Storytelling: Who killed Bhimy?

(Ganges River)

Hi, my name is Menna. I solve people's problems for a living, I run towards danger, and most people don't like me. What am I you ask? Well I'm a detective of course! After a long hard case I decided I deserved a break, I didn't want to be around people, so I thought why not go to India? For real though, I've read about this river called the Ganges where mysteriously magical things happened and I was dying to see it for myself.  Once I got to India I went directly to the river. Water always had this weird sense of calming for me. I think it was because when I was younger my family’s house was next to a river. I always fell asleep so easily to the crashing of the water on the rocks on the bank.

Usually when I took a walk near a river I had the same feeling as if I were meditating. Everything would become still, all noise blocked out - all that I focused on was my breathing. As you can imagine it was extremely hard finding something so calming for myself, being the crazy thrill-seeking detective I am. Tonight, though, something was different. Things felt unbalanced, disturbed, like an accident had happened.

As I continued my walk I considered I was being watched or something, because I was stressed out more than I was usually around water. At that moment, I saw something in the river that didn't look normal. IT WAS A PERSON! They seemed to be wearing some sort of gown, as if they were royalty. I quickly jumped in to rescue the person, hoping they were still alive. When I jumped in to help I was instantly in pain! I had jumped into an apparent feast for the snakes of the Ganges river, called nagas. While some of them were biting me, they were attacking this other person like they had not eaten in days. I had to draw the nagas away from the other person somehow; I decided to distract them by swimming away. Thankfully the nagas left the other person and chased me. Just as I started losing all strength to fight them someone pulled me out of the river.

The person that pulled me out of the river was Bhimy, one of the King's daughters! Immediately she thanked me for saving her while I’m confused thinking I should be the one thanking her. As I looked at the river it then dawned on me that she was the person originally in the river that I jumped in to help! How she had survived that vicious attack from the nagas I still do not know. I asked her how she ended up in the river but she couldn't remember. In lieu of recent events, I thought it was the least I could do to help figure out what had happened to her. After all I was a detective!

It seemed the more we talked about how she got in the river the more she started to remember. She said she was at her castle eating dinner with her family when her cousin Duryan wanted to talk to her outside. Bhimy then said, “When I went outside to talk to my cousin, Duryan, he had two glasses of wine. We both drank the wine while we talked. That’s the last thing I can remember.” At that moment, I knew this cousin Duryan had put poison in her drink.

“Why would Duryan want to hurt you?” I asked. Bhimy replied, “You think he's responsible for me being thrown in the Ganges? My sisters and I are next heirs to the throne, but he would never hurt us for that. However, he has implied he doesn’t think women are fit to be rulers.” I didn't even have to say anything after that. Bhimy realized I was right and Duryan was responsible for what happened to her.

The detective in me craved to have Duryan pay for his actions. As you can guess Bhimy agreed with me and wanted to help. Much to my surprise, I then watched as Bhimy talked to the animals near the Ganges. Apparently, some royal family members had powers and that was a power she had. The animals were eager to help Bhimy take down Duryan, but they didn’t give specific details as to how they would help. All they said was they had witnessed him do terrible things to people too many times near the Ganges, and they couldn’t stand it any longer. I thought it would beneficial to take Duryan down with the element of surprise. He thought that Bhimy was dead, so on his next visit to the Ganges I thought it'd be nice if Bhimy paid him a visit.

We were all in our places, the animals and I hidden behind some bushes and Bhimy on a tree branch ready to jump down. When Duryan made his way to the Ganges just as the animals had predicted, Bhimy jumped down out of the tree right in front of her cousin. “What?! You’re supposed to be dead!” Duryan exclaimed. After the initial shock of seeing Princess Bhimy he then fiercely ran after Bhimy trying to choke and kill her! Before I could intervene the animals already had! All the birds, rabbits, deer, and any animal around were tackling him in efforts to get him off Bhimy. More and more animals joined in and they eventually overpowered and pushed Duryan into the Ganges. We all watched as the nagas feasted on him. Pretty ironic that he died the way he wanted Bhimy to die, isn’t it?

So my vacation wasn't a vacation. On the bright side, at least I helped save Princess Bhimy from whatever harm her cousin would have eventually caused her. 

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Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Author's Note:

In the original story Bhimy was Bhima, a boy. Also, Duryan was Duryodhana in the original story, so while there was a name swap there wasn't a gender swap with this change. Duryodhana tries to kill Bhima because he is crazy jealous of him. Bhima survives with the help of the nagas and comes back with super strength powers. In my story, instead of gaining powers I had Bhimy have the power of talking to animals. Also instead of the nagas helping her survive the attack I had detective Menna help her.

The image I chose was of the Ganges river. I chose it because I think it helps the readers imagine the setting of the story better.

I was originally inspired to write this story after reading some of Professor Gibbs tips on story writing. I started it just wanted to do an investigation case over Bhima getting thrown into the Ganges river by Duryodhana. However, the more I wrote the more fun I had changing things- why Bhima is Bhimy in my story. I like the idea of giving the females in my stories the desire and assertiveness to not let being a female change how they are treated.