Showing posts with label fable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fable. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 June 2023

Indian Fables

Vetalam dan Vikramaditya (2020)
Author: Uthaya Sankar SB 

I remember a time when a newly married couple rented a room in our house. My sister and I, 4 and 6 years old, respectively, were dying to hear the wife's stories that she did tell without fail every evening, with our persuasion, of course. She had a peculiar way of making us glued to her stories. We affectionately addressed her as ‘Atteh’ (Auntie, father’s sister or maternal uncle’s wife). 

Every evening, after she had her shower as she returned from work, it was storytime. Her stories usually carried a message, and many of them were Indian folk tales, including ‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’. 

‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’ stories always carry a moral dilemma that needs critical thinking. We were often disappointed as she never told us the answers to the questions she put forward. She would ask us to think carefully.

That is the thing about these stories. Legend has it (it is probably a historical statement now) that King Vikramaditya was a King based in Ujjain. A fun fact is that Ujiian in Madhya Pradesh is sometimes referred to as the navel of Earth or Greenwich of India. Before 1884, as per a 4th-century treatise, Ujjian was considered the prime meridian. Even today, the panchangayam (Hindu almanack) is based on Ujjian time (29 minutes behind IST).

Vikramaditya in Ujjian
Many kings took the honorary title of Vikramaditya. Hence, there was confusion about who the real Vikramaditya was. It is agreed that he probably ruled around the first century BC under the Vikrama Samrat era.

In the 'Vetalam and Vikramaditya' stories, King Vikramaditya is summoned by priests to capture a playful and sly demon from a cemetery by daybreak. The King manages to trap the demon, Vetalam. The trouble was that the talkative imp had a penchant to escape from the clutches of the King. The King was relentless, however. The demon made a deal with Vikramaditya. It would narrate stories that would need answers, to which the King had to answer. The King's head would explode if he gave the wrong, but Vethalam would escape if the answer is right.

The night goes on with Vedalam telling stories, expecting answers, the King giving the correct answer, Vethalam escaping, King capturing him again, and Vethalam starting a new story. Thus it went on the whole night. By the way, the King was not allowed to speak. It was done telepathically. Towards early morning, they had built a rapport and joined forces to crack the priests' ulterior motives.

One of the stories is similar to the story of P Ramlee's 'Keluarga 69' and K Balachander's ' Apoorva Ragam', where no answer is expected. One cannot put a name to a relationship when a King marries the daughter of a mother who marries the Prince. The offspring of the King, if it is a son, is also a stepbrother of the Prince and grandchild to the King's daughter-in-law; very confusing! 

P.S. A Tamil proverb describes a person who is unsuccessfully trying to reform as 'Vethalam recoiling into a marunga tree'.

Thursday, 14 January 2021

A believable myth

Tumbbad (Hindi; 2018)

Interestingly, myths, folklores and scriptures of lands far away carry a similar line of storytelling. As a baby, we find Moses let loose on a waterproofed basket in River Nile to escape the Pharoah's clutches and how he was brought up in another family. Is it a mere coincidence that the cases of Karna whose mother, Kunti, left him in a basket in a river to escape shame and Krishna, whose mother, Devaki, did the same to escape the tyranny of an evil king strike a similar chord? Like that many similar stories are found in the Zoroastrian scriptures and even the Greek myths.

One plausible explanation was given to Moses's comparable tales, Karna and Krishna is the time Jews spend in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar decimated Jerusalem and its first Holy Temple and took Jews as slaves to Babylon. Cyrus freed them and helped them to build the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Apparently, in the 60 years, the Jews spent time in Babylon they had assimilated some of the Hindu mythology into their own scriptures!

 The exciting thing about this film is the storyline. Given a fictitious tale of a greedy child and his doting mother. The Goddess of Prosperity is said to have mothered 160 million gods. Her first child, in her womb, was a greedy one. He was eyeing for his mother's gold and food. He got the gold, but the other gods managed to stop him before acquiring the mother's food. The goddess made a deal with the other gods that the child, Hastar, would not be worshipped and lost by history. 

Fast forward to 1918, Hastar in the form of an old lady is kept in a dungeon under shackles. She is fed regularly and kept asleep by a mother and her two young sons. One day the routine goes haywire when the younger boy injures himself and has to be taken to another town for medical attention. All goes wrong when the elder son, Vinayak, is tasked to feed the old lady. She becomes violent and almost gobbled him up. The returning mother immediately sends the elder away to another town. The younger boy had died.

 
Knowing that there are secrets hidden in the mansion that he lived in Tumbbad, Vinayak returns as an adult full of debts. He finds out about the gold that he has to fight out with the imp, Hastar himself. Vinayak steals a few gold coins from Hastar's loin-cloth as he is busy gobbling food. The story becomes twisted as Vinayak becomes prosperous and that stirs the curiosity of his creditor. As Vinayak gets older and too weak to fight the imp, he coaches his son to take over. 1947 had come, and Tumbbad is appropriated by the government.

An interesting piece of storytelling and has a string of accolades under its belt to prove it. It a symbolic representation of man's greed for material wealth. They fail to realise that what they need in life are simple. They need a stomach to fill and to live life to appreciate the positive things that life has to offer - the joy of seeing a happy family, seeing the children grow and nurturing them for the next generation. People take their family members for granted.

Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Slithering cold hearted snakes?

Ular (Snake, Malay; 2013)
Director: Jason Chong

This is a knock-off of the many Hollywood and Bollywood horror flicks. Even the film poster bears an almost near-replica resemblance to Hollywood's blockbuster 'Anaconda (2008)'. Besides that, it is a worthy effort, nevertheless. The CGI effect looks believable. It creates uneasiness; not laughs. The storyline seems credible enough. How different can a disaster movie be? As per usual, it starts with a potpourri of characters landing at a resort island, gleaming from ear to ear, hoping to have a whale of a weekend. Whale, they did not have, but snakes aplenty. The owners of the resort took great pains to keep the news of killer snakes away for the public. To ensure the safety of the guests, the owner did install an electric fence to keep the snakes at bay. As to how Murphy's laws dictate, anything and everything may go wrong when it is destined to go wrong. Thanks to a few mischievous frolicking holiday-makers, the fences fell into disrepair. So, the snakes, who were the pioneer occupants of the island, go on a frenzy to reclaim their island. 
Caduceus and Serpeants on
rod of Aslepius.

The people who rose to the occasion to try to save the day are a disgraced journalist (Lisa Surihani) and her photojournalist colleague ex-boyfriend (Yusri of KRU).

Man's fascination with snakes transcends all borders. Every civilisation, from the Sumerians to the Greeks, have had their brush with our reptilian friend. From the Caduceus to imply successful commerce and skilful negotiation to the twirling serpent on the rod of Asclepius to denote healing and medicine, we have seen Ouroboros which signify rejuvenation, cyclical nature of life and immortality.

Ouroborous

We have towns named after serpents (Nagapattinam), and we have people with snakes-honouring names (Nagaratnam, Nagma). They are amongst the many who have been worshipping snakes for aeons. From North America all the way to the Champas in Vietnam, they have built a symbiotic relationship with the ophidians in sharing the planet.

They are others who vilify our reptilian friends. Snakes, often associated with evil and negativity are often blamed for Man's misery on Earth. After all, it was the evil serpent's enticement that lured Adam and Eve to savour the fruit of knowledge and subsequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Snake Plissken
Escape from New York (1981)

If you are one of those who take David Icke's conspiracy theories as gospel truths, then you would realise that many world leaders and entrepreneurs who live amongst us are reptilians in human's clothing!

And to top it all, I recently heard on a Youtube presentation by Praveen Mohan, the explorer of ancient Hindu temple about the rock cutting technology and the ancient alien visitation by a race referred to by the locals in Hire Benakal in Karnataka as Moryars. The Moryars are said to be small built highly intelligent serpent-like creatures who imparted their architectural skills to humanity. Humans, awed by their wisdom, started showing their reverence by placing them on a pedestal to honour them.

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”*