Before I start today’s story, let me just quickly thank all those of you who wished me on my birthday earlier this week. Narada Jayanti as it is called is a special occasion that reminds me that I’m so old that even large cakes cannot hold enough candles. Now on to today’s story which is a folk tale from the Eastern Indian state of Assam.
It features women turned into animals by evil stepmoms, golden and silver trees, magical fruits, singing birds, and gory dinners with somewhat satisfactory results.
Our story starts in a little village. It starts with a lazy rich guy – Aalsi.
Aalsi was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I mean that figuratively, not literally. Otherwise, it would have been a painful pregnancy for his mother. Anyway, Aalsi lacked nothing. If he wanted a second toy before his first one was worn out, he’d get it. Unfortunately for the people around him, this continued beyond his childhood.
So after having married, he married again. And medieval Indian society somehow accepted this without grumbling too much.
However, the Elder wife, Daayan, wasn’t at all happy with Aalsi’s decision to marry again. And she was not at all fond of his younger wife, Kachua. Terribly unhappy with the situation and in a boiling rage she decided the only way out was immediate and desperate action. 20 years later.
Don’t ask me why it took so long. Maybe some potions take an awfully long time to prepare.
Anyway, Daayan and Kachua were walking to the pond to fetch water together one day, just as they had done daily for the last 20 years.
Kachua expressed how she was thirsty. That was the opportunity that Daayan had been waiting for, for 20 years. She took out her hip flask and offered Kachua a sip.
“But we’re almost at the pond” protested Kachua
“This is flavored water. Try it,” said Daayan. She didn’t really reveal what the flavor was.
Kachua not suspecting a thing drank it. And she was instantly transformed into a tortoise.
Daayan returned alone, of course. Even if Kachua wanted to follow her back she wouldn’t have made it for a week. It must have been hard adjusting to a slow-moving body.
At the threshold, Daayan practiced her lines a few times. This act she was about to put on was for Aalsi alone. She didn’t really care about Kachua’s twin children Teja and Teji or about her own daughter Nakli. She entered and screamed in an anguished voice “Kachua! Poor Kachua”. No response from Aalsi. “Kachua has drowned!”. Still no response.
And Aalsi, who was busy with his newest video games did not really care that Kachua was gone. His instinct was that it wasn’t much of a deal. He didn’t understand what the fuss was about. If Kachua was lost, he could go get himself a new wife, couldn’t he?
Daayan dropped the pretense. She need not even had bothered with the act.
Now on to phase 2 of her plan.
She went to the kids’ room.
“Your mom is gone!” she said abruptly to the twins. Without a care for the shock on their faces, “There are going to be some changes around here. Teja and Teji – you are going to move into the cupboard under the stairs. And from tomorrow you’re going to mind the cows all day. Nakli will need this room all to herself”
Teja and Teji continued to goggle at her wide-eyed.
The best that could be said for Nakli was that she did not point out how she had a mom while the twins didn’t.
Shocked though they were, there wasn’t much they could do. So the very next day they went obediently about their new duties.
Daayan had told them that the only benefit they had in their job package was that they might get dinner on alternate Fridays. And of course, they weren’t getting packed lunch. Why should they? The grass was good enough for the Cows, it ought to be good enough for Teja and Teji as well.
Turns out of course, that it wasn’t. Teja and Teji went completely hungry that day and that night.
The next day promised to be no different. Except for one thing. On their way to the pasture, Teja and Teji saw something. On their path which passed near the pond, they saw a tortoise. They had seen it yesterday as well but it had been closer to the pond. When they neared it, they could see it was out of breath. When it spoke to them, they were shell-shocked!
“Bad puns aside, I’m exhausted.” the tortoise said. “Like I’ve run a marathon to get to you. And I almost ran over a poor snail on the way”
“You… You’re speaking!” said Teji. “How can you? Tortoises don’t have vocal chords! At best you should be able to make clicking noises”
“Quiet. I’m not just a regular tortoise. I’m your mom” said the tortoise, who really was Kachua
A slow and tearful reunion later, Kachua was distressed to hear that her children were starving.
Luckily for them, she had the perfect solution. She threw up.
“Ewww!!” said the twins, jumping back.
“Don’t complain. This is perfectly healthy food,” said Kachua
“That was fast food. How could it be healthy?” asked Teja
But Kachua made them eat it. And the twins actually enjoyed the food. Maybe it was because they had had nothing else to eat for almost two days.
A word of caution here – please do not try this at home. Eating regurgitated Tortoise food will make you sick. Unless it’s from a magical, speaking tortoise. Like Kachua.
The twins felt quite full. They bid goodbye to their mom whom they obviously could not take home with them. No, it would be safer to keep her out of Daayan’s reach.
But nothing would stop them from eating mom-approved fast food daily on their walk to the cow pasture. And maybe a snack on the way back as well.
This continued, and something happened that proved that Teja and Teji had taken a wise decision to keep Daayan and Kachua apart. The way it started was with Daayan making an observation. She was sure she was starving the twins and yet they looked rather healthy. They had even put on quite a bit of weight. To the point that the well-fed Nakli looked almost malnourished by comparison.
Daayan did what evil stepmoms do best. She enlisted her daughter Nakli to go spy on Teja and Teji.
Now Kachua had specifically forbidden her children from revealing her existence to Daayan. But she had not said anything about Nakli. Teja and Teji really should have known better than to give away the whole story to Nakli. But they did, and they gave her a live demonstration as well. Both Nakli and Kachua were horrified by Teja and Teji’s suggestion that Nakli could join them for lunch.
Nakli refused politely and went home, promptly telling her mom all that happened.
Daayan readied another evil plan. She must have really longed for a Bollywood career. Because this one involved acting too. Acting sick.
The tortoise Kachua meanwhile was being more perceptive than the human Kachua had been. From Nakli’s visit, she had deduced everything! She knew what was going to happen next.
“I have very little time. So listen carefully” she told her children as soon as Nakli had exited the scene. Today the cook will try to catch me. She won’t be able to. She’ll come again tomorrow. That won’t work either. At that point, you both should go talk to Daayan. Tell her you are volunteering to catch me. Then come and take me with you.
I will be cooked. No, spare me the shock. I’ll be okay. Just make sure you sneak some of the turtle soup the cook makes, and then secretly pour it in the yard.
“Mom, that makes no sense! Why would we do that? Who will feed us”
But they did not hear her reply. Because just then their cook arrived on the scene. She had explicit instructions from Daayan. Daayan was sick. And there was no chance of survival. Unless she got to eat soup made from the specific Tortoise that lived in the pond.
What the cook did not expect is for the Tortoise to zoom off the way it did. It was a blur. “Well, that’s another way to explain how a Tortoise could have beaten a hare in a race.” she thought and walked back home.
She returned the next day with a large army of helpers. Initially, they all laughed at her when she explained she wasn’t fast enough to catch this tortoise. Well, the next day they all had egg on their face. Not a real tortoise egg. I meant that figuratively.
No one could catch Kachua just as she had predicted. But then Teja and Teji volunteered to be tortoise hunters the next day and Daayan accepted. I don’t know why she didn’t smell a rat here. She surely knew that they knew the tortoise was Kachua.
Just as Kachua had promised her kids, she went with them and was promptly changed into turtle soup by the cook. It’s not clear why the extra couple of days were necessary. Maybe to avoid raising suspicion of a possible means of escape?
Well, if that was the intent it didn’t work for very long. Because the very next day in the yard grew a huge tree of gold and a tree of silver right where Teja and Teji had secretly poured a bit of the turtle soup.
Despite this being medieval India, news traveled pretty fast. By afternoon the next day, Teja and Teji’s yard was marked on all the tourist maps as a major landmark because of its unique trees.
One travel brochure accurately remarked that “for some reason not understood by modern science, only Teja and Teji could approach the trees. Some invisible barrier kept everyone else away, including other members of the family”. Another brochure commented how Daayan was charging a thousand rupees for every photo with one of the trees. She’s making a killing the brochure noted.
The King himself appeared on the scene. He needed to get these trees. No one was visiting the palace gardens anymore. He was losing important revenue there.
After Teja and Teji had fetched him a gold and silver leaf each from the trees, he explained what he wanted. He expressed how much he would like to own the trees. “I’ll even marry you” he said looking at Teji.
Teja was offended. “You wish to use my sister as a bargaining chip?”
“No no, Teja it’s okay,” said Teji quickly. “I’ll gladly marry the King. He can have the trees”
Then in a conspiratorial whisper, she told Teja to just be patient. Once she was Queen she would continue to own the trees. Wasn’t that obvious to him?
So it was that the King walked off believing he had pulled off the biggest deal of his life. It probably was the biggest deal of his life.
Teji and the King agreed to wait for a year before marrying. No particular reason. Teji preferred to get her diploma first. It didn’t matter that the King as the supreme authority of everything in the Kingdom, including Teji’s University, could have just awarded her the degree.
Teja did not want the King to forget his sister like Dushyant had forgotten Shakuntala in Episode 37 – A Fishy Engagement of this show. His solution was easy. He gave the King an egg and a seed.
He instructed the King – Plant the seed, and store the egg in a warm place. When the bird hatches from that egg and when the plant bears flower it’s time to come get Teji.
The King was astonished. “How do the egg and the seed know they have to wait for Teji to get her diploma?”
“The story does not explain that,” said Teja. “Just believe it. It’s magic, like many other things in the story, including your new trees.”
With that Teja was able to transplant the trees to the King’s palace gardens.
The King did have the seed planted too. Which was a good thing, because one night he accidentally used the egg to cook himself an omelet as a midnight snack.
As it happened, the King completely forgot about Teji, despite the constant stream of revenue the gold and silver trees were bringing him. But one day he did see beautiful new flowers in the palace gardens. He remembered the circumstances he had planted them in. He rushed back to Teji’s home. Just in time too, because Teji had had her diploma a while ago and was wondering what was keeping this guy.
All this while, Teja and Teji had actually made peace with Daayan. It was the threat of retaliation from the King that put Daayan on her best behavior.
The wedding went quite well! A grand feast, thousands of guests, and lots of dancing. Just your typical Indian wedding.
A year or so later, Teji and the King were expecting their first child together. When Daayan got the news, she insisted on having Teji over. It’s a tradition for the child to be born at her mother’s home. The King did not object. If he had heard Episode 65 – Slytherin’ through the Grove – Part 1 of this podcast he would have thought better of it.
The truth was Daayan was not really much of a follower of tradition. This was just her way of getting revenge. She was incredibly jealous. She had done everything nasty to Teja and Teji and yet they had the most incredible luck.
Daayan was extremely patient too. She had waited 20 years to attack Kachua. By comparison, her 3 years-long plan to destroy Teji was by comparison rather a rush job.
Everything was going along fine in the beginning. Teji had a baby girl. And Daayan treated them well, playing the part of the perfect mother and grandmother.
On the last day, however, she offered to brush Teji’s long hair. That gesture by itself was not smacking of evil genius unless you include the fact that she used a magical hair clip on the girl. The moment the hairclip was in place, Teji changed into a little bird, a mynah.
Distressed at her sudden transformation, Teji did what any bird in that situation would do. She flew away from the human near her and took refuge high up in the nearest tree.
Despite all her preparation, Daayan could not grab the mynah before it flew out of the window.
“Oh well,” thought Daayan. “A hawk will probably eat her or something”.
She moved to the next phase of the plan. Which involved disguising Nakli as her stepsister and sending her back to the palace.
I don’t know what she hoped to accomplish by this. Sure the palace did not have fingerprint readers and iris scanners but did she honestly think people would accept Nakli as Teji?
Well, turns out everyone did accept her. The little baby was the only one who did not. She was not comfortable and could not understand why her Aunt was hugging her all the time. Where was her mum? She expressed these questions the only way a baby is capable of. By constantly crying for her mum.
The King thought this was odd but paid no further attention to this. That is until he heard the bird singing outside his window one morning.
It was definitely a bird, a mynah. The mynah sang of a girl deprived of her baby, her body, her loom, and her King. Not necessarily in any particular order of preference, the mynah hastily added at the end of its song.
The King got to thinking. Something was certainly odd with Teji. Normally she was always on her loom weaving all kinds of beautiful cloth. It was more than a hobby. It was an obsession.
And yet, since returning from her childhood home, Teji had not touched her loom even once.
He decided to test her. That put Nakli in a spot who didn’t know one side of the loom from the other. She didn’t confess to her sin but she might as well have. As the King sat in despair wondering what to do next, the mynah came and landed softly in front of him.
That’s when the King noticed something else that was very odd about the mynah. It was wearing a purple hair clip. Not a mynah-sized hair clip but a human-sized hair clip.
He picked up the bird and removed the hair clip to take a closer look. But the moment he did, Teji was back with him!
The sudden change in weight from a tiny bird to a full-grown adult did break the King’s arm. But as Teji pointed out it served him right for not having recognized Nakli’s deception much earlier.
The King, even with his arm in a sling was able to sign the order sentencing Daayan and Nakli to prison for life.
Everyone who survived lived a happy and uneventful life until a reasonable age, but the media lost interest and decided not to cover them. and so we’ll end it here as well.
Some notes on the show
This story has some elements we have seen before. We’ve seen the bait and switch before in the Magic Grove story(Episode 65 – Slytherin’ through the Grove – Part 1, Episode 66 – Slytherin’ through the Grove – Part 2, Episode 67 – Slytherin’ through the Grove – Part 3)
As is usual if you’ve been listening to this show, the names are Hindi words that relate to what the characters do. Aalsi is the word for Lazy. Daayan means witch. And Kachua literally means Tortoise.
I didn’t change the names of Kachua’s children though. In what is rather an unusual move for an Indian folk tale those characters were actually named.
Nakli means fake, given she was not a real princess.
It’s not clear why Kachua in tortoise form is sometimes incredibly fast and sometimes just the regular Tortoise speed. There are other loose ends in the story. If Daayan could transform people into animals, why didn’t she just turn the children into animals too?
How did Kachua get her magical powers?
Also, why did Daayan pick a mynah? A bird that could fly long distances and could sing songs with human words is a terrible choice. At least she should have bothered to close the windows before putting the magical hair clip on Teji.
Teja completely drops out of the story after a bit. His is rather a minor role in a way. Almost nothing in the story would have changed if Kachua had just had Teji instead of both Teja and Teji.
The original story had a much more gory treatment of Nakli and Daayan. If you’ve heard the expression an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, I might add “soup for soup”.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll talk about Agastya, who was another one of the 7 hall-of-fame rishis, or Saptarishis as people know them.