Main piece:

The story is called Anarkali, which is the name of the main character girl. There is an emperor called Jehangir. When he was the prince and his dad was king, he had a court entertainment. The prince saw a beautiful dancer Anarkali but she was poor. The king ordered to have Anarkali buried alive in a wall as a sign to show others what happens if lower class tries to intermarry or associate with upper class. Now there’s a famous tomb.

Background information (Why does the informant know or like this piece? Where or who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them?):

Nobody knows if it’s a real story, but there’s a movie based on it. Apparently people broke the wall and found a skeleton. The moral of the story is that love is reserved for rich people and there should be no inter caste marriage because social class is important.

Context (When or where would this be performed? Under what circumstance?):

He watched the bollywood movie Mughal-e-Azam, but he also heard a similar version from his family growing up.

Personal Analysis:

This sounds very harsh. I could see how it could be adapted from a real story or at least fabricated and distributed so that the poor people will be too scared to think about marrying rich. It’s very different from children’s stories that are very G rated, because Anarkali’s punishment was so severe.