Guest Post: Baale and Mugudu
A cautionary Tulu folktale, contributed by Dejappa Shetty Pejathimar
Many are the rivers that flow in Tulunad, and their names flow as they do. Netravati, Phalguni, Shambhavi, Nandini, Pangala, Swarna or Suvarna, Souparnika, Papanashini. Upon the higher terrain where the floods do not reach, grow the tall coconut and arecanut palms. Homes are carefully built just above the palms. Other lush vegetation surrounds these plantations. Rainwater flows from this lush, rocky terrain creating small streams that collect in the middle of low-lying fields below. During the monsoons these streams flood and join the bigger rivers that flow into the sea.
In the rich alluvial soil of these coastal fields is where the paddy grows. In one green paddy field, a pundade, the shy, white-breasted waterhen, scurried in and out. Its big webbed feet trampled all over fresh, green seedlings as it gobbled up snails, small shrimps, tiny crabs and precious earthworms. It looked very nervous.
A flock of cheerful sparrows had come to join in the feast. They watched the pundade jumping at every noise, scuttling off at the whisper of every leaf, and, curious, they asked, “Why are you so frightened?”
“Don’t you know? It’s the time for the Keddasa festival when the village youths hunt us to chase us off their fields. They say it’s to protect their young seedlings. They should know we eat a lot of pests too! Luckily we are not very tasty for them to eat or we would have been wiped out by now! We lose at least one or two of our flock every year to the hunt. I don’t want to be caught!”
“Hmm, should think not! Must be stressful!” the sparrows agreed.
“Yes, it is,” said the waterhen, “but when we stay safe hidden among the reeds or in the jungle undergrowth, the songs, the paddanas, we can hear from the fields far away, are beautiful. The Keddasa lasts for three days. People believe that this is the time Mother Earth has her menstrual cycle just like human women, and after this period of three days, when she is carefully nurtured, celebrated and propitiated, she emerges as a bride, bathed and fresh. I’ve heard them say in the village it is the period of blooming flowers and the promise of wonderful fruit. Mango, cashew, palasha and so many other plants bloom at this time. The earth is adorned in a riot of colours like the beautiful saris the village women wear. So they have ceremonies and sing songs and tell tales to celebrate the season and to give thanks to Mother Earth.”
“Tales? Come, rest a while and tell us one if you can remember,” said the sparrows, ever eager to add another story to their collection.
And this is the tale the pundade told.
BAALE AND MUGUDU
A cautionary Tulu folk tale, retold by Dejappa Shetty Pejathimar
Tulunad is rich in life of all kinds. Our place is on the banks of the river Nandini and here in our village, it takes another name where it meets the sea. Here it is called the Pavanje river. It has an abundance of vegetation and of sweet- and salt-water creatures including fish, water snakes, snails, shellfish, and mud crabs. People are hardworking and reap their crops in two seasons.
The crop harvested in the month of Puyintel or Ponni (around February) is the one we enjoy the most. The weather is cool. The sun is in a kindly mood. The air is full of music as women sing paddanas in chorus while they transplant the rice seedlings. Fish, shrimps, and little crabs loiter in the watery mud and are easy to catch and take home to the family. The fragrance of delicious curries fills the air, and life is good.
When I was a boy, on a day like this, while ploughing the field, we captured some fish. The poor kingfisher who sat on top of a tree branch could barely see its prey. The fields, stretching as far as the eye could see, were being ploughed, and yellow-brown water had been stirred up from ponds and tiny streams along the borders of the field. The kingfisher watched helplessly as we triumphantly carted away our spoils. We took home our catch in a deep-bottomed kudupu, a pot made from a wild yam. We had caught all kinds of fish. There were the dark sweet-water prawns, the small catfish known as tede, the whiskery Asian catfish we call mugudu that swims close to the ground, and the flat, long ribbon fish we call baale that slips in and out of the paddy stalks.
When we got home, I heard my mother telling my older sisters to cook the mugudu and baale in separate earthen pots. I was a curious child and was puzzled when I heard this. “Why can’t they be cooked together, Amma?” I asked her. “You use the same masalas for both fish!” My mother was very pleased with my question and in reply she told me this tale.
Once upon a time, in a village in Tulunadu, there lived a brother and a sister in a house with a nice courtyard. The courtyard had a flourishing tulasi bush planted in the katte platform in the middle. Around the house were large spaces used to dry the crops from the fields—coconut palm leaves, the orange fruit of the arecanut, or paddy stalks. With large trees on the banks of the river and lush greenery all around, the brother and sister lived quite happily. The brother worked in the field during the day, and the sister took care of the house.
Things went along quite fine but time was passing by, and both the brother and the sister were unmarried. One day, on the way home, the brother found some tender jasmine flowers with a sweet fragrance prettily strung together. He looked around and, finding no one, took it home thinking it might be a special sign for him. When he reached home, he put it reverently on the tulasi katte. Then he vowed that he would marry the first girl drawn to the flowers by their fragrance and off he went to the well nearby to bathe. By and by his sister came to their courtyard after sweeping the house from top to bottom. First the kitchen, then the bedroom, then the dining place, then the cool chavadi, the hall, and the airy padasaale, the open verandah, and at last the courtyard. There she noticed a sweet fragrance filling the air, and found the jasmine flowers lying on the platform upon which grew the sacred tulasi plant. She thought her brother had brought the lovely gift for her. Her heart warmed towards him as she wound the flowers into her beautiful, long, black tresses.
After some time, the brother returned and found the jasmine flowers missing. Excited, he looked around to see who the beautiful maiden destined to be his wife might be. “Will it be the lovely Nandini who tosses her hair and smiles at me on the way to the market? Or will it be tiny Prakruthi who barely reaches my shoulder and makes me feel ten feet tall? Or Mani whose black eyes flash and sparkle? Anyone…it could be anyone!”
But to his horror, his sister ran up to him with the flowers wound into her hair. She pirouetted joyfully before him, her anklets clinking, and showed him the flowers she was wearing in her hair. She hugged him, and said, “You have never given me anything so lovely ever before! My favourite flower!”
The brother’s flowery dreams crashed about his ears and he said, “Why did you take the flowers I left on the tulasi katte ?”
“Why? What’s wrong?” said his sister, dismayed. “Weren’t they for me?”
Her brother took a deep breath and told her how he had vowed before the sacred tulasi plant that he would marry the first girl attracted by his offering of fragrant jasmine.
“I will not marry you!” she shrieked in horror. “It is not right for a brother to marry his sister!”
“You’ve got to marry me. I made an oath. The gods will be angry,” he said and tried to grab her hand.
Strengthened by her fear and horror at his advances, she tore away from her brother. She tried to hide in different places inside the house, then outside the house. Finally, she came out into the courtyard again, crying for help. He followed her. She ran to the gate, shouting for someone to help her. But her shouts only echoed in the wilderness. She ran to the fields. He followed her. Finally, she climbed a tree on the banks of the river. There, too, he followed her. She moved to the branches, and there, too, he chased her. She took a deep breath and moved towards the thinner branches, but he caught her and he would not let her go. With a prayer to her kuladevata, her family deity, she let go of the branch.
Down she fell, down, down, down into the deep river. The brother too fell in, down, down, down into the deep river. The great river took pity on the tragic pair and transformed them. The sister became the baale, the ribbon fish, long and wavy like her beautiful hair, and the brother became the mugudu, the large catfish, with his whiskery chin and his determined mouth. Even today the mugudu is never is able to catch the baale, who flits in and out of the reeds and escapes in a flash.
One would think this would be an end to their troubles, but no….
One day both the baale and the mugudu were caught in a net and taken home. There, they were flung together into a pot, with rich masalas and bubbling oil to cook. But the fisherwoman who was cooking them heard a strange sound. “Tagena tangadiya kuchu kuchu, tagena tangadiya kuchu kuchu,” whispered the curry, bubbling uncomfortably. “Brother and sister are boiling together, brother and sister are boiling together!”
The fisherwoman found blood in the vessel. “What kind of cursed fare is this?!” she exclaimed in horror, and threw the entire contents out into the yard with a prayer to her kuladevatas, begging them to keep her safe.
After a few weeks, the fisherwoman found the red-leaved amaranth we call padpe, and Malabar spinach, which we call basale, growing together in the yard where she had thrown the fish curry. Delighted, she cut the leaves to cook them together.
Alas! The same vague murmurings arose again from the vessel—“tagena tangadiya kuchu kuchu, tagena tangadiya kuchu kuchu”. This time, the fisherwoman took the contents far off into the jungle and threw them away.
In a few weeks, two plants began to grow—one was the wild jackfruit and the other the domesticated jackfruit.
Years went by. The trees had now grown tall and strong. The wood was sturdy and valuable. A rich man wanted to make zoolas, wooden platforms suspended on strong chains, to seat the family daivas he worshipped. His workmen cut the sturdy trees, hoping to give the daivas a grand seat to recline in. When they tried to splice the pieces of the different woods together, they found to their dismay, there was blood oozing from the joints. Terrified, the rich man ran to his village priest to ask what he had done wrong and if the daivas he wished to propitiate were angry with him.
Gravely, the brahmin priest spread the cowry shells on the cowry table, and then he told the rich man the entire story of the brother and sister and announced that no part of these two trees should ever be used together.
The same is true for the fish, baale and mugudu, and the leaves of the padpe and the basale plants. If you are always mindful of these rules, you should be able to lead a healthy, happy, and prosperous life.
Author’s note: The “wild jackfruit” mentioned in the story is Artocarpus hirsutus, while the regular common jackfruit is Artocarpus heterophyllus.
As the story drew to a close, the sparrows sighed. “That was sad!” they exclaimed.
“Kowak,” squawked the waterhen as some youths come sauntering down the village path. It flew off in panic, and the sparrows shook their heads in sympathy.
“It’s wise to remember tagena tangadiya kuchu kuchu!” they all agreed, and with this they flew to the next paddy field to find some more insects to munch.
Story credit and copyright © Dejappa Shetty Pejathimar 2023
This story was written and contributed by one of our readers, Mr. Dejappa Shetty Pejathimar. Mr. Shetty is from a village called Kodethooru, where his ancestral house, Pejethimar, is located. Even though he now lives in Thane, and is far away from his native Tulunadu, he is still passionately interested in all things Tulu, including its literature and folklore. Many of the tales he remembers were told to him by his mother, Cauvery, including this story about Baale and Mugudu.
Mr. Shetty has been a staunch supporter of The Story Birds since its inception. He is always present with invaluable information and insights, which considerably enrich our work. We would like to thank him for taking the time and trouble to send us this story despite his busy schedule, and for answering our innumerable questions. It is always a pleasure to work with him.
From The Story Birds ARCHIVE, here is another story from Tulunadu, also contributed by Mr Shetty:
DOOMA’S STORY: A tale from Tulunadu, contributed by Dejappa D. Shetty
The white breasted waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus) is a common bird in the paddy fields and ponds of India. It is usually very shy and tends to stay in the undergrowth. It has several different calls, some sounding like alarmed squawks, some like hoots.
The Story Birds is very pleased to present a photograph taken by a talented aunt who has given permission for us to use it, to illustrate this story. Here is a waterhen that grew up gamely in an urban garden. It has somewhat heroically survived the onslaughts of kites, crows, snakes and mongoose.
Do you know more such tales? Do write in via the comments below!
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This is a profound story! Many thanks to Mr. Shetty and to The Story Birds. I am sharing this with a colleague whose area of research is menses - sacredness and ritual.
I am struck by two things. 1) to wed is not as we have come to think of it in the west but rather a far older idea of consummation. Or, to bed. And the brother will not wait. His vow to wed becomes an urgency to bed. ok, let's name it: rape. 2) the multiple outcomes are each cautionary tales that clearly denounce the brother's actions/intentions. And this is quite extraordinary b/c let's face it - consideration of female sovereignty is rarely addressed. But maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe it is present in more stories than I am aware of and/or maybe I am misreading this story.
Thank you very much for your appreciation of the story. Folk stories are always guiding lamps in life. Though they do not go deep into the characters the general morality of the plot is important . As mentioned in the beginning, this is a cautionary tale .
We are fortunate that in India we have such a rich heritage of folk wisdom.
I am grateful to you again for your insights which inspire me to bring out more such stories.