The Snake Story

Naana said, ‘What story do you want?’ and the children said, ‘A snake story.’
He said: ‘Ok, here is a snake story for you.


Long long ago in a forest, a family of snakes lived in a hole under a big banyan tree. You know snakes lay many eggs and the father and mother snake had just had ten new children born to them.


The mother snake stayed inside the hole all the time to make sure that none of her children went out and got eaten up by some hungry animal or other.

The father snake went out looking for food and would be gone for long hours. He would catch something and bring it back for his family.


Small mice. Big frogs. Birds eggs. Large insects. Things that snakes eat you know. His family would eagerly await his arrival and the food he got would quickly finish.


As time went by the babies grew bigger and the mother snake found that her new set of children were extra naughty. All ten of them!


They did not listen to her when she asked them not to look out of the mouth of the hole. They did not listen to her when she asked them not to run around all over her and play when she was sleeping in the afternoon. They did not listen to her when she asked them not to fight amongst themselves all the time. They did not listen to her…


...and the mother snake kept on losing her temper and got so tired hissing at the children that she became thinner and thinner and more and more worried. This of course only made her sleep less and less which in turn made her more worried… And so on.


One day when father snake came back she told him that he had to find a solution to her problem. Father snake had been coming home everyday to a more irritated, more worried and a thinner mother snake. So he thought and thought and finally an idea came into his head.


He told the mother snake that whenever she felt herself beginning to lose her temper she should call her children around and tell a story.


It didn’t matter if she made up the story then and there or if it was a good story or a bad story. She just had to tell the first story that came into her head. The mother snake thought that a fine idea and started practicing it the very next day.


It worked!

Soon the mother snake became a very good story teller and everybody was happy. The children were happy because they got to hear so many stories. The mother snake was happy because her children became better behaved not only when the stories were being told but even in between stories. Father snake was happy because he had found a clever solution to a difficult problem and also because the mother snake was happy.

And that is the end of our story but not of the stories that mother snake must be telling her children even now...’


‘So’, said Naana, ‘the story went to Haripuram and we came…’

‘HOME’, shouted the children and soon were fast asleep.


(This story is illustrated by Upal Sengupta, former colleague, inspirational artist and lead singer of the famous Bengali rock band Chandrabindoo)

The Jackal Story

Long ago in a forest full of all types of animals there lived a lion. Just one! So he was respected by all the animals in the forest. He was the undisputed king of the forest. He was a big lion and with his powerful muscles and long mane and graceful walk he looked very noble and fearsome and strong. He was afraid of nothing!

One day during a big storm the lion came across a thin jackal shivering and howling under a big tree. The lion was curious and looked around but saw nothing around that could frighten the jackal so much. He quietly went up to the jackal and asked him what the matter was. The jackal had not seen or heard the lion come near and was so frightened when he saw the lion in front that he could not even run away. The lion came nearer and asked again what the matter was. The jackal whispered, and the lion had to thrust his face close to the jackals face to hear, the jackal said, ‘I’m afraid.’ It took the lion some time to understand what the jackal meant. Then he ROOARED with laughter.

‘ROOARHAHAHAHAHA!’

When he could stop laughing he asked, ‘Afraid of me?’

‘Yes’, said the jackal, ‘but before you came I was afraid of the storm.’ The lion wanted to know why anybody would be afraid of an ordinary storm. He found out that the jackal was afraid of many other things as well.


The lion felt sorry for the thin hungry looking jackal and told him, ‘You can stay with me and eat whatever is left over after I eat.’ The jackal was very happy with this arrangement. Actually you see, he was so thin because he was frightened of everything and had not really been getting enough to eat.

Soon with the help of a regular meal, the jackal became healthy and strong. The other animals respected him because he was always with the lion and when the jackal noticed this he also started looking somewhat noble and somewhat majestic and somewhat lion-like. He was still afraid of many things but talking to the lion about it he was becoming braver and less afraid.

And the lion? You see, as he talked to the jackal he started hearing about the things that frightened the jackal and strangely, soon started seeing the jackal’s viewpoint. This meant that the first time a really big thunderstorm happened and a big tree nearby got hit by lightning and loud thunder tore the air – the lion jumped in fright. It only got worse as the lion started experiencing more of the jackals’ fears and helping the jackal become less afraid.

Soon one day the lion didn’t kill a big buffalo with fearsome horns and the lion and jackal had to go hungry. The jackal understood that somehow the lion had become more afraid of things and he had become less afraid. So he talked to the lion about it bravely and from that day onwards they hunted together and the animals in the forest began to respect the jackal as much as the lion.

(Illustrated by my 7 year old son Dinkar)

The Lucky Hen

Once upon a time there was a very stupid but very lucky hen. Let me tell you a story about her to show you what I mean.

You see the stupid hen belonged to a poor old woman who lived in a small hut. So the stupid hen would roam around all over the neighborhood all day and eat whatever she could get and would come back to the hut in the evenings. The old woman didn’t have to take care of the hen and once in a while she got an egg or two so she didn’t mind.

Now in one of the farms nearby where the stupid hen roamed there were two large fierce guard dogs. The dogs were let loose in the garden around the farmer’s house and every animal and every person who had to come near the farmer’s house was afraid of the dogs. Except the stupid hen!

Why?

You see she was just too stupid to be afraid. She would wander into the garden everyday and when the dogs came running and barking towards her, she would cluck-cluck as if asking, ‘Hey, what’s wrong with you both?’, and she would hurry flapping her wings through a hole in the hedge into a neighboring farm. This happened everyday. The dogs were surprised at why the hen came back every day and wasn’t frightened off by their fierceness. They decided to do something about it before they became the laughing stock of all the animals around.


So one day they lay in wait for her. The stupid hen always came in through the same hole in the hedge. The dogs waited, lying close to the hedge on either side of the hole, so that the hen could not see them easily. The hen came in the same way but just as she was almost into the garden she saw something tasty to eat in the hedge and so she withdrew her head and turned to peck at it. The dogs seeing the head come through the hedge pounced at it only to see it vanish back. In all the confusion there was a head on collision and one fierce nose hit one fierce head and the dogs lost interest in the hen for the day.

The next day they decided to let the stupid hen come into the garden before stalking and catching and killing her. The stupid hen like always came in through the same hole in the hedge and started pecking around in her stupid aimless manner. The dogs quietly moved closer hiding behind bushes and trees till they were just behind her. The stupid hen was walking on a pile of dry leaves that the gardener had left for burning on a sloping part of the garden. The dogs leapt at the stupid hen together and would have surely caught her but the stupid hen disappeared in front of their eyes and they were so surprised that they fell slipping and sliding to the bottom of the slope. You see the stupid hen had just fallen into a hole in the ground covered by the dry leaves. She came out of the hole and went about her aimless wandering business and after some time went into a neighboring farm not realizing how close she had been to being caught by the dogs.

The dogs decided that there was no point being clever about catching the stupid but lucky hen. So, from the very next day, they barked at her and drove her out of their garden like they used to and everyday the hen ran away in her stupid but lucky manner.

(Illustrated by my 13 year old daughter Aditi)

The Rooster Story

Long ago in a village by a river there lived a rich farmer. He had many fields where he grew corn and wheat and vegetables and fruits and he had many animals on the farm. Many cows, many bullocks, many dogs, many buffaloes, many ducks, many hens, but just one rooster.

As time went by the rooster became very proud of being the only rooster on the big farm. All the hens on the farm were his wives and he was the only rooster in all the farms of the neighborhood with so many wives. He would puff out his chest and strut around all over the farm and every once in a while crow loudly “CoccoCoCooo”, startling any animal or bird that was nearby. All his wives obeyed him and would come running with a “CcoCcoCcoCco” when he found something he thought they would like to eat. He punished the wives who didn’t listen to him by pecking them hard. All the other animals on the farm thought that it was time someone taught him a lesson not to be so arrogant.

There were also many other animals living on the farm whom the farmer did not have to feed. Birds and insects and small animals like tortoises and rats. Of the birds the largest numbers were the crows. They were somewhat noisy themselves but all of them thought that the loud arrogant rooster needed to be taught a lesson. One day a mother crow got the chance to do that. And this is how it happened.

When the rooster was passing by under the mother crow’s nest one of the baby crows asked, ‘Mother what is that?’

The mother crow looked down carefully and said, ‘Well it looks like a strange sort of animal. Perhaps a pig with feathers.’

The rooster heard her but didn’t think they were talking about him. The baby crow asked again, ‘But mother it looks like a bird.’

The crow said, ‘It must be a pig. Birds fly you know and I’ve never seen this animal flying. And you know pigs don’t fly.’

The rooster realized they were talking about him and became very angry.

‘Hey you foolish crow, I am also a bird like you. What nonsense are you teaching your children?’ asked the rooster.

‘Well’, said the crow, ‘You are the fool. Don’t you know all birds can fly? I have never seen YOU fly so how can you be a bird? If you are not a pig then you must be a cat with a beak.’

Now the rooster could fly a bit but of course not like the other birds. However, like I said, he was a proud and foolish bird. He said:

‘Let me show you. Tell me where you want me to fly to?’

The crow told him to fly to a low branch of a nearby tree. The rooster flapped his wings loudly and managed to reach the branch with a lot of effort. He sat on the branch swaying slightly and trying to balance himself without falling down. The crow flew to a branch just above the rooster’s head and looked down at him and said, ‘Well, I still don’t believe you. You look like a pig that has jumped on to this low branch.’

The rooster asked the crow to show a higher branch. The crow did and the rooster with a heroic effort managed to reach it. The crow did this several times till the rooster was sitting on the top of the tallest tree in the farm before he became less angry and realized he didn’t know how to come down. The crow flapped her wings in his face and said ‘Ok, you may be a bird but you fly very badly. You need to practice more.’

By this time everybody on the farm knew that the rooster had been fooled and was on top of a tree and didn’t know how to come down. The rooster sat on top holding on tightly to the branch he was sitting on and every time it swayed in the wind he felt giddy and he sat there all day and well into the night when he fell asleep and lost his grip and fell through the tree flapping his wings and landed, bruised and tired and not very proud at all.

(Illustrated by daughter Aditi)

The Big Dog

In a large house in a small town behind tall locked gates there lived a big Alsatian dog. He was a placid, slow-moving and kind-eyed dog. He barked seldom and when he did his bark was deep and loud. He guarded his master’s house at night and the thieves in the town respected his size enough to not try and steal from that particular house.

He was only troubled by two things. Street dogs who in their freedom would stand outside his gate and bark and a group of school going children who would taunt him on their way to and from school. He ignored both of these as minor irritations. This of course only made the children and street dogs more courageous and louder and noisier. The children would stand outside the gate and shout at him and sing silly rhymes they would make up. Sometimes the children getting no response from the big dog tossed pebbles at him to make him angry. At such times he would get up and go and lie down somewhere at the back of the house where the children could not see him and he couldn’t see them.

This was the state of affairs when an out of town thief who did not know about the Alsatian tried to get into the house. This was very early in the morning and the Alsatian was sleeping near the gate when he woke up to some noise. To his surprise he saw a man climbing up a ladder towards the open window of his master’s bedroom. The Alsatian barked like he had never done in his life and ran towards the thief. The thief when he heard the Alsatian and saw his size promptly fell off the ladder in fright. He got up and ran towards the garden wall over which he had come. The Alsatian was faster and managed to bite the thief in several places before he hit the big dog on the head with a stick and escaped over the wall.

So when the morning street dogs came to bark at him the big dog already had a headache and was not in a good mood. And so this is what the children going to school who turned into the street where the big dog lived saw from a distance-

The big dog got up slowly walked up to the gate and stood looking at the street dogs outside the gate. This was the first time he had paid them any attention and they barked even louder at him. The big dog effortlessly jumped up and over the gate, bit some three or four of the street dogs and frightened all of them so that they ran off with yelps with their tails between their legs. Then with the same ease he jumped back over the gate into his usual place and turned twice and lay down.

The children turned back and were late reaching school that day. From the next day onwards, they went by a longer route avoiding the lane in which the big dog lived and left home earlier to reach school on time. The street dogs stopped bothering the Alsatian and were very quiet and respectful around his house. The big Alsatian lived in peace thereafter.

The Cook's Story

Long ago in a small town there lived an old Brahmin who was a famous cook. He was famous in many nearby villages and towns and was busy the whole year round. People who ate at the festivals or functions where he cooked talked about things that they had eaten. They discussed how evenly the vegetables were cut in the aviyal; They talked about how round the pappadams were; They said how the tastes in all that he cooked somehow worked together to give pleasure. They praised everything he cooked but everybody agreed that his saambaar was incomparable and without a doubt the best in the world. They talked about how it was just the right colour, just the right smell, just the right sourness, just the right mix of spices and also how it was somehow more than all this put together. How it had a strange wonderful taste that no other saambaar they had ever tasted had.


In fact because of his famous saambaar the cook was known to everybody as saambaaranna. There was always a line of people outside his house who wanted him to cook saambaar at their functions. At these places such was his reputation that women and men dressed in their finery would crowd around to watch him cook.

He enjoyed all this attention and tried to make his job appear to be more like a magic show than just cooking food. He had his secret recipes and would take ingredients from various pots and jars and also from secret packets that he carried tied around his waist. Over the years he had become very good at the way he performed this show. He talked all the time with the watching people and told them some things and hid some other things till people thought he was a superstar. When people asked about his magic recipes he only smiled and said ‘My lips are sealed’.

One day in a big marriage ceremony he was taking his ritual bath in the pond before starting to cook when a small boy noticed something unusual. Being a rather clever boy he put two and two together and arrived at the correct answer. He ran to his relatives and shouted,

‘Come quickly everybody, I have discovered saambaaranna’s secret recipe.’

When a number of people gathered he hurried down to the pond with them. Saambaaranna was still in the water enjoying his bath but on the steps of pond where his clothes and secret packets were kept were two cats. They were eating the powder fallen out of a torn packet.

The people understood! The special taste in their saambaar over the years in their vegetarian functions came from dried fish powder!

Saambaaranna noticed the angry people coming towards him and didn’t wait to collect his things but swam to the other end of the pond and ran away to another country where nobody knew about him and his secret saambaar recipe.

(Illustrated by my 9 year old son Srikant)

The Laughing Onion

(This was published as a picture book by Eklavya and is available here. The story has been beautifully illustrated by Anita Varma. The text of the story is given below)

When the children were in bed and Naana switched off the lights, the small boy said, ‘I will tell you a story today.’

The girl sat up and said, ‘No Naana he doesn’t know how to tell a story. I am six years old and cannot tell any new stories and he is only two and a half years old. How can he tell a story? He will only mix up some stories you told us and make a khichdi out of it. You tell a monkey story instead.’

In the semi-darkness Naana looked at the girl’s earnest face and at the small boy lying with his right foot on top of his left knee like a serious grown up with a large head, and he smiled and said, ‘Anybody can tell a story. And you know, all stories are made up like a khichdi. My stories are also like that, but I know a lot of stories and read a lot, so I have more things to put in my khichdi. That’s all. You tell your story, baby.’

‘OK’, started the small boy, ‘Long long ago, in a forest there was a deer. Thhhen that deer was eaten by an onion.’

Naana put his finger to his lips to silence the girl when he saw her beginning to say something. He turned to the small boy and said, ‘Baby, don’t you mean that the deer ate the onion.’

The small boy started again, ‘Long long ago, in a forest there was a deer. Thhhen the onion ate the deer.’

The girl said, ‘Naana, he says onion for something else but I can’t remember what.’

‘The onion we eat at home?’ asked Naana.

The small boy said, ‘No no, the onion in the forest that looks like a dog. And does Huh Huh Huh.’

‘Oh! A laughing hyena!’ laughed Naana and the girl.

‘Yees!’ said the small boy relieved and continued:

‘long long ago, in a forest there was a deer. Thhhen that deer was eaten by a hyena which did Huh Huh Huh.

Thhhen the monkey sat on the tree. One grain of chana fell down. Thhen the monkey became angry and threw all the chana away.

Thhen there was a bird on a tree. And the tree fell down.

Thhen the lion became angry.’

‘Then what happened?’ asked Naana and the girl, when the small boy didn’t say anything for some time.

‘Thhen the lion became VERY angry and ATE the tiger.’

‘What happened next?’ asked Naana.

‘Thhen” said the small boy, ‘the story to Kanchi and us home.’

Naana clapped and said, ‘What a great story! That was a wonderful story you told. Maybe we should take turns telling stories and you know…’

…They are still talking but the voices are getting fainter and fuzzier with sleep. So, let’s leave them there. The story tellers and the listeners. The weavers of invisible spider-web nets and the stars of the night they have caught for company on their long lonely journeys.

Goodnight!