Legends and lessons
Padma Edirisinghe
LEGENDS: The writer came to know Karakash only recently and that too
via a book on myths and legends in the Holy Land. Even king of Kekille
could be a mythological figure but he was personally known to the writer
much earlier ever since her grandfather began spilling out his bag of
stories.
The story about him enthraled her so much that in her school days in
her capacity as House Captain she went on to produce a play around him
flouting school regulations that all creative work should be in English.
But imagine king Kekille talking in English. It would take away all
the spice garnishing the tale. The play was staged years back in a
school by Lanka's sea shore, but I remember it all as it was staged
yesterday.
One of the main actors, an elephant played by four girls hidden under
a black cloth was the centre piece and the feet kept on shuffling
drawing peals of laughter. The elephant however, was the only one who
did not speak either in the Kaduwa or in Sinhala. All the others spoke
in Sinhala, the typical Godaya variety of it.
Even the king., not much of an educated fellow used this variety.
Well, there was a king of English who did not know English. His name,
George I. That was a pretty kettle of soup for he was a German prince
married to an English princess named Sophia with whom he kept on
quarrelling. In what language they quarrelled is an interesting issue.
To come back, it is a funny law to insist that all creative work
should be transmitted in an alien language and I wished to flout this
law.
Now what is the Kekille story? We will come to that by and by. Seeya
or grandfather always started his stories by "Once upon a time there
lived in a certain country..." but the nationalist minded granddaughter
had already identified the country with Sri Lanka.
Kekille had to be a petty king, a provincial ruler somewhere in this
island paradise itself.
Questionable judgements
Karakash lived in a far distant country but his judgements seemed to
be as questionable as that of king Kekille. My seeya living almost a
closeted life in Siyane Korale had no outside contacts, nor could the
author of Holy Land myths ever arrived here and made contact with him.
But the story related is amazingly similar.
On to the Karakash story from the Holy Land or a land adjacent, there
was this weaver whose bread and butter were earned via a loom. One night
he left the needle stuck on the looms hoping to resume work early.
Next morn, enters a robber at night and serves him right, he falls on
the loom in the dark and the needle sticking out blinds him.
In the distant land he lived was a pundit name Karakash of much
wisdom and known for his clever judgements to whom the robber appealed
for justice. Weaver was sent for and he was told that an eye of his
would be taken away as a punishment for leaving the needle exposed.
The weaver naturally remonstrated saying he never invited the robber
but it was of no avail. The weaver next developed an argument that were
he to go blind his family would be hungry and suggested that the
gunsmith living next door be derived of an eye as he was very rich.
The gunsmith was sent for and an eye was taken off him.
Inevitable trends
Then a carpenter doing some lattice work on a new house got injured
when the house crashed on him. The houseowner was sent for by Karakash
who said a girl in a bright red frock was going up and down and
distracting him.
The girl was sent for but she said that it should be the shop owner
who should be punished as he had only red material and so her frocks
were all red coloured. The shop owner sent for defended himself by
saying that the traders of England sent only red hued cloth to Arab
countries for sale.
"So you trade with infidels?" gasped Karakash and ordered him to be
hanged. It is an absurd story and an unpredictable one. No one is sure
as to what will happen next. As the Kalpa draws to a close, they say,
such trends are inevitable. When the bridge at Minnn., USA collapsed the
mayor in the city had said, "It is not every day that American bridges
fall into rivers at five in the evening".
He, being a Westerner does not know what the tail end of a Kalpa has
in store in addition to earth quakes and tsunamies and other such
natural catastrophes. Somebody has to fax the info to him, from the wise
Orient.
Now we come to our own Kekille. It is the same story. A carpenter
working on a house is injured who appeals to king Kekille for help. King
orders the housewoner to be trampled by an elephant and the man says a
girl in a bright red dress walking before the house distracted him.
The girl admits to parading so but says a jeweller had promised to
sell her a pair of ear rings but kept putting it off making her go up
and down. She had no design of seducing the man. The jeweller is sent
for who admits his guilt but says he feels sorry for the royal elephant.
why asks the king.
"My lord his mighty tusks would be injured. I am very skinny and the
tusks would go past his body and pierce the earth".
Solution
The king ponders on this gravely and asks what he is to do and the
man offers a solution. The Mussalman on his street is plump and the
tusks would never pass through his body. Accordingly the Mussalman is
sent for and trampled to death.
The reader must be wondering where I am leading them through this
foolish tale woven around two of the worst judges in the world and
narrated for its humour alone.
One point I wish to focus on is the similarity of the two tales
related in two entirely different cultures. No one will vouch for the
fact that two such very similar tales grew up in two different minds
conjointly.
Somewhere at some time one tale had entered another land, probably
via sailors of yore who narrated these under starry skies to mitigate
the boredom of long voyages thus culminating in almost a global culture.
Myths and legends and fables usually have a habit of drifting to and
fro. Even Aesop's fables and some Jathaka stories and Biblical tales
joined this floating literature.
These sailors and traders were not carrying deadly armaments to
annihilate precious human lives but only strange and queer tales like
this. How we wish for an innocent world like that.
And the ubiquitous Mussalaman, he is everywhere, grace be to God, the
Abrahamic God or gods of our own pantheon lent to us by the Hindus. What
a borrowing and lending and copy-catting has been going on, in the
annals of human civilization.!
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