The mythic figure Satya Pir has a wide following among Hindus and
Muslims alike in the Bangla-speaking regions of South Asia.
Believed to be an avatara of krsna, or a Sufi saint, or somehow
both, he is worshiped for his ability to bring wealth and comfort
to a family. At the heart of this worship is the simple proposition
that human dignity and morality are dependent upon a proper
livelihood-without wealth, people cannot be expected to live moral
lives. Men have a special responsibility to create that stability,
but sometimes fail miserably, making ill-advised decisions that
compromise the women who are dependent upon them. At these
threatening junctures, women must take matters into their own
hands, and they call on Satya Pir to help them right the wrongs
done by their husbands or fathers.
In this book, Tony K. Stewart presents lively translations of
eight closely related 18th- and 19th-century Bengali folk tales
centered on Satya Pir and the people he helps. To extricate her
husband and other family members from these predicaments, one
heroine dresses in drag, dons armor to fight cutthroats, slays a
raging rhino and hacks off its horn, and takes the prize of the
king's daughter, to the consternation of all. In another tale, one
woman's husband is magically transformed into a ram and kept by a
witch as breeding stock, and another's is transformed into a
popinjay parrot, the better to elude her jealous father, intent on
protecting his good daughter's virtue. In each case the men are
rescued and restored to normal by resourceful women. While the
worship of Satya Pir is the ostensible motivation for the tales,
they are really demonstrations of the Pir's miraculous powers,
which authenticate him as a legitimate object of worship. The tales
are also wickedly funny, parodying Brahmins and yogis and kings and
sepoys.
These surprising and entertaining stories fly in the face of
conventional wisdom about the separation of Muslims and Hindus.
Moreover, the stories happily stand alone, speaking with an easily
recognized if not universal voice of exasperation and amazement at
what life throws at us.
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