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Nak Kata Raja

Project Type

Puppet Theatre

Year

2008

Tuntuni was a little tailor bird who had its nest on a palm tree in the palace garden. One day she saw servants of Kings are putting the Gold coins out in the sun to dry. Tuntuni flew out and carrying a coin in her beak. She kept the coin carefully in her nest.
Tuntuni felt that she was as rich as the king himself and singing, the king heard her singing and said “She must have picked it up that coin which belongs to me. Go and fetch it from Tuntuni’s nest.”
Tuntuni felt quite triumphant and started singing once again.
The king became very angry to heard her song… “Go and catch her at once. I shall have her fried in oil… A group of people set out and caught hold of the little bird at once. The king carried Tuntuni indoors where his seven queens were supervising his lunch. “Here, take this bird and fry it for me. I want to have it for lunch” he said to the eldest queen.
The queen held Tuntuni tightly so that she might not fly away. “Let me hold it” the others queens begged. While they were passing on the bird from one to the other Tuntuni managed to slip out and fly away.
The king had a big temper so everyone was afraid of him. The seven queens caught the frog, cut it up and cooked it with a lot of spices.
The queens silently served him the frog with a lot of other fried stuff. “Ummm…. Quite nice and tasty” said the king, “that should teach the naughty bird to be rude to royalty!”
Tuntuni, in the mean time, sat watching the fun from a tree. She sang in a loud and clear voice –“The king’s a fool, a fool is he –King eats a frog and thinks it’s ME!”
The king saw and heard Tuntuni and was mad with the queens for having fooled him. “Chop off the tips of their noses” he ordered. “Catch the wretched bird once more” shouted the king, “I must eat it”.
“Better not give her for cooking this time” said the king, “I’ll simply swallow her whole with some water.” He caught the bird in a firm grip and swallowed it.
Tuntuni was not dead so it fluttered inside his throat making the king feel most uncomfortable. “Keep the chopper ready” the king said, “In case I open my mouth, kill the bird when it tries to escape”
“Ooooooooops!” he hiccoughed opening his mouth WIDE and Tuntuni slipped out of his open mouth and flew away. And the chopper struck the tip of the king’s nose snipping it off and the little Bird flay away with the Kings nose.
What happened next?

Story: Upendrakishor Roy Choudhuri
SCRIPT, DESIGN & DIRECTION : SUDIP GUPTA

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