Reading Diary A: Bengali Folktales

The Evil Eye of Sani: A man, Sribatsa, was chosen to pick who was higher in rank, Sani or Lakshmi. Sani was the god of bad luck and Lakshmi was the goddess of good luck. He picked Lakshmi to be of higher rank, so Sani said he would keep his eye on him and give him bad luck. He kept having bad luck; he lost his mattress and his wife. Then he found a cow that could crap gold and it seemed his luck was turning around. Eventually he found his wife and the eye was no longer on him. I liked this story all right but it kind of dragged on for a while, and I didn’t think it was too exciting. Too many things happened too fast in my opinion.

The Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled: Just based upon this title, this story seems like it could be very odd. This reminds me of another story about a half boy. That is because the seven ladies all couldn’t have kids, so he gave them all a peach that were supposed to make them be able to have kids. In this story, they all ate the whole peach. In the other story I read, one of the ladies only ate half of the peach. I did like this story a lot. It was pretty interesting all the way through till the end and kept me on my feet.

The Origin of Opium: This starts out with a man giving a mouse the power to speak. I found this odd but he did it out of kindness. The mouse asked to be changed into a cat so that cats would no longer hunt him. So the man changed him into a cat. He then asks to be changed to a dog for the same reason and then to an ape.  He kept changing and changing each time unsatisfied with what he became.  Eventually the mouse was turned into a queen, who eventually died. Where she died sprouted a tree, which had Opium. I thought this story was really good. I liked the way it ended and was honestly interested throughout the entire story. 

A man smoking Opium. Taken by John Hill (1979). Web Source: Wikipedia

The Ghost-Brahman: The Brahman said he was going away from his wife and mother for a couple of years to make some money to support them. The day he left, a ghost that looked exactly the same as him took over the house. When he returned, the King found a way to trick the ghost into leaving his house. I liked this story and it kept me very intrigued. It is a story that I had already read through research for a storybook, but I had to read it again because I liked it so much.