This week, we will continue the story of Prince Hari Pot-Breaker and the evil wizard. This is Part 2 of the story, so I do recommend you check out Episode 44, Part 1 of the story.
A quick recap. We met a Prince who had a catapult obsession. And if you’re wondering about his name. That’s because he used his slingshot on villagers’ fetching water, breaking their pots and soaking them to the bone. The Prince discovered that his 6 Moms were really his 6 Aunts. And that his real Mom had been abducted by an evil Wizard, whom we will call Voldemort. His Dad and his 6 Uncles attempted to rescue her. They weren’t heard of again. Hari set out to rescue them all. He reached a village where he took care of a pest problem. The orange and white striped kind of pest. But it was a farmer who tried to take credit for capturing the tiger. And Hari was about to become the Tiger’s dinner for …. You guessed it. Breaking a pot.
We left it on a cliffhanger there last week. Let’s continue right on.
The soldiers were about to carry out the King’s orders of throwing Hari to the hungry tiger. But they stopped. Because the princess ordered them to. She spoke up addressing her Dad. She’d witnessed the whole thing herself. She’d been in her tower and was experimenting with the telescope. She saw the whole thing. The farmer was just trying to take credit for Hari’s bravery.
When you have expert testimony from the princess, you’re let off the hook pretty easy. They even forgave him for his pot breaking.
The King would have loved for the Prince to stick around for dinner. But seeing as just a few minutes earlier the King had been ready to throw him to the Tiger, Hari thought it best if he were to move on.
He wandered on for a few more days. No one he met had heard of the Wizard. One evening as he was lying down and he was about to sleep, he heard a conversation. It was just two friends chatting. But they weren’t people. They were Snakes!
And for some reason, that was completely not mentioned so far in the original folk tale, it turned out that Hari could understand them. He could speak parseltongue!
Snake 1 said to Snake 2 that he’d heard that the princess of the land had taken ill.
Snake 2 asked if this was the same princess whose expert testimony had recently rescued a prince from being fed to a tiger.
“No,” said Exposition Snake 1 “this is a different princess. She’s ill and nothing can cure her. She’s sure to pass on”
“Impossible!” said Exposition Snake 2. “There’s a plant in fact right here all around us that can cure anything!”
“What about Cancer?” asked Exposition Snake 1
“We don’t know what Cancer even is! It has not even been discovered yet. But yes it is capable of curing anything”
“And how exactly do you administer the plant to the ill” asked exposition snake 1.
“Simple, you crush the leaves, add a bit of a raw egg, a pinch of salt, and some red peppers. Blend it well and that’ll do it!”
Hari in the bushes was hastily noting down the recipe. When the snakes moved on, he quickly prepared the medicine exactly as they said. Usually, when you get advice from talking snakes it might not be a good idea to trust them. But in this case, the snakes were absolutely right. When Hari approached the local King and passed on the medicine, the princess was back on her feet in no time. Where many doctors had failed, a 12-year-old boy had worked a miracle.
This King again would have liked Hari to stay for dinner, but Hari decided to move on. He’d finally had a lead on where Voldemort’s castle might be. So he made his way there.
It took him several more days but he finally made it! And when he got there he had to admire the beautiful sculpture all around the castle. The expressions were so lifelike! He could almost swear they were real people. Voldemort may be a bad guy but he was an amazing artist.
He walked all around and then realized there was no one in the castle.
Wonder where the staff was? He could see no maids, doormen, footmen, or drivers around.
Finally, on his 3rd circuit around, he ran into an old lady. The lady was carrying a basket of flowers.
“What are you doing here boy?” she said panicked. “Go away quickly before the wizard turns you to stone.”
“Oooooh!” said Hari. “So that’s what that rock garden was all about.
He may have passed by his father and uncles without realizing it.
The lady quickly gave him the rundown. In the tallest tower was a beautiful lady just old enough to be Hari’s mom. And who resembled him enough to be his mom. For 12 years the Wizard had been trying to woo her. But she kept refusing him. At some point, she would have to give in. Or the Wizard would realize that and turn her to stone as well.
There isn’t much time to be lost! Said Hari, suddenly jumping up.
The old lady replied that 12 years was a fairly long time. She didn’t see what the urgency was now. Relax, help me make these garlands of flowers. They’re meant for her.
At that, Hari had an idea. He knew his mom was the smartest person, from what her Aunties told her.
He carefully coded a hidden message into the garland. In Morse code. By plucking some parts of petals off of some flowers. When the old lady delivered the garlands to the captive Queen, somehow Hari’s mom was able to make out that one of the garlands was not quite made properly. It was either the work of a genius coding a message into the garland, or the old lady was getting sloppy. Based on no evidence at all the Queen decided that the first option was the right one. She worked to painfully decode the message. It went like this. “Hi, I know we haven’t met before. At least I don’t remember it. I was just a day old. Oh no. Running out of garland space. Must condense. Stop. Your son Hari. Stop. Must stop wizard stop. Tell how”
The Queen knew how. She coded a message back to Hari the same way explaining to the lady that some of the garlands were not right and to send it back to the boy who made them.
“I never said a boy made these,” said the old lady. “You could just tell me verbally what you want, you know. I’ll give the boy the message. I bet you’re using Morse code. Here let me read it. “Economize words! Single Horcrux is a parrot on the seventh island past the seventh sea.” I could have just told him that and spared you the trouble. It’s not like I enjoy working for the wizard.”
So anyway when Hari got the message he immediately set off towards the Horcrux, which is basically an object that has your soul. If Hari were to destroy the parrot, the wizard would be destroyed too.
Luckily for Hari he found a fast mode of travel. How he found that was a bit strange.
As Hari was walking to the Horcrux he saw a tree and a nest on one of the branches. He would have said “how cute”. Except there was a snake heading towards it. This wasn’t the talking snake variety. This was just a mean old snake who just wanted to eat the eggs.
Hari had his slingshot out in no time and fired a rock at the snake knocking it off the tree.
Later he was thanked over dinner by Mr. and Mrs. Giant hawk whose nest it was. They weren’t the garden variety giant. They were huge. Like Sinbad the sailor variety giant.
Hari wondered why their eggs and nest were normal size, but thought it would not be polite to ask.
Hari explained his quest, and Mr and Mrs Giant Hawk were surprised. Why that’s the island we go to every day for food. You can hitch a ride with us if you like! On our backs, we have space and we’d hardly notice your weight.
And that’s what Hari did. When he got there it was a pretty small island so he was very easily able to find the parrot which for some reason was sitting very still in a tree.
The parrot was under a spell of course. But it could not resist the prince’s slingshot though and he knocked it right off of the tree. At exactly that moment, the wizard expected the sudden pain the parrot felt. The two were linked at least when it came to externally inflicted pain. But the wizard assumed that the parrot had just bumped into a tree or something.
Hari captured the bird, hitched a ride again on the Giant hawks, and made it back to the castle.
This time he marched right up to the Wizard and politely requested that the wizard let him go.
The Wizard stared at the boy thoughtfully and then said. “I think you’ll look good in the southeast garden. When the morning sunlight hits your face, it’ll go perfectly with the rest of the emotions in that section. Maybe your arm should even point at the Sun. Help me out here. What do you think?”
“Oh it sounds like great placement! Maybe even holding on to this bird as if offering it to the Sun” and with that he pulled the parrot from behind his back.
That scared the Wizard out of his wits.
They made a deal. The Wizard would let Hari’s mom and his Dad and Uncles go, and Hari would let go of the parrot.
Hari’s mom tightly hugged the son she had not seen for 12 years. But they both decided not to hug his restored Dad and Uncles just yet. On account of all the bird poop on them!
His end of the deal fulfilled, Voldemort asked Hari to let the bird go. But Hari went back on his word and killed the parrot, instantly killing the Wizard.
Long baths and cleanups later, to remove all evidence of their statue-life, Hari’s dad and uncles joined Hari and his mom as they headed back home. They did collect a lot of gifts on the way from the two kingdoms Hari had helped rescue.
The people home did have a feast to celebrate their return.
Hari’s slingshot skills had played a key role in the rescue mission. And he could not have perfected those without the unwilling participation of the people in the Kingdom.
Publicly they were proud of that!
Privately though there were not really happy. That’s what you’d expect from citizens find out that all their labors would go towards feeding a royal family that had again doubled in size.
That’s all for now
Next Time
In the next mini-episode, we’ll meet the author of the Mahabharat!
Just like the Ramayana, we’ll see that the author of the Mahabharat has also worked himself into the narrative. The author had engaged a god Ganesh to transcribe the Mahabharat for him!