Tradition Bearers - Dastangos
Translator – Stuti
Translator – Stuti
The story so far - Amar Ayyar has been asked to rescue a Prince who is trapped in the magical realms of ‘Land of Most Magic’ what the Prince did how he got caught will come later. The Prince in question is a relative of Amar’s childhood friend Amir Hamza (details here)
Amar Ayyar entered the Land of Most Magic in the company of his four tricksters, Burk the Turk, Mehtar Kiran, Jansoz and Zirgham
They went different ways but kept track of each other. They changed their appearance to that of wizards and started wandering about in the land. At times they saw beautiful gardens, in other places they saw snow-capped peaks, at some places they saw wizards had created magical hailstorms of fire and stones, so they made their way carefully. At last, Amar reached a place which had a very weird landscape instead of grass, silver strands grew on the ground for many miles around. Amar thought to himself –“This is an entire forest made of silver, if it was possible I would have stuffed all of it in my bottomless purse zumbeel (Amar's personal dumpyard which could carry anything), but what do I do? how do I pick the forest up?” But then he decided maybe it was just better to carry away some silver grass. He brought out a cutter, and started cutting furtively, he stopped at times, to see in case there was anybody else around, when suddenly there came a voice –“Freeze O Thief!!” Amar heard the voice and thought – “Oh what bad luck!” He looked up to see a wizard making his way towards him, whose entire body was made of silver and silver hair strands grew on his head, he carried with him magic pills and potions and a scepter loudly challenging him, Amar started to run but the wizard blew a spell and his feet got stuck to the ground, he couldn’t move a bit. The wizard drew a sword came to him and said –“You are the one called Amar, the emperor of this land is anxious to get you caught, I will take you as my prisoner to him and get a big reward in return”. Amar said in a very weak voice –“I am not Amar but a poor grass-cutter, troubles have plagued me”. The wizard who by the way was called Silver –Tan (Muqarnis) said –“Don’t you dare try to deceive me, the emperor has already intimated me of your presence”. While these conversations happened they heard another voice –“Brother hold on” Silver – Tan saw that another wizard who had purple hair with red streaks, wore geeky glasses, yellow shirt and a green shorts was coming towards them. He came near and said –“Sir, this guy is a thief, He plundered my house. I beg you to first help me recover my belongings and then take him away. I only have this one pearl left with me, he took away its pair” and so saying brought forth a pearl the size of an egg. Silver-Tan’s eyes almost popped out seeing it, he said –“Friend, this is some valuable treasure that you have, give it to me so that I may see it properly” the owner of the pearl suggested “Blow a little air on it and then see its sheen and beauty”
So Silver – Tan blew air, on it and the pearl burst open like a firecracker and rendered Silver-Tan unconscious. The purple – haired wizard cried out –
“There once was a silver wizard
Who will now weep like a lizard
My name is trickster Mehtar Kiran
And I am like a blizzard”
He then took a slingshot and aimed for the head, the wizard Silver-Tan vanished and the forest of silver disappeared with him. A little bird flew out from the wizard’s body fast as lightning screaming –“Oh I had a silver body which I lost” the purple-haired wizard resumed his original form of trickster and freed Amar Ayyar and both continued moving in separate ways. And thus Amar Ayyar with help from Mehter Kiran won the first battle
