Bopolûchî (Punjab folktale)

Author: Traditional Punjab

Time Period: 1851 CE–1900 CE

Country or Culture: India

Genre: Folktale

Overview

“Bopolûchî” is a fierce and fast-paced revenge tale from the Indian subcontinent. The name of the heroine, Bopolûchî, means “trickster” when translated from the original Punjabi into English. An orphan teenage girl, Bopolûchî has to rely on her wits and physical strength to escape being tricked into an undesired marriage by a notorious robber.

In addition to having no parents, Bopolûchî lacks any relative who could support her in gaining a suitable husband. Irked when her girlfriends boast of their uncles furthering their marriage prospects, Bopolûchî invents an uncle who would perform this role for her. She is overheard by a robber pretending to be a peddler. The robber decides to pose as Bopolûchî’s dream uncle to trick and force her into marriage.

When the robber introduces himself to Bopolûchî by falsely claiming to be her long-lost paternal uncle ready to help her to find a good husband, Bopolûchî trusts him initially. Three different animals warn Bopolûchî of the robber’s treachery, but the man persuades her that these warnings are just silly animal noises.

When Bopolûchî is brought to the robber’s home, he reveals his true intentions to her. Without any pity for her, the robber dismisses Bopolûchî’s strong rejection of marriage. He places Bopolûchî in the custody of his old mother and leaves to arrange his wedding feast. Bopolûchî then plans and executes her fearsome revenge, which is told in descriptive detail in this extraordinary folktale.

The Punjabi folktale “Bopolûchî”was collected, transcribed, and translated into English by Flora Annie Steel in 1884. Steel was a British woman who came to colonial India in 1868 with her husband, Henry William Steel, a British colonial magistrate. She learned Punjabi, consorted with members of Punjabi society, and collected folktales from local storytellers. In 1894, her transcription and translation of “Bopolûchî”was included in her anthology Tales of the Punjab.

The folktale includes certain archetypes, such as the resourceful heroine, talking animals, a ruthless antagonist, and his supportive mother, and the unfolding of a swift revenge plot, all of which allow the story to be analyzed from an archetypal literary critical perspective. From a feminist critical perspective, “Bopolûchî” creates a heroine that rises above all challenges of a patriarchal, feudal, and violent society, while from a new historicist vantage point, the tale is grounded in traditional Punjabi history and culture. In the latter context, the robber character is particularly noteworthy. As Steel informs in a footnote, he is called a thag, the Hindu word for members of the notorious, historical Thuggee (or Thug) criminal organization of caravan robbers. Using literary criticism shows how the narrative is developed to form a circular unity leading from its initial conflict to the presentation of a formally satisfactory narrative solution.

Bopolûchî could hardly believe her eyes, for everything was just as she had foretold, and the robber said he was her father’s brother, who had been away in the world for years, and had now come back to arrange her marriage with one of his sons, her cousin.

“Bopolûchî”

Summary

“Bopolûchî”begins in a Punjab village in an indeterminate time. Teenage girls are gathered around the village well. They begin to talk about their romantic marriage prospects. One after another, the girls boast of their uncles who will bring them the accoutrements of their dowry. In the words of the girls, these are fine cloths, delicious sweetmeats, and rare jewels. Among the girls is Bopolûchî, who is described as “the prettiest girl of them all” (Steel 62). However, she is sad because she is an orphan and has no relatives to help her in securing a marriage prospect.

In an act of wild defiance that conforms to the English meaning of her name (trickster), Bopolûchî invents an uncle who would bring her exactly those things the other girls talk about getting. To her misfortune, her declaration is overheard by a nearby robber, who has disguised himself as a peddler. This rogue, “struck with her beauty and spirit,” decides to marry her (Steel 62).

To execute his plot, the robber disguises himself as a rich farmer and enters Bopolûchî’s home, bearing gifts of “fine dresses, fine food, and fine jewels” (Steel 63). Disingenuously, he claims to be her father’s brother, come to introduce her to his son. Bopolûchî is overjoyed, as her dream of matchmaker and match seems to have materialized. She joins the false uncle on the way to his home.

However, along the way, three different animals warn Bopolûchî that she is about to be tricked. The folktale repeats the identically worded warnings of a crow, a peacock, and a jackal. These animals address her thusly in Steel’s free translation:

Bopolûchî, ’tis a pity!

You have lost your wits, my pretty!

’Tis no uncle that relieves you,

But a robber who deceives you! (63)

To her detriment, Bopolûchî believes the robber when he dismisses the animal voices all three times. When Bopolûchî and the robber finally arrive at the robber’s home, he drops his pretenses, reveals his identity, and tells her he will marry her. Bopolûchî tearfully objects, to no avail.

The robber leaves Bopolûchî with his mother and leaves to prepare the wedding feast. Bopolûchî, the trickster, grasps her opportunity when the bald old woman comments on her lush hair. Bopolûchî tells the bald woman that she gained her beautiful hair by putting a “big mortar for husking rice” over her head and having her mother beat it with a pestle (Steel 64). Then, Bopolûchî persuades the old woman to put a mortar on her own head.

Bopolûchî exacts her first revenge against the robber by beating the mortar so hard that the old woman dies. In a rather ghoulish moment, Bopolûchî robes “the dead body in the scarlet bridal dress” reserved for herself and places the corpse in a position befitting a bride, veiled and in front of a spinning wheel (Steel 65). Donning the old woman’s clothes, Bopolûchî escapes. On her way home, she encounters the robber, who mistakes her for an old village woman and leaves her alone.

When the robber reaches his house with a stolen millstone to “grind the corn for the wedding feast,” he sees what he mistakes for Bopolûchî (Steel 65). When this person does not help him unload the millstone, he becomes furious and hurls the millstone at her. This action topples the corpse; thus, the robber thinks he has killed the person he now recognizes as his mother. Discovering Bopolûchî’s escape, he plans to abduct her.

Bopolûchî evades the robber for one month by lodging at her girlfriends’ houses. Finally refusing to rely on their kindness, Bopolûchî decides to battle the robber on her own terms. She returns home and settles on her bed, but she arms herself with a billhook, a small knife usually used in agriculture to cut branches or shrubs. Soon enough, the robber and three of his cronies appear. They take Bopolûchî outside, still on her bed, each of the four carrying one bedpost, and transport her toward the robber’s home.

At a rest stop, Bopolûchî quickly kills the two men in front of the bed. Turning around fast, she kills the third man but misses the robber. The robber escapes by climbing up a tree. Challenged by Bopolûchî to come down and fight her, the robber declines. Bopolûchî sets fire to the tree. As the robber comes down, she kills him.

Bopolûchî goes to the robber’s house. There, she takes all his valuables with her, including gold, silver, jewels, and clothes. By the end of the story, she has become “so rich that she could marry any one she pleased” (Steel 66).

Bibliography

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Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell, 1964. Print.

Nagra, Daljit. “A Ballad for Bopoluchi.” London Review of Books 33.10 (2011): 15. Print.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982. New York: Routledge, 1991. Print.

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Steel, Flora Annie. “Bopolûchî.” Tales of the Punjab. 1894. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.