I know I said last time that the story I’d be doing this weekend is the Ramayana. But hey, it’s Diwali! So I figured I’d do a quick bonus episode on this occasion, featuring a clever washerwoman, the goddess of wealth Lakshmi, and the first recorded usage of landing lights like we have on modern runways. I will still continue the Ramayana this weekend as I originally intended.
Today we’ll do a short story about a clever washerwoman. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, I just want to be clear – the woman washed clothes, not anything else. She was the Ancient Indian version of a washing machine. Let’s call her Dhobi.
I won’t start the story with Dhobi, but instead, with the King and Queen of the Kingdom, she belonged to. Let’s call them Raja and Rani, words which literally mean Raja and Rani in Hindi and most other Indian languages.
Raja and Rani were typical Ancient Indian monarchs. Living off of taxpayer money, buying expensive gifts for each other on taxpayer money, and spending only a short amount of the day in actual administrative work.
Their life of luxury took on magnified proportions during Diwali, the festival of lights. Diwali was at least as big a deal back then as it is today. Maybe the key difference was that it didn’t include fireworks manufactured by child labor.
Anyway, this Diwali was no exception for Raja and Rani. They splurged! The mountains of gifts they had for each other would make Harry Potter’s cousin Dudley’s birthday gifts look like a consolation gift.
So this Diwali morning, Rani started with a new set of golf clubs. But because the game of Golf had not been invented yet, Raja assumed this was a new set of Gilli-Danda. Which he was excited about. He didn’t know Gillis could be round. And that the set came in a nice leather bag.
Well, that worked well for him. He knew what he was going to be doing that weekend with the boys, his other fellow Kings.
And the King had a pretty decent present for his wife. He handed her a gift-wrapped box.
She looked at it suspiciously. “Did you just wrap an old thing in there like last year?”
Raja thanked his lucky stars that he had not forgotten this year. Truth be told, it’s not that he had much to do either.
Because his part was simply to tell his secretary to get something better next year. That secretary was a smart cookie! She did all the work of filing a request in triplicate somewhere. There were other clerks in the records-keeping division whose only job was to scan such files periodically. They acted on the King’s request to find Rani a present that would put every other King’s presents to shame. The clerks took that quite literally, unfortunately for Raja and more unfortunately for the Kingdom, as we shall soon see.
Rani opened the box and squealed in delight! It was a necklace, the best she had seen. It was studded with every possible precious stone. At least every precious stone known to the jewelers in the Kingdom.
It was crazily expensive. To the point that Raja had to take out a second mortgage on his Kingdom to fund this present. Oh well, his citizens could pay taxes over the next several centuries. The necklace itself was collateral, so as long as they continued to own it, there was nothing to worry about.
But suddenly there was everything to worry about! Rani had just taken the necklace to the balcony to view it better in natural light. That’s when it happened. A magpie swooped out of nowhere and grabbed the necklace in its beak and flew off.
Raja looked on in shock and dismay at the bird flying off with what was effectively the Kingdom’s treasury.
He shouted anxiously for his guards. They chased after the bird, but as anyone knows you can’t really chase a flying creature when you’re on the ground.
The day was a disappointment. His efficient secretary lost no time in announcing a huge reward for the one who would bring back the necklace. But the secretary was more than just efficient. She also planted spies all over the Kingdom’s pawn shops and jewelers’ stores, just in case someone tried to cash in on the King’s loss. It wasn’t that she was expecting the magpie to walk into a pawn shop. More likely, the magpie would accidentally drop the necklace somewhere where someone could find it.
The secretary had a great instinct because that’s exactly what happened. The lucky person to unexpectedly discover the necklace in their possession was Dhobi.
Dhobi was just doing her job down by the river. She was washing clothes. It didn’t matter that it was Diwali, Dhobi didn’t get days off. Especially during the holidays. It’s true that the after-Holi was a busier time for her, but Diwali was not much lighter.
After spending hours washing all the clothes and letting them dry, as she sorted and folded them she noticed the necklace which definitely must have been dropped by a bird flying overhead. There was no other explanation. None of her clients were rich enough to afford a necklace like this. She was no jeweler but she wondered if this necklace could allow her to buy herself a Kingdom or two.
But Dhobi was an honest person. She wasn’t the kind to run to the nearest pawnshop to trade in this necklace. She was wondering how she should handle it when she saw the advertisements all over town. So the King had lost a necklace like this, had he? Well, she couldn’t be sure that this was the same necklace, I mean you never know with the filthy rich. But she figured it was worth a try, wasn’t it?
She approached the palace. Even though there was a sign that clearly read that the palace was not open to visitors on holidays and weekends, Dhobi was fast-tracked in when she showed the necklace.
Moments later, the King and Queen were thanking her for bringing back the necklace.
The King said “thank you, dear lady, you’ve saved me, and saved the Kingdom. I promise I’ll give you double the reward! I’ll send you camels loaded with gold! Not tax-free, of course. Someone has to pay for the necklace after all”.
Dhobi thought for a minute and said, “Your majesty, I have a slightly different request. I don’t want money. If you wish to reward me, I need you to declare something”
“What would you like, name it. Anything” said Raja before Rani could urge caution.
But Rani need not have worried too much.
Dhobi explained “Today is Diwali. What I would like is for you to declare that no place in the Kingdom should light any lamps, candles, or lanterns. My house shall be the only one not in darkness tonight”
Raja and Rani thought this was an odd request today being Diwali and all, but it could be easily granted.
“Alright,” said Raja and turned to his very efficient secretary to relay the order to her. His secretary informed him that she had already gotten her people on it, and as of right now, people were announcing it all over and going door to door to make sure that all houses stayed dark tonight.
Dhobi went back home happy without any riches. Now you might be wondering why did she do that? Did Dhobi not want the money the King was generously offering?
Well, Dhobi did want the money. But she had an ulterior motive. She didn’t just want a golden egg, she wanted the Goose that had laid it.
And by that I mean that she wanted the Goddess of Wealth, Laxmi, to visit her home and no one else’s.
You see, it was the belief that Lakshmi goes about flying in the night on Diwali and visits every home that has welcome diyas outside. That’s also the reason why people do this on Diwali.
You can imagine why the lights are helpful. Imagine you’re the goddess of wealth in a very generous mood and you’re flying high in the air on a moonless night, and you look down to find where your biggest fans are, you’d need some kind of a runway light right? I mean runway lights are how pilots manage to land an airplane at an airport as well. So runway lights are based on this same principle.
So anyway, though the King and Queen had dismissed this as superstitious nonsense, it was Dhobi who got the best outcome of all.
That night, Lakshmi came into Dhobi’s home. The Goddess was puzzled that people actually thought she needed runway lights. “I can navigate just fine thank you. I’m a Goddess. We’ve got night vision, x-ray vision, the whole works. I just use the lights to know where I am welcome”
She added that she had intended to spend 4 hours in this Kingdom, but given that this was the only home, she was going to spend 4 hours with Dhobi!
“Perfect!” thought Dhobi, because that’s exactly what she had wanted. “Let’s watch a movie, I’ll microwave the popcorn!”
That’s all for now
Notes on the show
Now, no one knows for sure how this custom of lighting lamps started. Well no one except me, with my knowledge of the past, present, and future. I can confirm that it mostly began in Ayodhya with the citizens welcoming Ram, Laxman, and Sita back to the Kingdom. Not to spoil the story, but that’s in the tail end of the Ramayana.
Unlike what this story implies, and unlike the Rossini opera La Gazza Ladra and the Tintin story The Castafiore Emerald, magpies do NOT usually steal shiny objects.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do the Ramayana as we had planned with Ram and Laxman continuing their search for Sita. I’ll see you soon