This week, we’ll do a folk tale from Eastern India, from West Bengal. It’s about two sisters who go to great lengths to retrieve a little cotton when it gets blown away by the wind. And by that I mean seriously desperate measures. Including running for miles and flying into the Sky.
The character this week is actually two characters, not one. Because they are twins. These brothers are associated with medicine. And not just for getting getter when sick, but they can also bring people back from the dead! Something even the genie in Aladdin couldn’t do.
Our story begins in a little village in medieval West Bengal, which is a state in Eastern India.
In the village, there was a weaver. In case you don’t know, a weaver’s job back in those days was to take cotton and weave it into cloth. The cloth would be sold to a Tailor who would fashion it into clothes. The weaver was an important link in the supply chain of the medieval garment industry.
He worked from home – a concept most of us are familiar with these days. He would buy cotton, weave it into cloth which he would sell in exchange for money to feed his family.
His family consisted of his wife and his daughter. And another wife and another daughter. Yeah.
One of the daughters was Sukhu and the other Dukhu. Sukhu was a lazy girl who wanted nothing to do other than laze around all day and watch TV. If TV had been invented back then, which it hadn’t. Regardless, she didn’t do any of the housework. That task fell to Dukhu.
Sukhu and Dukhu’s mothers mirrored their daughters. Sukhu’s mom did nothing, while Dukhu’s mom did all of the cooking at home.
Despite this obvious inequality between the two sets of mother and daughter, the weaver lived happily with them. Until… he didn’t.
His passing away was a rude shock to his wives and daughters. What was worse – he hadn’t invested in much of a retirement plan.
There was barely enough for the four of them.
What were they going to do?
Oh well, Sukhu’s mom knew what she was doing.
There was no room in *her* house for Dukhu and her mom.
Dukhu and her mom managed to find an abandoned little hut and began living there. And guess what? In between doing all the housework, Dukhu had also taken the time to observe her father working. She was confident she could operate a weaving loom.
They managed to pool all of their final possessions to buy a weaving loom and a little bit of cotton.
Dukhu sat in front of the loom outside her house. Took and deep breath and was about to begin weaving the cotton. Suddenly a gust of wind picked up the tiny bit of cotton and it flew away in the wind.
Dukhu had to have the cotton back. This was their only meal ticket. She ran after her little wad of cotton sailing in the wind. It just kept getting higher and higher. She ran for a few miles and finally she had to stop. She could no longer see the cloud-colored cotton amongst all the cotton-colored clouds. She had run for dozens of miles and for nothing. What was she going to do without the cotton? In her desperation, she began to cry.
“Dukhu! Dukhu! Don’t cry” a voice said
“Who….Who said that?” asked the frightened girl, because she couldn’t see anyone around her
“Me!” said the voice. “I’m the wind”
“The Wind? You mean Vayu, from the previous episode?” asked Dukhu
“Nope. I am just a local wind. Vayu is a God. Anyway, I want to talk to you about your cotton. One of my buddies just wanted to play with it, she didn’t mean to cause you harm. Now, look here, that wad of cotton is lost. I can’t find it now amongst the clouds. It like looking for a needle in a haystack. But I’ll tell you what you could do – just keep going in this direction. Eventually, you’ll come to the home in the clouds. Go inside, you’ll meet the Mother of the Moon. She will give you what you need”
Dukhu didn’t need to be told twice. She ran off into that direction. On the way she saw a Cow tied in her shed. The Cow spoke: “Dukhu, my shed is dirty. Please clean it up for me.”
Now if you hear a Cow speaking to you and the Cow knows your name, you must be hallucinating. Unless you’re the protagonist of a folk tale, in which case you do as the Cow requests. Having cleaned up the Shed, Dukhu continued on her way.
Next she ran into a Tree. The Tree too spoke to her. It had creepers growing all over it and wouldn’t Dukhu please prune them?
Dukhu did and continued on her way.
A Horse was next. It was uncomfortable because it had a saddle on it, along with all kinds of gear. Dukhu took all those off the Horse at his request, and she continued on.
Finally she got to a part that was a terrain that she’d never seen before. It was just clouds. And Woah, this was weird. She could step on those clouds! They held her weight. She scampered up these clouds for a long time. Until she was far up in the sky. She finally spotted the house the wind had told her about.
She entered cautiously to see a lovely old lady sitting at a spinning wheel with a mountain of cotton beside her.
Dukhu cleared her throat and said “Mrs. Moon I presume?”
“Yes?” asked the old lady
Dukhu quickly told her her whole story. The old lady listened to the whole story occasionally looking at Dukhu’s tattered appearance.
Finally she said – “Dukhu, I would love to give you as much cotton as you like. First I want you to be clean. Go into the next room. There’s a pool. Dip yourself completely twice. Exactly twice. Then come back”.
Dukhu followed Mrs. Moon’s instructions exactly. With the first dip, she found that she was no longer dirty. All the mud and grime had disappeared, and her skin was radiant!
She took the second dip and realized that she’d become even more beautiful than ever before. And she was wearing the finest clothes, along with all kinds of jewels and gold ornaments.
She stepped out and went back to the other room.
And No. She wasn’t dripping wet. Because this wasn’t a regular pool, in case the clothes and jewels weren’t enough of a clue.
Mrs. Moon gave her all the cotton she could carry. She also asked Dukhu to pick one of three possible boxes, all different sizes. Dukhu meekly picked the smallest.
She thanked Mrs. Moon and started back on her way.
On the way, she also received more gifts from the creatures she had helped earlier – she received a Horse, a questionable choice since it was given to her by a Horse. The Tree gifted her a lot of fruit. The Cow gave her a calf – another questionable choice.
Dukhu hurried home and showed everything to her mom. The smallest box contained all kinds of precious jewels. They would never have to work again.
Her mom was happy. But out of completely silly loyalty to the memory of her husband, she wanted to share her wealth with Sukhu and her mom. Poor judgment.
Well, it didn’t go well. Sukhu’s mom heard the whole story from Dukhu’s mom. And then out of even poorer judgment she flat out refused the gifts.
Sukhu’s mom bought some cotton and explained the whole plan to her daughter.
Sukhu sat outside pretending to weave the cotton. Sure enough, the wind picked up the cotton and flew away with it. Sukhu followed the wind, and when she reached the spot that Dukhu had previously, she pretended to cry. Again, the wind spoke to her and recommended going to Mrs. Moon’s home to get more cotton.
All the charade with the cotton was really not necessary given Dukhu’s mom just about spilled the beans including directions to Mrs. Moon’s home. But I guess Sukhu’s mom wanted her to replicate most of Dukhu’s steps exactly.
But when you’re dealing with a really lazy girl like Sukhu, its hard to keep that up.
Sukhu rudely refused to help the Cow, the Tree and the Horse, all three of whom, strangely enough, had reverted to their state of discomfort. The cowshed was dirty again, lots of creepers had grown back on the tree and the saddle was back on the horse’s back.
She finally reached Mrs. Moon’s home. She barged into where Mrs. Moon sat, and rudely asked for cotton.
Mrs. Moon’s response was identical to what she had told Dukhu. She asked Sukhu to dip herself exactly twice in the pool in the next room.
Sukhu did. And the results were identical to Dukhu’s. However, Sukhu extrapolated. The first two dips had gradually made her more beautiful. The third time was bound to make her prettier than Dukhu. She did and discovered to her horror that the effect was completely opposite. Why! She had lost all of her beauty. And what’s more she was covered in all kinds of mud and slime.
She did go back to Mrs. Moon, but the old lady didn’t even bat an eye.
She asked Sukhu to pick a box, and Sukhu obviously picked the largest.
She rushed back home and on the way she met the Horse, the Cow and the Tree. Despite her initial behavior, she expected a gift from each of them. Each of them refused, rightfully so.
When she got back to her house, her mother barely recognized her.
She was horrified. Her daughter had been pretty and she was actually now repulsed by her appearance.
“At least” she said to Sukhu, trying to spot a silver lining. “You got the largest box. If all those jewels make us rich, looks won’t really matter”.
They both crowded around the box and opened it. But guess what? There were no jewels in the box. In it was a huge snake. It bit Sukhu and her mom. A very painful way to die.
That’s all for now
Notes
The names Sukhu and Dukhu literally mean “Happy” and “Sad”. In folk tales like these all over the world, usually, the positive name is associated with the good child and the negative one with her evil sibling. But this story is a bit of an exception.
I would also question the parents’ judgment in calling their daughter Dukhu, but one interpretation is that Sorrow is linked to suffering which might have been seen as a virtue.
The story is reminiscent of the popular Russian folk tale about Vasilissa and Baba Yaga.
In this one though, the Baba Yaga equivalent is not an evil person, but someone who strictly plays by the rules. And if you follow her rules, as Dukhu did, you’re in the clear.
It’s also weird how the horse, the tree and the cow all quickly arrange back into their problem states between Dukhu’s visit and Sukhu’s. Their behavior and that of Mrs. Moon is oddly algorithmic. If you needed proof that we’re living in the Matrix, this just might be it.
The home in the clouds may sound like the one in the Jack and the Beanstalk, but there isn’t much else in common.
There’s the usual theme of threes in this story as well: three creatures helped, three gifts received.
I have an interesting interpretation of this tale. Dukhu’s mother need not have made a point of telling the story to Sukhu and her mom. Sure, Sukhu made some poor choices, but was it just cleverly triggered by Dukhu’s mom? Could be. We’ll never know the truth. This is after all, just a work of fiction.
And someone should call the PETA on Mrs. Moon for keeping a wild animal locked up in a box.
Part of the folk tale was to teach children not to be greedy as in when Dukhu chooses the smallest box. Would Dukhu have received the snake if she had picked the biggest box? What if Sukhu picked the smallest?
Maybe the contents of the box were dependent in some way on the behavior of the child who picked it up. If so, this is probably the oldest example of a Schrodinger’s Cat experiment, several centuries before Schrodinger thought of it.
The other message this was trying to convey was about conforming to societal norms and following instructions given by an elder. A terrible lesson of course, because it completely rules out scientific curiosity.
The Character of the Week
The character this week is actually two characters, not one. Because they are twins.
Though they are not Siamese twins, they have always been seen together. To the extent that each brother has never been addressed independently. They’re thought of as a pair.
These brothers, known as the Ashwins are associated with horses and medicine.
And medicine not just for getting getter when sick, but they can also bring people back from the dead! Something even the genie in Aladdin couldn’t do. Their usual healing was limited to surgery – they have restored sight to the blind. They have sometimes attached prosthetic limbs to people who lost them in battle. Their greatest achievement though was to breathe life back into the rishi known as Rebha. Rebha was a victim of some evil actions by evil people. He was killed, tied up and drowned in a pond. With his dying breath, he prayed to the Ashwins. They arrived, together of course. And revived the sage.
The Ashwins have many European equivalents. Most popular of which are Castor and Pollux from Greek Mythology. The Ashvins or Castor and Pollux are also immortalized in the sky as the brightest stars in the constellation Gemini, which means the Twins.
That’s all for this week.
A milestone!
I just realized that it’s been six whole months since I started this podcast. Looking back on all the stories I’ve done, I’ve merely scratched the surface of most of these collections. And I haven’t even started on the Mahabharat yet – which is the other and bigger epic in Indian Mythology.
I’m looking forward to continuing to tell many more exciting stories.
Thank you listeners for all your support and feedback!
Next Week
Next week, we’re going to see how falling for a student of your father’s can lead to sorrow. We’ll also see why you should be careful when going swimming. If you accidentally put on someone else’s clothes after your swim – you might just end up becoming their servant.
The character next week is an emperor from 3rd century BC, whose symbols live on to this day, both on the flag, as well as on pretty much all Indian currency.
I’ll see you next week!