Deepa Agarwal's Blog, page 2

Once there was a king…

Once there was a king…How does one build a story from a very basic plot—one that is actually a joke?As a child, I had often heard this kind of mock story, bandied about  in jest: “Ek that raja, ek thi rani, dono mar gaye, khatam kahani!” Once there was a king. Once there was a queen. Both died. That’s the end of the story.

[image error] Now once, as I was casting around for a fresh creative spark to launch a writing workshop, this kahani somehow floated into my mind. A beginning and an ending…pretty banal, true, but worth a try, I thought. It worked beyond all expectation. First, it brought smiles on the faces of the disinterested group of teachers warily sizing me up. Perhaps they had heard this joke/tale and even if they hadn’t there was something so silly about it that they had to smile at least, if not laugh.But when we began to fill in what happened in between, I could sense the excitement as they considered the possibilities.These were some of the questions I posed to them to help to construct the story:

         Who was this king and who was this queen? Rather, what were their names?
·         What did they look like?
·         How old were they when the story begins?
·         What time of the year does the story begin?
·         What day of the week and time of the day?
·         Was the king a good ruler? Or was he a bloodthirsty tyrant or just incompetent?
·         What was the queen like? Kind hearted, generous, religious minded or bad tempered?
·         Did they have children? How many? How old?
·         What were their names?
·         What were these children like? Obedient, respectful, stupid, spoilt, lazy, extravagant?
·         Or did they not have any children at all?
·         Any other family? A wise aunt or a scheming uncle by chance?
·         Where was their kingdom located?
·         What was it named?
·         Was it a prosperous state? Were the people overtaxed? Did law and order prevail?
·         Who were the officials who helped them to run their kingdom?  
·         Is there some major problem confronting the king or the queen or both of them?
·         How are they trying to solve it and who is helping them or working against them?
·         Does this problem contribute to their end?
·         What were the exact circumstances that led to the king and queen’s death?
·         Were these purely external circumstances or was any one of them or both responsible   through  
        their actions for their tragic fate?
·         Does some event occur right in the beginning of the story that suggests what might happen at  
        the end?
·         Was their death caused by illness, or at the hands of their enemies?
·         Were they shot, poisoned or stabbed? Or maybe someone used a magic spell?  
·         Does their end suggest a new beginning or does it mean total destruction of the kingdom?

Many more such questions can be posed, of course, and suggestions made but these were enough to set them on the path. And how did the exercise work? There was not enough time to write a complete story. But by using these pointers some of them were able to flesh out the “Ek tha raja, ek thi rani…” outline enough to suggest that the finished product could be a gripping tale.

The Right Idea

There is one question I never fail to encounter on school visits—from where do you get ideas for your stories? I usually say from incidents in my own life, from stray remarks, newspaper items or even random happenings on the roadside.  When I narrate the real event that led to my short story “Fire” the excitement is almost palpable. It’s the forest fire that is as absorbing, I can see, as the broken friendship and the moral dilemma that resulted from it. But how many such experiences does one have to draw on, almost like a ready-made story? That’s why I like to share something else, something I read about the creative spark behind Arnold Bennett’s well-known novel The Old Wives’ Tale—the sight of a fat old lady with grotesque gestures he caught sight of in a Paris restaurant. He states in his introduction that he began to reflect: "This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel out of the history of a woman such as she."Arnold Bennett is not widely read today, and I must have been around fifteen when I read this book, but for some reason I’ve never been able to forget those words. And marvel that the mere sighting of a ridiculous looking woman could be behind a work considered a classic.I did not realise it at the time, but I sensed Bennett’s deep empathy towards another human being. That’s what left such an indelible impression. As he says further…“Every stout, ageing woman is not grotesque—far from it!—but there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.”There is no dearth of ideas for fiction. We also encounter occasional moments of drama in our lives, which possess the potential to be turned into a gripping story. But in the end, I feel, it’s a writer’s ability to glimpse the charming young girl in the grotesque old woman that leads to the creation of a masterpiece, her/his sensitivity to the pathos inherent in the transformation from charming young girl to grotesque old woman.

Alien Shores: Tales of Refugees and Asylum Seekers from Australia and t he Indian Subcontinent by Sharon Rundle, Meenakshi Bharat | Penguin Books Australia

Alien Shores: Tales of Refugees and Asylum Seekers from Australia and t he Indian Subcontinent by Sharon Rundle, Meenakshi Bharat | Penguin Books Australia

Summer flowers

The Delhi summer does have its blessings and for me the biggest one is the flowers - the flaming brilliance of gulmohar and the unearthly enchantment of amaltash that distracts you from the punishing weather.Years ago when I lived in a house close to an avenue of amaltash, I was moved to express my delight in a poem.
It has been published in CRICKET a children's magazine.

AMALTASH

Golden chandeliers

under a fierce blue sky

shading me softly

from the sun’s heat

swinging serene

in the burning wind

your movement a dance

soothing weary eyes

making me forget

the scorching air

the sandpaper dust on my cheek.

It is almost worth

suffering summer’s torment

to see you bloom so gloriously.

And walk on tiptoe

beneath your shade

like a princess

under a canopy of golden lace.

Storytelling--spooky tale!

Storytelling night on February 26 at Jaipur was a delight! Great audience, venue...everything. Told my favourite ghost story The Airi from 13 Scary Stories published by Scholastic USA. This story first came out in CRICKET magazine then in the hard cover collection (same title) brought out by CRICKET BOOKS. Some spooky sound effects crept in, almost on their own. A haunted mike? Who knows? Thankfully the spook didn't travel back to Delhi with us!

Traditional Indian Tales for Children--the Jatakas

The Jataka Tales and Jain Puranas
The Jataka or ‘birth’ tales, stories from the various births of the Buddha also aim at religious and moral instruction and are often retold for children. They have been preserved in all branches of Buddhism. Written in Pali, they are tales of the Bodhisattvas or the previous lives of the Buddha in which he appears as a king, an outcaste, a god, or even some kind of animal, but in each he displays a sharp insight into the ways of the world while adhering to the path of right conduct. These stories highlight the perils of existence, show up human foibles and follies with wit and humour and demonstrate that a virtuous and intelligent approach is the only way to deal with the ups and downs of fortune. Though openly didactic, they are also subtly persuasive. The earliest is said to go back to the third century B.C. The fifth century Sinhalese commentary, Jatakatthakatha, attributed to a Buddhist scholar named Buddhaghosa contains 550 stories of varying lengths. Many of them display similarities to stories from the Mahabharata, Panchatantra, Puranas and have also been found in Aesop’s Fables. The story of the Monkey and the Crocodile appears in three forms in the Vanrinda Jataka, Sumsumara Jataka and Vanara Jataka and relate the attempts of Devadutta to kill the Buddha. Each Jataka opens with a preface which explains the occasion that led to its telling. At the end the Buddha discloses his identity as one of the characters in the story.
The Jatakas demonstrate the adaptability of traditional stories which have been used to communicate the teachings of Buddhism. Stories like King Virtue stress the qualities of fortitude and non-violence. In this story, despite his powerful army, the upright King of Benaras does not resist the attack of the King of Kosala who covets his prosperous kingdom. However, his determination in the face of adversity influences supernatural elements to act in his behalf and he regains his kingdom even while impressing his enemy with the power of virtuous conduct. At the end, as if driving home the moral, the king ruminates that if it had not been for his fortitude, he would have been overcome. Similarly, Prince Wicked, which is quite similar to a story from the Panchatantra, the wicked prince of Benaras who repays kindness with evil, receives his just deserts. His people overthrow him and install the hermit who saved him from drowning and who was ill-treated in return by the prince who is now the ruler, in his place. The Buddha is the king and the hermit respectively in these stories. In stories like The Earthquake, another traditional tale in which a foolish rabbit thinks the earth is about to fall apart and spreads panic he is the noble lion who saves the animals from self destruction. He is also a benevolent lion in The Hawks’ Friends, which is another adapted Panchatantra story. While many of the Jatakas are set in Benaras, there are others which talk of sea faring adventures like Supparata the Mariner, a skilful navigator, who despite the loss of his eyesight, finds treasure for his ship and brings it home safely. They focus on the qualities of a true leader, wise and fearless, who guides his flock and protects them from harm, on the evils of caste and the power of non-violence. These stories were disseminated throughout the Buddhist world and have been found in Srilanka, Thailand, Japan and other countries where the faith was practiced. Even now these stories are retold for children and have found their way into many school texts.
There is also the Jain narrative literature in Prakrit which is full of folktales, fairy tales, animal fables, parables, legends and humorous anecdotes, many of which are told to children. These too are traditional tales which have been adapted to the teachings of the Jain religion. They extol the virtues of righteous conduct in this birth so as to attain a better status in the next and the merits of non-violence and vegetarianism. There is the Jain version of the Ramayana, the Padmacharita, written by Vimala Suri in the 4th century A.D. or later. The Padmapurana is another version. The tirthankara Rishabh is glorified in this work and the priestly class, animal sacrifice and meat eating denounced. The Harmvamshpurana is the Jain Mahabharata written by Jinasena in 783 A.D. The stories of Krishna and Balarama are narrated by Gautam the disciple of Mahavira. Krishna is not depicted as a god here but as a kshatriya hero. The Trisatilaksana Mahapurana (The Great Purana of Sixty Three Eminent or Great Men) was written by Jinanath and Gunabhadra in the 9th century A.D. These are stories of the lives of great Jain teachers like Rishabh and Mahavira. They impart religious and moral instruction, talk about samskaras and duties while giving historical information. The Vasudevhindi, which we shall come to later, is the Jain version of the Brihatkatha of Gunaddhya. The Vikramditya stories have been appropriated too and he has been depicted as a Jain ruler. The Simhasandvatrimsika was written in the eleventh century by Ksemankarjan, a Jain scholar who enlarged it and Simhapramoda has been mentioned as the writer of the Vetalpanchvimsati in the fifteenth century. It is said the Jains thereby helped to preserve much of traditional literature.
The stories from the Jain literature are of varying lengths. They contain adapted stories from the epics, like that of Draupadi, whose previous births are depicted, not in a very flattering manner, but she is finally redeemed. A twist is introduced from the Ramayana story when she is abducted like Sita, but rescued by Krishna. Narada is shown as a mischief maker who feels slighted when she does not give him enough attention. There are also historical stories like that of Chanakya, stories of wit and wisdom like that of an Indian Archimedes, of good judgement, humorous ones too, in some of which Jain monks outsmart Buddhists. The power of true faith is extolled as in the story of the chaste Subhadra. Many of these adapted traditional tales included a sermon from a kevalin or enlightened monk explaining the cause of the good fortune or misfortune of the characters in the story at the end. They concentrate more on portraying the real lives of ordinary people rather than the doings of kings and courtiers.
According to Hertel, the Buddhists changed popular stories by introducing Bodhisattavas in the form of an exemplary human, divine or animal character. But the Jains preserved the story, only added a moral at the end. The original animal stories were more realistic than moralistic but the Jain monks could not resist exploiting them to make their sermons more interesting so they added morals to them. Among their aims, according to Dr. Jagdishchandra Jain was to aid in the education of the young, which clearly places them in the realm of children’s literature.

Children's Literature in India-well-loved traditional tales

The Puranas

Stories from the Puranas which have been described by A.K. Ramanujam as ‘encyclopaedias of Hindu mythology’7 have been part of children’s lore since time immemorial. Purana literally means ancient and the eighteen Puranas contain knowledge of ancient historical and religious traditions. They explain the teachings of the Vedas and were meant for the common man. Veda-Vyasa is acclaimed as their author because Purana Samhita (collection of the Puranas) developed under Parasarya Badrayan who belonged to the charan or academy of which Veda-Vyasa was the founder teacher. However, they must have been compiled by many authors. F.E. Pargiter, author of Ancient Indian Traditions, dates them to the beginning of the fifth century B.C. Most of the present versions of the Puranas belong most likely to the Gupta era when much patronage was given to literature and the arts. The oldest are the Matsya, Brahmand and Vayu. The Bhagawat Purana is considered especially important because it contains stories from the life of Krishna.
Containing 400,000 shlokas, the Puranas have documented important historical information like the genealogies of rulers, the relations between the various Indian states, the names of medieval rulers and the Muslim invasions. The Bhagawat Purana even mentions the coming of the British (goranda). These stories explain scientific truths and the evolution of man, the development of civilization and ethical behaviour. That larger issues were at the back of the authors’ mind is demonstrated by the fact that an attempt has been made to create a composite society by displaying a spirit of tolerance, by for example, mentioning Buddha and Parsva as incarantions of Vishnu. The Puranas also detail other subjects of religious interest like explaining the significance of holy places and rivers. But they were not what is defined as ‘closed literature’ like the Vedas and Upanishads. They were a part of oral literature, meant to be recited to the masses by the Sutas and were consequently flexible and could change form during their narration.
Rich in fantasy, the Puranic myths did hold listeners enthralled. Who could resist stories about gods and goddesses, their followers and worshippers, demons and other beings with supernatural powers strong enough to challenge the gods, the forces of nature? They contain stories like the myth of creation by Brahma, that of the great flood which is common to many cultures, having been mentioned in the Bible and the Koran and also by the Sumerians. The story of the Dasavatar or the ten incarnations of Vishnu, is another important myth. Then the churning of the ocean, the birth of the Ganga, Prahlad and Hirayankashipu, Yayati, Kacha and Sukracharya, Devyani and Sharmishta and countless other myths and legends are all to be found in the Puranas. These stories have been told and retold again and again to children and still remain favourites. Furthermore, while the above stories are rooted in Hindu religious beliefs, their strong story element has led to their receiving wide exposure through various mediums. Thus they have become part of the collective cultural consciousness of Indian children belonging to other religions as well, who are almost equally familiar with them.

Favourite Stories for Children in India

The Brihatkatha and its Versions

The Story as Entertainment

The Panchatantra and Hitopdesa were meant to be instructive. However, the Brihatkatha of Gunaddhya and its various versions which include the Brihatkathamanjari of Kshemendra, and Kathasaritsagar of Somdeva amongst others and the Dasakumarcharita of Dandin were stories written more for entertainment and amusement. Many of them cannot really be considered suitable for children though some have been adapted for them while others have been retold more or less as they are.

The oldest, the Brihatkatha of Gunaddhya is considered the source work for the writings of Kshemendra and Somdeva. It was written in Paisachi which has been identified as a kind of Prakrit and is perhaps the only work in that language which had an influence on Sanskrit literature second only to the great epics. No original version survives, though several Sanskrit and Prakrit versions are said to have been made, not all of which are still in existence. It is the only work in Prakrit of which so many Sanskrit versions were made. The oldest Sanskrit version is said to have been made by Raja Purvardha in the 6th century A.D. but it is no longer in existence. Gunaddhya is said to have lived in the time of the Satavahana ruler of the Deccan in the first century A.D. (Some say 4th or 5th) who ruled over Pratishthanapur on the banks of the Godavari. The Satavahanas were a dynasty which was trying to Aryanise and the scholar J.A.van Buitenen believes Paisachi was a dialect of the North-West.

Vasudevhindi, a Prakrit version is considered the oldest amongst the available versions of the Brihatakatha. It was begun by a Jain monk Sanghdasgani and completed two centuries later by Dharmdasgani another Jain monk and is said to date not later than 604 A.D. They changed the original story by making Krishna’s father Vasudeva the main protagonist and narrator. Among the available Sanskrit versions, Buddhaswami’s Brihatkthashlokasangraha is considered the oldest. It was written during the reign of the Gupta dynasty. J.A.B. van Buitenen considers it ‘lively, observant, irreverent and colloquial’, in comparison with the better known Kathasaritasagar by Somdeva which he finds pedestrian at times.

According to legend these stories were told by Shiva to entertain his consort Parvati who begged him to tell her a story which no one had ever heard. He said that he would tell her stories about vidyadhars or aerial spirits since gods were invincible and humans lived in misery. Gunnaddhya (rich in virtue) was actually Malyavana, one of the members of the god’s retinue. His friend Pushpadant had made himself invisible and bypassed Shiva’s guard Nandi to enter the god’s cave and heard the stories secretly. He told the stories to his wife and in turn she passed them on. This led to his being discovered and cursed by a furious Parvati to become a mortal. When Malyavana pleaded his friend’s case he received a similar curse. But his wife was able to soften the goddess’stance. She finally said that if Pushpadant told these stories to a pishach Kanabhuti and Kanabhuti narrated them to Malyavana who in turn told them to human beings they would be able to free themselves from the curse. This little tale again illustrates the value attached to stories in ancient times.

It is said that Gunnadhya wrote these stories in secret in the forest because he was afraid the vidyadhars would steal them. Since he had no ink he wrote the 700,000 couplets in his own blood on bark. The manuscript consisting of seven books was presented to the Satavahana ruler who rejected it with disgust because it was written in blood. Gunaddhya burned six of the seven volumes after reading them to the birds and beasts of the forest but one was salvaged, that of Narvahandatta, the skeleton story which consisted of 16 parts and the kathapith added. Gunaddhya appears to have been a man who had traveled widely and in his stories the lives of gods and humans, fantastical beings like the vidyadhars who are semi divine—something between gandharvas and siddhas intertwine. Curses and boons and accounts of previous lives are used as plot devices. Scholars have commented on the fact that these are basically stories about merchants not kings and gods. The four major cities of Ujjaini, Tamralipti, Madura and Takshshila, which were major centres of trade and commerce play an important role.

The best known versions of Gunaddhya’s work are those of Kshmendra and Somadeva. Kshemendra compiled his Brihadkathamanjari some thirty years before Somadeva but the Kathasaritasagar is one third larger larger and is the better known work. It is the largest collection of tales, containing twice the number included in the Iliad and the Odyssey. However, Kshemendra’s work is considered more poetic by some.

Somadeva was a Kashmiri brahmin who composed this work some time between 1063 to 1081 A.D. to entertain Queen Suryamati, the wife of his ruler Anantdev.

Many people consider this vast work the foremost example of the Indian storytelling tradition. It combines history and myth, reality and fantasy with amazing effect and contains an extraordinary variety of characters and situations. Not only does it contain stories about actual historical figures like the grammarians, Vyadi, Vararuchi, Indradutt and Panini but also weaves in those about legendary supernatural beings like the gandharvas, kinnars and vidyadhars. There are extraordinary female characters as well. This work also provides amazing insights into human psychology and a vivid glimpse of the social structure, lifestyle, even the geography of the subcontinent. Neighbouring countries like Srilanka, Malaysia and Indonesia also figure in the narrative.

Many individual collections of stories are woven into the Kathasaritasagar. Among these the ones that have been most popular amongst children are the King Vikram stories. While the whole of the Kathasaritasagar consists of stories within stories bound together by the Shiva-Parvati story, both these collections use the device of the narration of the adventures of the king to link them together. They are the Vetalpanchvishanti or Vetalpachisi (Twenty-five Stories of the Vampire) and Singhasandwatrinshika or Singhasan Battisi (Thirty-two Stories of the Lion Throne). The legendary king Vikramaditya was an actual historical figure, the founder of the Vikrami era which is 56 years in advance of the Christian era. He vanquished the Huns and was the ruler of the Malwa region in central India and had his capital in Ujjaini. Some scholars, however, feel Vikramaditya could be a title of the great Chandragupta Maurya.

The Vetal stories are told to King Vikramaditya by Vetal, a ghost or vampire. The framing story says that a mendicant comes to the king’s court and asks him to help him in an important ritual. It entails bringing a corpse which hangs from a tree to the burning ground where the ritual was to be performed. When the king removes the corpse he finds that a Vetal resides in it. While he is transporting it, the Vampire tells him a story at the end of which he poses a question seeking a moral judgement or a definition of a social relationship, based on the action of the story which the king has to answer correctly or die. Each time the king gives his answer, the corpse immediately flies back to the tree and the king sets off to fetch it again, so the cycle is repeated. After twenty-four stories have been told the king is unable to answer the twenty-fifth question. The Vetal then exposes the mendicant as one who is seeking to destroy the king and after helping him to worst the man tells him to ask for a boon. The king asks that these twenty-five stories always be famous on the earth.

These stories are the most famous of our ‘riddle tales’ and like other popular literature travelled well beyond our borders. Van Buitenen states that some of them have influenced European literature and mentions the great German writer Thomas Mann’s novella Die Vertauschten Kopfe which is said to be inspired by the story “The Transposed Heads”. Similarly, he says the story of “The Three Fastidious Brahmins” traveled through Central Asia and Siberia and Jutland and became the basis for Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale The Princess and the Pea.

Children's Literature in India-The Hitopdesa

The Story as Good Counsel

The Hitopdesa


The Hitopdesa is another work of niti like the Panchatantra, written in Sanskrit by Narayana. The author was a poet or preceptor in the court of Dhawal Chandra, a prince or satrap of eastern India who is said to have commissioned it. It is believed to be a thousand years old, written between the ninth and fourteenth century AD. The earliest known manuscript discovered in Nepal bears a date corresponding to 1373 A.D. It has a structure similar to the Panchatantra and contains four books, which have stories from the Panchatantra with others added to them. Before the discovery of that manuscript this work was attributed to Vishnusharma who is the narrator of the work. But when it was being studied the names of Narayana and his patron were discovered in the last two verses. Some of the matter and quotations used establish it as having been composed in the eastern part of the country.
While Narayana mentions the Panchatantra as his source he has drawn from other works as well. The order of the first book of the Panchatantra has been reversed and the third divided into two. The fourth book has mostly been omitted and a large number of verses exist within the stories. These have been sourced mostly from the verse composition Nitisara of Kamandaki. Some have been taken from the play Venisamhara by Bhattanarayana which, like the other work, dates to the eighth century. Niti verses from other important works have been included like the Vrdhha or Laghu Chanakya, the Chanakya Sara Sangraha and the Chankaya Raja Niti Shastra, the Garuda Purana and the Nitisataka of Bharatrihari. It has used the two epics as sources apart from the Puranas, the poetic, dramatic work of Magha Sisupalavadha, the Kiratarjun of Bhandavi and Mrichhakatika of Sudraka. Some stories overlap with the Sukasaptati and the Vetal Panchvimsaptika. However, Narayana has added his own lively touch to his source material and heightened its impact by the manner in which he rearranged it.
It is worth noting that the Hitopdesa was the second Sanskrit work to be translated directly into English after the Bhagavat Gita. Charles Wilkins of the East India Company translated it in 1787. It was first published in Serampore in 1804. Many other translations were made including one by Sir Edwin Arnold in 1861 that appeared under the title The Book of Good Counsels. In India it has been translated into Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Newari, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, according to Indologist Johannes Hertel. Contemporary translations listed by the US Library of Congress include Burmese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Khmer, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Children's Literature in India-The Panchatantra

The best ideas always come while having my bath. So many middles and poems were written 'underwater'. This morning the thought process went: friends on Facebook-libraries-librarians-children's literature in India-my great research project courtesy a fellowship from the Ministry of Culture currently languishing on a shelf...



A query from an interested librarian sparked off the thought--why not put it up on my blog? So here goes:

The Panchatantra and its Versions

The Story as Good Counsel

The Panchatantra, a collection of stories said to be more than two thousand years old is considered the oldest example of a work written specifically for children or rather, young adults, in India. Its influence on children’s literature throughout the world cannot be overestimated, since the stories have traveled far and wide and entered the folklore of many countries. There are said to be 200 versions of these stories in about 60 languages. In fact it is acknowledged that it has been disseminated even more widely than the Bible.

The Panchatantra or ‘five books’ is a work of niti, translated by Arthur Ryder as the ‘wise conduct of life’.