Legales

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The Princess Farmer
A Bhili folktale

Kansari was the daughter of a powerful king. Although she was a princess, she had always wanted to be a farmer when she was a child. Thismade her father angry, and when she grew up, her father ordered her to leave the palace.”I want you to experience how difficult life is outside this palace. Only then will you come to your senses,” hesaid angrily. So Kansari packed the seeds that she had collected throughout her childhood, and went to live in the woods.She built a little hut and began planting seeds in the nearby field. It washard work, but Kansari had help from her three new friends: a cat, a parrot and a spider. The cat hunted rats in the field. The spider took care of the hut. The parrot flew around the kingdom and broughtback the latest news. They all became good friends and lived together happily. It wasn’t long before everyone in the kingdom was talking about Kansari’s lush farm. This made the king furious and hewent to Indra, the king of the gods. The king requested Indra to help him, as he wanted to teach his daughter a lesson. “Leave it to me. I’ll send down a drought. All the crops will dry up and die,”said Indra. The parrot heard this and quickly recounted it to Kansari. Kansari and her friends then moved their crops to a damp riverbed. When the drought took place, all the crops in the kingdom driedup, but Kansari’s crops survived.

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Indra saw this and scratched his head.”I’ll send down a flood. That should stop Kansari,” he said. But again, the parrot overheard Indra. Thistime, Kansari, along with her friends, planted their crops on the slope of a hill. When the flood came, it drowned all the crops in the kingdom. Kansari’s crops were the only ones that survived,because the excess water simply flowed downhill. “I’ll send hundreds of rats!” Indra decided. But the parrot told the cat of Indra’s plan. “Wonderful! I’ll call my cat friends for a feast!” purred the...