When I Met Raja Rasalu
As I was sitting by my holy fire like I had been doing for
the last twenty-two years, a beautiful youth passed through the streets. He may
have been young, but his eyes were sharp with intelligence and his countenance
was that of royalty. Indeed, he sat atop a prince’s steed and had armor likely
worth a couple thousand rupees. Ah, I thought suddenly. It must be Raja Rasalu.
Though I had expected him to pass me, he stopped and came up to me, asking a
question.
“Why do you sit here, father?” he said with curiosity.
“My son,” I replied, “I have been waiting here for
twenty-two years to see the beautiful Sundran, and I haven’t even seen her
once!”
“Make me your disciple,” he demanded in response. “I’ll wait
too.”
“Why do you care about being a Jogi?” I asked, surprised at
his request. “You’ve already achieved so many wonders in this world.”
Nevertheless, the boy was persistent. I finally gave in,
piercing his ears and putting in the Jogi’s sacred earrings. He changed into a
loincloth after discarding his armor, waiting with me to see Queen Sundran.
As night fell over the town, I rose from my seat at the fire
and left, intent on bringing food for my new disciple and myself. Begging food
from four houses, I then came back and split the food evenly between us.
This was less food than I was used to having. And when the
same thing happened the next night, I became irritable.
“I made you a disciple so that you could beg for food and
feed me, not the other way around.
Look at me! I’m starving!” I frowned at him.
But the boy only laughed. “You didn’t tell me I could. And
how am I supposed to do something without your permission?”
“Well, I’m telling you now! Go get enough food for the both
of us.”
So my disciple left. A while later he returned, carrying a
large plate full of jewels. I was taken aback. What was I supposed to do with
this?
“Ask for food instead,” I cried, and sent the boy back to where
he had just come from. An hour passed, and this time he did well; he arrived
with freshly baked sweets and I ate them with delight. But as soon as he gave
me food he left, taking his horse and his armor and discarding the earrings and
clothes of a Jogi. To where he went, I didn’t know. Nor did it particularly
concern me.
But it did concern someone. The next day, the dignified and
beautiful Queen Sundran came to my holy fire, demanding to know where my former
disciple was.
As you can imagine, it made me a little mad. I’d been
sitting out here for twenty-two years trying to get a glimpse of Queen Sundran and
the only reason she came out was to inquire the whereabouts of my disciple, who
had been able to see her after a day of waiting with me. She hadn’t paid the
slightest attention to me in those twenty-two years either; she never answered
my call for alms nor had given any indication she had heard me.
Payback time.
“Oh, him?” I answered her query. “He didn’t beg for enough
food, so I ate him.”
Her eyes widened. “Monster!” she cried. “How could you do
that? Didn’t I give you jewels and food? Were those not enough? Could only
eating beauty sate your hunger?”
“I don’t know,” I replied casually. “Though I do know this;
I cooked him on a spit and ate him. He was delicious!”
“Then eat me too!” she wailed. And she threw herself into my
holy fire without a moment’s notice.
Yogi
Author's Note:
This story was based off of How He Became a Jogi (he
referring to Raja Rasalu) in the Raja Rasalu unit. I thought it would be
interesting to see things from the Jogi’s point of view, since his wish of
seeing Sundran comes true only after he meets Raja Rasalu. By the way, Raja
Rasalu is a famous and accomplished prince who lived underground for eleven
years (read How Raja Rasalu Was Born if you’re interested as to why) and
continuously goes looking for adventure. This is just one of the many strange
and random things that happens to him.
I also updated the language of the dialogue a little bit. There's a lot of 'quoth he' and 'thee' and 'thou', so I decided to transform it into a more modern and readable format. I kept all of the dialogue and even added a line of my own (it talked about him speaking, but didn't actually have him speak, in the original story). And I didn't change anything of the events that happened in the original story.
Also, you might be wondering about the last couple of lines, and it has
to do with sati. Back in the day in India, when the husband of a woman died, she
often threw herself into the funeral pyre. Not always, but it was definitely not
uncommon in India to practice sati.
Bibliography:
Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel (1894). Web Source: Project Gutenberg
That was a great story! I found it entertaining and pretty informative! I did not read this section but I found the story really interesting. I think the story was really interesting. I loved the back story about how the Jogi sat there for twenty-two years! That is very incredible to think about! You did a great job retelling this story!
ReplyDeleteThis story was wonderful! The storyline was great and kept me reading until the end. I was confused, at first, to why the Queen had chosen to throw herself in the fire but your author's note cleared up my curiosity. I also had some questions over Prince Raja Rasalu, and you did well on explaining how he was an important character as well! I really enjoyed reading this retelling! Good job!
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