In this episode, we’re covering a Manipur Folk Tale. Manipur is a state in the east of India and we haven’t really done any folk tales from this state before. But this is an interesting story that is unique to this area. And so here we are.
There was a cuckoo. She wasn’t cuckoo. At least not cuckoo as in mentally unstable. But let’s name her cuckoo anyway. She was just returning from a long way off. She had been in Africa. What was she doing in Africa you say? What does a bird do? Migrate down south for the winter, you say? That might work if Manipur was in a cold enough place that birds might be compelled to migrate to a warmer climate. But Manipur is temperate. So let’s just pretend that the Cuckoo had gone there on vacation.
It was a nice holiday she thought, as she dropped her bags on the front porch of her birdhouse. She turned off her home security system and entered. She needed a vacation from this vacation. The trip had been tiring. This wasn’t the kind of airlines that provide comfortable lie-flat seats and serve champagne and let you watch movies while your heavy luggage was kept in the belly of the plane. Instead you had to fly by yourself carrying your bags, without any in-flight meal service. Although she did manage to find some worms on the Maldives along the way when she stopped to rest her wings.
When she got home there was a surprise waiting for her! It was the 5 crib bed, a do-it-yourself kit from Ikea. Perfect! Now, she could lay eggs. She just had to assemble the crib, which would probably take a week. And that wasn’t the only thing on her to-do list. It was the long list. When she unrolled it, it went tumbling out her home and out of sight. Not unlike what I’m sure you’ve seen in some animated movies.
First thing was to assemble the 5 cribs, lay some eggs, build the children’s rooms. Decorate the rooms. Go hunt for worms for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Weave baskets, weave cloth from cotton, make clothes, Go maintain the farm, sow the seeds, setup an irrigation system, harvest the crops when they grew. And so on and so forth. It was a pretty long list, and no one could dispute that she was going to be busy a long time.
She got right down to it. Because this cuckoo was a very hard working one. She had assembled the furniture and laid eggs and was not weaving beautiful and cozy blankets for her eggs.
The cuckoo heard the door bell ring, and seeing from her nest app that it was in fact her neighbor, the sparrow, she opened the door.
The sparrow had come to invite the cuckoo to a block party! It was a welcome back party, specifically for the Cuckoo. They all missed her! And now that she was back they had arranged a party for her.
The Cuckoo should have been surprised. She was never much of a person to make friends or to have conversations with nosy neighbors. But she knew why they had invited her. Out of goodwill, she perceived. A long-founded belief amongst all of the creatures here was that the Cuckoo would quickly be followed by the monsoon.
For those of you who don’t know, there are two primary seasons in the North-Eastern part of India. It’s either wet and cool or hot and dry. The Monsoon is a change in the weather from one to the other. And with it would come rainfall. Something that all the creatures in her village had been desperately waiting for. Her neighbors wanted to invite her to thank her for the upcoming rainfall.
But the Cuckoo had no interest in parties. She was very… transactional. She had come here, hadn’t she. So why did she have to go to this silly party of theirs? She had much more important things to do. Yeah, her to-do list.
She declined, and advised her neighbor to carry on with the party, but to keep the music down low because her eggs were sleeping. Loud music might cause enough vibrations for her eggs to prematurely hatch.
The sparrow was disappointed. She told the Cuckoo that it may have been borderline unacceptable for her to skip the block party. But it would be unthinkable for her to not come to the big meeting next week. She must be there.
“Unthinkable, huh?” The cuckoo challenged. “Too late. It’s no longer unthinkable. You’ve already thought of it”
But she reassured the Sparrow she would be there for their town hall.
If the cuckoo was busy that day, she was twice as busy the next week. Because her eggs had hatched by then. And that meant so much extra work. Each of her chicks was constantly crying for food. So she had to go look for one worm after another. It was taking a long time, but she kept finding the little worms. Sometimes she had to fight to overpower them, before carrying them off in her beak and dropping them into one of her hungry chicks’ open mouths. But she had set enough reminders on her smart devices, that she did not forget the big meeting.
She got there a little bit late, just as the president was speaking. The president of the council was a man. And he was addressing all the members of the village. He concluded his speech by saying “…and that is why this big meeting is called a townhall, even though we are a village. We will continue to refer to this meeting as the Village townhall, irrespective of the apparent contradiction in the implied scale of our settlement”
Somewhere in the audience someone snored before gasping awake when a neighbor poked them in the ribs.
The President continued “welcome back Cuckoo, I see you have joined us. Now we can move on to more important matters, including matters that concern you, in particular”
All eyes turned to glare at the Cuckoo, but she seemed to not care. Her mind was presently occupied by whether the rectangular pattern was the right pattern to weave on her next blanket, or should she make circles.
The Monkey, who was the secretary to the President, began to read out the next item on the Agenda. “Next item, a question from a concerned villager. We should discuss why is it that in this village we only have one adult representative of each species in this town hall. Why aren’t there two men, or three monkeys or 4 cows for example?”
The President let out a nervous chuckle. “Not that one, Monkey. Let’s address that in due course. Let’s move on to the item about the big day tomorrow.”
The Cuckoo was nodding her head the way other creatures were, but she was not really paying attention. Her mind was firmly on her household duties. She must remember to spray some pesticide in her farm. Wait a minute, what if she just ate those bugs instead of spraying them with pesticide? She could teach her children to eat bugs, that would make her work easier so she could finally work on that kitchen remodeling she had been putting off for so long.
“The big day tomorrow” the President repeated, for emphasis. “It’s the day we all go out and work on cleaning our river. Now that Cuckoo is back, Monsoon rains will soon follow. But our river is full of dirt and sediment and all kinds of waste. We need to remove the weeds growing on the riverbed. And we must all work together. Because this river is not my river or your river. It’s our river”
Cheers from the audience. That reminded the Cuckoo that she had to get the hockey equipment for her children to practice hockey ahead of their little league match in two weeks.
At this point, the President and every creature in the hall turned their eyes to the Cuckoo. Well except the Cuckoo itself. She couldn’t turn her eyes on herself, now could she. Every creature looked at the Cuckoo and the President asked the question “you are coming to help, aren’t you, Cuckoo?”
“But I have so much work to do. I have to remove weeds from my garden. I have to finish weaving raincoats for my children before it gets wet”
“Yeah. You work hard. We get it. But look, we all do hard work here. The monkey has to collect fruits. The elephant has to move logs so she can build my home. The rooster has to practice his crowing so he can wake us up in the morning. The cat has to…well I don’t know what the cat has to do, but I’m sure it’s very important”
“You do know you’re not helping your case, right? I easily do all of that and more in a single day” the Cuckoo started to say. But the President and all the other creatures wouldn’t listen. Finally she relented. “Oh fine, I’ll be there and I’ll help you clean the riverbed” she grumbled.
Cheers went up in the audience.
All the creatures retired after that. They knew they had a long day ahead. And the weather forecast was perfect. Well, not perfect for relaxation. But it was perfect for the job they wanted to do. It was sweltering. The temperature was probably in the high 40s degree Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. All the animals showed up, including the Cat, the Tiger, the Deer, the Elephant, the mouse, and every creature that was part of the village. Except the Cuckoo.
All day, all of those creatures, predators and prey worked side by side and toiled and removed the weeds and cleared the dirt from the river. The President himself worked too. He was one of the few creatures with opposable thumbs and was therefore better positioned than the rest to use shovels and rakes.
All day they worked hard until finally in the evening, they looked back and realized they had done a pretty decent job! They were rather proud of themselves. The monsoon rains when they came would fill this river with clean water, and the water would stay clean. At least for a while.
They all retired to their homes that night. Sure enough, the very next day, rain arrived. And it wasn’t just a drizzle. It was a downpour. All the creatures danced around in the rain, enjoying it, thanking the Gods. Gardens looked lush green, and the river looked clear. The creatures were thrilled.
When the rain subsided a little, they all made their way to the river and everyone began drinking. The clean river water had never tasted better. It was their own sweat that had made this river tasty. I don’t mean that literally, of course.
Just then, who should appear on the scene, but the Cuckoo with her five little children and a couple of buckets that she seemed ready to fill up.
Her appearance brought up a sudden change in the crowd. Before she arrived everyone was excitedly chattering. But when they saw her appear, there was a silence, so sudden it was almost deafening.
The President walked up. It was his job, as their leader, to break awkward situations.
“What do you think, friends?” he addressed everyone. “The Cuckoo did not help us out when we cleaned the river. Should we allow her to drink this clean river water?”
The answer it seemed was a resounding “No”. I guess animals hold a grudge for a while. And no amount of doe-eyed looks from the Cuckoo chicks made them change their mind.
The President proclaimed that the Cuckoo was only entitled to drink water directly from the sky. That is from the Monsoon she brings with her, so I don’t think she will go thirsty too much.
Bad scientific basis there. But that’s the story.
Some Notes on the Show
Honestly though, I feel for the Cuckoo. She did pretty hard work, more than most other animals. But at the same time she backed out of her promise once she had committed to helping them. She should have stood her ground if she felt strongly, or she should at least have communicated that she couldn’t help.
So yeah, that’s why the Cuckoo drinks only rainwater. At least, she is not too restricted. She can always fly somewhere else to drink water. What if she went downstream? Who would know?
Specifically the Cuckoo in today’s story is the Pied Cuckoo. Which means she was covered in feathers of two different colors. Check out this link to see what it looks like.
Other folk tales we have covered before
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do a story about the Goddess Kali and we’ll see a very gory battle.