I put these two stories together to talk about because they
relate to each other. The first shows how Prince Puran is exiled and becomes a
fakir, which leads to the second story, where Raja Rasalu was born.
I think it’s interesting that even though Prince Puran was
tortured for years in the bottom of the well and his mother felt sorrow and
cried for his undeserved punishment, he gives the instigator what she wants.
It’s true that the second queen’s son came at the price of making her cry; but
she was able to give birth to a strong and healthy son, which was all she
wanted. I know that Prince Puran said that the deed was forgiven, but not
forgotten. However, I feel that he was too lenient on the second queen; even
though she confessed to her crime, she did not seem to feel that bad about her
actions. She only felt bad about the consequences, and she didn’t even
apologize to Puran Bhagat for what she did to him.
As for Raja Rasalu, I like him. He seems like an independent
person and a troublemaker to me; when he left the underground palace a year
early, I thought it was funny (but rude) when he caused trouble for the ladies in
his father’s palace. He has a lot of pride as well; when he gets rejected from
the palace (because a couple of passing Jogis told his parents they would die
if they saw his face before he reached twelve years of age) he’s extremely
angry. He thinks he’s awesome and should be honored, not realizing the reason
for his parent’s fear. But after the sound of his mother crying mollifies him,
he decides to go on an adventure beyond his father’s kingdom.
The Dice and the Cricket; The Maidens Test Rasalu; Rasalu Swings the Maidens; The Dog and the Cat; How He Played Chaupur with King Sarkap
These stories all relate because they date from the time
Raja Rasalu wants to go play chaupur with King Sarkap to when he (spoiler
alert) defeats King Sarkap at chaupur. After abdicating his stolen throne in Hodinagari,
he decides to go and play chaupur (an ancient Indian game) with this King. But
before reaches there, a huge storm stops him and he finds shelter in a
graveyard. He ends up sitting next to a corpse, and since he’s bored, he
basically says to the divine ‘I’m so bored that I would even talk to this
corpse.’ And so the headless corpse is reanimated and somehow talks to him,
revealing himself to be Sarkop’s late brother and warning him of the dangers of
playing Sarkap, saying Rasalu will be beheaded like many of the innocent people
in the kingdom (including himself). He gives Raja Rasalu bone dice in order to
stop Sarkap’s enchanted ones from working (which is lucky for Raja Rasalu,
because otherwise he would have lost, and losing eventually means losing one’s
head). Then Raja Rasalu goes after the storm clears, saving a cricket on the
way, which later becomes important. He finally reaches the palace and when he
gets there, Sarkap’s seventy princesses are there, who decide to test him
because they’re jealous that he decided to marry their youngest sister. And he
decided to marry the sister pretty much on a whim, by the way. She was the only
one to warn him about her father (which I guess shows she’s a good person,
maybe). And she falls in love with him because he’s beautiful. I’m not even
joking. People really need to get their priorities straight. Anyways, he passes
their test, which was to separate a millet seed and sand mix into their
separate components by using the cricket he saved. How convenient.
This phenomenon of ‘saving something that is crucial to
beating the challenge’ happens once more. He saves a litter of kittens, by
request of the mother cat, from the kiln (because they ended up in a vase on
accident that was about to be fired). She gives him one of the kittens as a
gesture of thanks, which he stuffs in his (apparently huge) pocket. Then, he
goes and plays King Sarkap.
When he goes and
plays King Sarkap at chaupur, they first bet on what each will stake with the
loss of a game of chaupur. King Sarkap bets his kingdom, all the riches of the
world, and then his head, while Raja Rasalu bets his armor, his horse, then his
head. No matter how you look at it, King Sarkap has bet much higher stakes than
Raja Rasalu. Though it is true that Raja Rasalu’s armor and horse are worth a
lot. Anyways, apparently Rasalu has a pretty bad memory and forgets what the
corpse told him (which I feel should have stuck in his mind, considering how
important it was) and plays King Sarkap with his enchanted dice. Well, because
he’s kind of an idiot, Rasalu loses the first and second game, thanks to
Sarkap’s rigged dice and royal rat (which upsets the board every time they
play). Thankfully Rasalu’s horse points him in the correct direction (with a
blatant ‘hint, hint, nudge, nudge’) as to what he should do: use the bone dice.
With that and the kitten who monitors the royal rat (Dhol Raja), his luck
changes. He gains his horse and armor back and wins Sarkop’s kingdom, riches,
and his head. But he decides to let Sarkap have it all if he promises to stop
beheading people and if Sarkap gives him his newborn daughter. He marries her
twelve years later (which is so strange, but probably fairly normal to marry a
twelve year old in that time period).
Which leaves me one question. What happened to him marrying
King Sarkop’s (formerly) youngest daughter, the one who tried to warn him of
Sarkop’s evil? Did he just completely forget about her?
Ah well. It happens.
That was a strange collection of events. Raja Rasalu travels
for a few days with his friend, Raja Bhoj, to a new destination (though Raja
Bhoj goes back to his kingdom, while Raja Rasalu goes on ahead). While they are
traveling, Raja Rasalu tells Raja Bhoj what the five most cursed things in the
world. Three of these things have to do with women and the rest about inanimate
objects, I might add. Raja Bhoj likes the answer, and they carry on. So later they
stop at this garden on their first night, where a bunch of women holds them up
with swords. Raja Rasalu thinks the whole thing is hilarious and ends up making
them go back to their master, a queen. While the queen is distracted, they
escape and go to another garden. This time they encounter another Raja (who
would have thought?) named Raja Hom who fled from a besieged Delhi, his city. He
tries to write a poem, and then Raja Rasalu, being the troll that he is,
interrupts sarcastically when the poem is being written down. As a prince, Raja
Hom gets angry, asking why he thinks the poem is bad. Raja Rasalu gives an
apparently brilliant answer that Raja Hom agrees with. After this, Raja Rasalu
and Raja Bhoj (you forgot about him, didn’t you?) part ways, and Raja Rasalu
looks for new adventure.
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