Week 13, Storytelling, Sons of Padma

This is the story of Skye Hallaby. 

Skye was born in a small town just north of Nowhere, somewhere in the farmlands of what use to be a piece of someplace called the United States or something.  She was a young woman of sixteen years and lived with seven other young women on a small farm, cared for by a farmer and his wife.  Skye had no family, she had no brothers, no sisters, and her parents had died when she was very young.  Everyone knew this.

One day when she was out walking with the other girls they came across a small pond that contained two koi fish. In this time, where Skye lived, times were hard and she thought these fish would be great to bring home to the farmers that cared for her.  So she grabbed up the fish and took them back home with her.  Unfortunately after she stashed them in a pot they somehow turned into snakes.  However, Skye was not a girl who scared easily and in fact she began to care for the snakes. 

She moved the snakes and their pot from the kitchen into the barn, but when they were found she moved them again and again trying to find a spot for them.  She continued to care for these snakes, feeding them and giving them milk.  Even when the farmer and his wife begged her to let them go she continued to care for them.

Then one day, a messenger arrived with a letter for Skye. The letter read like this:

“Dear Skye,

You do not know us because we left before you were born, but we are your bothers.  Our names are Jonas and James and we have searched for a long time for you.  We are writing to you to invite you to come and live with us in our home and become one as a family again.  I realize this is a lot to ask since you have no knowledge of us, but should you wish to do so we will be arriving in a couple of days to escort you to our home.  If you do not wish to do so that is your prerogative, but we hope that you should like to get to know us and us know you.

Sincerely,

Jonas and James Hallaby.”

Skye read this and became very excited, she didn’t hate her life here with the farmers, but this was a real family, her flesh and blood!  So she waited impatiently for the day when they would arrive and finally the day came when two men and an escort of guards approached.  Skye quickly packed her few possessions and went to grab her pot that contained the snakes, but when she looked inside, they had vanished.  She wondered at this and realized suddenly who they were; they were children of Padma, the great mother of snakes.  With this realization Skye grew very humble and thanked Padma for granting her the family she had always dreamed of.

She left with her brothers that day and lived a long and happy life with many fruitful meals and a roof always over her head.

Snake Brothers

Author's note:

I adapted this story from the story of Padma's ceremony tale from Neogi's Sacred Tales of India.  The original story has this girl Lahana who is married to one of the seven sons of a farmer.  She finds the koi fish and wants to cook them but they turn into snakes.  She cares for the snakes who are actually the sons of Padma, who is considered the mother of snakes.  The two snakes then return to Padma and ask her to make Lahana their sister. Now this is where I stopped my story, but in the original story it continues to where the snake brothers influence a king to make Lahana a royal family member.

Week 11, Storytelling, The birth of Krishna

Starship

It was known among the people in the starship fleet that the Emperor had received a dream message of his death.  This dream gave the people great hope and great fear all at once because it was told that in this dream the emporer heard the Great Voice whisper in his ear, “A boy-child will bring about the end of your reign in his twelfth year of life.”

The emperor then came to the Great Stork, the one man through which all children are birthed by.  He was the foremost midwife, the only trusted doctor, therefore known as the Great Stork among the people in the fleet.  He helped the women give birth and was trusted with the care of all the babes in their first week of birth.  Therefore the emporer asked that the Great Stork only allow the female children to live through their first week and that all the male children be neglected or else the Great Stork would find his life in the Emperor’s hands.

Despite this threat to his life, the Great Stork could not compromise the oath he had taken to provide the best care for all of the children under his watch.  He could not allow the Emperor to control the lives of these children, through which the fate of the whole fleet was held.  As such he withheld the male children as long as he could, telling the parents that a sickness had befallen the children and that they needed further watching before leaving his care.

During this extra time, the Great Stork plotted.  Then when the time came, he was prepared to save these children.  On the night he promised to release the male children, a fire broke out in the hospital wing of the starship. The Great Stork used the fire to cover the launch of an escape pod that would carry all the male children he had saved.  This escape pod would then be picked up by another starship that was responsible for the production of food; this was the farming starship known as “The Reaper”.  Inside the escape pod the Great Stork placed forged birth documents that would make the children seem older than they were and would place them in the care of families that were known for their large amounts of children.

This plan worked so well that as far as the Emperor was concerned, all the male children perished in the fire.  To the people who knew, the Great Stork became the Great Savior, for one of these boys would end the reign of the Emperor and would bring a better life to all people of the fleet.  This one boy would be Krishna, loved by all who beheld him, a boy of immense strength and wisdom.  Krishna would one day kill the emperor and his line and would bring great peace and prosperity to the fleet for a long time.

Author’s note:

I used Sister Nivedita’s story of Krishna’s birth as the base for my story.  I made a lot of changes.  In the original story, Krishna’s parents were related to the emperor and therefore were locked in a dungeon when the emperor learned that one of their children would cause his end.  In her story, Krishna was carried to a farm by his father who walked all night through a river in order to save him.

In my story the Great Stork replaces the role of the father.  I wanted to bring the story into a modern framework that would allow more creativity with the setting and characters but retain the origins of the saved child.

Week 10, Storytelling, Tiger-footed

Kaal was born in a small cottage, barely kept up against the ravages of time, located near the banks of a once beautiful river.  In this time, modern amenities rarely still worked and the fitted clothing of the old ones was wearing thin and gave way to the rougher homespun clothing of the new generation.  The sprawling cities were covered in the overgrown and untrimmed plants, and the concrete roads were all cracked and uneven.  Smoke clung to the clouds and the rain, when it came, was often very acidic.

Kaal was born strong and his mind beheld great wisdom, even for a person so young as he.  He used his young years and energy to learn the ways of his father, the local sage.  He meditated for long hours, and in the early hours of the morning he presented flowers to the shrine that was located on the roof.  During the great shortage, many people turned to Shiva for hope and worship, he was the great answer.  A simple god that was not only the creator, but also the destroyer, he controlled their destinies.  With this worship people hoped that the Earth would once again have clear skies, beautiful fields, and sweet rivers and oceans that ran clear and clean.

Kaal devoted himself to this god and spent all his waking hours learning more about him and when finally he learned all that his father knew he asked, “Father, I wish with all my heart to worship Shiva in the purest way possible, but I am distracted here. There are too many people and I am young, where can I go to worship the great god?”

His father was so proud of Kaal and, with that pride, prepared him for a journey to the pool of light. A place untouched by time and people, the best place to worship Shiva.  So Kaal left his people and his little cottage and came to the greatest place left on Earth and each day he would lay flowers in the waters of the pool and keep it clean from pollution and secret from other humans.  Unfortunately Kaal was not as supremely happy as he thought he should be, but he couldn’t help but think that there were better flowers for the pool that he couldn’t reach with his own hands. 

He prayed every day to Shiva, continued to lavish the pool of light, and asked again and again to be granted the ability to provide Shiva with the best flowers.  Then one day he woke up and realized he was changed.  His hands had turned into claws, his eyesight was six times stronger, and his feet became more powerful like those of a tiger.  With these new abilities he without flaw gathered the best flowers for Shiva and continued to worship him unfaltering the rest of his days.

tiger

Author’s note:

While I didn’t mention this story in my reading diary, however I found it interesting in labeling the saints of Shiva.  This saint was called “Tiger-footed” due to Shiva granting him a boon so that he could reach the best flowers for Shiva’s pond.  The story is much the same and Kaal’s name is really much longer, it is “Pulikaalmuni.”  This was from Sister Nivedita’s book “Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists.”  I wanted to use the setting of a slightly post-apocalyptic world to change it up a little bit and give it a little more interest.

Storytelling Week 9, Sakuntala

Sakuntala’s house was a small two bedroom cottage, it was surrounded by a lush garden full of many-colored flowers that just gushed with fragrance.  Small animals seemed to appear within the small spaces between the plants, undisturbed by the fast paced city that was only five miles from Sakuntala’s front door.  This was a peaceful place; the house was of a sturdy build made decades before, that was obviously meant to house Sakuntala and her young boy.

I loved visiting this place not just for the appeal to the eye, but because I felt Sakuntala had become a good friend of mine.  I met her not long after she had given birth to her son and since then I had visited her twice a week to help her with her son.  It didn’t take long for me to learn her story and wonder at how happy she was despite it.  How could any man forget her?  She’s so beautiful and she just seems to emit a glow from within that sparkles in her eyes and her smile.  It’s unfathomable that any man, no matter his status, could forget Sakuntala!

She had told me how when she was eight months through her pregnancy she had gone to find her husband.  That when she and her adopted mother had found him, he denied their life together; he denied knowing anything of her, he wouldn’t acknowledge their marriage, their love, nor their not long in coming child.  Now it seemed like she waited for him, as if she thought that one day he would magically remember that he had married her, that they had a child together.

However the child concerned me.  Although he was young, he ran around like a dervish and it seemed as though he could speak to the animals he encountered and that they understood him.  I took him for walks when I came to give Sakuntala a break and when we walked he would greet the birds, squirrels, and rabbits, but then he would also greet the wolves hiding in the dark corners and the tigers in the low-lying branches of the trees.  He never failed to boggle my mind!

It was on one of these walks that I met a man whose eyes were only for the child, I could see the recognition in those eyes.  He was a handsome and powerfully built man with dark hair and a dark complexion.  I knew exactly who this man was the moment I met him and I allowed him to play with the child when we walked together and when it was time Sakuntala’s son and I took the man to meet Sakuntala.  When he saw her he fell at her feet and that glow that radiated from her seemed to grow somehow and I could not but be happy that he husband had finally remembered her.  That somehow the magic really did exist!

At her feet, Sakuntala’s husband cried out to her, “My love, my angel!  How could you ever find it in you to forgive me?! How could I have ever forgotten you?!  These last four years I have searched for you! Only the thought that you were still out here kept me alive because I am dead without you!”  His shoulders heaved with great broken sobs and the gracious and beautiful pulled him up off his knees and embraced him as I knew only she could.

“My love, I gave myself to you and I am forever yours.  I would have waited for you my whole life if that is what was necessary.  I knew that one day your memory of us would return and it has.  Now let us live the rest of our lives together and rejoice in the love that we have!”

***

This was the last time I ever saw Sakuntala alone.  She and her husband left the little cottage and he took her to his people and showed her the love that she deserved.  It wasn’t until years later that Sakuntala and her husband returned to the quiet of that lush garden and small quarters so that they could peacefully retire together for the rest of their lives.

Sakuntala

Author’s note:

I really wanted to show Sakuntala’s story from another person’s eyes to really show how graciously she accepted her fate.  I’m sort of a romantic and I ‘d like to think that someone who really loves me would wait for me for as long as I need.  I didn’t really pick an era or anything but I made it a little more modern with the wording. I wanted to remain fairly vague so that the focus was really on the story and not on the setting.

Bibliography:

"Sakuntala" by Sunity Devee, from Nine Ideal Indian Women (1919). Web Source: Indian Epics: Reading Guides.

Storytelling Week 7, Sati

Sati and Mahadeva

Sati sat on the floor of her room, one room among many in her father’s large mansion, looking through photos of her sisters.  Each of her beautiful sisters stood beside their god-like husbands and they seemed to fit so well together.  Her father had arranged these marriages to gain fame, power, and respect and in the process had made her sisters into very happy and carefree wives.  However, now it was Sita’s turn to marry and this time she would choose, she would marry the most powerful man in the world.  She would marry Mahadeva, this man was a simple man without wealth, instead he held immense power in his hands.  He had the ability to create and destroy anything, they called him the “creator”.  Sita had chosen this man when she was young, despite his power, he was also known for his focus, his meditation, and his spirituality.  It was rumored that he even possessed a hidden third eye, with which he could see the future. 

Her father opposed the marriage because it would not bring him any more wealth and would not bring his daughter the happiness and ability to be carefree like wealth would. However, in the end he had to let her marry him because she refused everyone else. 

Soon she left that luxurious room in her father’s mansion for the small cottage that Mahadeva had for her.  There she was happy, so happy.  She sang to the birds while she threw them rice, she sang to the deer so that they would come out from the woods, and she sang to the flowers to bloom in the sunshine.  She and Mahadeva were complete opposites and in this they were perfect. He was strong and large, she small and sweet.  Together their hearts beat as one and they meditated together out on the peak underneath a shade tree, they were perfect together.  However her father was still angry at Sati for choosing Mahadeva and was angry at Mahadeva for being penniless and without wealth.  Therefore he came up with a plan to shame Mahadeva and Sati, he would throw an immense party and would send a messenger to tell Sati and Mahadeva that they were not invited!

Maharaja Prajapati made all the arrangements, he ensured he invited all of his daughters and their powerful husbands, he invited CEO’s and world leaders, he invited everyone except his youngest, Sati, and her husband.  When her husband told her that she was not invited, she insisted that she had to go anyways, she said, “The invitation is merely a formality, of course I’m invited!  Please allow me to go! Please my love!  I only wish to go to show them my pride in being married to you!” 

Mahadeva of course could not go against his wife’s wishes so he had his only car brought around and sent her on her way with two of his men to accompany her.  Along the way she encountered Kubera, a man of great wealth, and his wife.  As friends of Mahadeva they stopped Sati in order to dress her in fine silks, flowers, and jewels. She no longer looked poor.

It was like this that she entered her father’s parties and she outshone all of her beautiful sisters and their wealthy husbands.  She outshone everyone and everyone noticed, her father most of all.  He was enraged with her presence and he let her know in front of everyone assembled there.  He scolded her for coming uninvited, he scolded her for marrying Mahadeva, and he scolded her for coming without her husband like a proper wife would.  Sati bowed her head at her father’s torrential outburst and remained silent until it ended, the she raised her head to her father and with angry, hurt eyes she cursed him, “I am so ashamed to be the daughter of one who only knows the worth of a man by his wealth, therefore I curse you father to look like the animal you are!” 

Like magic the king’s head was replaced with that of a goat and all he could do was bleat his outrage, because goats cannot speak the human languages.  Then Sati fell to the floor and yelled, “I am ashamed to have been the daughter of an animal and as such I cannot bare this life knowing that I was born from a father like the Maharaja Prajapati!”  Then and there her soul fled from her body and her life was gone.  Sati no longer belonged to this world and Mahadeva felt it and knew this would happen, and when it did he flew into a rage and vowed that he would destroy the world.  A world without Sati was no world at all!

However Mahadeva could not complete his vow because her sisters, who wished to save the world, hired a pilot named Vishnu to spread Sati’s ashes all over the world in holy places.  By this act his rage was slighted and he became sorrowful and went to sit beneath his shade tree on the peak of the Himalayas by himself.  He meditated for days at a time in order to touch the essence of Sati’s soul and when he finally did he felt finally at peace for his love was with him always and forever.

Author's note

I really liked the story of Sati and her want to marry the most powerful man despite the fact that he owned nothing of his own.  That she alone understood that he was the one who held the most power in this world.  So I decided to retell it in a slightly modern setting but with the original story as the focus.