Life’s Secret

A certain king had two queens, the Duo queen and the Suo queen, and neither of them had any children. One day a faquir, a wandering holy beggar, came to the palace gate asking for alms. The Suo queen went out to him with a handful of rice. The holy man asked if she had any children, and when she said no, he would not take her gift, because he regarded a childless woman’s hands as ceremonially unclean, a prejudice in the story. Instead he offered her a medicine to cure her childlessness. She gladly accepted it, and he told her what to do.

“Swallow this with the juice of a pomegranate flower,” he said, “and in time you will have a son. He will be wonderfully handsome, with skin the colour of the pomegranate flower, and you must name him Dalim Kumar. Since there will be enemies who try to take his life, I may as well tell you this too: the boy’s life will be bound up with the life of a big boal fish that lives in the tank in front of the palace. In the fish’s heart is a little wooden box, in the box is a gold necklace, and that necklace is your son’s life. Farewell.”

A month or so later, people in the palace began whispering that the Suo queen was expecting an heir. The king was overjoyed. He dreamed of a son to follow him on the throne and a long line of mighty kings carrying on his family for generations, and he was happier than he had ever been. All the usual ceremonies were held with great splendour, and his subjects celebrated loudly at the thought of a prince being born. When the time came, the Suo queen gave birth to a boy of extraordinary beauty. The first time the king looked at the baby’s face, his heart leapt. The ceremony of the child’s first rice was held with tremendous pomp, and the whole kingdom rejoiced.

Dalim Kumar grew into a fine boy. Of all his games he loved playing with pigeons best, and this often brought him into contact with his stepmother, the Duo queen, because his pigeons had a habit of flying into her rooms. The first time they did, she handed them back at once. The second time she gave them back less willingly. The truth was that she had seen how the pigeons kept flying her way, and she wanted to use it for her own ends. She hated the boy, because ever since he was born the king had ignored her more than ever and doted on Dalim’s lucky mother. Somehow, no one knows how, she had heard that the holy man who gave the Suo queen that famous pill had also told her a secret about the child’s life. She had heard that his life was tied to something, though she did not know what, and she made up her mind to get the secret out of the boy. So the next time the pigeons flew into her rooms, she would not let them go.

“I won’t give you your pigeons unless you tell me one thing,” she said.

“What thing, mother?” asked Dalim.

“Nothing much, my darling. I only want to know where your life is.”

“What do you mean, mother? Where could my life be except inside me?”

“No, child, that’s not what I mean. A holy man told your mother that your life is tied up with something. I want to know what it is.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that, mother.”

“If you promise to ask your mother what your life is kept in, and then tell me what she says, you may have your pigeons. Otherwise you may not.”

“All right, I’ll ask her and tell you. Now please give me my pigeons.”

“I’ll give them to you on one more condition. Promise you won’t tell your mother that I want to know.”

“I promise.”

The Duo queen let the pigeons go, and Dalim was so happy to have his beloved birds back that he forgot every word of the conversation. But the next day the pigeons flew into her rooms again. When Dalim went to fetch them, his stepmother asked for the information. The boy promised to ask his mother that very day and begged her to let the birds go, and in the end she did. After his games Dalim went to his mother and said, “Mother, please tell me what my life is kept in.”

“What do you mean, child?” said his mother, utterly astonished at such a strange question.

“Yes, mother. I’ve heard that a holy man told you my life is kept inside something. Tell me what it is.”

“My pet, my darling, my treasure, my golden moon, don’t ask such an unlucky question,” his mother pleaded. “May my enemies’ mouths be stuffed with ashes, and may my Dalim live for ever.” But the boy kept insisting. He said he would not eat or drink a thing until she told him. Worn down by her son’s pestering, the Suo queen, in an unlucky hour, told him the secret of his life. The very next day, as fate would have it, the pigeons flew into the Duo queen’s rooms again. Dalim went to get them, and his stepmother coaxed him with honeyed words until she had the secret.

Once she knew it, the Duo queen wasted no time putting her wicked plan into action. She had her maids bring her some dried hemp stalks, which are very brittle and make a crackling sound when pressed, rather like the joints of a person’s bones cracking. She laid the stalks under her bed, lay down on top of them, and announced that she was dangerously ill. The king did not love her as much as his other queen, but it was his duty to visit her when she was sick. She pretended that all her bones were cracking, and sure enough, whenever she rolled from one side of the bed to the other, the hemp stalks made exactly the right noise. Believing she was seriously ill, the king sent his best physician to her. But the physician was in league with her. He told the king there was only one cure for the queen’s illness: something found inside a big boal fish in the tank in front of the palace had to be applied to her body.

So the king’s fisherman was called and told to catch that fish, and he caught it with his first cast of the net. Now Dalim Kumar happened to be playing with some other boys not far from the tank. The instant the fish was caught in the net, Dalim felt ill, and when it was pulled out onto the bank, he collapsed on the ground as if he were about to die. He was carried at once to his mother’s room, and the king was shocked to hear that his son and heir had suddenly fallen ill. On the physician’s orders the fish was taken into the Duo queen’s room, and while it lay on the floor flapping its fins, the people in the Suo queen’s room gave Dalim up for lost. When the fish was cut open, a box was found inside, and in the box lay a gold necklace. The moment the Duo queen put the necklace on, Dalim died in his mother’s room.

When the king heard that his son and heir was dead, he was plunged into a sea of sorrow, and the news that the Duo queen had recovered did nothing to ease it. He wept so bitterly over Dalim that his courtiers feared he would lose his mind for good. He would not let his son’s body be buried or burned. He could not accept that the boy was dead; it had happened so suddenly and for no reason at all. He had the body taken to one of his garden houses on the edge of the city and laid out there in state. He ordered all kinds of food to be stored in the house, as if the young prince might want something to eat. The house was to be kept locked day and night, and nobody was to go in except Dalim’s closest friend, the son of the king’s chief minister. He was given the key and allowed to go in once every twenty-four hours.

Because the Suo queen lived alone in her grief, the king now spent all his nights with the Duo queen. To avoid suspicion, she used to take the gold necklace off at night. And fate had decreed that Dalim should be dead only while the necklace was around the queen’s neck; whenever she took it off, he came back to life. So every night, when the Duo queen put the necklace aside, Dalim revived, and every morning, when she put it on again, he died. During his nights of life he ate whatever he liked from the great store of food in the garden house, wandered about the grounds, and puzzled over his strange fate.

His friend, who came only in the daytime, always found him lying there lifeless. But after some days something struck him as very odd: the body looked exactly as it had on the first day. It showed no sign of decay at all. Apart from being pale and lifeless, it seemed perfectly fresh. Unable to explain this, he decided to watch the body more closely and to come not only by day but sometimes at night as well. On the very first night he came, he was amazed to see his dead friend strolling in the garden. At first he thought it must be Dalim’s ghost, but when he touched him and looked him over, he found that he was real flesh and blood. Dalim told his friend everything that had happened around his death, and together they worked out that he came back to life at night only because the Duo queen took off her necklace when the king visited her. Since the prince’s life depended on the necklace, the two friends put their heads together to think of some way to get hold of it. Night after night they talked it over, but they could not come up with any plan that would work. In the end the gods set Dalim free in a wonderful way.

Some years before, the sister of Bidhata-Purusha, the god who writes each person’s fate on their forehead, had given birth to a daughter. The anxious mother asked her brother what he had written on her baby’s forehead, and Bidhata-Purusha told her that the girl would marry a dead bridegroom. The mother was wild with grief at such a dismal fate, but she knew there was no use arguing, because her brother never changed anything he had once written. As the girl grew, she became extremely beautiful, but her mother could take no joy in her because of the fate her divine brother had given her. When her daughter was old enough to marry, the mother decided to flee the country with her and so escape that terrible destiny. But fate is not so easily outrun. In the course of their wanderings, mother and daughter came to the gate of the very garden house where Dalim Kumar lay.

It was evening. The girl said she was thirsty and wanted water. Her mother told her to sit by the gate while she went to look for drinking water at a hut nearby. While she was gone, the girl, out of curiosity, pushed the garden-house door, and it swung open by itself. She went in and saw a beautiful palace, and was just meaning to come out again when the door shut by itself, so that she could not get out. As night fell, the prince came back to life. Walking about, he noticed someone near the gate. He went over and found a girl of dazzling beauty. When he asked who she was, she told him her whole short story: how her uncle, the god Bidhata-Purusha, had written on her forehead at birth that she would marry a dead bridegroom; how her mother had found no happiness in life because of it; how, as the girl grew up, her mother had left home with her to escape that fate and wandered from place to place; how they had come to the garden-house gate; and how her mother had now gone to find her water.

When Dalim Kumar heard her simple, sad story, he said, “I am the dead bridegroom, and you must marry me. Come with me into the house.”

“How can you be a dead bridegroom when you’re standing here talking to me?” said the girl.

“You’ll understand later,” said the prince. “Come with me now.” She followed him into the house, and since she had eaten nothing all day, he gave her food and looked after her kindly. As for her mother, the sister of the god Bidhata-Purusha, she came back to the gate after dark, called and called for her daughter, and getting no answer, went off to search the nearby huts. They say she was never seen anywhere again.

While Bidhata-Purusha’s niece was enjoying Dalim Kumar’s hospitality, his friend arrived as usual. He was astonished to see the lovely stranger, and even more astonished when he heard her story from her own lips. They decided then and there that the young couple should be married that very night. There was no question of fetching priests, so they were married in the Gandharva way. Then the bridegroom’s friend said goodbye to the newlyweds and went home.

Because the happy couple had stayed awake most of the night, the sun was high before they woke. Or rather, the young wife woke, for the prince had become a cold corpse; life had left him. You can imagine how she felt. She shook her husband and kissed his cold lips, but it was no use; he was as lifeless as a marble statue. Horrified, she beat her breast, struck her forehead with her palms, tore her hair, and wandered through the house and garden like someone out of her mind. Dalim’s friend did not come in during the day, because he thought it would not be right to visit her while her husband lay dead. To the poor girl the day seemed as long as a year. But even the longest day ends, and as the evening shadows fell, her dead husband came back to himself. He got up, took his grieving wife in his arms, ate, drank and was cheerful. His friend arrived as usual, and they spent the whole night in fun and feasting. In this way, moving between life and death, the prince and his wife lived for seven or eight years, and in that time the princess gave her husband two lovely boys who looked exactly like their father.

The king, the two queens and the rest of the royal household, of course, had no idea that Dalim Kumar was alive, at least at night. They all believed he had died long ago and that his body had been burned. But Dalim’s wife longed to see her mother-in-law, whom she had never met, and she thought of a plan that might let her not only see her mother-in-law but also get hold of the Duo queen’s necklace, on which her husband’s life depended. With the agreement of her husband and his friend, she disguised herself as a woman barber. For the disguise, she carried a bundle holding an iron tool for paring nails, another for scraping hard skin from the soles of the feet, a piece of burnt brick for rubbing the soles, and alakta, the red dye for painting the edges of the feet and toes.

With this bundle in her hand and her two boys beside her, she went and stood at the gate of the king’s palace. She said she was a barber and asked to see the Suo queen, who agreed at once. The queen was delighted with the two little boys, who, she said, reminded her strongly of her darling Dalim Kumar. Tears poured down her face as she remembered her lost treasure, but naturally she had no idea that these little boys were her own Dalim’s sons. She told the supposed barber that she had no need of her services, because since her son’s death she had given up all worldly vanities, including dyeing her feet red. Still, she said, she would be glad to see her and her fine boys now and then.

The woman barber, as we must now call her, then went to the Duo queen’s rooms and offered her services. The queen let her pare her nails, scrape her feet and paint them with alakta, and was so pleased with her skill and her sweet manner that she told her to come and attend her regularly. The barber noticed, with no small anxiety, the necklace around the queen’s neck.

When the day of her second visit came, she told her elder son to start crying loudly in the palace and not stop until he had the Duo queen’s necklace in his hands. So on the appointed day she went again to the Duo queen’s rooms, and while she was painting the queen’s feet, the elder boy began to howl. When they asked him why he was crying, he said, as he had been told, that he wanted the queen’s necklace. The queen said she could not possibly give up that particular necklace, because it was the finest and most precious of all her jewels. But to please the child she took it off and put it in his hand. The boy stopped crying and held the necklace tight.

When the barber had finished her work and was getting ready to go, the queen asked for the necklace back. But the boy would not let it go. When his mother tried to pull it from him, he sobbed as though his heart would break. So the barber said, “Would Your Majesty be so kind as to let the boy take the necklace home with him? When he falls asleep after his milk, as he surely will within the hour, I’ll bring it carefully back to you.” Seeing that the boy would not let it be taken from him, the queen agreed, especially since Dalim, whose life depended on it, had gone to the land of the dead long ago.

Now that she had the treasure on which her husband’s life depended, the woman hurried breathlessly to the garden house and gave the necklace to Dalim, who had come back to life. Their joy was boundless, and on their friend’s advice they decided to go to the palace in state the next day and present themselves to the king and the Suo queen. Everything was made ready: a richly decorated elephant for Prince Dalim Kumar, a pair of ponies for the two little boys, and a covered litter hung with gold-lace curtains for the princess. A message was sent to the king and the Suo queen that Prince Dalim Kumar was not only alive but was coming to visit his royal parents with his wife and sons. The king and the Suo queen could hardly believe it, but when they were assured it was true, they were beside themselves with joy, while the Duo queen, expecting all her schemes to come to light, was overcome with dread.

Dalim Kumar’s procession, with a band of musicians, came up to the palace gate, and the king and the Suo queen went out to meet their long-lost son. Their joy needs no describing. They threw their arms around one another and wept. Then Dalim told them everything that had happened around his death. The king, blazing with anger, had the Duo queen brought before him, and he had her put to death for what she had done.

About this tale

“Life’s Secret” is the first story in Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day, whose preface is dated 1883. Day describes a two-queen pattern in his notes, represented here by the elder, called duo, meaning not loved, and the younger, called suo, meaning loved. Dalim means pomegranate and kumara son, and Bidhata-Purusha is the god who writes a summary of each child’s fate on its forehead on the sixth day after birth.

Day heard his stories in Bengali and translated them himself. He credits a Bengali Christian woman with ten stories, learned from her grandmother in childhood; he also names two Brahman informants, an old barber and one of his own servants. This story ends in the book with a Bengali storyteller’s closing rhyme about the withering Natiya-thorn. Day describes the Duo queen’s punishment in harsh detail; this page states it briefly.

Read the original: Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day (Project Gutenberg ebook 38488)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult preview; a long tale of daily magical death, deception in marriage, separation from a parent and execution. Discuss its childlessness stigma and the bride’s lack of information.

A closer reading

The secret passes through a chain of pressure: the Duo queen withholds pigeons, Dalim refuses food until his mother explains, and the answer reaches someone who wants to harm him. Later his wife reverses the pattern. A child’s demand for a treasured object again makes an adult yield, but this time the object is the necklace itself and the result is rescue.

The friend’s discovery depends on changing when he looks. Repeated daytime visits provide the same misleading evidence; a night visit reveals what those observations miss. His care matters, but the wife devises the successful recovery. Her contribution deserves attention alongside the narrator’s credit to the gods.

The marriage is troubling as well as magical: the bride is not told the full day-and-night condition before marrying, and her own searching mother disappears from the story. A happy reunion for Dalim’s family does not resolve every character’s loss. The faquir’s treatment of childlessness is also a belief to question, not a measure of anyone’s worth.

Try this with the story

Make two chains: pigeon to secret to necklace to death, and child to necklace to return to life. Mark each person’s knowledge at every step. Then identify one question the bride should have been able to ask before the wedding.

Think about it

• How does withholding the pigeons help the Duo queen obtain the secret?
• What changes when the friend visits at night?
• How does Dalim’s wife reverse the earlier use of a child’s demands?
• Whose loss remains unresolved when Dalim’s family is reunited?

More stories like this

• The Boy Whom Seven Mothers Suckled — a cruel queen and a hidden prince in Day’s book
• The Boy with the Moon on His Forehead — jealous queens and a stolen heir
• The Story of a Hiraman — jealous queens plot against a king’s beloved pet bird