Guest Speaker

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Shabbir Mian talk about "Folk and Fairy Tales from Bangladesh."

Dr. Mian teaches science, and was understandably a little out of his element when talking about fairy tales, a vastly different topic than physics. Dr. Mian has us read a rupkotha, fairy tales told to children in Bangladesh, called "Blue Lotus and Red Lotus." The tale is about two young boys of a king, one human and the other half demon. One of the main characters was the half-demon child's mother, called a Rakkhashi. She plots to devour the two boys, and eventually does. After she eats them, iron and gold balls come out of her mouth. She buries them under a bamboo tree after they cause her unease. The next day a laborer cuts two of the bamboo trees and finds a red and blue egg. Out of these eggs spring the two brothers. The brothers then begin a journey that ends with the killing of the half-demon boys mother and grandmother.

This story was incredibly unique from any fairy or folk tale I've read in this class. It features an evil, cannibalistic demon who devours her own child. The main hero of the story isn't all human. The story is violent, depicting scenes of people-eating and killing. It was a very interesting story that I'm glad I read.

In this lecture, I learned that most rupkothas were told orally, and were passed down therough generations, varying in some degree, and eventually were written down as folk literature. A connection with fairy tales of other cultures is the archetype of the wicked stepmother, who in Bengali fairy tales often takes the form of a jealous co-wife. A common theme in Bengali fairy tales is that good virtue is rewarded, while evilness is punished. In "Red Lotus and Blue Lotus," the evil rakkhashi is killed in the end, representing her punishment.

I also learned about the common characters in Bengali folk tales. They can be demons, monsters, ascetics, witches, kings, queens, princes, princesses, sons of ministers, and constables.

This lecture was my first experience in getting first-hand knowledge about the folk tales of different cultures. Truth be told, the country of Bangladesh is not always in the forefront of my mind, and I don't know much about it. Dr. Mian's discussion gave me some insight into a formerly obscure Bengali culture. Perhaps the most interesting part of Dr. Mian's lecture was the video of the "Red Lotus and Blue Lotus" story. Dr. Mian mentioned that a lot of storytelling in Bangladesh is done via song, which is evident in the video.

A Bangladesh Folk Dance: