The Curse Of The Queen

The Queen waded into the waters, offering herself and the jewel as gifts to the Gods in return for the power of the eternal curse. “May Talakadu become sand, Malingi a whirlpool and may the Mysore Rajas never beget heirs,” she commanded as the waters swallowed her whole.

                                                   (Picture courtesy google images-Darn, How could I forget to photograph "historic sand !?")

That was the image that remained with me as we wandered rather aimlessly over sand dunes in Talakadu after hearing the story for the first time.  Yes, a lot of the story was lost in translation but in retrospect that was the beauty of it all as my version of the story was possible simply because of it.  I suppose I should have been paying more attention to all the talk about temples buried beneath the sand but soldiers, war, kings, queens and curses were more my cup of tea.  

Once upon a time there was a King and a Queen. The Queen was the fairest in the land (Sounds like a fairy tale all right.) which was why the King of Mysore wanted her for himself (OMG, Troy reincarnated!?). Fate was on his side as word had it that the old King was grievously ill (Uh oh, mortality can be cruel indeed.).  Overcome by lust he declared war on the Kingdom of Talakadu.  His band of warriors marched on to capture the fair prize (What’s that I hear about precious jewels?).  Not only was the Queen beautiful, she also possessed a rare jewel that was the pride of the Kingdom(Okay, is this about the jewel or the Queen? Troy was about Helen, right? Then again, it might actually have been about treasure. Oh  goodie, back on track with this being “The Indian Troy”. *sigh of relief* ).  The Queen knew that it was now or never (Ah, now this is where the story veers away from  the path of Troy and the fair Helen.) and took it upon herself to save her virtue( Did they just say that she was wearing a white sari or was that my imagination? Blame it on the sun and the sand but the thin line between myth and its re-telling seem to be blurring at a rapid pace here.) , the jewel and the Kingdom by uttering her now legendary three-fold curse.

The rest as they say is history or in this case a bit of a mystery.  A mystery that had yours truly salivating over sand dunes for chrissakes.  I can’t believe I’d never thought to dig deeper into the origins of the third part of the curse as that’s common knowledge to most of us. Then again, if I had, I wonder if the pulse of the scorching sand would have been the same.  Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

Reality Check

Once I’d gotten over the sun, sand and saliva I approached my good friend Wikipedia who told me to get over my fantasy and replace beautiful queens, lust and virtue with a jewel. All right then, so you can take my myth away from me but you can’t take away the fact that I walked all over a not-so-lost and buried city: not the first person , nor the last, just one among a million who made that pilgrimage to Talakadu; temples for them, the sands of time for me.