In this episode, we’re doing a Bengali folk tale. This one features a series of unfortunate misunderstandings.
The story begins with a normal King in a normal Kingdom having a perfectly normal court day, just the way the King preferred it. He didn’t want anything out of the ordinary to happen in his Kingdom and had worked hard to be mediocre. I guess he had heard too many of the stories we’ve featured before on this podcast and was a little weary of hearing anything out of the ordinary.
That’s why he got especially upset by the news. On this fine summer Friday, the King had been looking forward to wrapping up the day’s work and heading for the swimming pool. But his adviser had come to inform him that burglaries in his Kingdom had now crossed the 60th percentile mark. It was no longer acceptable to claim that his Kingdom was perfectly average in every way.
The King’s first instinct was damage control.
“What if we claim a couple of the burglaries were actually military drills gone wrong and simply compensate those victim homeowners?” he asked
The adviser began that they certainly could, at which the King’s eyes lit up. But the adviser quickly added that she had a new concern in that case. “The military drill budget will grow past the 60th percentile, and that will be just as bad. In fact, it might be worse because one might argue that you aren’t directly responsible for burglaries. But you are directly responsible for military spending”
The King grumbled at this new impediment. The two of them racked their brains until finally, they determined that the only way out was to use members of the royal family. Not the King or Queen themselves, because their security cost a fortune. They would use the Princesses! Each of the 3 princesses would prowl the streets at night, for less than 4 hours at a time, so it wouldn’t count as even a half-day – meaning they would not have to be paid anything according to the labor laws of the land.
The Princesses were asked and their response was as you might expect. Escape a boring old pool party so they could patrol the dark and deserted streets in the middle of the night, in return for no compensation? Absolutely. Not!
But then when it was a direct order from their father, the King, they had to do it anyway. Well, the King was really good at emotional blackmail. Oh well, at least they had nothing to fear. They were extremely skilled warriors and could handle pretty much any opponent.
The eldest princess took first watch, and she strolled the streets from 9 pm to midnight. She didn’t bother riding a horse, she took with her just a whistle and a bamboo stick. She went about blowing her whistle and beating her stick. That certainly served to discourage any potential would-be burglars, but it did come at the cost of keeping half the people in the city.
She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, no burglars. She did see the Yeti and some UFOs, but she ignored them because those sightings were well within the acceptable annual threshold.
If you want to know what happened to the second princess just skip back a few seconds. Because she had an almost identical experience to the first.
The third and youngest Princess had a different experience in the 3 am to 6 am shift. You probably expected that considering that in most folk tales there’s an element of threes, and it’s usually the third and youngest child who gets lucky.
If you think that’s what happens to the third princess, you’d be absolutely right.
But if you also thought what happened was that the Princess arrested the burglars, you’re equally wrong.
The Princess, whom we shall call, Maya, did what her sisters had done. In order to notice what she did, she was just in the right place at the right time. And the right place was at the palace gates, and the right time was shortly after 3 am when Maya was just beginning her shift. The first thing she saw was a ghost. At least it looked like a ghost. It was an almost transparent creature that appeared to be passing through the closed palace gates and drifting. It seemed to be a warrior not unlike the Princess herself, in the sense that the creature was carrying several weapons. The difference was that it had several extra arms so it held way more weapons.
“Stop,” said Maya bravely, announcing her presence but without any real hope that the creature would listen. Without much of a body, it was unlikely that it could have heard her.
But the creature did hear Maya loud and clear. And it could speak as well. For it said:
“Are you here to change my mind? Because you can’t, you know. I am resigning and that’s final”
“What are you talking about? Who are you?” asked Maya.
That did not seem to please the creature. “Who am I? Five centuries of protecting this palace and all I get is a “Who am I?”, I’m your Kingdom’s guardian angel that’s who I am”
“That’s not possible. It’s a Biblical concept, and the Bible hasn’t been written yet” replied Maya, pedantically.
The creature rolled its eyes, which is easy to miss when the eyes and everything else were partially transparent. “Obviously I’m not talking about the Biblical creature. I only said that because it’ll be a common expression when this conversation of ours gets included in a podcast, thousands of years in the future. I guard the palace. I’ve been doing that for 500 years now.” When Maya didn’t respond, she added “You’re welcome?”
“Thanks, I guess,” Maya said. “You said something about resigning, I can arrange a letter of recommendation for your next job if you want?”
“I don’t need a new job. Besides, after tonight. letters of recommendation won’t help. Once people see the news no one will want to employ me”
Naturally, Maya was curious, so the creature explained that this was the King’s last night here. And by that, the creature definitely did not mean that the King was packing up and moving into a better palace. The King was going to lose his life tonight.
“But you must protect him then. That’s your job isn’t it?” Maya challenged.
“And what kind of a thankless job is it? I’ve prevented dozens of tragedies so far, and did you ever thank me for it, in your prayers? No! And that’s why I quit!”
“Well, but we weren’t completely free of tragedies were we? My grandpa was assassinated! And what about the fire that destroyed the west wing 2 years ago?” Maya asked, still not convinced.
“So, is it my fault that I had to go to the chai shop for a break? You try standing in one place and guarding a palace for 500 years, then you’ll know”
Maya realized she had been a little tactless. The guardian angel obviously meant well. Further criticism was unlikely to change her mind. She changed her tactics. She instead sought to retain the talent of this Guardian Angel.
“Please accept my apologies. I should have realized. You’ve done so much for us! Surely, there must be something I could do to change your mind?” asked Maya
“No, my decision is final. I’m not going to stay back for anything!” the creature replied
“How about I have someone bring you hot chai every night?” Maya asked tentatively
“It’s a deal!” the creature replied enthusiastically, with twinkling eyes and a salivating mouth. “But I do need to take tonight off”
It was as Maya had expected. The creature probably expected the King not to survive the night.
But the outcome was acceptable. All she had to do was to guard the King that night, and the next morning the Guardian angel would be back at work. Sounded simple enough, but there was one major problem. She was pretty sure she had to step into her father’s bedroom if she was to save her father’s life.
And she was pretty certain her stepmother, the Queen, was not going to take kindly to that if she found out. Still protecting her father was the important thing here. Everything else was secondary.
She crept into the bedroom via the balcony, which was easy to get to. She thought she had been lucky that such a convenient entry point until she realized that this might have also been the very route an assassin would have taken.
Maya adjusted her night vision goggles and looked all around. King and Queen asleep on the bed, loudly snoring. Giant venomous snake furiously circling the bed, and no sign of any other disturbance. Wait a minute. A giant venomous snake?! Here? So that must be what the Guardian Angel had warned about.
Someone less brave than Maya would probably have fainted at the sight of the Snake. Or at best screamed to raise the alarm and get some bodyguards in. But Maya was very practical.
There were multiple possibilities here, as Maya surveyed the scene.
Option A, the snake was just being really playful and looking to play with someone. And unfortunately for it, the only humans it could see weren’t playing with it.
Option B, the snake was stressed. Maybe it was anxious, maybe it had a respiratory infection? Maya couldn’t tell. She was no vet.
Option C. The snake was really just trying to devour the King. But probably because of inexperience it did not know that it was supposed to constrict the King by circling his body. And not his bed.
Option C seemed least likely, but because of the Guardian Angel’s warning, Maya was not willing to take any chances.
She silently crept forward and brought down her sword hard on the snake. She struck a few more times because the Snake kept wiggling. She was remorseless despite the impact she was having on the local serpentine population.
Now the right thing for Maya to do would have been to wake up the King and Queen, never mind the early hour and explain how she had just saved their lives.
But she didn’t want to disturb their beauty sleep. So she scooped all the pieces to avoid someone stepping on them the next morning. She believed from her medieval Indian science lessons that Snake blood is venomous. So she was careful to not leave a single drop anywhere. But curiously, left the remains of the snake in the King’s paan box. Quick sidebar here, a paan is a combination of a few ingredients that is chewed. Not the ideal place to hide the Snake bits but it was the only container in the room.
Now Maya would have left quietly except she saw that a little blood had splattered onto the Queen’s hands and face. She decided she must act quickly. So she took a bit of cotton, dabbed it with Dettol, and cleaned the Queen’s face.
When she was done, Maya sneaked out and went back to her room.
She had forgotten about the burglaries completely. But it didn’t matter. She had saved the King’s life! She slept soundly that morning.
But that was not the impression the Queen had of her. She had woken up, maybe it was the smell of Dettol as Maya wiped off the blood. The Queen was understandably weirded out by the situation. Her step-daughter in the room doing what? It had to be no good.
She complained to the King the next morning. The King was understandably shocked. He almost dropped the paan box he had been holding. He put it back without taking a paan and ordered his guards to summon his eldest daughter.
“No, I’m pretty sure it was Maya, your youngest,” the Queen said.
But the King was merely seeking advice on how he should deal with someone who had betrayed his trust.
“It wasn’t me! I am not the one who took your chariot without asking you!” the daughter hastily replied.
But the King clarified that it wasn’t about his chariot, though he would like to have a long chat about it afterward.
The eldest daughter kicked herself for bringing up the chariot, but quickly recovered and said, “I’ll answer your question, but first I must tell you a story.”
She began narrating the story of a lady in a village who could understand the language of animals. One night she heard a jackal crying. It was saying that it was hungry and it had found this human who had unfortunately passed away but needed a little help to pull the remains out of a river. Whoever did that could have the shiny diamond ring on the corpse. The lady decided the diamond ring was worth it. So she crept out of bed, hauled the remains out of the river, and even went to the extent of using her teeth to pull off the diamond ring when her initial attempts didn’t dislodge the ring.
She walked back home with the ring and slept, leaving the corpse to the jackal. Unfortunately for her, her husband and father-in-law observed her in the act. Not understanding how to speak Jackal, they concluded that the lady was a Rakshasi or a demoness who had gotten out of bed for a midnight snack.
The next morning, the husband took the lady into the forest, ostensibly to visit her parents’ house, but really to desert her, Hansel and Gretel style.
Luckily for the lady, her skill came in handy. She heard a passing snake talking carelessly about a huge pot of gold hidden near the base of the very tree they were next to. The lady quickly dug into the ground with her hands, retrieved the pot, and showed it to her husband. Seeing the gold, the husband was completely willing to overlook last night’s incident, even before he heard about her special linguistic abilities.
He suggested they cancel the visit and go home and celebrate their new earnings.
When they did, the husband went in through the front door but the lady went in through the back because her hands were very dirty from having dug up the pot.
Unfortunately, her father-in-law happened to be by the back door and coincidentally had a sword with him. Seeing his daughter-in-law entering the back door all by herself with no husband in sight, he came to the conclusion that she had eaten him up too.
He struck with his sword and killed the poor lady. Before then seeing his Son walk in a few seconds later.
The eldest princess concluded the story by saying that the King wanted to know how to treat someone close and personal who had betrayed his trust, the answer was easy – behead them. Yes, that’s right. Behead them, but… listen to their side of the story first”
That lesson should have been enough for the King, but he decided he would speak to his second princess.
The second princess, too, refused the paan and launched into story mode.
Her story was about a King who was lost in a forest during a hunting trip. He had run out of water and was very thirsty. He saw some liquid dripping from the branches of a tree, so he collected it in leaves. Thinking it was water, he was about to drink it when the horse he was riding disturbed him and caused him to drop all the liquid. That was intentional from the horse because he had somehow sensed what the King had not. It wasn’t water, but the venom from a Cobra in the branches of the tree. The King, not knowing the truth, beheaded the horse who had just saved his life. He had to walk back all the way to his palace which was only a small part of his punishment for having committed such a terrible crime.
This story also concluded the same as her sister’s. The second Princess said that the horse couldn’t have really explained his actions to the King, but you get the point. Go ahead and behead anyone you want, but make sure you’ve considered the possibility they were acting in your best interest.
Finally, Maya was summoned. Maya was asked the same question, and not something more direct considering the King knew and believed the Queen’s story
She would have explained straight away what happened, except she’d been asked an abstract question, same as her sisters. And her sisters had used other stories to illustrate the disadvantages of acting in haste. And this being a folk tale, things had to be done in threes.
So Maya followed suit with a story of her own. She explained about a bird who was bringing a gift – the fruit of immortality to his friend, the King. On the way, the bird rested on a branch. Unfortunately, the precise spot where the bird placed the fruit had some leftover venom from a passing snake. The King tested the fruit before eating it. The crow he offered a bit of the fruit passed away. Because he had coincidentally selected the exact part of the fruit that had the poison.
The King clearly saw this as an assassination attempt and executed his bird friend who had spent so much time and energy in getting him the fruit.
The remaining fruit was forgotten but not when the very next day a massive tree had propped up in its place. The King forbade anyone from eating the fruits believing them to be poisonous as well.
Well, in any Kingdom, if there are rules, there are rulebreakers.
Some enthusiasts broke in and stole the fruit. Eating the fruit made them younger, and eventually, the King caught on that the fruit had been fine after all. He had killed his bird friend in haste.
“So that’s the story,” Maya explained. “My conclusions are the same. Behead but hear the other side of the story”.
With three engaging stories to learn from, the King was motivated to listen to Maya’s story now. She explained everything. Including how the paan box the King had just offered her was full of poison.
The King was completely convinced that Maya had acted for the best. He did not behead her. Instead, he named her his successor. It didn’t even matter that the burglars had not been stopped at all. And the King was totally fine with it. Because, with all the events of the last few hours, this Kingdom was no longer to remain a 50th percentile kingdom, no matter what anyone did at this point. Might as well embrace the change, he figured.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
Curiously the story completely ignores the story arc of the burglars. With Maya heading back into the palace to guard the King, it probably opened several opportunities for homes to be burgled.
Maya is the Sanskrit word for “illusion”.
We have done a few Bengali folk tales before:
Episode 26 – Joy and Sorrow, Episode 57 – Astro Boy – Part 1, Episode 58 – Astro Boy – Part 2 and Episode 99 – Bengali Folk Tale – Twinsies!
If you’re curious about “Paan”, here’s an article
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll go back to the main storyline of the Mahabharata and learn about how the Pandava and Kaurava children grew up.