[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_f5TxLrXVs[/YOUTUBE]
Shani narrates the significance of pativrata women - those who are devoted
solely to their husbands, and tells the story of Rishi Mareech and his devoted wife Satvati.
Mareech was the son of Brahma, and had a very devoted wife by the name of Satvati, who was always serving him - like massaging his legs, feeding him and getting fed by him, etc. One day, while the rishi was asleep, Brahma appeared and wanted to talk to him, but Satvati told him that he was asleep, and asked Brahma to come another time. Brahma agreed and left.
Later, when the rishi was up, Satvati mentioned to him that Brahma had visited. The rishi was shocked, and angry that Satvati didn't wake him. Satvati tried pointing out to him that her first duty was towards her husband, but Mareech told her that when she was incapable of respecting her husband's parents, how could she be a pativrata wife? He calls her a disgrace to wives everywhere and curses her that she would become a stone statue and be stranded on earth. Satvati falls to his feet and accepts the curse, and instantly turns into a rock. The angry sage kicks her and she falls through the galaxy while Shani watches, furious. The rock passes Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati, then goes past Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva. Finally, it lands on earth next to a river.
Lakshmi, Parvati & Saraswati approach Shani and ask him whether it was wrong to be devoted to one's husband, and if so, to punish them as well. Or else, punish Mareech. Shani promises them that after he's done w/ Mareech, the latter will realize the importance of a wife's role, as well as how to respect women.
Mareech is trying to start an yagna fire, but this time, his ability to mentally set the wood alight fails him. He is surprised, and Shani appears. He tells Mareech that he had committed a grave injustice to his wife, who's a pativrata wife. Mareech tells him that she was a disgrace for what she allowed to happen. Shani tells Mareech that he'll face the consequences for what he just did.
Shani then invotes his doot, which is another Daya-Shankar Pandey, and then instructs him to remove his soul from him and take it to earth. The Doot does just that, and Mareech collapses on his unlit kund. The doot takes his soul to earth, and on a field, a chandala (a person who cremates the dead) has just died. Shani tells the doot to put Mareech's soul into the just deceased body of the chandala, so that he can experience hell on earth 😈 The doot does accordingly.
The men are wondering who would cremate the chandala, since he normally did that for everybody. Just then, the chandala's wife arrives, and she's livid that he's died w/o her consent 🤣 She kicks him and he wakes up in shock. She takes a stick and starts beating him, and he runs. He then cremates the bodies that were lined up after collecting the dues.
Later, @ home, his wife tells him never to do any cremation w/o collecting the dues. Shani then causes him to get hungry, and he asks his wife for something, while she's chomping @ a laddoo. The wife tosses him a dry roti, which he devours very intently 😆 She however tells him that from tomorrow, have whatever food he gets from what he's paid.
Later, the wife is lying on bed and the chandala/Mareech's soul combo is massaging her. While he's doing it, he gets memories of how Satvati used to do that for her, and stares blankly. His wife kicks him off the bed, and this time, he tells her that she's totally unfit to be anybody's wife, and doesn't accept her as one, since his true wife was Satvati 😲🤣 His wife is shocked to hear that he's married to someone else and kicks her out of the house.
Outside, the chandala starts praying to Shani, and Shani tells him that he did what he did in order to make him aware of his sins. Satvati arrives, and Shani assures him that it's still maya. He disappears, and one of the goddesses appear and then all disappear. The chandala then wanders about and finally gets to the place where Satvati's stone was lying, and hugged it. He then apologized to her, and called for Shani, asking him how to make amends? Shani told him to take it to the 4 major pilgrimage sites - Badrinath, Pushkara, Dwaraka (they didn't show the 4th - Kanyakumari?) and then bring it back where he found it.
The chandala picked up the stone and took it to the various sites, worshipping the various deities like Brahma, Krishna, etc along the way. Finally, he got back to the original site and just collapsed and died. Shani told him that he had paid for his sins, but it was now time to revive Satvati. He appealed to Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva to resurrect her, and the 3 of them combined managed to turn the stone back to Satvati.
Satvati got up, and saw the chandala next to her. Her husband's soul left it and fell to her hand, and she disappeared from the spot and appeared @ her home. She saw her husband's body dead @ his yagna kund, and went and restored the soul to it, and he was restored to life.
A very chastised Mareech now apologized to her, and told her that he had learnt a great lesson from Shani, and asked her to join him to thank him. Shani appeared and blessed both of them, and told Satvati that from that day, whoever prays to that stone would be free from domestic troubles. He also advised that people should never make decisions in the heat of the moment when they are angry or tense. On this note, the episode ended.
Comments: a great episode, where the spoilt husband had to do toa far less deserving woman everything his wife did for him. I'm glad it didn't turn out to be a super-mahaan lady preventing him from being punished.
Edited by .Vrish. - 13 years ago
