Vikram-Betaal – Build-a-beast – {Ep.261}

Today’s episode is a Vikram-Betaal story about how four recent graduates use their new skills to bring a dead creature back to life! Can Vikram solve Betaal’s tricky question again?

Namaskar and welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back into the world of Vikram and Betaal. We’ve covered many Vikram-Betaal stories before. In fact we’re pretty close to running out of stories. Now you might have heard that there are 25 Vikram Betaal stories. After all, these stories are sometimes called the Betaal Pacchisi. Pachisi literally means 25. Though we’ve only done less than a dozen Vikram and Betaal episodes, we have covered the majority of  the stories. You see some of these stories repeat, and though the Betaal might have enjoyed boring Vikram by repeating them, I will not bore you by repetition. 

As it happens this story has been included in modern versions of other collections like the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales.

“By the way, all of the Vikram Betaal stories are standalone. So if you haven’t heard the previous episodes that is totally fine. The only info you need is the framing narrative, which I’ll summarize right now. That being said, I do recommend hearing previous stories. They are linked in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com, so check them out.

Raja Vikramaditya, or Vikram, or Vik as I shall call him, was a very well known and well respected King. His people appreciated him. In addition to the taxes they already paid, they give him gifts, purely to show their appreciation. One of these gift givers was a Rishi, or a wise man. The Rishi gave Vik a mango everyday. Vik didn’t think much of it until one day when he accidentally discovered that each of those mangoes contained a massive and valuable gem inside. Naturally, Vik felt obligated to pay the Rishi back for dramatically increasing the Kingdom’s wealth. 

That’s precisely what the Rishi wanted. He explained to Vik that he wanted to complete a very special prayer, and the only missing ingredient was a Betaal – which he expected Vik to fetch for him.

If you haven’t heard the term before – a Betaal is a reanimated corpse. Some early members of the British Raj clumsily equated Betaals with Vampires. You might say the term Zombie is closer, except that Betaals could also talk quite clearly and could fly. They also didn’t need any sustenance, brains or otherwise. Betaals mostly were in the habit of hanging out in Peepal trees, by hanging down from them – like a bat. The Rishi wanted Vik to go Betaal-shopping in the cemetery, which had several Peepal trees, with several Betaals ripe for the plucking. 

The Rishi did not explain why, but Vik had to fetch the Betaal strictly in the middle of the night, and he had to go all alone. Vik was still grateful for the massive wealth boost, so he readily agreed to the terms and conditions.

Vik climbed the tree, and grabbed the Betaal easily enough. When he was making his way across the cemetery to the Rishi, the Betaal told him a story. It was a story that had a question in the end. A question that Vik could not resist answering. The only problem was that when Vik opened his mouth to speak, Betaal was able to escape and fly away. This happened over and over. You may think Vik wasn’t learning from experience and wasn’t keeping his mouth shut. But it wasn’t just him. The Betaal wasn’t learning either, because he kept going back to exactly the same spot as before. This happened 25 times – the Betaal told him 25 stories and always with the same outcome. Except for the last story. We’re almost but not quite there yet.

The Betaal began his next story.

It starts in an Ancient Indian household with a dad and his four sons. Let’s call the dad Pitaji. That’s what the kids addressed him as, anyway. The children were called Pehla, Doosra, Teesra, Choutha. Which are hindi words that literally translate to First, Second, Third and Fourth. All in the order of their birth. The presumption was that if he’d had more children he’d have named the children Panchva, Chatta, Saatva and so on. 

It was easier to track who’s who. In Pitaji’s mind at least. 

Let’s join them at the dinner table. Pitaji was making a speech. “I have a few things to say. First…” Pehla perked up his ears. “First, I want to say how proud I am of all four of you.” 

This kind of confusion was bound to happen with daft names like First, Second, etc. 

Pitaji went on to say how proud he was of everyone. “I’m a scholar and have always valued education. Today, all four of you have passed your homeschooling with flying colors.” That was literal, there was still some colorful confetti floating around the room. 

Pitaji went on “It doesn’t matter that you all are all different ages. We’ll gloss over why it took three of you longer to graduate. This is a time for celebration! I hope you can find all your goals in life! And the University you are headed towards! Go forth and conquer the world!”

He hastily added “Go first, second and third as well” when he saw only choutha react.

Pitaji pledged to be with them every step of the way. Pehla asked, tentatively. “You mean in your heart and your mind, right?”

But no, Pitaji did not just mean in his heart and his mind. He meant to be with them literally, physically. Every step of the way. He had packed his bags too, and he was going with them!

This was going to be awkward. If they were eight year olds and their father was Shah Rukh Khan and this was summer camp they were talking about, it might be possible to come to terms with Pitaji’s decision. But they were not eight year olds. And he was not Shah Rukh Khan, no one could possibly mistake him for SRK, and the Takshanda University they were headed to was definitely not a summer camp.

At this point you’re probably wondering what the Takshanda University was. You’ve probably heard of Takshashila and Nalanda. Let’s just say Takshanda was a University formed by a splinter group of ex-Takshashila and ex-Nalanda faculty who decided their teaching views did not fit well with others. To put a fine point on it, Takshanda University professors decided they needed to teach fringe topics and not just the mainstream ones.
You’ll get a better sense of what I mean when you hear what majors the four children had chosen. Pehla had chosen Anatomy and Practical Osteology, Doosra had selected Regenerative Bioengineering. Teesra had double majored in Tissue Engineering and Dermatology. And Choutha had picked Bioenergetics and Life Science. Those all seem like a mouthful. But don’t worry you’ll see soon enough what they did.

Four years of University went by very quickly. The brothers were top of their class throughout. Not surprising considering they were also the only students of their subjects.

Having a 1:1 student teacher ratio may have seemed attractive on brochures for prospective students. But it’s unsustainable for University administration, and will only cause the University to gallop towards bankruptcy. Maybe that’s one reason you haven’t heard about Takshanda University before.

By being the only student in their class, the children were also bottom of their class, but Pitaji didn’t focus on that. He instead tried to focus on joining his children in every class – he claimed to help them learn. But his constant interruptions annoyed the professors. Finally they found a way to get him out of the way. By telling him that if wanted to be in the classroom, he had pay the fee. That made Pitaji back off. The alternative of doubling the tuition wouldn’t work.

Learning was a lot smoother after that. Pitaji did still join them in the University clubs, and the cultural activities. His children were a little embarrassed at having their father accompany them at all the ice cream socials and the fraternity parties. But Pitaji’s presence definitely helped them graduate faster. So that was a plus.

He managed to accompany each of them on stage when they received their diplomas. Wasn’t much that the professors could complain about that time!

After all the post-graduation parties and celebrations, they packed up and went back home. Well they didn’t actually go back home. They just started in that direction. Something happened that made them all pause. “Will you look at that? Isn’t that an interesting find?” Pehla said, holding up a strangely shaped white-ish object.

Is that Styrofoam? Asked Doosra.

But Pehla shook his head. This wasn’t Styrofoam, it couldn’t be. Styrofoam wasn’t invented yet. It wasn’t even close. This was a bone. He had learned this in Bone Collecting 101. This was the upper limb of a wild animal. 

“Funny bone?” asked Teesra.

But Pehla said no. The funny bone wasn’t a bone, he explained. It was a nerve that ran along the humerus. All this made Pitaji incredibly proud of his son’s newly acquired knowledge.

So when Pehla revealed that he could use that one bone to extrapolate and build the entire skeleton, he greatly encouraged his son. There may also have been something in Pitaji’s eye, or so he claimed. He was really trying to hide the tears of joy.

It only got even more emotional for Pitaji when he examined Pehla’s finished work. It was perfect. He had cleverly created every one of the missing bones and assembled them into a perfect skeleton.

Doosra was not to be outdone. So what if Pehla was a Doctor of Osteology. Doosra himself was a Doctor of Regenerative Bioengineering. He could create the muscles, the flesh, infuse blood and add most of the organs. And what he would do would be more remarkable. Because Pehla had a bone to start with. But Doosra had nothing at all to start with. Well the skeleton, sure, but no example muscle, nerve or blood sample.

He got to work. And 20 minutes later, he stepped back and asked his family what they thought of his work.

And everyone had to admit the result was fantastic. The way the muscles were arranged, it was perfect. They could totally imagine this animal, whatever it was – it had powerful legs.

Pitaji was so proud, his tousled his son’s hair and congratulated him on a job well done.

The only one who didn’t seem very ecstatic was Teesra. Because Teesra was eager to show off his own skills.

The Double major of Tissue engineering and Dermatology used his expert knowledge to give the assembled creature skin, fur and claws. 

All this while Pitaji wept tears of joy. He said that even if Chautha had nothing to add, he would still absolutely be proud of each of them.

But Chautha absolutely had something to add. His doctorate in Bioenergetics was not a waste. He could give life to this creature – which was very clearly a lion. But anyone could see that, so there was no point in stressing the creature’s species.

What an excellent idea, his family said.

5 minutes later, they didn’t think it was such an excellent idea after all. Because the lion, once it was alive, wasn’t content with just lying around. It decided it needed to make up for lost time. All the time since it had passed away it hadn’t had a decent meal. As luck would have it, right before the lion were not one, but 5 excellent dinners. With a few quick pounces, the lion attacked and killed all four brothers, as well as Pitaji.

“That’s the story,” the Betaal concluded. “Now we get to the part you’ve been so eagerly waiting for! The question. But that will be right after this commercial break”

Vik’s face showed his shock, until the Betaal said he was just kidding. “Without further ado, the question is simply this. Who was the most foolish of the lot? Was it Pehla? Because he started the whole thing. If he hadn’t assembled the bones, none of the following would have happened. Or was it Doosra, or Dr. muscles? Or could it be Teesra, the one who added the skin, fur, claws and such? Or could it have been Chautha, because he gave life to the lion? Without Chautha’s actions, the assembled creature would have simply been a nice little statue for a natural history museum somewhere. I have a feeling you’re going to say it was Chautha”

“Definitely not,” Vik replied. “Mind you, I’m not saying they weren’t foolish. They all were to quite an extent. But they were not the most foolish of all. That title goes to Pitaji. The kids were recent graduates, eager to apply their newfound knowledge. But Pitaji was no stranger to the dangers of this world. He could have and should have warned his children of what the Lion might do. The children’s skills were all for the good. They could have used it to improve society, bring back those who have suffered an untimely death. And if they really wanted to un-extinct an animal, why not the dinosaurs? Not like in Jurassic Park, of course. Something less harmful, like just bringing back the gentle, plant-eating dinosaurs. Not a TRex or a Velociraptor.”

The Betaal said Vik was spot on. But in case he hadn’t noticed, he had also been speaking all this while. With those words, the Betaal slipped out of Vik’s grip, and soared back to his spot on the Peepal tree. Vik heaved a sigh and headed back to the tree.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Previous Vikram Betaal stories are linked in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com

There’s also the Singhasan Battisi series which we have covered before. It’s related to this one in the sense that there is a similar 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, and ruler of Swarg. 

Previous Singhasan Battisi stories are also linked in the show notes and on the site, check them out as well

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll be doing a Jain folk tale. It’s about a King who really wants to marry a Princess, but first he needs to learn how to enter and exit bodies of wild animals, most notably a parrot.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Kaira, I agree with you. Shravan’s story is pretty sad. 

Kaira, Jenn, Nikki and Dheemahi – thank you for the comments on the older episodes. Glad you liked them!

Deepinjoy and Libby – I do have Akbar Birbal lined up soon. Expect it in the coming weeks.

Hiranmayee, Darsh, Shalu, Tectron, – glad you all liked last week’s Chandrakanta story.

Shalu, hope you liked today’s Vikram Betaal story. Thank you for the feedback as always.

Aniver, yes absolutely – I can try some ads certainly targeting folks who have never heard this podcast before. I have found that another effective way to attract more of an audience is if some of you listeners were to share your favorite episodes with friends and family and others in your network. If you were to do that, I’d appreciate it very much.’

Madhu Kumar and DV – thank you for the feedback. DV – I’ve added Udayan to my backlog. Thank you for the suggestion.

VDC – that’s true, I’ve done this podcast for over 4.5 years. At some point, I may share more about myself than what is out there in paintings and such. For example – did you know that I don’t wear orange all the time? And I don’t actually carry my Veena everywhere I go. Maybe I used to do that a while ago, but now I’ve found it’s more efficient to carry it only when I’m heading to a concert. After all, my Veena is a little heavy, you know.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook. You can listen to the show on all podcast apps, and that now includes Youtube. If you want to send me an email it’s stories.from.india.podcast@gmail.com.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!