Week 5 Storytelling: Vindhya’s Blanket Fort

Little Vindhya watched his big brother Himalaya pile pillows on top of pillows on top of blankets on top of pillows. The young boys were watching a movie together when Himalaya suddenly decided to demonstrate his architecture expertise in the form of a blanket fort. Using couch cushions, bed pillows, and some stray blankets, Himalaya built a soft dome in front of the television. Vindhya hardly even noticed what he was doing until Himalaya took his favorite baby blanket from him. He started to throw a fit, but when Himalaya invited him into the fort, he was too excited to remember his blanket was now part of a sub-roof.

Their sisters, Chandra and Surya, were playing upstairs. So proud of his work, Himalaya called them down to see it. The two of them squealed with delight as they ran down the stairs and beheld the little citadel. Unable to contain their amusement, they continued to run, making circles around the fort over and over again until they grew tired and fell asleep on the floor. Vindhya was a bit jealous that their sisters were so enthralled with Himalaya’s playtime achievement.

Their father Agastya came home later that night, and he was surprised to find the girls asleep and Vindhya and Himalaya playing in the fort.

“Wow, you guys! This is great! Who built this?” he asked them, smiling as he began to lift the sleeping girls.

“I built it. All on my own,” Himalaya quickly replied, beaming and swelling with pride.

“That is fantastic, Himalaya. You’d make an excellent engineer,” his father told him with a solid pat on the back.

As Vindhya looked on, he grew jealous of the attention his brother was earning. Agastya carried the girls upstairs to their bedrooms, his sons trailing behind. As Vindhya shuffled into bed, he kept thinking about Himalaya’s living room castle. Agastya came to tuck him in, and Vindhya tried to quickly come up with something to brag about.

“Dad, I stayed awake for the whole movie!” he exclaimed.

“Well… that’s good, I suppose,” Agastya told him. The impassive response was not what Vindhya was hoping for. “But you know,” his father continued, “little boys need their sleep, and it’s pretty late.” A bedtime reminder made him feel even worse when Himalaya was getting the praise of a grown-up engineer.

So after he was sure everyone in the house was asleep, Vindhya set to work trying to best his big brother. Just to be sure his own creation would not go unnoticed, he set his foundation directly at the base of the staircase. He dragged chairs, comforters, bedsheets, and anything else he could find to the stairs and spent the whole night constructing his masterpiece.

When he finished, he was tremendously pleased to see that the fort he built was far bigger than Himalaya’s. It was so big he couldn’t even pass it to get down the stairs! Finally satisfied that he was just as talented as his brother, he tiredly trudged back to his bed and fell asleep.

He woke up several hours later to the sounds of Chandra and Surya’s screams and whines. He mistook them for sounds of delight, so he enthusiastically ran out to meet them and accept their praise. Agastya was standing with them at the top of the stairs. Chandra and Surya complained to him that they couldn’t get downstairs, but they were starving and they needed their eggs and cereal. They saw Vindhya, and they began yelling at him for trapping them all upstairs, thoroughly shocking the poor boy who was expecting congratulations. He had wholly believed they were going to run around his fort and play in it, just as they did with Himalaya’s. Vindhya’s surprise led to indignance, and he refused to take down what took so much effort to build.

Agastya knew that Vindhya was only getting frustrated. Clever as any father, he knew how to persuade his little boy toward compliance without being too demanding or too disapproving.

He told him, “Vindhya, that is a very nice fort you built.” At this, the boy started to smile. “However, before I can play in it with you, I have to go downstairs and get some things,” Agastya continued. “Do you think you could dismantle it just as long as I’m downstairs? Then when I come back upstairs, you can put it right back together.”

Eager to please his father, Vindhya readily agreed, and he began deconstruction immediately. As part of his strategy, Agastya stayed downstairs all day long. With every desire to obey Agastya, Vindhya patiently waited with his heap of blankets until late in the evening. He grew tired while he was waiting, and because of his lost hours of sleep the night before, it wasn’t long before he fell asleep amongst the pillows. Agastya picked him up and tucked him into bed. He put away all of the blankets and chairs.

By the next day, Vindhya and Himalaya had moved on to the next fun activity, and they had forgotten all about the forts. The staircase remained safe passage for all who cared to climb it.

(Statue of Agastya. Web Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Author’s Note:
      I really liked the story of Agastya and the Vindhya Hills in this week’s reading. In it, the hills are jealous of the Himalaya mountains, so they grow very tall until they are blocking passage through the area, and even until they are blocking the sun and the moon. The sage Agastya tricks Vindhya to shrink back down to size.
     The last four stories I told were just further explorations into what was already presented in Buck’s and Narayan’s versions of the Ramayana. This week, I wanted to try something different and tell the stories with reinterpretations of the characters and setting. So I scaled the mountains down to something more personally familiar --- blanket forts. I thought it would make the story relatable if the Vindhya Hills and the Himalayas were little boys, and to play up Vindhya’s envy, I wrote them as brothers. To emphasize Agastya’s comparative wisdom and power, I wrote him as their father. The moon and the sun are supporting characters, so they are the mountains’ sisters.
     The image I selected is of a carving of Agastya. I couldn’t find information as to who the smaller statue is depicting, so I thought I would include it in my story and the smaller statue can be little Vindhya from my interpretation.
     As a side note, this is how I wanted the last paragraph to read: "By the next day, Vindhya and Himalaya had moved on to the next fun activity, and they had forgotten all about the forts. The staircase remained safe passage for all who cared to climb it. It remained safe, that is, until the demons overtook it and began eating all of the people traversing its path." But I'll leave the jokes out.


Bibliography: Buck, William (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.