Betaal Pachisi - Story 5 - Best Friends

Vikrama tries again to catch vetala. After several attempts he succeeds and starts taking him to the ascetic. Vetala starts narrating him a story so that they can easily complete the long journey once again but warns him not to speak anything else he will go back to his place again. He begins narrating story about 2 friends of Kashi, price Bhadramukut and son of the accountant. One day both of them decided to go out of palace to enjoy the natural beauty. Both of them were doing rest when Bhadramukut heard some sounds. He went to see who it was and found a beautiful girl playing with her friends. He at once gets mesmerized by her beauty and asks the girl about her name, place and occupation of his father. Girl replies in the form of signals and tells him to come to her place is he is able to decode them and leave them. Bhadramukut is confused and asks his friend for the help. He tells him the signal she gave for name was touching a lotus flower to her heart. His friend says lotus in hindi is known as Kamal and Padam. So, she must be either Kamalvati or Padmavati. Second signal was regarding the place in which girl first touched her ear and then touched her feet. Friend after thinking concludes that it must be Karanpur as ear in hindi is called karan and feet is called paer. Third signal was regarding profession of father in which she signaled removal of teeth from mouth. So, he must be dentist.

Both of them decide that they will go to Karanpur and find that girl. They reach the town and ask a poo her lady for shelter for few days in turn of which they will pay her. Lady agrees for the same. They try to find the details about the girl from her. Lady recognizes that they are talking about daughter of the dentist Padmavati. They request her to arrange for a meeting. She goes to Padmavati for arranging a meeting. Padmavati in turn gives another puzzle to solve where she puts mark of her four fingers which are dipped in sandal. Bhadramukut is confused again to see the puzzle and asks his friend for assistance. He after analyzing tells him that sandal means Chandan and 4 marks is equivalent to Chaturthi in Hindi. So, she must be saying to visit her on full moon Chaturthi which is after 4 days. So, you should go and visit her on 4th day from now. Prince is happy and on 4th day he visits the girl. Both of them are happy to see each other.

Couple of days pass but Bhadramukut does not return. While waiting for him, his friend comes across a strange incident. He sees a woman being exiled from the town as she was found characterless by the king. However, he continues to wonder about the whereabouts of his friend. He decides to visit Padmavati’s place. He goes there and asks them that they should get married as they like each other. They take this proposal to the girl’s father who says he can’t marry them as king likes Padmavati and he wants to marry her. They are shattered to hear that.

Prince’s friend decides to help him and goes to Padmavati’s home in disguise. He steals her jewelry and runs from there. King is angry on his court men for not being able to catch theif when the same sage comes to court and tells that he wants to sell this jewelry. He lies to them that it was given to him by an angel who appeared before him while he was doing meditation. She wanted to marry him. On listening this king gets very angry and deposes Padmavati from the town telling that she is characterless. Padmavati and her father try to persuade king about her innocence but he doesn’t listen to them. Padmavati is left at the outskirts of the town where both Bhadramukut and his friend are waiting for her. On seeing Bhadramukut, girl is happy and both get married.

At this point, Vetala asks Vikrama to tell who has committed the biggest sin in this story - Bhadramukut, his friend or the king? Vikrama replies king has committed the biggest sin as he did not try to investigate the matter. Bhadramukut really loved the girl and his friend did all this to unite them. So, king has committed biggest sin. Vetala is happy with Vikrama’s answer but he again flies back to his abode telling that he could not keep quite. Vikrama runs behind him again to catch him.

Moral: A friend in need is a friend indeed.