Sandrembi_Chaisra
Story
Chaisra and her mother devoured the tortoise meat to their heart's content and threw away the bones in the verandah. Again Yangkhuleima, the tortoise mother told Sandrembi in her dream to keep the bones of tortoise in a basket after covering it by a piece of cloth and it must not be opened for 7 days. Sandrembi did so. However, before the completion of the said period, out of her anxiety as well as curiosity, she opened the basket and thereby disturbing the normal process of coming to human shape. The tortoise mother assumed the shape of a sparrow and flew away. Both stepsisters grew up in course of time. Sandrembi, the elder, was beautiful and accomplished but not nicely dressed up. Chaisra, the younger, was ugly although properly dressed. Once the King ("Crown Prince" in another version) went for hunting with a large retinue, horses and elephants. The king saw the two maidens by a riverside. Realising the quality of Sandrembi, the elder, the king made her the chief Queen after a ceremonial marriage. She spent her life with her brother in a joyous mood. A son was also born to her, the boy was named Machi Sana Melei Khomba in Meitei sacred lores. Sangkhuleima, the stepmother and Chaisra, the step sister gnashed their teeth in anger and were planning to kill the Queen. They invited her for a dinner in their house. Sandrembi came to her stepmother's house with permission of the King. After the dinner, Chaisra, the younger, out of jealousy, dropped the Queen's dress under a bed ("in a hole" in another version). When Sandrembi went down to bring it up, the wicked stepmother poured the hottest water over Queen Sandrembi's body. Poor Queen got transformed into a pigeon and flew away. Chaisra, in the Queen's dress, went to the palace and behaved as if she was the real queen. The suspected king told her in anger, "You are not my queen whose face is as fair as the lily. You are disfigured." Chaisra replied that she contracted mental and physical agony when she wept for her son. The king again continued, "You are not my queen for your nose is too long, your eyes are very deep and the hairs of the eyelids are bushy." Chaisra replied, "I missed you so much, I cried rubbing my eyes all the way." In spite of his suspicion, the King wanted suitable opportunity in order to detect the false queen. In the meantime, the pigeon flew into the Royal Garden, perched on a tree branch and addressed to the Royal Gardener ("grass cutter" in another version) concerning the forgetfulness of the King about Queen Sandrembi, animal epidemic, grievances of the Prince and loss of his own sickle along with a warning for reporting these words to the king. The king on getting the report went in search of the pigeon with grains of paddy in his hands. The King kept the supernatural bird in his palace. Even as a bird, she took away the dirty things from the Prince's eyes. Chaisra killed the bird with a stick and prepared a nice meal for the King. The king refused to taste the flesh of the pet bird and threw it away and buried it behind the Royal Kitchen. But it was the age of the truth and there grew a lucious fruit plant and it bore full of fruits overnight ("only one fruit" in another version). A big lucious fruit also came from the plant. Chaisra, the false queen gave the lucious fruit as a gift to a monk ("servant" in another version). The man kept the fruit in a jar in his house since the same was not yet ripe enough to be eaten. Later it so happened to him that fruit disappeared when the knife was available and vice versa. Early next morning, he went out for work. Returning home, he was surprised to find that his cottage had been washed and the meal cooked. He kept the mystery concealed for some days and was determined to solve it by all means. Long before the first streak of day light came, he got up and had gone some distance secretly in the darkness and entered the cottage silently and peeped into his own room. At Sunrise, he saw a beautiful woman coming out of the jar and roaming in kitchen for house work. "It is a fruit maiden", he muttered. Recognising her as the Queen, he took her to the king. There was a quarrel between Sandrembi and Chaisra, the two step sisters on the issue of the identity of the real Queen. The obstinate Chaisra denied the whole story and called Sandrembi to be a "fruit maiden".