The Talented Brothers

Sham S. Misri

Vikram and Betal is based on Betal Pachisi, written nearly 2,500 years ago by Somadeva Bhatt. These are spellbinding stories told to the wise King Vikramaditya by the crafty ghost Betal.

At the beginning of the frame story, Vikramaditya king of Ujjain receives, among other visitors, a mendicant who presents the king a fruit on every visit. In the fruits are later discovered orbs of ruby. Upon this discovery, the king resolves to visit the mendicant, who arranges a meeting under a banyan tree in a cremation ground beyond the city, at night, on the 14th day of the dark half of the month. At the meeting, the mendicant requests that Vikramaditya bring him a corpse suspended from another tree, with which the mendicant might achieve occult power.

Upon Vikramaditya doing so, the corpse is identified as Betal, the vampire, who narrates a story to the king, concluding that Vikramaditya must answer a moral question pertaining to the story's characters, on pain of his own death; and upon his answering the question, Betal returns to his tree. This sequence repeats 25 times until Betal reveals the mendicant's plan was to kill the king after obtaining power from Betal himself. Thus forewarned, Vikramaditya kills the mendicant after their meeting. One such story is as follows:

As Vikram carried Betal on his back, he narrated another story. Two very talented brothers, Som and Mangal, lived in the kingdom of Jaisingh. The first one had very powerful eyesight and the second one had a strong sense of smell. King Jaisingh made them his guards.

One day, the neighbouring king invited Jaisingh to his kingdom. Jaisingh saw that there was a risk to his life, so he took the two brothers with him. After a grand dinner, Jaisingh was taken to his bedroom. As he was about to go to sleep, Som spotted a thorn on his bed. When Mangal smelled the thorn he said that it was poisonous and if Jaisingh had slept on it, he would have died. Betal asked Vikram, "Which brother was more talented?" Vikram answered, "Som was more talented because his talent saved the king's life." Betal said "This is the right answer." He flew away because Vikram had spoken.