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Penguin Books Ltd - Poile Sengupta

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104 pages

English

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Peace and prosperity for his kingdom or freedom from a tiresome ghost? King Vikramaditya s justice is put to the test. And how is a twelve year-old girl connected to this tale? The tale of King Vikramaditya and a Vetal testing the king s famed sense of justice is a classic. Many centuries later, these stories that King Vikramaditya had asked for to be handed down generations are narrated to a twelve-year-old girl by a mysterious old man. But who is this storyteller? And what connects the girl to a king from ancient times? Poile Sengupta brings alive the age-old Vikram and Vetal stories in a new, energetic way. Funny, sad, serious and strange, this unique retelling proves how relevant these tales remain even today.

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	17 juin 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184750072
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0420€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Poile Sengupta

VIKRAM and VETAL
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Other Titles in the Series
Introduction
The Girl
The King
The Princess and the Three Kings
The Three Sensitive Queens
The Comfort-loving King
An Old Man and His Blind Sons
A Generous King and His Loyal Minister
The Right Bridegroom for the Bride
A Wise Decision
The Real Father
The Right to Property
A Noble King
The Greater Sacrifice
The Talented Brothers
A Difficult Decision
The Vetal
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PUFFIN BOOKS
VIKRAM AND VETAL
Poile Sengupta has written several books for children. Her published works include The Exquisite Balance, The Way to My Friend s House, Story of the Road, How the Path Grew (CBT), Waterflowers (Scholastic), Role Call and Role Call Again (Rupa), Vikramaditya s Throne and Good Heavens! One-Act Plays for Children (Puffin). Her stories have appeared in various anthologies like The Puffin Treasury of Modern Indian Stories, Sorry, Best Friend, One World (Tulika), The Best of Target, Favourite Stories for Boys and Favourite Stories for Girls . Her column, A Letter to You , ran in Children s World for nearly three decades.
Poile is also a playwright. She has written several plays for adults, of which Mangalam has been published by Seagull Books, Calcutta. She has also written one full-length musical and a number of short plays for children.
She has been a teacher at school and college and is a well-known theatre person in Bangalore, which is her home. Poile now lives in Delhi with her husband who is a senior civil servant.
Other Titles in the Series:
Akbar and Birbal Mulla Nasruddin Tenali Raman Vikramaditya s Throne
Classic Vikram and Vetal stories retold for our times
The king slashes his way through the forest, his sword cutting down the terrifying rings of leaves and branches. He climbs a tamarind tree and brings down a corpse hanging from a branch. Just as he turns to make his way out of the gloomy forest, an eerie voice cackles in his ear . . . Thus begins the saga of Vikramaditya, the brave and noble king, and the Vetal, his tormentor from the spirit world. As Vikramaditya trudges through the forest, the Vetal narrates stories to him, ending each with a riddle that tests the king’s famed sense of justice, his ideas of right and wrong.
Many centuries later, a twelve-year-old girl, disgusted at the way her summer holiday is turning out, runs away to a dusty field where she meets a strange old man sitting under a large tree. The man tells her stories about kings and queens and people of long ago, tales of generosity, courage and wisdom as well as of treachery, deceit and great stupidity. Incredibly, each of the stories deals with ideas and issues that are being debated at home by her eccentric grandmother. She also learns that these are the ancient Vikram and Vetal stories, and that King Vikramaditya had asked for a boon wanting these tales to be handed down generations. But who is the old man? And what connects the girl to a king from ancient times?
Deftly weaving together the age-old Vikram and Vetal stories with the mysterious happenings of a summer holiday, Poile Sengupta brings alive these classic tales in a new, energetic way. Funny, sad, serious and weird, this unique retelling proves how relevant these tales remain even today.

Introduction
The stories of King Vikramaditya and the Vetal are part of the classic tradition of Indian storytelling where serious social issues emerge from what are also engaging tales for children. There are many retold versions of the Vikram–Vetal tales in our Indian languages but about twenty-five stories seem to form the original core. They range from the solemn to the comic and even the absurd, and most of them provoke serious questions about justice, governance, human behaviour and relationships, and focus strongly on the importance of plain common sense. This book retells thirteen of these stories.
The main narrator of this book is a girl whose otherwise boring summer holiday is suddenly transformed when she meets a strange storyteller. The girl s life entwines mysteriously with that of King Vikramaditya s, and time and space lose their demarcations. By using a spunky and outspoken schoolgirl as the protagonist, the book pulls the age-old Vikram–Vetal tales forward into our own time. The girl s reflections help the reader discover the deep layer of meaning that each story offers even now.
Poile Sengupta
The Girl

He was an old, old man. So old that the skin of his hands looked like wrinkled parchment and he smelt peculiar. I could not see much more of him than his hands, because even in that high summer heat, he was completely covered in the folds of what looked like an ancient robe. My mother would have told me to stay clear of him.'One never knows,' she would have said, 'one hears so many strange things.' My mother always hears vague, strange things that other people never seem to. But she was three thousand miles away, looking after my youngest aunt, who was about to have a baby, while I was spending my summer holidays here, at my grandmother's place.And I was angry and bored.What sort of holiday was this? My cousins were all busy with exams, or had some reason or the other for not coming. There was nobody to play with, no school tales to tell, no jokes to exchange. Instead, my grandmother was trying to teach me to cook and to stick to her rules, because, according to her, I was no longer a child. I was now a regular young lady. How I hated it. I hated learning to cook, I hated the rules. Most of all, I hated the waste of a whole summer holiday in that dismal, dusty town with no friends and nowhere to go, not even a library.
The old man was sitting under a huge tree whose branches spread out like the spokes of an umbrella. He was staring ahead, as if he was looking out at the sea, at sparkling white sailboats which were tracing disappearing patterns in the water, dipping and skimming, dipping and skimming like dancers on ice skates.All I saw was a deserted roadside with the heat shimmering like broken bits of glass.
'Sit!' his voice rang out suddenly. My skin jumped. How had he seen me when I had come up from behind?
'Sit,' he said again.'Sit on the stone.'
What stone? I looked around and saw a grey, flat stone, under the tree. I touched it. It was dry, and curiously enough, it felt cool. I sat on it.
'Close your eyes and listen,' he said.
I closed my eyes. I waited.What was I supposed to hear?
'A story,' his voice said.'A story that will serve you well. Listen to it carefully. And remember, don't speak a word—not a word till I have finished.'

I had been brought up to be obedient and I can be obedient when I want to, though my mother would disagree. So I stayed quiet. He began.'I call this story, "The Princess and the Three Kings",' he said.
The sun, high in the blue sky, seemed to dim as he began to tell his story. I smelt the green of dark trees, the moist earth, a dense black night. I was in a place that I didn't know and could hardly see. And yet I wasn't afraid. I had been here before.
'Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess. When she grew up and it was time for her to marry, her father . . .'
The King

I am a king and, I think, a just king. At least that is what my people say.The wise King Vikramaditya, they call me, the good King Vikramaditya.The granaries in my kingdom are bursting with grain, we are at peace with our neighbours and the sweet rain falls when it should, cooling the earth and the minds of men.Then why am I, the fortunate king of such a kingdom, slashing my way through this dark and dense forest, which sees no light, either of the sun or of the fifteenth-day moon? No wind visits here and no raindrops fall.Yet the earth beneath my feet is cold and damp. It smells of dead water, of things that rot even before they grow, it stinks of never-ending decay. The darkness is an enemy, it shows me shapes that are shadows and shadows that are trees as thick as the walls of my fort. Large, hanging rings of wet, sticky, furry leaves fall across my face and around my neck as if they would strangle me, choke me, if they could. Nooses.
I cut them down, dozens of them, scores of them, and go deeper and deeper into the maddening darkness and into that smell that winds around me, entering my nose, my eyes, coil over coil.As I feel my way forward, I think of how I came to be here, far away from my court,my ministers, and my people. Far away from life.
It was the last hour of my public court, two new moons ago, when he appeared. He was a holy man. His face glowed, and his eyes pierced mine. He said nothing as he came up through the gallery of my ministers, not even his name.Then, when he reached me, he put his right hand into his robe and brought out a fruit and handed it to me. It was a strange fruit, golden-red like a mango but with a metallic smell. It lay heavy in my hands.When I looked up to thank him, he had gone. I put the strange fruit in the royal treasury because it was a gift for my people, not for me.
The next week, he appeared again just as before, and the next week and the week after. He said nothing, but each time he gave me one more of that strange fruit. Now there were four fruits in the treasury.When he came the fifth time, he spoke. He asked me what I had done with his gifts. I took him to the treasury, and there, to my astonishment, I found that each of those fruits had turned into a gemstone of outstanding beauty.

The holy man smiled.'I had heard you were a noble king,' he said. 'And now I know it is true. You alone can do what I wish.' He paused for a moment and then spoke again.
'In the middle of the dense forest at the edge of your kingdom, is a large tamarind tree. On one of its branches hangs a corpse. I want you to bring me that corpse. Remember, you have to do it alone, with no help from your soldiers. If you do this for me, your