I left off with a story called "The Dead Prince and the Talking Doll." It made me mad that the princess was trapped in this tiny room with a dead man and no company. She nursed the man back to health for 12 years and just when he was about to wake up, this acrobat girl swooped in and took the prince as her husband, claiming to have taken care of him the whole time. Luckily, the princess was telling her story to a doll one night in the room and the prince overheard what happened. He got rid of the acrobat girl and the prince and princess got married instead. The creepy part of the story was the fact that for several years, the princess gave food to a beggar who predicted that she would become the bride of a dead husband.
It's really strange because in all of the stories I read from this collection, the dolls always can talk and act like real people. For example, in another story literally called "Dolls," a husband is angry because his wife always eats what I'm guessing is the good part of their fish. He always has to eat the leftover tail and head. He asked his sister for advice, and she told him to leave three dolls around the house. The poor wife was scared by the talking dolls and left the house before she could eat anything. I guess they did their job.
There was another really interesting story called "Double Double" about a man who asked for a favor from God to double his supply. Unfortunately, God wasn't specific about what was doubled, so every time the man ate, his food doubled itself within his stomach, so he burst. But then at his funeral, his body kept doubling, and the townspeople had to keep burying bodies.
Photo By Roberto Tetsuo Okamura, Shutterstock.
Since the collection is named after it, I decided to also read "The Flowering Tree." I was expecting a light tale about somebody falling in love underneath a beautiful tree. Nope. So it starts off nice with two sisters. The younger one can turn herself into a flowering tree so that they can sell the beautiful flowers for their poor mother. Soon the Prince learns about the flowers and finds the daughter and wants to marry her. His mean sister disregards the special instructions for turning the daughter into the tree, and leaves the poor girl with half a body. After a while, the Prince realizes that it's his wife and heals her.
Bibliography: A.K. Ramanujan. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Link to reading.
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