The Odd Prince

His Highness Samrat Rajveer Singh and his ministers had just concluded the discussions, regarding the plan to counter the possible attacks by the neighbouring king.

“Anything else that you would want to apprise me of?” The king asked his senior minister.

“Your Highness, there is this small issue of the Shani Temple in a village south of the Capital,” the minister ventured.

“A temple issue? Tell me about it,” prodded the king.

“Let me give you a brief summary, your Highness...”

“There was this village Singapur which had a temple in the centre.  As per an ancient tradition, every year on the Maha-Shani-Ekadashi day the village Zamindar used to start the month long pooja with pouring sesame oil on the deity. A few years ago the Zamindar died, and his two feuding sons divided the village into the West and East Singapur. The boundary line dividing the villages also bisects the temple into two parts.”

“That’s interesting, so what’s the issue now?”

“For two years the elder son from East Singapur continued with the practise but this year the West Singapur disputes this right. There were some clashes between the two villages and a few lives were lost as a result, your Highness”

“What did the Minister for Law and Order do?”

“Your Highness the Law and Order Minister came up with a solution that, the oldest man from either of the will have the honour of starting the pooja and both villages agreed to the verdict but...”

“But what now?”

“But... the oldest man from West Singapur got so excited when the whole village praised him as their saviour that he died of a heart failure soon.”

The next oldest man was from East Singapur. Now this old man was, invited for a marriage in West Singapur and then overfed with sweets, the old man who was already suffering from “madhu meham” died soon after.

“The next oldest man identified allegedly died of a snake bite, and the next oldest man ran away from the village fearing for his life.”

 The minister now changed the rule again, declaring that whichever village had the bigger number of males on the day of counting will get the privilege in the temple.

“Let me guess, that did not solve the problem right?”

“You guessed right, your Majesty, it only worsened the problem further.”

“The East Singapur Zamindar bribed the small traders and business people from West to shift to his village to increase the numbers. Not to be outdone, the West Singapur Zamindar enticed the poor and landless farmers of East to come and settle down in his village with offers of free land and food.

Now things got out of hand. The Zamindars started burning and killing of poor people settled in the village borders of the other village. The Minister is having a tough time controlling this fire that got out of hand your majesty”

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Samrat Rajveer Singh thought about it for a while and asked for two Zamindars to be presented before him.

The two Zamindars along with a few elders from their respective villages assembled in the durbar.

The king tossed a coin and asked the Zamindars to make their choices. The East Singapur Zamindar won the toss. “So it is settled, starting with East Singapur each village will have the privilege of starting the pooja on alternate years,” the King proclaimed.

Everyone was satisfied with the wise counsel of the king, and that put an end to the silly and meaningless killings.

Peace reigned in the kingdom for many years, when an unexpected calamity fell on the kingdom. The King was assassinated by enemies from a neighbouring kingdom, while he was on a tour on the border of the kingdom. 

The Prince, Ragavendra Singh, was still a kid and could not be made a king yet. The queen was prevented from taking over by a wily minister who quoted an ancient law of the land forbidding it.

The Queen went into huddle with the ministers loyal to her lord and came up with a master plan. They chose the wisest and most loyal minister Manmauji Singh to be the interim caretaker till the royal prince came of age.

The decisions of the caretaker were at first subtly and latter more brazenly influenced by the Queen. She was quite happy with the way she consolidated her position, rendering the caretaker a mere puppet. She got rid of the wily minister along with all those who opposed her. The only thing she could not change was the prince himself.

The Prince  who was into his early teens hated attending the daily durbar and often  either played truant, or suddenly spoke out of the turn and embarrassed the queen, who bore it all with a stiff smile. 

One fine afternoon the durbar was in session discussing some important matters. A sudden clattering sound disturbed the solemn proceedings. The prince had nodded off to sleep and his crown slipped off his head and had fallen on the floor. The courtiers struggled to keep a straight face and controlled their laughter. The Queen summoned and reprimanded the royal Goldsmith for doing a shoddy job of the Prince’s crown. The goldsmith profusely apologised and rectified the problem with a golden chin strap for the crown.

One day, the Prince went for a stroll on the Royal highway near the palace. He was so, pumped up with pride as the people bowed respectfully and saluted him that, he did not mind his step and stepped right into a pile of freshly dropped dung. All hell broke loose.

The Prince threw a tantrum and wanted all bovine carts to be banned from the highway. The Queen and the ministers sat down and discussed the matter at length and reached to an amicable solution.

 The Royal proclamation, read out the next day was thus: “Due to the increasing pollution from the dung on the highways, beginning the next full moon, all bovine carts whose owner’s names added up to odd or even numbers will be banned on alternate days. Riders on horses will be allowed on all days. The inconvenience to the people is taken into consideration. They are requested to use the free service of the royal elephant trains of carts that will be plied on the roads all days.”

There was a mixed response from the people. Some hailed it some resented it while most were merely amused.

One evening the Queen was strolling in the royal garden with Manmauji Singh.

“Something seems to be troubling you, my Queen,” he hesitantly ventured to ask.

“It’s about the Prince, you know in another few months he will be crowned king, but through my spies, I gathered that the people don’t think high of him.”

“There is still time my Queen, we could do something to increase his popularity amongst the people.”

The Queen pondered over it for a while and suddenly came up with a plan.

“Manmauji jee, tomorrow you are going to make this announcement in the durbar...”

The announcement was made. The Prince, being concerned about the farmers and would have his lunch in a poor farmer’s house, in a particular village two days from then. This seemingly innocuous announcement created a panic amongst the villagers.

Not knowing which house the Prince would choose to honour, the villagers bought the best quality rice, pulse and vegetables from the village grocer. The village moneylender and the grocer were the only two persons, who gleefully welcomed the unexpected windfall.

The Prince arrived at the village with his retinue and whimsically chose to grace Gangu’s humble hut.  All the food that Gangu’s wife had painstakingly prepared was unceremoniously pushed aside and the hot piping food from the royal kitchen were served in silver plates along with exotic drinks.

Gangu, not used to this rich cuisine and feeling uncomfortable on being seated next to the Prince hardly managed to push some food down his throat. The Prince finished his meal and made small talk with Gangu. The good deed done, he left. The Prince’s retinue quickly carted off the unfinished food.

The only consolation the poor villagers had was to have a good meal, for a day, at the cost of an unwanted additional burden of a loan to repay. Since that day’s fiasco, the other communities were jittery, haunted by the very thought of, what if the prince takes a fancy to dine with them.

Finally the day arrived when the prince came of age. He was crowned as the new king with great pomp and show. The prince did not change much intellectually and the queen continued to protect and mother him.

A couple of years later, adding to the woes of the kingdom, there was a severe scarcity of rains. The crops failed and the rivers went dry so did the wells in the villages. There were frequent quarrels at the community wells as people pushed and jostled for the fast depleting water. As the clashes were getting violent the representatives of the villages sought a solution from the King.

Even as the ministers and the queen were deep in discussion, the new king stood up and made a proclamation stunning everyone.

“My people having thought over the problem, I asked myself what my late father would have done in such a situation.”

“I remember how he found a simple solution to the then Singapur issue. So here’s the solution to the problem. From tomorrow all those households with odd number of family members will draw water from the wells and the even numbers households will draw water on the next day.”

“The lesser number of people at the well will ensure that, there will be no more clashes and everyone will be happy.”

Before the Queen or the ministers could do any damage control, the cronies of the new King clapped and started singing praises of his brilliance. The dejected village representatives hung their heads walked out.

As months passed by, the popularity of the rebel leader grew in inverse proportion to the new king’s ridiculous decisions, the latest one being the unforeseen rebellion by the women of Singapur.

The women of Singapur, backed by women representatives of other similar groups, brought a representation to the King. They demanded that the gender bias to be stopped and they too should get rights to do the annual pooja to the Shani God.

The young King, who was besieged with numerous other problems due to the drought like situation prevailing, lost his temper and in a fit of rage said, “I hereby proclaim that neither men nor women but the eunuchs of Singapur will do the honours. Now that should satisfy both men and women.”

Before the women could utter a word in protest, he got the palace guards to throw them out of the palace.

What the King did not realise at the moment was that a large portion of his soldiers including the commander-in-chief hailed from Singapur.

Two days later, the rebel chief was at the gates of the palace with his new-found rebel army.

The Queen and the new King quickly bundled their precious stones and gold and made their way through the secret escape tunnel from the royal chambers.

They emerged out of the tunnel, only to be greeted by, none other than the grinning wily ex-minister.