4. Burnt Chillies
Abolakara | Children’s stories from Odisha
Abolakara was confused.
I saw a house with just a pipe to let air in. A group of people were fanning the smoke from burning chillies inside. Why this?
The wise master told the tale and Abolakara sat in front of him.
This is the city of Mitrapura. In the faraway kingdom of Saurashtra, the queen died when the king was in the 56th year of his life. The lonely king thought he would need a wife in his old age. And so he decided to remarry.
The adolescent prince opposed.
A home with one person and an old man wanting a new wife are simply invitations to trouble.
The minister’s son did too. Don’t you know? Chanakya, the wise old-man says,
Even when your youth has passed away, your carnal wants have not. How ironical!
The king defended himself with another saying,
Senility needs a wife to take care of it.
And so he married against his son’s will. Annoyed, the prince and the minister’s son absconded.
Troops searched for them but in vain. Instead, Pratapa stood below a bungalow in the streets of a neighbouring state called Dhalabhumi. Soon, a youthful girl emerged. Pratapa gazed unabashed. The girl smiled coyly. And so it happened for a month.
Pratapa decided he must find newer to express his love.
He went to the old garland-seller and asked her,
“Mother, who’s that girl?”
“Why, she’s the princess herself.”
“And what is her name?”
“Swarnalata”
He told her to make a garland. This would be a garland for the princess. However, he told her to arrange the flowers in the order he wanted.
କରବୀ ସିହାର ଗୋଲାପ
ଟଗର ଝଣିତା ଗୋଲାପ
ମନ୍ଦାର କେରାତ କଦମ୍ବ
ଡାଲିଆ ସୁହାସୀ ଭାବିବ
ପ୍ରତି ଫୁଲର ଶେଷାକ୍ଷର
ବିଚାରି ବୁଝ ରାମାବର
Unknown to the lady, the last letters of each of the flowers’ names when taken together spelled ‘ବୀରପରତାପର ତବ ଆଶ’ which means ‘Bira Pratapa hopes for you’.
The clever princess decoded the message and was impressed by the ingenuity of the man who had made it. The florist was summoned. When the princess demanded to know who had made the garland, the terrified lady said it was her niece. ‘I want to meet this niece of yours’ said the princess.
What the patient desired, the doctor had prescribed.
This was all Bira Pratapa had wanted. Now he would get to meet the princess in her chamber. Even if it meant he had to cross-dress.
He fitted a wig and made a bun. Then he donned a Sari. Then he painted his eyes with black and put a dot of vermillion on his forehead. Next he put on the dainty anklets. In a few tries he mastered the female gait. When the sun set, he entered the princess’ private chamber. The couple met.
The princess felt a greater love for the prince for he had cross-dressed just to protect the poor old florist. Removing his feminine attire she garlanded him with the code-garland. As Pratapa embraced her, she pushed him aside and suggested, “Tomorrow I shall arrange for a swayamvara. Wear bright robes and be present. There I’ll garland you in front of thousands. Why indulge in secret love?”
Pratapa thought to himself,
Women are no fools. They cover themselves from head to toe only so their knowledge will not seep through.
The next day, the princess cried so much that her father was forced to conduct a swayamvara. Princes and commoners came. Pratapa came. She garlanded him and they were ritually married. The palanquin was lifted and the part marched through a narrow forest track.
In a few days, their food supplies were over. The servants could do no more without food. They were all hungry. Since the prince had no kingdom and so no source of income, he had no option but to sell something. So he took an exquisite sari from the princess’ collection. However, no one in the nearby village had the money to buy such a pāta sari other than the greedy seth.
The seth lived at the end of the village. He was rich but his wife had died many years ago. Helpless Pratapa rapped at his door. The seth agreed to buy the garment. However, a village boy told him of the princess’ beauty. Enamoured, he hatched a plan to kidnap the princess.
The seth sent a couple of servitors to fan Pratapa and offer him food. He soon dozed off. That is why the wise say,
Sleep, langour, fear, anger, indolence, desperation — these are the six enemies of men.
With Pratapa taken care of, he bribed a lady to tell the princess that his husband was at the seth’s home. When Swarna stepped into the seth’s house, the lewd old man pounced on her. “Your husband sold you off for coins. Abandon that crook and be my beloved.” he said.
Swarna was quick to hatch her plan. “We have a custom of offering food to the public for a week. Only after the ritual can the marriage be consummated.” she said. The seth agreed. What was a mere seven thousand compared to this divine lady? “Everyone shall be invited. Each day double the number of people will be fed compared to the previous day.”
The news was announced. On the first day, one and a half lakh people came. The next day, three lakh were fed. After that the footfall multiplied to 6, 12, 24, 48 lakh. The seth’s coffers were emptying. The last day, ninety-six lakh assembled to put the final nail in his coffin.
He was as good as dead now- for all his money, he was now worse than a beggar.
Anticipating his ferocity, Swarna fled with a village lad on the condition of marrying him. If she had not agreed, the seth would surely have murdered her. After the lad carried her out of the city, she told him to get some food. For this she gave him her golden bracelets. While he was away, she pondered,
I escaped from a lion using a jackal, but a jackal is no good either.
Perplexed, she called Banadurga.
Translator’s Note
The Goddess Banadurga is one of the many forms in which Devi is worshipped in Odisha. She holds a shankha (conch) and a chakra (discus) in her upper hands. In her lower hands, she wields a bow and an arrow, like the tribal chiefs of the forest. She also holds her pet peacock. The story goes like this.
One day, Durga is roaming on the Earth for a hunt when her pet peacock escapes from her clutch. It flies into the forest and Durga rushes behind it. She catches the bird but a thorn from the forest pierces her tender foot. Vishnu, her brother comes forward to remove the thorn from her foot. As you can see in the image below, she lifts her foot while Vishnu kneels down and holds it in his hand, carefully removing the thorn.
Meanwhile, Shiva, her husband and Vishnu’s friend casually mocks him for touching a woman’s feet when he is a man. Brahma barks at them in the form of a dog. The image challenges societal conventions of men not touching women’s feet.
This picture was taken during the annual Gosāni Jātrā of Puri, where huge, finely-crafted images of Gosānis or mother-goddesses are worshipped in a spectacular procession.
The forest goddess Banadurga gave her a chant that would turn her into a man. Another would reverse the effect. In the form of a man, Swarna ran and ran into the adjacent kingdom of Sonapura. In that kingdom bereft of a ruler, the people had decided to choose their next king by the elephant-method. The royal elephant would carry a golden pitcher and walk through the streets. The man on whose head it would pour the water would become the next king. This time the elephant chose Swarna, the man-turned-woman.
‘He’ was now named Subarna Kesari. The kingdom had found its king.
Subarna the King now called all the painters of the kingdom. He told he had invited a girl whose portrait they needed to make. The one who made the most realistic portrait would get an award. Then he went into his room, turned from Subarna to Swarna and emerged as the girl. The portrait was made and the masculine ruler returned. The best painting was chosen and hung outside the palace. The guards were told to report if anyone had to say anything about it.
A week later, a young lad came and began scolding the painting. “I saved you from trouble but you betrayed me.” he cried. The king was informed and the man was thrown behind bars.
After three more days, a pot-bellied beggar tried to set fire to it. He was spotted mumbling ‘beggar’, ‘honeymoon’, ‘deceitful lady’ amidst other abuses. The king threw him into the worst prison.
A month later, a madman cried when he saw the piece. He prostrated before it and could not speak anything. Swarna realised she had found her beloved husband back.
The reunited couple presented their story before the public. They remarked,
You can get money, friends, wife and land back- but you cannot regain your life.
It was heartening to see a young couple face adversities with hope.
The people agreed to have them as their king and queen. Swarna turned into her actual form. Pratapa was the new king. Now they would decide what to do with the other two.
The ‘lad’ was freed from captivity because at the end, he had helped the princess, even though his intentions had a hint of malice.
The beggar-seth would have to be punished though. Not only had he betrayed trust, he had also tried to molest a woman. He would be punished by an unconventional method. The king had a room constructed around him with only a pipe to let in air. All the time, a bunch of servants fanned the smoke from burnt chillies into the room. He would die slowly but painfully.
Abolakara says,
That was a good story, sire!
Notes
- Connecting regions, Mitrapura is a town in the Balasore district of Odisha, Saurashtra is a peninsular region in Western India, Sonapura is a thriving town in Odisha and Dhalbhum is a region in the Bankura district of West Bengal.
- A prince using a garland to express his love is a very unusual way to convey a message. This verbal jugglery, called chitrakabya (meaning ‘art-poetry’) was typical of medieval Odia poets. This is their imprint on folklore. Children are particularly impressed by such ingenious ideas.
- This particular method of conveying a secret message is called bahirlipi. This is when the first, middle or last letters of a particular set of words or lines forms a message. This is a frequently-employed form of riddle in Odia poetry.
- Another variation is antarlipi, in which a set of questions is asked. Each answer must be of a particular type; for example, having a fixed number of letters. When the answers are written out in order, their letters when read in a particular manner reveal the coded message. This is just a better-encrypted form of the above so that the answers are not apparent.
- The flower-selling lady appears yet again. She is almost always the mediator between the lovers.
- Cross-dressing does not have any stigma associated with it. The idea is expressed openly and without hesitation in these ancient tales. That is a good sign.
- The swayamvara is a ceremony in which the girl chose her husband from an assembly of candidates. It places importance on the girl’s choices, though it is often used as a misnomer for other kinds of weddings.
- Goddesses like Banadurga or Basuli are local forms, often worshipped as village deities. Thus, folklore often mentions them.
- While the prince cross-dresses in the first half of the story, the princess alternates between male and female genders in the second half. Notions of sexuality are very fluid.
- Being a majestic and intelligent creature itself, the elephant is seen as a symbol of royalty. This is further reiterated by its association with Ganesha. Hence it is given the right to choose the king. Another similar method was by using the horse; the horse would pause in front of the to-be king.
This project was created to make traditional children’s literature in Odia available to everyone.
The stories have been translated into English by Prateek Pattanaik. It is supported by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik.
