- We all know the waters as the other.
The water world is an alien place full of danger.
But what if we reached out to each other
across these different dimensions of water and land?
(water lapping rocks)
I'm Gauri Raje.
I'm a Scottish Indian storyteller,
and I live not far from the banks,
these shores of Loch Lomond,
and I'm going to bring you a story today
from the place I was born,
the desert lands of Western India.
And the story goes something like this.
(water lapping rocks)
(instrument strumming)
(Gauri speaking in foreign language)
Shakambari Jheel,
Shakambari Lake in Western India was in turmoil.
If you were on land, you could hear the waves
rustle and roll up.
Deep inside the lake,
the king of the lake had just issued an order.
Nobody is to go outside this lake.
Nobody is to put a head outside or look up.
Every day his subjects were disappearing,
hauled out of the waters.
And just as a precaution,
he put his son, the prince, Prince Meenakar,
on guard duty.
Guard duty for his daughter, Princess Meenakshi,
she of the fish eyes.
"Make sure you keep a watch on her."
"Let her not go outside this garden."
"She is due to get married in two days anyway."
Princess Meenakshi, she was restless.
She wanted to explore the lake, her father's kingdom,
and she didn't like the proposition
that her father was going to marry her off to
a still, unmoving being in her father's garden.
It was a statue, a stone statue.
Princess Meenakar, he watched over his sister the first day,
but he was just a young lad,
and all day, his sister, well she did nothing,
and he was so bored.
So he slunk away to play with the crabs.
Princess Meenakshi, when she saw her brother leave
and her father busy in the marriage celebrations,
she slunk out of that garden.
She looked up,
and she saw something she had never seen before.
From the top of the lake,
there was a glistening and a glinting,
several shiny objects hung down,
and they made this curious sound.
(spoon clanking)
She couldn't help it.
She picked up a shell
and began to cut the line that held the shiny object.
And then two, three,
and by the time she returned home,
she had a fistful of fishermen's hooks
that glinted in the light
through the waters of the lake,
and she hung them outside her door.
But her father, the next morning, was furious.
"Your brother didn't watch over you, did he?"
And he called Prince Meenakar,
and he exiled him out of the kingdom.
Prince Meenakar was furious.
He left the waters in a huff.
He walked from the waters onto land
and went straight to the king of the city on that land.
He sought a job with the king,
and when the king looked at this being
that had come out of the waters, and he saw his bearing,
he looked royal.
The king was pleased,
and soon the young boy became a ward,
and then before he knew it, he was advising the king.
And one of the things he told the king
was about his sister in the water worlds.
He missed her.
The king heard the descriptions of Princess Meenakshi,
and he was enamored.
He wanted to know this princess of the water world.
And so they devised a plan.
Now you know that Princess Meenakshi, she was married.
She was married to the statue,
and it was the most boring marriage ever.
The statue said nothing to her.
And it was like she wasn't married at all.
One morning when she looked out of the window
of her bed chamber at the usual statue,
just beyond that she saw another statue,
and it was the likeness of her husband,
but something was moving.
It's hand had moved.
And so she went there,
and then she saw third and a fourth and a fifth statue
leading her towards the shoreline
till she had followed the statues onto land.
And when she arrived,
there, sitting by a rock, was the king of the city.
He was like the waters itself.
He was fluid, each movement of his hand.
His eyes darted around here and there,
and then looked deeply into her eyes, drinking her in.
And his mouth moved and sounds came out of it.
Oh, he had so many things to tell her.
He wanted to know about her.
And they began to talk.
As days went by,
they fell in love with each other, deeply, deeply in love,
and she felt like she was back in the waters of her home.
And she knew this would be her new home.
So she accepted.
She was so happy to see her brother there as well.
And it was like, all she needed now was her father.
And when she sent him a wedding invitation,
the waters of the lake, they didn't lap onto land.
There was a huge storm that blew up in that lake.
His son and his daughter had betrayed him completely.
And the storm carried on for days and days and days.
But maybe the love for children is stronger than anger.
And by and by, the storm abated,
and the water began to lap onto the shore once more.
And this time, when Princess Meenakshi
looked out of her bed chamber towards the lake,
and there she saw her father,
the king of the lake, emerging,
and she ran into his arms.
She called her brother,
and it was such a happy union,
reunion.
By and by, the king of the Shakambari Lake
left his lake to live with his son and daughter,
and behind him came all the creatures of the waters.
Today they say there are very few fishes under that lake,
but in the city next to the lake
are some of the best swimmers.
And they don't just swim well.
They swim as if they know these waters,
as if the water was their home.
(water lapping rocks)
And the people of land and the people of water are one.
(water lapping rocks)