted to meet Chandrakanta. “Can’t I meet her for just a few minutes? My poor nightingale must be weeping her heart out in her cage.”
“I can take you to meet her, sure. But let’s do this in steps. I bet Kroor Singh is waiting to catch you sneaking in. Let me at least scout out the area. Also, I don’t really understand what your nightingale has got to do with Chandrakanta?” Tej asked, not really being familiar with the concept of terms of endearment.
Virendra reluctantly agreed. Tej dashed off and within a moment or two, Virendra could no longer see him. This wasn’t just because it was getting darker. There was a bigger reason. Tej had dashed off like the wind because he was as fast as the wind. Tej was an Aiyyaar. An Aiyaar is a person who can move very quickly, is an expert at disguise, and has an intimate knowledge of chemistry.
The ability of an Aiyaar to move quickly might remind you of Dash from the Incredibles, or the Flash from DC comics, or maybe Quicksilver from the X Men. But those are a little extreme. An Aiyaar can move quickly, but not quite in a blur. An Aiyaar is closer to Sherlock Holmes given he was a master of disguise and had a deep knowledge of Chemistry.
We’ll cut over the action now to Kroor Singh’s house. Kroor was sitting in his dirty business room, where he often hatched his most evil plans. To complete the picture, he did have a cat on his lap, like many a James Bond villain. Kroor Singh also had the obligatory shark tank that he could dip his guests into. He was also waited on by obligatory evil henchmen who, in accordance with their master’s insistence, would greet him with a “Hail Kroor Singh”. Well, you get the picture. Kroor Singh was a wicked guy, rotten to the core.
Unfortunately for the world, he was also powerful. A lot of his powers came from Aiyaars of his own. He had two: Nazim and Ahmad. And these were the two people he was talking to.
“15 yards. That’s all that separates me from her” Kroor Singh said.
Ahmad replied “Princess Chandrakanta’s palace is 15 yards away from yours, sure. But the palace itself is large, you have to factor that in. Your house is 15 yards from the East Wing and her bedroom is in the West Wing. Also, she’s on the 4th floor of the palace, so you have the take the hypotenuse when calculating the distance” He’d always been a little bit pedantic.
Kroor Singh glared at Ahmad icily for a bit and then said “If you’re quite finished with your boring old mathematics that no one asked for, may I resume my exposition?”
When Ahmad sheepishly nodded, Kroor Singh continued “I have loved Chandrakanta for a long time now. I sent her many letters expressing my love to her. She didn’t respond to even a single one”
“Maybe she’s too shy to admit that she likes you too” Nazim suggested
“No, I wish that were the case. But it’s not. It’s the other guy, Prince Virendra from Naugarh. Just because he’s a Prince. And I’m just the minister”
“Technically you’re not the minister either. Your father is” Ahmad corrected
“Another Singh I’ll bet” Kroor muttered
“What?” asked Nazim and Ahmad, not understanding the context.
“I don’t know why I said that,” Kroor said, “I thought that’s something Virendra might say about how all the characters in this story are named Singh. Anyway, let’s move on with the story. I want to make Chandrakanta my queen”
“You mean you want to make Chandrakanta make you her King, right? Since she’s already a royal and you are not” Ahmad said, pedantically.
Kroor brushed this aside and continued. “I already warned the King about Virendra. He doubled the guard around Chandrakanta’s rooms and gardens. But it won’t be enough to stop his aiyyaar. Now I’m getting a little stuck. My to-do list is growing out of control”. He waved around a long list.
Nazim read off the list. “1. Become King. 2. Marry Chandrakanta 3. Punish Jay Singh 4. Punish Daddy. 5. Become a Minister 6. Punish Virendra and 7. Punish Tej Singh and 8. Swim in royal treasury like Uncle Scrooge McDuck”
He was thoughtful for a minute and then continued addressing Kroor Singh. “You might need to sequence this differently. Are you sure you want to become a minister after you have become the king?”
“Gimme that,” said Kroor Singh and hastily began scribbling on his list.
“If I may be bold enough to suggest, I recommend we focus entirely on Tej and Virendra. If you succeed you will get into Jay’s good books. And when your father passes away, which might be any day now, Jay is sure to ask you to become a minister in his place.”
That seemed alright with Kroor Singh.
Nazim continued “I will help you get Tej. I bet Virendra has been thinking non-stop about Chandrakanta. He will urge Tej to go arrange a meeting. Tej will easily sneak past the guards and into Chandrakanta’s garden, where she is definitely gossiping away with her friends. I will ahem get in on the scene somehow and capture Tej. Then we bring the King, show him the deception and boom, Bob’s your uncle”
“No, he is not. I think he was called Ram or something”
“Let it go, Kroor. It’s just an expression” Nazim continued. “Ahmad and I will also help you get public support. All we ask in return is that you make us ministers when you become King. Leave the boring parts of the administration to us. Make us home minister and treasury minister”
“Okay. But I still get to swim in the treasury like Scrooge McDuck” said Kroor Singh.
“Deal!” Said Nazim. “As it happens I just happen to have some stamp paper here and I have already written in the terms of our agreement here, complete with the Scrooge McDuck clause. Just sign here please”
Kroor Singh signed the piece of paper without too much further thought. “One fine King he would make,” Nazim thought sarcastically to himself.
The two Aiyaars then excused himself to go put the first part of his plan in action.
Let’s cut over the scene to Chandrakanta’s garden where the Princess was gossiping away with her friends just as Nazim had predicted. Well, technically she had been chatting with both Champa and Chapla but now there was just Chapla on the scene.
“Where has Champa got to?” Asked the Princess.
“She was picking some flowers for me. It’s taking her some time, isn’t it? Want me to go check?”
“No. I think I hear her now.”
Champa walked towards them smiling and holding a bouquet. Something seemed off to Chandrakanta, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She glanced quickly at Chapla, but she couldn’t tell anything from her Aiyaar friend’s expression.
Champa approached them and said “Sorry it took a while to pick all these flowers. But I think this might be one of my better works, don’t you think?” She handed a beautiful bouquet to Chandrakanta.
The Princess took it willingly and smelled the flowers. “It’s a beautiful bunch indeed! Thank you Champa” she said.
“Oh, that’s it eh? Just a thank you?” asked Champa, teasingly. “I bet if Virendra were here, he would have rewarded me handsomely!”
That was the trigger for Chandrakanta to launch into a monologue about how much she missed Virendra. She went on and on about how long it had been since she last saw Virendra. She wasn’t sure, was it days or weeks or months? It felt like an eternity. “I don’t know why my father keeps listening to that evil Kroor Singh. What a horrible man he is. Now there are guards everywhere. Even if Virendra or Tej wanted to, they couldn’t enter. I bet even the secret entrance is guarded now”
“Go on, go on. This is very interesting. Kroor Singh will love to hear all this” Champa thought to herself.
Well technically, this was not Champa. This was Nazim in disguise. That was why it had taken Champa so long to get the flowers. Nazim had interrupted her and knocked her out. When you are a Chemistry expert as all Aiyyaars are, it’s very easy to knock someone out if they are smelling flowers in the garden. Just spray one of the flowers with Chloroform and the victim does the hard work for you. The real Champa was unconscious in an obscure corner of the garden.
And Nazim here was excitedly listening in. He stealthily adjusted the hidden microphone in his blouse to ensure clearer reception and looked on at the Princess with real excitement in Champa’s eyes.
We’ll leave it there on a cliffhanger and pick up the story in a later episode.
Some notes on the show
Like I said earlier, Chandrakanta is a fantasy slash science fiction novel. It’s in the public domain now. I have linked to Devaki Nandan Khatri’s original text in Hindi. Here’s the link.
Wikipedia describes it as a fantasy novel, but I must say it’s closer to science fiction than fantasy. Because some attempt is made to explain the root cause of the
While it’s neither mythology nor folklore, the novel is very much in the theme of everything else we do talk about – a medieval Indian setting, Kings, Princes, Princesses, evil advisers, and magical slash superhuman creatures.
There will be many more episodes before we cover everything in just the first book. Khatri also wrote several other books. We’ll get there eventually.
Chandrakanta got a bit of a cult status with children from the 90s when it was made into a TV series. There are some differences from the show, which I will highlight as we cover more of the story. The TV show leans more towards fantasy, whereas the novel makes at least an attempt to imply science behind Aiyaari, rather than using a deus ex machina like magic.
At this early point in the story, I think it’s best if I avoid saying anything more.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we are back to folk tales again. It’s been a long while since we did one from Assam, and we’ve had a listener request one, so that’s what we’ll cover next week. It’s a story about an epic showdown between a Monkey and a Fox. The pre-match odds are frankly a toss-up because, in most folk tales, monkeys and foxes are the cleverest creatures when it comes to folk tales. But in the story, we’ll definitely see one of them gain an upper hand.