Vikram Betal (The 24 Riddles and the Origin of Betal)
Sooriyakumar Sivakumaran
2017
pp. 58
The legendary tale of Vikram and Betal captured my imagination as a child. Despite having seen the televised series, I have never got the answers right. I liked the moral fibre,wisdom being imparted through the stories. I also love the Betal character. He is supposed to be similar to vampires but I see no attempt on his part in trying to kill the King. The relationship between the two seems quite friendly.
One can of course argue that the sense of morality preached is quite ancient, and some of it at least, is not relevant to contemporary times. In some stories, I also found deeply masochistic overtones. Given all of this, I still like the stories. In this particular translation, I liked the cultural retention. The editing could have been better. I don’t know if it is so in other versions, I would have personally liked the stories to have been longer and more descriptive.