Week 3 Story: Nellie and Ahalya

Ahalya

To start this off: Hello. You probably don’t know who I am, even though I’m one of the most famous detectives throughout the world. The problem is that I don’t get any credit for my work. That’s because I work for the Gods, and they love to say that they solve all of their own problems. Most of the time, they claim to solve all human problems too--even though mortals can do that all on their own on many occasions. 

Here I am getting off track. My name is Nellie Autry, and I have worked for the Gods for centuries. It’s not hard work and they pay me well. I mean, they made me immortal back in the day, so that was certainly enough payment to last a lifetime. That’s right. I was once a human. Powerless and helpless, but extremely intelligent. Alas, I was overlooked by so many people around me, but thankfully, the Gods did not underestimate me. 

You’re probably wondering what I did to deserve such an honor from the Gods, and I’ll be happy to tell you that that’s why I’m here. Many know the story of Indra, Ahalya, and Gautama, but not many people know where I came in the story. You see, there are various endings to that tale, but humans can sometimes get stories wrong after so many years of sharing. So now, none of those endings are quite right. 

The story goes about how you remember. Indra, the powerful God, fell in love with Ahalya and disguised himself as her husband to seduce her. I was Ahalya’s best friend at the time, and so naturally, she told me all of her secrets. Of course, unlike some humans know, Ahalya was not fooled by the disguise of Indra. She knew right away that he was not her husband, but she played along anyway. You see, Ahalya and Gautama had not had a happy marriage for a while, but that’s about how it was back then. Nothing to be done. 

This carried on for a bit, and Ahalya continued to share all of her secrets with me. I stayed away, too afraid to get caught up in the situation. That’s why I’m never in the stories (thankfully, or that probably would have ruined everything). 

Soon after, Gautama started to suspect something was happening. That’s where the drama unfolds. Ahalya knew that he knew about Indra--she’d returned his feelings at this point, but Gautama wasn’t certain that his suspicions had any merit to them. This resulted in a well-thought out plan to capture Indra and Ahalya. Thankfully, she was four steps ahead of him the entire time. The only bad thing here was that Ahalya formulated a plan of her own, but decided not to tell anyone. Not even me.

Ahalya knew that if Gautama found out about Indra, he would curse her, but she also knew that if she told Indra, he would kill Gautama, and she still cared about her husband. Somehow, she came to the conclusion that there was only one thing to do. That, of course, was to run away. 

I’m sure you can see where this is going next. I was asked to interfere by the Gods. 

At the time, I was nothing but a lowly farmer, but I did love reading about mysteries. Indra approached me a few days after Ahalya’s appearance, promised me the highest of riches in return for finding her. It seemed none of the Gods were interested in helping him, so I accepted. 

In all honesty, it wasn’t very hard to find Ahalya, especially not for someone who knew her so well. She even left a lot of hints, but it seemed that the Gods didn’t pay as much to detail as they claimed. We found Ahalya hiding in a cave at the edge of the world, living simply and wonderfully and waiting patiently. She had plenty of water from the neighboring stream, and she had gotten food from the forest. 

After that, Indra was so impressed by my detective skills that he called a council of the Gods. I solved a few more mysteries for them that they’d been unable to solve. After that, the rest, as they say was history. 

That’s about all I can say about myself without sharing too many secrets. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll keep me in mind next time you need a celestial mystery to be solved. I’ll be listening too.

Source. Ahalya from PDE Ramayana from here. Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith.

Author's Note: For this week, I decided to use one of my favorite stories from the Ramayana. I thought it was interesting that this story had multiple different endings, so I decided to make up one of my own. I changed the relationship between Indra and Ahalya, to where their feelings were more mutual, and Ahalya was smart enough not to be fooled by his disguise. I also added by own character, Nellie, to be a detective and tell her own point of view. She also helps resolve the story in the end.