Vikramaditya’s Guests – Singhasan Battisi – {Ep.136}

In this episode, we’re continuing the Singhasan Battisi. This is a series of 32 stories, all featuring King Vikramaditya’s Throne. By the way, Singhasan Battisi literally means 32 of the Throne. Presumably stories. Or maybe storytellers, as we shall see. We began the last Singhasan Battisi episode, which was Episode 124, with the framing narrative. We’ll recap that briefly and then cover one of the 32 stories.

The way the story began was with a different King. Raja Bhoj. He ruled his little Kingdom several centuries after Vikramaditya had passed on. Vikramaditya himself was a well known King from the Vikram and Betaal stories, several of which we have covered before. But Vikram was also quite a legend, known for his wisdom and bravery. 

Vikramaditya’s throne was an artifact lost in time. It held a similar sort of value to the way modern civilization attributes to the Holy Grail or the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

Well, the person who found Vikramaditya’s throne was neither Indiana Jones, nor Lara Croft. It was an ordinary farmer. Bhoj observed the farmer and his sudden change of behavior when in the vicinity of a particular hill. Bhoj quickly had the hill dug up and that’s when he discovered the Throne. 

Bhoj had been a very average King so far. This was his chance to break out of mediocrity. Maybe by sitting on Vikramaditya’s throne, he would inherit some of his powers and maybe he’d even be a more famous king than Vik. Spoiler alert, you’ve seen how many episodes we have done on Vikramaditya and how many we’ve done on Bhoj, so you know how that has turned out!

He seized the opportunity in front of him! He had his people clean the throne and prepare it for him. And even mediocre Kings were extravagant so Bhoj had his people construct an entire new palace around his throne.

Bhoj’s architects and designers had done a splendid job. They even had 32 stairs leading up to the throne itself, to match the 32 idols on the sides of the Throne.

When Bhoj took the first step towards the throne, something very unexpected happened.

One of the idols flew out of its spot. It hovered near Bhoj and asked him for a password. Well, Bhoj was not really a hacker, and he couldn’t get past the idol.

So he chose to answer a challenge question instead of resetting the password.

That’s where we’ll continue the tale today. 

The idol spoke to him in the melodious voice of an Apsara. One that thankfully for us I will try not to imitate. But what she said was basically, here’s a story that you have to hear. There would a test at the end. Bhoj tensed at those words.

But he visibly relaxed when the idol added that this was not a reading comprehension quiz which she knew he’d been weak in at school. In fact there was only one question. The question would be a True/False one. But Bhoj had to provide a sincere reply. That was a necessity. She had an inbuilt sincerity detection mechanism, powered by AI, and probably also running on Amazon Web Services.

She began her story.

The story is set several centuries ago. King Vikramaditya was alive and well and ruling all the land. He used to walk amongst his people by himself.

Uh oh thought Bhoj. Every time I think of a novel idea, it turns out Vik’s already done it.

And he did it alone.

The idol continued.

One day on such a walk, he was by a lake and he heard some cries for help. He saw in the middle of the lake three people desperately trying to stay afloat. It was clear they could not swim.

We’re lucky there are only three, thought Vik. He summoned his two Betaals. And then…”

“Wait a minute” interrupted Bhoj. “Narada’s listeners may not know who Betaals are”

“Alright,” said the idol. “Let’s just say Betaals were two two personal genies who obeyed Vik’s every command. More on that in the show notes”

So Vik, and the two Betaals quickly pulled the three individuals out of the lake, rescuing their lives.

Vik had the Betaals set up a warm and toasty fire, and fetch some blankets and a change of clothing for the rescuees. They appeared to be a family. A husband, a wife and their child.

The first thing they said was not thank you. But they asked Vik why he had bothered to save their lives.

Vik was puzzled at the question and said so. Hadn’t they asked to be rescued? They had clearly shouted for Help. Besides it was his duty as King of the land to ensure the safety of his people. A duty he took very seriously. He couldn’t stand by and let his people die right in front of his eyes! His ratings would drop severely, but just to be clear he wasn’t rescuing them for his ratings. He was rescuing them because he genuinely cared about the well being of his subjects. Every subject. But enough about him. How had they gotten there in the middle of the lake? Had they fallen off a boat?

No, we walked into the lake, said the husband. 

By the way, let’s call the husband Bhookha, the wife Pyaasi and the child Shararati.

Bhookha explained that they were poor and hungry. They had had no food for days and no prospects of earning anything. So they decided to end it all. However when they started getting to the middle of the lake, suddenly all three of them panicked and wanted to not end it all after all. But now that they were calm and rational again, they could see that they must try to end it after all.

“Nonsense!” said Vik. “If any subject of mine feels like that, I have failed in my role as your King. It is my duty to provide you with food, water, shelter as a bare minimum. And I shall provide it. In fact, you shall be my guests at the palace. You can enjoy the food, drinks and comfort of palace life for as long as you like”.

Upon hearing those words, the family launched into a frenzied dance, that Vik thought was maybe a little too enthusiastic for the state of mind they were in just 2 minutes ago. But he didn’t say anything.

“You’ll take us there now?” asked Pyaasi. “I could use a tall glass of whisky”

She could and she certainly did, when they got to the palace. Not one tall glass but 12 of them.

Bhookha kept devouring every dish placed in front of him. Vik was reminded of Obelix from the Asterix comics. Luckily for him, the cooks in the royal kitchen had already been cooking up a massive dinner for his birthday.

Vik observed them eating but soon realized he need not stick around. Especially as Shararati seemed to think it was funny to take fruits from the fruit bowl and aim them at people, including the King.

What annoyed Vik was that Shararati’s parents didn’t object or even say a word. In fact they laughed with him when he hit the King square on his nose with a particularly ripe banana.

Vik just brushed it off as new found enthusiasm in a family that had not known happiness for a long time. It was his duty after all to provide for them so that he should let them be. 

He was looking forward to a nice quiet dinner with his family. The cooks would prepare his favorite dishes and his desserts. 

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as he had planned. The cooks came and gave him the bad news – they had run out of time to make new dishes from scratch now. Things like Shrikhand take days to make, especially the way the King liked it prepared.

Wait, but hadn’t they been at it for a week now? What were they doing in the kitchen?

Yes they had been working hard at it for a week, said the cooks. And this time Vik could see that some of them were on the verge of tears.

The head chef spoke up. Bhookha had eaten it all up. And he had licked every dish clean. There wasn’t even anything remaining even for the royal pets.

She added “And… and…. my Rasamalai, my masterpiece, the crowning glory of my professional career, he called them passable. He had the effrontery to suggest that I needed to add some citrus flavor to them. To my Rasamalai”

The King was shocked. He had hired the chef on the spot the moment he tested that delectable dessert. He was shaken but he decided to look past all that.

Bhookha is probably just a bit harsh with his words, we get them all the time on reality TV. Ignore him. The fact that Bhookha finished it all is a compliment isn’t it?

“He said he was only eating it because there was nothing else left” and she burst into more tears.

“Take the night off. All of you.” Vik told them. “You deserve it, you’ve worked hard.”

“But what about your majesty’s dinner?”

“Oh don’t worry about it, we’ll just get takeout. The kids have been meaning to try this new Gujarati restaurant anyway”

Vik had a subdued celebration. The restaurant hung up on him after telling him delivery today was out of question, didn’t he know it was the King’s birthday? They already had more orders than they could handle tonight. They were only taking orders for next week.

Such was the situation at most other restaurants in the capital. Ultimately they found a Idli Vada seller who was selling his breakfast inventory. When he saw his richly dressed customer, he charged a premium for idlis that were stale and cold.

I’m doing the right thing and I’m proud of that, thought Vik. At least I’ve dramatically turned around the lives of Bhookha, Pyaasi and Shararati.

But if he thought things could be better, he could not have been more wrong.

Everyday reports poured in of something or the other that had gone terribly wrong. The next day he woke up to the maids screaming that Shararti had stuck bubble gum in their hair.

Pyaasi had meanwhile gone on a midnight revel and had devastated the King’s personal wine cellar. In a drunken stupor she had broken most of the bottles there. Despite the havoc, Vik did find new respect for her – she had been extremely thorough. Not one unopened and undamaged bottle could be found for the decennial state dinner that his Kingdom was hosting that very night. Oh well, thought Vik, maybe we’ll get a chance to host again in the future.

Bhookha in the meantime continued to eat like Kumbhakarna when he was not sleeping.

Palace morale was at an all time low. On Glassdoor his ratings as an employer dropped sharply.

Vik had attempted to drop some hints. He carelessly left some morale charts and some anonymized quotes from the palace staff lying around, where the family might find them.

But if they did they just took selfies with them and moved on as if nothing wrong was happening.

Soon, things reached a boiling point. The Union of Palace Workers threatened to go on strike if he didn’t expel the Mafia. And they didn’t mean a criminal organization. They had begun referring to the family as the Mafia. We’re not saying cast the Mafia out into the street. Give them money and let them arrange for their own care. Send them on a voyage. Give them a job. Just get them out of the palace.

But the King had given his word. He could not eject them from the palace. He had promised them food, shelter, and comfort for as long as they chose. He was determined to keep his word.

The compromise they reached is that the palace staff would stay but continue to serve everyone except the Mafia. It only worked when the Union pointed out that they were as much Vik’s subjects as the Mafia themselves. And what’s more, unlike his verbal promise to the Mafia, some of his promises to the Palace workers were in writing. In their offer letters when they got the jobs. And in their Union documents. Vik agreed, and the compromise they reached is that no one in the palace would serve any of the mafia. Vik also doubled everyone’s salary. to earn back some goodwill. That went a long way towards earning back some goodwill. 

But it also strained his treasury which was already reeling from the effects of the sharp fall in investment after the decennial state dinner debacle. 

The idol from the throne added at this point that the treasurer declined to comment when she wanted to get his version of what happened that night. “It makes me shudder just to think about it. I will never talk about it.” he promised her. “And what are you doing, going about with your investigative journalism? Shouldn’t you be back in the throne?” he asked her.

The Apsara idol continued.

Well things went from bad to worse. The Palace workers weren’t waiting on the Mafia, so Vik himself had to roll up his sleeves and take on the task.

That night he had to clean their filthy room, scrub their bathroom, give Bhookha a massage, mix drinks for Pyaasi and play with Sharaarati.

State affairs were being managed by his ministers who were confident that things would be back to normal enough. Given the way Bhookha was eating or the way Pyaasi was drinking it was just a matter of time before they would develop some health scare and that would probably sober up the Mafia. At least the child would get a rude shock and hopefully become a quieter, well behaved child. That alone would be a win.

“Well, that’s the story,” said the idol.

“There’s got to be more,” said Bhoja. “It needs some closure”

“Yeah, there’s more. But this is the part where I ask you the question. So here it is. Tell me, sincerely, could you do what Vikramaditya did in those circumstances?”

“No.” said Bhoja. There was no hesitation. “I would not have made a rash promise like that. But if I did, I would find a way to weasel out of it. Maybe abandon that palace to the Mafia and create a new one”

“I can see you have a penchant for that. You must be proud of your builders seeing as you’ve had an entire palace constructed around this throne.

Well thank you for answering. And I have determined that your answer is 100% sincere. Well that’s not what Vik did. He stuck to his promise, and eventually the Mafia revealed themselves to be Varuna, Varuni and their child Vashishta”

Varuna was the God of the Oceans, Varuni was his wife who emerged from the churning of the Ocean which we have also covered before. Vashista has appeared in a number of episodes. Check the links in the show notes for more info about them.

The idol added that the trio gave Vik a special gift for his hospitality and tolerance – they promised no one in his kingdom would ever go hungry again.

“Did Vik know that they were Varuna when he decided to stick to serving them?”

“Who knows? Maybe he did get a hint about their supernatural ability on day 1 when Bhookha ate an amount that was physically impossible for one person”

“Now what?” asked Bhoja.

“Now nothing. I’m not going to block you if that’s what you thought. All I can do is to tell you a story about Vik and to give you a moment to introspect whether you are worthy of his throne”

Bhoja shook his head. All that anxiety for nothing. He could have marched right up to the throne and sat down and the idol wouldn’t have done a thing.

And being worthy of the throne? That wasn’t even a meaningful question. Of course he would have chucked the Mafia out the moment they became a pain. He couldn’t hurt hundreds to keep three people happy. Or could he? Vik had after all achieved what other Kings could only dream about – it was true that no one in his Kingdom went hungry in the latter years of his rule. And Vik had secured that by passing a test. Strange.

It was just a seed of doubt, but Bhoja ignored it and took the next step. Instantly he noticed two strange things. 

First, the idol that was speaking to him disappeared. It was back on the throne. Or rather a former self of it was back on the throne. It seemed to have lost something. A soul. Oh well, it didn’t matter, there were 31 other pretty idols.

But just as he thought that, the second strange thing happened. A second idol flew up and hovered in the air in front of him. “Hi, I’m here to tell you a story,” she said.

Bhoja will listen to this story and each following one. But that will be in a future episode.

Some notes on the show

The throne was a creation of Indra, the King of Heaven. Impressed by Vikramaditya he gifted him the throne. The throne itself granted the King many powers. However that was not how Vikram solved so many of the Betaal’s problems.

Check these links for the previous Singhasan Battisi story and previous Vikram and Betaal episodes.

Varun is the God of the Ocean who was Character of the Week in Episode 32

Varuni emerged from the Sagar Manthan or the Churning of the Ocean, which we covered in Episodes 51, 52 and 53

Vashishta has appeared on a few episodes before

The word Bhookha means Hungry. Pyaasi is thirsty and Shararati is michievous. Appropriate names for the family.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

I’ve had a couple of listeners request that I continue the story of Chandrakanta. So that’s what we’ll be doing next week. We’ll see what happens when a master of disguise and chemistry expert tries to cheat a Princess who herself has a master of disguise and a chemistry expert on her side.