Episode 8 – Vik and the Vampire Redux

By popular demand we’re doing another vikram betaal story this week. 

If you haven’t heard episode 5 – I recommend you check that out. It’s not strictly necessary but it may be helpful.

Don’t worry though if you haven’t, I will give a quick recap.

You may associate this week’s character with a couple of very famous movies. But the real story is very different. 

Vik and the Vampire

There was once a wise king called Vikramaditya. Once a rishi gave him a daily gift – a precious jewel disguised as a fruit. 

To repay the gifts, the king agreed to fulfill the Rishi’s simple wish of fetching him a betaal from crematorium, which is a reanimated corpse.

The betaal mostly loved hanging around in a tree by hanging down from it, like a bat.

He did not want to be captured. The only way he could escape though was if the king *said* something. So the betaal told stories to the king, and those stories were all lateral thinking puzzles that tricked the king into speaking. The King was smart enough to know the answer but not smart enough to hold his tongue.

There are 25 stories because Vikramaditya(or Vik, as I’m going to call him) though wise, doesn’t learn from previous iterations. And the Betaal flies back to the same tree so he can be easily captured again.

This week the story begins right after the last one.

The Betaal was back in his tree. Again.

Vik climbed the tree. Again. Captured the Betaal. Again. And was carrying him to the rishi across the crematorium. Again. 

The Betaal started on the same premise – hey it’s a long walk across the crematorium, let me tell you a story to pass the time, he said.

Vik knew better than to say anything at least at this point in the story – because speaking would allow the betaal to escape. 

But he’d liked the last story so he may have subconsciously slowed down his walk to make sure the betaal managed to finish it before they reached the other side. 

The story within the story

There was once a kingdom the betaal began.

The king and queen were fair and wise rulers. 

They were very happy too. They had one daughter and they were proud of her. She was a brilliant child. And not just academically. She had a perfect score on her SATs – and by that I mean the Swordfight aptitude test.
She excelled in other kinds of physical education – archery in particular, but sword fighting was her speciality, probably because this was a sport that fully exercised both her mental and physical abilities.

And she wasn’t being graded favorably by her teachers just because of who her parents were. She really was brilliant. 

She continued to win all the awards and medals at princess school.

Finally when she got older, and the king and queen got even older they had a conversation about continuing their dynasty. 

Life expectancy being what it was back then, the king and queen were understandably worried. 

“Yeah, makes sense” said the princess.

Just as her parents’ expression changed to relief,she added “but…..”

“Oh no”, said the queen “dont tell us you want to go see the world first!”

“No, nothing like that – I dont want to take risks when I am the single point of failure here. I mean what if I get bitten by  a shark in the great barrier reef or there’s a hurricane in the Caribbean?
No, I can do all that after i have had an heir and they are ready to take over the throne. Which brings us back to my condition….”

“Great barrier reef, Caribbean I never thought of those before” – said the king who was likely to be carried away by the smallest distraction. Turning to the queen, he said I can have the royal travel agent plan us a good trip….

“Which brings us back to my condition”, repeated the princess a bit louder so it snapped the king back to attention.
“My condition is simple – I alone will decide on the qualifications of my suitor.
And by qualifications I mean qualification, singular. All my suitor needs to do is to beat me, in swordfight”

“Not that video game again”, said the queen “I tell you this way you’ll never find anyone. Most princes dont sit around playing video games all day, you know”

“I don’t mean the video game, I mean the real thing” said the princess.

“Oh my god but there’s so much risk of getting hurt” – said the queen

“Dont worry I can manage” replied the princess. 

“Not you, I am talking about the princes. You are good, and that’s what I am worried about. These are princes who are heirs to the throne, their parents have been friends with us for decades- we cant risk souring our relationship” 

The King interjected “We can have them sign a disclaimer,though there’re a couple whom I wouldn’t mind seeing with their noses in the ground. There’s the one with the glasses who once thought I was the butler. I think we should invite him first”

“Yeah, disclaimer is good. We can even make the parents sign it for underage princes. And I dont want a fight to the death, just until they yield, or until I disarm them” the princess said

“Even if you did find a person who can defeat you – you dont marry your rival – you should marry the person who gives you tea and moral support before and after the fight”, said the queen.
Indeed, if she’d born a few millennia later, she would have provided the example of Rocky Balboa’s rivalry with Creed and marriage to Adrian.

But besides being agile at swordplay, the princess was great at verbal swordplay too. 

So she shut down this discussion the way that was guaranteed to work – “Ok, boomer” she said.

“Fine!” said the queen in exasperation – “I dont see how this is going to get you a suitor but let’s try this your way”

“Dont worry Mom. A princess in Scotland is going to do this centuries from now, and Disney will even make a movie out of it. Narada himself told me” the princess replied. 

[I must confess, I actually did tell her about this]

And so it was announced all over the known world. Thousands of princes showed up. Most of them were surprised that it was to be a real sword fight and not the video game. And that left the queen shaking her head at what the world was coming to.

They decided to fight nevertheless. Because their first instinct was it would be a sword fight against a girl. In most parts of the world then, people would be surprised if a girl could tell the difference between a sword and a spear.

They went in expecting a quick fight, and a quick fight is exactly what they got.

But the result wasn’t what they wanted.

The princess was amazing. She quickly defeated 14 princes before the first drinks break, to loud cheers from the stadium. Yeah, this was a live performance.

The King and Queen found a way to monetize the situation and boost the treasury – ticket prices were 1 gold coin a pop, with extra gold coins for premium seats. And not to mention concession stands that made a killing by selling popcorn and chips. And the public lapped it all up – all of the princess’s fights were sell out features.

The queen came by during drinks break and said, “I dont think it’s a good idea to continue this way”

“I agree” said the princess. “We should make it an even fight. Maybe I should fight with one hand tied behind my back, or maybe my head in a bag”

“Yeah, but for how long? You youngsters just think short term. You might tire quickly and then lose to the weakest candidate out there. We should have daily limits so you have a chance to rest. And let’s sort the candidates in some intelligent order instead of just first come first serve”

“Yeah, do the kid with the glasses first” said the king.

So they did, and you can bet the king cheered the loudest.

So this continued for a while. Princes came, princes saw, and princes were conquered. 

All except one. This prince, let’s call him Uday, was a smart one who believed data is power. And no he wasn’t a Facebook or Google employee. Uday came and he saw. Period. 

The way he went about collecting data was pretty much the same way Google and Facebook do. By embedding agents everywhere. He had his men hide in the crowd and observe the princess’s footwork and her actions.

He also disguised himself as a commoner and did some of the observation work.

He collected and stored all the information in a huge database – his brain.

Every day as he watched the princess fight, he would also try and imagine what move would work well against her.

Now swordfighting or fencing was and remains a very chess-like game. You have to out-think your opponent and make all the right moves. The princess was brilliant at those things. And as any it happens with any expert in any field, she had some signature moves.

In particular there was one that the princess used against a difficult opponent.

The move was brilliant and no one who hadn’t been intently watching the princess’s rapid footwork would have comprehended it. 

Uday was watching intently and he did understand it. So when the princess defeated her opponent, Uday cheered the loudest! So much so, that the princess saw him in the crowd.

Anyway, when the supply of princes was beginning to run out, Uday finally decided he had enough information to fight the princess.

He did, and for every one of her signature moves he had a counter move.

Until finally he did manage to disarm the princess.

This was a shock, and the crowd let out out a collective gasp.

 At the end, when the princess saw Uday’s face closely she recognized him as the person who cheered for her from the crowd. Uday may have been smart, but he was no master of disguise.

“What were you doing in the crowd” she asked, even though she already knew. 

Uday who was at this point on cloud 9 didn’t mind describing at great length all the opposition research he did, and his data intelligence strategy.

And he added at the end “I played fair. There’s nothing in the rules against this in all the disclaimers and agreements I signed. I read all the fine print, all 200 pages of it”

The king and queen said to the princess “he’s right, you know. He played by the rules” 

“He’s a good catch, his data intelligence strategy could land him billions – an excellent startup idea” said the queen.

“And he reads and understands fine print. He must be incredibly patient” added the king

“Nevertheless I cant marry him” said the princess.

Uday was known to be very logical too and he caught on quicker than anyone else.

“You’re right” he said to the princess “we can’t be married”. 

He bowed to the princess, the king and queen and went back to his kingdom.

Back to Vik and the Betaal

“That’s the story” said the Betaal. “I get that she had a huge ego and that’s why she chose not to marry Uday despite him meeting her only condition. But why did Uday agree with her?”

Vik knew why of course. “First of all, stop making bad assumptions” he said.
“The princess’s refusal to marry Uday was not because of her ego. She was just being plain logical. And Uday agreed because he agreed with her logic.
The reason was actually a simple one. By observing the princess everyday, and learning from her moves he had in effect become her student”.

Their relationship was now that of a teacher and a student. And in medieval India, this was an extremely special relationship. To Indian youngsters then, their father, mother, god and teacher were all held in the highest regard, and then there was everyone else Including you know, only your spouse and kids.

So the princess couldnt possibly marry her student and he couldnt possibly marry his teacher. It was just cool logic.

“Did the princess find herself a suitor and later make her round the world trip?” asked Vik.

“Bro, it was just an imaginary princess, just a lateral thinking puzzle. But if it makes you feel better sure she found someone, they continued their dynasty and she went on several iterations of the round the world trip. She’s probably trekking through the Grand Canyon now. But all that is beside the point. What matters is that you’ve been talking all this while and that means…..”

Vik didnt hear anything after that because the Betaal had escaped back to his tree.

In a future episode Vik will capture the Betaal again and hear another story.

A note

In some versions the betaal tells the king that if he knows the answer but doesn’t say it, his head will explode. That is just an exaggeration. I mean who heard of literal mind blowing and not just figurative mind blowing?

Character of the week

The character this week is bahubali.

Now there’s more than one version of bahubali. Its a common name, because bahubali literally means strong-armed. As an adjective and not as a description of an action.

Indian mythology has no shortage of strong armed people

Bahubali could lift mountains and crush boulders with his bare hands.and no, he was not a superhero from the planet krypton and he was not the hulk either.

He is a figure from Jain mythology was born the son of a king and lived a life of luxury.

Contrary to the movie depiction which is just a work of fiction, bahubali had 99 brothers. His oldest brother was to be king of ayodhya, but bahubali had a minor kingdom somewhere else, and his 98 brothers had their own lands too.

The brother bharata (who has nothing to do with the ramayana) decided he wasnt completely satisfied until all his brothers submitted to him. 98 of them did, and become monks. Bahubali didnt. Instead they had a 3 round personal contest and not an all-out war.

The 3 rounds were – a staring contest, a water contest and plain old wrestling. Bahubali won all 3.

But he was disgusted by what sibling rivalry had come to. In a very buddha movement, he decided to give up everything about his comfortable life including his clothes and meditate. And so he did, for 12 years without moving.

Until he finally attained moksha, when his defeated brother bharat came and prayed to him.

There’s a 57-foot stone statue of bahubali in southern India in a place called “Shravanabelagola” which I will not attempt to pronounce again.

It’s one of the largest free standing statues in the world, and it was built about a 1000 years ago.

Here’s a picture of the Gomateshwara statue being bathed (this happens once every 12 years)

This statue and most others show him with creepers growing around his legs – pretty logical considering bahubali didnt move for 12 years, 

Next week

Next week we’re going to do an Akbar and Birbal episode. This setup might remind you of Tenali Raman but its actually rather different

The character next week is a boar, but definitely not a boar that asterix and obelix would be able to hunt though because this boar is actually a god in disguise. 

It can swim and fly and change size, some people have speculated that it might actually be a rhinoceros – but that’s all it is – just speculation