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Then the third queen, Mrigankavati, concerned for the king’s emotional state, set out to meet him. The cool rays of the moon (a cliché in Sanskrit) were enough to give her blisters! Her attendants had to treat her with delicate sandal paste and a soft bed of lotus leaves. We’ve all had a bad case of sunburn some time, but Taravali holds the unique distinction of having experienced ‘moonburn’. It was a cool night, and the breeze blew Taravali’s veil aside, exposing her delicate self to the rays of the moon. He went on the terrace with her and retired by her side. The king was distraught, so of course he sought the company of Taravali to console him. Indulekha was so sensitive that she fainted from pain! The royal physicians had to be summoned to bandage the wound that the lotus caused and treat her with every royal ointment they had. Once, the king was sitting by the side of his first queen, Indulekha, when a blue lotus that she had tucked behind her ear fell on her thighs. King Dharmadhvaja had three beautiful queens: Indulekha, Taravali, and Mrigankavati. Vikram carried Betal over his shoulders, and Betal, who liked his entertainment, much as we all do, launched into a story. Well, wait till you hear the story of King Dharmadhvaja’s queens. We all know the story of the Princess and the Pea, in which an innocent pea tucked beneath the cushions causes a delicate princess a night of sleeplessness and bruises on the back. But we live in unprecedented times when incumbents blatantly refuse to concede elections and instead take to ranting on Twitter.īut let us forget that for a moment and turn to a handy tale from the Vikram-Betal collection. The Raghuvamsha has a memorable passage: King Dilipa hands over the throne to his young son and retires to the forest with the queen because, Kalidasa tells us, “This is the family tradition of the Ikshvaku kings.” Granted, in a democratic republic, officials no longer hand over charge to their own children (or so it is supposed to be), but usually to someone their own age, and more often than not, to someone equally attached to power.