In this episode, we’re doing a Himachal Pradesh folk tale. 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.
The story is set in medieval India. We begin in a little village where there lived a merchant, his two sons, and two daughters. As happens in many similar stories the older children were foolish, incompetent, and unwise. And the youngest was the smartest. Let’s call her Medhavi, which is a Hindi word that literally means Intelligent or brilliant.
Medhavi lived with her parents and her siblings – her brothers Anadee, and Agyaan and her sister Saral. And those siblings led to a lot of problems for the family.
It wasn’t that they were looking for trouble. It’s just that they were a little foolish at times. Their lack of wisdom got them into situations that did not work out well.
Take last week for example. Anadee had borrowed a horse. Before the owner lost it. And because the owner of said horse was the King himself the outrage was disproportionate to the crime. Maybe the fact that the horse was richly dressed should have been a clue. Or the other ample signs on the horse including an owner’s label and “If found call this number”. But Anadee just didn’t realize he was doing something wrong.
Agyaan worked at the palace and was in charge of the laundry. He had done something unforgivable as well. He’d mixed the white clothes with the dark colors and that had ruined the Queen’s best dresses.
And in folk tales, these things typically happen in threes. Saral’s crime was that she had dared to beat the Princess in a race. Saral was too much of a simpleton like Agyaan and Anadee. She did not quite understand when their coach had specifically warned Saral not to go too fast.
Well, that was the last straw. The princess demanded immediate action and the King delivered.
“That entire family is full of troublemakers. Off with their heads,” he ordered.
“Isn’t that a little extreme?” asked the Queen. “Besides, the executioner has been sick. It seems someone gave him a glass of vinegar instead of water”
“Must have been one of those troublemakers” suggested the King.
And it really was.
They settled on banishing the whole family from the kingdom.
The Queen suggested that maybe they didn’t need to do that to the whole family. They hadn’t had any complaints about the youngest child of the family – Medhavi.
“That’s because she’s the youngest. She just hasn’t had the time yet” replied the King.
“Besides, it’s not like we’re going to execute her,” he added, even though that was exactly what he had tried to do a minute ago.
So they banished the family. And for good measure, they added that no one else would be allowed to help them.
If all that wasn’t enough, Medhavi’s family had to give up all their possessions as well. Those could not compensate for the emotional scars the King’s horse endured or for the loss of the Princess’s face. But it might help restock the Queen’s wardrobe. And that was a win in the King’s book.
When the eviction notice was delivered to the family, it was accompanied by a set of armed guards who constantly kept their swords pointed at the troublemakers.
The guards also took all the money and jewels that the family owned. Well almost all.
Medhavi had the presence of mind to salvage something. She pleaded with the guards to allow her to bake some bread. The guards said that they really mustn’t allow her to, They had strict orders from the King. But they gave in when Medhavi volunteered to bake a cake for them.
While the guards were busy ransacking the house, and Medhavi was kneading the dough, no one noticed the girl slip off her rings into the dough. The bread dough, not the cake dough.
When they were leaving, Medhavi had a moment’s scare when the guards wanted the bread in addition to the cake. But the clever girl had the presence of mind to drop the bread on the dirty floor, as if clumsily. Then, the guards didn’t want it anymore. They also were glad she had not dropped the cake.
Medhavi and her siblings slowly walked through forests and mountains and deserts until they reached a foreign land. At least the currency seemed to have the face of a different King, not the very capricious ruler whose Kingdom they had lived in.
Penniless and draped in clothes that looked terrible from their long travel.
“I have an idea,” began Anadee. “All we have to do is to wait for the next time they are filming a Bollywood movie in this village. Then we can try to get jobs as extras”
“That’s a silly idea!” said Agyaan. “What if they are filming a Bollywood movie and they don’t want any extras? What will you do then? No, I have a much better idea. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll borrow money from a loan shark. We’ll buy some grains, hoard them and sell them when the price rises. Without any short selling regulations to stop us, we’ll make virtually unlimited money.”
“Very good Agyaan,” said Medhavi. “That might actually work if a loan shark actually loans us money. A loan shark who lends money to complete strangers is unlikely to still be in business”
“Why go to all those complicated lengths?” asked Saral. “I see a baker’s shop right here. He has food on display right here. Let’s just open the jars and eat the cookies inside”
The simpleton that she was, Saral probably forgot about the whole concept of paying people in return for goods and services. Kinda like the namesake SARAL that everyone is familiar with come the income tax deadline.
“People, people! Those are all great ideas. But let’s not get carried away at this stage. Let’s aim for something small and achievable first. We’re really starting from zero here,” Medhavi said.
“I think the right thing to do is mostly what Agyaan said, but without the loan shark part”
“Aww, but the loan shark part was the best in my opinion!” Agyaan protested
Medhavi ignored him. She instead grabbed the loaf of bread and crumbled it into pieces, revealing the jewels she had hidden there.
She suggested that Agyaan take the ruby and exchange it for a barrel of money. With all that money they would be able to afford food and shelter for a month. After that, they’d manage somehow.
Medhavi should have been the one to go. But the jeweler would likely not give her a favorable exchange rate.
So while Medhavi, Saral and Anadee were busy touring for homes they could move into, Agyaan walked around town until he found a jeweler’s store.
That was unfortunate. Because the owner was a cheat. He could see right away that the ring Agyaan had brought him was worth a fortune.
“It’s worth nothing,” he told Agyaan. “But I feel sorry for you. I’ll tell you what. I’ll loan you 5 rupees. You still have to pay me back”
“Yippee!” thought the ignorant Agyaan. To him, this was the best of both scenarios. He would get some money and it would be a loan just like he’d always wanted.
The Jeweler asked Agyaan to have a seat while his helper fetched the 5 rupees.
“No, not that chair. And not that one either. Take this chair instead” he directed.
Agyaan followed instructions and discovered… that it was a trick chair. It’s bottom did not exist. So when Agyaan tried to sit, he slipped straight through a secret trapdoor in the floor. It was like a playground slide. Except this one led Agyaan straight into a dungeon.
Medhavi and the others waited for Agyaan for a long time. Finally, Anadee went next, with a diamond. He too chanced upon the same jeweler. And he too sat on the wrong chair. The silver lining was that he no longer had to wonder what had happened to his brother Agyaan.
Medhavi and Saral waited again but there was no sign of their brothers. Saral suggested that maybe she should go try selling a jewel next.
“Don’t you see a pattern emerging here? We have 4 jewels, there are 4 of us. And if the story is formulaic, you’ll be caught, as well. Then it’ll be upto me to rescue you against all the odds.” Medhavi replied. “Besides, I have a great plan”
She hid the remaining jewels. And then, changed her clothing into that of a man and went looking for a job in the King’s court. She introduced herself as a man obviously, otherwise there was no hope of landing a job. Thankfully she could keep the name because Medhavi is luckily a gender-neutral name.
The King was happy to give this young lad a job. Truth be told, he was just waiting to palm this off to the first outsider who did not know the story of the vacant position.
This was not like the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position if you remember your Harry Potter. This was much worse, because the King in this case was not really obligated to disclose all the challenges of this role.
There was one big catch that he really should have mentioned when signing Medhavi to the payroll. And that was a Rakshasi who was terrorizing the whole Kingdom.
The Rakshasi could shapeshift, she fed on a diet of people. Medhavi would become the chowkidar of the Kingdom. Medhavi’s job was to walk around town, beating her stick and screaming that “all was well”. It seems counterproductive to scream like that and wake up people in deep sleep. But that was the way the King wanted it.
Medhavi besides being clever was brave. She did not mind in the least. Even at 3am when Medhavi saw someone appear out of nowhere. This was the kind of scene that plays out in thriller movies. Except the shape that appeared in Medhavi was that of a beautiful woman. Who was crying. But it really wasn’t. It was the Rakshasi in disguise.
The Rakshasi, in human shape now, was sobbing crocodile tears and Medhavi had to comfort her.
The Rakshasi claimed to be the widow of the man they had hanged this morning. His body was still hanging from the gallows. All she wanted, she said, was to hug her husband goodbye. “Would this kindly chowkidar please carry her to the gallows?” She asked
Medhavi did not suspect a trap and gladly did so. She carried the considerably heavier Rakshasi up on her shoulders. And when the two of them reached the gallows, medhavi noted something very strange about this woman on her shoulders. The woman wasn’t hugging the husband but seemed to be eating him! Yes, the Rakshasi was beginning to take on human form.
The Rakshasi had been saving the Chowkidar for desert. But Medhavi was not going to wait for her to slowly devour her. She swung into action, pulled out a sword and sliced at Rakshasi. It only took a couple of blows to put the Rakshasi out of action.
This was something no one had managed to do. I guess everyone in the kingdom lacked the courage to do something about her, as Medhavi had just done.
But when they saw what she had done, they lost no time in celebrating her achievement. She was practically carried back to the Palace.
The King was incredibly impressed by this boy and said he could have anything he wanted. Even unto half my kingdom he added.
But Medhavi did not want that. She claimed that all she needed was a swat team.
“A swat team? Why?” asked the King, all puzzled
But Medhavi promised to reveal the whole story later. This was not a time-sensitive request.
She took the King’s best S.W.A.T team and walked about the village square.
There was a jeweler’s store. She went in and saw right away from the arrangement of the chairs that something was not right. Why did the Jeweler have an extra chair right there?
She refused his offer for her to take a seat.
Instead, she signaled the SWAT team to enter and search the property.
Of course, they found Agyaan and Anadee in the dungeon. Underfed, but happy to have been freed.
The jeweler was imprisoned for life, as the King pronounced.
The only thing left was rewarding Medhavi. The King was so thrilled that he suggested that the boy should marry his daughter and inherit the Kingdom.
That’s when Medhavi thought that maybe it was finally time to explain her backstory. She fessed up. The King understood. But it took him a long while to do so. His initial reaction was one of downright panic.
It’s not clear why the Jeweler chose to hang on to the brothers instead of doing something more drastic and irreversible. Alternatively, he could have simply held on to the jewels and not paid Medhavi’s brothers. It would just be the Jeweler’s word against that of the strangers. And guess which way the jury would vote then. But I guess if the Jeweler had been smart enough to figure that out, it’s unlikely he’d be just a mediocre villain in this story.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
I’ve made a few minor changes from the original story. The original tale had a father, his son and his four wives. But the role of the father and the son were really meaningless. I think they were included because in the patriarchal society this story originated in, it would have been unthinkable not to have the heroine appear inferior to an elderly male figure.
As is usual on this show, the names of the characters represent the roles they play. Medhavi means intelligent or brilliant. Anadee means clumsy, ignorant or inexperienced. Agyaan is a person who lacks knowledge. And Saral means simple.
We have done one other Himachal Folk Tale before covered in Episode 71 – The Five Gretels – Part 1 and Episode 72 – The Five Gretels – Part 2
That’s all for now.
Next Time
As of this week, it’s now been 2 years since I started the podcast. This is a huge milestone for me and I could not have gotten here without the feedback and support that I’ve received from you listeners. As a token of my appreciation, I’ll have a special bonus episode available for you mid week. Appropriately it’s a story featuring me!