Several months had passed since the girl had last thrown herself down on the banks of my stream to cry.   Today, she was no longer crying, but fairly skipping along  my paths toward her  favorite spot near the climbing jasmine.   She sat down and tossed a small stone into the water.  She was happy; a young man from her school had asked her to dinner.  He was a young Indian man, and she had not really expected to find love in this country of mine.  She was beginning to see past first impressions and outward appearances.  I fondly watched her smile.  She  leaned against the lychee tree behind her and began to daydream.  Lost in her own thoughts, the girl did not notice when I directed her attention towards a small white flower fluttering from a nearby tree.  I directed her creativity and emotion, and let her discover the world of The Turtle Prince.


Parijata blossoms

~The Turtle Prince~

The king and his wife were speechless.  How could this be?  They looked again in the baby's crib to be sure that their eyes were not deceiving them.  No, their eyesight was fine.  The newborn inside the crib was indeed a turtle....

The king pondered his situation.  His newborn son, the turtle, was already betrothed to his minister's newborn daughter.  He looked in the crib again.  He could not help but love his son, but how could this be?

As the years went by, the young turtle grew up, just as did the minister's daughter.  Soon, it would be time for them to be married.  In accordance, the king went to his minister's home to begin marriage preparations.  However, the minister, reluctant to let his daughter marry a turtle, was looking for ways to bow out of the long-standing arrangement.  Just as the minister was about to politely break his promise to the king, the daughter spoke up. 

"Father, I do not wish for you to dishonor your agreement on my behalf," she said.  "I will marry this turtle prince if he might bring me a celestial parijata flower.  If he can do this, then I will marry him, just as you promised I would."

The minister, surprised by his daughter's words, gave his consent to his daughter's plans.  Surely a turtle would not be able to climb the heavens and retrieve this magical flower.

The king returned to his palace sadly.  How could his son ever find the flower?  He had never even left the castle walls.  The king sighed and entered his son's room.  He sat in the chair beside his son's bed, and began to speak to him, as was his habit whenever something bothered him.  He told his son everything that had happened at the minister's home, including the mission sent by the minister's daughter.

"Don't fret, Father.  I will be able to find the parijata flower and bring it back to the young maiden."

The king started and nearly fell off of his chair.  His son had spoken!  For the first time since he had been born, his son, the turtle had spoken!  He gaped at his son, who was in the process of getting out of bed and readying himself for his journey.

The turtle looked at his father.  "Please, take me to the sea, and I will begin my journey from there."

And so, the king and queen took their turtle son to the sea and watched as he disappeared beneath the crashing waves, pondering all the while what type of being their son really was.

Meanwhile, the minister's daughter wondered whether the turtle would complete the task she had put forth.  She doubted it could.  She wondered what her future now held in store for her, since her destiny had been so greatly changed by the unexpected form of her betrothed.

Before the turtle began his quest for the parijata flower, he stopped by the mountain of the Sun God to pray for forgiveness.  As he prayed, his memory came flooding back.  The turtle was not really a turtle, but a cursed prince!  In his previous life, the somewhat arrogant prince had angered a sage by pelting him with a turtle, and as punishment, the sage had condemned him to become a turtle.  Through his prayers, the cursed prince found grace with the Sun God and found his turtle form lifted away.

Before leaving, the newly transformed prince asked one of the Sun God's priests how to find a celestial parijata flower.  The man replied, "Go north to the lake, and steal one of the saris of the celestial women who go there to bathe.  She will give you anything in return for her sari."

So away went the prince, plotting the way in which to steal a woman's sari while she was bathing.  The next morning, the prince hid by the lake and watched as the celestial women stripped off their saris and stepped into the water to bathe.  He dashed to the side of the lake, grabbed the nearest sari, and ran back to the forest's edge as fast as he could.  That evening, the woman whose sari he had stolen came to his camp to reclaim what was hers.
Parijata tree
The prince said to the celestial beauty, "You can have your sari, but you must first grant me a favor."

"What is it you wish for?" asked the lady.

"A celestial parijata flower," he replied, and almost no sooner than he had spoken, a fine young celestial parijata tree appeared before his eyes.

The prince took the tree and returned to his castle; however, before he entered, he resumed his turtle form.  The king and queen were overjoyed to have their son back, and immediately contacted the minister to resume the wedding preparations.  No one knew that the turtle had regained his princely form.

After a grand wedding, the turtle prince and his new bride retired to their bedroom chambers, his heart full of joy, and hers full of sorrow.  As the girl lay down to sleep, she glanced at the reptile next to her and wondered what kind of life she had just entered into.

The turtle waited until the girl fell asleep, and changed back into his prince form.  He caressed the girl's smooth skin and undressed her slowly.  The girl, awakened by his attentions, started to scream when she saw the strange man next to her in bed!

"Relax," said the prince.  "It is I, your husband."  The girl slowly recovered from her fright.

"Why, you must tell everyone who you are!" she cried.  "The king and queen will be most pleased!"

"I will," replied the prince.  "But I wanted you, my beautiful wife, to be the first to see my true form."

So, the minister's daughter married a prince, and after the kingdom learned of his true identity, they lived together happily for the rest of their lives.
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The girl came out of her daydream with a start.  She had to go back to the house and get ready for the evening!  She dropped the parijata blossom she had been idly playing with during her reverie and ran back up the path toward her home.  She was almost completely mine now.  She had grown to love India, to love me.  Soon, she would have to leave me to travel back to her city.  Before then, I would be sure that she was mine.   She would not be able resist.  My magic and allure were simply too strong.  I would tell her of A Flowering Tree, and I would let her choose to completely give her heart to me.
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A Flowering Tree
Coverpage

Author's note:  I again used the third person point-of-view so that I could encompass the thoughts and actions of all the major characters.  I chose to use the story of The Turtle Prince because it shows the lengths of trouble that a young man will go through in order to impress a girl, and it also shows that not all young men can be judged by their appearances.  The girl finally learns this at the end of the story.  She is the catalyst of the young prince's transformation, showing just what power the female can hold over the ones that love them.
    I thought this story would be appropriate within my frame tale because it shows that the girl is growing up and learning to appreciate everything that the Indian subcontinent has to offer.  Her experience is becoming a magical journey that she will never forget.  After the story of The Turtle Prince, the girl will be led into a story of growing up and learning to trust.  This new theme will coincide with her departure from India, as her father has fulfilled his job term. 
    I had to cut a lot of material from the original story.  Originally, the turtle prince has other adventures in which he gains a magical flute, wand, and sack.  These items all helped the prince to prove his worth to the entire kingdom.  In the original story, the prince is tricked into revealing to his wife his true form, and then humiliates his brothers-in-law before he gains the right to become king.  Unfortunately, I was unable to tell the whole story and stay within the word limit, so I cut these segments of the plot and made the story mainly a quest for love undertaken by the turtle prince.

Bibliography:
"The Turtle Prince" from A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India by  A.K. Ramanujan. University of California Press. 1997.

Image:
"Parijata Blossoms". Web source: Studio 7 Graphics
"Parijata Tree". Web source: White Lotus Aromatics
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