In this episode, we’re back in the world of Vikram Betaal. This one features Princess Indumati’s Swayamvar, a pretty impossible practical. We have covered some Vikram and Betaal stories before and you can find the links to those in the show notes. But if you haven’t heard those, nothing to worry about. The stories themselves stand alone. The only context you need is the framing narrative, of which here’s a quick summary.
Vikramaditya was a wise King, who made the right decisions for his people. His people showed their appreciation in many ways. One of them was a Rishi, a stereotypically bearded wise man. The Rishi gave Vik a fruit everyday. Vik thought nothing of it until one day he discovered that each of those fruits contained a massive gem inside. The value of those gems accrued over time, solidly put Vik in the mood to repay any favors that the Rishi might ask for. That’s exactly what the Rishi wanted. He explained to Vik that what he needed to complete a special prayer was a Betaal. In case some of you don’t know what that means, a Betaal is a reanimated corpse. It has been loosely translated as Vampire by Europeans who had no idea of the full spectrum of creatures in Indian Mythology. You could say the term Zombie is closer, except that Betaals could also talk lucidly and could fly. All they did mostly was to hang down from trees like a bat. That’s where the Rishi said the specific Betaal he wanted was hanging out. In a Pipal tree in a cemetry. And for reasons he did not disclose, Vik had to go fetch the Betaal from the tree in the middle of the night, all by himself. Well, Vik didn’t get to where he was by being a scaredy cat, so he accepted the Rishi’s request without question. He had no trouble climbing the tree, and grabbing the Betaal. But when he was making his way back to the Rishi, with the Betaal on his back, the Betaal told him a story. It was a story that had a question in the end. The kind of deep question that Type A personalities like Vik could not resist answering. The only problem was that every time Vik opened his mouth to speak, it allowed the Betaal to escape his grasp and fly away. The Betaal went back to his spot on the tree, and Vik fetched him again. The Betaal told him a new story but with the same outcome, Vik answered the question correctly and the Betaal escaped again. Rinse and Repeat about 25 times. We’ve covered seven of those before. Today we’ll see an eigth one.
The story begins as all the other Vikram Betaal stories do. With Vik walking across the cemetry with the Betaal on his back. The Betaal remarked what a fine night this was.
Vik said nothing.
The Betaal continued that this was the perfect night for storytelling, and he knew just the story to make the walk interesting. Just say no, if you don’t want to hear the story
Vik shook his head vigorously to indicate he wasn’t in the mood for a story, but he couldn’t say the word no. Speaking would allow the Betaal to escape yet again.
The Betaal said that since Vik seemed to be so enthusiastic, the Betaal would tell him the story of the Indumati and Kurupshana.
Vik tried to block his ears. Naturally that didn’t work, because his hands were busy carrying the Betaal on his back, and a cemetery in the middle of the night is no place to find ear plugs or cotton buds.
So he gave up. He didn’t even sigh because then the Betaal would have escaped at the sound. He just rolled his eyes and listened to the storyteller.
The Betaal began narrating in a voice almost identical to mine. I bet you, my dear listeners, can’t even tell the difference.
Once in a Kingdom called GoldTown or Kanchannagar, there lived a King, a Queen and their daughter. Also thousands of subjects, but they largely do not feature in the story. The King’s name was Chandradeep and his daughter’s Indumati, which is a bit strange. Reason being that Chandradeep means moon light and Indumati is the Full Moon. You would have expected the parent to be the Full Moon and source of Moonlight, instead of the other way around. But let’s not dwell on the King and Queen’s inability to name their child well. What they lacked in creativity and analytical reasoning, they made up in social behavior.
They brought up Indumati the way anyone would if they had an endless supply of taxpayer money. Moonlight got his daughter everything including the best education, the best weapons training, and a love for adventure. It was this last thing that in later years led to the bulk of the story.
It started as it often does with the King Moonlight bringing up the topic of marriage.
“Seriously, what is it with boomer parenting?” thought Indumati. “All I hear is find a partner, settle down”
Moonlight went on and on for hours at a time about finding a successor for the Kingdom. His chief argument was that in the absence of a successor, how would the Kingdom be governed?
When Indumati suggested that perhaps it was time for elected representatives of the people to propose laws executed by an independent body of government, King Moonlight laughed off the suggestion.
This kept happening for several days and weeks until finally fed up, Indumati decided that she was going to put a stop to this. She went to the library, checked out the Princess edition of the book “How to avoid marrying the wrong guy in Medieval India”. Her spinster aunt swore the book was effective.
The Princess spent a couple of days and nights poring over the book. Finally she closed it out, picked up her notes and headed straight for the throne room.
She didn’t knock, she just walked and announced to the full court that it was a half-day. A gift from their future queen. Before the interruption, the King had been talking. Or rambling rather. He was mid-sentence in his criticism of the lack of a law protecting the disabled. None of the courtiers cared about it. And yet because he was King, no one dared to interrupt him. Except the Princess, and she had done it without knowing the subject matter. Still, an early start to the weekend was welcome. So all the courtiers hurried out before the King could step in and override his daughter.
When they had cleared out, the King was a little sour. Naturally.
“Must you do that every time? I was going to introduce a very important law regarding protection for the disabled” asked King Moonlight.
“Don’t worry. This was for a good cause,” Indumati replied.
Moonlight was still skeptical. Until Indumati said that she had decided she would marry.
“Have you picked someone?” asked the King with growing excitement
“No, but I know how to. I’m going to do a Swayamvar”
“Well, of course. That’s what Swayamvar means. You pick your partner. How can I help? Shall I line up all the princes from all our neighboring Kingdoms?” asked Moonlight.
The Princess explained that this wasn’t just going to be a big party where Indumati would simply pick one of the princes from there to spend the rest of her life with. She was inspired by history, you know how in order to marry Draupadi, Arjun had to hit a fish in the eye without directly looking at it? She would set a task. Whoever completed it successfully would get to marry her. But they would have to complete the task exactly according to her chosen conditions.
“I don’t know about these skill based contests. They are very unpredictable and you might end up saddled with the wrong sort. For example you asked to turn straw into gold, the only winner would be that horrid little goblin from that Germany folk tale”
“You mean Rumpelstiltskin?” asked Indumati
“Was that his name? I never can seem to remember. Anyway the point is be careful with these skills based contests.”
But Indumati was confident that this would work. She just needed a whole lot of money, access to the Royal Ironsmith, weapons maker, and an architect.
Well, King Moonlight had no objections – it wasn’t his money anyway. The taxpayers could fund this mad project whatever it was.
When it was completed, it did indeed look like a mad project. King Moonlight saw the result at the same time as all the Princes who had arrived competing to marry the Princess.
What they saw before them was a giant wall, with a set of stairs leading to the top.
“To win, all you have to do is to walk up the stairs” began Indumati.
“All those steps? Have you seen how many there are?” grumbled one Prince.
“Can I have my servant walk for me?” asked another.
“I excuse your interruption. And yes, I know there are 40 steps. I designed this myself. But I am not finished. After walking up the stairs, you have to stand on the wall and …”
“And take a selfie?” interrupted another Prince
“No, You have to stand there and jump down on the other side” Indumati said
“Is there a mattress on the other side?” asked another Prince. Going by worried expressions, he was clearly speaking for them all.
“No. It’s actually the opposite. Let me show you” said Indumati. And she did. The other side had a circular pen. But it wasn’t just a regular pen with wooden stakes. This one had spikes pointing both inward and outward. Whoever jumped in here was sure to be badly injured in a best case scenario.
“And for the final condition,” Indumati added, “you must survive the jump without so much as a scratch on your body.”
Nervous looks all around. One prince suddenly remembered a forgotten appointment and muttered an apology and departed. Other Princes stuck around to weasel out of this somehow. They tried to see if there was a trick here. Maybe jumping off the wall need not mean jumping off on the side of the spikes. Maybe they could hop down the stairs one at a time and technically fulfill her condition. Or maybe they could delegate the task. There wouldn’t be a scratch on their body, and the winning Prince would adequately compensate the poor servant who had been ordered to take one for the Prince.
But Indumati quickly addressed that she had specifically meant jumping down into the side of the spikes. There was no rappelling down, no sliding down, no climbing down. No floating down, no protection equipment. Also especially no delegation to subordinates.
More princes departed, without even an excuse this time. They all thought Indumati was insane, or she just didn’t want to marry. It was in fact the latter that the Princess had intended. She was delighted when things were going to plan. She did get nervous a bit when there was one Prince left and he seemed to be enthusiastic about making the jump. What if he succeeded by a miracle?
But there was nothing to worry about, as King Moonlight discovered the boy was underage and would not be allowed to participate without his parent or guardian’s consent on forms 23, 42 and 64. That prince too left.
No one wanted to take up this challenge. After 30 days of waiting, and over Indumati’s protests, the King had to open up the contest to everyone, not just the royal born. This was required by law. And at that point, he would have accepted a commoner for a son-in-law.
But there were no takers. Most young men would have relished the chance of getting to marry the Princess, becoming a ruler of the land and all that. But they could not see how they would be able to jump down the wall without injuring themselves on the spikes. So no one showed up. Except for one guy.
His name was Kurupshana. Kurupshana was born without arms. He was a young man who had been brought up by his father and step mother. And not a day went by that his step mother didn’t curse him to his face. She cursed her fate for having to take care of him. Kurupshana did the best he could to manage and to cause less grief to others, but with his step mother’s personality it was impossible. Every day was a living hell for him.
He had finally decided to give in to one of his step mother’s frequent curses. He had decided that his life was not worth living. He would pass on, that way at least his father and stepmother would not have to worry about him. But the difficulty was in choosing the method. His lack of arms made it an impossible task. Unless he found a cliff somewhere.
And then he saw the posters advertising Indumati’s swayamvar. He carefully read the fine print to ensure he wasn’t excluded. But after double and triple checking, he saw the only minimum qualification was age, and he definitely cleared it!
That’s how Kurupshana came to the Palace and stood before the wall.
King Moonlight and Princess Indumati were taken aback by his appearance. Indumati did not have this sort of potential husband in mind. Besides being disabled, she thought he looked very ugly. But she couldn’t very well prevent him from trying. No one else had even attempted the task yet. Maybe Kurupshana would serve as a demonstration and discourage anyone else from trying.
“One very important thing before I begin,” said Kurupshana. “The poster advertising the Swayamvar said participants could choose between an electric toaster, and a water purifier. I choose the water purifier. Please ship it to my father and step-mother”
An official noted the address, and then the contest began. Kurupshana walked up the stairs. That was the easy part. Standing on the thin wall without arms to balance was trickier. But Kurupshana didn’t have to stand for long. He jumped.
By what seemed to be a miracle, Kurupshana survived! Without so much as a scratch on his body. Kurupshana’s lack of arms had helped rather than hindered him. He had presented a smaller cross-section to the spikes, and luckily fallen exactly in the middle of two large ones, narrowly avoiding both.
Kurupshana was ecstatic. His big smile only enhanced his ugliness, according to Indumati. She turned to Moonlight and hastily whispered for him to find a technicality to disqualify Kurupshana.
But the King shook his head. King Kurupshana had won fair and square. There was no going back now.
Indumati had dug herself into this hole. She put on her sunglasses in order to hide the fact that she couldn’t even stand to look at Kurupshana.
But when the King congratulated Kurupshana and began listing all the rewards that he had won, Kurupshana audaciously interrupted him.
“Your majesty, I thank you for the opportunity. But I cannot accept any reward”
Indumati breathed a big sigh of relief. She had dodged a bullet here. She now knew what Kurupshana must have felt upon realizing that he had missed every spike.
“At least that’s how she thought of it. But is that really true?” wondered the Betaal. “You know Vik, I think Kurupshana was rather foolish here, don’t you think? Why would he reject the reward? Makes no sense, does it?”
“On the contrary,” Vik replied. “Kurupshana did a wise thing. The experience was rewarding for him, because it allowed to prove to himself and his step-mother that his disability was a strength, not a weakness. He had succeeded in a task that everyone else had failed or been too scared to even attempt. If that didn’t get him positive recognition, he didn’t know what would. That was the limit of what he considered a reward. Marrying the Princess and eventually ruling the Kingdom would actually be bad for him. He couldn’t govern. Not without arms. And besides he didn’t want Indumati for a wife anyway. She was too much of a spoiled brat according to Kurpshana.
If you’re looking for who’s been most foolish of the lot it’s the Princess. Indumati should not have set a contest like that if she was not prepared to accept any outcome. King Moonlight played by the rules, and he even warned her.”
“Is it me or did you just lose a lot of weight suddenly?
But the Betaal had not suddenly lost weight. Vik had been speaking all this while, which meant the Betaal could escape. Vik saw the flying Betaal, and from the thumbs up sign the Betaal was giving him, Vik knew his answer was the correct one.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
Here are the links to previous Vikram Betaal stories:
Episode 5 – Kingly duties
Episode 8 – Vik and the Vampire Redux
Episode 32 – The Call of Duty
Episode 34 – A Damsel in Distress
Episode 56 – The Three Sherlocks
Episode 95 – Vikram-Betaal – The Blame Game is Afoot
Episode 110 – Vikram-Betaal – The Bachelorette
There’s also the Singhasan Battisi series which we have covered a couple of times. It’s related to this one in the sense that there is a framing narrative and a sequence of stories told to a King. King Bhoja, who wanted to sit on a throne, and each of the 32 statues on the Throne told him a story. The other connection there is that the throne belonged to Vik, and was a gift from Indra, the Chief of the Devs who wanted to reward Vik. What Bhoja needed to decide before he ran out of stories and those storytelling statues was – did Vik owe his wisdom to the throne, or did he have to be wise already to qualify to sit on the throne.
Previous Singhasan Battisi stories:
The Twilight Throne – Singhasan Battisi – {Ep.124}
Vikramaditya’s Guests – Singhasan Battisi – {Ep.136}
Vik has also featured in other stories. That we have not yet covered on the podcast. Notably one featuring a long courtship with the Princess of China. But we’ll get to that in the future.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do the story of Tripura. This isn’t the state in North East India. It’s about three cities that could fly. A concept dreamed up a long long time ago before the flying cloud city in Star Wars. Also featuring a fountain that can restore life to the dead, and a bull so thirsty it can drink non-stop. And it features all of the Holy Trinity, Vishnu, and Shiva and my Dad, Brahma.