Episode 6.5 – All in the Family

Welcome to the stories from India podcast.

A happy Thanksgiving to all listeners especially those in North America.

I know I said I’d continue the story of the Ramayana on Sunday, but I just have to say – a huge thank you for all your feedback! To show my appreciation, here’s a bonus episode.

Since Thanksgiving is all about being together with family, I picked a couple of stories that are somewhat on that theme, and I dont just mean all the quarreling and hair pulling between kids.

In case this is your first episode let me quickly introduce myself – I am Narada muni, and I am a mythological character myself. I have the gift of eternal life and knowledge of the past the present and the future, and I am a travelling musician and storyteller by profession. I used to walk around with a veena for several millenia but podcasting has made my job so much easier.

This story begins high in the Himalayas, at mount kailas where Shiva lived with his family.

Shiva is one of the holy trinity- he is the destroyer while vishnu is the preserver and Brahma is the creator. 

Oh and Brahma also happens to be my dad – yeah I am a celebrity of sorts. 

Anyway, back to Shiva and his family. His family was his partner – Parvati and his two sons – kartikeya and Ganesh.

Kartikeya was a regular human looking God child with a peacock for his vehicle. 

and so was Ganesh – except Ganesh had an elephant’s head. How he was born and how he got to have an elephant’s head is an interesting story by itself.

Shiva and Parvati lived in mount kailas. 

Shiva was the destroyer. Once he was off on a trip, possibly scouting out the next thing that needed destruction.

Parvati was by herself in my kailas.

She decided to take a bath, the only way a proper bath was taken in those days- in a river.

She did worry about something though- her privacy. It’s not like there were any paparazzos around, or any innocent passersby- this is the middle of the Himalayas we’re talking about, but it never hurts to be safe.

So she solved her privacy problem by creating a guard. Parvati is a goddess remember and she has all kinds of awesome powers.

She shaped a boy out of clay and breathed life into him – pretty much like Elsa creating olaf in disney’s Frozen movies.

She named the boy Ganesh.

Ganesh had one task, dont allow anyone to approach Parvati while she had her bath.

She kind of forgot to mention anything about Shiv, you know that he’s her husband and really should not be prevented from entering his home. 

And as she went off to her bath, with ganesh on sentry duty that’s precisely what happened. 

Shiv came back and ran into ganesh.

Ganesh’s first impression was that this was exactly the person his mom warned him about. 

And shiv was offended that there was a stranger in his home. And why not? He had no idea that parvati had created this person and that made him his son. It’s not like she updated her Instagram feed or anything for him to pick up on that piece of information. 

So mildly annoyed, he tried to dismiss ganesh, who was trying to dismiss him. Unfortunately this escalated pretty quickly. In a fight between a boy made out of clay and you know the destroyer there could have been only one winner.

Shiv swiftly beheaded ganesh.

He walked in and called out – honey, I’m home.

Welcome back said Parvati who had just completed  her bath. Did you have a good – oh my god what is that she screamed as she saw the lifeless and headless body of her son.

Siva quickly explained how he had protected his home from the stranger, very much expecting at least a “my hero” exclamation from Parvati.

That’s why he was shocked when Parvati got angry. She’s an avatar of shakti which is pure energy, and as her anger escalated not just Shiv but all gods took notice. 

She was going to destroy the universe- she had unlimited power – because as you may know from middle school physics power is the rate of change of energy, and Parvati had limitless energy at her disposal. 

Everyone begged her not to. And finally she agreed – on three conditions: restore my ganesh, bump him to the top of the list in all the whom to worship handbooks, and welcome him back with a lot of modaks. Modaks are a kind of sweet dumplings that incredibly tasty but are definitely not slimming by any means – just take a look at any idol of Ganesha you’ll know what I mean 

Shiv started working on action item number 1, while other lesser gods actioned 2 and 3.

Shiv definitely lacked Parvati’s talent for molding clay into shapes. So he went a different route – he ordered a replacement head for the lifeless body. He instructed his followers to bring him the head of the first dead creature that was facing north. That creature was an elephant. 

Shiv attached the elephant head to ganesh and breathed life back into him. Ganesh was a very wise child, and he knew better than to attack the stranger who had decapitated him once already. Parvati quickly introduced father and son to each other. This family of 3 lived happily together. until kartikeya was born, after that the family of 4 lived happily together. 

In some versions of the story kartikeya was the older son. But in those versions it isn’t explained where kartikeya was when parvati needed someone for sentry duty.

The second story is also about this same family. just as they were sitting down to a big and lavish family dinner(as many of you listeners maybe doing this very day), they had a very illustrious, charming, handsome, clever and smart visitor. of course I’m talking about me.

I had received a mango from someone. Never mind where, it’s a long story by itself. All that matters is that the mango would bring its eater limitless wisdom. Of course I already had the gift of eternal knowledge, I was immortal and could travel anywhere and any time. Besides those gifts, I already had limitless wisdom of course. So I didn’t want to waste the mango on me. I thought it would be a fitting present for shiv and Parvati’s kids. Last diwali they had gifted me an electric veena with an inbuilt autotuner that totally improved my playing. I just had to Express my gratitude somehow. 

So I kinda liked both kids, they were really smart both of them.

And I brought them my autobiography along with a bonus collection of my greatest hits on the veena.

I was well received as always.

They invited me to join them at dinner. Which I did, it was delicious as always. 

After dinner as we sat by the fireplace- I offered my gifts – the mango and my autobiography.

As soon as I explained what the mango was, Parvati offered to cut it in half for each of her sons. She had limitless wisdom already,  and so did shiv.

Ah I said – you can’t really cut it – it must be consumed by a single person to have effect.

Hearing this, ganesh and kartikeya immediately started quarrelling about who would get the mango and who would get the autobiography instead. They each wanted the other to have the autobiography- such selfless kids – how nice of them.

Shiv and Parvati suggested a contest instead- the winner would get the mango.

You mean the winner would get my autobiography I thought, but didn’t say. This was probably some kind of family tradition here.

The kids agreed, though ganesh seemed a little reluctant to tear himself away from his plateful of modaks that he’d started on right after dinner. 

The contest the parents announced was a race. circle the world. 3 laps. Go.

As soon as I heard that I thought this was an unfair contest. I’ll explain why.

Most gods and goddesses have their own vehicles. For vishnu it’s garuda. For durga it’s a lion or a tiger. For kartikeya it’s a peacock, and a swift one at that.

Ganesh’s ride is a tiny mouse. Forgetting about the himalayas being such a cold and inhospitable place for mice, how could a land animal cross oceans? I thought this race was designed to make kartikeya win. But ganesh was not bothered. In fact he turned his attention back to his modaks.

Kartikeya whistled for his peacock and leapt onto him as the majestic bird flew over and together they set off, speeding through the skies.

Ganesh kept on eating his modaks. Hardly upset. In fact he looked positively calm and cheerful as if the sight of kartikeya flying away actually made ganesh more confident of victory. 

It was quite puzzling. Within minutes kartikeya zoomed into view screaming one loudly. He had a big smile on his face as he saw ganesh had hardly moved. Ganesh continued on the mmodaks.his mouse was about though. Another few mins and kartikeya zoomed by again shouting “two”. His expression was first joy since ganesha was still busy with his modaks, but immediately changed to suspicion – what did ganesha know that he didnt? Regardless there was only one thing to do keep going faster.

Finally having finished his modaks ganesh sat on his mouse. I was expecting some action from him. The tension must have been visible on all our faces. But Ganesh only calmly flicked a speck of dust off one of his four sleeves.

Oh he’s just starting now, is it even worth the trouble? I thought to myself Kartikeya would be back anytime now.

However to our collective surprise ganesh went around shiv and Parvati and completed the 3rd circuit just as kartikeya was returning. 

Kartikeya came back and said I dont want to hear anything about it not being a level playing  field- I win by the rules fair and square.

Ganesh was calm, dont worry, he said. It *was* a level playing field. But you have to admit the definition of world is pretty subjective- it may mean different things for you and me. Yes, you did go around the physical world, and I went around my world – my parents mean the world to me.

This was a very wise thought, and we all agreed, including kartikeya. Touche, bro he said to ganesh.

In fact ganesh’s wisdom made me wonder if the fruit would just be wasted on ganesh given how wise he already was. But he did win the contest. And so kartikeya got my book. He didn’t look very happy but that was probably exertion from his flight around the world. 

That’s it for this week.

Some notes on the show.

This is just one of several origin stories of Ganesh, and Ganesh’s head has several origin stories too – in some versions its the head of an elephant headed demon.

The divine mango story may remind you of the hare and the tortoise story from Aesop’s fables, but they differ on a fundamental aspect. The tortoise won that race purely out of sheer luck and not out of anything he actively or proactive did – there was no way anyone could even guess that the hare would decide to take a nap – I mean who does that in the middle of a race? However Ganesh wins this one by applying logic. He has the situation well under his own control, unlike the tortoise.

As the stories show, family is family. We may sometimes misunderstand each other and make mistakes or we may compete with each other – but what matters is that we always stick together and be fair to each other.

Again thank you listeners for all of your feedback. It really helps improve the show.

Again I want to wish my listeners in the us a very happy Thanksgiving. 

The music is from purple planet. Com. That’s purple  dash planet. Com

We’ll continue the Ramayana on Sunday. 

See you then