This episode is about Nala and Damayanti.
Normally when the title of a story is the name of a King and Queen as Nala and Damayanti were, you’d think it’s a love story. Sure the story today features a bit of courtship, including a matchmaking swan. But the rest of the plot is rather different, focusing on other things. Including some good snakes, bad snakes, some transferable skills like in the Matrix, and some advice about gambling.
Our story begins with a King. Nala ruled the Kingdom of Nishada. Besides being a capable ruler, he was skilled. At driving. He often won the Formula 1 Chariot races in his kingdom. Of course being the employer and generally supreme authority ruling over the other competing chariot drivers must have helped.
One day, Nala was taking a new chariot out for a spin. And that’s when he passed by the lake in the forest, and saw in it the most remarkable bird he had ever seen.
It was a swan. He had never seen a bird as beautiful, as majestic as this one. He had to have it for his own private garden in the palace.
He hid in the bushes and observed the swan for a while. After making a careful log of its movements he then decided that the most appropriate moment to capture the bird was when it walked out of the lake to, you know, use the bathroom.
Nala rationalized this in his head, and it made sense. It seemed sanitary that the Swan did not use the lake itself for that particular biological need. After all, the lake was its feeding ground.
Timing things well, Nala jumped on the bird as soon as it emerged from the lake for its next break, just as Nala had predicted.
“Stop! Let me go” shrieked the bird
“You speak?” asked Nala, astonished “I’ve been observing you for days and I didn’t hear you say a word”
“It’s obvious you don’t speak Swan-ish? Motor-mouth Motilal they call me”
“I guess not. Anyway, Motilal, what do you say about moving to a new accomodation in my palace? Luxury waterfront views. Attached infinity pool”
“You’re really not selling it. I don’t want waterfront views, or an infinity pool attached. I live in the water”
“Alright, let me start again. I’ve got the best pond in the world. Over 12% year-on-year growth of the mosquito and water bug population. I can share statistics about the composition of insect and marine life. I have some pie charts. Also doubles as the menu in your case”
“You had me at that mosquito statistic!” the Swan replied enthusiastically.
The Swan and Nala became friends and would often chat.
The topic of conversation one day was how Nala had yet again been picked as India Today’s Most eligible bachelor.
Unfortunately they had not also featured the most eligible Bachelorette.
“Well, why didn’t you just ask me?” asked the Swan. “I’ve traveled far and wide and I can tell you there’s no one more eligible than Damayanti.”
Nala wanted to know more, so the Swan went on and on about Damayanti this and Damayanti that, until Nala had firmly bought into this idea.
What’s more, her Swayamvara was coming up soon.
In case you are not familiar with Swayamvaras, a sidebar would be helpful here. A swayamvar is typically where a prospective bride, usually a princess, chooses her groom from the audience. And I don’t mean that in a game show kind of way. It is kind of like the bachelorette if you’ve seen the TV show, but with a lot less drama and a lot more politically motivated decisions.
If anything, the responsibility of making a choice was transferred from the King to the Princess. The future consequences of a bad choice are allowed to fall completely on the bride’s shoulders, and the King could always escape any criticism for the choice. Not surprising for the patriarchal society that this practice was followed in.
One feature of Swayamvars was that the bride would always pick someone. No way to twist and bend the rules and defer to a far off future like in the Pixar movie Brave.
So it was that when Nala knew that Damayanti was going to be married, he needed to take immediate action. He urged the Swan to put in a good word for him with Damayanti. Which the Swan was happy to do. He said he would sing praises of Nala, what an awesome host he was, he would particularly highlight the mosquito rate in Nala’s kingdom.
“No, bird brain! Please don’t mention the mosquito growth rate!” urged Nala, almost panicking.
Motilal the swan didn’t mind being called bird brain. That was after all, factually accurate.
“Ah, you want to keep that part a surprise for after the wedding. I see! How clever of you!” said the Swan.
He flew off to Damayanti’s kingdom in Vidarbha without spending too much time to pack.
Damayanti in her palace had a similar pond, where she would often spend the afternoon hours painting.
She observed a new bird one day – a majestic swan. It swam right upto the bank near where Damayanti was sitting.
“How are you doing?” the swan asked her.
If Damayanti was shocked, she didn’t show it. I guess that’s one of the things they teach at Princess school.
She exchanged greetings with the Swan. After a bit of small talk, the bird got into sales mode. He explained where he was from, and how awesome his buddy Nala was, and how he’d enjoyed his flight, and how he just loved the weather here. And did he mention just how perfect his dear friend Nala was?
Damayanti listened with awe. Not least because she had never heard a bird talk before.
But she was impressed when the swan went on and on about Nala. Over time Damayanti fell in love with a man she never met, just as Nala had fallen in love with her without even meeting her.
She decided that on the day of her Swayamvar, she would pick Nala and no one else.
The day approached and there was quite the crowd! Not just mortals, but mostly Gods had shown up to the Swayamvar. Many of these immortals were enamored by Damayanti, I guess they had overheard Motor-mouth Motilal too.
Damayanti knew that the one thing she needed to do now was to identify Nala in the crowd. She had secured him an invitation, and rushed it by speed post. Surely he must be here.
She scanned the crowd, and started looking at nametags but there were far too many to read individually. Then she had an idea. She looked at the shadows of all the suitors. For a reason that I cannot explain within the confines of any physical law known to you listeners, Gods do not cast a shadow. Humans do. Damayanti used to weed out most of the audience.
Of the few humans that were left, it was easy to read the name tags and find Nala. Motilal had not lied. Nala seemed like everything she had imagined him to be. She put the garland in her hand around Nala’s neck and that sealed the deal. She had chosen him, and he was obligated to marry her.
She did worry for a second when she realized that she hadn’t bothered to check whether this was merely a namesake. So she asked him about motormouth Motilal, he did not act surprised at the name. So this must be the Nala she was after.
Just after he had done that, a stranger burst in.
“Awfully sorry. I didn’t mean to be late. It’s all this evil mastermind business, it always keeps me busy”
But then Seeing the gathering his expression changed “Quite the glittering assemblage. Royalty, Nobility, even the rabble. I really felt quite distressed at not receiving an invitation. But I figured it was just a mistake and I decided to show up anyway.”
I know you’re wondering who this stranger is, but at the party there was not one person who did not recognize the newcomer. It was Kali. The archnemesis of Kalki who is the upcoming Vishnu avatar. I’ll have a lot to say on Kalki, and I promise to do a separate episode on him soon. But for now, suffice it to say that every Yug, or era has a mega villain. And for the present one, that is Kali.
Kali’s anger was also in part because he had wanted to marry Damayanti. How dare she choose someone else when it was he who rightfully deserved her? I guess when you are a mega villain, you begin to assume that everyone else’s opinions should exactly match yours. Or else….
We’ll get to the “Or else” part….. right now. When Damayanti refused to un-garland Nala and garland Kali instead, Kali took offense. He said that he’d felt attacked and that there would be consequences for Damayanti. And for Nala too – because there needed to be collateral damage. It wasn’t personal, just business.
Nala nodded back at Kali and said he totally understood. “You’re going to try to destroy my life, but I totally can see why you’re doing it. More power to you and all that sort of stuff”
But after that day, Nala was constantly on his guard. Kali would be able to disrupt his life, but only if Nala allowed him to. It was like the often repeated advice about viruses and worms on the Internet – it can cause chaos on your computer, but only if you allow a malicious download.
Nala was determined never to download anything. And to never give Kali an opening. He did everything by the book. I mean it. He followed everything in the book – “How to keep Kali away with 8 easy steps”.
He did this for 12 years. Kali waited but could not find any weakness, any sin to exploit. Until one day, Nala was late for prayers and forgot to wash his feet in his hurry to get to the prayer room. That is what Kali had been waiting for. Now you would think that a mega villain whose job it is to cause chaos in the whole world could not have afforded to have been obsessively observing a single person. And you’d be right. Kali did not watch Nala like a hawk himself. He’d outsourced the work to his minions.
Kali, knowing that some impurity had entered Nala, immediately went to Nala’s brother – Pushkar. Pushkar had his eye on Nala’s throne, but he had no right to it. Nala was more competent, wiser and fairer.
But Pushkar bought into Kali’s idea when Kali whispered it to him.
Pushkar challenged his brother Nala to a game of dice. With a pair of very special dice that Kali had gifted him.
Normally Nala would have politely refused stating one excuse or another – board meeting here, brick laying ceremony there, cutting the ribbon somewhere. “A King’s job is never easy, you know?” He said
“I wish I knew” Pushkar would think, but all that was unnecessary today because the impurity in Nala had willed him.
“You can do it! You’ll win easily” a voice whispered in Nala’s head this time
“You are a voice. In my head. Why do you sound like Kali?” Nala asked
“Never mind that, you don’t think many people have similar sounding voices? Look your brother is waiting”
Nala agreed to one game. Just one game. And with stakes no higher than 1 rupee.
53 games later, Nala had lost more than a rupee. Considerably more. He’d lost the throne, he’d lost his chariots, he’d lost the palace, his bedroom. He’d lost everything except the clothes he was wearing. The clothes he was wearing were not his usual royal clothes. Before game number 48, he had changed into ordinary peasant garments, so he could gamble them along with all the jewels he was wearing.
In case you’re interested in a career as a mega villain, that is how you sow discord. Not through direct action, but through indirect one.
Dejected, Nala said. “Hang on, I have an extra bit of cash in my bedroom”
“You mean, my bedroom!” reminded Pushkar. “Listen, bro. You’d better stop here. You’ve already lost a lot”
“Don’t give up now, this was just the beginning” said the voice in Nala’s head “Go ask Damayanti, maybe she’s been saving up for just such a need”
Nala did talk to Damayanti, and asked for some money. But Damayanti was reluctant.
“But it’s a clever system that’s guaranteed to work!” said Nala. “Everytime I lose, I double the stakes, so that when I win, I’ll have recouped my losses all in a single win, and made a lot of money as well. I just need enough for a few more rounds”
When she found out that the amount he needed was enough to fund 3 palaces, a million acres of farmland, she put a stop to it right there.
Pushkar came by to remind them that if they were planning to hang around the palace for much longer, he would have to start charging them rent.
Reluctantly Nala, Damayanti and their children left the palace. They had managed to secure a chariot to take the children to their grandparents in Vidarbha. But it was just that. A chariot. Without a charioteer. It’s not clear why Nala or Damayanti didn’t just drive the chariot themselves. I bet it was the voice in Nala’s head again that continued to influence his actions. Not sure why Damayanti put up with it. But she did.
The two of them bid farewell to their children. Damayanti was at least sure to give them directions to Vidarbha.
Nala and Damayanti wandered into a forest. They couldn’t be in the same town. Not after such a drastic reversal of fortune.
They wandered beyond the boundaries of what was now Pushkar’s kingdom. That made sense, because it had gotten very annoying. You see, Pushkar had employed a couple of people to taunt them continuously, sort of like Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons going “Ha, Ha”. The only way out was to leave the jurisdiction. The voice in Nala’s head definitely advised him against staying back and trying to earn money and start saving up.
The voice also told him that the spot he was standing on was totally perfect to sleep, and the nearby hole in the ground definitely did not contain an angry and vicious 30 foot Python named Nishada that had recently been stepped on by a man and was itching to bite and/or squeeze any human that approached anywhere close.
Nishada the Python, who definitely was in the hole emerged and slithered towards the sleeping Damayanti poised to strike her. But let’s leave it at a cliffhanger and follow Nala who had wandered away as his wife slept.
The voice urged him to go away and leave her alone. “Damayanti will be safe,” the voice said. “She does not need protection. There are no wild animals in this forest.” A pause and then … “And over there to your left, there is definitely nothing to see there. Don’t look in that direction, Nala.”
But it had the opposite effect that Kali wanted. Nala looked, and saw a snake King trapped in a ring of fire.
“Oh my goodness, I have to save you, your majesty,” Nala said. Ignoring the protests of Kali’s voice in his head, he grabbed a long stick, reached inside the ring of fire and gently lifted the snake out of it.
Thank you, I must go now. Said Nala, at the urging of Kali’s voice. But his curiosity took over and he asked what the snake King was doing here. He knew the Snake was a King because of the tiny crown he was wearing.
The Snake King replied that he was cursed. He was rooted to the spot and could not move. It was all thanks to me. Yes, me! Narada.You can’t blame me for it. The snake dude tried to cheat in a game, so I had to punish him. Did you expect me to just let him off the hook?
It was totally fine for him to be here, since it was a forest and he was a wild animal after all. Which puzzled Nala because the voice in his head had definitely said there were no wild animals.
The Snake King knew exactly what the problem was. You’ve got a parasite living inside you. It’s talking to you, isn’t it?
“A parasite, you mean my tapeworm? He’s just a harmless guy, and he does a wonderful imitation of Kali”
Nala obviously did not realize that Kali was inside him. There was only one to quickly remedy the situation. The Snake King bit Nala.
“Ouch, what did you do that for? I saved your life”
“And I saved yours. You obviously don’t realize it but the voice inside you was Kali. I’ve eliminated the infection now. You’re cured! And you’re welcome”
Nala tested his mind, yeah, the voice wasn’t answering back. Kali was gone. Suddenly the events of the last few days struck him and he was ashamed of his actions
But before he could thank the Snake King for rescuing him, he felt himself transforming. He grew shorter, and less handsome than he had been.
“As you can see, there are some side effects,” the Snake King said. “But don’t worry, I took the liberty of extracting your blood a little when I bit you. I’ve encoded that into this blanket” he pulled a blanket out of nowhere and continued. “Wrap the blanket around you and you’ll return to normal.”
“But stop, not now” he added quickly as Nala started to put on the blanket around himself. “Kali is still inside you. I’ve inactivated him, not destroyed him. When he leaves you, then you can change back”
Nala was disappointed. Now he may have been feeling the after effects of being envenomed but he did not go back to Damayanti. Instead he took the Snake King’s advice and sought out King Rituparna of Ayodhya. Yes, the same Ayodhya that Ram and Laxman were from.
It took him a while, but by the time he got there, he had changed his identity. He was no longer Nala. He was now Bhauka, a charioteer and a cook according to his passport and ration card.
Bhauka had no problems getting a job. And no problems rising in the ranks quickly. Within a month, he had become the Royal chef and charioteer. I guess King Rituparna really liked having the same type of cooking both at home and on the road.
I don’t know if Bhauka wondered what was up with Nala, but I’m sure you listeners are wondering that exactly. So let’s rewind the clock a bit and go back to the forest where Nishada the Python was about to put the squeeze on Damayanti. She awoke with a start but the Python quickly grabbed her in its coils. It was about to begin its dinner when out of nowhere came an arrow. It hit the python and killed it instantly.
It was a hunter who had fired it. Damayanti was grateful of course, but she immediately changed her mind as the hunter began expecting a little more than just thanks.
“You’re worse than the Python,” Damayanti said as he moved to grab her. But a princess is skilled in combat. I guess it’s in the job description. She knocked out the hunter with a jab and a left hook.
She thought to herself “Nala was completely wrong when he said there are no wild animals in this forest. I’ve only been awake 5 minutes and I’ve met two.”
She looked for Nala everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. There wasn’t even a goodbye note. Some people in that situation may have sat down and despaired. But not Damayanti. She looked at the position of the Sun and started making her way east, because she believed that was the quickest way out of this forest.
She walked through the forest for hours, and then she suddenly heard a crowd! It was a group of merchants with a cargo of goods they were transporting. The caravan was exclusively male, but she figured there was safety in numbers. She asked to join them, and was warmly welcomed. But within minutes there was chaos as a herd of wild elephants tore through the forest and destroyed everything in sight. That included the goods the merchants were transporting. Damayanti and the traders barely escaped with their lives.
Unfortunately for Damayanti, the merchants were convinced that she had brought them bad luck. They chased after her with what few weapons they had left, convinced they must have their revenge. Which really was not going to repair their goods, but hey – they figured it was worth a try.
Damayanti had the presence of mind to head in the direction that the caravan had been. That’s where she was bound to find a town. They just could not keep up.
It only took about an hour, but Damayanti emerged from the forest into a village. If anything she was thankful for the incident. It had accelerated her return to civilization, even though she felt a little sorry about their goods. Well if she got her riches back, she would compensate them for their losses. And have them whipped for believing such superstitious nonsense.
She reached the village square and first read the missing persons list in the hopes that Nala might have advertised. Not seeing her name there, she moved on to the jobs wanted on the billboard and found the perfect job opening herself. It was an opening at the palace. Queen Bhanumati needed a new maid. Damayanti knew she could ace that interview! She knew of Queen Bhanumati, they were even distantly related. She did not think Bhanumati knew her.
Damayanti quickly put together a resume, faked some references and interviewed for the position. The interview was a walk in the park for Damayanti. No, it literally happened in the palace gardens. For someone who had experienced palace life before none of the questions were difficult.
Bhanumati took her on, and was incredibly satisfied with her new maid. She kept trying to recall where she had seen the woman before. But it took several days before she finally remembered. And when she did, she called Damayanti over and asked her to fetch her a painting album from her desk. It was from their last family reunion. She found the right painting and showed it to Damayanti. Damayanti gasped, looking at the painting of her younger self, her parents, her brothers with Bhanumati.
Her suspicions confirmed, Bhanumati urged her niece to tell her everything. Damayanti did. And the two decided that the best thing was for Damayanti to go rejoin her parents, and her kids back in Vidarbha. Bhanumati cursed Nala for having abandoned her niece. Damayanti joined in the criticism, half heartedly. A part of her still loved Nala despite everything.
A few months later, back in her father’s palace, she used his considerable resources to try to track down Nala. To draw out Nala, she sent out flyers everywhere. It asked to locate the gambler who went from riches to rags and who abandoned his wife in a forest.
Well she wasn’t expecting it but she got a ton of replies. So she had to modify the message to add that the gambler had been a King once. That filtered out all the other replies.
But the flyers did reach the Kingdom of Ayodhya eventually. Nala read one in between his duties in the kitchen and reacted just as Damayanti had hoped. He went straight to Rituparna and said that there was a….a chef’s convention in Vidarbha. Could he please take a few days off? And could he borrow Rituparna’s speediest chariot, please?
Well, Rituparna did not say no. But he would not let his best cook go away by himself. “Yaaay, road trip!” he said and began packing his own bags. He also remarked that he couldn’t wait to taste all that food.
Put like that, Nala couldn’t really refuse Rituparna.
They set off in the direction of Vidarbha right away. Nala was really fast as a charioteer. What he did amounted to low level flying. Maybe it was the passion with which he was charioteering, but Rituparna dared not ask him to slow down. And at the same time, the bits of inactive Kali inside Nala’s body could not stand the jolting. He finally exited Nala’s body and appeared before him.
Kali asked for forgiveness. He had realized he’d been too harsh on the man. He even gave him a boon, which I’ll get to again in the end.
When Rituparna and Nala reached the palace in Vidarbha, Nala had still not put on the blanket that the Snake King had given him, so he still looked rather different. Maybe he was ashamed to appear before Damayanti and own up to his mistakes. But he need not have worried. Damayanti herself arrived on the scene and instantly recognized him despite the changes. That gave Nala the confidence to go back to being himself. The magic blanket, sorry I mean the genetically encoded blanket, transformed him back to his normal self. And unfortunately when he tossed it aside it fell on someone’s pet cat and had a rather frightening effect on all present. Thankfully the royal magician could undo the damage quickly and the cat ultimately recovered. It did take some therapy though.
Rituparna was shocked at what was going on, not least of all that the chef’s convention wasn’t really on. And what’s more he was losing his cook.
“Did you drag me all the way here, just to tell me you’re resigning?” he asked, distressed.
But Nala and Damayanti assured him. That was far from what they had in mind. Nala and Damayanti explained everything. Several hours later, Rituparna said that even though Nala had been a bit pig-headed at times, he was happy they were back together. He would gladly help him. There was a secret to winning a game of dice. He picked up a pair to demonstrate. All it took was the right kind of roll. You want to roll a 5, hold your fingers just so, and in this position, and Voila! There’s 5!
Over the next several days Nala learned more about dice than he had imagined was possible.
In return he taught Rituparna the fine art of charioteering. Which made total sense because that was after all the only way Rituparna would be able to get back home.
With whatever money Damayanti could manage to borrow from her father, she and Nala set out to challenge Pushkar. They were still remembered by the Palace guards and readily admitted. I guess the guards really did not like working for Pushkar.
Nala declared to the King that he had come there to reclaim his throne with the little money he had earned over the last 4 years or so that it had been since their last match. But he knew that Pushkar was a coward and would probably prefer to sword fight. Either way, the choice was his.
Reverse psychology worked! And Pushkar picked dice as his weapon.
The stakes were high, because Nala staked himself and his wife. That may sound like a terrible decision, but this time Nala was completely confident. Kali was not on Pushkar’s side. And Nala had mastered the art. No wonder, he won it all back in a jiffy.
But he was magnanimous in his victory. Pushkar had lost everything, but he would get his original kingdom back. Things could go back to being just as they were before. Except that now, Nala and Damayanti did not have the threat of Kali hanging over them.
So there’s the lesson of today’s story. If at first you don’t succeed at gambling, and you really want to try and try again, maybe it’s a good idea to learn how to roll the dice first.
But seriously speaking though, don’t actually try this at home. I can see the future, remember? I don’t want to scare you off gambling or anything but consider this a fair warning – I’ve seen the future and if winning is what you planned, things might not exactly work out as you had hoped.
There’s also the matter of the boon that Kali offered Nala. It was that anyone who had heard this story would not feel the ill effects of Kali. So if you’re heard this story today, I can certainly claim credit for helping you avoid those. You, my dear listeners, are most welcome.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
The story is from the Mahabharata. It’s meant to be a morality tale, to convince a reckless prince not to gamble away all his possessions. But as we shall see when we get to that bit of the Mahabharata, this story could not really have done that because it was being told to a Prince who had already gambled away everything. It was like shutting the stable door after the horse was already gone.
The story is very popular amongst non-Indian students of Sanskrit. Probably because it was prominently translated early in the 19th century.
Other Mahabharat episodes are linked here:
Episode 59 – River of Dreams
Episode 60 – Down By The River
Episode 68 – Waiting
Episode 69 – Father and Son
Episode 70 – The Art of the Deal
Episode 83 – Mahabharata – The Groom Reveal Party
Episode 84 – Mahabharat – A Princess Scorned
Episode 91 – Mahabharat – Amba
Episode 96 – Mahabharat – Vyas Ex Machina
Episode 105 – Mahabharat – Four Weddings and a Birth
Episode 108 – Mahabharat – Oh, deer!
Episode 115 – Mahabharat – How to Raise a Family
Check out these other Mahabharat Episodes too, some of which are peripherally linked to the main storyline, including
Episode 27 – The Rise of Shukra
Episode 28 – His Girl Friday
Episode 37 – A Fishy Engagement
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do a folk tale from Himachal Pradesh. This one is about a girl in a village in medieval India who can solve any problem, including dealing with demons, cheats, misers and bill collectors.