Week 13 Storytelling: Bahuchara from the Seven Sectrets of Hindu Calendar Art

 

(Bahuchara)

Once upon a time, in a village hidden away deep within a forest where men and animals lived so close together that each could hear the other settling off to sleep at the end of every day, lived a beautiful young woman named Bahuchara. Her parents had perished in a devastating forest fire when she was 10, and Bahuchara lived with her brother on the family’s small chicken farm. For many years, Bahuchara had been praying and praying for a handsome husband, but the village was small and isolated so for some time her prayers went unanswered.

Night after night, the desolate girl would weep and offer up her tears as supplications to the gods that they might mitigate her loneliness and bring her a husband and children to bring life and light to her day. During the day, she spent every moment working and contemplating the gods and their power. Every morning and evening she spent devoting herself to prayer, but the girl did not have much to offer in the way of gifts for the deities.

She would place small measures of food out for crudely carved wooden idols on poorly built altars, but that was the best that she could do. Eventually, however, Parvati took pity on the girl and decided to grant her the husband she so desired. Taking on the form of an aged grandmother, Parvati came down to earth and visited Bahuchara’s shrine.

“Take courage, young one, the Devas smile even upon humble offerings. They have so smiled upon you, and you will be wed within the month.”

Shocked, Bahuchara asked the woman on whose authority she made such fantastic claims, but Parvati only laughed at her surprise and told her that it was the gods’ will she professed.

Parvati then travelled down the only road leading away from Bahuchara’s village and stopped the first man she came across riding down the road about to branch off onto another path. Parvati stopped him and asked if he was married. When the man, surprised though he was by this stranger’s prying, answered that he was not, Parvati directed him back down the path and explained that in the village at the end their lived a young, very beautiful, unmarried woman on whom the Goddess Parvati herself had smiled.

The man then rode down the path with some eagerness now, searching for the village the old woman had described. When he finally found it, the man rode from home to home, searching for and quickly finding Bahuchara in her hut, preparing her brother’s supper.

The man took one look at the young woman and fell for her completely. She seemed so beautiful, and her nature so cheerful and vivacious that he couldn’t resist her charm for a moment. He resolved that if she showed herself to be well-mannered as well as gorgeous, he would propose immediately.

Realizing that it was growing late, the young man introduced himself to Bahuchara’s brother and requested some food and a place to stay for the night. Although they had little to share, it would have been rude to turn away this traveler so the siblings gave him a space on their floor and a place at their table for the night.

The very next morning, the young man proposed to Bahuchara, and her brother quickly agreed to the match, realizing that this was an immense opportunity given how few people came this way. The three agreed to travel into the city immediately to take care of the ceremony. Arrangements were made for the care of the chickens, and they left that very day.

After they arrived, the couple was married in a small, modest ceremony, and the young man took his bride home. To the dismay of Bahuchara, the woman discovered that her new husband was a man in all but body. Though she loved him dearly, knowing that he was brought to her by the gods, Bahuchara knew that she would never have children.

As she came to this knowledge, Bahuchara was filled with desperation and prayed more fervently than she ever had before that she be given the power to overcome this obstacle with her new husband. Parvati, realizing what she had done, felt sympathy for the young woman and granted her the power to do what she needed to do.

That prayer granted Bahuchara divine power. That night, when she went to see her husband, she was able to grant him a man’s body. From that day on, Bahuchara was imbued with the divine power Parvati had granted her, and she became the patroness of the isolated and those rejected from society. She became the embodiment of inclusivity.

Author’s Note: Bahuchara is an actual Hindu goddess. She embodies inclusivity and is specifically considered the goddess of hijras, individuals who feel that they were born the wrong gender. She comforts these individuals, and many people pray to her that they will be reincarnated as another gender. Hindu lore suggests that she may have been deified when she was accidentally married to a woman whom she was able to transform into a man. I decided to write this origin story because I like the idea of a goddess of inclusivity being born as she attempts to grant the wish of her beloved partner to be a man.

Bibliography: Seven Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art

Storytelling: The Gander-Eater

 

(Cell Phone)

Lila never meant to raise a monster, but sometimes if you’re not careful enough, you reap weeds you never meant to sow. She had been careless, but Lila never dreamed that trying to give her son everything she could afford would end the way it had.

Our story, as so many stories before it, begins with an unforeseeable tragedy. Shortly after their son Lyle was born, Lila’s husband was killed in a mugging on his way home from work. The couple didn’t even have much money to speak of in the first place. After his death, Lila and her newborn son were left destitute, the former beyond desperate.

Finding a full time job and some kind of childcare for her infant was no easy task. Lila was forced to move to the city and take any position she could find, often working upwards of 70 hours a week. Between all her jobs and an intense sense of frugality, Lila managed to ferret away enough money to get a small one-bedroom apartment and send her son to a high-end private school in the area.

All that work exhausted her, but Lila would have done anything for her son. He was her pride and joy, and anything Lyle asked for he received, one way or another. Eventually, without meaning to, Lila spoiled her son, and he became a selfish, implacable nuisance. No matter how much he received, nothing was ever enough to satisfy him.

One day, some of Lyle’s school friends got to talking about the different gifts their parents had given them as a result of the performance in the last semester. Lyle listened for almost an hour to his friends discussing brand new cell phones, expensive computers, and imported gifts Lyle couldn’t even pronounce.

When he came home that night, Lyle walked straight up to his mother who was collapsed, exhausted on the couch. He began wailing at the top of his lungs, startling his mother awake.  Lyle bawled and squalled without end, demanding to know why she hated him so much that she wouldn’t give him a brand new phone like his friends had. Seeing her only son so distraught upset Lila, and she began to cry quietly, trying to assure her son that she would save up and get him a good cell phone as soon she could afford it.

Dissatisfied, Lyle only screamed louder. Lila offered him her cell phone, saying she would get herself a cheap one from the supermarket. Without warning, the screams ceased. Lyle glared at his mother and in a dark, soft tone warned her that he would have the phone he wanted or nothing.

Unfortunately, Lila knew she could do nothing and had to watch as her spoiled son locked himself in the only bedroom and refused to let her in or speak with her. Resolving to do what she could after work the next day, Lila laid down on the couch and fell asleep almost immediately.

When Lila woke up the next morning, she saw Lyle sitting at the foot of the couch playing with an expensive looking phone, the box and wrappings sitting beside him. Lila knew her son couldn’t have gotten the phone legally, but he wasn’t screaming anymore, and she was so tired. She simply didn’t have the energy to fight the boy she had created so she let him keep it. She said nothing.

Imgaine then, Lila’s guilt when the police showed up and took her son into custody based on fairly damning video security video. Lila spent the next week crying in the temple down the road from their apartment. Her son had been arrested and she was alone. Lost for options, she began to beg god for an answer to her son’s imprisonment.

Author’s Note: I chose to make this into a two-week story because I wanted to explore some of the later impacts of such a selfish and poorly behaved boy being given immense power, but I didn’t want to write an unreasonably long story. The source material is about a widowed woman who sends her son to school using what money she can beg and finds that he is dissatisfied when he discovers that his classmates can all afford to eat meat while he can have only vegetables. The boy steals a goose from the king’s aviary and eats it. When he’s caught and sent to prison his mother prays for his release. I’ll explore the end to this tale next week.

Bibliography: Neogi's Sacred Tales of India

Storybook Planning: Chand, The Unbeliever and The Divine Brothers

(Snake Pit)

After reading the first two sets of stories from Neogi's Sacred Tales of India, I felt that it would be very interesting to combine the two stories involving the goddess Padma because I believe her to be a very interesting character. I think I would like to write the story in a somewhat similar way to the manner in which I am writing my Storybook project. I want Padma to tell her story to Lahana while Lahana is staying in her house. 

I chose to combine these two stories because I felt that they would simultaneously explain the closeness between Lahana and Padma and add to the depth of the characters in the story. I think that I will write it as an exchange that occurs between the two before Padma leaves Lahana alone.

It will be written from Padma’s perspective because I want to show why Padma seems so fond of Lahana. I’m going to use her past to help explain that fact by illustrating how Padma would be accustomed to not receiving the same honors and gifts as the people around her. Being an illegitimate child would have given Padma a set of burdens to bear that she would have been forced to bear on a daily basis that would have made her more inclined to note the burdens Lahana bore as a woman without a family.

I don’t think that Padma will explain all her feelings to Lahana, but I think that she will explain to the girl her background in explanation of why she’s willing to help her. I’m going to write Padma as answering Lahana as to why she accepted her sons’ requests to adopt her for a time. She will lead into a story telling Lahana about her origins.

After she explains where she comes from, Padma will explain to Lahana that this is why she is willing to take her in and ease her troubles. She will not however, explain how fond it makes her of the girl. That will be illustrated in the narrative as thoughts passing through Padma’s head. It will be written in a semi-omniscient third person in order to give me the flexibility I need to be successful in this endeavor.

Bibliography: Chand, the Unbeliever & The Divine Brothers

Storytelling Week 10: Karna's Notes

(An open journal)

Karna’s Journal

Entry 1:

Growing up the son of a charioteer has never been prestigious, but honestly, I’ve lived a blessed life. My mother and father have always worked without tarry to ensure that I have plenty to eat and clothes to wear, a roof over my head. More importantly, they have always shown me immense amounts of love and affection. So, of course, I don’t want to seem ungrateful; however, it seems somehow that I was meant for something more than this life. I don’t want to entertain delusions of grandeur, but I can’t shake the feeling that I ought to have been born to a different life than this one.

Entry 2:

My parents told me last night of my origins. They found me in a basket floating down the river. I wore my brilliant armor and golden earrings when they found me. They quickly realized that the armor I wore was enchanted. I’ve resolved to find a guru who will teach me the ways of war. Perhaps then I can ascend my current role and achieve whatever it is I was meant for.

Entry 3:

I spent weeks seeking out guru after guru. Not one showed me any sincerity. At every turn, I was treated with scorn, reviled and cast out, but I’ve finally found someone willing to teach me – a guru called Parsharam who has resolved to never teach any prince the arts of war. I’m learning quickly under his tutelage. Perhaps soon I’ll be as good a warrior as any well-trained prince in the land. Parsharam tells me that my skill with the bow is growing more and more impressive with every passing day.

Entry 4:

Parsharam now refuses to teach me any longer. He laid a curse on me, accusing me of secretly being a kshatriya. He told me that on the day when I need his teachings most I will forget them all. All that for letting him sleep when I was stung by a scorpion. I utilized self-control to show him respect and display my restraint, and he CURSED me. I am beginning to know now that this world is set in its opinions and ways.

Entry 5:

The king held a tournament last night. I disguised myself to prove that I had earned the right to be considered the equal to any kshatriya in battle. I defeated every Pandava and Kaurava there in archery. The Pandavas reacted violently to my success, challenging me to battle, saying that they would prove that no man of another caste could ever defeat a kshatriya. I would have fought them and proven my mettle, but their guru demanded my lineage. When I dictated my story, he told them that it would be beneath them to even engage me. They all laughed and mocked me. They did this after I had already defeated them in their own tournament. I did not deserve such disrespect. I earned my place there. Fortunately, Prince Duryodhana recognized my merit. He gifted me a kingdom for the strength and honor I had shown during the tournament. I never dreamed I would receive such an honor. Truly, Duryodhana is a good man to have acknowledged me in spite of his cousins’ disrespect.

Entry 6:

Even as a king, I am scorned. I sought to gain a wife at the swayamvar of Draupadi. She, however, would not have it. Calling out for all to hear that I was unfit to wed her, saying that I was of low birth, Draupadi mocked me in front of the whole court. The masses again laughed at me and insisted I back down from something that was my right to demand. Then Arjuna won her when I know I would have. I can stand no more of the Pandavas and their constant insults and injustices. Duryodhana is right about them.

Author's Note: I wanted to write this story from Karna's perspective and explore the way that society interacts with him as a result of his position in society. He faces a great deal of prejudice and injustice, and I wanted to explore how that helped lead to him, a generally just and moral man, fighting on Duryodhana's side. I kept the story the same because I really did want to delve into another facet of the original tale.

Bibliography: Epified Mahabharata