 Today's story is about a crook called Chetis who disguises himself as a wandering astrologer in order to con people out of their money. So he rubs his body over with ash and he ties his hair in a top knot and he gets one of those bowls in which you put a flame so that there's lots of smoke coming out of it and it makes him look very, very mysterious. And he sits himself down on the side of the road, busy road where lots of people are going back and forth and he starts to mutter incantations and generally give out lots of false predictions and cheat people out of their money. And I have to say, he's doing quite well at it but then one day as he's sitting on the side of the road doing his stuff, the princess goes past him. She is so beautiful that he decides then and there that he's going to have this woman. One way or another he's going to have her. So the very next day he arrives outside the palace, finds himself a convenient tree, finds halfway up, finds a good strong branch and suspends himself upside down from that branch. I guess he's got really strong legs from having to run away from the police all his life, suspends himself upside down from the branch and starts to do his thing. So he starts to wave his hands around and mutter stuff under his breath and generally starts to make himself very visible and in no time at all a crowd has gathered around him. The people all come, they look up at him and they're like, oh this must be a strong and powerful man who's come amongst us because for anybody to hang upside down like that by just his legs, that has to be divine Shakti. It can be nothing else, quick someone, get the king, a great man is amongst us. The king unfortunately is equally superstitious so the moment he hears about this great man who's hanging on this tree outside his palace, he comes rushing out, flings himself onto the ground just under him and says, oh great Acharya, oh great teacher, tell me, how may I serve you? And Chetha smiles benignly at the king and he says, I do not need anything from you. I neither eat nor drink, I spend all of my time only in meditation of the great God Shiva. But today I have decided to come and do my meditation over here outside your palace because the power of my meditation is such that even you will be showered with good luck because of me. The only problem is there are too many flies over here outside your palace. So if you can get someone to come in, brush away the flies from me, I will stay, otherwise I shall leave. Now clearly this very superstitious king is not going to let his good luck charm get away. So he immediately calls for the princess. He's decided that it will be the princess's duty to brush away the flies to make sure that this man stays over here and the kingdom is showered with blessings. And so the princess is immediately called for. By the way her name is Hasamurthy. Hasamurthy means laughter incarnate. Hasamurthy is called for. Unfortunately as soon as she arrives this sight is so ridiculous with this man hanging upside down from the tree looking a little bit like a bat that's got stuck in one of the branches. It's such a ridiculous sight that she bursts out laughing uncontrollably and when I say uncontrollably she is literally rolling around on the ground holding onto her stomach screeching with laughter. Chethers is furious. He says to the king, he says, this disrespect is unacceptable. I put a curse on you. I put a curse that your kingdom will suffer with famine for five years. Now you can imagine how desperate the poor king is. He's having to simultaneously give orders to have the princess carried away and she's literally being carried away because she's still screeching and rolling around with laughter and at the same time he's having to beg and plead and apologize to Chethers and say please forgive us, please forgive my child, she's only a child. She's stupid. She doesn't know what she's doing. Please don't put a curse on us. Chethers says to him, he says, okay, I will give you one more chance but remember this must not happen again. The king promises that it won't happen. Hasamuddi promises. She says, not only will I not laugh, I will not even smile. I will not even smile with my eyes. Unfortunately the moment she sees Chethers again hanging upside down from that tree, it's the same story again. Once again she's carried away. Once again the king is on his knees begging for forgiveness. The third time it happens unfortunately Chethers has had it. He comes down from the tree and he says you are a very unlucky man because your daughter is possessed by a demon, a laughing demon and because of her you will be cursed for the rest of your life. See because of her I have already put a curse on you. For five years your kingdom will have famine. That curse will pass in five years but every time somebody meets her they will put another curse on you. You will have a very tragic life. As is to be expected, the king is once again in tears and he begs Chethers to please, please stay and cure his daughter. He says to him, he says, you are a great man, you have the divine shakti pleads. Can you just not remove the laughing demon from within her? Can you not save me and my kingdom? And Chethers with a great show of reluctance agrees to the king's request. Talk about a plan falling into place. He agrees to the king's request and the king immediately, he is going to waste no time doing this, immediately takes Chethers into Hasamurthy's apartment into her room so that he can begin the healing process right away. As soon as Chethers arrives in Hasamurthy's room his excitement starts to rise to almost uncontrollable levels because he can feel that now finally she is almost in his grasp and so he waits to the king and he says, you may leave us. We will be alone so that I can start the healing process. Now the king might be slightly foolish and very superstitious but he knows that he doesn't want to leave his daughter alone with some strange man but Chethers says to him he says, you do not need to worry about me. You see I am no longer a man. I have sacrificed my manhood a long time ago for the sake of my meditation. You may leave with no fear in your mind and saying that he ushers the king out. Hasamurthy however is not so easily fooled. Her father might be blinded by superstition but she can tell that this man is a crook and that he has really bad intentions towards her. So just as her mates are also being ushered out she quickly whispers to them to listen out for her signal. They have to wait just outside her door, listen carefully for her signal and as soon as they hear her they have to come running back inside the room. And having told them that she allows them to leave the room. And finally Chethers and Hasamurthy are alone in the room. Chethers' excitement by now is at such a fever pitch. His passion is so aroused that he is almost shaking with his desires but he knows that he still has to be really careful he cannot be too obvious and so he thinks up this plan. He stands her in the middle of the room. He draws a circle around the princess and then he starts to walk around and around her muttering incantations waving his arms around. And then after a couple of minutes of doing this he suddenly stops and he says no, no I can feel that something is not right. Something is blocking my energy. It is your clothes and your jewelry. It is blocking my mantras from touching you. Take everything off so that my prayers and my incantations can touch your skin and penetrate through to your soul. Yeah right. So at this point in the story all hell breaks loose. Hasamurthy tells Chethers to go jump in a well. He runs forward to grab her forcibly. She immediately claps for her maids who come running into the room. They all grab him. They pin him down to the ground and the first thing they do is to take down his trousers. Before he had said that he had sacrificed his manhood, they just want to make sure that they are not the ones making a mistake. But nope, Hasamurthy was absolutely right. He has not sacrificed his manhood at all. It's very much there. And so Hasamurthy picks up a long sharp knife and she takes care of this problem once and for all ouch. But this is not where the story finishes. The story actually ends with Chethers walking out of the palace laughing wildly as the poor king looks on very, very confused. And Chethers' last words to the king are, See, I have cured your daughter. I have taken the laughing demon into myself. And saying that, he disappears into the horizon, still laughing like a madman, disappears into the horizon, never to be seen again. But of course for us the story always finishes with a question, is there a lesson to be had from this story? And the answer always is yes of course. What is the lesson from the story? Well, clearly it has something to do with laughter because that's the main focus of the story. Now Hasamurthy's laughter signifies freedom and empowerment. That's easy enough to understand. But Chethers' laughter is a little bit more confusing. What is the lesson behind that? As I had explained in my last video, I've only just started my research on the laughter philosophies around Lord Shiva. So my research is still a little incomplete, but this is what I have understood. In modern medicine, they use laughter therapy as a form of pain relief after things like amputation surgeries because apparently not only is it good for pain relief, it also helps people sleep better because they say that the brain picks up laughter signals. So even if the laughter is fake, the brain will pick up the signals and start to activate the dopamine. So there is always benefit to be had from laughter. It is an extremely powerful thing. And maybe that's what the story was talking about. I don't know. Maybe that's what the idea of Chethers' laughter was. I truly don't know. All I can say, however, is that laughter is good for you. So whatever you do, just keep laughing.