Week 6 Storytelling: Vyasa And The Bean Stalk

Vyasa And The Bean Stalk

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away lived a boy known as Vyasa. He was only thirteen years of age and lived with his parents in a small house in Hastinapura and grew up very underprivileged. Vyasa was a great author and wrote all kinds of stories, but was particularly known for the Mahabharata, which was a very important epic among the Indian community.

A horrible winter storm once hit the town of Hastinapura (where Vyasa resided with his parents) and his mother got so sick from the flu, due to all the germs being blown around. The only remedy that could cure her was known as Kadha, which required herbs, spices, cloves and ginger; so one morning she said to her son, “Vyasa, I am extremely sick and feeble, so you must please take money from the box that is stashed under the stove and go to the spice market for me and get all the ingredients necessary to make Kadha.” Vyasa did not like to go to the market, because he was too busy working on his next novel, but since his mother was so sick, he knew he had to hurry and not waste any time. His mother told him that he could ask one of the five Pandava brothers to help him finish his novel, but he did not think that they were worthy of such an important task. In fact, he trusted no one and could not think of a single person to be trusted with this important, delicate undertaking. This novel was way too important to him, as it contained everything there was to know about things on heaven and earth. 

As Vyasa was on his way to the market, he met Brahma -the god who created knowledge and the universe -who had a few beautiful, shiny beans in his hands. Vyasa stopped to look at them, and the Brahmin told him that they were of great value, and tried persuading him to buy them. At first, the boy was very hesitant and explained to Brahma why he could not buy the beans. “You see, Brahma, my mother is extremely ill from the flu and I need to get to the spice market to buy her the ingredients to make Kadha so that she can get better and take care of me and my father. I am so sorry, but I just cannot buy your beans.” 

Brahma told Vyasa that he knew about the novel that he was writing and said, “I know where you can find the perfect scribe, worthy of knowing and explaining everything there is about things on heaven and earth.” Vyasa’s eyes lit up from happiness and he demanded to know where such a person was. “Her name is Ganesha – remover of obstacles. The only way to get to her is by planting these beans and waiting two days for it to grow.” Vyasa was so desperate and immediately exchanged the beans for the money. 

When he brought them home to his mother, instead of the Kadha ingredients, she was very annoyed, reprimanding her son for his recklessness. He was very sorry and his mother took the beans and tossed them out of their bedroom window and sent Vyasa to bed. Three days later, he found that the beans had grown, till the bean stalks reached over the top of the mountains. “I wonder if Ganesha truly is up there,” said the boy to himself. “There is only one way to find out!” And so Vyasa grabbed his pen, writing pad and a gift for Ganesha and started climbing the bean stalk.

He climbed for a long time and became tired real quick. So after resting for a moment he went on, and at last reached the top of the bean stalk and found himself staring at an unfamiliar place. While Vyasa was observing the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out and advanced towards him. Vyasa took off his hat to the old lady, and she said, pointing to the castle, “Welcome to the Chedi kingdom. Ganesha is expecting you. Follow me and I will take you to her.” Vyasa was surprised and wondered how on earth this lady knew that he wanted to converse with Ganesha. With a confused, yet happy face, he followed the lady into the big castle. They climbed up the stairs to a dark, quiet room, where Ganesha was sitting on a royal carpet in the middle of the floor. 

“Ganesha, deva of wisdom, I heard that you are invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions and I humbly come to you, in dire need of your assistance,” said Vyasa with a soft voice, in the hopes of not disturbing her. 

“Yes…I am the most worshiped deity around and have profuse knowledge about writing. How may I be of help to you?” Vyasa strenuously sat down next to the elephant- headed deity and started telling her all about his novel – that he trusted no one with the highly skilled task.

...To Be Continued.... 

 Boy Climbing A Bean Stalk. Source: Wikimedia 

 Author's note: For this week's story, I decided to focus on the Mahabharata - Vyasa and Ganesha. In the original story, Vyasa did not trust anybody with helping him write the Mahabharata and so Brahma appeared to him and told him to go to Ganesha for help. He did so and Ganesha agreed to help him, on the condition that he does not stop writing. Kadha is a natural remedy used to cure sore throats, colds and the flu. According to an article I found, Kadha means "herbal tea". More information and the recipe for it can be found by clicking on the following link: Kadha.
I decided to give the characters different roles and flipped Ganesha's gender into a female version. After reading the story, it inspired me to use the background of Jack and the beanstalk. Vyasa took on the role of Jack and he had to climb the beanstalk in order to get to Ganesha. My story ended where Jack finally got to the top of the beanstalk, met Ganesha and told her the reason for being there. I left out the story of his birth, because I can use that section to write my next story. 

Bibliography:PDE Mahabharata: Vyasa and Ganesha
Jack And The Beanstalk story from Wikipedia