In this episode, we’re going to do a Madhya Pradesh folktale, which teaches us how to turn a tiger into a scaredy cat. All you need is confidence.
This folk tale is from Madhya Pradesh which is a state in the very center of the country. You might have expected that because the word Madhya means center.
The story begins in a little village in medieval Madhya Pradesh. It was a warm summer evening. And a Tiger was on the prowl. He was out looking for dinner, and today he wasn’t in the mood for anything ordinary. No deer or sheep or cow for him tonight. Instead, tonight he would be eating a human, preferably a few children. He approached the village and looked for the tell tale signs of children in the neighborhood. There was no one about, naturally almost everyone was in their homes either already sleeping or getting ready for bed.
The tiger followed some tiny footprints to one such home and approached a window where he heard some voices. Inside, a mother was very patiently getting her children ready for bed. And though she had three children and no rupees, she did not wish for no children and three rupees as Homer Simpson might have done.
As it happens these days, so it did in the past as well. The children did not want to go to bed.
They would have stayed up reading comic books or watching late night television if they could. But in the absence of things that hadn’t been invented yet, the children said “we really want to go play outside, Mummy”. Outside, the tiger’s mouth began to water at this suggestion. The tiger was nodding his head appreciatively. These children seemed capable of sound decision-making.
But their mother had an unusual amount of patience for someone who spent every waking moment alternating between working in the kitchen and working in the fields. So she tried to explain to them
“Children, children, it’s very late. You simply can’t go out now. It’s too dangerous”
The Tiger was furious. What was this country going to come to, if mothers wouldn’t even let his dinners roam free? Parents should be abolished, he had a good idea to write to his MLA complaining about this.
But the children did not quite share the Tiger’s sentiments. They were more curious than angry.
Their mother had to explain why it was dangerous. “It’s because of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”
“I thought Lord Voldemort was fictional!” piped up the youngest child.
“Oh yeah, Lord Voldemort. Yes, exactly like Voldemort, except the one I am talking about is not human. And he is like 10 times more evil than Voldemort. And he doesn’t need a wand. Voldemort is a pushover compared to Bikal the terrible”
There was an audible gasp from the children. The tiger would have gasped too, but he was suddenly very worried and alert now.
“Where does Bikal hang out?” asked the children.
“Attaboy” thought the Tiger despite his state of sudden nervousness. It was the foremost question on the Tiger’s mind as well.
“Everywhere” answered the mother. “He lives in any cave he can find. He hunts around in the forests and swims around in the lake and sometimes he even comes to this village”
The tiger was getting more and more scared now. He himself lived in any cave that he could find. He hunted around in the forest and he swam around in the lake. And he sometimes came to this village. He must have been very very lucky not to run into this terrible monster.
“What is Bikal like?” asked the children.
It was as if the children again read the Tiger’s mind and answered his burning question.
“He’s the fastest and most powerful creature. He can outrun anything. When he stands, he is twice as tall as Daddy, and Daddy is already much more tall than the average human. Bikal uses his paws and he has very sharp claws. One swipe can shred you into pieces. And his eyes. OMG, those are the scariest pair anyone has seen. No one who has looked at Bikal has ever survived”
While the Tiger shuddered at this description, the children were scared into silence. All but two of them. The youngest child asked in a positively terrified voice. “Mummy, could you leave the light on please tonight?”
A more inquisitive child asked “if no one who has looked at Bikal has ever survived, how do we know what he looks like?” But just then there was the sound of a twig snapping that was clearly heard by everyone present, and the tiger too. The mother stood up suddenly in fake panic. “Did you hear that? Was that Bikal outside their window?”
Immediately her children closed their eyes tightly and pretended to sleep. One of them even began praying silently.
The tiger was frightened too because from what he had heard, he was in position to meet Bikal, not if Bikal ate tigers like him as an appetizer, as he surely must. He made a mad dash away from the house. Anywhere where Bikal was unlikely to go. Like that smelly, dirty, shed over there. He crept in through the open window and decided to lie low until Bikal had gone away. He did worry if the donkeys in the shed might raise the alarm on his entrance. He definitely smelled enough donkeys in there for the shed to be full. Standing room only. But when he entered there were no donkeys here. Which was fortunate. If Bikal the Terrible loved eating Tigers, as our Tiger assumed he did, he wouldn’t venture into this shed. Assuming he had a sense of smell. But what if Bikal’s nose was sensitive enough for him to smell the Tiger hiding in the donkey shed?
Reluctantly, the Tiger came to the conclusion that he would have to make Bikal’s work harder. He rolled around on the floor, letting his fur saturate with whatever the donkeys had left on the floor. He had completely given up on his dignity but he had probably saved his own life. And how he could breathe and think. Actually, maybe he should hold his breath until morning in case Bikal sensed it.
Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for everyone else, the tiger did not stop to think about the question the inquisitive child had asked. If no one had survived an encounter with Bikal, how did anyone know that Bikal existed at all? He also did not consider that maybe it was his own foot that had stepped on the twig and not Bikal’s. And lastly, it was fortunate that the childrens’ mother had kept her description abstract and not factual. Because if she had led with the description of Bikal as Orange colored with stripes, he would have reacted completely differently upon realizing that he himself was Bikal.
But he didn’t realize and that’s why he was in a dirty donkey shed covered in various foul-smelling things, and furiously praying for deliverance from Bikal.
Around that time, there were two burglars walking about in the village. They weren’t local to the area, they even spoke a completely different language. But burglary is a crime irrespective of which land you are from, and you don’t need to know the local language to find something valuable to steal.
Burglar 1 said to Burglar 2 that this had been an excellent night and that the sack he was carrying on his shoulder was very heavy and that made him happy.
Burglar 2 agreed whole-heartedly but also added that he was sure the sack he was carrying was definitely a little heavier than Burglar 1’s.
Burglar 1 took a little offense to this, and stole a mailbox they were passing by and hurriedly put it in his sack just to give himself bragging rights.
Burglar 2, not to be outdone, stole a passing kid’s bicycle that was lying out in the front yard. This tit-for-tat would have gone on but then Burglar 1 caught Burglar 2 stealing from his sack and they had to call a halt to this.
But that little game had made the sacks incredibly heavy to carry. This would soon tire them out.
“I say, Burglar 2” Burglar 1 whispered “how about we steal something from their garage?”
Burglar 2 thought this was an excellent idea. They debated a bit whether they should steal a horse or a donkey. But finally, they settled on a Donkey. Horses were fast, but Donkeys were better at carrying a lot of weight. And that is what was called for here.
They entered the shed that had the obvious Donkey smell coming from it.
“Where’s the light switch? I can’t find it” asked Burglar 1.
Upon which Burglar 2 reminded him that this was medieval India and that harnessing electricity to power lights at home wasn’t yet mainstream.
The Tiger gasped when the door opened and a huge dark shape walked in. It must be Bikal, he thought. And it had eight limbs and what seemed to be two heads and it was carrying something big and bulky. The Tiger could not understand what Bikal was doing now, and all the noises it was making. He had taken a correspondence course to learn human language and that had helped him immensely when he overheard the mother putting her children to sleep. But that was human language and Bikal obviously made other kinds of noises, obviously speaking to himself. The tiger lay absolutely still.
“I smell a lot of donkeys but I don’t see any,” said Burglar 1.
“Yeah, maybe the owners have gone away. But never mind I see a donkey here in the corner” Burglar 2 said.
They walked over to where the tiger was crouching. “Ewww, he smells the worst” said Burglar 1
Burglar 2 was puzzled why the Donkey wasn’t reacting to their presence. Now the Tiger had done a fairly good job of rolling around in Donkey filth, to the point that his nose was almost blocked. And because of that he didn’t smell the Burglars and didn’t realize that they were just human.
Burglar 1 had a solution to get this Donkey in action. He gave him a good hard kick and grabbed his tail and yanked it.
The tiger felt immense pain but felt the best course of action here was silence and prayer.
Meanwhile the burglars loaded the sacks onto the tiger and put a rope around him and started walking away with him. The tiger did not protest. It was still too dark for either side to realize the identity of the other.
When they were a reasonable distance from the village, the burglars tied their donkey to a tree and took a nap nearby. Dawn came and with daylight came the realization of their walking companions in the night.
The Burglars looked at the Tiger, the Tiger looked back at the Burglars. The mood now was the opposite of what it had been the night before.
The Tiger growled at the humans and the humans scared out of their wits ran from the scene as fast as their legs could carry them. The Tiger chased them. But he couldn’t manage more than a couple of steps – thanks to the heavy sacks still on his back and the fact that he was tied to a tree.
The tiger wasn’t just worried about the heavy load on his back, or the rope cutting into his neck or starving to death here. He was worried that someone might see him. He couldn’t be the laughingstock of the jungle. It would be too shameful to bear.
And as if fate was listening to him and decided to extend this cruel joke, he heard the footsteps of a man approaching.
“Oh hi, good morning” the Tiger said.
The man was shocked and stared at the Tiger for a good few seconds.
Then he realized that it would be impolite not to return the Tiger’s greeting “Good…. Good morning, I didn’t know Tigers could talk”
“Not all tigers” said the Tiger. “I took a correspondence course. I thought it was important in my line of work, to lure prey. For the same reason that they use Duck calls when hunting.”
“Is that what you’re doing Mr. Tiger, sir?” asked the man who introduced himself as Gopi.
“No, Gopi. I’m just out exercising. Morning routine. Must keep fit and all that sort of stuff” the Tiger chuckled.
“That explains the weights on your back Mr. Tiger, but what about the rope around your neck? It seems to me that you’re stuck to the tree”
The Tiger chuckled again and waved a paw dismissively. And was about to cook up a quick excuse but realized he couldn’t go through with it. He wailed out loudly that yes, yes, he was stuck. He narrated his entire story, his narrow escape from Bikal in the middle of the night. And then the Burglars coming in and mistaking him for a Donkey. He really needed a hand here. Could Gopi please be a nice guy and let him loose? Please, pretty please with a cherry on top”
Gopi was careful not to reveal that Bikal actually was the name the villagers gave to the Tiger. He also made a mental note to send a letter to the editors of the correspondence course that the Tiger had subscribed to. They must never in future editions include a definition for Bikal. Never ever.
Gopi sympathized with the tiger but was reluctant to let him free. He had heard Episode 98 of this show, especially the second story where the Tiger tried to eat the rescuer. To which the Tiger replied that he knew the Tiger in question. But that he was certainly more like the other Tiger in the first part of the same episode, the one who had helped out his rescuer. And he promised that he would give Gopi reaches beyond his imagination.
Gopi struggled with making a choice. Should he trust the word of Bikal the terrible who would have the opportunity with one swipe of his paw eliminate this witness of his humiliation? Or should he be a hero and perhaps eliminate Bikal and get that reward the village Sarpanch had promised? Basically should he be a fool or a hero. He chose to be a fool.
He let the Tiger loose and unloaded the two very heavy sacks. The tiger didn’t pounce on him. A good sign. Gopi began looking through the sacks. A mailbox. A child’s bicycle. A pair of skis. A doghouse. An alarm clock. A parrot in a cage. A watering can. A couple of garden gnomes. A pet’s leash. So far this was looking like a terrible deal. Maybe he would get a couple of rupees for the alarm clock. But then he kept poking around the sacks and finally hit paydirt. There was a fair bit of it. When he removed it, he could see the gold and silver jewelry. He looked at a spoon. It said “Property of” followed by a very clearly legible address.
“Are you going to keep that?” asked the Tiger.
“And why should I not?” asked Gopi. “You can barely read the address here”
“No, I can read it clearly, and I’m just a distance-learner of this language. Look I’ll even read it out loud,” the Tiger suggested.
“No thank you” Gopi replied quickly “It didn’t even include the pin code. An address is no good without a pin code, as the postal service says it all the time? I’m off now to melt these down. Maybe that will make the address legible. And if it doesn’t make it legible I’ll just have to keep the gold and silver myself. It’s a burden, but one that I have to live with”
“Well, suit yourself. I’m off to take a bath,” the Tiger said and began strolling off. He paused and turned around to Gopi. “Promise me that you will never ever reveal what happened to me and you’ll never say the word Bikal again. If you do, I will hunt you down and kill you without mercy”
That was an easy promise for Gopi to make, so he did and walked off.
But it was not an easy promise for Gopi to keep. That very night he had revealed everything to his wife. Because his wife was very suspicious of where he had gotten all that gold and silver from. Especially because he refused to let her examine it before he had melted it down. Was he a burglar? It wasn’t that she objected to the higher income compared to his previous profession of cowherding. Her main concern was trust. He had to tell her everything, hadn’t he promised to do so when they got married?
Gopi knew he had made a promise to the Tiger, but his wife’s authority superseded everything. So he told her all that the Tiger had told him. It’s a good thing though that he didn’t have to explain to his wife that Bikal was the villagers’ name for the Tiger. Because right then, the Tiger was listening to everything that was happening at his home. You see, the Tiger had followed Gopi just because he wanted to know where he lived. He hadn’t planned on eavesdropping but on hearing the word Bikal he decided to stay.
The Tiger had a masterful plan to take his revenge on Gopi here. He waited for them to fall asleep. Then he quietly crept into their home. He wrapped up the sleeping Gopi in a blanket, much like swaddling a baby. And then with the swaddled Gopi in his powerful jaws, the Tiger dashed away from the scene.
A few miles away the Tiger stopped and woke up Gopi. Gopi muttered that he wanted breakfast in bed. To which the Tiger replied that Gopi sleeping in bed, was going to be his breakfast.
Gopi woke up with a scare and saw the Tiger staring at him.
The Tiger explained while slowly unretracted his claws one-by-one that Gopi had violated his promise within just a few hours! He must pay the price for it.
Gopi admitted his mistake but he made a play for more time. “Look at me right now. I’m shivering and cold. You can’t eat human meat like that. Wait till daytime you’ll see I’ll become plump and warm and toasty in the hot daytime Sun. Especially with this heatwave going on”
“Well, sure,” said the Tiger. “What’s a couple of hours more? Your goose is definitely cooked”
“My goose, what I don’t have a goose. I didn’t order a goose” Gopi replied, puzzled.
“It’s an expression. Let it go. Though it’s odd the correspondence course I took definitely mentioned that goose is cooked means you’re certain to fail”
If anyone could uncook Gopi’s goose, it was his wife. Bhagvati woke up with a start to find her husband missing and tiger tracks in the room. She surmised what had happened and bravely. She grabbed some of the loudest pots and pans and a club and dashed off into the jungle, following the Tiger tracks. The tracks were deeper than usual, meaning the beast was carrying a heavy load. Probably Gopi.
As she got nearer where she could hear Gopi and the Tiger talking, she hit upon a plan and hoped that Gopi would catch on.
She walked off a few paces and then began loudly banging her pots and pans.
“What is that?” Suddenly the Tiger was frightened.
Gopi did catch on pretty quick just as Bhagvati had hoped.
“I can’t answer that” he cleverly said. “You made me promise”. Both of those statements from Gopi were true, but the Tiger wouldn’t realize that the statements were not connected.
“Is it Bikal? Is that Bikal approaching?” The Tiger was panicking now.
Gopi nodded. “Oh what should I do? What should I do?” the Tiger began pacing about.
“You can’t outrun it,” Gopi said. Another true statement. The Tiger couldn’t outrun himself.
“I suggest you lie down and pretend to be a rug. Lots of people have those rugs made of Tigers”
The Tiger would have protested against this horrid horrid practice. But now it might save his life. So he quickly lay down on the ground, spread his arms and legs and froze in place.
Bhagvati approached, careful to keep herself out of the Tiger’s line of vision.
“I smell Tiger! I’m so hungry I could eat one whole” she said in a deliberately menacing voice.
The Tiger lay absolutely still. Gopi spoke up. “Your lordship, there’s no Tiger here, just a rug”
“I don’t believe you,” said Bhagvati. “Here’s a club, hit it and prove to me it’s a rug”
Gopi should have gotten a filmfare award for hesitating deliberately, stealing a glance at the Tiger’s eyes and then reluctantly approaching the rug and hitting it a little.
“Not hard enough. Do it again. Harder, much harder”
The tiger now took the risk of nodding at Gopi to show that he welcomed being hit much harder if only to get Bikal to buy the story about him being a rug.
Gopi hit much harder, but Bikal kept insisting on harder and harder until the Tiger no longer survived.
Gopi and Bhagvati hugged and cried at the narrow escape. They walked back to the village where they were promptly arrested for killing a member of a critically endangered species. Just kidding, they got a reward from the Sarpanch. Just kidding. No one felt in the slightest bit that the Tiger had deserved to live.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
There are surprisingly similar folktales in other parts of Asia. In particular, Korea has a popular version where the Tiger is scared of a persimmon not having ever seen that fruit before.
Check out this link to the previous time we covered a folktale from Madhya Pradesh. It was almost two years ago: Episode 23 – Magical Tweetment
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll meet a Goddess who is rather unusual. It’s not just that she has a pet crocodile, but that she is worshipped by both people practicing Hinduism and those practicing Islam.