Vikram and Betaal -Story 2 - The Sensitive Queens

 

Vikram and Betaal – Story 2

We saw how King Vikramaditya (Vikram) went to the cremation ground at the instruction of a sage to get a dead body and found a ghost. It agreed to come on the condition that the king should not talk till he reached his destination. The ghost then started telling him a story. Here goes.

The Sensitive Queens

In the beautiful city of Ujjain once ruled a king who was valorous and dharmic at the same time. He was a good ruler and gave good and impartial judgement. As was the habit in those days the king had multiple queens. In this case, the king had three queens.

The first one was from the nearby kingdom. She was well accomplished and beautiful. As the eldest queen he was a good friend and counsellor to the king on the right path.

The second queen was from the far off easter kingdoms. She was very beautiful and was good at music and dance. She was also a good swords person and helped the king in his military strategy and war preparations and planning.

The youngest one was from the Kingdom of Kashi and came with the great knowledge inherent to that great and ancient city. As the youngest queen, she was the king’s favourite and was much liked by the other two queens as well.

All was well with the queens and the kingdom. The queens had a peculiar quality though. Each of them was hyper sensitive to one thing. The king was aware of it but had not actually witnessed / seen these sensitivities.

One day the king and the first queen were sitting in the garden and enjoying the flowers and the birds. A lotus flower that she had adorned in her hair was disturbed by the slight breeze and fell on her thigh. She gave a sharp cry. The king realized that she was so sensitive that the flower had wounded her. He immediately called the vaid (doctor) to treat her.

A few days later, he was walking with the second queen in the full moon light. It was cool and a breeze was blowing too. The queen started developing certain rashes in her skin as she was unable to bear the cool moonlight. This surprised the king but being dutiful he called the vaid again.

Time passed. Now the king noticed that his youngest queen did not have any issues and hoped she was a strong one. Unfortunately, he was in for a surprise. One day she was walking down the corridor in the palace and fainted. No one knew the reason. After a lot of enquiry it was found that she was sensitive to noise. The king was surprised as there was no noise. It was found that the grinding of stones somewhere outside the palace gates had caused her distress to cause a faint.

Having all these super sensitive queens did create a problem. But he was the king and a dutiful husband. So he ensured that they were properly protected and attended to by the vaids

Now the Betaal went for his mischief. It cackled and said “Oh handsome king, let me know which of the king’s wives is the most sensitive and needs to be protected the most? If you know the answer and do not answer, your head will burst. If you talk I will fly back to my tree like before.”

Vikram realised he cannot escape. After some thought he said “The third queen is the most sensitive. The first one actually had a flower falling on her lap. It could have had a sharp thorn. The second queen could have again had a sensitive skin and exposure to bright light could have caused her discomfort.

In the case of the third queen there was no physical contact with any object and the noise was coming from a far distance. So she is the most sensitive and the king needs to protect her the most.

As soon as Vikram spoke, the Betaal gave a demonic laugh and flew back to his tree.

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