Contents

KING OF DHARMA
Preface
AKB eBOOKS
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA
Invocation
Epigraph
Dedication
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
2nd Introduction
2nd Introduction
Samaptam
Samaptam
Samaptam
Prarambh
Prarambh
Prarambh
Kaand 1
Kaand 1
Kaand 1
Kaand 2
Kaand 2
Kaand 2
Kaand 3
Kaand 3
Kaand 3
White
Text
Blankness & Void
She floated in the void for an infinity.
“Exile.”
Promo
SONS OF SITA
Invocation
Epigraph
 Dedication
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
2nd Introduction
2nd Introduction
Prarambh
Prarambh
Prarambh Text
Kaand 1
Kaand 1
Kaand 1 Text
Kaand 1 Text
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Kaand 1 Text
Kaand 1 Text
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Kaand 2
Kaand 2
Kaand 2 Text
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 Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 2 Text
Kaand 3
Kaand 3
Kaand 3 Text
Kaand 3 Text
Samaptam
Samaptam
Samaptam Text
AKB eBOOKS
 KING OF DHARMA

Ashok K. Banker’s Ramayana series is presented here the way the author originally intended for his
retelling. Four magnificent omnibus ebook editions bring together all the eight paperback books in the
series. KING OF DHARMA, Part Four of the Ramayana Series, includes the complete text of the seventh
paperback book published earlier as Vengeance of Ravana and the as-yet unpublished eighth book Sons of
Sita. Each of these omnibus ebook editions includes the original Author Introduction and Preface to the
Indian print editions, in all major ebook formats hand-crafted by the author himself and made available
exclusively under his own AKB eBOOKS imprint. To know more, visit the official website at
www.ashokbanker.com

AKB eBOOKS
www.ashokbanker.com
 AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE AKB eBOOKS
DIGITAL EDITION 2011

Unlike people, a broken spine on a book is a good thing. So are battered covers,
peeling lamination, torn corners, tea stains, and dog-eared pages.

They’re signs that the book is loved and has been enjoyed often.

In the four years since the first book of my Ramayana series was published, I’ve
had the pleasure of seeing and signing many such copies of my books.

It’s the best sight in the world to an author. It means you’ve written a book, or in
this case, a series of books, that readers genuinely love. Some of those copies
even had favourite passages underlined or highlighted. You can’t buy that kind
of appreciation with a fat marketing budget or media hype; it has to be earned,
word by word, page by page.

As of this writing, each of the six books in the series have gone through multiple
reprints. Rather than tapering off after the publication of the sixth and final book,
sales have continued to increase steadily—despite my not having publicized the
books nor given any media interviews, attended any book launches, signings or
readings, for close to two years. If anything, the reader response has swelled
overwhelmingly, with the online community showing extraordinary support for
the series and for my humble attempt to retell this seminal epic.

And so, four years after the first paperback edition of Prince of Ayodhya was
released, the Indian publishers of my Ramayana series have decided that it’s
time that this appreciative readership had an edition that was more durable and
better designed to withstand such enthusiasm and affection.

With the publication of this hardcover omnibus set, you finally get to see my
Ramayana retelling exactly as I originally intended: as one long book split into
three continuous parts, rather than six separate paperback novels. The text
remains almost exactly the same, I’ve reinstated the original volume titles that I
had wanted for the series and the story is now split at exactly the points at which
I wanted it split.

Prince of Dharma, the first volume, contains the complete, unabridged text of
Prince of Ayodhya and Siege of Mithila. Prince in Exile, the second volume,
contains Demons of Chitrakut and Armies of Hanuman. Prince at War, the third
and final volume, contains Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya.

If you’re new to the series, then turn the page and read the introduction reprinted
from the paperback editions, which will answer many questions and hopefully
help prepare you for perhaps the most unorthodox and unusual retelling of this
classic tale ever attempted.

And when you’re done with that, then I wish you happy reading.

Scuff these shiny new covers, cause the laminate to peel off, spill tea or coffee or
cola on the book, bend and crack the spine. Even published in this fancy
hardcover edition, this isn’t a book that’s designed to be put on a shelf and
admired over the years, it’s a book meant to be read, and reread, and reread yet
again…and loved.

Because that’s how it was written, with love. And passion. And devotion. And
that always shines through, no matter how thick that hardcover, or how stiff that
spine.

May you find many happy hours of pleasure and contemplation in travelling this
long, winding road of dharma with its greatest proponent.

Jai Bajrang Bali. Jai Siyaram. Jai Hind.

Ashok Kumar Banker

Mumbai,
April 2007
 AKB eBOOKS
Home of the epics!
RAMAYANA SERIES®
PRINCE OF DHARMA
PRINCE OF AYODHYA & SIEGE OF MITHILA
PRINCE IN EXILE
DEMONS OF CHITRAKUT & ARMIES OF HANUMAN
PRINCE AT WAR
BRIDGE OF RAMA & KING OF AYODHYA
KING OF DHARMA
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA & SONS OF SITA

KRISHNA CORIOLIS SERIES

SLAYER OF KAMSA
DANCE OF GOVINDA
FLUTE OF VRINDAVAN
LORD OF MATHURA
FORTRESS OF DWARKA
CHARIOT OF ARJUNA
RIDER OF GARUDA
LORD OF VAIKUNTA
MAHABHARATA SERIES®
THE FOREST OF STORIES
THE SEEDS OF WAR
THE CHILDREN OF MIDNIGHT
 (& 15 more volumes)

MUMBAI NOIR
THE IRON BRA
TEN DEAD ADMEN
MURDER & CHAMPAGNE
A BLOOD RED SAREE
THE ARBITRATOR
GODS OF WAR
VORTAL:SHOCWAVE
VERTIGO
TEN KINGS
SAFFRON WHITE GREEN
NON-FICTION
RAMA: THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH
THE VALMIKI SYNDROME
& MUCH, MUCH MORE!

only from

AKB eBOOKS
www.ashokbanker.com
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA

Ashok K. Banker

RAMAYANA SERIES®
Book 7

AKB eBOOKS
 Invocation

Ganesa, lead well this army of words

 Epigraph

|Raghupati Raghava raja Ram|

||Patita pavan Sita Ram||
|Sita Ram Sita Ram|
||bhaj pyare tu Sita Ram||

Traditional bhajan
(Favourite of Mahatma Gandhi)
 RETELLING THE RAMAYANA
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE 2ND INDIAN EDITION 2005

Adi-kavya: The first retelling

Some three thousand years ago, a sage named Valmiki lived in a
remote forest ashram, practising austerities with his disciples. One
day, the wandering sage Narada visited the ashram and was asked by
Valmiki if he knew of a perfect man. Narada said, indeed, he did know
of such a person, and then told Valmiki and his disciples a story of an
ideal man.

Some days later, Valmiki happened to witness a hunter killing a

kraunchya bird. The crane’s partner was left desolate, and cried
inconsolably. Valmiki was overwhelmed by anger at the hunter’s
action, and sorrow at the bird’s loss. He felt driven to do something
rash, but controlled himself with difficulty.

After his anger and sorrow subsided, he questioned his outburst. After
so many years of practising meditation and austerities, he had still not
been able to master his own emotions. Was it even possible to do so?
Could any person truly become a master of his passions? For a while
he despaired, but then he recalled the story Narada had told him. He
thought about the implications of the story, about the choices made by
the protagonist and how he had indeed shown great mastery of his
own thoughts, words, deeds and feelings. Valmiki felt inspired by the
recollection and was filled with a calm serenity such as he had never
felt before.

As he recollected the tale of that perfect man of whom Narada had

spoken, he found himself reciting it in a particular cadence and
rhythm. He realized that this rhythm or metre corresponded to the
warbling cries of the kraunchya bird, as if in tribute to theloss that had
inspired his recollection. At once, he resolved to compose his own
version of the story, using the new form of metre, that others might
hear it and be as inspired as he was.

But Narada’s story was only a bare narration of the events, a mere plot
outline as we would call it today. In order to make the story attractive
and memorable to ordinary listeners, Valmiki would have to add and
embellish considerably, filling in details and inventing incidents from
his own imagination. He would have to dramatize the whole story in
order to bring out the powerful dilemmas faced by the protagonist.

But what right did he have to do so? After all, this was not his story. It
was a tale told to him. A tale of a real man and real events. How could
he make up his own version of the story?

At this point, Valmiki was visited by Lord Brahma Himself.

The Creator told him to set his worries aside and begin composing the
work he had in mind. Here is how Valmiki quoted Brahma’s
exhortation to him, in an introductory passage not unlike this one that
you are reading right now:
Recite the tale of Rama … as you heard it told by Narada. Recite the deeds of Rama that are
already known as well as those that are not, his adventures … his battles … the acts of Sita,
known and unknown. Whatever you do not know will become known to you. Never will your
words be inappropriate. Tell Rama’s story … that it may prevail on earth for as long as the
mountains and the rivers exist.

Valmiki needed no further urging. He began composing his poem.

He titled it, Rama-yana, meaning literally, The Movements (or

Travels) of Rama.
Foretelling the future
The first thing Valmiki realized on completing his composition was
that it was incomplete. What good was a story without anyone to tell it
to? In the tradition of his age, a bard would normally recite his
compositions himself, perhaps earning some favour or payment in
coin or kind, more often rewarded only with the appreciation of his
listeners. But Valmiki knew that while the form of the story was his
creation, the story itself belonged to all his countrymen. He recalled
Brahma’s exhortation that Rama’s story must prevail on earth for as
long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

So he taught it to his disciples, among whose number were two young

boys whose mother had sought sanctuary with him years ago. Those
two boys, Luv and Kusa, then travelled from place to place, reciting
the Ramayana as composed by their guru.

In time, fate brought them before the very Rama described in the
poem. Rama knew at once that the poem referred to him and
understood that these boys could be none other than his sons by the
banished Sita. Called upon by the curious king, Valmiki himself then
appeared before Rama and entreated him to take back Sita.

Later, Rama asked Valmiki to compose an additional part to the poem,

so that he himself, Rama Chandra, might know what would happen to
him in future. Valmiki obeyed this extraordinary command, and this
supplementary section became the Uttara Kaand of his poem.

Valmiki’s Sanskrit rendition of the tale was a brilliant work by any

standards, ancient or modern. Its charm, beauty and originality can
never be matched. It is a true masterpiece of world literature, the ‘adi-
kavya’ which stands as the fountainhead of our great cultural record.
Even today, thousands of years after its composition, it remains
unsurpassed.
And yet, when we narrate the story of the Ramayana today, it is not
Valmiki’s Sanskrit shlokas that we recite. Few of us today have even
read Valmiki’s immortal composition in its original. Most have not
even read an abridgement. Indeed, an unabridged Ramayana itself,
reproducing Valmiki’s verse without alteration or revisions, is almost
impossible to find. Even the most learned of scholars, steeped in a
lifetime of study of ancient Sanskrit literature, maintain that the
versions of Valmiki’s poem that exist today have been revised and
added to by later hands. Some believe that the first and seventh
kaands, as well as a number of passages within the other kaands, were
all inserted by later writers who preferred to remain anonymous.

Perhaps the earliest retelling of Valmiki’s poem is to be found in the

pages of that vast ocean of stories we call the Mahabharata. When
Krishna Dwaipayana-Vyasa, more popularly known today as Ved
Vyasa, composed his equally legendary epic, he retold the story of the
Ramayana in one passage. His retelling differs in small but significant
ways.

Sometime later, the burgeoning Buddhist literature, usually composed

in the Pali dialect, also included stories from the Ramayana, recast in
a somewhat different light. Indeed, Buddhist literature redefined the
term dharma itself, restating it as dhamma and changing the definition
of this and several other core concepts.

In the eleventh century, a Tamil poet named Kamban undertook his

own retelling of the Ramayana legend. Starting out with what seems
to have been an attempt to translate Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kamban
nevertheless deviated dramatically from his source material. In
Kamban’s Ramayana, entire episodes are deleted, new ones appear,
people and places are renamed or changed altogether, and even the
order of some major events is revised. Most of all, Kamban’s
Ramayana relocates the entire story in a milieu that is recognizably
eleventh-century Tamil Nadu in its geography, history, clothes,
customs, etc., rather than the north Indian milieu of Valmiki’s Sanskrit
original. It is essentially a whole new Ramayana, retold in a far more
passionate, rich and colourful idiom.

A few centuries later, Sant Tulsidas undertook his interpretation of the

epic. Tulsidas went so far as to title his work Ramcharitramanas,
rather than calling it the Ramayana.

By doing so, he signalled that he was not undertaking a faithful

translation, but a wholly new variation of his own creation. The
differences are substantial.

In art, sculpture, musical renditions, even in dance, mime and street

theatrical performances, the story of Valmiki’s great poem has been
retold over and over, in countless different variations, some with
minor alterations, others with major deviations. The tradition of
retellings continues even in modern times, through television serials,
films, puppet theatre, children’s versions, cartoons, poetry, pop music
and, of course, in the tradition of Ramlila enactments across the
country every year.

Yet how many of these are faithful to Valmiki? How many, if any at
all, actually refer to the original Sanskrit text, or even attempt to seek
out that text?

Should they even do so?

So many Ramayanas
Does a grandmother consult Valmiki’s Ramayana before she retells
the tale to her grandchildren at night? When she imitates a rakshasa’s
roar or Ravana’s laugh, or Sita’s tears, or Rama’s stoic manner, whom
does she base her performance on? When an actor portrays Rama in a
television serial, or a Ramlila performer enacts a scene, or a sculptor
chisels a likeness, a painter a sketch, whom do they all refer to? There
were no illustrations in Valmiki’s Ramayana. No existing portraits of
Rama survive from that age, no recordings of his voice or video
records of his deeds.

Indeed, many of the episodes or ‘moments’ we believe are from

Valmiki’s Ramayana are not even present in the original Sanskrit
work. They are the result of later retellers, often derived from their
own imagination. One instance is the ‘seema rekha’ believed to have
been drawn by Lakshman before leaving Sita in the hut. No mention
of this incident exists in Valmiki’s Ramayana.

Then there is the constant process of revision that has altered even
those scenes that remain constant through various retellings. For
example, take the scene where Sita entreats Rama to allow her to
accompany him into exile. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, when Rama tells
Sita he has to go into exile, and she asks him to allow her to go with
him, he refuses outright. At first, Sita pleads with him and cries
earnest tears, but when Rama remains adamant, she grows angry and
rebukes him in shockingly harsh terms. She refers to him as a ‘woman
disguised as a man’, says that ‘the world is wrong when they say that
there is no one greater than Rama’, calls him ‘depressed and
frightened’, ‘an actor playing a role’, and other choice epithets. It is
one of the longer scenes in Valmiki’s Ramayana, almost equalling in
length the entire narration of Rama’s early childhood years!
Tamil poet Kamban retells this incident in his more compressed,
volatile, rich style, reducing Sita’s objections to a couple of brief
rebukes: ‘Could it be that the real reason [for Rama not taking her into
exile] is that with me left behind, you’ll be free to enjoy yourself in
the forest?’

By the time we reach Sant Tulsidas’s recension, Sita’s rebukes are

reduced to a few tearful admonitions and appeals. Were these changes
the result of the change in the socially accepted standards of
behaviour between men and women in our country? Quite possibly.
Tulsidas’s Ramcharitramanas depicts a world quite different from that
which Valmiki or even Kamban depict. In fact, each of these three
versions differs so drastically in terms of the language used, the
clothes worn, the various social and cultural references, that they seem
almost independent of one another.

Perhaps the most popularly known version in more recent times is a

simplified English translation of a series of Tamil retellings of
selected episodes of the Kamban version, serialized in a children’s
magazine about fifty years ago. This version by C. Rajagopalachari,
aka Rajaji, was my favourite version as a child too. It was only much
later that I found, through my own extensive research that my beloved
Rajaji version left out whole chunks of the original story and
simplified other parts considerably. Still later, I was sorely
disappointed by yet another version by an otherwise great writer, R.
K. Narayan. In his severely abridged retelling, the story is dealt with
in a manner so rushed and abbreviated, it is reduced to a moral fable
rather than the rich, powerful, mythic epic that Valmiki created.

English scholar William S. Buck’s nineteenth-century version,

dubiously regarded as a classic by English scholars, reads like it might
have been composed under the influence of certain intoxicants: in one
significant departure from Indian versions, Guha, the tribal chief of
the Nisada fisherfolk, without discernible reason, spews a diatribe
against Brahmins, and ends by kicking a statue of Lord Shiva. To add
further confusion, in the illustration accompanying this chapter, Guha
is shown kicking what appears to be a statue of Buddha!
If you travel outside India, farther east, you will find more versions of
the Ramayana that are so far removed from Valmiki, that some are
barely recognizable as the same story. In one recent study of these
various versions of the epic across the different cultures of Asia, an
ageing Muslim woman in Indonesia is surprised to learn from the
author that we have our own Ramayana in India also! The kings of
Thailand are always named Rama along with other dynastic titles, and
consider themselves to be direct descendants of Rama Chandra. The
largest Rama temple, an inspiring ruin even today, is situated not in
India, or even in Nepal, the only nation that takes Hinduism as its
official religion, but in Cambodia. It is called Angkor Vat.

In fact, it is now possible to say that there are as many Ramayanas as

there are people who know the tale, or claim to know it. And no two
versions are exactly alike.

My Ramayana: a personal odyssey

And yet, would we rather have this democratic melange of versions
and variations, or would we rather have a half-remembered, extinct
tale recollected only dimly, like a mostly forgotten myth that we can
recall only fragments of?

Valmiki’s ‘original’ Ramayana was written in Sanskrit, the language

of his time and in an idiom that was highly modern for its age. In fact,
it was so avant garde in its style—the kraunchya inspired shloka metre
—that it was considered ‘adi’ or the first of its kind. Today, few
people except dedicated scholars can understand or read it in its
original form—and even they often disagree vehemently about their
interpretations of the dense archaic Sanskrit text!

Kamban’s overblown rhetoric and colourful descriptions, while

magnificently inspired and appropriate for its age, are equally
anachronistic in today’s times.
Tulsidas’s interpretation, while rightfully regarded as a sacred text,
can seem somewhat heavy-handed in its depiction of man–woman
relationships. It is more of a religious tribute to Lord Rama’s divinity
than a realistic retelling of the story itself.

In Ved Vyasa’s version, the devices of ill-intentioned Manthara,

misguided Kaikeyi and reprehensible Ravana are not the ultimate
cause of Rama’s misfortunes. In fact, it is not due to the asuras either.
It is Brahma himself, using the mortal avatar of Vishnu to cleanse the
world of evil, as perpetuated by Ravana and his asuras, in order to
maintain the eternal balance of good and evil.

My reasons for attempting this retelling were simple and intensely

personal. As a child of an intensely unhappy broken marriage, a
violently bitter failure of parents of two different cultures (Anglo-
Indian Christian and Gujarati Hindu) to accept their differences and
find common ground, I turned to literature for solace. My first
readings were, by accident, in the realm of mythology. So inspired
was I by the simple power and heroic victories of those ancient ur-
tales, I decided to become a writer and tell stories of my own that
would be as great, as inspiring to others. To attempt, if possible, to
bridge cultures, and knit together disparate lives by showing the
common struggle and strife and, ultimately, triumph of all human
souls.

I was barely a boy then. Thirty-odd years of living and battling life
later, albeit not as colourful as Valmiki’s thieving and dacoit years, I
was moved by a powerful inexplicable urge to read the Ramayana
once more. Every version I read seemed to lack something, that vital
something that I can only describe as the ‘connection’ to the work. In
a troubled phase, battling with moral conundrums of my own, I set to
writing my own version of the events. My mind exploded with
images, scenes, entire conversations between characters. I saw, I
heard, I felt … I wrote. Was I exhorted by Brahma Himself? Probably
not! I had no reader in mind, except myself—and everyone. I changed
as a person over the course of that writing. I found peace, or a kind of
peace. I saw how people could devote their lives to worshipping
Rama, or Krishna, or Devi for that matter, my own special ‘Maa’. But
I also felt that this story was beyond religion, beyond nationality,
beyond race, colour, or creed.

Undertaking to retell a story as great and as precious as our classic

adi-kavya is not an enterprise lightly attempted. The first thing I did
was study every available edition of previous retellings to know what
had been done before, the differences between various retellings, and
attempt to understand why. I also spoke extensively to people known
and unknown about their knowledge of the poem, in an attempt to
trace how millennia of verbal retellings have altered the perception of
the tale. One of the most striking things was that most people had
never actually read the ‘original’ Valmiki Ramayana. Indeed, most
people considered Ramcharitramanas by Tulsidas to be ‘the
Ramayana’, and assumed it was an accurate reprise of the Sanskrit
work. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

For instance, Valmiki’s Ramayana depicts Dasaratha as having three

hundred and fifty concubines in addition to his three titled wives. In
keeping with the kingly practices of that age, the ageing raja’s
predilection for the fairer sex is depicted honestly and without any
sense of misogyny. Valmiki neither comments on nor criticizes
Dasaratha’s fondness for fleshly pleasures, he simply states it.

When Rama takes leave of his father before going into exile, he does
so in the palace of concubines, and all of them weep copiously for the
exiled son of their master. When Valmiki describes women, he does so
by enumerating the virtues of each part of their anatomy. There is no
sense of embarrassment or male chauvinism evident here: he is simply
extolling the beauty of the women characters, just as he does for the
male characters like Rama and Hanuman and, yes, even Ravana. Even
in Kamban’s version, the women are depicted in such ripe, full-blown
language, that a modern reader like myself blushes in embarrassment.
Yet the writer exhibits no awkwardness or prurience in these passages
—he is simply describing them as he perceived them in the garb and
fashion of his time.

By the time we reach Tulsidas and later versions, Rama is no less than
a god in human avatar. And in keeping with this foreknowledge, all
related characters are depicted accordingly.

So Dasaratha’s fleshly indulgences take a backseat, the women are

portrayed fully clad and demure in appearance, and their beauty is
ethereal rather than earthly.

How was I to approach my retelling? On one hand, the Ramayana was

now regarded not as a Sanskrit epic of real events that occurred in
ancient India, but as a moral fable of the actions of a human avatar of
Vishnu. On the other hand, I felt the need to bring to life the ancient
world of epic India in all its glory and magnificence, to explore the
human drama as well as the divinity that drove it, to show the nuances
of word and action and choice rather than a black-and-white depiction
of good versus evil. More importantly, what could I offer that was
fresh and new, yet faithful to the spirit of the original story? How
could I ensure that all events and characters were depicted respectfully
yet realistically?

There was little point in simply repeating any version that had gone
before—those already existed, and those who desired to read the
Ramayana in any one of its various forms could simply pick up one of
those previous versions.

But what had never been done before was a complete, or ‘sampoorn’,
Ramayana, incorporating the various, often contradictory aspects of
the various Indian retellers (I wasn’t interested in foreign perspectives,
frankly), while attempting to put us into the minds and hearts of the
various characters. To go beyond a simple plot reprise and bring the
whole story, the whole world of ancient India, alive. To do what every
verbal reteller attempts, or any classical dancer does: make the story
live again.

In order to do this, I chose a modern idiom. I simply used the way I

speak, an amalgam of English–Hindi–Urdu–Sanskrit, and various
other terms from Indian languages. I deliberately used anachronisms
like the terms ‘abs’ or ‘morph’. I based every section, every scene,
every character’s dialogues and actions on the previous Ramayanas,
be it Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas, or Vyasa, and even the various
Puranas. Everything you read here is based on actual research, or my
interpretation of some detail noted in a previous work. The
presentation, of course, is wholly original and my own.

Take the example of the scene of Sita entreating Rama to let her
accompany him into exile. In my retelling, I sought to explore the
relationship between Rama and Sita at a level that is beyond the
physical or social plane. I believed that their’s was a love that was
eternally destined, and that their bond surpassed all human ties. At
one level, yes, I believed that they were Vishnu and Lakshmi. Yet, in
the avatars they were currently in, they were Rama and Sita, two
young people caught up in a time of great turmoil and strife, subjected
to hard, difficult choices. Whatever their divine backgrounds and
karma, here and now, they had to play out their parts one moment at a
time, as real, flesh-and-blood people.

I adopted an approach that was realistic, putting myself (and thereby

the reader) into the feelings and thoughts of both Rama and Sita at
that moment of choice. I felt the intensity of their pain, the great
sorrow and confusion, the frustration at events beyond their control,
and also their ultimate acceptance of what was right, what must be
done, of dharma. In my version, they argue as young couples will at
such a time, they express their anger and mixed emotions, but in the
end, it is not only through duty and dharma that she appeals to him. In
the end, she appeals to him as a wife who is secure in the knowledge
that her husband loves her sincerely, and that the bond that ties them is
not merely one of duty or a formal social knot of matrimony, but of
true love. After the tears, after all other avenues have been mutually
discussed and discarded, she simply says his name and appeals to him,
as a wife, a lover, and as his dearest friend:
‘Rama,’ she said. She raised her arms to him, asking, not pleading. ‘Then let me go with you.’

And he agrees. Not as a god, an avatar, or even a prince. But as a man

who loves her and respects her. And needs her.

In the footsteps of giants

Let me be clear.

This is not Valmiki’s story. Nor Kamban’s. Nor Tulsidas’s.

Nor Vyasa’s. Nor R.K. Narayan’s. Nor Rajaji’s charming, abridged

children’s version.

It is Rama’s story. And Rama’s story belongs to every one of us.

Black, brown, white, or albino. Old or young. Male or female. Hindu,
Christian, Muslim, or whatever faith you espouse. I was once asked at
a press conference to comment on the Babri Masjid demolition and its
relation to my Ramayana. My answer was that the Ramayana had
stood for three thousand years, and would stand for all infinity.
Ayodhya, in my opinion, is not just a place in north-central Uttar
Pradesh. It is a place in our hearts. And in that most sacred of places,
it will live forever, burnished and beautiful as no temple of
consecrated bricks can ever be. When Rama himself heard Luv and
Kusa recite Valmiki’s Ramayana for the first time, even he, the
protagonist of the story, was flabbergasted by the sage’s version of the
events—after all, even he had not known what happened to Sita after
her exile, nor the childhood of Luv and Kusa, nor had he heard their
mother’s version of events narrated so eloquently until then. And in
commanding Valmiki to compose the section about future events,
Rama himself added his seal of authority to Valmiki, adding weight to
Brahma’s exhortation to recite the deeds of Rama that were already
known ‘as well as those that are not’.

And so the tradition of telling and retelling the Ramayana began. It is

that tradition that Kamban, Tulsidas, Vyasa, and so many others were
following. It is through the works of these bards through the ages that
this great tale continues to exist among us. If it changes shape and
structure, form and even content, it is because that is the nature of the
story itself: it inspires the teller to bring fresh insights to each new
version, bringing us ever closer to understanding Rama himself.

This is why it must be told, and retold, an infinite number of times.

By me.

By you.

By grandmothers to their grandchildren.

By people everywhere, regardless of their identity.

The first time I was told the Ramayana, it was on my grandfather’s

knee. He was excessively fond of chewing tambaku paan and his
breath was redolent of its aroma. Because I loved lions, he infused any
number of lions in his Ramayana retellings—Rama fought lions, Sita
fought them, I think even Manthara was cowed down by one at one
point! My grandfather’s name, incidentally, was Ramchandra Banker.
He died of throat cancer caused by his tobacco-chewing habit. But
before his throat ceased working, he had passed on the tale to me.

And now, I pass it on to you. If you desire, and only if, then read this
book. I believe if you are ready to read it, the tale will call out to you,
as it did to me. If that happens, you are in for a great treat. Know that
the version of the Ramayana retold within these pages is a living,
breathing, new-born avatar of the tale itself. Told by a living author in
a living idiom. It is my humbleattempt to do for this great story what
writers down the ages have done with it in their times.

Maazi naroti
In closing, I’d like to quote briefly from two venerable authors who
have walked similar paths.

The first is K.M. Munshi whose Krishnavatara series remains a

benchmark of the genre of modern retellings of ancient tales. These
lines are from Munshi’s own Introduction to the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan edition of 1972:
In the course of this adventure, I had often to depart from legend and myth, for such a
reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little
imagination he has. I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of
Him as I see Him in my imagination.

I could not have said it better.

Yuganta, Iravati Karve’s landmark Sahitya Akademi Award-winning

study of the Mahabharata, packs more valuable insights into its
slender 220-page pocket-sized edition (Disha) than any ten
encyclopaedias. In arguably the finest essay of the book, ‘Draupadi’,
she includes this footnote:
‘The discussion up to this point is based on the critical edition of the Mahabharata. What
 follows is my naroti [naroti = a dry coconut shell, i.e. a worthless thing. The word ‘naroti’ was
first used in this sense by the poet Eknath].’

In the free musings of Karve’s mind, we learn more about Vyasa’s

formidable epic than from most encyclopaedic theses. For only from
free thought can come truly progressive ideas.

In that spirit, I urge readers to consider my dried coconut shell

reworking of the Ramayana in the same spirit.

If anything in the following pages pleases you, thank those great

forebears in whose giant footsteps I placed my own small feet.

If any parts displease you, then please blame them on my inadequate

talents, not on the tale.

ASHOK K. BANKER
Mumbai
April 2005
 EVERY END IS A BEGINNING IS AN END IS A
BEGINNING
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO THE LIMITED SIGNED AKB BOOKS
EDITION 2009

So here we are again in Ayodhya. The question is why.

In late 2004, when I wrote the last pages of King of Ayodhya, I was sure I was
done with the Ramayana Series. Two years later, when the book went to press, I
wrote an Afterword that confidentally stated the series was over and even gave
my reasons for not writing the part of the story that is known as Uttar Kaand in
the Valmiki Ramayana. Next stop, Hastinapura, I said. And then went back to
work on my Mba. No, not a business degree; that’s just my personalized term for
my retelling of The Mahabharata, a mammoth project by any standards, and
equivalent to several degree courses! At a projected ten volumes of over 1000
pages in hardcover each, aiming to cover ALL the material in the original 18
Sanskrit parvas, it was enough to occupy me (or several dozen other writers) for
years if not decades. It should have been reason enough for me to wave goodbye
to the Ramayana forever, hop on the slow train to Epic India and never look
back.

But life has a way of deciding where and when to stop the train. And sometimes,
looking back, most of the stops that really matter in the end, turn out to be
unscheduled ones.

That’s how it was with me and the tale of maryada purshottam.

As some of you may already be aware, I had always been fascinated by myths
and itihasa since childhood and around the turn of the millennium, I had begun
seriously re-reading, researching and studying the puranas with a view to writing
my own series of interlinked retellings as well as original works, comprising an
enormous range of books that would, in theory at least, encompass all the major
myths, legends, itihasa of the Indian sub-continent. I call it my Epic India
Library, and it comprises Four Wheels (to use the Sanskrit analogy) that look
something like this:

ASHOK K. BANKER’S EPIC INDIA LIBRARY

A Lifetime Writing Plan In Four Wheels

WHEEL ONE: PURANAS

Imaginative retellings of Ramayana,
Shrimad Bhagvatam and Mahabharata.

RAMAYANA SERIES®
Prince of Ayodhya
Siege of Mithila
Demons of Chitrakut
Armies of Hanuman
Bridge of Rama
King of Ayodhya
Vengeance of Ravana
Sons of Sita

OMNIBUS VOLUMES
Prince of Dharma
Prince in Exile
Prince at War
King of Dharma

KRISHNA CORIOLIS
Slayer of Kansa
Dance of Govinda
Flute of Vrindavan
Throne of Dwarka
Field of Kurukshetra
Chariot of Arjuna
Coils of Ananta
Lord of Vaikunta
 OMNIBUS VOLUMES
Krishna Leela
Radhey Shyam
Gita Govinda
Vishnu Ananta

MAHABHARATA SERIES
The Forest of Stories
The Seeds of War
The Children of Midnight
As The Blind King Watched
Brothers in Exile
While War Lords Speak of Peace
Upon This Crimson Field
When the Blue God Awakens
Beyond Black, White and Grey
Age of Kali

WHEEL TWO: ITIHASA

Richly detailed historical fiction based entirely on factual research, Starting with
Dasarajna (Battle of Ten Kings), the seminal war described in the Vedas that
established the Bharata nation in the subcontinent, the rise of the Aryas, the story
of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations, the time of Mahavira, the
Buddha, Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, etc, through the Golden Age, Moghul
Era, British Era, upto the present day covering the entire national history (with
no special North, South or other emphasis) including other related cultures and
nations in Asia. An honest and sincere attempt to reconstruct our history for our
point of view, rationally, incisively, without the religious, racial or cultural bias
that unfortunately mars so many revisionist histories, using fictional devices in
the tradition of the finest literary history fiction in order to understand our
history better.

WHEEL THREE: OURSTORY

Contemporary novels that explore diverse facets of the Indian condition, with an
emphasis on how history, both personal as well as collective, influences, affects
and informs every decision, act, motive, outcome. An attempt to create a literary
 document that records snapshots of contemporary Indian life from a variety of
points of view, illuminated by fictional devices, genre tropes, and literary
devices. Vertigo, Byculla Boy, The Pasha of Pedder Road, This Song Like A
Stone In My Fist, Indian English, Beautiful Ugly, Under A Mumbai Sky, The
First Vampire, Devi Darshan: Dark Tales, Man With Celluloid Eyes, In This Cup
The Ocean, and various novels and short fiction in the genres of crime, science
fiction, fantasy, horror, romance or simply general fiction.

WHEEL FOUR: FUTURE HISTORY

To boldly go where no historian has gone before: Using literary devices to
extrapolate possible futures, outcomes of present-day policies and sociopolitical
structures, imaginatively and intellectually explore possible future events and
histories. Gods of War and its sequels, Judgement Day, The Greater Jihad, Rage
of Angels and End of Days. The Vortal Codex, comprising Shockwave, Python,
Flash, Dreamweaver and Final Cut. The Indus Rising trilogy comprising
Gandhi’s War and its two (untitled) sequels.
As you can see, there’s a certain chronological flow to the whole plan. Not only
through all four Wheels, but within each one as well. Now, it’s true that I’ve
already begun submitting books from all four Wheels to publishers – Gods of
War is already published, Vortal: Shockwave is available to readers as well,
some of the contemporary novels have been out for years, and so on. That’s
because, for better or worse, I am following tracks and trails of the imagination
and intellect that lead me where they will. I feel it’s important to write down
those parts of the overall plan that most intrigue and excite me at a given time,
rather than methodically and mechanically following the plan chronologically.
So for example, I wrote Gods of War and Vortal: Shockwave while working on
my Mba and Krishna Coriolis and other books, and felt the first two were
polished enough to be published right away. This is why you’ll find various
volumes in the overall Epic India Library appearing out of sequence. The hope is
that someday, you will be able to own every single volume in the entire Library,
all repackaged in conformative formats and specially related covers, with
numbers indicating the correct reading sequence, and then you can sit down and
start reading the whole shebang from start to finish – now, that would be
something to look forward to, wouldn’t it?

However, within each Wheel, it really would be best to read the books in
chronological sequence. Just as, for instance, you can’t read Bridge of Rama
before Siege of Mithila, and so on without destroying the author’s attempt to
create a cumulative buildup of story through accretion of detail, incident and
character development. In short: while you’re certainly free to do as you wish,
faithful reader, to get the full effect of what I wrote you need to read the whole
Ramayana Series in order, complete it, and then go on to read the Krishna
Coriolis, which after all, continues the epic adventures of the Vishnu-avatar (the
Sword of Dharma as I call Him) through his next incarnation. And then read my
Mba when it starts appearing midway through the Krishna Coriolis, thereafter
alternating between volumes of Mba and Krishna Coriolis in order to get the full
‘stereoscopic’ effect of the entire tale. (Or, since there are Four Wheels in the
Epic India Library we could even call it a ‘quadroscopic’ effect!)

Which brings us to Uttar Kaand.

The ending of King of Ayodhya left Rama and Sita and the others back home in
Ayodhya. The war of Lanka was won. Sita recovered. The exile ended. Rama
presumably crowned and esconced on the sunwood throne. Sita pregnant with
their children. And a world of possibilities ahead – all happy ones, we would
assume.

Yet anyone who knows the basic story of Valmiki Ramayana – or even
Tulsidas’s commentary, which differs somewhat from the adi-kavya and adds a
strong religious and revisionistic colouring to the original Vedic tale – would
know that Rama’s story certainly does not end there. In fact, one of the most
dramatic events of the entire tale occurs after the return home to Ayodhya. Also
one of the most controversial, and the reason most often cited by angry young
Indians who still fume about what they feel was Rama’s chauvinistic ill-
treatment of Sita. Kamban chose to ignore that part of the tale – and so did I, at
first, placing my small feet in the footsteps of the giants who went before.
Because, as I said in my Afterword to King of Ayodhya, I couldn’t reconcile my
idea of Rama with the king who cruelly cast out his beloved life-companion. So
it was with a clear mind that I put aside the Ramayana Series and went on to
write about those amazing five brothers in that great ancient city.

But as I worked on my Mba over the next few years, I realized two major things:
one, my Mba was growing far too large and compendious to fit into the original
nine volumes as planned. The reason being, I’m not satisfied with offering yet
another abridged version of the great purana, but wish to make my retelling the
first complete, comprehensive Mahabharata ever attempted by any single writer.
(Or, for that matter, by any of the several teams of dozens of academic scholars
aided by hundreds of researchers and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over
decades – none of whom, curiously enough seem to have managed to translate
the Sanskrit epic in its entirety, either leaving the project abandoned midway, or
completing it while leaving out valuable details for inscrutable reasons and using
language and ideology that seem designed to make the work accessible to
western minds rather than honestly attempting to capture the full detail, glory,
and greatness of the work itself irrespective of who reads it.)

This problem of length, I eventually resolved by splitting the story into two
separate series: Krishna Coriolis in eight volumes and Mba in ten volumes,
making a total of 18, exactly like the original epic.
The second fact that struck me was the realization that the Krishna Coriolis, in
the manner in which I was treating the retelling, continued almost directly from
the Ramayana Series®,. This is because of my concept of the ‘Sword of
Dharma’ about which you will read more in my Afterword to Sons of Sita: Book
8 of the Ramayana Series®, which will explain many other things as well. For
an avatar or amsa, the moment of death is no death at all. It is simply a
transmogrification. The aatma, that eternal and undiminishable part of brahman
of which each living or inanimate being is composed, simply moves on to its
next host. Thus, Rama dies and is instantly reawakened as Krishna, the next
Sword of Dharma. Mortal years – and our mortal sense of chronological
temporality – are irrelevant to the flow of brahman. To His conciousness, the
transition is virtually instantaneous.

There was also the issue of my considerable alteration to the original tale, done
because I was seeking to find answers to questions that had constantly plagued
me (as it had plagued, and continues to plague countless Indians even today):
Why did Rama act as he did? If dharma was his justification, then why did he
have to be so cruel and heartless about it? Why not gently and regretfully banish
Sita?
Because as anyone who puzzles over this age-old problem knows, the real issue
is not just that Rama exiled Sita. We might swallow the difficult (near-
impossible, in my honest opinion) argument about him abiding by dharma – I
don’t, but still. But how do we explain the extreme cruelty with which he treated
her? Not in front of all Ayodhya, but in a private faceoff where only the two of
them were present, and where he says things and addresses her in a fashion that
is unlike the Rama of the preceding story. It’s as if this is a completely different
Rama now, one that is impossible to reconcile with the loving, gentle,
equalitarian Rama whom Sita is able to speak harshly to, even slap, and
otherwise act and behave on completely equal terms with throughout their earlier
life. (This is one of the crucial differences between Valmiki Ramayana and
Tulsidas and other recenscions, including Kamban to some extent: the
egalitarianism of the sexes, and the clear evidence of womanly power in
exchanges between men and women in those Vedic times, unlike the
considerably diminished stature of women in 16th century India during
Tulsidas’s lifetime.)

The problem I faced was a simple two-fold one: One, how to reconcile Rama’s
behaviour (not his actions, mind you, which can be justified, however absurdly,
by the ‘dharma’ argument, but his behaviour towards his beloved wife) with the
Rama we had known and shared mindspace and heartspace with for over 3000
pages in the preceding six books. Two, how to bridge the time between Rama’s
return home to Ayodhya at the end of King of Ayodhya, and the start of Slayer of
Kansa, the first book of the Krishna Coriolis (which, by the way, will be
appearing in bookstores only a few months from now)?
And so my mind returned to Ayodhya, and as an idle mental exercise, began to
follow the mindtrails and scent-trails of the imagination.

As I finished Gods of War and began work on Judgement Day, the trail widened
and the scent deepened.

When I finished Vortal: Shockwave and began work on Vortal: Python, it

became even clearer.

And finally, by the time I finished Dance of Govinda, the sequel to Slayer of
Kansa, I knew exactly how and why it had all happened. Or at least, my version
of events. (Just as the previous six books were my version of the Valmiki and
Kamban Ramayana.)

And so you now have this book in your hands.

Vengeance of Ravana.

And you’re about to return with me back to Ayodhya. And to begin a journey
that will seem both familiar and strange, I suppose, since that’s how it seemed to
me. And start down the wide, scented path that will lead you to a whole barrage
of new questions that will answer some of the old ones, while raising completely
new ones.

All questions will be answered not here, but in the succeeding, final book, Sons
of Sita. In fact, I should probably warn you that Vengeance of Ravana ends on a
cliffhanger, most definitely incomplete, unfinished, unresolved, and altogether
unsatisfying ending – because that’s the way the story unfolds. What I can
reassure you off, old friend and companion, is that all these new questions as
well as old ones, will be resolved in Sons of Sita. You have my word on that. Of
course, the story itself will not end there, even in Sons of Sita. Because, as I
mentioned earlier, while Rama’s story ends there in SoS, Krishna’s story begins
– and continues in SoK and its seven sequels, and in the Mba thereafter.

But the story starts at this point, and so here we have to start again.

Once again in Ayodhya. Once again in Rama’s bed-chamber late at night. Once
again with the sound of a disembodied voice in his ear, and warm breath on his
neck. Because endings usually bring us back to the beginning in some fashion.
In fact, in Indian (and Asian, to some extent) storytelling, all tales are cyclical, as
are all lives.

So in a way, every end is a beginning. Which itself is an end. And which in turn
is a new beginning. And so on.

After all, as they say, all stories are ultimately linked together. Just as all people
are. All beings. All things. All matter. All universes.

And that’s the last thing I have to tell you before we return to that bed-chamber
in Ayodhya.

While VoR and SoS do conclusively end the Ramayana Series®, they also begin
a whole new tale. One that doesn’t simply continue through the Krishna Coriolis,
Mba, and beyond into the other three Wheels of my Epic India Library. But also
slips sideways and leaps forward in time to other linked stories.

Gods of War and its sequels are one storyline that is directly linked to the events
that conclude the Ramayana Series®. Without reading that series, it is
impossible to fully understand and, more importantly, fully appreciate and enjoy
the larger tale that begins in VoR.

Vortal Codex is another series that must be read in order to understand and, again
more vitally, relish the thrill of the underlying story that starts here in this book.

In short, once you read this book, loyal reader, you run the risk of entering a
maze of chambers. One leads to another to another and so on. Not endlessly.
Because there is a definite end. But a long journey nevertheless. A journey that
will take you through the entire mythology, itihasa, history and contempory
sociopolitical world of the Indian subcontinent (and to a lesser extent, the world
at large). As of this writing, it looks like being about 70 volumes in all. Hence
the term Epic India Library.

In a sense, you began reading the Epic India Library the moment you read any of
my earlier books.

But once you read VoR you will be committed.

Of course, you could still choose not to continue reading. In fact, it’s quite
possible that you may be so fed up of me and my work by the time you put this
book down, that you may never read anything by me again. (Those who take
extremist views for or against Rama may feel that way, since they most often
have their own fixed notions of what they believe really happened, and are
simply not interested in anyone else’s point of view.) But since you’re still here,
still reading this long and possibly irrelevant foreword, I have a feeling you will
go on.

And if you choose to do so, then I just want to remind you that I warned you.
Right here. Right now. I warned you that reading this book will commit you to a
very wide, very scented path that will lead on those dozens of other books, tens
of thousands of pages, and a vast labyrinthine story that will take several years
more to complete, publish, purchase and read, and will occupy a considerable
portion of your waking hours and your book-buying budget.

Will it be worth it? You’ll have to answer that one yourself. I think so. But then
again, the engineer always enjoys riding the train. Just as the charioteer always
loves leading the team of horses.

Why else would the charioteer be a charioteer otherwise? Or the train engineer a
train engineer?

Ultimately, it will be upto you, constant reader, to decide whether this epic
undertaking was worth the effort and time and investment.

And in case all the above seems like the insane dream of a bibliomaniac, well,
one can dream, can’t one? In any case, I’m only talking about writing the books.
As was the case when I started writing my Ramayana Series®, it’s quite likely
that no publisher will want to even look at the manuscripts, let alone publish
them. It’s equally possible that I won’t live long enough to finish telling all the
stories, or even most of them. But what the hey, I’m a 45-year old, balding,
greying, paunchy father to a teenage daughter and an adult son, husband to a
schoolteacher wife, care-giver to an adorable but stubborn basset hound, I live
and work surrounded by books, family, some filmed entertainment and a few
good friends, and that’s pretty much it for me. A simple life, almost boring by
Mumbai/Bombay standards or any standard for that matter. So at the least, at the
very very least, I can afford to dream big, and I’m damn well going to do so.
I have no idea whether or not I’ll succeed, and whether you will feel at the end it
was all worth it. But I’m damn well going to give it an epic try.

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend this lifetime.

And you’re warmly invited to join me for the ride.

Chariots don’t have seatbelts (neither do trains, curiously). So you’re just going
to have to hold on to my shoulder if you need some support. I’ll try to coax the
team to riding gentle, but at times we will have to ride fast and furious. And
there may be bumps. And dips. And obstacles.

But at least we’ll ride them together. And the journey is an amazing one.

That much, I can promise you.

Ashok K. Banker
25 November 2009
Andheri, Mumbai
SAMAPTAM
Raghupati.
Through the haze of smoke from the burning towers of Lanka, dimly
glimpsed. Upon that battlefield, carelessly littered with the corpses of
friends and foes alike, he stood, grieving. For even in victory had he
lost so much; such were the bitter fruits of war. The shouts of his
jubilant soldiers rang out all round him, yet to his ears they were
overwhelmed by the remembered cries of anguish and torment of
those that had fallen upon this field. Vanars, bears, rakshasas…it
mattered not if they were his enemy or his ally. All who had died had
died for him, one way or another. That was all that mattered. All this,
this brutal hacking of limbs and sundering of bones, this mad dance of
soldiers, this epic bloodshed, this immense decimation of life, was on
his command, and therefore, on his conscience.
Raghava.
He walked the battlefield, taking stock of the fallen. All these lives cut
short, some in their prime, all before their time. All these…so many,
too many…brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, blood-kith and blood-
kin. His siblings-at-arms. For no less were these fallen united to him
than were his own brothers back home, Bharat and Shatrugan. No less
were they related to him by blood than Lakshman himself, partner in
all his travails and exile, the shoulder that stood beside his shoulder
through thick and thin. So what if these vanars and bears and
rakshasas had not been born of the same mother as he, or of the same
father, or even of the same species? Born apart, they had come
together to die today for him, and in dying, bonded with him in the
eternal brotherhood of blood. These mangled and broken bodies had
been living, hoping, longing, loving creatures, with homes and
families of their own, which they had left, to dedicate themselves to
his cause, to travel long yojanas to this foreign land across a hostile
sea, and now this alien soil was soaked through with their honest
blood. And this blood was upon his conscience.
Raja.
Now, he would return to his homeland, proud and triumphant, lauded
in victory, to be crowned king of Ayodhya. No more a prince in exile,
or at war. A king in name and deed and title. His name added to the
long list of Suryavansha Ikshwakus, his portrait hung beside those
others in the hall of ancestors, his statue carved and polished and
raised in the public avenues and places of honour, his name given to a
thousand thousand newborns whose mothers would pray for them to
be as Rama was, do as Rama did, to become…
Ram.
Yet, was he deserving of this victory, this pride, this praise? This
kingship, even? The tales that would be woven around his exploits,
the poems composed and sung of his adventures in exile, his feats as a
warrior, his triumphs against the evil rakshasas, his incomparable
accomplishments and wondrous feats of chivalry? Like so many other
warriors before him, reluctant and unwilling to embrace
celebrityhood, his story would grow larger than his life itself, in time
would come to seem more real than the sordid, gritty reality and
eventually would march firmly into the annals of legend, then myth,
and finally, into race-memory.
“Raghupati Raghava Raja Rama…patita pavana Sita Ram!”
The sound rose to a roar, counterpointing the numbing silence in his
veins. He came out of his reverie like a traveller emerging from mist
and saw the entire host of his army’s survivors assembled before him,
before the walls of Lanka, still a formidable mass, their ragged voices
joined in this new chant, something he had never heard before, yet
seemed so oddly familiar. Vanars and bears, and rakshasas even…not
all of the rakshasas, for he could see several kneeling sullenly or
glumly by, driven to their knees by their vanar or bear captors,
unrepentant and hostile in their failure…but those brothers of
Vibhisena in spirit who were jubilant in their relief at being rid of
Ravana’s yoke at long last. A great multitude of voices raised in
ragged, heartrendingly cheerful harmony, filling the smoky skies
above Lanka with this hypnotic chant, this near fanatical hymn of
praise…
“Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, patita pavana Sita Ram,
Sita Ram, Sita Ram, bhaj pyare tu Sitaram.”
The same two lines over and over again, as if the poet had been so
overwhelmed by adoration that he had no motive left to seek lyrics to
follow, or inclination to compose those lyrics.
Hail to thee, Rama, Lord of the House of Raghu, Saviour of the fallen,
Hail to the divine union of Sita and Rama, Beloved are you both, Sita
and Rama.
The lilt of the lyrics and the monotony of the melody gave it the
quality of a bhajan, a couplet chanted in praise of a god. Was that how
they perceived him? As a god? He scanned the sea of upturned faces,
bloody snouts and furry heads, and saw wet adoration in those animal
eyes, mirrored and repeated in every single visage, vanar and bear
alike. To the periphery of his host, huddled before the crumbled walls
of Lanka, the survivors of Ravana’s army stood herded together. He
saw even their bestial aspects raised towards him. The expression on
most rakshasa snouts was grim, morose, even hostile. Yet there was a
certain grudging admiration visible in that mottled and beaten crowd,
an awe that went beyond a mere fear of captivity. And sweeping the
vast assemblage again with battle-weary eyes, he saw that what he
euphemistically referred to as adoration or admiration was no less
than an acknowledgement of godliness. It was the same look one saw
on the faces of devotees at a great teerth-sthan, one of the sacred
pilgrimage spots. Yes, many of those assembled saw him as
something akin to a god. It would be ingenuous of him not to see that;
not to recognize the glistening admiration in those grape-dark eyes for
what it truly was: the awe of a crowd of believers given sight of their
deity. Even as this realization seeped into his tired senses, the vast
host, their numbers so great as to make the vast field resemble nothing
so much as a field of kusalavya grass, swaying gently in an autumn
breeze, reached a peak in their chanting.
He scanned the landscape from left to right, attempting to take in the
sheer vastness of the multitudes assembled, despite their terrible
losses in battle, carpeting the hills and valleys and fields of Lanka for
miles in every direction, a veritable ocean of waves dipping their
crests to show respect for the approaching shore, and as they sensed
him responding at last – looking upon them – their haunting chant
yielded to a moment of such utter silence that he thought his heart
itself had ceased beating.
As one, in drill-perfect unison, they straightened their battered bodies
to stand on their hind legs – a measure of supreme respect among both
vanars and bears – and raised their snouted, furred and dusty faces to
him, their dark wet eyes gleaming in the slanting evening light. On
straightened knees with lowered brows, hoarse voices stilled at last
after days of yelling war cries and crying havoc, they observed him,
and waited.
In the silence that fell, he heard a bird twittering somewhere, calling
the end of day. He felt the benediction of a soft, cool ocean breeze
wafting in from the west, redolent of salt and the exotic odours of a
thousand yojanas of open sea. He felt a strange absence of feeling
spread through his being, like the sensation one experienced just
before falling fast asleep, when the body and mind hovered
momentarily between wakefulness and deep unconsciousness. He
stood on that precipice, and teeming multitudes waited to hear his
words.
A great hand fell upon his shoulder; gently, despite its great strength.
The voice that spoke in his ear was as quiet as that hand was gentle.
“Command them. They are yours. As are the earth, the sky and the sea
and everything in them. You are the master of the world now. Rule it
as you see fit.”
The voice of the bear king Jambavan was sonorous and gruff as ever.
But the tone of sad wisdom was new. Perhaps, he thought, the war had
taken its toll on the ancient one too, dimming his penchant for
eccentric proclamations and whimsical asides. Or perhaps it was the
gravity of the moment that the bear lord tempered his speech to suit.
He turned to look up into the eyes of the lord of rksaas. During the
time of battle, he had seen those same eyes blazing like coals in
obsidian, promising fire and delivering death. Earlier in their
numerous counsels he had seen grace, wisdom, empathy and
knowledge so deep and infinite that he had felt he could ask any
question and the answer would be there in those eyes. Now, he saw in
them a mirror image of the same adoration he saw in all those lakhs of
vanar and bear and rakshasa eyes staring up at him from the field of
battle. A look of fierce admiration and pride, an almost deifying
adoration. It was the look a soldier gave his king after a successful end
to war; the look a worshipper gave his deity after a lifetime’s wish
was fulfilled.
He wondered if he deserved such a look, such adoration, such
deification.
“Lord bear,” he said softly. “I barely know how to console myself.
How do I console these who have sacrificed so much for my cause?
What do I say to explain the terrible cost of this great conflict?”
Jambavan’s face fur rippled in a diagonal pattern that began
somewhere east of his left ear and traversed across the top of his
mountainous head ending somewhere in the vicinity of his nape. The
effect resembled a strong wind ruffling thick elephant grass on
plainsland. The berry dark eyes shone with sympathy, but the parted
jaws promised no mercy. “Heed well my words, youngun. I will say
this only once, so treasure it and scroll it and do not make me repeat
it. The price of war is the prize of war.”
And the bear stepped back, silent, turning his snout away to gaze at a
flight of geese overhead as if they had suddenly grown more
interesting than anything transpiring on earth. Rama blinked, taking in
the words so eccentrically given, tersely spoken, yet so dense and rich
with meaning.
The price of war is the prize of war.
He blinked again, this time to dispel the sudden wetness that plagued
his vision. And suddenly found the courage to speak. He found a little
strength to straighten his stiff back, to raise his head and thrust his
chin forward, to return their show of respect with a gesture of his own,
for among vanars and bears, actions counted more than words. Yet
words he gave them as well. Words that carried to the furry ears of the
farthest vanar or bear through the whispering relay system that had
been perfected under Nala’s supervision. The only effect, to his ears,
was a faint susurration following each of his words like a wind
blowing through a leafy grove.
“Comrades,” he said. “All we have accomplished, all we have
achieved, all we have endeavoured towards, all we have struggled,
fought, strategized, manoeuvred, battled, bled and sacrificed for, is
upon this field. It is our dignity, our honour, our pride and our dharma.
At this hour of battle – with the tide turned, the enemy vanquished,
the master of the land fallen, the siege broken, the fortress overrun –
any army could be expected to wreak havoc, to ravage and forage, to
rape and pillage, to partake of the spoils of war. But we did not fight
this war for spoils. At a time like this, any army in history would be
forgiven a few transgressions, a few excesses, a few just rewards for
the bitter struggle we have all endured these past days and weeks. The
rules of war condone such excesses, overlook such transgressions,
forgive such acts. Yet that is not why you fought this war. At this point
in a war, any invading conqueror would be expected to slice up and
divide the territories he has conquered, to parcel them out to his
generals, his comrades, to any he pleases who may have pleased him
before. Yet that is not why I fought this war. You and I, we made a
pact. To come to these shores and plead for peace. To sue for a quick
and bloodless resolution to this needless conflict. To beg for the safe
return of my beloved Sita. It was Ravana’s choice to deny us that
peace, to abjure a resolution, to mock our pleas. We could all be
forgiven, you and I, if we razed his kingdom to the ground, if we put
every last one of his citizens to the sword, if we ravaged his queens
and his concubines, if we speared every rakshasa cub in Lanka, if we
cleansed the world of the rakshasa race forever. We could do all these
things, and indeed I am sure that after the grievous losses we all
suffered this day there are many of you who desire this end, who
crave it. I will not deny that a part of me craves it as well…The
basest, most vengeful part of me…”
He paused, looking at the snouted faces of the Lankans by the broken
walls. Their faces were filled with dismay and terror now. Gone was
all hostility, all glumness, all reluctant admiration. In their place was
naked fear, panic at the thought that what he had just said might
actually come to pass. He sensed the vanar and bear armies swivel
their heads and eyes, looking towards Lanka, towards those walls,
those bestial warriors, those towers that had caused them so much
pain and death and suffering these past days. And he knew from the
very stench of their rage that he had spoken their hearts’ deepest
emotions aloud.
“Yet we shall do none of these things,” he said quietly. The relay took
his words like the wind and passed them down the lines, rippling
miles North to the far reaches of the vast assemblage.
“For these are not the reasons why we came here to fight this war.”
He paused again, straightened his head, and took a step forward. He
raised his arms to either side, palms upwards. The interlacing of
myriad cuts and nicks and wounds across his weary muscles screamed
in response, for the blood had long since dried over them, and some of
the caked wounds and hundreds of tiny scabs tore open as he flexed
those overused muscles again. He ignored the pain, which was as
much his brother too. And held the stance. The setting sun caught his
body in its embrace, and its soft saffron warmth was like a careless
blessing from a gruff god.
“We came here for a reason, and that reason is accomplished. Our
work here is done. Now, it is time to show Lanka, the world indeed, to
show generations to come, that while war itself is undesirable,
warriors can still adhere to dharma. Let us pledge here and now, with
our Lankan enemies present beside us, that we shall work together to
rebuild every loosed brick, every shattered beam, every broken palace,
hovel or hut, and to raise a new Lanka from the ashes of this tragedy,
a Lanka that will put war behind it forever and turn her face towards
the new sun of peace. Let us pledge this now. Let our pledge and the
execution of it be a testament to our pride and honour and dharma.
And a monument to all those of our beloved ones who fell here on this
soil. I do not command this, for with this war done, I have no
authority to command you anymore. I merely ask this, request it, beg
it if you will…Join me in showing Lanka and all the ages to come,
that yes, we came, we fought, we conquered…And then we rebuilt.
We restored. We rehabilitated. We took nothing, but we gave
everything. And by so doing, we gained the greatest riches possible,
the most precious spoils of war, that which every soldier secretly
craves but rarely hopes to ever acquire: the love and forgiveness and
admiration of our enemies. I ask you this in honour of my fallen foe,
Ravana. I ask you this in the memory of everyone fallen in this
conflict. I ask you this in the name of dharma.”
“What say you?”
The silence that followed the last whispering passage of his words
through the seemingly endless ranks was deafening. He could hear his
heart pounding steadily, like a drum beaten by a drummer tolling a
dirge. He could hear the distant, high-pitched lowing of greybacks far
out at sea. He could hear birds in the skies wailing for the lost day.
And the sun slipped one final time to touch the rim of the horizon,
hanging there as if reluctant to take its sight off him, as if waiting to
hear the response of his armies, as eager to know the effect of his
words upon them as he himself was.
The answer came with a roar so resounding it shook his body to his
very bones. It was accompanied by a stamping of feet that made the
earth beneath tremble as well, the grassy knoll shuddering as if
stricken by another bout of the earth-moving wrought by Ravana’s
asura maya on the first night of their landing. The wind of their
shouting made the hairs of his arms and his nape stand on end. It was
greater than the war chants they had yelled in battle, greater than the
screams of the dying, more determined than the shout of fealty they
had pledged to him back at Mount Mahendra when the armies of
Hanuman had first assembled before his sight. Hail Rama Husband of
Sita.
“JAI SIYARAM.”
The sun slipped beneath the rim. He thought he felt it smile one final
time before it passed from that part of the world. He smiled as well.
PRARAMBH
 ONE

Rama.
Blackness. As impenetrable as a caul over a newborn’s eyes. As dark
as his name – which meant black and was given to male infants darker
complected than the average dusky-skinned Arya male. In his case, so
dark that the royal artists often used a deep shade of midnight blue to
distinguish his skin, back in the days when things such as portraits had
been an insignificant yet inevitable part of his life. Back when he was
still a prince, a yuvraj, carefree and happy in the first flush of youth.
Before life had turned upon him like a hunting hawk upon its handler
and ripped that casual innocence to shreds.
Awaken, Black Prince.
Crow feather. Night shade. Shyam rang. Or his favourite, Kisna.
Although Kisna, or Krishna, as it was pronounced in commonspeak
by those unschooled in Sanskrit highspeech, was as likely to be used
for a girl as a boy. Unlike Rama, which was always unquestionably a
masculine name, he didn’t know why. Nor was he the first of his
name: there were at least three previous Ramas in the Suryavansha
Ikshwaku dynasty. And any number across the Arya nations, for dark
complexions were common across the length and breadth of this land
of the relentless sun.
Enough. I bid you rise…NOW.
A hand not made of flesh and bone grasped him in a vice and hauled
him back to consciousness.
He woke, choking, gasping for breath, and leaped to the floor. He
reached for his sword – missing. His bow, arrow, rig – likewise. His
clothing
– also gone. Weaponless, naked but for a langot, he spun on the balls
of his feet, his keenly honed warrior senses alert to attack from any
front by any foe.
He was in his bed chamber, the king’s bed chamber, no less. For he
was king now in all but name, and after the coronation on the morrow,
the title would be his as well. Although it was and perhaps would
always be, his father’s bed chamber. It was larger than he had recalled
it, certainly far greater in span and length than his own princely
chambers back when he had resided here. Although, after fourteen
years of forest exile, constant battle and rough living off the land,
even a woodsman’s hut would seem comfortable. This…this was
beyond luxurious; never much of a poet, he had no words to describe
it now.
Marbled floors gleamed by the light of moonshafts falling through
latticed windows. Alabaster columns marched down the length of the
chamber like resolute sentries perpetually on guard. Statuary cast in
ebony, ivory, jade and softwood depicted a variety of devas,
auspicious animals and Ikshwaku ancestors in a variety of postures,
every detail precise and perfect. The fingers, arms, necks and ankles
of the kings and queens among them glittered with real ornaments of
precious metal and stone, kept polished and pristine over centuries.
Immense portraits and epic landscapes adorned the vaulting walls,
some aspiring to the ceiling a dozen yards above. Richly brocaded
tapestries hung in cul-de-sacs. The lush carpeting yielded to his bare
feet like a velvet invitation. Everywhere he turned – seeking, scanning
– darkly majestic furnishings gleamed with exquisite artistry and
lavish care. The entire vast chamber was redolent of the woody
perfume of sandalwood, his favourite aroma.
Yet it was empty, every yard of it. He completed a full circuit of the
chamber and stood, puzzled. He had not imagined it. That grasp that
tore him away from his dreamy meanderings had been as real as any
rough hand laid on his flesh. So had the voice. He stood there in the
moonlight, breathing silently. A gust of night wind parted and lifted
the gossamer curtains, and dried the cooling sweat upon his muscled
chest. And slowly, like a debt returned too slowly over too long, it
came back to him.
There had been a dream much like this, on a night very similar, a long
time ago. Before Lanka. Before the abduction of Sita. Before the
rakshasa wars, the exile, the marriage, the battle of Bhayanak-van…
before that day, the Holi day, when his life had changed forever,
wrenched from its
course like a river denied its pathway to the ocean.
A dream of Ravana. Warning him. Threatening. Mocking.
Abruptly, a terror rose in his blood. He spun on quicksilver feet and in
less than a breath’s span, was at the side of the bed he had left only
moments ago.
Sita.
The bed raiment was strewn on the side where he had been sleeping.
Unaccustomed as he had been to the caress of such fine cloth for so
long, he had pushed them away impatiently before falling asleep. But
on the side where she had laid herself down, they were gathered and
overlapped, and now all he could see was the raiment itself.
A dark dread lay on his heart like a stone. He reached out, willing
himself to be steady, and plucked a loose end of the gathered cloth in
his hand. Gently, he lifted it and pulled it away from the bed, bracing
himself to find nothing more than a rumpled space where she had lain,
still faintly warm with her heat. Gone. Again. Taken.
Instead, he found her. Lying curled beneath the bedclothes like a bird
nursing a broken wing. He caught his breath at the sight of her, unable
to believe his eyes alone. Still holding the blanket in one hand, he
reached down with the other and gently touched the crook of her arm.
He could smell the musky odour of her body, feel the heat gathered
beneath the blankets. She stirred in the throes of deep slumber,
moaned softly, but did not turn over or rouse. Too exhausted, at the
end of her tether. His heart went out to her. If only he could have
reached Lanka sooner, if only the war had been less complicated, if
only he had used his brahman shakti from the very outset…But he had
done what had seemed right, and what had been had been.
He started to lower the cloth, then stopped. He watched her a moment.
His heart stuck in his throat to see how thin she had grown over the
weeks of her captivity, how pale and bony. Bird-like. Yet, watching
her thus, her faced stripped of all self-control in the languor of sleep,
there was something about her face and aspect, an inner glow that
belied all the recent hardship, defied the preceding years of torturous
existence, the blood-smirched struggle for survival that had been their
way of life for fourteen long years. A proud dignity that still shone on
her features, which could not be hidden. It made him want to take her
into his arms, to embrace and love forever. She was still the strong,
indomitable woman he had fallen in love with and married, those
many years past. Neither exile, nor hardship, nor war, nor Ravana had
broken her. Nothing could. A bird with a broken wing…indeed. But a
Garuda among birds.
He lowered the raiment, replacing the blanket as nearly as he had
found it. She had always liked to cover her head while she slept, a
habit he could not brook. He would feel suffocated to sleep thus, yet
she could not sleep otherwise. And now, he thought with a faint smile
as he stepped back from the bed, she could certainly afford to cover
herself and sleep thusly; in the finest silks and velvet coverings in the
whole wide world.
But not for long.
He spun around, scouring the chamber. After the life he had lived, the
things he had seen, there was little that could unnerve him, and yet,
some part of him could not accept that this was happening. Ravana is
dead. I killed him on the battlefield of Lanka, in full view of both our
armies. He sliced the air with his open hand, in the manner he had
learned from a dark-skinned fighter from the Kerall waterlands who
had fought with him in the wilderness of Janasthana. He could leap
twice his own height in the air, and strike with a sword in a full circle
before touching ground again. But there was nothing to strike here, no
foe to defend against.
“Show yourself,” he snarled, almost beneath his breath.
Where I am now, your weapons and fists can no longer harm me.
Yet I can do to you and yours as I desire. Perhaps I shall start
with your wife…
“Craven!” He started to cry out but choked back the shout. He did not
want to wake Sita if he could help it. He must draw the bodiless
intruder away from her. He drew upon the steel-edged self-discipline
that had earned him his formidable reputation, using a pranayam
breathing pattern to calm his ragged nerves and soothe his battle-
weary muscles. Old guru Vashishta had taught him the yogic
breathing pattern; in another lifetime, it now seemed. A happier,
youthful time.
Coward, he hissed silently, knowing that he did not need audible
speech to be heard by his tormentor. Why do you hide from my sight
and seek to taunt
me with words? Face me like a warrior if you dare.
A sound in his head, like a chuckle with a hundred echoes.
No.
Not a hundred.
Ten.
Only ten.
If he listened closely with his now-fully attentive mind, he could even
catch the nuances of those ten different voices, voices he knew so well
now from hearing them up close on the field in the crystalline hyper-
awareness of battle.
At that moment, the saliva in his mouth began to taste of the coppery
tang of blood and he knew then that this was no nightmare; it was
indeed Ravana speaking. But how? And more importantly, why?
Why do you think, King of Ayodhya? We have unfinished
business.
He spun around on the balls of his feet. This time the voice had
seemed to come from just behind his left shoulder. He had even felt
the faint heat of voice-breath upon his bare skin. But there was still no
one there. No one that could be seen by mortal eyes.
But even the invisible one could be cut by steel if struck at a certain
moment, when a particular one of those ten voices was speaking. He
did not know how he knew this; he just did. If only he had his sword.
He missed it, his constant companion through all his struggles. How
could he have let himself be parted from it? Then he recalled.
Sumantra had insisted on taking it away, and when he had protested,
the aging minister had simply held up the sword in both palms,
showing it to Rama. And he had seen, really seen, what a state it was
in: blood and gore and bodily fluids and materials had dried and
encrusted themselves along its length so many times over that they
formed a scabby coating. The hilt was cracked and bent, its jewels
long lost in the heat of one of a thousand encounters. The blade was
chipped and marred in a hundred places, barely retaining any vestige
of its former honed perfection. The once-lethal blade was now little
more than a macabre souvenir. That sword, he had realized in an
onrush of commingled pride and sadness as he met Sumantra’s
heartrending gaze again, told the history of his struggles more
eloquently than any court poet. But now its work was done; it needed
to be repaired and rested, perhaps retired. Not unlike himself.
Except that unlike the sword, he was still on call, still required to
serve. He breathed, drawing energy from the air, in the way that
tapasvi sadhus in the deep aranya drew sustenance from air alone.
Breathed and waited.
Finally, as if realizing that he would not be baited into leaping and
flailing about, the voice spoke again, and this time, because he was
listening intently, he heard the unmistakable inflection: that doubling
of tones, like ten men speaking at once yet not quite precisely in
unison.
Outside.
He needed no further explanation or command. He moved toward the
verandah and exited the royal chamber to find himself upon a patio
lined with flowering plants and stone statuary intertwined with vines
and creepers. Here beneath the open sky, the nightwind caressed his
naked skin, a vetaal’s lifeless breath. From the vantage point of a royal
view, he scanned the sleeping capitol city with a glance. Countless
house lights still flickered, even though it was long past the midnight
watch, and faint sounds echoed and carried even from the farthest
reaches of the great city-state: his people, Ayodhyans, all working to
prepare for the grand coronation tomorrow, a few perhaps still
celebrating the return of their king.
There was nobody in sight.
Jump.
“What?” he asked, startled. His voice would not carry inside to Sita
from here.
Do you still wish to face me like a man? Like a warrior? Then do
as I command. Leap from the balustrade.
He let his teeth show, flashing white in his wine-dark face. Do you
mistake me for a fool now, Lanka-naresh? Have you forgotten that I
brought you down upon the field of battle? Do you really think I will
leap to my death at your bidding?
A sound of impatience clicked in his mind.
Mortal unbeliever. If I wanted to kill you by stealth I would have
done so at any time I chose. The fact that you yet live is proof
enough that I have bigger plans for you than a quick blade in the
dark—or a short fall to a brain-crushing end.
Now it was his turn to chuckle scornfully. “Why should I—?” he
began, then stopped. Why should I trust you? he was about to say. But
the question was an absurd one. He could not trust the lord of
rakshasas at all, of course. And yet. And yet. He sensed the asura
spoke truly; what he said was beyond dispute. Simply luring Rama to
a suicidal fall might serve a lesser being’s thirst for revenge. It was not
Ravana’s way.
And yet, there was some game here that he could not fathom. Starting
with the most startling question of all: How could Ravana be speaking
to him if Ravana was dead?
There was only one way to find out.
He leaped up to the balustrade, the action as lithe and easy as it had
been in his youth, despite his wounds and aches, despite his hardships,
despite everything. What he had lost in age and agility, he had made
up for in experience, skill and the constant, relentless use of his body
and mind, like a well-used bow grew easier to string and draw over
time.
He looked down. The king’s chambers were at the top of the main
palace complex, and the drop that lay below him was easily a hundred
feet down. At the bottom lay the closely set flagstones of the
innermost courtyard, each a quarter ton of solid rock hauled by
elephants all the way from the Karakoram principality. The lights of
mashaals gleamed dully on the buffed stone, and he glimpsed sentries
patrolling diligently, in larger numbers than was usual owing to the
presence of so many high personages tonight, most of all, their long-
awaited king and queen. The nightwind carried the scents of the city,
sometimes pungent, sometimes intriguing. The perfumes of Ayodhya,
dressing to celebrate her king’s return.
“Jump?” he asked. But it was a rhetorical question. He knew the voice
that gave the command would not explain or provide reasons; it was a
voice accustomed to being obeyed by armies, that spoke to devas and
asuras in the same level tone. Jump, it had said. And he grinned
wolfishly and decided he would obey. Whatever mystery lay here, it
was clear he would not resolve it without taking bold action. As the
moments passed and the voice did not speak again, he knew that he
had no other choice, no other means of learning what Ravana meant,
except to do as he bade and follow this nightmare through to its very
end. He resisted the urge to glance back into the chamber where Sita
lay asleep. He would not weaken his resolve. Better to draw the asura
away from her. Reaching a decision, he nodded once to his invisible
foe, inhaled sharply, spread his arms like a bird about to take wing and
sprang out from the balustrade, his strong legs carrying him yards out
into the empty darkness, high above the solid ground, his body
arching like a diver leaping into oceanic depths.
He hung suspended in the air a moment, then slowly, inevitably, began
the long quick fall to the courtyard.

TWO
He fell up instead of down. It felt so natural that it took him a moment
to realize what was happening. But his senses already knew what his
mind had yet to comprehend.
The weight of the earth, the incessant loving tug of Prithvi Maa,
keeping her children close to herself, was gone. In its place was
another pull, drawing him up to the sky. He looked down and saw the
courtyard far below, receding fast. He saw the balcony on which he
had stood a moment ago, diminishing at astonishing speed, then the
top of the palace, gleaming quietly resplendent in the moonlight, the
Seer’s Tower beside it, then the palace complex whole, and then the
entire royal enclave…soon the city itself was falling away far below,
reduced to a sprinkling of fireflies upon a green patch surrounded by
darkness. The speed at which he was falling— if falling was the right
word—was astonishing. He felt the wind rushing past, drumming in
his ears, felt the night grow colder around him, enveloping him in its
dark embrace, his unclothed skin giving up its hard-won warmth
reluctantly.
He looked up. And saw the sky. But it was not the sky he had seen
above the palace only moments earlier. That had been dark in the
usual natural way, a deep midnight blue, almost the exact shade used
to portray his black skin, a smattering of cottony clouds drifting
majestically, backlit by a resplendent moon. That had been placid,
peaceful, almost languorously lazy.
This was something else altogether: a carpet of boiling, raging black
smoke—an ocean, really, for it stretched as far as the eye could see in
every direction. He turned his head and saw that the moon, his other
namesake, had been banished beneath the ocean of roiling
cloudwaves.
As Rama meant black and Chandra meant moon, so Rama Chandra
could be interpreted to mean black moon or dark moon. And so his
mother had teased him as an infant in arms, singing lullabies to him of
her own casual composition, weaving the words ‘dark moon’ into the
homespun lyrics. He had carried those lullabies and the memory of
her love and warmth and maternal perfume with him through some of
the darkest nights of his life. Yet it was only now, for the first time,
that he saw a true dark moon, submerged beneath the ocean of clouds,
yet still blazing luminously, like a gleaming silver coin caught by a
ray of sunlight at the bottom of a murky pool. It seemed to pulse
sporadically, like a heart filling and emptying with pale white light
instead of blood, and even through the raging cloudstorm-ocean, its
light illuminated everything, searing through the dense frenzy of the
smoke waves. As he looked directly at it, it blazed now, like a
maddened jewelled eye set deep in the flesh of the forehead of some
vengeful deva. The air, Himalaya-cold now, made his skin prickle
apprehensively. He shivered and brought his arms closer to his body,
clasping them to his bare chest. It made no difference to the pace of
his falling—rising—which was so rapid now that he could barely look
up without blinking, so great was the force of wind buffeting him. It
roared in his ears like the ocean on the shores of Lanka.
He glanced down again and saw that the lights of Ayodhya had
vanished entirely, and the very bowl of the earth itself lay revealed
beneath him now, like a dark ball veined with emerald and sapphire
threads thickly intertwined. His breath, smoking now as it left his
shivering lips, caught in his chest to see it so far removed. Surely even
garudas never flew so high. Far in the north, he could glimpse the
peaks of mountains as well, and he was much higher than the loftiest
peak now…and still flying upwards at tremendous speed. Except, he
was not actually flying. There was no conscious volition in the act,
nor was he doing anything to make this miracle of flight possible.
Unlike Hanuman, who could pound the ground, take a mighty leap
skywards and shatter the protective shackles of Prithvi Maa, he had no
power to soar bird-like. He was simply falling, it was just that he was
falling upwards instead of down.
He sensed a change in the pace of his falling, a slowing down. It felt
like the opposite of falling now, for at the very end of a fall, the earth
seemed to rush up to meet you, flying at you like a rushing mass. But
as best as he could make out, the cloud-ocean, boiling and raging with
purple and gold veins showing through the morass of smoky chaos,
seemed to be approaching slower than before rather than faster. A
moment later, he was certain of it—his pace had definitely slowed.
Shutting his eyes momentarily from the wind, now cold enough that
he could feel the prick of icy particles needling his naked skin, he
heard it change from a roaring whirlwind to a growling giant, then
fade out gradually to a numbing silence. He opened his eyes again to
see the cloud approaching closer as he reached the end of his descent
—ascent? He felt himself slow until he was almost floating. He
opened his arms, bracing himself for impact even though a part of him
knew no impact was forthcoming. With an eerie absence of sound or
sensation, he saw his body execute a perfect somersault, feeling no
pressure of the earth’s pull—or cloud’s pull, either—and as gently as a
feather touching ground, he saw his bare feet come to rest upon the
dark purple-black cottony surface of the cloud ocean.
He released a long deep breath and continued looking down for a
moment. The substance beneath his feet had no substance to speak of.
It was like standing on ground wreathed in dense ankle-depth fog,
except that he could feel no ground beneath his bare soles, only a
vague sensation of cold wetness. Like standing on dew-wettened
grass? No. It was more like the sensation of placing one’s bare foot on
the surface of a pond of cool water, feeling the water slap against the
sole of the foot, yet holding the foot in mid-air so it did not immerse
itself into the water. Yes, that came closer to describing how this felt,
except that he was standing with all his weight on both feet, and even
so, he was not being pushed down through the skin of the water. He
was in fact, impossibly, able to stay suspended, standing on water—or
a cloudbank filled with it.
He took a step or two, mentally bracing himself again, and confirmed
it. He could even sense the upsurges and downsurges in the mass of
smoke-wreathed fluid through the soles of his feet—for these were
monsoon clouds, he felt certain, even though monsoon clouds this
pregnant with rain should not have been able to rise this high above
the land. Yet the whole thing was incredible. How was he able to walk
upon the belly of a cloud? To traipse upside down on the underside of
a monsoon cloud, looking up—down?—at the earth itself, far, far
below, faintly illuminated by the light of the dark-shrouded moon, a
silver-limned orb now hanging suspended in a vast pit of darkness. He
had arrived here by falling up, like a wingless bird. Even the
unbearable cold, for he could hardly imagine how frigid it must be at
this height, had grown bearable somehow; he felt a chill wind wafting
across his bare chest and limbs but he was neither freezing nor
severely inconvenienced. It was as if he had simply acclimatised.
Even more curious was the fact that he was able to breathe and move
as normal, as if he was on any earthly surface. It was impossible, a
dream surely…or a nightmare.
Then he looked around and saw the shapes coalescing around him
across the seascape of cloud for as far as the eye could see, an army of
writhing, threshing, frenetic forms locked in the ugliest dance of all.
After a lifetime spent locked in the frenzy of that same mad dance, he
knew at once what it was. He was looking at a theatre of war.
Not just any war.
The war of Lanka.
His war. Against the rakshasa hordes of the lord of asuras. The war he
had fought to regain his abducted wife Sita.
He was standing on what seemed to be a hillock of cloudy mass,
elevated over the rest of the cloud-field. Several yards below him,
ranged on every side for as far as he could see, ghostly shapes
thrashed and writhed and engaged in mortal combat. His heart
clenched as he recognized familiar companions and fallen foes, and
identified enough familiar details to know that this was indeed the
battle of Lanka taking place once more, this time fought by ghostly
replicas of the original combatants but otherwise perfect in every
detail. Rakshasas and vanars, bears and rakshasas, and in the distance,
even a silhouetted Rama and Lakshman, arrows flying from their two
bows as if from a single arrow-machine, raged in blood-lust. It was
unnerving, unsettling, to see the carnage that had cost him so dearly
repeated once more. The blood and gore and ichor might be vaporous,
the figures mere simulacra, but the action and the memories it evoked
were all too real, and awoke terrible dread in his heart. He heard
himself moan softly, agonized.
A soft chuckle reverberated in his left ear. He swung around, startled
and ready to lash out, bare-handed if need be, prepared for anything
except the apparition that appeared.
A man stood beside him. Not a rakshasa with ten heads and legendary
sorcerous powers. Not the king of asuras, conqueror of devas and
yaksas, terror of the three worlds. Not He Who Makes The Universe
Scream.
Not Ravana.
The man who stood before him was no rakshasa or asura. He had two
arms, two legs, two eyes, one head … he appeared normal and mortal
in every way. He was well-built in a way that clearly indicated he was
a kshatriya by profession, with well-developed musculature and
sharply indented angles that suggested an active and vigorous
lifestyle. His bristling, oiled moustache was matched by unruly, long
hair, tamed by a wooden clasp behind his head. He was clad in a
simple yet well-woven dhoti and anga-vastra. Even at first glance,
there was something about him that instantly caused Rama to
associate him with the specific sub-varna of kshatriyas called
rakshaks. A sense of coiled power in those heavily muscled limbs and
torso, coupled with a relatively less developed lower body suggested
that he was more suited to house guarding and site protection than the
leaner, wirier physique suited to the rigours of long travel required of
any serving soldier. At best, he could be a mace-wielder, but he lacked
the exaggerated shoulders and back muscles that macers were known
for. No, Rama thought, all in the space of the time it took him to take
in the stranger’s appearance, this was almost certainly a rakshak.
“Who are you?” he asked, on his guard, but not adopting a fighting or
defensive stance. There was no sense of threat from the man, no
suggestion of impending violence. Still, he was prepared for any
sudden move, any sign of treachery. “Where is Ravana?”
The man smiled. There was something not unpleasant about his
features, something vaguely familiar, like a family resemblance. He
arched his thick eyebrows, his broad, high forehead creasing with a
trio of horizontal lines. “After all we have been through together, do
you still not know me?”
Rama frowned. He glanced down briefly at the war raging below—or
above, depending on your perspective. It was still in furious progress.
“I don’t understand. What is this place? How are we able to witness
events that have gone before. Why have I been brought here? I heard a
voice…Ravana’s voice…it summoned me …” He indicated the
ghostly conflict raging around them. “What is this? Sorcery or
illusion?” And, with a sudden ferocity that surprised even himself,
“Who are you?”
The man’s face recomposed itself into a conciliatory expression.
“Patience, Ayodhya-naresh. All will be revealed.”
The man turned and walked away, up the sloping side of the cloud-
hillock on which Rama stood. Rama saw now that the hillock rose
sharply behind him to ascend upwards into a mist-wreathed darkness.
He looked upwards, where the convex bowl of the earth had been only
moments earlier, and saw only darkness wreathed in mist. He looked
back and saw that the ghostly images of warriors had vanished,
leaving only an undulating ocean of dark monsoon cloud, pregnant
and heavy with the promise of rain. Apparently, the stranger intended
to take him someplace higher up, up some kind of cloud-mountain,
the top of which was obscured in the strange mist that had sprung up
unexpectedly and was curling around Rama’s ankles and feet now.
Rama remained where he was, surprised, and more than a little
chagrined. He did not like what he felt; did not want any of this. It felt
strange, like a dream that was surreal, exotic, enticing, yet with a
constant sense of dread, of mortal threat, lurking behind the strange
exoticism. The man stopped when he realized Rama was not
following him, and looked back. He was already several yards up the
mountain.
“Come,” he said simply. “You do wish to know, don’t you?”
Rama hesitated. Then shrugged. He had awoken to a voice, the voice
of his dead arch-enemy. It had summoned him. On the dead rakshasa’s
command, he had leaped off the balustrade of his palace verandah.
Instead of falling to his death on the tiled courtyard, he had fallen up,
to a realm made entirely of clouds. He was looking over a re-
enactment of the battle of Lanka, perfect in every detail to his eye.
And now a strange man, a rakshak perhaps, was asking him to walk
up the side of a cloud-mountain. He may as well follow this madness
through to the end, go where this stranger took him and get to the
bottom of this mysterious waking dream. He began walking.
The man waited for him to catch up, deferred to him when he
approached, making it clear that he was not seeking superiority over
Rama, and if anything, was being suitably humble before the king of
Ayodhya. They walked together across the impossibly solid cloud-
field, the slope rising steadily above. They reached the place where
the mist coiled and clung, obscuring view of what lay beyond and
above. He paused. The man paused beside him. He looked back,
down, wondering at the battle scene he had seen. He hesitated, not
afraid, for fear was a warrior’s most loyal companion, but
considering. What sorcery was this? It was like nothing he had heard
of or experienced before, there was something totally alien about its
nature and deployment. What purpose had the ghostly vision of the
Lanka war served?
He looked at the face of the rakshak. The man looked back
impassively, yet not unkindly.
“We must go on.” His voice was deep and resonant, and pleasant to
the ear. It was the voice of a man whose life had been spent in service
to persons such as Rama, a raj-rakshak, a royal guard. Again that
sense of maddening familiarity danced at the periphery of Rama’s
memory, but he could not place the man, or why he seemed so
familiar.
“What lies beyond?” Rama asked, the mist swirling around his feet. It
felt neither cold nor wet, simply like a gentle breeze nipping at his
ankles.
“The answers to all your questions,” said the man.
Rama stepped forward, into the mist. The man walked beside him.
Together, they passed through.
Three
The traveller reached the top of the rise and paused.
The view was breathtaking. Ayodhya the unconquerable lay spread
before him like a bagful of precious gems carelessly strewn across the
lush green carpet of the Sarayu valley. The river herself wound her
way sinuously around the natural hillocks and rocky banks upon
which the city’s architects had built their structures, integrating their
city planning with the natural lay of the land. At a glance, the city
itself seemed as much a part of the vast valley, as if it had always
existed and always would. It was the Arya way to build and live in
harmony with nature, for all things were the fruit of Prithvi Maa, and
only by her gentle grace and forbearance could mortalkind survive on
this realm. Yet even judged by that standard, Ayodhya’s city planning
and architecture were a sight to behold; a melding of man-made
aesthetic and natural beauty that made one want to gaze at it for hours.
The traveller did not have hours to spare.
Already he feared he might be too late. It had been several days since
Rama and his entourage had returned to Ayodhya. He had set out
within moments of the end of the war of Lanka, knowing full well that
speed was of the essence, but the Ayodhyans had travelled by
Pushpak, and even his swiftest walking stride could hardly match the
blurring speed of the celestial vehicle. Now, he fretted that he might
have arrived too late, that the fateful decision that he sought to prevent
might already have been taken and events set into motion that could
not be undone. He prayed it was not so, that his long arduous trek had
not been in vain. For the event he sought to prevent would alter not
only the course of his own life, that of Rama and those near and dear
to him, but the lives of all presently alive, mortal and otherwise. Its
impact would be felt at the end of the farthest corridors of history, in
unimaginable ways at inconceivable future times. He used the brief
moment of respite that he had allowed himself now to send up one
final prayer that he might yet be in time to prevent that terrible turn of
events.
He took up his stout staff, worn and battered from the long walk, and
numbed his mind to the ache and pain from his bruised feet. They
were unaccustomed to such travel, for the past year had seen him
engaged more in meditation and contemplation rather than physical
activity, and his body, so long abused by harsh living and the
numerous injuries, scars, old wounds and fresh marks of a violent
existence, had only just begun to soften and grow accustomed to the
peaceful ascetic life when he had risen to undertake this mission. He
had pushed it hard these past several days, walking constantly with
only the barest minimum of rest, sleep and frugal nourishment. Roots,
herbs, a fruit or two…he had eaten little, grown even leaner than
whip-thin, and he longed for a good, hot meal and a pallet to rest his
weary head.
But there was no time for eating or rest.
He had work to do. Vital work. A Queen to warn. A King to appeal to.
And, if his foreboding was right, a kingdom to save—perhaps even an
entire civilization.
And to achieve any of those, he had to reach on time, before that
fateful decision was made. Before the die was cast whose rattling echo
would haunt the halls of itihasa for millennia to come.
If he reached even an instant too late, then this breathtaking view of
great, noble Ayodhya would be worth no more than a mouthful of ash.
Ayodhya herself, the unconquerable, would finally fall. Not to an
army of asuras, or even mortal enemies. But to the greatest enemy of
all. The enemy within.
He gripped the staff tightly, marked the progress of the narrow
winding pathway down the side of the steep slope that led downwards
to the rajmarg on the north bank of the river, and began to descend.
As he descended, the sun appeared over the eastern rim of the valley,
sending blades of golden light across the perfectly blended amalgam
of mortal and natural aesthetic achievement that the world knew as the
capitol of the Kosala nation, home of the Ikshwaku Suryavansha
dynasty, seat of the sunwood throne. Sunlight glittered on the tips of
the Sarayu’s wash, caught the wings of butterflies traipsing through
the North bank woods where a certain crown prince had once whiled
away youthful hours in daydreaming and kairee-munching, blissfully
unaware of the years of toil and violence that lay ahead. It caught the
tips of blades of new grass shoots emerging from the rich, alluvial soil
of the valley where a nest of baby kachhuaas swarmed blindly, tiny
mottled shells clattering over one another as they sluggishly fought
their way toward food, light, water, survival. With the new day, the
struggle for life and survival had begun anew.
The traveller strode toward Ayodhya.
***
As the traveller completed his descent and reached the raj-marg,
turning his aspect and his feet in the direction of the city’s looming
first gate, a figure crouched upon a high branch on the far bank of the
river watched him curiously. It had observed the stranger from the
moment he had appeared over the rise and stood, contemplating the
view, for if there was one thing that the being that crouched upon the
tree did exceedingly well, it was to watch, to observe, to spot what
most others might fail to notice, or notice too late. He knew that the
sentries posted by the city did an exceedingly good job of patrolling
and defending the outskirts of the city and its environs, and that they
were especially alert in these warlike times, but even their garuda-
sharp eyes could not cover every inch of terrain at once, and their
disciplined quad-sweeps could be bypassed by a shrewd intruder or
two—not for long, but it was possible. The watcher did not brook
martial discipline much, particularly the variety favoured by humans;
he had found that most conflicts were won by a combination of
shrewdness, stealth and ferocious explosive force applied at the least
expected time and place. He had enough firsthand experience to know
whereof he spoke. He also had enough firsthand knowledge of the
wily ways and methods of foe that fought not by the Arya rules of war
nor cared for the kshatriya code of conduct. He did not know of any
such foe still extant but that was beside the point. He had made a
vocation of watching and observing, and old habits died hard,
especially among his species.
That was what found him here this morning, and every morning,
routinely patrolling the outskirts of the city in a route so random and
individualistic that it was perhaps more effective than the regularly
timed quad-sweeps of the Ayodhyan defence system. It was this
idiosyncratic loping through the trees—for that was his preferred
method of ambulation—in a zigzag pattern completely unpredictable
and unique to each new day, that had brought him this glimpse of the
traveller on the rise. The traveller who was presently vanishing into
the dusty haze that overhung the raj-marg in the wake of his swift
progress. The watcher made no attempt to follow the traveller or to
seek out the nearest quad of PFs making their methodical sweeps of
the area—he scented there was one not three hundred yards away,
working its way through a thicket on the same rise the traveller had
descended from only moments ago. He knew the traveller would be
accosted in moments by either the PF regiment permanently stationed
on the raj-marg or the bristling gate-watch who were ever-vigilant
under the command of newly elevated General Drishti Kumar. It was
not the traveller himself that concerned him now; it was the reason for
the traveller’s visit.
As it so happened, he knew the traveller. Not personally, for he had
never had occasion to meet the man face to face. But he had watched
him fight alongside his lord and lady for years in the forests of
Janasthana, during those harsh years of his lord’s exile, watched him
risk life and limb countless times in the service of Rama’s war against
the rakshasas of the region. Watched him fight fiercely, despatch any
number of the brutal creatures that had plagued Rama and his
companions since the feral cousin of Ravana, Supanakha, had
maddened her cousins and their clans into declaring war against Rama
after he had spurned her. Yes, the watcher had watched as this man,
this traveller now come to Ayodhya, had fought as fiercely, brutally,
bestially, as any rakshasa himself, driving fear into the hearts of even
his own exiled fellows. For while they fought to live, to survive, this
one had fought as if driven by some inner demon, a rakshasa of his
own making, and inflicted more violence and harm upon his foe than
was necessary to simply survive: he fought to decimate, to destroy, to
eliminate completely.
Of course, that was in the past. For the watcher knew that this man
had parted ways with Rama after the battle of Janasthana. He had
heard that he had dropped the sword and taken up the cloth, so to
speak, turning from the physical rigours of warriorhood to the
spiritual rigours of priesthood. He had heard of the immensely
disciplined tapasya undertaken by this former bandit and bearkiller, of
the enlightenment he had received while meditating within a nest of
fire ants—a story that was fast becoming a minor legend in some parts
—and of the life of peace and philosophy he had taken up with
enthusiasm thereafter. But all this had been received in bits and pieces
and he had not paid much attention to it, being somewhat preoccupied
with a war to wage and a considerable army to manage, several armies
as a matter of fact. And he had never liked and trusted the man
himself back when he was a warrior in Rama’s camp of outlaws and
exiles in Janasthana, had felt the intrinsic distrust and burning hatred
of any human who had made a habit of slaying creatures of the land.
Bearkiller, the traveller had been at one time, long before he joined
Rama’s ragged band of exiles, and his face had borne permanent
testimony of ravages wrought by a much earlier attack by one of the
same species that had lent him his name and earlier reputation. The
ugly face-altering scars that disfigured his visage were now mostly
concealed under a dense growth of beard and an unruly head of hair.
The muscular body that had displayed the scars of countless conflicts
as well as earlier encounters with the furry nemesis that lent him his
nickname was now covered with a red ochre garb that flowed from
head to foot; along with the wildwood staff he gripped in one hand, it
lent him the appearance of a tapasvi sadhu quite convincingly.
But the watcher was not convinced.
To him, the man that he had first heard called Bearface, later , and
now Valmiki, was not one to be trusted entirely. He did not trust his
motives, the extreme alteration in his appearance and vocation, or his
reasons for coming here to Ayodhya now, at this particular juncture in
time and history.
So, while he had chosen to let him pass, to be dealt with by the PFs
and gate-watch, he intended to race back to the palace ahead of him.
To alert his lord, Rama.
Yes, that was what he would do, must do.
His mind made up, the vanar named Hanuman uncurled his long,
muscular tail from the branch on which he had sat perched
contemplating until now, and with one supple surge of his powerful
muscles, propelled himself from that sala tree to the next. In moments,
he was a blur loping and swinging through the trees, moving not
unlike the smaller, less-muscled simians that his kind were often
mistaken for by foreigners, yet with a sinuous grace and sheer power
that no monkey could ever emulate, moving faster through the trees
than most land animals across the ground.
As he raced through the trees, startling squirrels and confusing birds
by flitting past them even before they were able to burst into flight,
the sun crested the top of the craggy northeastern ranges and shone its
golden beam into the valley of the Sarayu, sending its message of
warmth and brightness into crannies and crevices, stirring sleeping
reptiles and compelling creatures of the earth to emerge blinking
sleepily in the light of a new day.

FOUR
Bharat saw the sword turn at the very last instant.
His mace was already deployed, held in an overhand grip and
swinging downwards and to the right, aiming for his opponent’s right
shoulder. It was impossible for him to stop the momentum and swing
it again in time to thwart the oncoming sword thrust. Nor would the
bulbous head of the mace make contact with its target in time to
prevent him, Bharat, from being pierced. His opponent had gambled
his own right shoulder, possibly more, on delivering this thrust;
Bharat’s mace would meet its mark and certainly wound, maim,
disable, perhaps even permanently cripple the man. But not quickly
enough to prevent him from sticking Bharat in a vital organ. For by
turning that blade at the last instant, he was aiming precisely at the
fleshy area between Bharat’s ribs and hipbone. And from the angle at
which the blade was aimed, the point would enter Bharat’s flesh just
below his lowest rib, penetrating sharply upwards, deeply inwards,
slicing through his liver. A fatal wound. All the vaids in Ayodhya
would not be able to save him from succumbing to that one. Bharat
had seen enough men struck in the liver to know their fate from just
the shade of blood that seeped out: rich, liver-dark blood, fecund with
the body’s densest nutrients and life-energy.
All this he realized in the flash of an instant when he glimpsed the
sword turn: it unreeled before his mind like a long scroll abruptly
unfurled, the permutations, combinations, possibilities. It all added up
to one simple conclusion, reached almost instantly: Bharat was a dead
man.
Even as his veteran warrior’s instincts flashed this conclusion on the
unrolling reel of his thoughts, the prince of Ayodhya still found
himself admiring the audacity of the move.
It was a bold, impudent action: the man was willing to have his own
shoulder, possibly even his collarbone and part of his rib cage,
shattered by a direct, brutal blow from a twenty kilo mace. All in
order that he might despatch Bharat with a fatal wound. Even in that
split second it took him to size up the threat, to weigh the possibilities
and outcome, Bharat found himself admiring the man’s gumption. A
mace blow to the shoulder was nothing to shake off; it would be far
more painful than Bharat’s own wound, if considerably less life-
threatening. In short, the man had won the fight. He had put himself
out of action, but he had finished off Bharat. No question about it at
all.
Or at least, he would have done so. If he had been able to follow
through on his bold action.
To the men watching the fight—several dozen of them, all burly,
powerfully muscled macers and swordsmen, all sweaty and mud-
caked from their own sessions in the fighting field, for they had been
at it since before dawn—there was no conceivable way that Bharat
could avoid the lethal sword strike now. Several of them winced,
grimaced or otherwise failed to conceal their distaste at the sight of a
fellow kshatriya suffering such an awful blow, that too their own
prince as well as their guru in warcraft—even as they admired the
swordsman’s brilliant last-second twist and turn. None of them,
certainly not Bharat himself, had seen that sudden twist of the sword
coming, or deemed it possible. But that was because no hale and
hearty soldier willingly risked certain bodily harm to his own person,
possibly even permanent disability, merely to despatch a single
opponent. It was one thing to be brought down by a superior
opponent; it was a completely different thing to bring down an
opponent by a manoeuvre that caused grave bodily harm to oneself. If
this had been a battlefield bout, after wounding Bharat fatally the man
would have been down on the field, gravely injured, unable to move
or fight thereafter. For him, the battle would be over, possibly even the
war. There was no point to such a desperate manoeuvre. It was not the
way of a kshatriya.
It was the way of an assassin.
A fanatical attacker with one mission and one only: to slay his
opponent. Whatever the cost.
That was the reason why the attacker didn’t care about being injured,
crippled even. He was here to die anyway: to sacrifice his life in order
to achieve his mission, to kill Bharat.
All this happened in the blink of an eye: the turn of the blade, Bharat’s
grasping of the inevitable consequence of this tactic, the watching
crowd’s realization of the same deadly fact, and Bharat’s realization of
what this implied.
And then the blade struck. Flesh.
Bharat’s flesh.
Pierced. Blood. Spurting. Skin. Tearing. Pain. Blazing. Muscle.
Crying Out.
Time fragmented into shards, like shattered glass frozen at the instant
of explosion. A stream of water being poured from a skinbag into a
horse trough seemed to stay suspended in mid-air. A bird in flight,
overhead, glimpsed from the corner of Bharat’s eye, seemed locked
into immobility. A horse neighing and starting to buck, froze
motionless. The wrangler pouring water into the trough, staring wide-
eyed, mouth parted to reveal gawky, misshapen teeth. A bar of
sunlight, reflecting off the armoured shoulderpiece of one of the
mace-men watching from the sidelines, seemed to halt before
touching the ground. Motes of dust dancing in the bar of sunlight, a
horsefly, particles of bloodspray—my bloodspray, he realized with a
distant, dim detachment—hung in the stunned silence of the moment,
and Bharat felt the cocoon of pure, perfect warlust grip the universe
itself in a tight godlike fist, slowing down time to a crawl, freezing
nature herself, until he felt as if he alone could move through this
silent tableau at will, slicing sunlight into strips if he desired, piercing
a drop of water with the tip of a blade, sending an arrow whirling into
the eye of a bird…felt in this sacred moment of moments as if he
ruled time, gravity, and all forces of nature, and was master of atoms
and elephants alike, lord of creation—and destruction.
It was sorcery, pure and simple.
Yet it had not been achieved by the recitation of any ‘magic’ mantra.
Or by the infusion of any potion, the recitation of any spell, the
casting of any runes.
It was a feat he had acquired mastery of through fourteen long years
of hardwon practice, combat, warfare…fourteen long, hard, bitter
years.
Even more, if you counted the years of training under Maha-guru
Brahamarishi Vashishta in the gurukul as a young boy, the adolescent
years of constant practice in the palace courtyard and fighting fields.
The years he had spent struggling to keep pace with, match, and then
outmatch the undisputed champion of Ayodhya, winner of every
individual event in every sporting contest he participated in, his own
brother. Rama. And struggle he did, not because he resented his
brother’s inherent superiority in all warriorlike activities and sport, but
because he desired to be Rama. To see the same light in his father’s
eyes when he looked at the eldest of the four sons of Dasaratha. To
hear the crowd roar as deafeningly as it roared for Rama. It was not
that Maharaja Dasaratha, or anyone else, loved Bharat, Shatrugan or
Lakshman any less than they did Rama, it was simply that they adored
Rama more than they could possibly adore any other being. The irony
was, so did Bharat himself. How could he not? Rama was perfection
incarnate, or as close to it as it was humanly possible to be and yet call
oneself human.
And so he had striven to become more than human. In all things, but
most especially, in the realm of the warrior. Not just on the playing
field, but on the battlefield.
And in these past years, since Rama’s exit into exile, as Bharat had
resided at Nandigram, preferring to manage the day-to-day affairs of
the kingdom of Kosala from that humble village rather than from the
great seat of political power that was Ayodhya, he had had occasions
innumerable to hone those skills, to polish the edge of that blade into
perfection. For the time for playing fields had passed with the passing
of Rama into exile. And Ayodhya had entered into a new age, a
darker, more daunting age of constant threat, fears, doubts, internal
strife, external assaults and more physical threat and challenge than
was usual for an apparent time of peace. It had been the hardest
fourteen years of Ayodhya’s existence, even harder than the time of
the Last Asura War, because the threat was not as obvious and
externalized as it had been then. It was an insidious, internalized,
constant and unceasing stress that had at times threatened to tear apart
the very fabric of this great city-state and the kingdom at large. The
enemy within.
And it was that same enemy that had now struck at Bharat again.
In that instant when the blade penetrated Bharat’s flesh, he slipped
instantly into this private space, this shell of invisible armour he had
designed and crafted himself over the past near-decade and a half that
he had acted as regent of the kingdom in Rama’s stead, withstanding
everything a king could be expected to endure, and then some, all
without even the privilege of wearing the crown whose thorns pierced
his head. He had learned how to do this and had done it over and over
again, to great effect. In a way, he was known for it. And feared. They
called it “Bharat’s Wall”, and kshatriyas who had watched him fight,
even Shatrugan who had watched him at such times, spoke of it
afterwards in reverential, glaze-eyed terms, as if wishing they could
attain such a lofty level of skill themselves.
And now, as Bharat moved as easily as a bird through smoke in the
extreme superstate of awareness that he attained at such instants, he
saw that same glazed look on his opponent’s face. For the man had
come so far, achieved so much more than what the other assassins
before him had achieved—the closest before had merely been able to
fire an arrow from a rooftop ten yards away the last time—and had
executed a move so brilliantly conceived and executed that even
Bharat had been admiring it ruefully only a moment ago.
But now, the man knew, and his face reflected this knowledge, he had
failed.
Bharat moved through the silence like a knife through silk, cutting
time and space as easily as that polished blade sliced fabric, and felt
the tip of the sword pass through the outermost layer of the skin over
his ribcage, scraping agonizingly against and scoring his lowest two
ribs—a tiny spurt of blood, a searing heat as the tight band of muscle
was severed at that point—and emerged without having penetrated
through the flesh itself, without having attained its intended goal, his
vital organ.
And the man’s eyes had widened, his mouth opened wide in a
dismayed snarl, even as he realized he had been thwarted. Impossible.
Undoable. And yet. And yet.
The moment unfroze. Time unlocked. Gravity reclaimed her rightful
power.
And Bharat let the hand carrying the mace complete its trajectory, the
weight of the heavy weapon, specially customized, engraved and
tooled for him according to his precise specifications based on years
of mace-fighting experience, carrying his arm into an angle
impossible for any human body to sustain, and he felt the agonizing
wrench of his right shoulder dislocating from its socket, a sensation
like hot knives tearing their way out of his shoulder, screaming to
break free. The mace lost its momentum and slumped, thumping the
assassin lightly on the muscled bicep of his arm, hard enough to hurt
and leave a bruise for days, but not hard enough to smash bone and
rend flesh. Then his hand, already falling to hang limply by his side,
lost its grip on the handle of the beautiful hand-crafted weapon, made
in a tiny hamlet near Nandigram by an old PF veteran with only one
arm and one functional eye, and the companion of many combats fell
with a dusty thud to the ground. The assassin, who by rights ought to
have been sprawled on the same ground with a shattered shoulder at
least, remained standing, staring in disbelief at Bharat. For all his
shrewd ingenuity and boldness in that manoeuvre, the one thing the
man had not come prepared for was the possibility that his target
would risk a move as bold, as audacious as his own, and allow himself
to suffer injury in order to accomplish his mission: to survive.
The assassin had turned his blade, risking being maimed or crippled,
in order to deal Bharat a fatal wound.
Bharat had countered his attempt by turning his mace, a far heavier,
unwieldier, and more difficult weapon to manoeuvre in such a fashion,
and had knowingly dislocated his own shoulder, in order to avoid the
assassin’s fatal strike. It had been a breathtaking counter-move, the
more so for the speed with which Bharat had seen the unexpected
threat—an assassination attempt by a familiar practice partner in the
middle of a practice bout—had sized it up precisely, and had then
executed a counter-manoeuvre that perfectly thwarted the attempt. It
was one the kusalavya bards would be reciting verses about in
wayside ashrams for decades to come.
The assassin had failed. His blade had merely nicked Bharat’s skin
and scored his ribs lightly, a mere trifle for a kshatriya of Bharat’s
veteran status and record. He had suffered worse injuries during
practice sessions, which this was supposed to have been before his
opponent turned out to have a different agenda.
Bharat had succeeded and though his shoulder screamed agony at this
moment, he knew he had no time to waste. The other warriors, alert
enough to have seen exactly what had happened, and to have reacted
instantly—even now they were leaping the rope ring and swarming to
Bharat’s aid—were too far away to be of real use in the few instants
he knew he had left to act. Shatrugan was at their head, bellowing a
cry of rage and vengeance as he sped with frightening swiftness, dust
churning in the wake of his bare feet, his javelin held menacingly low
by his side, his eyes wide and furious, his teeth bared and flashing in
the early morning sunlight, sweat-oiled muscles working powerfully,
for he had just finished his own session with another practice partner.
But they would all be too late, much too late. For such matters were
decided, like all truly important matters usually were, in the space of a
blink of an eye. Already, Bharat sensed, the assassin’s sword was
moving again, turning now to the most inevitable next target: not
Bharat himself for that horse had fled already, that opportunity lost,
but towards his own naked throat.
Bharat turned and with one smooth motion, grasped at the man’s
wrist. But both men’s bodies, naked except for grimy once-white
langots, were slippery with sweat and dust, and his grip slid inches
upwards, to the man’s forearm. Bharat’s intention was to twist the
wrist, break it if possible, and cause the sword to fall. Instead, his
hand slipped up to the forearm and succeeded only in shifting the
angle of the blade by an inch or so.
The man’s sword, instead of penetrating his throat dead centre as
intended, slashed it diagonally. Close enough to serve its purpose. The
result was instantaneous. An explosion of blood from the abruptly
severed artery splattered Bharat and then Shatrugan, who reached
them only a moment after, and the man fell to the ground, already
shuddering in his death throes. Bharat tried to bunch his arm into a fist
and failed, feeling only a sense of helpless agony in the disabled limb.
He had wanted the assassin for questioning and that was impossible
now. The man would be dead in moments with that wound.
Shatrugan and he watched helplessly as the assassin bled to death, his
blood spreading to stain the dust of the fighting field. Shatrugan knelt
down to examine the man more closely, in case he bore some clue to
his identity or affiliation – unlikely, but still worth giving a once-over.
The other kshatriyas who practised routinely with them daily, their
closest and most trusted war-comrades, stood around, watching.
Several of them spat in disgust. The assassin was well known to them
all, had caroused and drunk and fought beside them on a dozen
occasions over the last year and a half; this had been a long-planned
and meticulously executed infiltration and assassination attempt. Only
the new buck-toothed novice to the royal syce came running to gawk.
Others on the practice field, after a brief pause to take in what had
happened, continued as before. This was, after all, not the first time
this had happened. Ever since Rama had gone into exile fourteen
years ago, Bharat had experienced his share of assassination attempts.
There were always people who blamed Bharat for Rama’s
banishment; not entirely incorrect, since it had been for Bharat’s sake
that his mother Kaikeyi had demanded that Rama be banished. But
once he had settled in at Nandigram, making it clear that he had no
intention of seating himself on the throne until Rama’s return from
exile, the attempts had reduced in frequency and had finally ceased. If
anything, over time, he had come to earn the respect of Rama’s
supporters, who held up his example as the story of the ‘perfect
brother’, whatever that might mean. And in time, even those
supporters had begun to attend him at Nandigram, accepting him
grudgingly as Rama’s regent.
But since Rama’s return from exile, the assassination attempts had
begun again. This was the third in as many days. And it was certainly
not the last.
He bent down, wincing at the sharp knife of pain in his shoulder,
picked up the fallen mace, and was about to turn away when
Shatrugan called out softly.
He frowned at the expression on his brother’s face. “What?”
Shatrugan glanced around briefly then moved his head closer to
Bharat, close enough so that only he could hear him. “He’s an
Ayodhyan.”
Bharat stared at him, trying to think through the implications of that
simple assertion. He did not ask Shatrugan how he could be so certain
of the fact; the how of it was less important than the fact itself. It
meant that the people of Ayodhya – or some of them at least – wanted
Bharat dead. Which in turn meant…he didn’t even like to speculate on
what it meant. It was the legacy of fourteen years of infighting,
politicking and a messy mix of resentment, accusation, allegation,
commercial rivalries, old tribal feuds and internal dissension.
Shatrugan held out something, an amulet of some sort dangling from a
black thread. “This was around his neck.”
Bharat didn’t touch or take the charm, merely glanced at it. Even so, it
sent a chill through his body. Despite the warming morning sun, the
throbbing heat in his shoulder, the searing rakes where the blade had
scored his flesh, he still felt a chill when he looked at the iconography
of the little amulet. He had seen its like before, if not this exact same
design. It was based on ancient symbols from an earlier age; an age
before civilization, cities and sanatan dharma. This particular
combination of symbols was easy enough to read if unusual. It merely
inverted the usual honorific of the Suryavansha Ikshwaku dynasty,
piercing it with a ragged blade. The meaning was crude but clear:
Death to the Dynasty that rules Ayodhya. Death to Bharat and Rama
and all their bloodline.
He realized he had been wrong. The assassination attempt was not
directed at him alone: it was directed at his entire family, clan and by
extension, the entire nation-state that they governed and protected. It
was only one part of a far larger mission of total annihilation.

KAAND 1
 ONE

Rama.
Sleeping on his back, left arm crooked, fingers curled on his gently
rising and falling abdomen, the other arm flung out by his side, fingers
splayed, within reach of his ever-present sword. The sword itself was
not within the grasp of those splayed fingers, but it was close enough:
below the bed, out of sight yet less than half a yard away. In many
ways, that sword was as much his wife as she: his constant companion
through countless conflicts, battered and careworn, always by his side,
never out of reach, except… She caught her breath, lowered her head
to release it with a long sigh. Except when she was taken from him,
made a captive of Ravana. Then, he had been left with only the sword.
In fact, it was that sword that had been his only solace, his final hope,
his sole means of retribution, his only way of recovering her, his other
constant companion. Even after they had returned from Lanka by
Pushpak, and Sumantra had sought to take the battered, bloodied,
scarred weapon away, he had resisted. And she had not failed to notice
how restlessly he had bided the time until it was returned to him,
considerably restored by the royal armourer, but still nowhere near as
fine as any of the countless dozens of new swords that were his for the
taking. Nay, it had to be that sword and that sword alone.
Which begged the question: He could survive without her but could
he survive without the sword? Without all that the sword symbolized?
The way of the warrior, the road of dharma?
He stirred in his sleep, breath quickening, eyeballs rolling behind
closed lids. She held her breath and lay very still, not wanting to rouse
him. He deserved his rest, needed it. The days since their return to
Ayodhya had been tumultuous, a whirlwind of excitement and activity
that never seemed to cease. And probably never would. A king’s
duties were endless; a kingdom’s, infinite. If Rama and she had
regained their home with all the solace and comfort it brought, then
Ayodhya too had regained its king and queen after fourteen years. Its
claim was undeniable, its demands unceasing. Yet what of her claim,
her needs? After fourteen years of exile, after all that had transpired,
did not she have a legitimate claim as well? Was he not her Rama too?
She heard the trumpeting of elephants from somewhere in the middle
distance. No doubt that was Lakshman, putting the new elephant
regiment through its paces. He had slipped so easily, so quickly into
his role as prince-in-waiting and commander of the armies, it was
unnerving. She had glimpsed him with his wife, her sister, Urmila.
They had seemed stiff together, awkward, ill at ease, moving and
speaking like strangers at a formal event. Fourteen years … half a
lifetime … And they had known each other barely days before that
cruel separation. They were strangers in all but name. Time had bent
and twisted their marriage into a crooked river that lay still and muddy
now. Time alone could bring it back onto its natural course—if such a
crooked bend could be corrected at all. Perhaps if Urmila’s womb had
quickened before they had left, things would be different. Worse? No.
Better. Definitely better, she thought. Children brought beauty and
permanence to a marriage. Always.
She touched her gently risen abdomen. She still was not showing
overly much. She feared that might be due to her months of privation.
First in those last few horrific days at Janasthana, before that final
battle against the ragged remnants of Supanakha’s brother rakshasas,
then in captivity in Lanka where she had been too mistrustful of her
captors to eat freely, too harassed to eat at all sometimes. But in
between those years of battle and those weeks of captivity, there had
been a brief season of rest, a few pleasurable days of idle pasture,
when Rama had shown more tenderness toward her than ever before,
as if he somehow sensed her condition. She knew he did not actually
know of her pregnancy, for he was guileless in that sense, her Rama, a
quiet reserved man who held himself too closely at times but could
never deceive her or lie openly; he did not know of her pregnancy,
then in its early weeks, almost too early to be sure, although she was
sure, but perhaps some part of his acutely perceptive mind sensed her
need for gentleness, for caring, for nourishment both emotional and
physical. He had fed her like a honeymooning husband—literally as
well as emotionally—and she had relished every morsel, for it was his
love she was truly tasting, his enduring affection. For all his
formidable skills as a warrior, Rama Chandra could be as formidable a
husband, when time and circumstances permitted him to be. Perhaps
he was compensating for the years in exile, years of hardship and
battle, and constant fear and struggle, blood and disease and slaughter.
Perhaps he was simply celebrating the imminent closure of that part of
their lives: it had been only weeks before the end of their term of exile
after all. Whatever the reason, she had loved that brief season of
respite. It was what had sustained her through the weeks of torturous
captivity that followed, through the taunting of the rakshasis, the
mental torture of Supanakha and Ravana, her constant fear of
Ravana’s asura-maya, his dark, terrible sorcery, and later the horror of
knowing that tens upon tens of thousands were dying for her sake, in a
pointless battle that she would never have permitted Rama to wage
had she been by his side. But that was the point, wasn’t it? He waged
that war because she was not by his side, because she had been taken
from him, and because it was the only way to get her back.
She watched him sleeping, hand outstretched in search of that ever-
present sword, and could not bring herself to believe that he would
ever have resorted to such tactics: raising an army, crossing an ocean,
invading another sovereign realm, slaughtering lakhs, destroying a
city, a kingdom, almost an entire race… He would never have done it
had she been beside him. Her taking had been the tipping point in a
life filled with unrelenting conflict, struggle, bloodshed. He had gone
all the way because he was already far down the path of violence.
But had it not happened, had she not been taken, had Ravana not
usurped the one thing that could drive Rama to war and invasion, she
felt certain he would have remained that peaceable, loving husband.
That Rama she had known for those glorious few days in the forest, in
the hut by the river, in the last days of their exile. That man with the
rough chin and soft touch. Strong hands and gentle voice. Dark skin
and light humour.
Rama the river dolphin. Rama the vegetable baster. Rama the minder
of rabbits and feeder of fledgling parrots. Rama, friend of the forest,
brother of the deer, son of Prithvi Maa.
She touched his chest gently, longing for that Rama. That gentle man
in that rough place. That warrior, slayer of thousands, survivor of
countless deathly bladed conflicts, who could dance the mad dance of
battle like no other warrior she had ever seen or heard of, who could
face down berserkers and face up to impossible odds and still lead his
ragtag bunch of outlaws and exiles to victory—bloody and painful,
but victory nonetheless—and yet choose to abjure slaying innocent
beasts of the woods for his supper, opting instead to gnaw on roasted
yams and roots and plucked leaves rather than take the warrior’s share
of nature’s bounty that was his fair due. That Rama of the forest who
could stay his blade from striking down a pregnant sow that was
charging him in mad fury, turn his hip just in time to avoid
disembowelment by her wicked horns, twist, turn and smack her on
her hairy behind with the flat of his blade, causing her to squeal in
outrage and shame and flee into the dark woods. Other, lesser warriors
—lesser men—would simply slay the boar and feast on the rich,
savoury flesh. But not her Rama. He had perfect control of his senses,
his wits, at all times and even when he descended into the maelstrom
of battle lust, that heart of darkness that every warrior visited at some
time, that dark terrible eye of the storm that even she had inhabited
more times than she cared to remember—even then he remained
Rama the compassionate, the wise, the infinitely balanced and fair,
upholder of dharma.
The way he had acted after the war of Lanka was yet another example
of his devotion to dharma. Acknowledging that even a just war was a
needless war; that it fell to the victor to hold out the helping hand, to
offer those things that daunted great kings, that legendary emperors
had been too proud to ever accept: Regret, first and foremost.
Reparation. Rehabilitation. And after all was done, or well begun at
least, for the wages of war took eons to be paid out fully,
Disarmament. That last alone had eluded almost every conqueror
since the beginning of time. Yet Rama had done it, had disarmed,
disbanded, dismissed and sent their separate ways the several
formidable factions of the greatest army ever assembled in mortal
memory. That was Rama. Her Rama.
In a sense, that sword was symbolic of everything that Rama himself
stood for. The sword was Rama and Rama was the sword. Battered,
scarred, broken and mended and broken again a hundred times over,
yet fighting fit and ready to go now, ready to put loyalty before life,
duty before self-preservation, dharma before all else. He was
dharma’s truest disciple, most devout servant, most loyal brother,
prodigal son, unswerving husband, fiercest protector…
What else was Rama but dharma by another name?
He opened his eyes and looked up at her. She smiled slowly, brushing
away the stray hairs that fell awry—crow-black hairs that were finally
washed clean of the dried juice of the bodhi tree-trunk after being
matted daily with that milky, gummy fluid for fourteen years—and
turned the gesture into a caress.
His face mirrored her smile, his dark eyes not seeming as sunken as
they had the day he had taken her out of Lanka, the smile less like a
skull’s deathly grimace. A quizzical frown appeared and lingered. Her
fingers affectionately cupped his hard heart-shaped jaw, the pad of her
thumb stroking the stubbly underside of his chin, rasping against the
bristling new growth.
His hand reached up and caught her wrist. The sudden ease with
which he did this, the smooth grace with which he slid his hand up the
length of her arm to the shoulder, his calloused palm rough upon her
arm and then her neck, made her draw a quick breath. It felt so good
to be with her man again, her Rama. For apart from all else, he was
still that. A man. Her man.
They lay like that, gazing into one another’s eyes for neither knew
how long. A sunbeam slipped through a gap in the gently wind-wafted
drapes and fell upon the foot of the bed where it turned satiny saffron
covers ablaze, catching the weave and warp of the colour and turning
it into naked flame. Sita had been embarrassed by the first sight of the
saffron bedcovers—the colour used for newlyweds, because it
indicated passion and coital energies. She had been clad for so long in
the deep red ochre of the spiritual warrior that the satiny saffron had
seemed to blaze like a forest fire, searing her senses. She glanced
down now, attracted by the warmth of the sunlight on the naked sole
of her upraised foot, and saw the saffron spread glow, then turn to fire
again. The fire caught and took hold of her and threatened to consume
her.
Rama’s grip upon her neck suddenly changed. From a carelessly
affectionate caress it became a pressing vice. She saw his eyes narrow,
sensed his body tighten. And that familiar look came upon him, like
the visor of a war-helm lowered across his features, masking him with
the formidable appearance of a warrior, a kshatriya, a yoddha…nay, a
mahayoddha.
“Rama.”
The voice was low yet penetrating. It carried as gently as the morning
wind wafting slowly from the open verandah. She could not see its
owner, but guessed he was perched just above the balcony, on the
ledge that served as a rain-ward, perhaps gripping one of the arching
apsaras. But even before the voice spoke, the person it addressed had
already left her side. Detaching himself from her, Rama had rolled
backwards, off the edge of the bed, snatching up the sword deftly as
he went, and swept out of the room as lithely as a gust of wind. She
lowered her hand, staring briefly at her empty palm—empty too long,
much too long—and released a silent shuddering sigh.
There was a brief moment of silence as the caller waited for a
response. Then Rama appeared on the verandah, leaned out and
tapped his sword on the overhanging ledge. The sound of metal
tapping stone reached her. “Come down, my friend. Join us.”
“It’s your favourite vanar,” Rama said as he re-entered the room, the
sword lowered.
A furry body lowered itself into view, bare feet thumping onto the
floor of the verandah. Hanuman parted the drapes and entered, head
bent over and eyes averted sheepishly.
“Apologies for disturbing my lord and lady in their private sanctum,”
he said in his gruff vanar voice.
Sita smiled. “You need not apologize, faithful one. Our home is yours
to visit anytime you please.”
She rose from the bed and stood, gesturing to a cushioned couch
across the chamber. “Please, be seated. I will send for some
refreshments.”
She reached for the silken rope that hung beside the bed, intending to
tug upon it to ring the brass bell that would summon her serving girls.
“No.” Hanuman’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Please. Do not.”
Rama and she both glanced up at the tone.
The vanar shook his head. “I beg your pardon once again. I would not
come here thus unannounced and invade your privacy if it was not
urgent. I come only because there is a visitor. Someone comes to
Ayodhya. And I thought Rama should know of it before the man
arrives within the city. In case…”
He glanced at Rama, whose face was once again shielded, she saw, by
that war-mask. His warrior face. He was listening intently as
Hanuman completed his message:
“In case my lord prefers that he not be allowed to enter at all.”

TWO

“Who is this visitor?” Rama asked, dressing himself even as he spoke.

Hanuman bowed his head in the direction of his lord’s presence. “It is
the bandit-turned-sage. The one they now call by the name of the
termite ants who built their home upon and around his meditating
body, and so deeply was he lost in meditation that he endured their
swarming presence for many moons…”
“Valmiki.”
The vanar dipped his snout. “Valmiki. After the Valmik ants. But once
he was known by another name.” Hanuman’s simian eyes grew dark
and deadly, as Sita saw his war-face descend upon the otherwise
golden and handsome vanar visage. “By the beasts he used to hunt
and kill for profit and pleasure, and who savagely mauled him and left
their mark upon his features as is the way of the forest.”
“Bearface.” Rama’s voice was clipped as he strapped on his sword.
“Ratnakar,” he added. He turned, ready. “How long before he gets
here?”
Hanuman cocked his head to one side. Estimating conceptual
constructs such as time was not something vanars were known for. It
was a testament to Hanuman’s desire to serve Rama that he had
somehow mastered this puzzling art of telling time by mortal
methods, rather than the perfectly acceptable vanar method that
numbered everything up to ten (the number of digits on two paws) and
anything beyond that as ‘many paws full’.
“He shall be at your palace gates in a few moments.”
Rama nodded.
“Do you wish me to despatch him?” Hanuman asked quietly. There
was no menace or malice in his tone, merely a question.
Rama glanced at Sita. She remained silent, waiting to see what Rama
said.
“No,” he said. “I will see him. But not officially, not as a visitor to the
court. Go. Divert him. Tell him I sent you. Bring him around to…”
Rama frowned. It had been fourteen years. Ayodhya had changed.
“The sarathi quarters, behind the royal stables.”
Sita nodded, “A wise choice.” The sarathis, the charioteer sub-caste of
kshatriyas, were loyal to the ruling family unto death. More
importantly, they were good at keeping secrets. Anything discussed
within earshot of any of them would never be repeated for the benefit
of other ears.
Rama clapped a hand on Hanuman’s furry shoulder. “Go, my friend,
Maruti. Swift as the wind your father.”
Hanuman went. Loping in great vanar strides, out the verandah and
leaping over the balustrade into empty space with an unhesitating
fearlessness that made her breath catch.
Rama continued staring at her. She found herself saddened by how
completely he had discarded the Rama he was only a moment earlier
and how completely his war-face, this maha-yoddha Rama, had
replaced her Rama. She had hoped that in the safety and security of
Ayodhya, he would be…different. Apparently, she had been wrong.
“What do you think he wants?” she asked, speaking the question she
knew was on his lips unspoken. She had begun changing her garb the
instant Hanuman was gone.
He shrugged. “We shall learn that soon enough.”
That was Rama the warrior-king. Not a wasted word or thought. Why
speculate on something that would be revealed shortly? But she knew
it was not that simple: in the brief moments between Hanuman’s
missive and her query, Rama’s mind had undoubtedly raced through a
dozen, even a hundred possibilities, and had discarded most. He
would not fret or worry – that was never his way – but he was not
completely inured to curiosity. He was as eager to find out as she was
now.
Well. He was right. They would learn that soon enough. She pulled
the sash of her garb into the semblance of a knot. Not as tight as she
would have worn it four months earlier. She did it almost without
conscious realization, but Rama noticed, and shot a glance in that
direction. His eyes looked up and met her own. She felt a shock as
something passed through her. Like the jagged, snaking, white-light
vajra that crackled out of stormy skies and struck great trees, reducing
them to smoking splinters with its power and fury.
No words passed between them. But she knew then that he knew.
How? When? How long had he known? Her mind raced with
questions, possibilities.
She brushed them all aside and focussed on the moment at hand,
slipping on her own war-face, little though it pleased her to wear it.
There was no time to speak about it now. It would have to wait until
later. Like most other things that did not concern immediate threat and
survival.
They left the chamber together, armed.
The newly risen sun warmed Hanuman’s face as he sped over the
rooftop of the palace. Leaping across man-made architectural edifices
was not as convenient as loping through the deep forest and often he
leaped across yards of empty space with no certainty that he would
find a reliable paw-hold, but it did not deter him one whit and his utter
confidence itself carried him forth without incident. The very first
time he had leaped across the fortifications of Lanka, on Rama’s
mission, he had instinctively learned what most vanars could not
comprehend their entire lives: that travelling across man-made
structures required an almost exclusive use of one’s paws and almost
no use of the tail. Vanars generally depended on their tail, accustomed
from countless generations of gripping tree trunks and branches with
that vital appendage, and most failed to make the transition
successfully, or quickly enough. Hanuman had adapted like a fish to
water; it had even earned him a new nickname back home to add to
the long list: roof-climber.
He made impressive use of his newly adapted skills, racing across the
structural rises and dips of the palace rooftops to reach the forecourt
mere moments after leaving the presence of his lord and lady. He
flashed past a stunned serving girl leaning out of an upper storey
window in the princess’s palace to gesture to her paramour below,
causing her to gasp and drop the marigold she was clutching. He
flicked his tail deftly, knocking the falling gendha flower back to her
—she clasped it to her breast, thanking him with a quick smile—and
continued on his way with barely a pause. A moment later, he hung
briefly onto the last highpoint, a flat, open terrace atop which flew the
gaily coloured standard of the Kosala nation and Suryavansha
Ikshwaku clan, right below the golden sculpture of Surya the sungod,
the patron deity and legendary forebear of the Raghuvansha dynasty
that looked out upon all Ayodhya. A pair of sentries stationed upon the
terrace, clad in the familiar uniformed garb of the Purana Wafadars or
PFs as they were colloquially known, raised their arms and faces from
their strung bows to wave in his direction; the vanar had become a
familiar sight in the days since Rama’s triumphant return from Lanka,
bounding across rooftops on some urgent errand or another for his
lord. He nodded back, flicked his tail and leaped over the low wall of
the terrace.
A few more leaps and bounds brought him to ground on the clean-
swept street before the vaulting gates of the palace complex. A
formidable-looking warrior in an officious-looking PF uniform glared
fiercely at Hanuman, his prodigious white beard bristling. He
reminded Hanuman of his king Sugreeva, except that where King
Sugreeva’s features seemed cast in a perpetual expression of sorrow,
the Ayodhyan’s face was unmistakably martial, fierce and
commanding. He looked every bit the legendary martial commander
he was.
“I have mentioned to you that you ought not to drop in so suddenly,
have I not, vanar?” he said in a booming voice undimmed by years of
roaring orders at entire akshohinis of men, horses and elephants. “You
continue appearing magically from out of the open sky, one of these
days you’re likely to find a brace of arrows bristling from your furry
backside.”
Hanuman inclined his head respectfully, his voice contrite and sincere:
“Begging your pardon, Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar. My lord
Rama urged speed.”
At the mention of the official mission the general’s demeanour
relaxed. “Business?”
Hanuman inclined his head in the direction of the figure approaching
steadily down the great expanse of Raghuvansha Avenue. “To
intercept a visitor.”
Senapati Dheeraj Kumar’s fierce black eyes glowered at the
approaching figure. He barked a few choice orders, sending men
scurrying in every direction in an impressive display of well-rehearsed
efficiency. In moments, an entire company of quads had formed a
defensive formation bristling with lances and swords, barring the
approach to the palace. Hanuman glanced with idle interest as the top
of the wall bristled with the arrowtips of archers aiming down the
avenue. Elephants, kept in readiness just around the corner, moved up
from the flanking walls to add their trumpeting warnings and
formidable bulk to the defensive position. With the shrewdly designed
layout of the access road, walls and gate, the assembled forces could
hold off an army for half a day if need be – although, of course, an
army or even a sizable armed force would never have gotten past the
seven ring walls, moats and other security arrangements that had been
instituted by the late Maharaja Dasaratha since the Last Asura Wars,
thirty-six years ago. Not for nothing was the city known as A-Yodhya,
or The UnDefeated (and UnBesieged).
Hanuman watched Senapati Dheeraj Kumar’s PFs settle into their
positions, and since vanars could not move their facial muscles in the
manner that mortals did to produce expressions of humour, he raised
his tail high and wagged it slowly to show amusement at this elaborate
and efficient show of strength.
It was wholly unnecessary.
When Hanuman was here, not even an army could get through to
Rama. Let alone one solitary man.
Valmiki did not slow his pace when he saw the elephants and archers
and foot-soldiers move into the classic defensive positions at the
palace gate. They caused him no anxiety. He had been expecting a
reception; if it turned out to be hostile, so be it. He had not come to
enjoy Ayodhya’s hospitality, nor to enjoy casual conversation and hot
meals; he had not expected a welcome parade.
He strode on as the people on the street going about their business
suddenly grew aware of the hustle and bustle at the palace gates and
began to melt away down side streets and into their houses and
establishments. Ayodhya had grown warier since his last visit,
fourteen years ago. Then, the city had been one great festival ground,
a never-ending mela, filled with colour, noise, spectacle, excitement
and unbridled trust. Now, he sensed a nervous caution barely
concealing a closely sheathed wariness. The people were less
frolicsome, the mood no more festive. There was a sense of
anticipation, of waiting for something inevitable to come to pass. A
shifty suspicion in the way the citizens glanced around as they crossed
the avenue or glanced out the windows of their places of business. He
watched the avenue empty rapidly, as if in anticipation of a riot, and
felt a sadness touch him. The old Ratnakar, bear-killer, poacher, thief
and dacoit would have roared with laughter but Rishi Valmiki felt
only regret for the long years of inner conflict and external threat that
had reduced proud, bold-spirited Ayodhya to this distrustful state.
He maintained his pace until he was within shouting distance of the
phalanx that barred his way to the palace gates. Then he slowed to a
halt and raised an arm in greeting. He did not need to raise his voice
overmuch to be heard: the last echoes of footfalls and slamming doors
had faded away leaving a deadly hush that grew heavier until the
avenue seemed shrouded in silence. Even the elephants had ceased
their trumpeting and contented themselves with scratching their
forefeet on the ground, waiting for the command to charge, trample,
crush. Arrows bristled, speartips gleamed and a hundred shields
shattered sunlight as the soldiers waited in terse silence. Ayodhya did
not intend to be caught unawares, today or any day.
“I am Rishi Valmiki. I seek an audience with your king, Maharaja
Rama Chandra.”
A bushy white beard bristled as a great head tilted proudly, and a man
with a martial bearing and a stentorian voice that would probably have
carried across raging battlefields boomed out: “I am Saprem Senapati
Dheeraj Kumar. Lay down your weapons and permit yourself to be
searched.”
Valmiki resisted the temptation to chuckle. He turned the palms of his
raised hands sideways. “I bear no weapons. I come as a friend of your
liege. You have no reason to fear me.”
“Ayodhya fears no one. If you are a true friend of our lord, you will
have no objection to being searched.” And the general barked out two
short, coded words that propelled two quads of spearbearing soldiers
forward, moving in on Valmiki from either side. He sensed peripheral
movement and turned his head just enough to catch sight of two more
quads moving in behind him—they had appeared from two of several
concealed sally ports embedded in the high wall that ran the length of
the avenue. The four quads—sixteen spear-and-sword-armed soldiers
in all— boxed him in and moved closer in a menacing, over-cautious
manner that didn’t seem at all friendly to him.
He felt the first prickle of irritation. Careful now, old bandit, keep the
leash tight on that temper.
“I request you once more,” he said, his voice still level and calm.
“Permit me to pass unmolested or send for your Lord Rama. I am
amenable to either option. Tell him Sage Valmiki tatha Ratnakar seeks
to have words with him in private. Tell him my mission is of utmost
urgency and every moment of delay costs Ayodhya dearly.”
The quads boxing him in did not slow. Their methodical
goosestepping approach continued unabated, and his temper, held
carefully in check, began to fray at the seams.
The response from the Senapati with the proud battle-scarred face and
the prodigious beard did not appease him in the least.
“Request denied,” Dheeraj Kumar’s voice announced summarily. And
then followed with a barked command to his soldiers: “Apprehend
and disarm!”
Valmiki sighed openly. He had expected this, but had hoped for better.
He briefly weighed the option of peaceably surrendering, permitting
himself to be stripped, tied, perhaps thrown into a dungeon awaiting
further questioning. He rejected it at once; it would consume precious
time. And time was one thing Ayodhya was woefully short of right
now.
He opened his palm. The stout staff, loyal companion for hundreds of
yojanas, fell to the hard-baked raj-marg with a dull thud. It drew a
reaction from the approaching quads, a shiver of anticipation followed
immediately by puzzled glances. They had been expecting him to use
that very staff as a weapon, to wield it and whirl it wildly in a
desperate attempt to keep the surrounding armed force at bay. Not to
let it drop unused to the ground. That he had done so made them
pause because it could mean only one of two things: Either he was
possessed of more formidable weaponry than a mere staff, or he was
surrendering himself without a fight.
He decided to clarify the situation.
“For the last time,” he said quietly, with the deathly excess of calm
that always preceded his famous bursts of temper. “Will you let me
pass as a friend or will you oppose me?”
This time, the Senapati did not even waste breath on a verbal
response. He simply ignored the challenge and let his soldiers
advance.
Valmiki shook his head once, regretfully.
And then he closed his palm into a fist.
Hanuman spoke quietly to Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar after the
visitor’s first words identifying himself and his mission. “My Lord
has been made aware of this visitor. He bade me bring him into his
presence.” Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar responded curtly, “It shall
be so.”
And immediately barked out a response to the visitor demanding that
he permit himself to be searched, which he ought to have no objection
to if he was indeed a friend of their lord. Hanuman knew the old PF
took his job of overseeing security within Ayodhya city limits to be
more than a given task; it was his dharma. The past fourteen years had
seen Ayodhya tremble on the brink of civil strife more than once, not
to mention the innumerable rumours of imminent invasions, attacks,
incursions and even threats from formerly friendly neighbouring
nations. A lot had changed since the demise of Maharaja Dasaratha
and the great upheaval of the Suryavansha Ikshwaku Raghuvansha
dynasty in the wake of Rama’s departure into exile. The Kosala
capitol had always been prosperous and one thing that had not
dissipated during this decade and almost-a-half had been its growth of
commerce and accumulation of wealth through various means.
Ayodhya, always a juicy plum of a picking, had grown juicier and
riper in the absence of a strong overlord and due to an apparent family
rift. During those difficult years, it had been men such as Dheeraj
Kumar, loyalists to the bone, who had maintained the status quo and
kept the heart of the nation safe and sound. The Saprem Senapati’s
demand that the Maharishi permit himself to be searched was not
intended as an insult, it was merely a necessary precaution. His
stentorian tone was merely that of a supreme commander accustomed
to being obeyed without question.
But the visitor had taken it in exactly the ill spirit that Hanuman had
anticipated. His terse but still polite demand that he be permitted to
see Rama at once lest the delay prove costly to Ayodhya sounded
hollow to the vanar’s ears. Like the very thing a guilty intruder might
say to avoid being searched. He watched approvingly as the Saprem
Senapati allowed his quads to approach with extreme caution, and
when the errant sage dropped his staff, he assumed that the man was
finally surrendering to good sense.
He was wrong.

THREE

Bharat and Shatrugan came up Raghuvansha Avenue at a sweaty

gallop. Bharat’s re-socketed shoulder joint ached with the dull
throbbing pain that he remembered well from the previous two
occasions on which he had dislocated the same arm. The effort with
which he ignored the pain was just as familiar and easily applied. He
slowed his horse as he took in the sight ahead. The avenue was
curiously deserted, as was the one they had come by, Harshavardhana.
The junction of both arterial raj-margs was bereft even of the vaisya
merchants, munshis-for-hire and various court recorders who
normally plied a brisk business in official releases, deeds of property
ownership and other legal items that Bharat had never felt in the least
interested to know more about; that was beyond odd, it was alarming.
It usually took nothing short of a major riot to clear the avenue of
those particular nuisances, slick oily-haired characters with their
disarmingly polite manner and talent for counting – particularly for
counting the usurer commissions and exploitative profits they all but
stole from the poor, illiterate citizenry who could not negotiate the
murky byways of official matters independently. Shatrugan and he
reined in their horses as they rounded the final corner and came in
sight of the palace gates themselves.
They sized up the situation at first glance. It was fairly obvious.
A man – apparently a rishi from some forest hermitage – stood
weaponless and bare-handed a short distance from the palace gates. At
least four quads of PFs were converging on him with martial stances
that left their intentions in no doubt. Several more fully armed and
alert PFs stood ready in the human wall formation devised by Saprem
Senapati Dheeraj Kumar, who himself stood before the towering
gates, beard bristling in that upturned-face expression that his men
secretly referred to as the general’s ‘this-means-war’ look. Bharat had
just enough time to note the furry outline of Hanuman beside the
general, and then time and the universe stuttered and came to a
grinding halt and all known natural laws of the world as he knew it
ceased to exist.
“Looks like—” Shatrugan began, and suddenly broke off to exclaim,
“Sacred Aditi, Mother of gods!”
The sixteen prime examples of Ayodhya’s final line of defence moved
as one man, polished speartips glinting in the morning sunshine as the
weapons moved together to fence in the intruder like the jagged rows
of teeth of some wild beast closing its mandibles upon a choice item
of nourishment. The converging circle of speartips left mere inches of
room around the bare torso of the half-naked hermit. If he were to
move suddenly, he would find his flesh ripped open in a half-dozen
places; move with force and speed, he would be impaled to death. The
precision of the four quads and the firm line of the inward pointing
spears were impeccable. Only a rank idiot would attempt to resist that
deadly circle of spearpoints.
Yet the sadhu moved – nay, he didn’t just move. He whirled!
And whirling, he spun like a human top, perfectly in place.
At the same instant, his bare feet struck the dirt floor of the avenue
with powerful, precise force, pushing his body upwards. Later, Bharat
thought he might have actually heard the thud of the sadhu’s feet
striking the ground, so intense was the force of that double-kick.
And like a dust-dervish, he rose, still spinning madly – above the
circle of lethal spearpoints!
It was a move so audacious, so impossible, Bharat’s breath caught in
his chest. Shatrugan’s involuntary exclamation mirrored his own silent
hitch of awe. What immense bodily control, muscular strength,
mindand-body coordination it must take to achieve such a move! It
was swift yet graceful, as powerful and sudden as a dancer’s step, and
no less beautiful to watch.
Shatrugan and he tightened their grip on their reins without being
aware of their doing so. Both horses turned their heads to snort in
protest.
The brothers felt their hearts leap in their chests. For all their battle
experience – and there had not been a year in the past fourteen when
relentless blood-battles had not dominated their waking lives – they
had never seen this particular move executed. That it was executed by
a man who appeared to be nothing more than a half-starved sadhu or
rishi only added to their shock and awe.
The rishi rose, spinning, as perfectly straight as a pillar – a few scant
inches to any side would mean terrible wounds, dismemberment or
death
– and reached the apogee of his launch some five feet above the
ground. He seemed to hover in mid-air for a brief fraction like a
hummingbird working at its nest, then his thin yet tautly muscled legs,
gleaming with a dusty film of sweat clearly earned from days of hard
walking, shot out like the yawning pincers of a stone crab Bharat had
once seen at the moment it closed upon its prey.
At that instant, had the sixteen soldiers simply jerked their weapons
upwards or even slashed randomly, they would surely have ended the
impossible dance of the rishi. But so swiftly had the man moved, so
daring had been his gambit and so unpredictable his action, that all
sixteen of them were still staring dully at the space the intruder had
occupied only moments earlier. A space that was now devoid of his
presence, which meant that they were all staring at one another’s
startled faces like a circle of maidens come together on a festival only
to discover that they were all clad in exactly the same festive garbs.
The expression on their weathered young faces was a sight to behold!
Shooting out, the two thin long legs spread like a mallakhamb artist’s
to stretch beyond the deadly speartips above the wooden shafts of the
spears. For a moment seeming to hang suspended at that outstretched
angle, the rishi resembled a bird of prey at the instant in which it
pounced upon its landlocked prey.
Then, in a follow-through move even more audacious than the earlier
actions, Valmiki landed upon the shafts of the spears.
The tight-armed firmness with which the PFs had held out the spears
to enclose him in the circle of lethal points now served to support the
rishi’s not-very-considerable weight. As Bharat watched with growing
incredulity, the hafts of the spears dipped downwards even as the
soldiers holding them reacted with their own shocked expressions, but
in another fraction, the rishi had used the brief contact to propel
himself upwards again.
Upwards and outwards.
In a somersault that flowed into a vaulting movement, the sage’s
athletic form flew over the heads of the men who only moments
earlier had seemed certain of entrapping him or ending his life, to land
in a half-crouch on Raghuvansha Avenue with a dust-raising thud.
Startled though he too must have been by the suddenness and
dexterity of the rishi’s actions, Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar had
already recovered sufficiently to bark fresh orders at his men. The
four quads reacted with a swiftness born of endless drilling and
training. They swung their spears overhead as their bodies turned to
face outwards – swinging sideways at such close quarters would have
caused casualties to each other – and the circle of spears rippled
outwards in an impressive display of martial coordination. The deadly
points that had hemmed in the intruder only moments ago now
pointed outwards and were carried forward to create a rapidly
expanding ring as the soldiers ran forward and away from the centre
of an imaginary circle. It was a brilliantly devised counter-manoeuvre
superbly executed. At the same time the other quads standing by
moved in with equally ferocious speed. The outward-expanding and
inward-enclosing rows of spearpoints moved towards one another.
Valmiki ought to have been caught and impaled between the two lines
in that moment.
But Valmiki was no longer in the space between the rows.
The instant he had landed in a half-crouch, he had taken one, two,
then a third long step, like a stork preparing for flight, and launched
himself once more with the same powerful springing leap like a snake
uncoiling to strike, this time to fly upwards and forward above the
helmeted heads of the inward-approaching quads. Again, being
mortal and subject to the call of gravity, he was forced to touch down
– this time doing so upon the helmets of the approaching soldiers!
Touching down delicately as a cat in flight, he launched himself yet
again, landed on the next row of helmets, then fell forward and
somersaulted. Clutching his own ankles, head bowed to touch his own
knees, he whirled twice — no, thrice, Bharat noted, for the movement
was so quick as to blend seamlessly — in mid-air for another moment,
before landing once more with a solid thud on the avenue. Two puffs
of dust rose from beneath his feet. Bharat saw the rishi’s piercing eyes
seek him out and pin him and Shatrugan down momentarily. Before
the dust could settle around his feet, he had spun around to face the
gates once more and only the rippling muscles of his powerful lean
back and sinewy thighs were visible.
This is the man I want teaching my children the arts of war, Bharat
thought silently, elated.
“Stop now!” the sage cried out, even as the PFs milled about in
confusion, most still unable to see where the enemy had vanished –
one of the hazards of closely bunched formations. “I do not wish to
spill Ayodhyan blood!”
The only answer from the gates was a bellowed curse. Dheeraj Kumar
was not a man to relent to warnings and threats. Nor was he a man to
underestimate an enemy once outmanoeuvred. This time, he took no
chances. He raised one powerful hirsute arm high above his own head,
then dropped it in a practised gesture.
Bharat knew what the gesture meant. Shatrughan and he had stopped
far enough away from the gates for that very reason, maintaining a
safe distance as protocol demanded. Princes were not excepted from
the rigorous routine of tri-weekly defensive drills.
The distance was essential for their own safety. The archers of
Ayodhya were deadly accurate but once loosed, arrows could not
differentiate between friendly and unfriendly flesh.
From the rooftops on which they had taken up positions even as the
first verbal exchanges had begun, the royal archers took aim as a
single unit and loosed their first volley.
Bharat winced in anticipation. However acrobatic, swift and lithe the
rishi may be, even the most athletic body could hardly dodge a
carefully placed rain-pattern of metal tipped Ayodhyan arrows loosed
from the finest honed Mithila shortbows. The rishi was a dead man.
Hanuman watched with detached interest as the volley of lethal
missiles flew towards the semi-clad, bearded ascetic standing on the
avenue. The PFs, alerted by their Senapati’s bellowed command, had
retreated posthaste several yards, far enough to remove them safely
from the arc of fire of the rain-pattern. As the arrows rained down on
the avenue, Hanuman’s view was partially obstructed by the close-
ranked PFs standing before the gates; he couldn’t be bothered to shift
enough to see more clearly. The intruder had proved himself both
foolish and intrepid. The leaping and lunging he had indulged in
might have impressed the humans watching, but it was nothing to a
vanar. In fact, he resented the vanar-like agility of the man. Clearly,
the fourteen years since he had last seen Valmiki fight rakshasa
berserkers alongside Rama in the jungles of Janasthana had not been
spent in meditation and spiritual contemplation alone – the man was
clearly a master of the arts of war. But why not simply stick to the
more common mortal methods of warfare? Why indulge in these
inhuman acrobatics? It bordered on the obscene to see a hairless
straightback (two of many names Hanuman’s people used for humans)
contort his body, twirl and somersault like a vanar in the redmist
mountains of Kiskindha
– even if, Hanuman acknowledged grudgingly, the rishi did execute
the manoeuvres with a modicum of talent. Well, now the man could
cease resisting and dodging like the furry yoddhas he sought to
imitate: faced with a volley such as this one, even a vanar could do
little more than chitter in fright…and die.
“SHANESHWARA!” cried a soldier standing beside Hanuman, in a
ear-bursting volume that made him turn his head away. Why were
humans always so loud? Probably because they rarely passed on one
another’s distress calls as vanars and other creatures and birds of the
forests did, so felt the need to yell cautions themselves. The man who
had shouted probably thought to alert all Ayodhya. Hanuman peered
over the head of the PFs before him, trying to see past their armoured
shapes.
What he saw almost drew a chitter from his own throat!
Rishi Valmiki stood as before, standing upright and straight-backed on
the avenue. Around him lay a scattering of blackstick arrows, the kind
favoured by Ayodhyan as well as Mithilan archers due to the
profusion of lohitwood in the nearby region. In the rishi’s left hand,
held at an angle above his body, was a whirling blur. Hanuman
frowned, momentarily unable to discern what the object was that
could cause such an effect.
Then the rishi’s wrist twitched once, then again, and his right hand
shot out and grasped hold of something in mid-air, and the whirling
blur resolved itself into the thick wooden staff he had been carrying
when he first came up the avenue. The length of the staff was
pincushioned with black arrows, some two dozen of them at least.
They sprouted between the fingers of Valmiki’s hands like obscene
outgrowths. Hanuman blinked, realizing what had happened in the last
moment or three when he had looked away, disinterested.
The rishi had snatched up the staff and twirled it like a protective
shield, using it to catch each and every arrow aimed at his torso by the
archers on the rooftops. At such a short distance, the archers had
found it easy to aim at the intruder’s chest and vitals, ignoring the
groin and long sinewy legs. The smaller target area and precisely
simultaneous loosing by the well-drilled archers meant that Valmiki
could accurately judge the trajectory of the volley. Even so, the skill
required to block every single arrow was impressive. As Hanuman
watched, a tiny bead of blood rose from the webbing between the
forefinger and middle finger of the rishi’s left hand and dripped down
to land in the dust of the avenue. The metal head of an arrow was
buried in the body of the staff, its lethally sharpened double edges
touching both fingers. Apparently, that was the only injury he had
sustained.
Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar cursed and turned back to glance at
Hanuman.
“Who is this fool?” demanded the general gruffly.
“An old friend and fighting comrade of our Lord Rama,” Hanuman
replied calmly. “He led the outlaws in the jungle where our Lord spent
his exile and they fought the rakshasas together for fourteen years.”
He felt proud of his ability to speak the mortal tongue as fluently as
any Arya human; even the most sociable vanars envied him this
fluency.
His eloquence was rewarded with an expression that didn’t often
appear on the Senapati’s face.
“And you tell me this now? After I have almost butchered the man
outside our palace gates?” Dheeraj Kumar sputtered.
Hanuman shrugged. “He was disobedient. You were following your
protocol. In any case, he is still alive despite your best efforts.”
Dheeraj Kumar started to make a choice remark, then quite obviously
bit it back. He shook his head, his mane and beard ruffling, then
turned back to bark an order. At once, the gate was opened and a
passage cleared to let him pass. He stepped outside the gate onto the
avenue, Hanuman following in his wake.
Rishi Valmiki watched them approach, the arrow-riddled staff still
clutched in both fists. He kept the staff raised at its diagonal angle as
they came within easy speaking distance. Hanuman wondered what
would happen if the general ordered two simultaneous volleys from
different directions; would the rishi be able to catch them with his
whirling staff as effectively as before? Or would he resort to some
other athletic demonstration of his martial skill? He wished the
general had not elicited from him the information about Valmiki being
Rama’s friend just yet – it might have been interesting to see how long
the rishi survived the efforts of Ayodhya’s best tactician, and how.
Even though Dheeraj Kumar strode ahead and was quite evidently in
charge of the situation, Hanuman sensed the visitor’s eyes on him,
questing, probing, studying. He had a moment when he almost felt the
cool touch of the rishi’s mind making contact with his own, then the
Senapati was speaking in his typically authoritarian tone and he was
never sure if he had simply imagined the sensation or if it had been
real.
“Maharishi,” said the Saprem Senapati, “Hanuman here has just
informed me that you are an old fighting friend of our Maharaja Rama
Chandra from his years in exile.”
Valmiki inclined his head very slightly. “This is true.”
The Senapati used his beefy hands to indicate the dhoti-clad body of
the visitor. “And after your not unimpressive demonstration of martial
ability, it is quite evident that you are unarmed.” Dheeraj Kumar
cleared his throat, “Except, of course, for that stout staff which you
put to such excellent use just moments ago. And a body that itself is a
lethal weapon of war!”
Valmiki’s nod of acknowledgement was more noticeable this time, as
was the flicker of amusement on his beard-shrouded face. “I thank
you for the compliments and yes, this observation is also true. I am
unarmed.” He added with a distinct note, “As I announced at the very
outset.”
The Senapati spread his hirsute arms wide in a welcoming gesture
then brought them together in a formal namaskara. “Then it is settled.
Maharishi, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Ayodhya in the
name of our king Rama!”
Valmiki glanced briefly at Hanuman with another twitch of
amusement, then returned his gaze to the Senapati. “Am I to
understand that after attempting – unsuccessfully – to have me
skewered by over a dozen spears, then run through by more
spearpoints, then fired upon by a volley of arrows aimed to kill rather
than merely maim or injure, you now declare a cessation of hostilities
and are offering me the hospitality of the palace?” He looked around,
as if looking for someone else to confirm these observations – there
was nobody near enough, “Just like that?”
Dheeraj Kumar was a direct and forthright man. There was no place in
his lexicon for apologies or explanations. “Just so,” he replied in his
characteristic no-nonsense way and executed a swift, polite namaskara
with just the right inclination of his leonine head and whitened mane
to convey dutiful respect. “Please, follow me.”
Rishi Valmiki did not respond at once. He looked at Hanuman and
their eyes met in another soul-searching glance tempered by that
faintly mocking expression that Hanuman felt sure was more than just
the result of the rishi’s old bear-claw scar. Not too far away, an
elephant trumpeted impatiently and emptied its bowels – the rank
odour drifting downwind caused Hanuman’s nostrils to twitch
involuntarily; there were certain things a vanar couldn’t help, no
matter how well he learned human customs and language.
He waited for the rishi’s response.

FOUR

At last, after what seemed like long minutes of waiting but were in
fact mere seconds, Rishi Valmiki nodded and said quietly, “Very well.
Lead the way.”
Hanuman’s reluctant respect for the human grew another tiny notch.
The man was not one to hold a grudge, it seemed. Despite the intense
hostility with which he had been treated thus far, he was still able to
accept the hand of conciliation. It was not a quality to be sniffed at.
Vanars were not known for their ability to forgive; it was one of the
things Hanuman had come to admire in the human race – one of the
very few things, no doubt, but still one that had no counterpart in his
own race. The ability to prioritize, to start afresh, to put the past aside
and begin anew. To forgive if not forget. Vanars, on the other hand,
were more apt to forget than forgive! He nodded at the rishi as the
bearded sage lowered his staff and stepped after the senapati.
“I shall lead you to my lord Rama,” Hanuman said. “He has instructed
me to bring you to him at—”
His last word was drowned out by an eruption of noise and chaos so
sudden it took even his prescient senses by surprise.
Without warning or indication, the avenue rose up and attacked them.
Rama stopped pacing and stood still. Sita frowned, trying to make out
what had alerted him but she could neither hear nor sense anything.
She thought she heard something from the North when Rama shot her
a look and moved to the entrance.
“At the gates!” he said and began running.
She followed close on his heels. Out the sarathi shed where the royal
chariots were neatly lined up in rows, past the royal stables where
familiar snouts snorted and heads were tossed in brief alarm as their
mounts scented their still-unfamiliar odours. She had been saddened
to know that almost all the Mithila mounts – elephants as well as
horses – that had accompanied her to Ayodhya as part of her wedding
trousseau had been stricken down in either one of two epidemics over
the period of exile. She had seen several of those beautiful beasts
foaled and calved and watched them grow to adulthood; she had
known them individually as well as she knew people. After her sisters,
she had missed them the most. Past the guards shed which lay
unusually empty and that itself was evidence that something was
wrong. Past the lotus pool and fountain bordering the towering,
seventy feet-high statue of Suryadeva standing at his chariot gripping
the reins of his magnificent Kambhoja stallions. The early morning
light slanted across the rounded silhouette of the Garhwals, flashing
through the tall sala trees that lined the periphery of the inner wall.
And then they were moving through a small army of PFs – mounted
and on foot – spearmen and archers, elephant quads and chariot-archer
teams, all in defensive formation forming a formidable inner wall of
last defence in the unlikely event that any intruder was able to pass
through seven heavily guarded gates set in seven unclimbable ring-
walls, encircling seven deep and wide moats teeming with deadly
predators. They were all facing outwards, as they should, and Rama
had to bark terse words of command to alert them: to their credit, they
responded with perfect reflexes, swinging aside smartly to allow both
Rama and Sita room to pass through. They sprinted through the
massed rows upon rows, Sita feeling as if she was approaching the
frontline of an army on a battlefield rather than simply exiting her
place of residence through the front gate, and then they were at the
vaulting iron gates and out through a sally port and on the avenue
proper.
It took her only an instant to take in the archers on the rooftops, the
quads standing at precise intervals in wave-attack formation, the
elephants trumpeting and stamping their feet farther down and up the
avenue, two men on horseback about a hundred yards up
Raghuvansha just about where it was crossed by Harshavardhana, and
in the centre of this tableau, three figures: Hanuman’s distinctive furry
long-tailed form, the bearded, burly shape of Saprem Senapati
Dheeraj Kumar and a long-bearded tapasvi sadhu she assumed was
Maharishi Valmiki but would never have recognized on her own.
All three lay on their backs, like straw puppets flung to three corners
of a box stage in some festival puppet show. The avenue beneath them
was cracked and sharded, jagged ends of rock pointing at upward
diagonals. The three prone figures had been separated by three large
chunks of earthrock that stood out of the ground, leaving a gaping
irregular hole, but there was a network of cracks radiating outwards
from the hole itself and numerous pieces and chunks of the avenue lay
strewn around. A sizable dustcloud was still wafting across the scene,
and the neighing, white-eyed horses and trumpeting elephants
indicated that whatever had occurred had only just occurred. All three
were already leaning on elbows and peering around through the
wafting cloud of dust, which told her they were unharmed, merely
thrown off balance and stunned by whatever the event had been.
Her first thought was that some kind of earthquake had just struck – a
very odd earthquake that had struck only one area of the avenue.
Her next thought was a memory of the last days in Lanka, after
Rama’s forces had landed upon the island-kingdom, and the entire
island itself had seemed to heave and rise and crack and roar in
protest. She recalled how she had trembled with fear, not for herself
alone – although she was by no means immune to fear – but for the
unborn life she carried within her womb. A shudder passed through
her as she recalled the violent power of Ravana’s maya sorcery. Surely
this could not be his work? Ravana was dead!
Even as she thought this, the avenue heaved again. Her arms shot out
instinctively as she backed up, coming up short against the raised
shield of a PF who was too shocked himself to mutter an apology.
Before her, Rama stood his ground, his dark silhouette a portrait of
readiness and composure even as the animals and soldiers all around
reacted with unmistakable horror. Prepared as Ayodhyans were for
violent combat, they were not prepared for supernatural warfare. Why
only Ayodhyans? All Aryas. The Last Asura Wars had broken the
back of her own nation’s army and sent her father into a radical
departure from martial ways, seeking succour in spiritual armament to
compensate for the immutable memories of the horrors of war against
such a vastly superior and alien force of maya-wielding foes.
The ground roared.
There was no other way to describe it. The sound burst from the
jagged yawning abyss that had opened in the centre of the avenue, just
before the palace gates, like a bestial cry ripped from the throat of
some unseen juggernaut. It filled the air, surely audible for yojanas
around, and Sita felt it strike her body like a physical blow. She felt
the growing life within her stir and respond in distress – or was it
anger? – to the solid blow of the sound.
Smoke and light belched out of the crack.
The gates, ten-yard-high intricate structures of corrugated iron and
brass, buckled and crumpled like straw in a child’s fist.
The ground shuddered and swayed, and a wave of nausea rose in
Sita’s gullet, forced down by stubborn will.
I must stand! I must not lose my footing.
It took every gram of effort and will to remain standing, firm and
seemingly unafraid, beside her consort royale.
It was not sufficient merely to be a queen. One had to act like one.
The three prone figures struggled to stand upright. To her dismay,
none succeeded. Even Hanuman, whom she believed capable of
virtually anything he put his mind to, seemed to be unable to maintain
his balance. After all, the broken ground beneath them was at the
epicentre of the disturbance. The vile effulgence belching forth from
the jagged hole almost concealed them from view. The intensity of the
sound, terrible at several yards’ distance where Sita stood, must have
been unbearable to their ears. Even so, they fought to rise upright,
failed, and somehow managed to half-crawl, half-drag themselves a
yard or two back before collapsing once more as a fresh wave of
sound and vibration assaulted the avenue.
This time the sound emerging from the belly of the earth was less a
roar than a scream. A banshee wail of anguish and anger exploding
from the lungs of the unseen force. It throbbed through the skin and
nerves to shake the bones of Sita’s body, ringing in her ears like the
cry of a dying beast.
Unable to help herself, Sita threw her hands to her ears, covering
them. She no longer cared if she seemed weak. She was still standing,
was she not? It was the sound she could not bear. It reminded her of a
being in terrible agony…not just a being…a child being birthed. And
once the insane thought occurred to her assaulted mind, she could not
shake it off.
“What is it?” she cried to Rama, shouting to be heard above the
keening wail. All across the avenue, horses were rearing and
screaming in terror. Elephants stamping their feet and tossing their
mahouts, some stampeding and crushing their quads. She saw an
archer atop a roof drop his precious shortbow and clap his hands to his
ears in agony, bending over so far, he lost his balance and tumbled
from the roof to fall with a sickening thud on the avenue below where
he lay in a motionless heap; even through the cloud of dust that was
filling the air, she could see the bright crimson trickle of blood
seeping from his ears. Her own eardrums felt as if they had already
burst and she half expected to feel the wetness of her own blood on
her hands at any moment.
Rama did not answer. He stood his ground grimly. Glancing around,
she saw that he was the only one. Every other person and animal on
the avenue was reeling from the continued assault of sound and quake.
Through gaps in the billowing cloud of stinking fumes, she could see
Bharat and Shatrugan, dismounted and attempting to calm their
panicked horses while shaking their heads in reaction to the terrible
sound themselves.
As suddenly as it had begun, the sound ceased.
The silence that fell in the wake of the sound was almost as shocking
as the sound itself had been.
Sita slowly removed her palms from her ears – she glanced briefly at
them and was surprised that they were not smeared with blood – and
looked around. Shaken, the royal guard was trying to maintain its
composure. Yet the horror on their collective faces was nakedly
visible. Whatever their considerable training had prepared them to
face, this was not included in it.
“What was it?” she asked again, touching Rama’s shoulder with her
hand. Dust had settled already on his naked body and she tasted and
felt the grittiness on her own face as the smoky effulgence from the
crack in the avenue settled.
Rama still did not speak. But in the next few moments, her question
was answered anyway.
With the prescient coordination born of long years of fighting side by
side, Bharat and Shatrugan dropped the reins of their horses and
sprinted forward as one man. Whatever was happening outside the
palace gates, it was not over. They sensed that the closer they were to
their home ground, the more useful their weapons and skill would be.
They had had enough of being bystanders. It was time to get close to
the action.
Hanuman rose to his feet, still feeling the echoes of that horrendous
wailing in the recesses of his mind. He snorted, clearing his nostrils of
the dust and grime that hung in the air like a fog. To his right, he
glimpsed the hazy form of the senapati also gaining his feet. To his
left, he was not surprised to see the rishi was already afoot and
holding his stout staff once more in both hands, like a boatman an oar.
Rishi Valmiki had not expected the first assault. But he was prepared
for the second. Unlike all the others gathered on the avenue, he alone
knew the cause of the eruption from the ground and the source of the
terrible wailing. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to almighty Brahma
that he had arrived in time. Ayodhya had no notion of the evil that was
about to assault it from within and without, and the proud city-state’s
legendary defences were about to be tested to their limits – and
beyond. Even through the billowing mass of subterranean dust that
clouded the avenue, he could still discern the ramrod-straight form of
Rama, standing before the crumpled gates, Sita at his side. He needed
to speak with Rama urgently, but he knew that the second wave would
begin at any moment, and that needed to be dealt with first.
He was ready with his staff when it came.
A blast of heat roared up from the jagged rent in the ground. Like the
blow-heat of a furnace stoked with a giant pair of bellows, it seared
his skin and instantly caused sweat to pop out of his pores. Yet he
stood his ground, knowing that if he did not deal with this threat it
would grow in strength and intensity. His only hope – Ayodhya’s only
hope – was to strike first and fast and hit as hard as possible.
Accompanying the heat came a tongue of orange-red flame that
resembled nothing so much as a war banner blown on a strong wind.
Except that this banner streamed up from the ground rather than
sideways on the end of a raised lance. Yet it was no less a war banner,
and even though the only emblem it bore was naked flame, it
trumpeted the enemy’s arrival just as effectively.
He had already begun to chant the mahamantras softly as he had stood
up. Now, he raised his voice, projecting it as far outward and above
the relentless roar of the subterranean fire-banner blazing upwards, so
that every PF, quad leader, elephant, horse and prince upon the avenue
could hear it. The purpose of the mahamantras would be served even
by silent recitation but by making the recitation heard, they would also
rouse the morale of the Ayodhyans. And the battle that lay ahead –
indeed, the war itself – would depend as much on will and stubborn
determination, as on strength and martial skill.
The smriti shlokas – literally secret verses – expanded into the air,
through the space above the jagged crack in the avenue. At the point
where the sound of their recitation, performed with a precise diction,
enunciation and pace, collided with the sound and heat of the
upwards-blazing tongue of flame, a curious effect occurred.
The fire actually shrivelled.
And shrank.
As if the blazing tongue of flame, roaring fiercely several yards high
into the air, like a pillar of fire soaring up from the cracked earth, had
been doused by a powerful quantity of icy cold water.
Valmiki raised his voice, using the considerable power of his lungs,
strengthened from years of recitation and argument before great
gatherings of rishis at the annual convocations and debates in the
forest ashrams, to a pitch and level that intensified the shakti of the
mahamantras even further.
For a moment, the Sanskrit alphabets became visible in mid-air,
outlined by the asura fire. They hung in the air like solid things carved
out of stone, then turned to smoke and evaporated, dousing the flame
– absorbing it, then transforming it into the universal essence of life,
brahman shakti. The motes glittered blue before fading into ether.
The fire-banner fluttered once, twice, made a final attempt to blaze
through the stream of Sanskrit scripture…then flickered, flagged and
died.
Valmiki ended the final shloka and touched the staff to his forehead,
inclining his head in gratitude to Brahma-dev for this small but
immensely pleasurable success.
At least he had shown the enemy that someone stood ready to do
battle on their own terms.
He glanced across the cracked abyss and saw Rama standing on the
other side. The king of Ayodhya had moved closer to the edge during
Valmiki’s recitation and now they both stood on opposite sides of the
hole. In his peripheral vision, the rishi saw Hanuman move up closer
from one side, and the senapati take up the fourth position. Excellent.
Now all four cardinal directions were manned by determined warriors.
And as if they instinctively sensed the need to man the opening in the
earth, Bharat and Shatrugan moved in to add their own considerable
presence to the circle while the foremost quads moved in as well, no
doubt on a signal from the intrepid senapati. Rishi Valmiki smiled
grimly. Instead of emerging stealthily and rampaging through the
citizen-filled streets before the alarm was raised, the enemy would
now find a formidable ring of defence already waiting to greet him the
instant he showed himself.
Almost as if he knew this, the creature from beneath the ground
roared his fury. Valmiki saw the eyes of the PFs closest to him widen
to show their whites as the sound echoed through the length and
breadth of the deserted avenue.
Then the roar broke off. And something terrible emerged from the
crack in the ground. Something that had lain festering beneath the
surface of Ayodhya for fourteen long years, biding its time, and which
now burst free in a devastating explosion of asura maya.

FIVE

“RAMA!”
Dustclouds boiled high above the rooftops of the avenue, obscuring
the sky; foul gases reeked; chaos reigned at the palace gates of
Ayodhya. Immaculately behaved horses threw off their riders,
impeccably trained elephants trampled their mahouts, Purana
Wafadars drilled to face up to any situation including a full-scale
invasion milled about in confusion, and even Saprem Senapati
Dheeraj Kumar stared in mute fury, his raised fists clenched. Sita
controlled the urge to gasp, forcing herself to remain motionless and
expressionless. Like Rama. He stood like a pillar in a raging ocean,
the only force of still calm among the thousands of armed warriors
and armoured beasts standing before the inner sanctum of the greatest
capital in the seven-nation Arya world.
The thing that had emerged from the broken ground of the avenue was
like nothing she had ever seen before.
It had once been a rakshasa, that was clear. Neither less nor more
grotesque, malformed, hideously shaped and barbed at unexpected
places, like a machine built for war rather than for mere living. It was
huge. The Seer’s Eye Tower silhouetted against the morning sun stood
mere yards behind it, and its head reached almost as high as the top of
the tower. Its strength was evident in the way it flexed its bullish
muscles as it freed its wool-ringed feet from its subterranean exit to
clump with a bone-shuddering thud upon the avenue. But she had seen
rakshasas more hideous and menacing during the long years of exile,
while battling them in the forests of Janasthana, and later as an
unwilling guest of the Lord of Lanka. This one was no ordinary
rakshasa, that was self-evident, but neither was he the fiercest or the
most frightening one she had ever seen.
No. What was frightening was the fact that he was here. In Ayodhya!
That he had emerged from beneath its roads, like a chick cracking its
shell and emerging cheeping into sunlight. Within spitting distance of
the most prized goal of any rakshasa: the very seat of the Kosala
nation. And if he was here, how many more were there laying in wait
beneath the avenue? Was this a full-scale invasion? Were giant
rakshasas like this one bursting out of the ground all over the city – or
the kingdom? It was a thought too terrifying to contemplate.
Almost as if reading her mind, Rama spoke beside her.
“He is alone,” he said.
At once a quiver of relief flooded her. She felt her parched gullet push
down a blob of saliva, her knees unlock and tremble once – just once
– before she brought herself under control.
“Yes,” she said calmly, as if she had known that all along.
Rama said nothing. For which she was grateful. Her stoic stance was
predicated on thinking and feeling and saying as little as possible:
merely remaining in a state of warrior-like preparedness, ready to act.
“RAMA!”
The voice boomed across the avenue, surely audible across the city
itself.
She felt its bass vibrations grab hold of and shake the very ribcage
encasing her heart, penetrating within that thudding organ itself; like
the time when she was a very little girl, no more than a toddler and
had climbed into a giant drum one day, not realizing the drum was
soon to be struck by a musician wielding an enormous baton. The
ensuing boom and the vibrating power of that first strike of that drum
– the drummer had instantly sensed something was amiss from the
very sound his instrument gave off, and she was immediately
extricated – had left her deaf the rest of that day, and its memory
imprinted upon her senses forever. The sound of this rakshasa’s voice
was no less bone-shaking, and filled with a peculiar teeth-grating,
nerve-fraying quality. It was like glass grinding against glass, but
elevated to the pitch of a scream. And yet it was bass enough to make
the very ground vibrate beneath her feet.
“RAMA!”
A third time, and this time the elephants and horses all screamed and
lowed and rampaged in terror, for the voice was undercut with a sound
like bones snapping and blood gurgling from arterial wounds.
“I am here, Kala-Nemi,” Rama said quietly, in a voice that seemed all
too human and insignificant after the grinding boom of that terrible
roar. He stepped out towards the crumpled gates, the PFs parting at his
curt gesture. The senapati remained standing where he had been,
raised fists still clenched, brown face red with impotent anger at this
ultimate trespass
– A rakshasa! Within Ayodhya! At the royal gates! Impossible!
Rama touched him lightly in passing and the general subsided, turning
aside to let Rama pass. Sita saw the expression on his face and the
fear that was squirming in her gut increased its writhing. She had no
name for that expression, and no way to describe how the senapati
must be feeling at this moment.
Rama looked tiny standing before the towering form. His crow-black
head barely reached the rakshasa’s ankle – although it more exactly
resembled a hoof, with woolly fur ringing it at the top. Yet somehow
he managed to address the asura without craning his neck or using his
hand to mask the sun which was shining directly into his eyes. That
was Rama, never yielding the advantage no matter what the
circumstances or how uneven the odds.
“Hah!”
The rakshasa’s voice boomed with a trace of satisfaction that grated
just as much as the earlier plaintive howls. It went on with a tone that
grew harsher and more unbearable to withstand even though the
emotions it expressed were what would have passed for pleased or
smugly contented among humans.
“I have waited a long time for this day. Yet never doubted it would
come at last.”
“Did you have a pleasant stay in your subterranean prison?” Rama’s
voice was as casually indifferent as it was quiet, yet so tense was the
silence in the avenue that everyone heard his every word.
Sita saw the rakshasa twist his head to gaze down. It seemed to cause
Kala-Nemi more discomfort to look down at the little figure on the
street than it took Rama to stare up at him. The rakshasa squinted,
finally focussing on Rama before replying.
“PRISON? It was a place of rest, no more.”
“Really?” Rama asked pleasantly. “I thought the lowermost level of
Naraka was one place where rest was quite unlikely. In fact, that realm
exists purely for the infliction of the most severe dands, what you call
punishment, and the beings that are in charge of that realm are very
creative and ingenious in the methods by which they inflict that
punishment. Or so I’ve been told.”
Kala-Nemi swung from side to side, snorted and threw his head back,
hands on hips. His laughter was a jagged effusion of sharp-edged
sounds that penetrated Sita’s ears painfully. She realized she was
starting to feel more than a little nauseated. She forced herself to stand
her ground. She could not display any sign of weakness. Not now. Not
ever.
“I know what you wish to do. You wish to enrage me, to make me
fight.”
Rama did not speak, his silence eloquent.
“The time for fighting will come shortly. But first I have things to say,
a message to communicate to you…from my nephew.”
His nephew? Sita wracked her memory. She recalled Rama and
Lakshman’s recounting of Kala-Nemi’s intrusion into Ayodhya
fourteen years earlier, disguised as the Brahmarishi Vishwamitra in a
futile attempt to attack the royal family and prevent Vishwamitra from
achieving his goal. The incident had seemed a minor one at that time,
important only for what it portended – Ravana’s evident willingness to
bring hostility to his enemy’s doorstep and provoke an all-out war –
rather than significant in itself. All Kala-Nemi had achieved at the
time was a little subterfuge, sneaking past the outer-wall guards and
making it as far as the gates of the palace – the very gates that now
hung crooked and twisted near her now – before the two brahmarishis
Vishwamitra and Guru Vashishta despatched him by the use of their
brahman shakti down to the nethermost level of Naraka, the special
hellish realm reserved for the worst offenders against humanity. But
who was Kala-Nemi’s nephew? She faltered for a moment, and the
strain of trying to remember caused her nausea to return. Then it came
to her with a rush of blood that only added to her dizziness…
“You remember my nephew Ravana.”
The mention of that name, especially from the swollen lips of a beast
as intimidating as this one, sent a visible reaction through the massed
troops and onlookers. Even dead, Ravana still commanded fear and
respect among mortals everywhere, a bedtime ogre conjured up by
mothers across the Arya nations to put reluctant children to bed.
Sleep, child, or Ravana will come and take you away as he took Sita
from Rama!
“You mean your dead nephew?” Rama replied insouciantly. “We
burned his remains on the funeral pyre of his home, the city that once
used to be Lanka.”
Kala-Nemi chuckled. The sound was as unlike laughter or amusement
as a lion coughing.
“Death is only a release. The beginning of a new level of existence.
My nephew has finally achieved moksha from this eternal cycle of
birth and rebirth to resume his rightful place in Swargaloka. And he
achieved it by your hands, as he had desired all along.”
Moksha? Swargaloka? What was this beast talking about? How could
a rakshasa like Ravana with millennia of the vilest crimes imaginable
– and many unimaginable too – have acquired sufficient karma to
attain salvation from the cycle of birth and rebirth? It was unthinkable.
And Swargaloka? The realm of the devas themselves? What place
could he have there? She wondered why Rama did not say these
obvious things – why he did not toss them scornfully back at Kala-
Nemi. She sensed that all those listening were also wondering the
same things. Why was Rama so silent? Why was he not arguing the
point? Why was he tacitly acceding to the rakshasa’s line of thought?
Or was he merely seeking to say as little as possible, to avoid rising to
the rakshasa’s bait? With Rama, it was hard to tell, even for her.
“If that is so,” Rama said, and his tone emphasized the If, “he is gone
from Prithvi-loka forever, never to return. And this mortal realm is the
better for his absence.”
The dustcloud churned up by Kala-Nemi’s rising had mostly settled,
leaving a better view of the environs of the palace. Sita noticed a
flurry of movement at the far end of the avenue. She saw Bharat and
Shatrugan, who had retreated back once they had regained their feet,
turn to take cognizance of the commotion. A pair of riders
approached, slowed cautiously while still several dozen yards away,
and dismounted. From the flags their horses bore, Sita knew they were
alarm-riders. Their horses carried long staffs imbedded in secure
pockets on the sides of the saddle-rigs; during an emergency, the
riders had only to slip the appropriate flag onto the top of the staff and
ride through the city calling out the alarm. Right now, the flags on
both their alarm-staffs were red, the highest level of emergency. She
saw Bharat and Shatrugan confer with the riders and even at this
distance it was obvious that the message being communicated was of
an urgent nature. She swallowed dryly, dreading what it might be:
more rakshasas? Another supernatural breakout? But Rama had said
Kala-Nemi was alone, and he had seemed to know what was talking
about; Rama usually did.
She had no time to muse further. Kala-Nemi’s dialogue with Rama
had acquired an urgency of its own.
“That is where you are mistaken, boy! Ravana’s departure from this
mortal realm was the crux of his whole plan. Do you not recall the
battle of Lanka? How you and your valiant vanar and rksa hordes
struggled against our proud rakshasa yoddhas? At what high cost you
finally achieved some semblance of victory? And in that last
encounter, when you came face to face with my nephew himself, how
shockingly easy it was to kill him? Did you not wonder how that final
conflict, instead of being a meeting of champions that would make the
heavens and earth tremble and be recorded in the annals of war
eternally, ended without so much as a whimper? Could Ravana, the
challenger and victor of the devas themselves, invader of the highest
realms, ruler of the three worlds, conqueror of everything he set his
eyes on, the greatest maha-yoddha who ever lived, succumb so
easily?”
Again, that telling silence from Rama. As if he too had thought the
very things Kala-Nemi was speaking of and knew the truth of those
words. Even Sita, though she had not witnessed any part of the war of
Lanka herself, recalled her wonder at learning how quickly and
simply Ravana had been despatched. She knew that while none of the
others had ever spoken this doubt aloud, it had been felt and its
awareness underscored every description of the events of the war she
had heard.
After narrating every detail with great gusto and relish, each narrator
seemed to pause in confusion and blurt out abruptly the puzzling
manner in which Rama had simply…killed Ravana. It had seemed too
good to be true and everyone had thought it, if not said it: and now
Kala-Nemi was saying that it was so.
Rama was silent so long this time, she began to think he would not
reply at all. Between the giant intruder’s woolly feet, she glimpsed
Shatrugan and Bharat mount the horses of the alarm-riders and ride
back up the avenue – towards the outer gates. The riders themselves
remained behind, no doubt left to convey their message to others, and
gawked nervously up at the giant rakshasa.
When Rama spoke at last, it was in a voice so quiet, she almost
missed his words.
“What does the how or why matter now, rakshasa? He is gone. That is
all that matters.”
There followed a long moment of silence, in which Sita thought she
could hear a faint rumbling somewhere in the distance. The sky was
clear and it was nowhere near the monsoon season. That could only
mean…. She did not want to think what it meant. Not now. Not just
yet. There was enough to deal with already: all 300 feet high of him,
reeking up the air.
Kala-Nemi laughed. Soldiers jerked their heads involuntarily, as the
glass-grinding awfulness of the sound grated inside their heads.
The rakshasa drew himself up, raising his head and straightening his
slightly bent-over torso to its full height. Sita saw with startled wonder
that her earlier estimation had been wrong; he was actually taller than
the Seer’s Eye – by a good two or three yards. And far wider around.
She couldn’t bear to wonder what would happen if he simply began
rampaging and crushing homes and buildings – and palaces – at will.
Surely Rama and Hanuman and the others would find a way to bring
him down. But he would destroy a good part of the city and cause
considerable casualties – innocent civilian casualties – before that
happened. She did not even want to estimate how many he could kill
or how much destruction he could cause in that time. This is really
real now, she thought, her jaw tightening with the inner steeling that
always came just before a battle or
life-threatening circumstance. Death is at our threshold once again,
and nothing has changed since our years of exile.
Except that it had, of course. And it was worse this time. For this was
no wild, uncharted jungle or even a land of rakshasas. It was Ayodhya,
beautiful Ayodhya. Home. And it had been invaded.
Then Kala-Nemi spoke again. And she realized that even in her
darkest dreams she had had no notion of just how bad it really was,
and how much worse it was about to get.
The rakshasa’s words boomed out louder and harsher than before.
Loud enough to be easily heard across the city. Sita had a sudden
image of children burying little faces in their mothers’ laps as they
cringed at the ear-hurting sound of Kala-Nemi’s voice, men standing
in the aangans of their houses with weapons in their hands, sweating
thinly and wondering what evil day had come to their proud land.
Kala-Nemi’s voice boomed out across Ayodhya like a trumpeted
proclamation of war:
“Boy! Everything you thought you knew until now is a lie. The war of
Lanka, the battles preceding it…every single thing that happened up
to this day…was all part of the epic vengeance of Ravana. The real
battle has just begun. And this time the final victory will not be yours.
It will be Ravana’s. Today you shall see the culmination of his great
strategy, a battle plan put into place decades ago whose intricate
details and ramifications you cannot even begin to understand…Boy!
Compared to the ancient wisdom of the lord of rakshasas, you are still
a boy. And always will be!”
Kala-Nemi roared with laughter. And with every exhalation of putrid
breath, a cloud of greenish black particles were released into the air
from his bruise-purple maw to rise high into the air like a swarm of
insects; they dispersed across the rooftops with malicious speed,
spreading their foul asura pestilence among the people of Ayodhya.

SIX

Hanuman could take it no more.

As the rakshasa finished delivering his bombastic speech, he moved
into action. Focussing his attention in the method that had already
become a daily ritual, he recited the name of Rama in his mind,
unlocking the brahman shakti within his being and willed the cells of
his body to expand. The twisted metal of the palace gates, the soldiers
around him, the very avenue itself, all grew rapidly smaller in size as
he grew larger. He stepped forward to avoid harming any of the
Ayodhyans, rising so rapidly that it felt as if he had leaped up into the
air and was reaching for the sky. He heard the shouts and
exclamations from around him – below him now, and falling rapidly
farther below – grow louder as he increased in size faster than ever
before. The war of Lanka had pressed him to his limits, challenging
him in every way, yet that very challenge had also given him a certain
proficiency with the use of his newfound abilities. While he was far
from a master of his new shakti, he had felt himself improving in
performance and control with every passing day, not neglecting his
daily training regimen even though the war was over and no obvious
hostility visible on the horizon. It was something he had learned from
Rama himself: the work of a warrior is preparing for war; the better
prepared you are for it, the less likely you are to wage war.
He was prepared.
“Kala-Nemi!” he roared, his own voice gruff and powerful enough to
roll in deafening waves across the city, no less formidable than the
rakshasa’s nerve-grating vocal effusions. “I am Hanuman, servant of
our Lord Rama. Face me and fight!”
The rakshasa turned his body to face him, and Hanuman was gratified
to see that the beast was forced to raise his line of vision slightly.
Hanuman had controlled his expansion to make himself only a little
larger and taller than Kala-Nemi, just enough to be a formidable
opponent but not so much that he bore an unfair advantage. If he had
wished, he knew he could fight Kala-Nemi even in his own natural
size but he recognized the grave risk at hand and knew that a
prolonged battle would take a terrible toll on the innocent lives of
Ayodhya’s citizens. The only way to end this quickly was to out-
match the rakshasa and attempt to take the fight away from the city.
He was more than a little surprised when Kala-Nemi chuckled. The
sound gnawed at Hanuman’s inner ear like a prickly insect squirming
inside.
“Vanar.”
The rakshasa made that simple appellation sound like a humiliating
insult. Had he said “monkey” – the offensive name all vanars could
tolerate being called – he could not have irked Hanuman more.
“There will be no fight here,” Kala-Nemi said. “Neither single combat
nor all-out attack. Would that I could, for it would give me the greatest
pleasure imaginable to tear this city apart with my paws and talons.
But my nephew’s plan was set in stone and he ensured that no
deviation was possible.”
Kala-Nemi stepped forward, putting Hanuman on full alert. The
rakshasa did not make any move to attack or harm him in any way,
merely moved in closer. Now they stood near enough that Hanuman
could smell the stench of the rakshasa’s rotten breath. It stank like
baboon meat ten days-old in the summer sun, so putrid and rancid that
even the crows would no longer pick at it. Except that it was not
baboon meat, was it? It was…human flesh? Yes. Hanuman stood his
ground without blinking or wincing, and tightened his arms and back
muscles in readiness for the first blow. The rakshasa’s eyes looked up
at Hanuman with a malevolent glint – Hanuman was shocked to see
things actually squirming and writhing around inside the sockets of
those eyes! He had not known that any living being could harbour
parasites within its eyes, yet apparently Kala-Nemi could and did. He
tried not to look too closely at the things, yet could not help noting
that they resembled millipedes with hundreds of tiny, bony thorns
rather than hairy cilia. Blood oozed from their tracks as they writhed
and moved inside the rakshasa’s organs of vision, like bloodshot veins
in a drunken man’s eyes.
“You dearly wish to fight me, do you not? I wish I could grant you
your desire, vanar. But it is not to be.”
Kala-Nemi exuded a grinding sigh of regret and began to turn away.
Hanuman made the first move. He reached out and put a heavy palm
on the rakshasa’s shoulder, stopping him, “Coward! You will fight me
whether you will it or not!”
Kala-Nemi chuckled again and glass shards pierced Hanuman’s
hearing, as he said laconically without turning around: “I think not.”
The rakshasa burst open like an overripe watermelon.
Lakshman reacted despite himself. Of all the moves he had expected
Kala-Nemi to make, this was not one of them; this was not even
100on the list! He had expected the rakshasa to use his gigantic size to
rampage through the city, perhaps knock down the tower, assault the
palace, create chaos and wreak havoc. Which was why, when
Hanuman had expanded himself and gone to confront the beast, he
had secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Almost a decade and a half of
battling rakshasas had taught Lakshman one thing: however fierce,
huge or powerful, all rakshasas could be killed. But if they could be
killed quickly, so much the better. If nothing else, Hanuman could
take the fight outside Ayodhya, reducing the collateral damage to the
city and its denizens.
But this? This was bizarre!
He watched, transfixed, as the giant burst into a million tiny fragments
like an overripe musk melon struck by a heavy metal-head arrow, the
kind that was designed to punch through body armour. No. Not
fragments. Tiny globular bits, like miniscule black spores. There were
patches of mottled colour rippling through the bunched spores, as if
reflecting the organic colours of the rakshasa biology of which they
were part only instants ago. The entire mass hovered in the air like a
swarm of hornets, still more or less occupying the same overall shape
as the rakshasa in his flesh-and-blood form – if he was ever in flesh-
and-blood form, Lakshman thought with a sudden insight. They
swarmed and buzzed and swayed a little to one side then another, as if
buffeted by an invisible wind. The top section, still coherent enough
to resemble a grotesque facsimile of Kala-Nemi’s bestial features,
resolved into a semblance of a grin.
“How would you fight this, vanar?” asked the thing.
Lakshman watched Hanuman reach out and try to take hold of the
thing’s shoulder. It was like trying to grasp a swarm of hovering
insects. The swarm slipped through the vanar’s fingers, ruffling the
fur on the back of his paws, and flew around the vanar’s hand, the
‘shoulder’ now detached and hovering apart from the body itself.
Then, as Hanuman retracted his paw in puzzled astonishment, that
part of the swarm flew back to join the main body once more,
mingling with the rest of the mass.
“What are you?” Hanuman asked with a voice filled with outrage.
The vanars were not known for their love for rakshasas; least of all the
more grotesque and unnatural sub-species of the race. Lakshman
could imagine his friend’s horror at touching this perversion of nature.
“I am what Ravana intended me to be. What the brahmarishis
Vishwamitra and Vashishta condemned me to become. And what I
had to turn into in order to return to this mortal realm. It was the only
way – and it suited Ravana’s plans perfectly. For you see, vanar, while
your great and mighty mortal master’s city-kingdom is so stupidly
proud of its defences – Ayodhya the Unconquerable! – the fools fail to
realize that often the biggest threat comes not from armies or intruders
or weapons of metal and steel. There are other ways to wreak havoc
and take lives. From the very day I came here to Ayodhya fourteen
years ago, my real mission was never merely to infiltrate and
assassinate! I would hardly have attempted to walk in through the
front gates had that been the case. Nay! My true purpose was to be
interred here, not physically beneath the city but in that sector of
eternal brahman that corresponds to this city’s physical location. For
every hour of these past fourteen years I have festered and fulminated,
awaiting this day. And now, what you see before you is not Kala-
Nemi the rakshasa who once lived. He is long gone. Only his aatma
powers this thing you behold. And this thing is the most potent
weapon ever to strike at the heart of Ayodhya. A weapon devised from
nature itself, corrupted and befouled. A weapon of pure biological
evil. For remember this always, Ayodhya: Evil never dies. It only
changes form and shape!”
And with that final missive delivered, the thing that resembled Kala-
Nemi roared with laughter. The swarm that still resembled him lost its
coherence and disintegrated, flying upwards with a roaring rush to
travel high up into the air above the city. It hung there momentarily
like a giant black monsoon cloud seething and swarming. And then, as
Lakshman stared up in mute horror, the cloud dispersed itself, flowing
down like individual fingers and streams in a half dozen different
directions, each stream splitting further and further into branches and
forks, moving with malicious supernatural speed, until a network of
spores descended towards every corner of the city, carrying Devi
alone knew what foul asura pestilence.
Bharat and Shatrugan heard the last words of Kala-Nemi booming
across the city and felt the malevolence in that final message. They
glanced back briefly over their shoulders as they rode down the last
stretch to their destination, and glimpsed the dark cloud of swarming
insectile things bifurcating and snaking out across the city, descending
with clearly malicious intent. But the task they were undertaking was
as vital, and they exchanged grim glances and turned forward again,
slowing to a halt and then dismounting in a single liquid move, barely
acknowledging the salutes of the white-faced PF massed facing the
barred gates, racing up the carved stone steps to the ramparts of the
third gate…. The alarm-riders had been clear in their message – this
was a crisis of the highest level possible. Every instant counted.
Even though this was in fact the main gate of the city proper, it was
actually the third such gate – a triple protection designed to fox
besiegers and thwart even the most determined and persistent enemy
assault. Beyond it lay two equally sturdy and solid ‘front gates’ – all
three built to look exactly alike – separated by the deepest and most
perilous moats filled with deadly predators, and with channels ready
in which to pour down barrels of oil that could be set ablaze to further
deter those foolhardy enough to attempt to breach the moats. The
slender bridges that spanned the outermost two moats were designed
in such a manner that a single command could result in their being
wrecked completely, leaving no means for any invading force to ride
or march to this true front gate, the third. It was a foolproof system,
and Bharat knew that no army would ever dare to attempt to breach it,
which was the whole point of all this excess and duplication of
defences: to make would-be invaders decide it was not worth the
effort and potential cost of life. That was why Ayodhya was literally
in Sanskrit A-yodha, the city that could not be fought (or defeated or
besieged or conquered, etc).
But today was the day that they had all been told would never come.
As Bharat reached the top of the ramparts and Shatrugan and he made
their way through the thick throng of clearly shaken yet bravely
disciplined gatewatch soldiers, he sought out the familiar clean-cut
features of Senapati Drishti Kumar. The son of the Saprem Senapati,
Drishti Kumar had some things in common with his father, yet was
very much his own man. He turned with a curt snap of his neck to
acknowledge and greet Bharat as he approached. The lack of
expression on his handsome features could not mask the sickly cast
that lay beneath.
“Yuvraj Bharat, Yuvraj Shatrugan,” he said crisply, saluting. “I
apologize for not coming in person to fetch you. I felt this warranted
my presence here, in the event…” His voice trailed off. Some things
were hard enough to acknowledge or accept, let alone say aloud.
Bharat glanced again at his brother’s beefy muscled features, and saw
a nerve twitch in Shatrugan’s cheek. He clapped a hand on his
shoulder and nodded so discreetly only Shatrugan understood its
meaning. Hold fast. We shall get through this together as we have all
else. His own shoulder ached still with the memory of the dislocation,
but there was no time for personal pain. He ignored his discomfort
and stepped into the space cleared by soldiers who moved aside
briskly to allow Shatrugan and him to have a clear view.
They looked out across the second moat, over the second gate, then
across the first moat and gate, to the place where the raj-marg that cut
through Sarayu Valley broadened into a field-wide space large enough
to accommodate the regular throng of Kosalans who visited Ayodhya
routinely for commerce, trade, politics or personal reasons.
Instead of the usual crowd of goatherds, villagers with carts piled high
with produce, merchants in richly-tapestried covered dolis, shyly
veiled women or boisterous young men come to seek gainful
employment or to make their fortune in the fabled capitol, that daily
unending variety of human life that flowed like the Sarayu itself
through the greatest Arya city-state, there was a sight he had never
imagined he would behold even in his wildest dreams.
Not here. Not at the gates of Ayodhya.
Yet there it was. Plain as life. Real as the smooth sun-warmed stone
parapet on which he placed his hand, gazing in disbelief.
An army stood outside Ayodhya, ready to invade.

SEVEN

Of all those on the avenue, Valmiki was the only one prepared for
KalaNemi’s audacious move. The only one who had expected
something along these lines to occur. The only one who had known
before the sun rose this morning that Ayodhya would be facing a crisis
of great magnitude this very day, and that before the day was ended
there might not be an Ayodhya left to speak of; not the Ayodhya of
yore at least. He had known these things for some time now and had
prepared for them. Had the unnecessary fracas at the gate not delayed
him, he would have explained what was happening and why to Rama
himself, and perhaps given the city a little time to better prepare itself.
But now there was no time to dwell on what might-have-been could-
have-been should-have-been. There was only the here and now. And
in the here and now, Kala-Nemi had disintegrated his body into crores
of tiny insectile pustules or spores that were speeding across the sky to
penetrate deep into the recesses of Ayodhya’s streets and houses to
infect as many Ayodhyans as possible. Under natural circumstances,
had an infection this virulent struck even a fraction of the populace, it
would spread like wildfire, decimating the citizenry; in this case, so
effective was the virus’s pollination method that it would strike down
easily half the population in the first few hours, and within the day,
the majority of Ayodhya’s innocent denizens would lie dead, severely
ill or dying.
And that, of course, was only the first step in Ravana’s vengeance.
He had to move quickly.
“Maruti!” he cried, sprinting forward up the jagged blocks of stone
and rubble that had been uprooted when the rakshasa emerged from
the ground. The vanar Hanuman – also known as Maruti for his father,
the Lord of Wind – was gazing with intense hatred and frustration at
the seething, greenish-black mass that boiled and festered in the clear
summer sky, so large now that it blocked the sun itself momentarily.
“Hanuman! Raise me up!”
Now Hanuman looked down, just as Valmiki reached the top of the
highest boulder that lay teetering atop the pile of rubble and launched
himself without care for personal safety. The vanar blinked, seeing the
little human leaping up towards him and, to the credit of his swift
vanar reflexes, allowed his body to respond even as his mind played
catch-up. He reached out and caught Valmiki in a furry fist just before
he could fall back to ground.
“What—” he began.
Valmiki cut him off brusquely.
“Raise me up! As high as you can!”
Hanuman stared at him for a fraction of a second. Something in
Valmiki’s tone, the urgency perhaps, or maybe even the vanar’s
reluctant admiration for the manner in which he had confronted the
quads of PFs bare-handed earlier – Valmiki had seen the vanar’s
impassive features react as he watched from behind the gate –
motivated Hanuman. He nodded and swiftly raised the paw in which
he held Valmiki.
Valmiki felt the breath rush out of him as he was flung up a hundred
yards high. Forcing his senses to reorient swiftly, he opened his eyes.
From here, Ayodhya lay like a builder’s model laid out for inspection.
Far across, to the South East, he could glimpse the outer gates and
before them, the other crisis that faced the city—but there was no time
to dwell on that, no time for distractions. Every second was of
essence.
He looked up and saw the cloud of black particles dispersing like
tentacles of a deep-oceanic monster, wavering across the length and
breadth of the city. Already, the tips of those tendrils were descending
at great speed, almost at the rooftops now. Soon they would pour in
through windows, chimneys, into doorways, and thence into mouths,
ears, eyes, nostrils…every human orifice possible. Infecting.
Poisoning. Killing.
“Higher!” he shouted, his voice whipped away by the strong wind that
blew at these heights. The vanar heard him nevertheless and raised his
hand to the limit of his reach. Valmiki looked up and saw the belly of
the black cloud of seething, roiling particles still several dozen yards
above him. “Still higher! I need to be above the poison cloud!” he
yelled.
There was a brief instant when his breath left his body and the sky
itself seemed to shove him down brutally hard as if it intended to
hammer him down into the earth like a nail hit by a hammer. Then the
pressure left his head and shoulders and he blinked to see himself
flying – flying!
– straight up into the air. He glanced down and saw that Hanuman had
leaped up, still holding him in his paw out ahead, like a mashaal.
They rose up, up, and now they were above the seething black mass.
He was looking down upon it now, and from up here it reminded him
of a swarm of flesh beetles swarming over the carcass of a dead
buffalo he had seen in the Tamasa river near his ashram one day.
“Release me,” he roared as loudly as his lungs permitted, and
emphasized his point by digging his staff into Hanuman’s wrist. The
vanar’s eyes, big as cartwheels, gazed up at him with puzzled
curiosity, but obeyed at once. The furry paw grasping his torso
released its hold on him and suddenly he was free-falling back to
Earth, into the embrace of Prithvi Maa.
Slowly, maa, he willed, do not be in too great a hurry to hug me, I
only have time enough to do this once. Just once.
To his astonishment, he felt his descent slowed to a fraction of what
ought to have been its natural velocity. He distinctly felt the wind
rushing and raging at his extremities slow to a gentle cushioning sigh,
as if Hanuman’s own father was joining with Prithvi Maa to aid him
in his attempt.
He had no time to ponder the mystical underpinning of this miracle –
if indeed it was a miracle and not just an affectation of his own
heightened senses. Already, he had begun chanting the Sanskrit
mahamantras that he had composed for this precise purpose.
Valmiki fell to Earth, towards the seething mass of black particles,
into the mass itself, and was lost inside it.
Bharat gripped the stone ledge hard.
Beside him, Shatrugan swore.
“How dare they!” Shatrugan said, his right fist clenching and
unclenching. “This is open betrayal and treason!”
Bharat clapped a hand on his brother’s muscled back, hard enough to
penetrate Shatrugan’s fighting instincts. “Be calm. This may not be
what it seems. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
He turned to Drishti Kumar. “Senapati, have you received any word
from them yet? Any indication of their intentions?”
Drishti Kumar looked up at Bharat. He was a tall man, his head easily
visible above the ranks of his soldiers, but even so, Bharat topped him
by two or three inches. He was also the fairest of his brothers; Rama
was the shortest, and the darkest-skinned. The senapati’s face wore an
expression of such haunted misery that it told Bharat everything he
needed to know even before the general spoke.
“They have demanded that the gates be opened to them…” he paused.
Bharat saw the Adam’s apple bob in the man’s throat as he swallowed,
“…And that we surrender the city to their command.”
“Surrender?” Shatrugan’s exclamation was almost a roar of outrage.
“Who do they think they are?”
Bharat raised a hand, cautioning Shatrugan. “Senapati, from whom
did the demand come – formally, I mean. In whose name was it made?
And to whom was it addressed?”
This time Drishti Kumar’s eyes flicked sideways, toward the massed
ranks of armoured soldiers beyond the outermost wall. He was not a
nervous man, nor a hesitant one. Yet he was both nervous and hesitant
now. Bharat did not blame him. It was an occasion that warranted
such a response.
“Yuvraj Bharat, the demand was delivered only moments ago by three
rajdoots representing the kingdoms of Panchala, Kuru and…” he
broke off, looking away.
“Panchala? Kuru? Are they insane? They are our closest allies!”
Shatrugan’s breath was hot on Bharat’s neck. Bharat held up his hand
again, almost in his brother’s face, demanding silence. Shatrugan
obeyed; he may be hot-headed and ever-eager for a fight, but he was
also obedient to a fault.
“And?” Bharat prompted Drishti Kumar.
The senapati raised his eyes to meet Bharat’s own. “Kekaya.”
Shatrugan released a string of expletives. This time, Bharat didn’t stop
him. He stared at the commander of the city’s outer defence network,
feeling as if he had been punched in the gut with the blunt end of a
spear.
“Kekaya?” he repeated. “Are you sure?”
The senapati nodded; his eyes said what his lips dared not. He was
sorry to have to even repeat such a missive.
Bharat turned and looked out again towards the outer wall, trying to
see more clearly. It was not very far and the day was clear and
unclouded. He thought he could make out the colours of Kekaya on a
banner held ramrod straight by a frontrider at the head of a long
column. Yes, that was Kekaya’s emblem, no question about it. Who
was the big-built warrior sitting a massive Kambhoja stallion right
next to the emblem-bearer? Was it…no, surely it could not be? But his
eyes were sharp and those rough-hewn features and powerful upper
body bulk were unmistakable, even at this distance. He groaned and
buried his face in his hands as he recognized the man they belonged
to. As if echoing his misery, Shatrugan swore yet again and put a hand
on his back, speaking with a voice that mirrored Bharat’s own sense
of dismay and disbelief. “That is your uncle, your mother’s brother,
Bharat. Your own blood-relatives are out there too, ready to do war
against you.”
And it was true.
For the army arrayed in neat columns and rows on the raj-marg, filling
the length of the road down the Sarayu Valley as far as the eye could
see, and no doubt extending back a good mile or two, was no asura
conglomeration or rakshasa horde. Worse. Much worse than that. It
was an army of their own best allies, their closest and most loyal
neighbouring kingdoms, supporters and trade-sharers over centuries.
There was not a kshatriya out there in those massed ranks, nor one
within these city walls, who did not share either kinship or alliance by
marriage or trade with someone from one of the other’s kingdoms.
They were part of the great seven-nation Arya alliance that had
withstood asura invasions, wars with distant lands and a hundred other
crises. These were their own compatriots and friends!
And now they were here at the walls of Ayodhya, as enemies in arms.
What did it mean? How had this happened? What bizarre nightmare
had overcome the world this otherwise normal, bright and sunny
summer day?
Shatrugan’s voice was quiet at his side. His brother’s anger was as
quick to fire as it was to quench. Or perhaps it was the shock of seeing
his own kith and kin that had sobered him. “You should go out there
and speak with them,” he said. “This has to be some kind of
misunderstanding.”
I doubt it, Bharat thought miserably. Misunderstandings seldom outfit
an entire army in siege gear and come marching in such numbers to
one’s gates demanding entry and your immediate surrender.
He was about to reply to Shatrugan when a chorus of shouts broke out
from along the wall to either side. As he was still gazing outwards at
the soldiers at the outer gates, he saw even their ranks tilt their
helmeted heads to glance upwards. He saw the shadow of a dark and
ominous cloud spread its wings across the moat below and the one
beyond.
Then he looked up and saw the horror that was unfolding in the sky.
Valmiki felt as if he had leaped from the top of a cliff and landed in a
thorn thicket. A thousand tiny pinpricks attacked every available inch
of his body. He attempted futilely to use one hand to cover his eyes
and nostrils, but even so, the tiny spores began to push their way
inside, seeking to invade his body and infect him with their foul
venom. So powerful was their toxic effect that he knew he would not
survive if sufficient numbers entered his biological system. Already
he could feel the poison pinpricks burning in his veins as his blood
was infected at a level capable of downing an elephant. His only
chance lay in completing the mahamantra he was reciting and in
praying that the spiritual weapon he had developed through careful
tapasya was potent enough to do its work. He almost screamed in
agony as several of the spores slipped past his hand and between his
fingers to enter his eyes, penetrating through the outer membrane of
the eyes to dissolve and mingle with his optic fluids, like tiny
pinpricks of flame igniting inside his eyes…. It was torture, yet he
forced himself to maintain the unbroken chain of recitation; it was
crucial that the mahamantra be recited without pause or error.
All this while, he continued falling, and even though his descent was
definitely slowed by some supernatural benefactor – or benefactors –
it was only a matter of time before he would fall to the ground. The
cloud of particles was descending as well, and from the keening sound
they made as they flowed in their tentacles across the sky, and the
brief glimpses he caught through his fingers, he could judge their
movement downwards to the city. The tips of the lowermost tentacles
were already at roof level and at that very moment began to snake
through cracks in eaves, openings in walls, any way they could find to
get into people’s domiciles. The rest he did not need to see to know:
Once at street-level, the individual spores whirled around in search of
human hosts, and as they found them, they slipped into their bodies
through any convenient orifice or the skin itself, and began to work
their deadly poison. In a few more moments, the entire cloudswarm
would be amongst the populace, infecting thousands, who would then
go on to infect tens of thousands more. And once that happened, no
mahamantra, however potent, could possibly undo its demoniac
effects. Ayodhyans would die like ants on a bonfire.
He had to stop it here and now. It was the reason he had come, why he
had been sent.
He felt a change in the air battering his body and tried to open both
eyes for a moment. They teared at once and he was not surprised to
see a reddish tinge to the world; the spores had entered in high
concentration, infecting his organs of vision already. But now he faced
a more immediate danger: even at a slower speed, he was still falling,
and the closer he got to ground, the faster the inevitable pull of
gravity. He saw with horror that the spores had spread out far across
the city, to the farthest corners, and the bulk of the cloud’s mass had
dissipated already. He was too late!
Even as he saw this and felt rising panic, the spores that had been
designated to attack him renewed their assault with added aggression.
He felt the poisonous molecules push their way through his very skin,
making their way in through his pores, making blood-sweat pop out
on his skin as they made their way into his bloodstream. He writhed in
agony. He felt the fire of their contact with his blood and the murky
pain of their venom as they dissolved instantly, mingling with his
precious life-fluid. Already, the effect upon his body was near-fatal.
He could not survive more than a few moments longer. And from the
way the spores had spread across Ayodhya, it did not seem possible
that he could use these last seconds of his life to achieve his mission.
He looked down and saw the ground of the avenue only a hundred
yards or less below him, flying up to meet him at increasingly greater
speed. His mind struggled to finish the mahamantras correctly, for any
omission or slip meant starting over from the beginning, and he was
running out of time.
This cannot be the end, he said, fighting with all his will. I came here
to serve a purpose. I must fulfil it! I must thwart the prophecy!
But his limbs were already numb, his belly blazing with a heat that
felt like a red-hot iron rod inserted into his navel. And he could feel
darkness clouding his brain as he began to drift into unconsciousness.
He finished reciting the mahamantras but already it felt pointless. He
would be dead before he hit the ground. And while the mantra was
taking effect – he could see the spores falling away from his body,
deadened and rendered ineffectual by the shakti of the mantra – he
knew it would not disable all the far-flung spores in time to save the
city.
There was only one chance left and he took it without thinking of or
caring for the consequences to his own person. He uttered another
brief two-word mantra, one that was designed to cause conflagrations.
One of the two words was a secret name of Rudra, He Who Was
Shiva, The Destroyer Of Creation, adding a potency sufficient to
reduce an entire forest to smouldering ashes. It was one used only as a
last resort, but he was beyond desperate now: he cared not that he
would die, only that he must succeed, not for the sake of personal
glory or legend, but for the thousands of innocent Ayodhyans who
would die for no fault of theirs.
He uttered the last phrase of the shloka just as consciousness left him
completely. He slipped into the final darkness without knowing
whether he had succeeded or failed in his desperate attempt.
A collective gasp escaped the throats of all those upon the avenue.
Looking up at the sage Valmiki falling through the dissipated cloud of
greenish black spores exuded by Kala-Nemi – nay, the cloud of spores
that was Kala-Nemi – they watched in horror as he burst into blinding
white flame. So explosive was the effect that most were forced to
cover their faces with their hands, and even through their fingers they
felt the searing heat of the conflagration.
The ball of fire that had been a human being an instant ago blazed
fiercely as it fell towards the ground – moving at an unnaturally slow
speed as if some unseen force cushioned its descent and defied the
natural law of gravity. The searing white flame that enveloped the
sage’s body shot out in all directions like spumes which raced at
blinding speed along the tentacles of spores that extended across the
city’s rooftops, snaking down into houses and streets and mansions
now. As it whooshed through the air like a hawk in pursuit of a
pigeon, thousands of spores were fried instantly by its searing
passage, and fell in wisps of ash to the ground. In a moment, the entire
network of dark tentacles was reduced to fingers of white flame,
blazing brightly for a fraction, then extinguished for want of anything
left to burn.
In distant streets and lanes, miles away from the palace, as citizens
went about their work or stood in groups discussing the rumours of
strange unnatural events occurring elsewhere in the city, including
some staring up in morbid fascination at the strange phenomenon
descending from the sky, the white flames caught up with individual
spores as they were about to enter one man’s ear, a woman’s nostril, a
child’s body through an open cut on his left shoulder…. The people in
question barely noticed the spores that would have brought about their
death in hours, and completely failed to notice the tiny wisps of ash
that now lingered floating in the air, little knowing how narrowly they
had escaped a horrible, writhing death.
Gazing down from his vantage point, Hanuman watched in dumb
fascination as the rishi’s last act found success in the nick of time,
destroying the last of the poisonous particles that were all that
remained of Kala-Nemi. He had seen and heard and understood all.
And now he also saw that the rishi’s final sacrifice would result in
certain death as his blazing body finally approached the very Prithvi
Maa he had prayed to so fervently only moments earlier. Barely a
minute had passed since he had let Valmiki fall. Yet in that minute, the
rishi had acted more bravely than any defender of this great proud
city. Surely he could not be allowed to die now?
Lunging with a determined roar, Hanuman bent down and reached for
the burning body. His fingers closed around it and he roared again
with agony at the scorching heat of the white flames as he grasped the
body of the sage. He remained still for a moment, regaining his
balance, and noted that the sage’s falling body was barely two yards
from the broken rubble on the avenue when he had caught him. He
shut his fist tight, then closed his other fist upon it, shutting out all
access to air in a bid to douse the flames. He kept his paws shut tightly
thus for a moment, praying, ignoring the pain and the singed fur on
the backs of his paws. After a few moments, he opened them and
stared down mutely at what remained of the great sage Valmiki.

KAAND 2
 ONE

As Bharat approached the towering, barred top of the seventh gate, a

few flecks of white ash drifted down around him. He ignored them
and nodded at the gatekeeper in charge of Ayodhya’s first line of
defence. Although to visitors it was the first gate they encountered
when entering the city, for Ayodhyans it was the last and outermost,
hence the seventh. Among the sub-varna of kshatriyas that manned
the gates generation after generation, it was a matter of pride that the
seventh gate boasted the toughest security. It was here that the biggest
fights, feuds and brawls tended to break out, especially amongst those
who were afraid of flaunting Ayodhya’s well-enforced laws against
physical altercations within city limits. Only the toughest and most
weathered PFs tended to get duty here, and the man who nodded
curtly at him looked like a fair specimen. He was a grizzled veteran
with the signs of his tours in the Last Asura Wars prominently
displayed on his purple-black uniform, a bear-like man who must
have been a formidable sight fully armoured on the battlefield and
was impressive if sagging even now, aging roughly, almost entirely
white-headed – what little hair he had left – and Bharat had seen his
familiar face peering down over the top of the seventh gate ever since
he had been a boy. The younger man standing beside him looked half
his age but what he lacked in grizzled appearance he made up for with
an impressively built physique and a certain calm and deceptively
slow look about his face and body that Bharat recognized at once as
signs of a skilled and tested fighter. He wondered idly if the younger
man was the elder’s son – family traditions ran strong in Arya varnas
– then focussed on the matter at hand. There were more important
things at stake here. The future of his entire dynasty and kingdom, for
one.
“Gatekeeper…” he elicited.
“Somasra, PF,” replied the older man sharply.
“Gatekeeper Somasra, open the sally port on my command, shut it
immediately after I pass through and open it again only on my
command
– and after you eyeball me personally. Am I clear?”
The veteran nodded slowly, leaned sideways over the edge of the
bridge, hawked and spat a jet-stream of blood-red tobacco juice into
the moat. Something thrashed and rolled far below. “Pardon my
speaking out of turn, yuvraj, but think you ‘tis wise to venture forth to
that mob?”
Bharat sensed Shatrugan about to bark a rebuke and squeezed his
brother’s arm, stilling him. “You do speak out of turn, oldun. But wise
or not, it’s necessary.”
The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand – Bharat noted
that the man’s forearm bore a distinct stain from years of this habit –
and cleared his throat roughly. “Pardon my impudence again, young
liege. But my advice is to exchange whatever pleasantries are needed
from a safe vantage.” He jerked his head upwards, indicating the
rampart walls high above him.
Bharat resisted the impulse to smile. There was little to smile about
this day. “Why? Do you fear for my life? Don’t worry. I doubt they
would start a siege by cutting down a Suryavansha Ikshwaku without
cause. An unarmed one at that.” He paused. “I intend to go out bare-
handed and with only peace in my heart. Whatever their grievance, I
doubt they would violate the kshatriya code.”
Still the man remained standing in Bharat’s path. Shatrugan made a
sound of impatience but Bharat gave him another gentle squeeze and
his brother subsided. The young gatekeeper beside Somasra glanced
impassively at his senior, and Bharat was intrigued to see a flash of
some emotion there as well. Clearly, the two mismatched
gatewatchers had been together for a long time, and the younger had
his share of frustrations dealing with the older man. But he also
respects him tremendously. As if feeling Bharat’s attention focussed
on him, the younger man glanced at him and again there was
something in his expression that suggested that Bharat pay heed to
what the senior man was saying, as well as something else; a sense of
apology for the older man’s brusqueness perhaps?
“Yuvraj Bharat, you will pardon me,” the grizzled old veteran said in a
voice hoarsened by years of chewing tobacco and yelling on the job.
“I am only performing my duty. Would it be amiss of me to repeat my
request that you speak to those outside from the ramparts rather than
venturing out to meet them personally?”
Bharat frowned. Now he was genuinely puzzled. This went beyond
mere concern for his personal safety. What was the old man trying to
say? And why was the younger man looking at him with that peculiar
expression, as if he understood the old man’s reasons for saying what
he did but still felt embarrassed about it.
Shatrugan put it into words in his cut-and-dried manner: “He’s afraid
you’ll slip the enemy in through our defences, Bharat.”
It took Bharat a moment to fully comprehend the import of that
statement, then it hit him with a flash of heat in the back of his brain.
“Are you daring to suggest I would use my position to let my uncle
pass through?”
Gatekeeper Somasra spread his broad hands – they looked like they
had been broken and incorrectly set a long time ago – in a placating
gesture. “I’m following gatewatch protocol, my lord. Under threat of
siege or invasion from a large armed and hostile force, nobody is to be
allowed out or in. No exceptions. Total lockdown.”
“I know the rules for lockdown—” Bharat began, then stopped.
He looked at Shatrugan. For once, his brother was not upset or angry.
He didn’t look like he wanted to smash the gatekeeper in the face.
Bharat glanced at the younger gatewatch. The young man still looked
somewhat sheepish – and no wonder – but still as resolute and
standing shoulder to shoulder with his senior. He looked at the old
man Somasra himself then, and as his first flush of anger passed, he
saw something there that made him terribly, deeply proud to be an
Ayodhyan. The man knew that questioning the actions and orders of a
royal prince was grounds for immediate execution, should Bharat but
give the word. The circumstances would be considered irrelevant.
Kingship and military chain of command superseded everything else.
Yet he had pressed his point. Why? Because it was the right thing to
do. The man was right. Just because that was Bharat’s own maternal
uncle out there, that did not justify his violating his kingdom’s laws. A
lockdown was implemented for good reason. Otherwise, every royal
family member could find some reason or other to sally forth and
back, and the cherished gate security for which Ayodhya was world-
renowned might as well be called a revolving gate-bar for children to
swing on round and round.
He swallowed, biting back the retort that had been about to rise to his
lips, and raised his hand instead. He offered it to the elder gatekeeper.
Somasra gazed at it for a fraction and Bharat had the pleasure of
seeing surprise flash in the old man’s jaded eyes. Then he took the
hand and accepted Bharat’s tight, hard clasp of thanks.
“You speak truly, oldun,” Bharat said quietly. “If the sons of
Dasaratha cannot uphold their own father’s rules, then why should the
sons of Ayodhya? Yatha Raja, tatha praja.” As does the king, so shall
the people.
Somasra nodded slowly. Bharat sensed Shatrugan grin beside him and
saw the younger gatekeeper relax visibly. The man smiled slowly,
almost shyly, the smile of a man ill-used to smiling, revealing cracked
and broken teeth yellowed by tobacco.
“The sons of Dasaratha are Ayodhya,” Somasra said, “If you still
insist on going through, I cannot stop ye, yuvraj.”
“I shall go. I must,” Bharat replied. “But I thank ye kindly for your
advice. Sound advice.”
The old gatekeeper nodded, eyes still glinting. The younger man
grimaced – it was his way of smiling without appearing insubordinate
– then glanced up at the older man with a look of mingled pride and
frustration. If he’s not his son by blood, he’s his son at heart for sure.
“Come then,” said the oldun. “And let us pray those outside have half
as much wisdom as ye, yuvraj Bharat.”
He turned and unlocked the hefty double doors of the sally port.
Hanuman walked towards Rama, reducing in size as he approached.
From a towering 300 yard-high giant, he shrank in seconds to his
normal height. Somehow while doing so, he deftly moved Valmiki
from his right paw to his arms, carrying the charred body of the
maharishi as tenderly as a child. He looked at Rama anxiously.
“I do not feel his breath rise and fall. Nor his heartbeat. I fear for his
life.”
Rama seemed preoccupied. His attention was directed at the far end of
the avenue, to the second gate. Sita looked and saw a flurry of
movement there, then the unmistakable clanging of the gate being
hoved to and the heavy bolts dropped with a thundering crash that
carried all the way to where they stood. The city lay preternaturally
silent and still around them as if it were holding its breath in
anticipation of whatever came next.
Rama turned and scanned the faces nearest to him. Sita knew he was
seeking out Lakshman. He had a certain way of looking when he
sought out Lakshman; Lakshman too had a sixth sense that always
seemed to tell him that Rama was seeking him out. She glanced
around. Lakshman was nowhere in sight. When she turned back,
Rama’s forehead was creased with a frown.
“Where is he?” he asked quietly in a tone in which the sense of
irritation was so subtle only she could have detected it – she, and of
course, Lakshman. The three of them were as familiar with each
other’s tiniest intonations and inflections as it was humanly possible
to be.
“I saw him last outside the gate, talking to one of the two alarm-
riders.” They too were nowhere to be seen now. “I suppose he must
have gone with them somewhere. The same place Bharat and
Shatrugan went as well.”
Rama continued to gaze over her shoulder, absorbed in some elaborate
thought process. Behind him, Hanuman waited with infinite patience,
carrying the smouldering body in his arms. Rama seemed almost
unconcerned about the vanar’s last words, but she knew that he had
not only heard them, he was processing that as well as a dozen other
matters simultaneously, and that when he acted and spoke next, it
would be in a manner that dealt with that as well as all the other
decisions at hand in the most efficient way possible. That was what he
did: processed the available information and arrived at a decision.
Always the right decision, at least when it came to martial matters.
That moment arrived. Rama turned back to Hanuman and said, “Take
him to the sickhouse. Have the royal vaids see if there’s anything that
can be done. If not, make him as comfortable as possible until the
end.”
Rama gestured to the nearest courtiers, standing some distance away
from the main action, looking on nervously, as Hanuman nodded and
began walking towards the palace – the men looked relieved at being
given some task to handle, and busied themselves clearing a way for
Hanuman to pass as one ran ahead calling out aloud for the royal vaid
to be summoned at once. Sita had seen the vaid somewhere in the rear
ranks not long before, standing by in the event of any combat injuries
that might need to be attended to – that was standard practice when
any of the royal family were in the way of direct harm. She saw him
raise his hand and gesture to Hanuman to follow him, leading the way.
She released a small sigh of relief.
Rama was watching her. “You care about what happens to him?”
“He saved the city from something terrible. I care, yes. Don’t you?”
He shrugged, his face that familiar battlefield mask that was
impossible to penetrate. “I care about the city. I am not certain yet of
his motives, or intentions.” He glanced away before adding, “Or
anyone else’s.”
Sita blinked. What did he mean by that? She could understand him
doubting Valmiki’s motives and intentions – well, not really, but she
could see how there was some grounds for being cautiously suspicious
for the time being – but who else was Rama referring to?
But he had already strode away from her, to the mangled gate that was
already being pulled down under Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar’s
barked instructions by several quads of PFs, with a grinding and
wailing of metal that made Sita cringe and want to cover her ears. She
felt the churning in her belly again and her nerves screamed in protest.
She began to go after Rama but slowed as several familiar robed
figures with grim faces accosted her.
“Mahamantris Jabali, Ashok…” her memory failed her and she
mumbled a hasty “Noblemen of the Suryavansha court, you should
not be out here.”
Jabali spoke first, his birdlike features seeming even longer and
sharper than usual under the obvious strain of his grim mood.
“Maharani Sita, there are steps to be taken, a protocol to be followed.
Under the circumstances…”
She listened to him drone on for a moment about the proper procedure
for a siege or invasion of the city-state as laid down by Dasaratha and
the First War Council of the Seven Arya Nations following the end of
the Last Asura War and how the immediate implementation of such
measures were vital to demonstrating Ayodhya’s legal integrity to
other neighbouring kingdoms. Finally, when the words began to blur
together like white noise she murmured a polite “I shall inform the
king, thank you for your counsel,” and hastily made her escape.
The mangled gate was being placed on a flatcart hitched to a sow
elephant with a weaning infant that never left her side. She had seen
both moving heavy things around the palace grounds before and
patted the calf on its rump as she passed. It gave a tiny squeak of
greeting and she smiled, thinking of how wonderful it was to see little
children and young animals playing together.
She straightened her face as she approached the small group of senior
ranked military officials standing around Rama on the avenue. The
Saprem Senapati had delegated the removal of the damaged gate to a
junior and was among them. She had not had time to know the rest
very well, but she recognized them by face at least. They looked as
sombre and grim as the court ministers had been, and it was still
something of a small shock to her to watch this gathering of half a
dozen important martial commanders, each in charge of a sizable
military force on his own, deferring to Rama. Her Rama. He is king
after all, as well as Supreme Chief of all military forces of the entire
kingdom, what did you expect? A ragtag gathering of vanars and
rksaas?
“—convene this very hour, in closed session,” Rama said. Apparently
he was done, for as he finished speaking, the others all nodded
brusquely, and began to move away, talking softly amongst
themselves. They looked troubled and she saw one or two of them
glance back at Rama as if reassessing him dubiously.
He was looking at her. “We are under siege, it would seem.”
Her heart thudded. “Then what the rakshasa said—”
“No, not rakshasas, or asuras. A human force. A league of armies. At
our gates, as we speak. Bharat and Shatrugan are attempting first
contact, but they’re clearly not here to parley, not with that number of
spears and swords and elephants.” He paused. “And siege machines.”
She inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Shall we go to the seventh gate?”
Rama shook his head. “No. Bharat is already there. He will return any
moment. What I want you to do is wait here for him and bring him
and Shatrugan up to the Council Room the moment they arrive. He is
to speak with nobody else until he sees me – emphasize that.”
She nodded. “Mahamantri Jabali and the others wished to speak with
you on some matter of protocol.”
Rama shook his head. “There are more urgent matters at hand. They
can wait. Remember, see that Bharat and Shatrugan come straight to
the Council Room. I will be in closed session with the War Council,
awaiting them.”
“The War Council?” she said, her heart thudding. “What do you
intend to do?”
Rama put a hand on her arm, just above the elbow, his palm
shockingly cool on her overheated skin, “Whatever I must.”
She watched him walk away from her, back into the palace.
 TWO

Hanuman watched with mounting concern as the vaids conferred

among themselves. Finally, they turned and looked at the blackened
figure lying upon the pallet in the centre of the chamber. They shook
their collective heads and spoke a few more words in whispers. Then
they filed out one by one. Hanuman managed to stay the last one long
enough to hear his wise pronouncement.
“He is beyond help,” said the vaid. “Only the devas can help him
now.”
The vaid left, taking his satchel of condiments and ointments with
him.
Hanuman crouched down on his haunches, resting his elbows on his
thighs. He gazed at the maharishi’s frail, burned form for a long
moment.
Finally, he came to a decision.
“You risked your own life to save that of my friends. To save
countless innocents,” he said softly. There was nobody else in the
chamber apart from himself and the still silent form on the pallet.
“You acted in support of my Lord Rama. You cannot be permitted to
die. Maruti, son of Vayu and Anjana will not permit that to happen.”
He left the chamber, loping down the corridor. The guards,
accustomed by now to his comings and goings, still started slightly at
the speed and power of the furry body racing through the palace but
he was always gone before they could do so much as lower their
lances; as he went, his preternatural hearing picked up their voices
thanking Lord Vishnu that he was on their side. He flicked his tail as
he raced away.
He saw a particularly large contingent of soldiers guarding the inner
palace where the queens and princesses and children resided, as well
as the court house where mantris and courtiers milled about in
agitated debate
– apparently the War Council called by Rama had not yet begun its
session. He knew Rama would send for him when it was time; or not.
Either way, it did not matter. He had a task to accomplish and he
would see it through. Vaids were only good up to a point. There were
things the vanars of the redmist mountains knew that even the most
learned vaids of Aryavarta would give their right arm to know.
He leaped off a balustrade, swung down another floor, and then ran
down another corridor before reaching his destination: his own
chambers. They were bare and unappointed, as he had requested. He
did not actually spend much time here – he preferred to sleep in the
trees on the Northern bank where the air was clear and natural, the
water cool and fresh, and where he could keep an eye on the road to
Ayodhya. That was where he had been this morning when he had
spotted Valmiki coming. He bent down and rummaged through the
straw pallet which he used only when he felt the need to be closer to
Rama, although he still could not bear sleeping within the confines of
four walls and a ceiling.
He found the herb he had been seeking and took it back to the
sickroom, moving as quickly as before – the guards winced but made
no move this time. The maharishi lay as before. Hanuman made use of
the silbutta grinding pestle and mortar and Gangajal and other
implements of the vaids, grinding the herb with Gangajal into an
unguent ointment which gave off a potent but not unpleasant odour.
The cooling scents of camphor and eucalyptus tickled his nostrils as
he worked – even swinging through a grove of eucalyptus trees made
him sneeze – and when he was done the concoction was a dark,
blackish-brown paste.
He used a wooden ladle to smear it gently across the maharishi’s
body, taking care to cover every inch of skin. He paused when he was
done, considering whether or not to turn the body over to cover the
rear. But doing that would rub off the ointment he had smeared on the
front, would it not? Finally, he decided to leave well enough alone. He
could always do the rear once this application had done its work.
Just then the wind changed. He raised his snout, sniffing the air
curiously, his ears and snout twitching as his powerful senses drew
information from the wind – his father’s domain – the way a fish
could read the meaning of every ripple in a pond.
The message on the wind was clear to read: It was the ripe red stench
of man-hatred and imminent violence.
Bharat felt a brief pinch of pain at the sight of his maternal uncle.
Yudhajit and his younger sister Kaikeyi, Bharat’s late mother, bore a
striking resemblance. In the brutal years following Rama’s exile and
her husband’s death, Kaikeyi had been ground down to a pale spectre
of her former self. Her demise a few years after the departure of Rama
had been as inevitable and sad as the event itself: she had died
repenting everything she had done. What good had she achieved by
exiling her own stepson and, since Sita and Lakshman had joined
Rama in exile, her daughter-inlaw and other stepson as well? Bharat
had taken an exile of his own, refusing to take the throne from which
his brother had been displaced unfairly (in his and virtually everyone
else’s opinion), moving to the remote village of Nandigram from
where he managed the kingdom’s affairs for the next fourteen years,
refusing even to come and meet with his mother, and offering her
perfunctory formality during the times she came to visit with him.
Dasaratha had died of a broken heart. Urmila, Lakshman’s wife, had
been reduced to a wife-in-waiting for fourteen long years. And
Ayodhya itself, that prize which Kaikeyi had desired so desperately
for her own son, had all but risen up in resentment against Bharat over
the exiling of Rama – it was only Rani Kausalya’s iron hand and the
unwavering support of the armed forces that had maintained peace in
the kingdom this long. The assassination attempt this morning was
lingering proof of the long-festering outrage still felt by many over
Kaikeyi’s machinations. And Manthara, the daiimaa who had nearly
broken an empire and divided a family, had died within hours of
Rama’s leaving; in her wake, Kaikeyi had fallen to pieces. Her last
days had been sad, miserable ones and Bharat still felt like burying his
face in his hands when he recalled them. Which was why he tried as
much as possible not to do so.
But now, looking at those same familiar features mirrored on his
uncle, that aquiline profile and handsome face, he felt a biting pain in
his heart. In her battle armour, astride her own charger, his mother had
looked not unalike the figure that greeted him now. As a boy at
Brahmarishi Vashishta’s gurukul during the seven years of
compulsory education every high-born Arya child underwent, that
image had been the one that had always been uppermost in his mind’s
eye. It had impressed itself upon his psyche so greatly that he had
aspired to cut as striking, as goddess-like, as fierce and imposing a
figure as that image of his mother, someday. It was the same image he
still carried rather than the wasted, haggard, self-hating Kaikeyi who
had died crawling across the floor of her chamber in the deep watches
of night – as if she had been fleeing some unspeakable nightmare
witnessed in her bed – and had been found moments later, dead,
laying on her back cringing in a rictus of either pain or some
unnameable terror, a sad death for an Arya queen. He always thought
of the younger Kaikeyi, haughty, proud, arrogant, and no less a
warrior than any male of the Kekaya clan, the way he had seen her
during his early years. Looking at his uncle now was like recalling
that childhood memory again. He pushed the memory aside with an
effort.
“Mama-shri,” he said, striking a balance between filial familiarity and
princely authority. “What brings you here on this fine autumn
morning?”
Yudhajit stayed astride his battle-horse, making no attempt to
dismount or to offer any gesture of filial familiarity. When he spoke,
his tone, made harsh by years of daily chewing betel leaves and areca
nut, was no warmer than if he had been addressing any gatewatch
guard or sipahi.
“Yuvraj Bharat, as Commander of the akshohini of Kekaya, it is my
duty to inform you that I represent the league of Aryavarta nations and
am acting under that authority. We order you to open your gates and
permit us to search the city of Ayodhya at once. Failure to obey will
result in our taking the city by force, however regrettable that action.”
Bharat frowned. He had never been addressed by his uncle in such a
tone or manner, not even in the most heated arguments. Whatever his
many faults, Yudhajit-mama was not a man given to formal language
and gestures. Where was this coming from?
“Mama-shri,” he tried again, attempting to establish some familiar
basis of contact. “You are always welcome in Ayodhya, as you well
know. What is the reason for this armed force and aggressive
demands? Whatever your issues are, surely we can sit down and talk
them over? After all,” he added with a shrug and a smile, “we are
family.”
Yudhajit stared down at him coldly. That look, those grey eyes staring
down at him from beneath the graven visor; the way he sat on his
horse without inclining either his torso or his head by even an inch;
the cold, disapproving pause; the silence with which the rest of the
force stood by
– even the horses and elephants weren’t whickering or whinnying or
moving restlessly, how was that possible? – set off silent alarm bells in
Bharat’s mind. Something was terribly wrong here and he sensed that
no amount of talk would resolve it. Suddenly, he wondered if the old
veteran Somasra had been right after all. Coming out here was a
mistake.
“Your words carry no weight,” Yudhajit said unexpectedly. “We know
that the imposter is on the sunwood throne. He controls everything,
your minds, your souls, your words and actions even…you are no
longer Bharat my sister’s son. Merely a puppet in his power.”
Imposter? What is he babbling about?
Bharat was too shocked to find any words to reply at once; before he
could manage even a perfunctory, polite response, his uncle spoke
again in the same vaguely dismissive monotone.
“Stand aside or join our cause,” Yudhajit said. “Either you are with us
or against us.”
This last statement Bharat had heard often before – it was the tired
refrain of all tyrants, arrogant asses and bullies everywhere. Those
arrogant and selfish enough to want everything their way right now
and incapable of tolerating any difference of opinion. It was the kind
of thing his uncle might say, but it also confirmed that old Somasra
was right. Talk would achieve nothing good here, but it might well
make things worse.
But what was he babbling on about before that? What did he mean by
‘the imposter is on the sunwood throne’? Is he talking about Rama?
What madness is this?
He had used his peripheral vision to scan the frontline as he walked
from the gate. He knew every one of the six men and two women in
the fore, all seated astride horses, kitted out in full battle regalia. They
were all leaders of substantial armed forces, representing three major
kingdoms and three smaller holdings that were pledged to Ayodhya –
and more importantly, paid taxes. From the unnatural silence and
fierce glassy-eyed stares on all their faces, and the way they had
stayed quiet while Yudhajit had spoken, Bharat deduced that they
deferred to Kekaya in this matter. Which was odd in itself; at least two
of the smaller holdings and one of the large kingdoms were not allies
of his mother’s homeland by any stretch of definition. For them to
take up arms against the might of the Kosala nation thusly,
unprovoked and unjustified, and to defer to Kekaya thus – to Yudhajit
no less, known for his arrogant and abrasive manner – was a mystery
of vast proportions. He could not fathom it, nor understand what
power Yudhajit could wield over them to make them act thus.
“Am I to assume that my uncle speaks for you all as well?” he asked
aloud, raising his voice so that it could be heard several yards back
down the raj-marg. Formal politeness had failed, it was time to try
something different; needling might elicit a better response. “And that
Kekaya now commands you all like a single hand holding a half-
dozen reins?”
The glassy stares remained fixed on a point beyond Bharat – even
beyond the outer wall of Ayodhya, he suspected. They were the kind
of yojanas-long stares that he had seen on the faces of sentries posted
on remote mountain posts and left alone for long years without
respite. This was beyond passing strange now, he decided. Something
was certainly peculiar here.
Then he caught a flicker of an eye, the movement of pupil within the
white, and without turning his head an iota, he fixed his attention on
the eighth member of the frontline party.
He had never seen the man before in his life, he decided. Who was
he? Which kingdom or holding did he represent?
Without staring directly at the man, all he could tell for sure was that
the man was exceedingly fair. He had skin wholly unlike most Aryas,
whose complexion may start out as fair in some mountain tribes but
was burned to sallow wheat or maize by adulthood if not the dark
brown or even jet black of the majority of his people. This man was so
fair that Bharat’s mind instantly related his complexion to Rama’s –
he was as white as Rama was black-skinned. So white, the skin almost
seemed to glow faintly reddish, as if the skin were barely sufficiently
tinted to conceal the blood flowing beneath it. Bharat would have
assumed him to be an albino, except that there was colour in his eyes
and hair: jet black eyes that seemed almost all-pupil, giving him an
unnaturally intense gaze, as if he could see everything and anything
and his hair was a contradiction too—grey as ash. It shifted and stirred
in the bracing autumn wind that blew through the Sarayu Valley,
setting the pines and elms along the ridges shirring in the distance.
Bharat had never seen a combination of these things in any person
before: Ash grey hair, black eyes as large as an animal’s, and albino
white skin. As acting king-regent of the Kosala nation, he had met any
number of videshis visiting Aryavarta from distant lands across the
great oceans to the west, as well as the many fair-skinned tribes and
nations from the vast plainslands beyond the great North-Western
frontier ranges (beyond his own mother’s homeland Kekaya). But no
one like this. No race that he knew of could have such a combination
of characteristics. Could intermarrying with videshi envoys and
traders produce such traits? Trade had only increased over time and a
steady influx and outflow of foreigners was a common sight in port
towns and on the trade routes, so internecine relations were
commonplace and fruitful. Perhaps, he supposed doubtfully. Either
way, those eyes…they were unlike any human pair of eyes he had
ever seen. So big, so…strikingly intense!
Bharat realized that the man was the only one not staring fixedly
ahead like the other seven in the frontline. Not just that, he was the
only one glancing at Bharat occasionally – and smiling secretly from
time to time!
Bharat turned to look at the man openly. It was time to try the last
arrow in his limited diplomatic quiver.
“And who might you be, sir?” he asked boldly, addressing the fair
stranger. “By what authority do you come here and whom do you
claim to represent?”
The man smiled again – a fleeting, furtive smile that appeared and
vanished almost instantly. He turned his large eyes in this direction
and Bharat was startled to see how oddly they bulged out of the
smooth glacé surface of his face. Suddenly he felt strange almost
feverish and the ache in his recently dislocated shoulder surged to
unbearable levels. It was all he could do to resist crying out. He
distinctly saw the stranger smile a thin dark smile – displaying teeth
that were as grey as the hair on his head!
Then white heat exploded in his forebrain and his vision blew out like
a blast of a bellows striking a furnace. Pain, unspeakable pain,
screamed in every nerve-ending and his muscles and bones seemed
incapable of supporting so much as a feather let alone his living
weight. He felt himself sinking to his knees – No! No! I cannot show
weakness at such a time! – and one hand gripped his forehead as if
seeking to quench the white fire that blazed within the cage of bone,
while the other dangled limply by his side, useless and shouting
agony. He felt the dull thud of his knees striking the dust of the raj-
marg and the world swayed from side to side, appearing and
disappearing in a fog of pain and chaos.
Through the fog, the pain, the blinding white light-heat that raged in
his brain, he heard the stranger’s voice speak out calmly, almost
quietly, with seductive tone:
“I am the vengeance of Ravana come to life. Come to wreak justice
upon Ayodhya. And to end the reign of Rama the imposter.”
 THREE

Lakshman stood at the fringes of the War Council, not liking what he
heard. There was too much talk of preparations and preparedness, talk
which reminded him too closely of the last several months – the last
several years, for that matter. Sometimes it felt as if his life had been
one long endless war; only the battles kept changing location. Just that
morning before leaving his chambers he had promised Urmila that he
would free himself from the usual routine of statecraft and court and
attend her for a while. She had not looked very convinced when he
made the promise, knowing that his promises were only as good as
Rama’s willingness to honour them—and if that meant honouring
them at the cost of some important chore or assignment, well, they
both knew which one would take priority.
It was not even Rama that was responsible, it was Ayodhya. In a
sense, the kingdom had always been the real wife he left behind when
he left for exile fourteen years earlier; in many ways, it still was the
wife he had come home to. The days after his return had been rich
with euphoria yet tinged with a sense of great tragedy and sadness; the
knowledge of why they had left in the first place and under what
circumstances they now returned. This was not the Ayodhya he had
bid farewell to almost a decade and a half ago; it was a different
woman. He knew her well on sight, despite the relatively minor
ravages of time and aging, the inevitable decays of entropy, the
normal maturation and greying at the fringes – no matter how cleverly
concealed by artful dyeing. Yet her soul was the thing. He had once
heard a kusalavya bard sing in his father’s court – Dasaratha loved
musicians, artists, performers of all ilks, had patronized them to the
detriment of his royal treasury at times – that sometimes the souls of
men grew older than their faces. It was so with his wife: she had aged
beautifully, gracefully, majestically… and yet, that graceful growth
deceptively concealed the dying within. Sometime in the long sojourn,
in the parting of hearts and minds and souls, she had lost her way; it
was there in her eyes to be seen, if you knew how to look. And after
all those years abroad in foreign lands, in videshi forests battling
brutal beasts, he knew; oh, how he knew. He knew the instant he set
eyes upon her again, on their return. She had changed somewhat on
the outside, and too much on the inside. Far too much. She was no
longer the one he had left, whom he might have loved – whom he had
believed he loved during those long lonely years of self-denial, but
now knew was merely a stranger waiting to become a lover, perhaps a
companion, someday a wife. Whom was he speaking of now?
Ayodhya or Urmila? Was there a difference? For Lakshman, perhaps
not. For Lakshman, perhaps never. His name said it all: Lakshya-
maan. He Who Adheres To His Chosen Goal. He had adhered. Still,
he adhered. And would always adhere. And that goal, his goal, was
never Ayo…Urmila…never Urmila…it would never be, could never
be, should never be Urmila. It was always Ayodhya, and what was
best for her. He was hers, she his, in life, in exile, and until death did
them apart.
At some point, he sensed Rama’s eyes upon him. He had spent so
many years, each broken into infinite moments of watchful alertness,
the all-day all-night every-waking-and-sleeping-moment level of
alertness that drove some men mad and turned others into something
other than mere men, that he knew at once when those crow-black
pupils were turned in his direction. He turned his head a fraction and
gazed into Rama’s eyes across the chamber full of agitated war
ministers, generals and advisors. Rama, seated upon the sunwood
throne that had once borne the weight of Dasaratha and before him,
Aja and Raghu and so many other great, legendary kings of the
Suryavansha Ikshwaku line all the way to the beginning, to the sungod
Surya himself and his mortal offspring Ikshwaku, the bringer of light
to Prithvi-loka. Rama sat well upon that throne, perhaps even better
than their own father – although Lakshman would never speak that
thought aloud, on pain of death – and was already a legend unto
himself. The tales of his adventures in exile had done the rounds of so
many taverns and ashrams in the past fourteen years, Lakshman
sometimes wondered if perhaps the legend had become more real to
people than the man himself. Yet if there was ever a man who could
live up to and perhaps even exceed the lofty standards of his own
mythic legend, that man was Rama.
Rama held the mutual gaze for a moment, his eyes sparking with that
quiet fire that Lakshman knew indicated deep process: the burning fire
of deep contemplation that always resulted in extraordinary insights
and command decisions. Even though he was now the only man not
speaking in that babbling chamber apart from Lakshman; the moment
he did choose to speak, his words and thoughts would cut through the
babble like a sword through rotting vines. He tilted his head a fraction,
visible only to Lakshman in that crowded chamber, and Lakshman
raised his own chin a mirroring fraction, acknowledging.
It will begin soon, be ready, Rama’s gesture had meant.
Ready already, Lakshman had responded.
On cue, the doors of the chamber were thrown open as a white-faced
captain came in, bowed and said in a voice urgent enough to end
every conversation within:
“Maharaj, there is a crisis at the gates. Yuvraj Bharat has fallen.”
Shatrugan emerged from the sally port with a roar. He carried a fistful
of javelins, each as heavy as a sword, as easily as if they were dry
tindersticks. One javelin was already clutched in his throwing arm,
balanced on his shoulder, ready to be released. He took a step forward,
turning this way then that, seeking a target. His powerful muscles
bulged – he had refused to take the time to strap on body armour –
and his Adam’s apple worked vigorously in his throat. When he had
ascertained that nobody in the frontline – or the lines visible behind –
was making any gesture of aggression, he turned his attention to the
slender figure at the end of the row. The pale white stranger sat his
horse as calmly as the others to his left, but unlike them, his smooth
face twitched with a sardonic smile.
“You!” Shatrugan roared. “You did something to him! I saw you!”
The stranger turned unearthly eyes upon Shatrugan, eyes that seemed
to be all-pupil with only the hint of a white eyeball visible in the
socket – like a rakshasa, Shatrugan thought grimly – and flashed a
broad grin. A
white rakshasa with grey teeth—or are they green?
“I spoke to him,” the white stranger said. “Perhaps the truth was more
than he could bear?”
Shatrugan felt something as he stared directly at the man on the horse.
A piercing pain in his brain, the front of his brain specifically, as if a
needle had been inserted through his forehead and its poison-dipped
tip was spreading its venom across the entire forebrain like acid eating
into flesh. He snarled and threw one arm up, using the handful of
javelins to cover his face, as he pulled back the other javelin and
lobbed it at the white stranger.
It flew through the air and passed precisely through the space where
the stranger’s head ought to have been—but wasn’t anymore. The
stranger straightened his head, still grinning, and glanced back
casually at the tree trunk behind him from which the back end of the
weapon poked out, quivering. “A fine throw. You have some skill with
the weapon.”
Shatrugan realized the pain had vanished. It had vanished the instant
he lobbed the javelin.
A second shaft had already transferred itself from his right hand to his
left where it now hung suspended above his shoulder, ready to throw.
He drew that arm back and had the satisfaction of seeing the
stranger’s neck tense, eyes narrow and smile freeze. He grinned as
well, displaying his broad teeth.
“Best of three throws, shall we say?” Shatrugan said. “Or shall we
make it best of five?” He jerked his head back towards the gate, yards
behind him. “There’s plenty more where that one came from.”
This time the albino rakshasa, or whatever in hell the being was, did
not respond. He didn’t smile either, Shatrugan noted with grim
satisfaction.
Judging it to be safe to take his eyes off the white stranger, he bent
down beside Bharat’s prone form. Setting the fistful of javelins down
within easy reach, he felt his brother’s neck, searching for a pulse.
The skin was awash with sweat, which was unlike Bharat, but rather
than fever-hot, it was ice-cold. At least there was a pulse, a strong
steady one. That was good news.
He glanced back at the rampart where the old veteran Somasra stood
along with his younger associate. “If I should stagger, trip, or so much
as spit wrong, loose a full volley at that white bastard,” Shatrugan
said.
The oldun nodded once to show he understood and turned and passed
instructions to the long triple row of archers standing ready with bows
strung and drawn and arrows set to the haft. One gesture now and
more arrows would fly at the albino stranger than any ten men could
dodge. Or ten rakshasas.
Without a single wasted action, Shatrugan dropped his javelin, picked
up Bharat and hauled him up onto his shoulders in one smooth
motion. His thighs bulged with the effort, as did his biceps, and he
rose from the squatting posture to a full stand, turned, and strode back
to the sally port, passing through without a backward glance. The door
was shut and bolted behind him instantly, and he set Bharat down on a
shaded bench, gently grabbing his brother’s head and resting it slowly
against the cut-pine logs that made up the pillar against which he
rested.
Bharat’s eyes fluttered open almost at once. “Where—”
“Shhh. Shantam. You’re safe.”
Bharat groaned and raised his uninjured hand to his forehead –
pressing the palm there as if feeling the aftermath of the same pain
Shatrugan had experienced moments earlier. Shatrugan imagined how
intense that pain must have been though it had lasted only a moment
for him. A few more seconds and he would have fallen too, he had no
doubt. It took a lot to bring Bharat down, he knew. He was glad now
that Bharat had insisted that they both not go out together.
“Some kind of asura maya,” Bharat said, then gestured for water. It
was handed to him at once by a waiting soldier. He sipped carefully
and Shatrugan watched the intelligence return to his eyes again.
“Yes, I know. I felt it too. Bastard tried it on me.”
Bharat looked at him quizzically.
Shatrugan shrugged. “I tossed a javelin at his ugly skull. It seemed to
work.”
Bharat sputtered water. “You—”
Shatrugan patted his arm, gently because it was the dislocated
shoulder. “Don’t worry, he ducked in time. But it did the trick. The
pain stopped right away.”
Bharat’s eyes flicked from side to side, mind working furiously. “Still.
That was not appropriate under the circumstances. We were
attempting a diplomatic parley.”
Shatrugan chortled. “Yes. Sure. Of course. They knocked you down
using sorcery, would have knocked me down too in another second.
But I should still have tried to talk to them, right? Well, diplomacy can
go suck a lemon!”
Bharat seemed about to respond then stopped. He grinned and nodded.
“You’re right. To hell with diplomacy. They made the first move.”
A commotion. The dense rows of armoured soldiers parted to reveal a
dark form moving like wind across water. Rama. Followed closely by
Lakshman, Sita and an entourage which included, Shatrugan noted,
the entire War Council.
“Bharat, my brother,” Rama exclaimed anxiously, crouching down to
his eye level. “Are you—?”
“Yes.” Bharat cut his eyes at Shatrugan. “Thanks to Diplomacy-Is-
AJavelin-Well-Thrown over here. If not for him, I would still be lying
out there…” He shuddered, “…dying, I think. It felt like nothing
less.”
Shatrugan saw the look in Rama’s eyes change. It was not a look he
would have liked to see on a battlefield opponent.
“What happened?” Rama asked. “Tell me exactly.”
Bharat began, and Shatrugan finished.
Rama nodded, his eyes hooded by the end of it. Shatrugan felt a chill
finger on his spine: I’m glad he’s my brother not my enemy.
Rama sat on the bench beside Bharat. Shatrugan remained standing, as
did the others. He saw Sita shoot him a sympathetic glance and he
smiled wanly. Lakshman’s mirror image of himself had a look of dark
fury that was more kith to Rama’s dark brooding look than
Shatrugan’s own. Whatever they went through in those jungles and in
Lanka, he thought, it changed them forever. These two brothers of
mine, they are rakshasa slayers now and forever. He respected that
greatly; it also made him sad. Sad for what had changed, what had
once been, and what might have been.
Rama sighed, “Very well. Let us see for ourselves what new
devilment has come to our gates.”
There was a flurry of protest, from Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar,
Senapati Drishti Kumar, the War Council, Sita, even old Somasra.
Rama held up his hand.
“Yes, I hear you. Yet I am king of the Kosala nation. And if there is an
army at the gates of our capitol city, it falls to me to protect our
citizenry. What danger lurks out there, someone has to go out to face
it. I cannot command anyone else to go if I fear to face it myself.”
Lakshman spoke quietly: “Let me go, Rama. I shall put an arrow
through his eye before he so much as looks at me.”
Rama nodded. “No doubt you would. And could. But we cannot do
that either. The challenge he issued was to me, not you. And as king, it
is my dharma to go face him and attempt one last time to resolve this
crisis if possible.”
“And if not?” Sita asked the question.
Rama turned to glance at her, nodded again, then looked up at the sky,
blue and cloudless now, perfect. Shatrugan saw its blue expanse
reflected in the pools of his black eyes, and in the shaded alcove
where he sat, it lent his dark face a certain aspect, almost a glow. A
bluish glow. But for that, and but for the hundreds of thousands
waiting for his response, his decision, his next words, as well as the
army waiting outside the gates…but for these things, he might have
been a man sitting on a bench anywhere, contemplating the sky
philosophically.
When he spoke at last, it was into a still, terrible silence. The calm
before the war, Shatrugan thought grimly, seeing Rama’s decision in
his eyes, his face, his stance, even before the words were spoken
aloud.
“If not,” Rama said at last, then paused, looking down at his hands,
the muscles of his jaw working tautly before he continued, “If they
will not see reason, if it is war they truly want, then we shall give
them war.”

FOUR

Kausalya rode silently through the empty streets of Ayodhya. Her

horse sensed her anxiety as well as the tension in the air and snickered
at shadows and sounds. She saw only soldiers all the way from the
palace to the seventh gate and they all looked alert and ready to fight.
Mahamantri Ashok had attempted unsuccessfully to dissuade her from
venturing out of the royal sanctum but she had spent the earlier part of
the morning watching the extraordinary events unfolding from a
window and she could no longer stand to be cooped up in her
chambers.
It was difficult to believe that so much had already happened, or that
something as incredible as the news from the outer gate could be real:
An army? At the gates of Ayodhya? Here to invade us? Had she not
witnessed all that had occurred already with her own eyes, she might
have reacted by smiling it off as a jest. It was simply too incredible.
Yet it was happening. Here and now. She had watched the shocking
appearance of Kala-Nemi and the subsequent events. If not for
Hanuman and Maharishi Valmiki this city might already be reeling
under the shadow of fatal disease! With a crisis so dire looming over
her kingdom, she had no business staying cloistered in the palace, at
the mercy of the trickle of news that the Mahamantri thought relevant
for her knowledge. She needed to see and hear what was happening
with her own senses, firsthand.
For the past decade and a half, since Dasaratha’s demise and Rama’s
exile, she alone had stood between the throne of Ayodhya and all
those who sought to disable, unsettle or openly assault it. Bharat had
been king in name only – he had refused to undergo coronation or
accept the rajtaru, the kingstaff that was mandatory for the reigning
liege to take hold of formally by ritual, and had managed the
kingdom’s affairs from Nandigram. Nandigram was virtually an
outpost of the Kosala nation, and everytime Ayodhya was threatened
or disturbed, it had fallen to Kausalya and her able administrative and
military supporters to hold the capitol together and maintain peace. As
seniormost Maharani of the Ikshwaku-Suryavansha dynasty, wife of
Dasaratha, and most of all, mother of Rama Chandra, the “true heir”
as he came to be called by his many supporters, it was she who
commanded respect and grudging discipline from even the most
unruly elements. The court historical record credited her with
embarrassing achievements that she always sought to downplay, but
over the many years, even her self-effacing modesty could not shy
away from the fact that she had held the capitol, and by extension, the
kingdom together in these dark, tragic years.
She even had the scars to prove it; Arya women were not exempt from
physical attacks nor expected to be mere Sati-Savitris, not even if they
were Queen Dowagers of one of the most powerful nations in
Aryavarta. She had had to prove herself more than once. Not too
often, which was a relief because unlike her sister-queen Rani
Kaikeyi, she had never enjoyed physical combat or violence. In fact,
she abhorred it. Which only made her task all the harder. Her real
strength lay in statecraft, in judging the subtle currents of
sociopolitical movement and change, anticipating, negotiating, and
above all, artfully managing and maintaining peace. Like all true
heads of state, she knew that peace was a dangerous thing to uphold
and maintain. Perhaps the most dangerous political freedom of all.
Now, she wanted to be with Rama when he took the decisions that she
knew would resonate for years to come. If not to guide or aid him – he
had no need of that now, she mused wistfully, her mother’s heart still
unable to fully accept the fact – then at least to observe him in action.
To be there in case he needed her for any reason. She understood the
complex, intertwining, sociopolitical problems of the kingdom far
better than he did, but she also knew that Rama was an instinctive
leader: he had assumed the kingship with the practised air of one who
had been groomed for it all his life, not as an exile returned from years
of battling insurmountable odds and enemies.
Fourteen years. For almost a generation she had not seen his face or
heard his voice or touched the crow black hair that she had once
curled with her fingers as she sang him to sleep with lullabies. She
had parted from him once, as a boy of seven, when he went for the
mandatory brahmacharya period to Guru Vashishta’s ashram and
gurukul deep in the Northwoods. She still remembered the day he had
returned; that memory had carried her through these past fourteen
years, given her the confidence to believe that he would return again,
as he had then, stronger and harder than before, less her son and more
the warrior that circumstances had moulded him into becoming. When
he stepped from the golden flying vahan Pushpak with his
companions, her swelling heart had come close to bursting. With
pride, yes, of course. For he had taken everything that life had dished
out and still kept his head high and his chin up, and triumphed over it
all. But also with pain. With inexpressible motherly anguish and grief.
At the sight of that dark face now further darkened not in skin tone,
but in its hard angular lines and grim set. The itihasa of his exile was
written on Rama’s face, reflected in the dark pools of his crow-black
pupils; the shadow of all he had endured, and done, lay upon his soul
like a landslide across the mouth of a cave. Somewhere inside, deep
inside, was the boy she had nursed and nurtured and nourished and
raised to youthful promise. But he was gone now, lost forever. In his
place had returned Rama the man. The kshatriya who had fought and
killed ten thousand rakshasas. Slayer of the king of asuras himself.
Yoddha of yoddhas. Mahayoddha Rama Chandra.
That day, through all the pomp and ceremony and roaring crowds and
showering petals and rituals and feasts, she had cried inside in secret.
For that boy. Her boy. Her son. Who was no more. Who had been
replaced by this…man. This legend. This living myth. And she had
looked up once to see Rama looking at her intently, as if he knew
exactly what she was thinking and feeling – mayhap he did – and she
had smiled and pretended that all was well and everything would be as
it was before. But time was a river, and like the Sarayu, one could
return to it everyday, and it would be the same river, but would the
person returning be exactly the same? Not quite. Perhaps never. If
Ayodhya had changed so much, how could Rama not have changed
too? As a boy came of age in a distant brutal jungle battling daily for
his life and for the lives of his beloved companions, so also a city had
passed her prime and began greying. The city had existed long before
the boy; but now their fates were forever entwined, and so Rama’s
coming of manhood had been mirrored by the waning of Ayodhya’s
glory. The city and the man. Apart. Yet always together. For what was
Ayodhya if not Rama by another name? So the city had endured its
own season of exile, banished from the joy, peace, prosperity and
unbridled optimism and enthusiasm it had once been world-famous
for. And just as Rama returned with something less than what he had
left with fourteen years ago, Ayodhya too had so much less than what
it had once possessed.
And now, it was no mere twist of fate that this crisis had arisen only
weeks after Rama’s return. For Rama’s life and fortunes were bound
with those of Ayodhya. As one fell, so would the other. Which was
why she must be with him when he took whatever decision he took.
For even though she was no longer the Dowager Queen awaiting the
return of the rightful heir, she was still Ayodhya’s bride and Rama’s
mother.
The tense silence around the seventh gate told her all she needed to
know. From the direction of the gazes, she could see that someone,
probably Rama, had gone up to take the traditional high spot from
which the master of the city spoke to any potential invaders. It was
little more than a platform built higher up at a far sharper angle than
any spear or javelin could be easily flung, or an arrow loosed without
a precious moment taken to raise a bow and adjust for wind force. She
glanced up as she dismounted and her heart bobbed as she glimpsed
the familiar dark skin and lean upper body through the cleverly slatted
protective railing of the high spot. She handed the rein to the head of
her personal security unit, a strapping Banglar Queensguard who
rarely spoke and always listened and saw every single thing around.
As Kausalya walked over to the boxed-in enclosure she deployed her
all-female unit in a protective web that seemed redundant given the
ridiculously considerable number of armed Ayodhyan forces all
around. She could see her stepsons, Sita and what appeared to be the
entire War Council. All eyes were on Rama above, and as she
approached her daughter-in-law, she heard the strong clear tones of
her son’s voice call out. She felt a strange mix of pleasure and pride to
hear her son – my son the King – call her name:
“Visitors! You have been warned. I, Aja-putra Raghu-putra
Dasarathaputra Kausalya-putra Siyavar Rama Chandra Ikshwaku
Suryavansha Ayodhya-naresh, command you to turn around and leave
our city at once. We have no desire to engage you in physical combat,
but if you fail to comply, we shall be compelled to do so at once.
Begone!”
She blinked. That was a hard line to take. Did he need to be that
harsh? Had he pursued the diplomatic option with sufficient
enthusiasm? How had the attempt fared? Was he driving the situation
to a confrontation when it might be avoided? But she held her silence.
However great her concerns, she would not make the mistake of
undermining Rama’s authority by questioning his choices and actions
or words. He must have good reason for taking such a hard line with
the outsiders. He would not have taken this approach unless all others
had been exhausted.
She tried to see the visitors outside the gates, but it was impossible
from where she stood. The others stood or sat around her, aware of her
presence – they had greeted her respectfully one and all through eyes
and silent gestures – but were focussing their anxiety on listening too.
That was a safety precaution. If they could see outside, those outside
would be able to see within. Gate security was one of Ayodhya’s
legendary military assets, imitated but never equalled the world over.
So she simply sat on a wooden bench under the shade of the overhang
and listened to Rama’s words and the responses of those outside,
which she could hear quite clearly.
“If you were whom you claim to be,” said the pale white stranger on
horseback, “it would mean a great deal. But the words of an imposter
mean nothing.” He looked almost amused, the faint hint of a sardonic
smile on his strange but not unattractive features. If this is a rakshasa,
he is like no rakshasa I have seen before. “And that is why we are
here. To expose you as an imposter and install the rightful ruler of
Ayodhya upon the sunwood throne.”
He glanced up at Rama, head cocked at an angle, one eyebrow slanted
upwards, as if measuring the distance and force it might take to leap
up to the top of the high spot, but only in an academic, theoretical
way. “We have been very patient until now. But we are starting to tire
of this haranguing and heckling. Let me reiterate my earlier command
– open the gates and let us in, and we shall manage the transfer of
power in the least inconvenient manner possible.”
Haranguing and heckling? Who is this impudent fool? No wonder
Shatrugan threw a spear at him! Right then, he felt like loosing a
volley of arrows at the arrogantly smug stranger rather than
responding to his absurd insults. But Ayodhya was listening and an
accusation had been made that was deadly in its very conception. He
could not leave it unchallenged now.
“Stranger,” Rama said, putting steel into his tone and ice in his eyes as
he looked down. “You insult not only me but the crown I represent
and the people I serve. Such libellous accusations cannot be permitted
to go unchallenged. If you have proof to support your wild
allegations, show it now. Or face corporeal penalties.”
The slender face, virtually a framework of bone with skin stretched
tight as a drum across it, dipped downwards briefly then rose again to
display a smile as unsettling as the full-toothed, yawning grin of a
skeleton. “I was hoping you would ask. It’s about time.” The stranger
plucked a yellow scarf from his saddle and raised it high, waving it
slowly in some prearranged signal.
Rama tensed at once, anticipating treachery. It was the kind of signal
that would typically be used to call up the first attack of a massed
force. Only the colour of the scarf – yellow – suggested preparedness
rather than an attack alert.
He relaxed only slightly when a palanquin was brought up the rajmarg
at running speed. It was in fact carried by rakshasas, and that in itself
was enough to make his hackles rise – and put everyone else behind
and below him on edge, he expected. But they were women rakshasas,
though no less burly and muscled than any males of their kind, and the
ease with which they carried the heavy, ornately carved and filigreed
doli the hundred-odd yards was impressive. He recognized the sigil of
the House of Pulastya with a growing sense of unease, and then
caught a glimpse of the national sigil of the kingdom of Lanka on the
other side as the bearers turned the palanquin before setting it down
with unrakshasalike gentleness.
There was a moment’s pause, as tangible as a held breath. Everyone
waited for the occupant of the palanquin – a royal Lankan palanquin
of the house of Ravana himself – to emerge. When she did, with a
rustling of silk brocades and jangling of heavy jewellery that was
clearly audible in the deathlike hush that had fallen, it elicited a
release of breath and gasp of shock that he could sense if not actually
hear from all along the Ayodhyan walls.
“Rama Chandra of Ayodhya,” said the widow Mandodhari, wife of
the late Ravana, as she turned her proud, striking features up to the
high spot, her eyes seeking him out balefully: “I told you our paths
would cross again and the next time they did, you would face a
reckoning for your injustices against me and my countrymen. That
time has now come.”

FIVE

Hanuman had done what he could for the maharishi. He smelled the
unguent-coated body one last time, sniffed in distaste, then sighed and
rocked back on his heels. After a moment, he looked around, found a
rag and wiped his hands clean as he had learned to do from watching
Rama and Lakshman – slippery hands could mean death to a yoddha.
He came out on the verandah, sniffing curiously. There was a strange,
unnatural stillness around, a sense of pervasive dread. He reached up
and took hold of a beam running the length of the corridor, disguised
as a decorative part of the verandah’s overhang, and shut his eyes,
allowing his snout to see what eyes could not. He smelled the sweaty
body odour of armoured men all around, the enticing fragrance of the
many females in the palace, the milky smells of children; from farther
away, carried on the wind, were the scents of the city…
A map opened before his mind’s eye, a map of odours and smells, and
he saw the city in a way no human could. Dogs, perhaps. Other
animals too. But which other creature could match the powers of
Anjaneya Maruti Hanuman, he who had earned the title Bajrangbali
after the war of Lanka, and who drew his powers from his deep
devotion and worship of Lord Rama Chandra himself? The keenest
hound could have scented all that Hanuman scented in that instant,
standing there on that verandah. But the hound’s brain could never
have organized all that olfactory information and mapped it as
Hanuman did. Therein lay his genius. The talents of non-humans,
combined with the logistical organizational ability of humans.
Seconds after he shut his eyes, he viewed the city as an enormous
unfolding map of scents. And more than merely being able to place
the origin of some particular scent or track it to its source as a keen
hound might have done, he could read its significance and relate it to
the whole picture.
He opened his eyes. His eyes narrowed, the fur of his face rippling in
distress.
Rama is in trouble. Someone means to do him grievous harm.
He needed no commands, orders or instructions. He was a force unto
himself. He leaped off the verandah with a careless ease that startled
the wits out of sentries on the lower level who were still nervously
apprehensive and overly alert – he waved to them to reassure their
scalded nerves – touched ground briefly, then launched himself up
into the air. He felt it was necessary to move swiftly: running or
bounding would not do; he must fly. And so he rose up, above the
palace, above the tall ancient trees in whose shelter royal Suryavansha
Ikshwakus had played and danced and strolled and reclined for
centuries, above the height of the Seer’s Eye, the tallest structure in
the Arya nations matched only by its counterpart, the Sage’s Brow in
Mithila, the capitol city of neighbouring Videha. And now he was
above the map of scents, gazing down at Ayodhya once more, for the
second time that morning – for it was only a brief hour or two since
the greatest crisis in Ayodhya’s history had begun to unfold. And he
soared through the air, the wind buffeting his limbs and flattening his
plush fur as he soared the mile or so to his destination.
He slowed in mid-air, using the strength of his mind more than the
muscles of his body, for his power to defy Prithvi Maa’s hold was
more a spiritual one than a physical ability, and required the use of
mental commands rather than mere bodily movements. His face grew
grim and his warm brown eyes, ever brimming with adoration and
affection for Rama, turned cold and steely as he saw what had alerted
him.
The army that stood at the gates of Ayodhya did not startle or surprise
him one whit. He had sensed its presence out the corner of his eye
even as he had done his best to aid and assist Rishi Valmiki in his
desperately heroic effort to save Ayodhya from the final villainous
ploy of the rakshasa Kala-Nemi. He had not given it a second thought
because he was wholly engrossed in one task at the time; that was his
way. Rama was able to deal with myriad things at one time and handle
them all effectively and with astonishing dexterity. But that was not
the vanar way, and Hanuman was, after all, a vanar. At that time he
had sensed that the forces amassed outside the gates were not an
immediate threat. Just as he sensed that they had become a threat,
gravely urgent and demanding critical attention right now.
He hovered in the air above the gates, too high for anybody on the
ground to notice him – even if they looked up, he was in the sun – yet
low enough to easily see and hear everything that transpired below.
He had observed crucial battles during the war of Lanka just so,
hovering a hundred yards or so above ground, arms folded, tail
twitching lazily in the wind; weeping as he witnessed the brave
sacrifices of his fellow vanars as they stood against the bone-crushing
onslaughts of hulking rakshasa hordes, grinning with joy as he viewed
the same hulking rakshasas routed and decimated by the superior
strategic skills and persistent stubbornness of Rama’s armies.
He prayed now that he would not witness such carnage here in
Ayodhya.
Sita started at the sound of the woman’s voice. Surely it could not be
— Mandodhari? Yet the haughty tone and regal condescension were
unmistakable, as were the mannered Sanskrit with not so much as a
hint of commonspeak. She had heard the voice often enough to know
it well and hate it even more. She looked around at the tense, waiting
faces of everyone around, cloistered in the shelter beneath the high
spot. She saw her mother-in-law standing not far and their eyes met
for a brief moment, exchanging a warm if necessarily distracted silent
greeting under the circumstances, then turned her head this way then
that, trying to think of a way to gain sight of the events transpiring
outside the gate. There was no way, except…
She ducked her head beneath the crisscrossing diagonal struts and
taking hold of the ladder, began to climb quickly and efficiently.
Perhaps she moved too quickly, or perhaps it was the angle she chose.
A sudden spasm struck the lower left side of her abdomen and she
paused, feeling the blood drain from her face at the impact. It felt as
if…as if something had twisted within her. Something? Or someone?
She swallowed nervously, guiltily almost and glanced around to see if
anyone was watching. Bharat, Shatrugan and the others avoided
looking at her in a way that suggested they knew what she was up to
and did not intend to bar her. But Kausalya was gazing directly at her
with a clear view of her face and she bore a faintly curious expression.
Sita swore silently at her own lack of self-control. Kausalya had
noticed the spasm and now her eyes drifted down to Sita’s midriff.
Sita swallowed and forced herself to resume climbing, exercising
more caution this time. Just before the interlinked crossbeam structure
of the high spot obscured her view of Kausalya, she saw the queen
mother’s eyes find her face again, and there was a knowing yet
sympathetic look in those upward-turned eyes that made her certain
that Rama’s mother now knew that she was to be a grandmother. She
put that out of her mind and climbed on, reaching the top of the high
spot with her heart pounding more rapidly than she would have liked.
The months of imprisonment – and pregnancy – had taken a double
toll, and she was paying the price now. She reached the top of the high
spot and stepped out onto the sturdy platform protected by a wooden
escarpment that reached up to her shoulders – and up to Rama’s lower
ribs, leaving enough viewspace to observe efficiently while still
providing protection. It was used for defensive purposes during a
siege – such as pouring vats of boiling oil, which was the reason for
the pulleyrope system dangling down the centre of the central
structure – but also for parleys involving a monarch. She suspected it
had not been used for either in decades.
Rama, ever alert, shot her an appraising glance as she came to stand
beside him, with no trace of commentary in his look. He was too
focussed on the person who had addressed him moments ago. Sita
glanced down as well, and at the sight of the tall, fair rakshasi
standing beside the palanquin below, she felt a rush of mixed
emotions, like oil and camphor mingling to give off a tiny explosive
burst of boiling fumes. She forced herself to remain calm; merely
standing beside Rama helped. His steadfastness was the stuff of which
legends were made.
“You do recall me, do you not?” asked Mandodhari from below as the
muscled rakshasis set a travelling seat behind her with practised
efficiency. “I am the widow of the lord of Lanka whom you slew
during your invasion of our nation and genocide of our people.”
“I recall you well, Queen Mandodhari,” Rama said in a voice of steely
calm. “But my recollection of you is as the widow of the abductor of
my wife and the precipitator of a tragic war that could well have been
averted had he but abided by the law peaceably and admitted his guilt.
I remember you also as the sister of the noble brahmin rakshasa
Vibhisena whom I left in charge of the reconstruction of Lanka after
the close of that unfortunate war, and as the reigning queen of the
nation. You are welcome here to Ayodhya at anytime, and I would bid
you kindly enter our happy city and enjoy the hospitality deserving of
a queen and ally. But since you arrive at our gates with what appears
to be a hostile armed force, dealing threats and slander, I have no
choice but to have this conversation in this awkward manner.”
Bravo. Well said. And from the dark flush that crept across the lower
part of Mandodhari’s face, Rama’s eloquence had struck home. Like
most of her countrymen, the rakshasi had that excessively pale
complexion and translucent white skin that made visible any
movement of blood to her upper extremities. It was a stark contrast to
the dark-hued skin colouring of most Aryas, and one of the qualities
that helped distinguish the rakshasa race in general. Mandodhari’s
servers had placed the travelling seat in a suitable position behind her
and awaited their mistress. But instead of seating herself, Mandodhari
remained standing, glaring up at Rama. Her eyes flicked briefly,
contemptuously to Sita, and despite herself, Sita felt a surge of coiled
anger: Have you not had enough yet of war and violence, rakshasi?
Go home and lick your wounds in peace. An enemy should know when
it is beaten!
Aloud, she said nothing, but her hands gripped the wooden railing
tightly enough to turn her knuckles white.
Mandodhari shrugged, a regal tossing of her glossy, burnished mane
that reminded Sita of her favourite stallion back in Mithila, the one
she had ridden from the time it was a foal and she an unbled girl.
Except that Mandodhari’s action conveyed not merely pride but threat
as well: You fools. Do you not know who I am? You shall see soon
enough!
“I expected no less from you, Rama of Ayodhya,” the rakshasi queen
said loftily, glancing around as if addressing all those on the wall
rather than Rama alone. “Or from your blood-thirsty warmongering
countrymen. Ayodhya’s reputation for war and invasion are legendary.
Even today, the mere mention of your father Dasaratha is enough to
put little rakshasas to sleep, over three and a half decades after the
Last Mortal Invasions.”
Said the rakshasi with an army behind her come to lay siege to us,
whose husband is known to itihasa by the title ‘He Who Makes The
Universe Scream’ – the literal meaning of ‘Ra-van-a’. Sita resisted the
urge to speak out, not out of concern for breaking protocol but
because she knew the importance of Rama appearing totally in charge.
“Mandodhari-devi,” Rama said in a voice that was loud enough to
carry to all in earshot yet still managed to sound ‘quiet’ in its tone
somehow. “Your wildly inaccurate recall of history would be more
credible without an army at your back and threats and assaults
preceding your entry upon this…” he gestured, “this theatrical setup
you seem to have designed for our entertainment this morning. As it
is, this kind of behaviour is in extremely poor taste and a gross
violation of the rules of war. If you or your minions have a grievance
with me, you should have forwarded your request for a formal visit
through normal diplomatic channels. By arriving unannounced with
an armed and self-evidently hostile force, you undermine your own
shaky credibility and absurd claims.”
He paused a moment to let the words sink in. Sita resisted the urge to
grin: Rama rarely spoke this much or made the effort to be this
eloquent to hostile opponents, but once he decided to do so he was as
effective as when taking lives in battle. The years of leading ragtag
bandits and outlaws through enemy-riddled wildernesses had only
honed his oratorical skills further. He was a natural crowd-appeaser.
“I have cautioned your associate already. Now I address my
cautionary warning to you as well. If you have diplomatic business
here in Ayodhya, go away and send an emissary who shall be received
with due respect by my court. If not…”
He paused, to let the import of those last two words sink home.
“If not, then be prepared to face the consequences of making hostile
advances against the city-state of Ayodhya. We do not take such
actions and words lightly. Those who act or speak against us should
be willing to deal with the repercussions of doing so. I strongly advise
you now to either hold your peace – or go speak your piece to those
whose ears are not already deafened to your words by the thunderous
roar of a million bestial rakshasas whose barbaric cruelties to the
mortal race are as well
known as your own late husband’s rapaciousness. Any further threats
or unsubstantiated allegations shall be regarded as direct declaration
of war.”

SIX

That’s telling her, Sita thought with secret satisfaction, wishing she
could applaud and cheer Rama’s response. Somewhere along the wall,
someone did thump the haft of a spear or hilt of a sword against the
dense wood of the seventh wall, and she suspected it was a sly gesture
in that very direction. Ayodhyan soldiers were far too disciplined to
openly display such emotion, but that did not mean they did not feel
the elation and pride she knew they must be feeling at the way Rama
was handling the situation thus far.
Mandodhari sighed and cocked her head. She glanced around, seemed
to notice the travelling seat placed for her comfort, gestured curtly –
the waiting rakshasis bent their powerful backs and removed the seat
with practised efficiency – and then, glanced up at the high spot,
staring not at Rama, but at Sita. Her eyes found Sita’s and locked onto
them.
“I am not surprised to hear your hostile response,” said the Queen of
Lanka haughtily. “Nor your unwillingness to see reason. And as you
can see, I have come fully prepared to undertake whatever measures
are needed in order to restore justice to my people and vindication to
my late husband’s memory.” She gestured at the long winding row of
armed soldiers stretching down the raj-marg behind her. “But before
we turn this war of words into a war of acts, let me point out two
salient facts: One, you are not Rama Chandra, and therefore you have
no authority to even address me directly let alone lord over Ayodhya
as you now do, you imposter! Two, the woman that you call your
wife, and whom you repeatedly claim was ‘abducted’ against her will
by my late husband… this woman is the only genuine heir of
Ayodhya’s throne and the future leader of its destiny. As such, it
behoves the people of Ayodhya to know her true identity and the
reason why she has been the crucial element in all the events of the
preceding years. The bone of contention, you might say. And that
reason is simple enough.”
Mandodhari raised her right hand and pointed at Sita. “Sita Janaki of
Mithila is the daughter of my late husband Ravana Pulastya and the
bearer of our unborn grandchildren. And I am here to claim the throne
of Ayodhya as ours by right.”
Time stood still for Sita. The world stopped turning. Breath and life
and existence were suspended and held hostage in a place within her
heart so small that a butterfly would have suffocated within that space.
Motion itself ceased. Birds flying somewhere to the far left of her
field of vision seemed to slow in flight, as if suddenly battling a
powerful windcurrent.
She stared down at the Queen of Lanka, unable to fully comprehend
her words.
She stared so intently that she could see every line, every detail of the
rakshasi queen’s features. That proud, pale, angular face; those broad
cheekbones and finely-shaped jawline; that flowing forehead with the
vertical slash of the hairline truncating it inches lower than most
foreheads of women her age; that proud stance; that impressively taut
figure, no longer slender but not weighed down by indulgence either;
that regal bearing and manner.
And despite herself, some part of her mind was already trying to
assess if there was any similarity at all in the woman standing below
and the face and body of Sita’s own reflection.
Ravana’s Daughter? No. How can that be?
And yet.
And yet…
Sita was still staring down dumbfounded when a dark streak arrowed
from left of field into her sphere of vision and intersected with the
rakshasi queen. It was a javelin thrown from somewhere below the
high spot. Thrown with vicious force and perfect accuracy. It struck
Mandodhari with sufficient force to drive the queen of Lanka
backwards and off her feet to crash against the side of her own
palanquin with force enough to shatter the woodwork and send
splinters flying. Blood spurted from the rakshasi’s chest. So intense
was Sita’s concentration in that moment – she was still in shock from
Mandodhari’s words – that the globules of blood seemed to hang
heavily in the air, suspended for a moment before gravity resumed and
they sprayed the ground like a spatter of red raindrops. An ominous
wetness blossomed on the Lankan queen’s pearl-white gown,
accompanied by a wheezing sound that Sita, battle-veteran that she
was, recognized instantly as the sound of the air being propelled out
of the rakshasi’s punctured lungs.
The world froze motionless for an instant, during which Sita could
hear a distant drumming that she recognized only much later as the
pounding of her own racing heart. Then motion and colour and sound
and fury returned with a shocking assault and the world was never the
same again for her.
Hanuman felt something strike him with the force of a Himalayan
mountain. He felt the invisible force crumble to tiny sand-sized
particles as it struck his virtually indestructible body and shattered. It
was intense enough to have reduced most beings to fragments as well;
but then, he was not most beings; he was Maruti Anjaneya Hanuman.
He was flung back up, up, to the sky, flung like an arrow from a siege
catapult, arms flailing as he struggled to regain control of himself.
Wind screamed and howled in his ears and his vision was reduced to a
foggy blur as the air itself appeared to fragment. He fought furiously
to slow his backwards and upwards flight and after several moments
of struggle, finally succeeded in slowing his ascent. He brought
himself to a halt with a teeth-gritting effort and hovered momentarily,
trying to assimilate what had just happened. Then he shot forward and
downwards, shocked to see how far he had been flung in mere
moments – which indicated how powerful the force that had struck
him must have been. He was instantly enveloped in a bank of dense,
foggy clouds so thick that all he could see were swirling smoke-like
billows. The wind sang in his ears as he increased speed, jaw
tightening as he recalled the last thing he had seen and heard before
the invisible blast struck.
The rakshasi speaking those terrible words.
The javelin streaking from the direction of the seventh gate.
The javelin striking the rakshasi in the chest.
Blood spurting – bright red blood, heart-fresh blood.
The rakshasi flung back, with enough force to break her spine if the
javelin had not already done her in.
And then a blast of shakti as powerful as any he had witnessed being
unleashed, accompanied by a sound so awful he had never heard the
likes of it before.
For long moments, he seemed to shoot endlessly through the bank of
clouds, blinded by fog, despite the fantastic speed with which he was
flying. A roaring filled his ears yet it could not entirely drown out the
sound from far below, the sound that had accompanied the explosive
force that had flung him skywards like a pebble from a child’s
catapult.
He broke free of the cloudbank and was relieved to find that instinct
and his preternaturally attuned senses had brought him back to more
or less the same position in which he had been hovering before the
mysterious shakti had blasted him away – he could see the seventh
ring gate of Ayodhya below, albeit much farther below. He increased
speed, racing downward at a dead flat descent, like a stone dropped
from some enraged deva’s hand. In his peripheral vision, he glimpsed
the curved bowl of Prithvi-loka bathed in a midnight darkness that
was nevertheless illuminated by a glow that was neither night nor day,
a silvery illumination that was clearly a product of maya shakti. The
source of the illumination as well as the epicentre of the force that had
struck him lay directly below at the gate of the city. It was, he
realized, also the source of the terrible sound that filled his ears, his
senses…filled the world.
He slowed his descent as he approached, to avoid crashing to the
ground. The roaring of the wind died down, the air itself smelled
strange, and the peculiar illumination grew brighter, eerier and seemed
clearly unnatural in origin, as he came within a yojana of the earth. He
slowed further as he came close enough to make out individual figures
below. The tableau outside the seventh gate of Ayodhya remained
much the same, except for the crowd of rakshasis now huddled over
the fallen queen of Lanka, tending to her, though he knew from long
battle experience that she was likely past tending – and a figure on a
horse that had strutted several yards ahead of the frontline outside the
gate. This figure held up the object that was the source of the
supernatural illumination: A sword!
As Hanuman descended to a few hundred yards, then a hundred, then
hovered close enough above ground to see individual features and
even the colours of eyes, he saw that the raised sword in the white-
skinned rakshasa’s hand did not merely glow. It blazed! The light it
gave off was a burning, crackling silver fire that rose in smoky
tendrils, curling in wisps and shavings, rising up into the air to spread
wings of silvery light across the world entire. The sword was
illuminating the whole of Prithvi-loka! Or at least that part of it within
the sightline of the sword. Impossible. Incredible. Yet there it was.
Hanuman glanced up.
The sun had vanished from the sky.
Dark clouds brooded and boiled across the entire ceiling of
Prithviloka, obscuring the cosmos completely. He recalled the glimpse
he had had of the dense cloudbank stretching in all directions, in the
moment when he had managed to stay his ascent, just before he forced
himself to descend to earth, and from that glimpse he guessed now
that the boiling cloudbank covered all of the world. How such a thing
could be possible, or how it could be achieved so miraculously, he did
not know or care. What he was certain of was that it was all caused by
the drawing of that sword.
He decided to remain where he was, hovering. He had a feeling that
the time for talk and parley was over. And now whatever transpired
next would be achieved through brutal, swift, intense acts of violence.
It would be strategically useful to Rama to have him here, poised thus.
He waited and watched as the drama below unfolded and reshaped
itself into open conflict…
Rama’s first response was to feel a sense of outrage at Shatrugan. For
the javelin had come from a point not far from where Shatrugan must
be standing, directly below the high spot. There were firing windows
built into the structure of the wall precisely to enable such actions,
usually with anti-siege machines situated before them, ready to fire
javelins the thickness of a man’s torso, and twice as heavy. It would
be simple enough for a man to climb up the struts to one such
window, balance himself, then launch a javelin. It would take
considerable skill and experience to throw one with such devastating
aim and force through such a narrow aperture. Shatrugan was the
city’s best javelin thrower, winner of the annual contest for well over a
decade. Yet surely it couldn’t have been Shatrugan? His brother knew
better than to do something as drastic – and as senseless – as this,
didn’t he? And to attack a woman? An unarmed woman, a visiting
queen no less? No, it was absurd to even think of Shatrugan. But
then… who else? It was the only thing he could think of in those first
few shocked instants after Mandodhari was struck so brutally.
Beside him, Sita hitched as she broke out of the long held breath that
had transfixed her for the past several moments. He saw her teeter
briefly and shot out his hand to steady her, then stayed his hand. Her
fiercely independent nature did not easily brook chauvinistic gestures,
even those made in the thick and heat of battle; he had often seen her
deliberately flaunt her feminine status, pretending weakness, in order
to bait and then efficiently despatch enemies. That delicate, beautiful
veneer was deceptive; she was as tough as he or Lakshman. And the
javelin throw, coming as it did on the heels of the stunning revelations
of Mandodhari, had shaken him as much as her. She regained her
balance without any aid from him. He saw her glance sideways,
conscious of his gaze, and closed his fist, accompanying the action
with a firm look. She read him as perfectly as ever: Hold fast. We
shall get through this together as always. And she nodded in response,
her beautiful heart-shaped jaw tightening, the furrows on her narrow
forehead easing.
He turned his attention back to the figure on the horse outside the
gate.
The man holding up the sword.
There was something very alarming about the man – and the sword. It
was hard to tell which was more alarming. The man’s skin, milky-
white as ash as it had seemed earlier, now appeared translucent in the
peculiar half-light that had fallen across the land. Rama grew
gradually aware of the ceiling of boiling clouds overhead that had
appeared abruptly in the wake of the attack on Mandodhari and the
howling wind that swooped in swathes first off to one side then the
other end of the city, like a flying beast raging in search of prey. The
sword the man had unsheathed, probably at the very minute after
Mandodhari was attacked, was the focal point of everything that was
occurring: it blazed fiercely with a strange half-light that was neither
white nor golden, shining and resplendent yet silver rather than
golden, like moonlight upon the surface of a raging ocean, but
moonlight of such intensity as had never been seen before. An
incandescent flame searing the centre of vision, impossible to look at
directly, and even obliquely, glimpsed from behind a warding arm, as
Rama was forced to raise to protect his own eyesight, so brilliant that
it would have put the noonday sun to shame. This immense, intense,
blazing light spread outwards like a cold white fire laying hostage to
the entire countryside for as far as the eye could see in every direction,
like a net of burning moonshine cast upon the realm of Prithvi-loka. It
curled and smoked and simmered and coalesced like a white-hot
raging furnace within the slender flat blade of the weapon: giving off
an aura so powerful that no mortal hand could have forged or
tempered such an object or held its power within a flesh-and-blood
fist. Enveloped in the penumbra of its silver-hot effulgence, the grey-
haired man was but a blurred blob. Even attempting to stare directly at
him sent needles of agony into Rama’s brain.
He sensed and glimpsed rather than directly saw something swoop
down from the high heavens and knew it was Hanuman returning. He
had sensed the vanar hovering overhead when he had begun speaking
to the white-skinned man; he had not seen what happened to his
faithful champion in the aftermath of Mandodhari being struck, but
the explosive effusion that had followed, flinging him and Sita back a
step and searing their vision and consciousness had no doubt had an
effect on the flying one too. He sensed Hanuman descend within a
few dozen yards above and wait there, ready.
He sensed the near-panic of those gathered in the shelter below the
high spot: his brothers, his mother and the wisest counsels of the
nation. He sensed their resolve and their iron discipline holding them
together and holding in good stead the awed, dazed soldiers all along
the walls of the city. He felt their shock and confusion as well as their
discipline and determination. Regardless of what Mandodhari had said
or claimed, every one of them would give their lives for him.
That knowledge gave him strength.
And he used that strength to call on his own innermost reserves.
To straighten his spine and stride to the edge of the high spot’s railing.
Thence to look out and call in the loudest voice he could muster,
straining to be heard above the keening howl of subvocal sound that
was being produced by the sword itself, the sword held in the upraised
fist of the man on the horse.
“Who are you? What do you seek here?” he shouted.
For a moment, he thought he felt the song of the sword diminish in
volume and intensity ever so slightly and felt the attention of all his
kinsmen and countrymen snap and sharpen as they collated their
wildly roving conjectures and paid heed to this bellowed query of
their commander and king.
The pale man spoke. And his voice was one with the song of the
sword. Blade-sharp and sword-deadly, it sliced the nerves and
penetrated through to the inner organs, much as Kala-Nemi’s voice
had, but with a different tone and intensity. That had been like grated
glass. This was the texture of liquid fire poured into one’s ears. Rama
felt his ear canals seared as if by a blast of superheated air from the
heart of a fire.

SEVEN

“Imposter! Look upon your doom. I am Atikaya, son of Ravana and

Vedawati. Stepson to Mandodhari. Brother to Indrajit, Prahasta,
Akshay Kumar, Devantaka, Narantaka, and Trishira. I am the sole
heir to the throne of Lanka, bearer of the legacy of my father and the
fulfiller of his last wishes.”
The white rider twisted his wrist and the searing light changed in
intensity and kind as the blade turned, sending shooting arrows of
agony into Rama’s forebrain. Across the length of the wall, he heard
involuntary moans and cries break out as soldiers were unable to stifle
their own agony. If they were feeling the pain he was experiencing
right now, it was a wonder any of them could stand. It took all his
strength and will to remain on his feet and even then his hands were
gripping the railing hard enough to drive a splinter into his palm. He
felt as if the wood would crack under the intensity of his grip, but
since it was solid lohitwood timber – ironwood, literally – he knew
the bones in his hand were more likely to snap first. From the elevated
view of the high spot, the sword’s effect was even more unendurable,
since the blinding blaze of light intensified as it rose. As the white
rider continued, a screaming sound came from the corona of light,
shredding through Rama’s nerves, bludgeoning his mind and senses. It
was beyond any mortal man’s capacity to look at directly; it reduced
the world to a blurring darkness, and everything on the visible
spectrum to a white field of shrieking agony. Yet even above this
torture, the man’s voice penetrated like the roar of a beast might
penetrate a dying prey’s ears while it’s claws savaged the hapless
animal.
“Behold the symbol of my righteousness, this blade I carry. It is none
other than the divine sword given unto my blessed father by Lord
Shiva the Destroyer himself, the indomitable moon-blade known as
Chandrahas that has never been bested in battle. I come to fulfil the
prophecy of doom and to wreak the vengeance of Ravana upon you
and all who stand by you. Do what you will, you will not escape my
fury. You are lost now and Chandrahas shall not rest until it has drunk
deeply of your blood in combat.”
And then he opened his mouth – Rama did not have to see him do it to
know he did – and emitted a sound that counterpointed and
emphasized the shrieking of the sword to produce a new level of pain.
Pain so intense, so all-pervasive, it reduced Rama to a sack of flesh
riddled with nothing but pure suffering. He strained and struggled to
maintain his upright stance, his wits, his dignity at least if not his
strength, but he might as well have been that dying animal with its
guts pouring out onto the ground trying to break free of the predator
five times its weight and size. He fought with all his might, but it was
beyond hopeless, it was laughable. He sank slowly to the floor of the
high spot, brain raging with a fire greater than any forge furnace and
felt his body stiffen like rock, his blood slow to a pounding gurgle, as
the commingled shrieking wail of sword and sword-bearer filled not
just his head and senses, but the universe entire.
Faintly, as if from a great distance, he heard another sound. A strange,
inhuman sound such as nothing he had ever heard before. Slowly,
through the fog of pain and sound and blinding brilliance, he realized
it was his own voice. He was sobbing! Not just he, every Ayodhyan
along the wall was crying out, groaning or screaming in agony as they
reached the limits of their endurance and were still tortured.
The pain increased, intensified, to heights that he did not know he
could experience.
And then, when he was certain his skin itself would burst and unloose
his blood like an overripe jackfruit fallen from a high branch, he
reached the limit of his ability to withstand pain and all went dark and
mercifully silent.
Hanuman pressed down in rage and frustration with all his might. Yet
try as he would, he could descend no lower than his present height of
some forty yards above ground. He could barely move for that matter.
It was as if he was wading through quicksand – in mid-air! As with
quicksand, the more he struggled and raged, the more the air around
him resisted and pushed back. He felt as if he was pushing against a
giant winebag filled to bursting point, and while it yielded to pressure,
it would not give away completely, nor was he able to burst his way
through it. The vanar had grown accustomed to being able to use his
preternatural powers to achieve almost any feat he desired in the past
several months fighting for Rama’s cause. Which made this inability
all the harder to accept.
Yet accept it he had to, if only for the present. He looked down and
saw the man turn his wrist again, increasing the intensity of the
blinding light from his sword further, and the screaming wail both
from the man’s throat and the sword itself grew to intolerable limits
even for a being such as Hanuman. He snarled, raising his thick lips to
reveal his teeth. What he would not give for a chance to swoop down
and ram into that man like a hawk descended upon a snake… He
sensed the white man’s awareness of him expand, and thought he
heard a faintly mocking tone in the continual wailing that filled the
universe. Yet the restriction on his own mobility only increased
further, reducing his efforts to a mere sluggish churning of his limbs,
until finally even that grew impossible and he was forced to remain
still, frozen in an absurdly comical posture, like a fly in amber. He
glared down at the man, or rather at the effulgent corona of light that
vaguely outlined the shape of the man and the horse below, and cursed
in the most fervently rude vanar sounds and clicks and burps he knew,
even though no audible sound actually left his rounded snout.
He watched helplessly as the brave Ayodhyans along the wall all
succumbed to the agony of the wailing and the light and the abnormal
hardening of all matter, watched in immense frustration as Rama
himself sank to his feet, the last to succumb, and continued to wage a
silent desperate battle. He watched as finally Rama too was unable to
fight any longer and slipped into open-mouthed unconsciousness,
sprawled on the floor of the high spot. Below, the white rider turned
his wrist once more and then the world exploded with brilliant white
light and Hanuman saw no more of what followed.
Several moments after Hanuman lost consciousness, all was
impossibly still and silent.
Ayodhya lay in a death grasp, shrouded by a darkness greater than
night. The Sarayu Valley, verdant and sunkissed until moments ago,
now lay under a dense pallor that was tinged with crimson. The sky
boiled and seethed with a seemingly endless roof of clouds that were
unlike any natural phenomenon ever seen. The air grew thick and still,
as if the wind itself had been prevented from entering the great city-
state. Not a leaf stirred, not a bird chirruped, not so much as an insect
crept along the ground… The river itself seemed to have turned to
clotted blood, its roaring rush reduced to a choked gurgle. Fish rose to
the surface of the river and lay motionless, floating on their sides with
one eye staring blankly up at the raging sky. Animals lay on their
sides in the brush, in the dappled forests, in trees and burrows and
dens and caves, barely breathing. The air grew fouler as if unable to
move and refresh itself. The atoms of all matter moved slower than
normal, reducing air to the texture of water, water to mud, and earth,
flesh and bone to stone-like solidity. Moving one’s body became a
struggle, breathing became a torturous battle and even keeping one’s
eyes open was now a challenge. What Hanuman had experienced was
also shared by every living being across the land in a large swathe that
extended from the Sarayu Valley outwards to enclose a substantial
part of the Kosala nation itself. Outside this region, life went on as
normal. Within this area, everything that breathed lay unconscious.
Even the creatures in the murky waters of the three moats ringing the
city, the lice on the unwashed hair of the prisoners in the city
dungeons, the parasites feasting on rotting meat in the refuse… all lay
still, silent, senseless. Children slept in gurukuls, women at work, men
at their chores, nothing and nobody was spared. The city slept a deep
shuddering sleep that was no less than death. For none under the spell
of this state could will themselves free of its grasp; nor could they be
woken by anyone else.
Above the seventh gate, Hanuman floated in an absurd posture, frozen
in mid-air like an insect trapped in ancient tree sap. A fly in amber?
Possibly. But amber did not float. The vanar lay suspended in mid-air,
the air hard enough to hold him aloft.
The rider who had identified himself as Atikaya, lowered the sword in
his hand at last. The screaming from his mouth subsided. He brought
the sword closer to his face, the hilt clutched in his palm a breath
away from his lips and whispered softly. The words were in the
ancient rakshasa speech, and had some similarity to Sanskrit
highspeech. But the dialect Atikaya used was like none used by any
rakshasa now, nor did it correspond precisely to the peculiarly unique
grammar of the language of the Vedas. It was a more archaic tongue,
and he spoke it fluently, the alien sounds and intonations rolling off
his tongue smoothly, mellifluously. He finished the incantation and
the light subsided. From a blazing beacon that had illuminated the
night-like darkness now enshrouding the city, it reduced in degrees
until the sword glowed faintly, like a dying ember, then the white heat
receded across the surface of the blade, like ripples of light passing
across the gleaming steel strip, to fade finally into the intricate curves
and slashes of the icons imbedded in the metal. It glowed one final
time, like a just-forged blade, then the last light snuffed out
completely and it was just a blade once more, albeit a whitemetal
blade of no metal known to mortalkind.
Atikaya sheathed the blade smoothly.
He dismounted his horse.
He glanced back at the ranks lined up behind his position, the lines
upon endless lines of armed and armoured soldiers on horseback,
stretching as far down the raj-marg as the eye could see. They
remained in the same unnatural, stiff postures they had been for the
past hour or more, ever since he had called a halt. Their faces stared
blankly ahead, eyes fixed on points nowhere in sight, like men and
women lost in a fugue. Even the ones who had been sitting on their
horses in the frontline with him. Yudhajit in particular bore a frown on
his broad face, as if he had been frozen into immobility at the very
moment when he began to suspect that perhaps, just perhaps, he and
his countrymen had been duped and enrolled in a cause which was not
entirely in their own best interests. Atikaya resisted the urge to snarl a
grin at the man: it had not taken much to talk the Kekayans into
abiding by his scheme; they were always spoiling for a war and
always quick to distrust Ayodhya, in particular Rama Chandra,
because of whom their own offspring Bharat had not been crowned
prince-in-waiting to begin with, and whose exile had rendered Bharat
a king in name only for fourteen years. They had seethed and fretted
with the perceived insult of these events for all those years, and when
an opportunity rose to blame someone for it, especially the man they
considered a rival to their own bloodline, they did not need much
prodding. But aggressive though they were, they were not fools;
Yudhajit had started to suspect that all might not be as Atikaya and his
mother had declared back in Kekaya before his grizzled father’s
throne. The sheer confidence and authority with which Rama had
disputed their assertions was enough to rouse his suspicions. Even the
javelin that had struck Mandodhari so shockingly was not enough to
remove that suspicion from the simple but stubborn mind of the eldest
son of the Kekaya nation.
Speaking of Mandodhari…
Atikaya strolled over to the royal palanquin. Frozen in a tableau like a
troupe of dancers at the end of a royal performance, waiting for the
lights to be snuffed out so they could make their discreet exit, the
rakshasis bent, reached, wailed, clutched, moaned and otherwise
exuded horror and outrage at the plight of their mistress. Within their
midst, Mandodhari lay sprawled on her back, head lolling sideways on
the thigh of one of her servants. Atikaya bent down, crouching on his
haunches. He held the sword behind himself so that it didn’t obstruct
his crouch, and examined the gruesome wound closely. The javelin
had done tremendous damage. His mother’s lungs, liver and other
vital organs had been punctured and damaged terribly, her spine had
been snapped and the sheer quantity of blood lost was enough to kill
her in itself. She was on the verge of death. Only the swordsong had
frozen her in stasis, along with every other living being around,
thereby prolonging her life. The moment Atikaya sang the swordsong
again and broke the spell of maya, Mandodhari would breathe her last.
He mused on that a moment. Perhaps he ought to aid her departure.
He peered at the wound, seeing inside it and into her body with the
extranatural vision he possessed and saw a delicate spot where, if he
nicked a damaged vein with a blade’s edge just so, it would be enough
to finish her off. She would still remain frozen until he sang the world
awake again, but at least once he did, she would die at once. That
would leave her no time to speak any last words, to say anything that
might be potentially damaging to his plans. It would also be merciful
in a sense; she could not be saved, and he would simply be putting her
out of her misery.
He did not wish to use Chandrahas for such a meagre task. The
moonsword was not needed for such a trifle. He looked around, spied
a handblade peeping from the cleavage of a rakshasi aide and tugged
at it, easing it from the soft mounds of flesh in which it lay secure. He
inserted the point of the blade into the open wound, probed around
inside his mother’s gaping ribcage for a moment, then found the right
spot. Just as he was about to cut the damaged vein open, she exuded a
shuddering gasp and her hand shot out, grasping his wrist in a
powerful grip. He almost screamed. Using him as her support, she
pulled herself forward with a mighty wrench of energy and whispered
hoarsely, blood bubbling from her mouth to run down her neck and
disappear into the neckline of her gown.
“Do not forget why your father let you live, Ati. Not to fulfil your own
twisted desires. But to complete his great plan. Even after I am gone,
he will be watching you. Never think—” A mess of something thick
and cloggy choked its way up her heaving gullet and dribbled stickily
from the edge of her lip. She retched, then continued, spattering a
spray of blood as she finished: “— never think he cannot reach out to
you even now and admonish you. Remember who he is. Remember
your given task. Fulfil your part and never—”
A hoarse, wheezing whistle came from her smashed chest and her
eyes bulged, then rolled up into her head. She pitched back, striking
her head against the edge of the palanquin’s carrying pole with a
sickening sound, and lay still. She had released his hand as she fell
lifeless, and he rubbed it ruefully now, smearing the blood and gore
she had left on it. He waited in case there was still one last wheeze left
in her. But she was gone for good this time. He cursed himself for
forgetting momentarily that she would not be bound by the songspell
of the sword that held the rest of the natural world in thrall. How
could she be? She was a moon-mother as he a moon-child. But she
was gone now and there would be no more arm-twisting, ear-bending,
rump-paddling, head-rapping, or other forms of ‘admonishment’ as
she called it. He took satisfaction in wiping his hands clean upon the
hem of her gown, smearing the delicately embroidered rakshas silk.
He rose and turned away, feeling a great burden fall from him.
As he walked toward the gate, he realized that he was now an orphan.
It was a hugely liberating feeling. He grinned as he cracked open the
barred sally port with a single finger touch and savoured the moment
before entering the city of his enemy. An orphan. No Ravana to tell
him what to do and how to do it. No mother to ensure that he toed his
father’s line, or else…
He was his own master now. And he was about to take charge of his
new domain. His home, for a long time to come.
He stepped through the gate and into Ayodhya.

KAAND 3
 ONE

Ayodhya lay in ruins.

Dense pillars of smoke rose up across the breadth of the city,
interrupted by bellows of flame. Damaged houses lost integrity and
crumbled into the smoking wreckage. Bodies and body parts lay
strewn everywhere, an abbatoir of fresh slaughter. Weeping survivors
crawled through the debris, leaving trails of life-fluids. Somewhere a
baby howled, elsewhere a dying dog, somewhere else a confused
caged beast in the royal menagerie, all mourning the same shared loss.
The sky above the city had grown an angry red that was visible for
yojanas around.
Ayodhya the proud, the beautiful, the undefeated, the unbesieged, had
been vanquished at last. Those high walls, moats, towers, valiant
defenders, millennia of military skill and tactical knowledge, all had
come to naught in the end. The enemy had stepped through her gates
unchecked, uncountered. Had worked his will. Ravaged as he desired.
Pillaged. Raped. Brutalized. Using powers greater than any mortal
could withstand – not that any had been given a chance to even try.
For under the thrall of the moonspell, Atikaya had worked his
vengeance in his father’s name. And even the greatest champions –
Bharat, Shatrugan, Lakshman, Rama, Hanuman, countless other brave
yoddhas – had lain frozen in grotesquely humiliating postures as the
son of Ravana had wielded the sword Chandrahas and wreaked the
terrible vengeance of Ravana.
Now, it was all over. A unknown measure of time had passed. Hours?
Days? Weeks? It might have been months or years. It was impossible
to tell from within the circuit of the songspell. For time itself had been
frozen and all that transpired after the singing of the moonsword’s
spellsong had taken place in some unearthly otherworldly haze.
Atikaya had stalked the city’s proud avenues, laying waste to entire
structures with a simple sweep of the greatsword. The Seer’s Eye,
proudest landmark of the city, lay in a heap of rubble, brought down
in a crashing avalanche with a few deft hews and thrusts of
Chandrahas. The royal palace lay in shambles. The great trading
houses, the mansions of the rich, the hovels of the poor, the ghettos of
the less-socially acceptable lower varnas, all lay in battered ruins
together, castes and communities commingled in a common
devastation.
Atikaya walked upon the rubble, Chandrahas still singing its terrible
hypnotic song. A keening sound that rode the uppermost limits of
human hearing and would have set animals barking and roaring in
outrage had the poor beasts still possessed independent locomotion
and voice. It was a terrible, tragic song, for the sword knew what
destruction it had wrought, what horrors it had participated in, what
misery it had unleashed. It sang now for the dead it had reaved in
thousands – nay, tens of thousands, lakhs even. For the lives it had
ended, cut short, hacked down before their righteous time. The
crunching of Atikaya’s boots upon mottled brick and marble grist was
the only other sound that could be heard in the desolate byways of the
ruined city, a depressingly mundane counterpoint to the supernatural
keening wail of the haunted blade. And still Chandrahas sang on: of
darkness and glamour, dreams sliced to shreds, nightmares unleashed,
rich blood let loose upon satin bedspreads, mute beasts and mortals
alike butchered as they lay pinned by the spellsong as helpless as
insects impaled upon pins. Chandrahas sang a dirge for them all. And
for their way of life. Their code of dharma. Their lives and loves and
memories and monuments, their civilization and its itihasa. And yet,
even through its wailing heart-breaking dirge, was a note of lustful
longing. For its work was not yet done. There were still victims to be
despatched.
Atikaya climbed down the side of the heap of rubble that had once
marked the Seventh Watch. The ancient building that housed the
headquarters of the PFs – the Purana Wafadars. It was the first
structure that any visitor encountered on entering the city. Had
encountered. It lay, like hundreds of other proud structures, in a pile of
shattered stones and broken bricks now. And as he stepped away from
it, he faced the seventh gate once more, the one through which he had
entered to unleash his father’s vengeance. Outside that gate, the body
of his mother lay rotting in the dust of the avenue. The long lines of
armed and armoured mortal allies that Mandodhari and he had
garnered through clever talk and fervent appeals and brought to
Ayodhya also stood frozen still, but remained unharmed yet. He
would slaughter them all as well. To send forth the message that all
mortals were to be blamed for the invasion of Lanka and the death of
Ravana. Sympathizers to Ayodhya, or enemies, it made no difference.
The vengeance of Ravana was democratic and pervasive; it did not
exclude anyone. Once the massacre of Ayodhya was done, he would
go on to the other Arya nations, using tactics similar to the ones he
had employed here. Unsheath the spellsong, freeze the denizens, then
slaughter them like trussed-up fowl. Only a vague memory would
remain of the great Aryavarta nations. And smouldering ruins.
After that, he would go on beyond the redmist mountains, to wipe out
the vanar tribes and kingdoms. Then into the deep woods and caverns
to hunt and destroy the rksaas. Chandrahas’s spellsong worked equally
well on all living creatures. By the time his mission was done, not one
furry tree-climber, tree-hugger, or tree-cutter would remain on this
mortal realm. All three races had conspired to assault his island-
nation, his people, his father. All three must be ended, snuffed out as
completely as a wax-stick flame in a darkened chamber.
Then all the earthly realm would be his for the taking, Chandrahas the
beacon that led him onwards to ultimate success. And after Prithvi-
loka, the nether domains of Patalaloka and Naraka, and all the other
hellish realms. And then the Swargalokas themselves, dominions of
the devas. He would achieve what his father had once achieved:
lordship over all three worlds. But unlike his father, he would hold
onto that lordship forever. Not lose it through disinterest and self-
indulgent wantonness. He, Atikaya, would be god of all worlds,
always.
He smiled and raised the sword. Its keening song enthralled him,
caused his heart to murmer within its breast, and it took all his will-
power not to succumb to its seductive lure. Even though as moon-
child he was immune to its power, yet the very affinity he shared with
it made him vulnerable. If Chandrahas and its potent song were doom
to most people, to him they were a seductive drug, tempting and
luring him endlessly. Even now, a mere glance at the blade’s polished
length drew him in like a whirlpool, promising sensual experiences
beyond imagining, fulfillment beyond measure…
He tore his gaze away and forced his limbs to turn the sword
downwards, then, with an exertion of will, he sheathed it. The song
dimmed, yet remained at the periphery of hearing, like a silence so
great that the mind generated ringing and roaring to fill the absence of
stimulus.
He turned and looked at what he had wrought. The toppled towers and
structures of Ayodhya lay before him, a wasteland strewn with the
corpses of his most hated enemies. Fools. They had thought the
resurrection of Kala-Nemi to be the real assault. That was only the
distraction needed to permit him to approach close enough to the city
gate without a full alarm being raised. As it was, the alarm had been
raised, but in the heat of those desperate moments when it seemed
Kala-Nemi would destroy the city, the presence of another crisis had
been diminished and rendered less urgent long enough to let him get
within striking distance. For even Chandrahas had its limits. A
physical limit, that could be bounded by excessively high mountain
ranges containing sufficient mineral and metal lodes. Or a psychic
one, such as could be raised by one of sufficient prowess and spiritual
strength. The saptarishis could resist its power, he knew. But where
were the saptarishis now? The seven great brahmarishis who had
walked the earth since the creation of the mortal plane were nowhere
to be seen now. Vishwamitra, who had been such a bane, and who was
responsible for the awakening of Rama’s own power, had long since
retired to the highest Himalayan peaks, there to continue his long
meditation. Guru Vashishta, as he was known – more famous for his
teaching in recent decades than for his status as one of the great
caucus of Seven – had retired to an unknown location, presumably to
pursue meditation as well. It was what all maharishis did; their source
of spiritual strength. All that power they wielded came ultimately
from the channelling of brahman shakti, and brahman shakti took a
great deal of time and sacrifice to accumulate and store. It meant that
their downtime was considerably more than their uptime. And right
now, not one saptarishi walked the mortal plane. Which meant that
nobody could resist the awesome destructive force of Chandrahas.
Atikaya smiled slyly as he walked towards the gate he had entered
earlier. It was time now to use the terrible sword upon the last
Ayodhyans who survived. The ones he could have despatched the
instant he entered the city, had he chosen. But he had chosen not to do
so: for by leaving them alive, he had ensured that they witnessed
every horrendous deed he inflicted upon their fellow citizens. If not
first-hand, then through the screams and rending cries and other
terrible sounds and after-effects that had ensued once he went on his
rampage of death and destruction. One way or other, they had
remained alive, and frozen into impotent immobility by the sword’s
spellsong, while he had wreaked the vengeance his father had trained
him for, saved him, raised him for. Ever since he was a babe, Atikaya
had known that one day he would go forth and do this: today was that
day. It was his only purpose in life. And neither Ravana nor
Mandodhari had ever let him forget it.
As he walked towards the place where the survivors stood frozen in
their absurd poses, he thought that the years of being kept secluded in
his underground residence had been worth it. Seclusion so extreme
that his skin had lost its pigmentation from lack of sunlight. In his
own way, he had endured penitential seclusion too. Except that his
years had been spent not in meditating in cross-legged silence upon a
Himalayan peak, or subvocalizing the sacred mantra Aum infinite
times, but in bonding with the forces that would someday aid in the
destruction of his father’s foes. This blade that hung now by his side,
had been won through accretions of moon-metal gained ounce by
precious ounce over the 17 years of his own existence. The mineral
itself had been sweated out of his own blood, after being acquired
through exposure to moonlight via a secret well his father had created
especially for the purpose – a thousand feet below ground, under the
bosom of Lanka, he had lain spread-eagled nightly, naked, absorbing
moonlight, while chanting mantras of his scholarly pater’s own
composition. Ravana’s mastery of the vedas and knowledge of the
smriti texts – the secret lore of Sanatan Dharma – had been poured
into the creation of great, immensely powerful mahamantras. And
those mantras, when chanted by Atikaya himself while exposing
himself naked to the moon night after night – effectively offering up
the vessel that was Atikaya’s own being, conceived and birthed under
precisely auspicious moon signs and constellations, had enabled him
to draw the shakti of the moon itself into his pores. It had been agony
indescribable: to draw in moonlight itself and convert it within his
body into metal… he still shuddered now as he recalled those
torturous nights that seemed to never end. At the end of each moon-
cycle, he had felt his entire being luminous with energy, possessed of
power indescribable.Then of course had come the draining as, drop by
precious drop, the moon-metal had been drawn out of his body, and
eventually, they had possessed enough to forge into a sword. And
now, here was the sword by his side, and he its wielder. And this the
day of reckoning.
He drew the sword now, its song more plaintive, more filled with lust
and longing and seductive greed than ever before.
For it knew that it was about to slice the veins and drink the blood and
end the lives of its greatest enemies ever.
Atikaya stepped forward, his smile a snarl of anticipatory satisfaction.
It was time to kill Rama, his wife, his brothers, their mother.
Time to end the Suryavansha Ikshwaku line.
And to begin a new line. The race of Ravana upon Earth.
He chuckled. His laughter mingled with the screaming howl of
Chandrahas as he approached the place where Rama’s blood-kin all
stood frozen and helpless, and he raised the sword to deliver the most
crucial part of his father’s vengeance.

TWO

Bharat watched with impotent fury as the glowing moon-sword rose

in a high arc. The blade blazed with that same mercurial fire, beyond
bright, impossible to look at directly. He was frozen at an angle that
enabled him to see the weapon that would end his life, yet bent over in
a manner that exposed his bare neck, inclined at an angle. A man
sentenced to decapitation could hardly have been better positioned.
The instant Chandrahas fell, it would separate his head from his body.
Somewhere within the frozen immobility of the spell that held him in
check, his shoulder still throbbed faintly. Or perhaps it was the
memory of the pain that still remained to torture his imprisoned
senses. Either way, he could do nothing but watch at this absurd,
twisted angle as the moon-sword fell upon his neck and severed him
from life.
He could not see the sword itself. The sheer brilliance of the blazing
light emanating from it dazzled his vision, blinding him. All he could
see
– like a man caught in a thick fog glimpsing silhouettes and shadows
in the haze – was that the roaring screaming brilliance was rising up to
hand’s breadth above the Lankan’s head, then pause before beginning
its inevitable downward descent.
But before the sword fell and parted him from existence, something
thumped to the ground behind Atikaya. Bharat could not see the
rakshasa’s features, but from the pause in the smoth movement and
the shimmering flickers of the energy-bathed weapon, he could
deduce that the son of Ravana was puzzled too. What was that dull
thumping sound? What had fallen? And from where?
Mercifully, the blazing sword turned away from Bharat, as Atikaya
glanced back over his shoulder. There was a very long pause and
when Atikaya spoke again, it was in a tone that left no doubt of his
reaction: he was shocked!
“You?”
Bharat’s eyes might not have been able to look past the dazzling
beacon of the moon-sword. But his ears could hear just fine. What
they heard in that single word spoken aloud was incredulity,
inadvertently expressed and completely sincere.
He has been taken by complete surprise, Bharat thought. Whoever that
is behind him now, he wasn’t expecting it.
Feeling some small satisfaction in the rakshasa’s response, Bharat
used his peripheral vision and mental judgement to observe rather
than clearly see Atikaya turn to look at the new arrival. The blinding
scream of the spell sword diminished a little – but even a little was
some blessed relief
– as the rakshasa turned his back on Bharat in order to face his new
enemy. “How did you—?” Atikaya began, then stopped. “It’s
impossible,” he went on finally. “No one can withstand the glamour of
Chandrahas.”
Footsteps now. Soft, slow, measured. Crunching the gravel that lined
the inside of the wall in a swathe several yards wide, to enable the
heavily laden carts of merchants carrying precious produce to the city
for the weekly market to pass unharmed.
Then the footsteps ceased. Close by. And even without being able to
see past the ardour of Chandrahas, Bharat sensed that the person who
had leaped down from somewhere above had stopped just a few yards
short of Atikaya.
“None,” repeated the person, agreeing. “None except someone who
also has moon blood in their veins.”
Silence from Atikaya. The rakshasa stood with his back to Bharat, and
even without being able to see past the blinding blaze of maya shakti,
he could tell that the rakshasa was struck dumb. And that, he assumed,
did not happen often to the son of Ravana.
“Of course,” said Atikaya slowly. Then chuckled. “Of course! You too
have moon blood in your veins. Because after all, you are my blood-
kin. I knew that!”
“Say it then,” said the other voice. “Say it aloud, and acknowledge
what is true.”
“So be it,” the rakshasa replied, recovered from the initial shock far
faster than Bharat would have expected. “You are my one and only
surviving—”
“—sister,” Sita said stepping forward, her sword lowered and held at
an angle, poised to strike upward, for while Arya men favoured the
brute strength of arms, back and shoulders gathered together by
hacking downwards, a woman’s body – even a warrior of Sita’s skill
and mettle – was best served by slicing upwards at a diagonal angle,
under the guard of a man, the point of the blade sent piercing home
into the softness of the armpit and thence onward to the heart
chamber, or at the very least cutting a deep gash at the point where
even the best fitted armour must yield space to allow for the wearer’s
movement. She held it two-armed and angled as she moved towards
Atikaya, on feet that seemed to tread on invisible beetles softly
enough not to cause a single shell to crack, her face lowered, eyes
hooded by the fringe of hair over her forehead, dark eyes burning in
the white slits, petite nostrils flared, breath steady.
“That is your story,” she said. “And a fine one it must make to put
sleeping rakshasa babes to bed at night. But here in Ayodhya it has the
ring of a poorly written poem. There are better tales told in the
drinking houses in the old quarter, where the kusalavya bards know
that a tale well told could mean supper that eve, and a tale that
displeases the hardworking hard-drinking boisterous audience would
result in—” she shrugged. “Well, going to bed without supper would
be the least of their complaints that night.”
Atikaya cocked his head, very much like a dog listening to his master
perform some peculiar vocal feat. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, sister
dear,” the last words spoken so sweetly they came out as the opposite
of a sneer yet managed to convey the same derogatory tone, “but there
are neither drinking houses left in Ayodhya now, nor an old quarter,
nor kusalavya bards, nor any hard-working hard-drinking boisterous
—”
Sita laughed. Atikaya broke off in mid-sentence, and even without
being able to see his face, Bharat knew that the rakshasa’s reaction
was one of utter surprise. He wished he could smile to show his
satisfaction at the ease with which his sister-in-law threw her head
back and laughed full-throatedly.
“That asura-maya may fool everyone else,” she said when her mirth
was exhausted. “But it has no effect on me, young brother.”
Silence from Atikaya. A smouldering, brooding silence that smelled
of growing rage.
Sita strolled sideways, let the tip of her sword almost touch the dirt –
almost, but not quite, which showed that the weapon remained in her
control, and thus ready to strike despite the casual pose – as she
manoeuvred into what Bharat instinctively knew was a better position
than the earlier one. “It was a very clever plan indeed. Perhaps too
clever.”
She stopped and glanced at the frozen figures suspended in the grip of
the sword’s spellsong. Bharat sensed her gaze pass over his own face,
felt the frisson of connection briefly, before moving on. Measuring her
odds, weighing her strategy: God, but what a formidable general my
bhabhi must be on the battlefield!
“But you overlooked one major factor,” she said, turning her attention
in the general direction of her still-silent opponent without looking
directly at him. “True, the ruling dynasty of Ayodhya comes from the
Suryavansha Ikshwaku line. And their alignment to the sun-god Surya
makes the bloodline most vulnerable to the power of Chandrahas,
moon-sword. But you forgot that they are also related to the line of the
Chandravansha dynasty, from which my own adoptive father Janaka
of Mithila hails. And from that line they have a connection to the
moon as well.”
Atikaya remained silent, standing stiffly and watching Sita as she
roamed and spoke, neither yielding any expression nor giving away
his reactions through movement or twitches. Yet that very lack of
response was in itself the most vocal response of all. He is left
speechless, Bharat thought with growing hope. And that’s surely a
good sign. If nothing else, at least his sister-in-law had shut off the
rakshasa’s boastful, offensive gloating.
“And that connection,” Sita said, glancing up at Atikaya now, her dark
eyes flashing intensely as they met his, undisturbed by the blinding
glare of Chandrahas even at this close distance. “is one you would
have done well to recall in time. Before you launched this pathetic
deception and miasma of illusion like a cheap fair-day conjurer.” She
gestured toward the gate off to the left, “Before you killed your own
mother to precipitate an imaginary breakdown in ‘negotiations’.” She
tossed her head in a clipped feminine shrug of impatience. “Oh, don’t
even bother to try countering that. I know that the javelin came from
the direction of our ramparts, but that too was illusion. In fact, it was
thrown by yourself and made to seem as if it came from another
direction through the use of Chandrahas’s shakti – bending the light
itself to create an optical illusion.”
Bharat would have exclaimed aloud at that revelation had he been
able to do so, and it would have elicited and deserved one of his
choicest abuses. He killed his own mother? That was low, even for a
rakshasa. Even for the son of Ravana. It also meant that this Atikaya
was a lethal opponent and not one to be trifled with. He felt a faint
seed of unease and hoped Sita knew what she was doing, toying with
an enemy so perverse, so powerful.
“But that was not the end of your cheap mela-day jiggerpokery,” Sita
said, settling into a stance not unalike the one she had first presented –
but with a much better angle of approach, Bharat noted approvingly.
“After that, everything else you ‘did’ was pure illusion.” She gestured
with an inclined head at the city behind her, still burning and
smouldering and in ruins. “All this. The devastation of Ayodhya. The
rape of an Arya nation. This is no more real than your absurd claims
and allegations made earlier. True, you hold a great weapon in your
unworthy hands. True, Chandrahas is capable of wreaking such
devastation – far greater than even this spectacle, were it real. And
true, Ravana did have a vengeance he prepared for and carefully
nurtured over millennia – not mere years or decades or centuries even!
But that vengeance, and Chandrahas’s role in its execution, and your
own part, were not intended to be played out in this manner. Nor were
you to take matters into your own hands thus. And for doing so, and
for ignoring your own father’s wishes and deviating from his carefully
manicured plan, you will pay a price. You know this already, of
course. I am merely reminding you.”
“Stop!”
The word was a high-pitched squeak of protest. A panicked denial and
appeal from a nervous adolescent. Atikaya’s hands trembled visibly as
he lowered the moon-sword to point at Sita. The glow blazed out
towards her, obscuring her and that entire field of view in its brilliant
blaze. Without being able to see them clearly, Bharat sensed that the
rakshasa’s hands were trembling now. Sita-bhabhi’s words really hit
their mark! Can it really be true? All that she just said? But if it was
true, then it begged the question—
“How could you possibly know all that?” Atikaya asked, his voice
higher pitched than before, breaking at the end of the question.
“How?”
Sita smiled. Or at least Bharat assumed she did. “I know more than
you think, my naïve and foolish brother. I know that your mother and
you were in fact sent here as envoys to propose a new world order,
one in which Ayodhya and Lanka would be allies, and all Aryavarta
would unite into one harmonious empire to be ruled not by a single
king but by a table of kings. It would end wars between kingdoms,
between chieftains and factions, and unite the mortal realm into one
great empire ruled by mutual trust and peaceful harmony. That was
Ravana’s genius: To use his own defeat in order to generate sufficient
sympathy to unite the entire world. And because Rama was
responsible for Lanka’s decimation, he would feel compelled to
comply. All kings would. Those who refused would be seen as
churlish at best, and hostile to their neighbours at worst. In a single
brilliant stroke of statesmanship, all mortalkind would be brought
together and compelled to work together in peaceful unity hereafter. A
legacy so great, it would be remembered for all time to come.”
She raised the sword, pointing it at Atikaya. “But you disagreed. For
such a move would rob you of your chance at glory. This was not the
‘vengeance’ you had been raised for, which you had dreamed of since
you were a child. You wanted blood and spoils, rape and reaving,
plunder and land, dasyas and power alliances. Under this new world
envisaged by your late father, you would be just another diplomat in a
world of diplomats, reduced to roundtable discussions and heated but
ultimately peaceful talks. All words, no actions. No spoils! No loot.
No gain. No glory. That would not do, not for you. So you played
along until the last moment. And then, you turned the tables. Your
mother would have blustered and spoken a few more harsh words,
levelled her accusations and allegations. But once her anger and
frustration had burned out naturally, she would have capitulated and
laid before all the master-plan of her late husband. That was what you
would not let happen. And so you turned coat. You killed your
mother, and used her death to justify the destruction of Ayodhya. And
now, by killing Ayodhya’s ruling family, you would remove the
greatest obstacles to your own plan. Leaving nobody formidable
enough to stand in your way as you achieved the goal you felt you
were born to achieve: Mastery of the entire mortal realm!”
Atikaya shuddered, whether from unbearable anger or fear, Bharat
could not tell. The rakshasa’s voice was still trembling with nervous
anxiety when he spoke: “I still don’t understand. How could you
know all this? And what do you mean, this is all an illusion? I
destroyed Ayodhya. You can see it for yourself, smouldering in ruins.
It’s gone! Surely you cannot deny the evidence of your own senses!”
Sita laughed again. “Even you aren’t foolish enough to have entered
the gates of your enemy, left him standing alive behind you, while you
plundered and looted his city. Even if he was under the spell of
Chandrahas. Killing Rama is the first thing you would do upon
entering these vaunted gates. And it is the first thing you were about
to do just now – before I interrupted your reverie.”
She glanced back over her shoulder and to Bharat’s amazement, the
smoking fires, the crumbled edifices, the decimated towers, all
resolved themselves in one shimmering, melting moment – back into
a fully solid, perfectly intact, unharmed and untouched Ayodhya once
more. He swore mentally as he realized that it had all been an illusion
– or some kind of day dream within the perverse imagination of
Atikaya himself, and through the power of the moon-sword, it had
been transposed to the minds of all those under the spell. Only now,
because they knew it was not true, their minds were able to see the
city as it truly was. Pristine and undamaged.
Sita continued. “You merely stepped in through the gates, paused a
moment or two to let your imagination play havoc – which sick vision
was communicated to the minds of all those under Chandrahas’s thrall
– before turning to step this way to despatch one by one Rama and his
family. Had I not been able to shake free of the moon-sword’s
spellsong, you would have finished your dirty deeds and then gone on
to do exactly as your perverted mind envisaged.”
She hefted the sword, swung it this way and that, as warriors often did
from time to time to prevent muscles from stiffening. “But here I am.
And here you are. And your wicked deviation from Ravana’s original
plan will end here and now before it goes any further.”
Without further ado, she leaped forward and attacked the rakshasa. By
rights, she ought to have brought him down with her first blow.
Instead, her deftly-swung sword merely clanged off an invisible
shield, rang out with a terrible ear-splitting burring sound, and was
twisted out of her hands to be sent flying yards away. Sita exclaimed
and bent over, nursing her wrist which Bharat knew must have been
badly twisted by the force and angle with which her sword had
bounced off the invisible obstacle.
And then, to her surprise, and Bharat’s as well, Atikaya threw his head
back and laughed. As open and full-throated a laugh as Sita herself
had emitted only moments earlier. Gone was all trace of nervousness.
The rakshasa sounded now as if it was he, not Sita, who had been in
full command of the situation all this while.

THREE

Sita stared at Atikaya. The rakshasa laughed and laughed until tears
spilled from his ghostly grey eyes. The tears were viscous and treacly
and though they seemed colourless in themselves, the fluid trickling
down his skin appeared greenish in hue. The moon-sword, still held in
his hand, blazed and burned without pause, but the shade of its
emission seemed to change hue from blinding white to a faint
greenish grey as well, a sickly hue that pulsed steadily in rhythm to
his laughter. Finally the son of Ravana stopped laughing and looked at
Sita. The sword’s spellfire blazed steadily.
“Girl,” he said. And now the high-pitched voice of a few moments
ago was gone, replaced by a gruff growl, like a young fox threatening
a rival. “For girl you will always be, no matter your age in years. You
mortals can never fully understand how pointless is your opposition to
the asura races. We have walked the earth since before the dawn of
your species. And we shall walk it again aeons after you are but ashes
and crumbled bones. Your futile resistance only strengthens us by
weeding out our weakest specimens. Yet even the strongest among you
cannot face up to the might of our greatest warriors! For we wield the
secret to ultimate power. The way of brahman channelled into fleshly
artifice. For ages untold we have studied to perfection and mastered
the art of manipulating the eternal cosmic energy in ways your feeble
human minds can never imagine. This is how my father was able to
forge Chandrahas. How he raised an army of asuras great enough to
invade and conquer the realm of the devas as well as Naraka. And he
would have conquered the mortal world too, if not for the accidental
happenstance that benefitted your husband.”
Sita forced herself to speak without betraying any trace of hesitation
or fear: “It was no accident, nor happenstance. It was Brahmarishi
Vishwamitra’s deep knowledge of Vedanta that enabled him to pass on
the smriti shloka summoning the terrible power of the brahmastra.
And it was Rama’s unwavering sense of dharma that enabled him to
utter that shloka. He unleashed the greatest astra ever devised and
wiped out your father’s evil hordes before they could accomplish their
invasion. One man. Alone against untold asuras. And he alone stood
alive at the end of that encounter.”
Atikaya issued a sound that was neither human nor animal, but
resembled something between a lion’s cough and a horse’s snort.
“Believe your girlish fairy tales if it helps you stay sane. The truth is,
everything that happened, from Rama’s birth itself and before it, right
to this very moment, was planned and meticulously put into place by
my father. The genius of Ravana engendered the very existence of
Rama Chandra. For without Ravana, there could be no Rama. And
without Rama, we would not be here today. Nor, perhaps, would the
world itself.”
What did he mean by that? Even Sita could not fathom those cryptic
words. Yet she sensed that despite his nauseating arrogance and nerve-
rasping tone, he spoke without any trace of deception. She pushed the
thought aside. There would be time later to muse over and analyze;
now, it was time to turn this confrontation back to her advantage, and
quickly. She did not like the way Atikaya had pretended to be cowed
at first, then turned the tables on her so abruptly. She must regain
control of the situation. Too much depended on her doing so.
“You can weave your myths and fancies all you wish, rakshasa,” she
said coldly. “It does not change the fact that you went against your
father’s wishes. That you murdered your own mother because you
knew she would not cooperate with your change of plan. You are
nothing but a rogue and a renegade seeking to aggrandize yourself by
vaulting piggyback over the great history and painstakingly acquired
shakti of your great father. Yes, I acknowledge Ravana’s greatness,
though it sticks in my gullet to even speak his name. He was a great
king, a great master of the Vedas, a mighty brahmin and a devout
Shiva worshipper. All his immense shakti came from the same sources
that empowered Vishwamitra, Vashishta and the other saptarishis who
walked the earth since time immemorial. But he corrupted the use of
brahman shakti. He turned it to the devises of asura maya. For self
acquisition. Personal gain. Lust and avarice. Greed and profit. Rape
and reaving. Conquest and subjugation. These were not acceptable
under dharma and by violating dharma he violated the natural order of
the universe itself. Therefore he had to be stopped. Had not Rama
stopped him, some other champion would surely have risen to do the
needful. Ravana’s time had come. Rama merely happened to be the
right person in the right place – and Ravana’s abduction of me the
mistake that cost him his life.”
Atikaya smiled, flashing teeth so flat and blockish they seemed
incapable of biting or tearing even the softest food. Teeth quite unlike
that of any rakshasa Sita had ever seen. Yet there was such menace
and forbidding in that grin, it made her pray she never had those teeth
at her own throat in a fight.
“That is where you are mistaken, queen of Kosala,” he said in a voice
suddenly reduced to a very normal – almost human – level and tone.
The transition was as shocking as if he had ratcheted up to a louder
rather than softer level. “And that mistake, and that lack of acceptance
of the truth, and that yawning gap in your otherwise impressive stable
of knowledge, is what will cost you your husband’s life. For all this,
this mad bloody game of kings, is but a small part of the greater dance
being performed at the end of days. And we but bit actors in a lavish
production. The real drama is elsewhere. Offworld. The real war is
being waged in other realms, other times, other universes. Your
husband, the one you still foolishly believe to be Rama Chandra of
Ayodhya, is there, fighting those battles, waging those wars. Not
entrapped in this minor realm in that flesh cage you recognize and
assume to be his only form. I said this before and I say it again now,
and mark my words for they are true: Rama is not Rama. Ayodhya not
Ayodhya. This world is not what it seems. Nothing is as it appears.
And we are pathetic unfortunate beings banished out of our true time
and place and the worse for it.”
He raised the moon-sword and as Sita watched with bewilderment, it
pulsed stronger and stronger, its blazing effulgence growing to an
impossible degree, bathing Atikaya himself in a wash of dazzling
white light tinged with grey and green in swirling patches. And as its
light increased, so did its song.
“I know now how you knew what you knew,” he said, his voice
slowly overwhelmed by the rising shriek of the swordsong. “You were
able to channel the flow of the chandra-shakti. The power of the
moonsword. And since my consciousness and the sword’s are one,
you were thereby able to read the contents of my uppermost thoughts
as well.” He chuckled wistfully. “That is how you were able to discern
everything that was in my mind. A simple yet effective device and one
that threw me off-guard for a brief moment, I admit. But that was the
extent of your ability. The moonsong that burns in your veins can do
no more for you. Your puny Mithila steel toothpick cannot match the
power of Chandrahas. Nothing and nobody can. And now, it is time
for me to complete my small part in this very great game. Time for me
to slaughter your husband in this flesh form, and his entire family and
dynasty. And then,” he glanced towards the city behind her, “then I
shall unleash the vengeance that you glimpsed in my vision before.
And this time, Ayodhya shall truly fall. And burn to ruination.”
He held the sword in both hands now, and chanted a mantra that was
drowned by the deafening banshee wail of the swordsong. Sita cried
out in agony as the waves of energy rammed into her senses like a
stone wall falling and she sensed dimly that the sword had fallen from
her hands. Then her knees struck the dirt and her forehead bent over
until it touched the ground, obeising herself against her will to the
deity that was the moon Himself incarnate now. This amsa of
Chandra-deva. The progeny of Ravana. Her brother in blood if not in
spirit and intent.
“BEHOLD!” Atikaya’s voice rang out with the clear sharpness of a
metal hammer striking a clear brass bell. “BEHOLD THE
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA!”
And he matched word to deed, bringing the sword down to cleave the
ground itself with a force that shook every bone in Sita’s body and
threw her a dozen yards up into the air, flying backwards like a pebble
slung from a catapult to land in a shattering impact. Then she saw no
more.
Everyone frozen by the spellsong of Chandrahas watched and listened
with impotent horror as Atikaya brought the moon-sword down with a
mighty force, smiting the ground and cleaving it like a woodaxe
cleaving a chip. The ground beneath their feet shuddered under the
impact and a great crack appeared in the great avenue that led from
the foremost gate into the city. The force was great enough that the
vibrations caused buildings to tremble and dust and plaster to fall in a
shower. Had the entire populace of Ayodhya, and all fauna in the
Sarayu Valley itself not been frozen by the asura sorcery, the shock
would have drawn a reaction no less than an avalanche or an
earthquake. As it was, the world shuddered visibly and the crack in
the ground spread in outwardly radiating ripples, creating a spiderweb
tracery into which the dust and gravel of the avenue crumbled and fell
in a steady shower. Dust rose up in a blinding cloud, and when it
settled several moments later, there was a roughly Y-shaped jagged
crevasse some fifty yards in length and as much in width. How deep
the crack ran below ground, it was hard to tell, but an observer
standing on the rim looking down would have seen nothing but
darkness for several yards downwards.
Sita lay crumpled across the far side of the crevasse, rendered
unconscious by the force with which she had been flung and fallen.
Had she struck a wall or post at that speed, she would no doubt have
broken her back and body. As it was, she lay bruised and battered, but
merely unconscious, not seriously hurt.
Or so Rama assumed. And hoped. And prayed.
Sita’s boldness in facing Atikaya alone was breathtaking. But his heart
had been in his mouth when she had moved of her own volition,
shrugging off the spell’s miasma, climbing down the stairway, then
leaped down the last few yards to land on the street and confront the
rakshasa armed with nothing but an ordinary sword. A Mithila sword
against Chandrahas? A mouse battling an elephant would have stood a
better chance: at least the mouse could slip into the pachyderm’s trunk
and block its air and food passage; it could do something. Sita could
have accomplished nothing by that risky manoeuvre. It made Rama
seethe with impotent anger that she had put herself and their unborn
children into harm’s way without any forethought or expectation of a
successful outcome. But he could not deny that it also made him
proud. She was truly a queen of Ayodhya. A monarch of the Kosala
nation. And she had proven that yet again, this time in full view of all
those whose opinion counted in this kingdom. That would go far in
helping her gain the trust, love and respect of everyone – if she
survived.
But she hadn’t stood a chance against the son of Ravana. Nor did
anyone else in this land. Not so long as the young matricide carried
that sword.
The first order of business was to take that sword away from Atikaya
before he could wreak havoc with it and fulfil the terrible nightmarish
vision that he had forced all their captive minds to share only a short
while earlier. Or, if it was not possible – or too costly in terms of
collateral damage – then the next best tactic would be simply to
negate the power of the sword itself, render its epic shakti utterly
meaningless…
By countering it with an even greater weapon.

FOUR

Atikaya laughed.
The rakshasa was in his element. Nothing, nobody, no power could
thwart him. Ayodhya lay before him like a calf beneath a naked blade.
Prithvi-loka itself lay unguarded beyond. Soon, he would achieve
even greater glory than his father ever had. He would rule the three
worlds for all time to come. With Chandrahas he was indestructible.
And once word of the slaughter and havoc he was about to unleash
upon Ayodhya spread, few would dare oppose him. The world would
open before him like an oyster offering up its prize.
The crack in the ground he had cut open with a single downstroke of
Chandrahas yawned wide, running like a jagged streak of lightning
away from him. Had he chosen, he could have made a crevasse large
enough to swallow entire buildings – or half the city. But that would
be too simple. He intended to make the most of his time in Ayodhya.
The Unconquerable? Not to Atikaya! The Conquered, it would be
known as henceforth. He chuckled at his own wit and hefted the great
sword, relishing the thrumming power of chandra-shakti that sang
from the face of the open blade and reverberated through his entire
being. It evoked powerful lusts within his libido, and he licked his lips
in anticipation of the havoc he would wreak today. Finally, he would
reap the rewards of a childhood and youth spent in silent patient
suffering and preparation. All he had been until now was a weapon of
vengeance, a weapon created, tooled and honed by his father and
mother. Now, he was to be unleashed. And he would show no mercy,
give no quarter, yield not an inch.
A sound rattled through the roar of shakti that enveloped him, cutting
through the raging song of Chandrahas like a bell heard faintly from
across a valley. He frowned. Had that foolish woman regained
consciousness? Did she really think she could stand upto him for even
a fraction of an instant? He glanced in her direction: No. There lay her
body, still crumpled in a heap. She was stone-cold unconscious, or
worse. Which was all to the better. For he craved tastier meat than
that. His cravings were far deeper and darker than mere flesh-lust
could satiate. He desired the dark secret terrors of the flesh that to
most mortals resembled the workings of hell-demons. After all, he
was a rakshasa, was he not? And he had 17 years worth of abstinence,
deprivation and isolation to make up for today. And in the days and
aeons to come.
Again that sound.
What was that?
He turned his head to seek out the source.
And saw the man standing in the centre of the sprawling avenue. A
dark-skinned skeletal-thin man in a ragged dhoti. Some kind of
religious priest, the kind that sat in deep jungles or high mountaintops
and meditated till they were skin and bone, surviving on spirit alone.
What were they called? Sadhus? Rishis? Munis? All of the above?
This sadhu looked like he had until recently been covered in some
kind of unguent and had wiped it all off hurriedly – most of it anyway.
His skin also looked raw and tender, as if he had been exposed to
great heat very recently, a flame great enough to blister and peel the
skin off. His eyes were bloodshot, his weight supported upon a
charred staff that looked like it had been turned almost to coal in a
fire, and his striking egg-shaped head was denuded of hair, as bare as
his beardless face. The man had definitely been in a fire quite recently
and looked more like a sickbed patient than even the average
wandering mendicant begging for alms.
Atikaya grinned, feeling the energy pouring out of his mouth, wafting
on his breath, tingling in his fingertips and toes, waiting to burst free.
“What do you want, old one? And how is it that you’re able to
withstand the song of the moon-sword?”
The painfully thin rishi – or perhaps he was a sadhu? Was there a
difference? – leaned heavily on his blackened staff and raised his head
a fraction. Enough so that his eyes met Atikaya’s gaze levelly. Instead
of showing fear or the abject terror that ought to have been there as a
mark of respect for the one who wielded Chandrahas, there was only a
sad bewilderment. A look of loss. As if the old sage was looking at an
animal or something to be pitied rather than the most magnificent
rakshasa ever to walk the streets of Ayodhya – perhaps the only
rakshasa apart from great-uncle Kala-Nemi who had played such a
significant part earlier this morning.
As if reading his mind, the rishi said aloud, “Your father’s uncle did
his part well. I will admit I too was duped by the appearance of Kala-
Nemi, dramatic as it was. I assumed that it was the crisis I had
dreamed of these past several months. The great and terrible crisis to
befall Ayodhya that would change the course of mortal history
forever. But in fact, the resurrection of Kala-Nemi from the subworld
of Naraka into which he had been relegated was merely a ploy, a
clever conjuror’s trick to distract the city from the real enemy
threatening it this day. And that was you, son of Ravana. Kala-Nemi’s
cleverly staged resurrection, timed to the minute, was only a ruse to
distract Rama and his family from the army approaching the city. Had
they not been occupied by the crisis at their very gates, they would
surely have thwarted your arrival and brought matters to a head long
before you could approach the city proper. But as it so happened, they
were kept occupied long enough for you to move into position, close
enough to work your asura-maya and unsheath the sword where it
would work most effectively.”
The rishi gestured towards the main gate of Ayodhya, to his left and
now to Atikaya’s right. “Yet, even that army outside only serves the
purpose of minor pieces in a game of chaupar. I see your shrewd plan
now. After you wreak your havoc, you will leave those allies of
Ayodhya to take the blame. And thereby cause the outbreak of an
internecine war between the Arya nations, even as you continue to
freely rove the mortal realm and rape and pillage and destroy at will.
A clever plan it is. And one that you probably feel is foolproof. But of
course, the only fool who is proof against that plan is yourself, son of
Ravana.”
Atikaya was sure he had misheard. Surely the tottering, half-dead,
starving-thin old man had not just called him a fool? But he had of
course. What impudence. What folly! He began to lower Chandrahas
in a threatening gesture towards the old rishi. To his surprise, instead
of blanching with fear or turning tail and running for his life, the
brahmin mortal actually looked as if he had expected Atikaya to do
just that and continued speaking unperturbed.
“Yet there are greater plans than your little boy’s game. Laid out since
before the beginning of time, some of them. By minds greater and
quite unfathomable to one such as you, or to most beings for that
matter. Those plans are the maps by which the course of human
history moves, along predestined paths and byways. Nothing is truly
random or unexpected, not even randomness itself. Even the tiniest
flea nipping at a horse’s flank in a remote stable serves a purpose. Not
necessarily a purpose of any particular benefit to the flea or the horse,
but to the plan itself.”
Atikaya almost giggled. What was the old man blathering about?
Fleas and horses?
“You’ll make a nice bed for the fleas to nest in very soon, old one,
if Chandrahas leaves enough of you for the fleas!”
And he levelled the sword without further ado. Enough of this
nonsense. He had waited long enough for this day, this moment. He
had no intention of being interrupted any further by a brainless old
sage mouthing incomprehensible inanities.
Chandrahas spat a swell of blue flame. A jagged bolt of blue fire shot
out from the tip of the moon-sword and struck the old man with an
impact that flashed like lightning striking a lone tree on a
mountaintop. Atikaya turned away without bothering to even look at
what remained. He leaped across the crack in the earth he had made,
landing on the far side with a spring in his step and glee in his heart: A
great deal of killing to be done and a whole city filled with people to
do it too.
The blow caught him totally unawares. One moment he was striding
towards a band of armoured soldiers in the distinctive purple-and-
black uniform that most of the Ayodhyan gate-defenders were clad in,
intending to start by despatching the frozen men with a few deft flicks
of the moon-sword. The next moment, he was hurtling sideways
through the air.
He struck the wall of a structure made of stone with force enough to
rattle his bones.
That’s impossible. I should not even feel any impact, with
Chandrahas in my hands, its energy protecting me.
He slid down the wall, scraping the side of one arm painfully against
the rough stone – “Aaah!” he cried out, the pain shockingly
unexpected and inexplicable – and landed on bent feet that crumpled
underneath, toppling him face first onto the dusty avenue. He spat out
dirt and rubbed the back of one hand savagely against his mouth, his
rage mounting uncontrollably.
“Who do you think you’re playing with here?” he shouted. “Do
you know who I am? Do you realize the power of this weapon I
have? What it can do to you?”
There was a soft chuckle that was more growl than laugh and even
through the dust of the avenue he saw the familiar unmistakable shape
looming large.
“I KNOW,” said the impossible ten-headed form rearing up through
the dervishes of dust that had suddenly sprung up out of nowhere,
accompanied by a chilling wind that was at odds with the near-noon
sunshine that was still blazing down. “I KNOW BECAUSE I
CREATED BOTH. THE SWORD. AND YOU, MY SON.”
 FIVE

Valmiki gazed at the figure that loomed, topping even his own two
yards height by almost another full yard, and was almost as wide. That
rack of ten heads, each with its own distinctive features and
personality, its own independent voice and mind, that neck as thick
and knotted with powerful muscle as that of a Himalayan stag, that
chest as broad as the chest of three warriors, those arms one above the
other, each moving independently, veined with wiry muscle and stony
sinew. And that voice. At once gravel and granite. Thunder and
wolves. Bear and breaking rapids. Once heard, it could never be
forgotten, he had heard it said. Even though it was the first time he
had had occasion to hear that mighty rack of voices speaking, he knew
the legend was true.
Ravana was a being to behold.
One head of the Lord of Lanka turned to glance in Valmiki’s direction,
whispered something to its companion heads, and then the great torso
twisted as the rakshasa turned, his central head staring directly at
Ratnakar. A strange sensation, like cold water washing across his
spine and nerves then evaporating instantly, then he felt sweat break
out on his face. His skin still felt raw and scalded. But the unguent
Hanuman had used had worked a miracle: he suspected it had been
part of the cache of precious herbs that the vanar had brought back
from the secret mountain and used to provide succour during the
battle of Lanka, or so he had heard. It was beyond belief that he could
be so well recovered barely a few hours after suffering such
unspeakable burns. And he did not feel all well. Yet he could stand
and move of his own volition, with only some discomfort. And that
was all that he required. The events transpiring here today were
historic; it was the reason he had come to Ayodhya after all. Whatever
the consequences to himself personally, he could not lie in a sickroom
while this terrible pageant unfolded.
Ravana’s gaze lingered on him a moment then turned back to its main
quarry, Atikaya. The young rakshasa was a being in shock. He stood
gaping open-mouthed across the crevasse he had cut with the moon-
sword, at his father. His surprise and horror were evident, and were
only to be expected.
“But you are dead,” he said incredulously. “I saw you die on the field
back home in Lanka. Everyone did!”
Ravana’s voice rolled and crashed, like thunder in distant ranges.
“Indeed. I died. And am still dead in your timeline.”
In your timeline. A curious choice of words.
“But I am not present in the Ayodhya of your day and time. I am
standing in Ayodhya of long ago. So long ago, that there was no
Ayodhya as you know it. No Arya nations. No Lankan city. No
rakshasa race even. I am in a time before civilization rose upon this
realm. An age when the gods still walked the earth freely, and we who
came to be called a-suras later, were still suras, or allies of the
devas.”
Ravana gestured behind himself. “This is the place where Ayodhya
shall someday rise.”
Valmiki peered curiously at what lay behind Ravana. It took him a
moment to realize that it was not the same as the rest of the vista
before his field of vision – because it was merged so perfectly with
the real Ayodhya around it, it seemed the same, but on closer
inspection, it was quite evidently a different world. Or rather, the same
world, same place, in a different time. An older, much older, time.
He saw a landscape that was more primordial than any he had seen in
his living memory. It was still the Sarayu Valley. But it was densely
overgrown, in a way that he had glimpsed in the deep jungles of
Janasthana during the years he had fought alongside Rama’s valiant
band of outlaws and rebels against the rakshasa hordes. Not the dense
yet human-occupied Sarayu Valley of today. The woods rolled across
the entire length and breadth of the river’s banks without relief. There
was no raj-marg, no sentry towers, no gates, no moats, no structures –
and no people. None at all. Nor any signs of human presence – flora
grown to provide for human needs, for instance. He could not know
for certain, for it was merely a brief glimpse, but somehow he sensed
that it was an age when no mortal beings had begun to appear on
Earth. Perhaps not even most of the other races of animals, fish and
fowl. Merely the verdant realm of Prithvi Maa herself, gardener
supreme.
His gaze passed on to the air to either side of Ravana and he noted a
peculiar phenomenon. The air shimmered and warped in two places,
one on either side of the rakshasa lord, as if the lines where the old
world and the new met were conjoined together with a slight
imperfectness. Beyond the warped air and light of those two lines,
extending vertically to meet in a kind of vaulting overhang like an
insubstantial arch in which Ravana stood centred, the world of the
present was visible. Where the world of the present met the old time,
all modern details – buildings, wall, frozen soldiers – vanished
completely.
“I stand here upon the site where Ayodhya shall be built someday,”
Ravana’s rolling voice said. “Not in the here and now that you occupy.
But in another place and time, millennia before the time and place of
my death. I speak to you from the past, Atikaya. From a time when I
was not much older than you are now.” He chuckled sonorously.
“Well, in a manner of speaking. For while I am not 17 at this moment,
relatively speaking it is in the adolescence of my long lifespan. A
mere few centuries of age.”
And it was true. For though Valmiki had never met Ravana in person,
yet like all famous personages the rakshasa lord was legendary
enough that his description down to the most minute detail had been
repeated often enough in Valmiki’s hearing over the decades for him
to realize that the figure standing before him was a much younger
Ravana than the one spoken of in the present age. It had been widely
known that the rakshasa lord was many years old, whether hundreds,
thousands or – as some rumours had it – tens of thousands of years, he
did not know for sure. But Ravana had just confirmed the rumours. A
mere few centuries of age. In the adolescence of my long lifespan…the
past…the site where Ayodhya shall be built someday. Ayodhya herself
being at least six centuries old, that would make the rakshasa lord a
millennium old, perhaps millennia even?
Valmiki saw Atikaya glance furtively around, his eyes flicking
nervously like those of a man coming to terms with an unexpected
development and trying rapidly to figure out a way to factor it into his
plans. He glanced in Valmiki’s direction but his gaze passed over him,
not seeing a threat worth noting. Nowhere near as great a threat as his
ten-headed father returned from the dead. The next words out of his
mouth betrayed his own sense of guilt and self-loathing, as obvious as
in a child caught torturing a household pet.
“I was only…” Atikaya’s tongue flicked out to lick his lips, the latter
faintly greenish-grey, the former distinctly purple, in keeping with the
rakshasa’s unusual colouring. “…undertaking the task with which you
entrusted me, father. The mission for which you created me and
prepared me to undertake.”
Ravana made a sound of dismissal. “This was not that task. Nor the
manner in which the actual given task was to be carried out. You
know that as well as I do. Even from this remote time, I have the
ability to open portals into your day – or rather, a single series of
portals integrated vertically in one timeline, a vortal as I term it.
Through this vortal, I have been watching and observing you closely
ever since you left Lanka, as I thought you might try something as
puerile and juvenile as this. In a sense, you haven’t disappointed me at
all. You have just done what I expected you to do.”
Atikaya’s eyes continued to flick left and right, even as his voice
feigned an injured ego and a tone of accusation: “You spied on me?
You do not trust even me, your own son?”
“I trust nobody,” Ravana replied, unperturbed by the outburst.
“Especially not my own son. The history of the rakshasa nation is a
history of patricide and regicide. Often both directed at the same
person.”
“Yes, but this is the task that you—”
“Shut up.” Ravana’s voice was mild, almost off-hand. “Don’t bother
with pointless denials and don’t try to buy yourself time to think
yourself out of this one, boy. I’m not going to punish you for your
mistakes and your excesses. Besides you haven’t done much – you
haven’t done anything, in fact. Killing your mother…” Those
powerful shoulders shrugged. “Well, matricide is almost as common
among our people. No, that is not what brought me here.”
“Then why are you here?” Atikaya asked nervously but with growing
reassurance. Ravana’s last words had gone some way in giving him
his self-confidence back. That, and the fact that the lord of rakshasas
was not roaring and venting fury at him by now.
Valmiki was looking at Ravana when the lord of Lanka – correction,
the erstwhile Lord of Lanka – replied. “To ensure that you do nothing
to harm my lord and master.”
Atikaya frowned, blinking in amazement. “Your Lord and Master?
You have none! You are lord and master of the three worlds. You won
that supremacy for yourself when you fought and defeated both devas
and asuras and wrested heaven and the underworld both before
moving on to Prithvi-loka and subjugating it to your thrall as well. “
“That I am,” Ravana admitted. “Yet there is one to whom even I bow
and pay allegiance. And with my death, I am finally free to do so
openly and without fear of diminishing my own stature. For in the
plane that I currently occupy, I am free to walk between worlds,
between ages, between moments of itihasa, as I please. That is the gift
and power of my great lord.”
Atikaya chuckled, a sound that mirrored his father’s laugh only
moments earlier, yet was less mature and baritone in inflection. “I
never thought the day would come when you would acknowledge
anyone greater and more powerful than yourself.”
“That is because you know very little about me, son. Almost nothing,
in truth. On the eternal plane, I have always been subservient to my
lord and master. His greatness is everlasting, his glory undiminishable.
All that I do, have done, or will do, is only in his name and serves
only his purpose. I am but a small piece upon the chaupar board of his
infinite game.”
Valmiki would not have believed he was even hearing the words
Ravana had just spoken. As it was, had they not been delivered with
complete sincerity and conviction, he would have laughed at them
outright. But Ravana’s sincerity was undeniable. Apparently, there
was a being that even the lord of all demonkind – for what else were
asuras to mortals if not demons – revered and adored. Who could this
being possibly be? What great and powerful asura did Ravana bow to
on the eternal plane?
Atikaya’s voice betrayed the young rakshasa’s own scepticism. “Who
is this great being whom you obey then, father? Pray, share his name
with me if you will.”
All ten of Ravana’s heads smiled in unison. They were vastly differing
smiles – one was near a smirk, another a reluctant sneer, yet another a
puzzled frowning grin – but they were smiles nevertheless. “Why,
son. He is right here beside me. It is to open this vortal for him to
enter through that I have come here today. He will join us in a
moment once he completes another pressing task in another
dimension in another age. For his work is infinite, his responsibilities
untold, his dominions uncountable. These minor events unfolding in
Ayodhya in your own time are virtually insignificant in comparison
with the vast infinity of concerns that occupy him. He can spare but a
moment to address your predicament, then he shall move on to other
more pressing matters, therefore I come to prepare the way for him
and represent him in all matters of detail and explanation as required.”
Atikaya posed a sneer of his own, closely mirroring the sneering head
on Ravana’s rack. “If he is so all-important and all-knowing, why
does he trouble himself with these minor events at all then? Come
now, father. Admit it. You are only playing one of your elaborate
mind-games with me. I will not be fooled. There is only you and you
have come to punish me for taking matters into my own hand and
using my own initiative to unleash your vengeance in a manner of my
choosing. That is the truth, is it not?”
Valmiki watched as Ravana shook his many heads and chuckled. A
deep-chested, rumbling chuckling. “Ah, youth. Your folly and your
utter, complete self-conviction. How blissful it is to believe that what
you see, know and assume is the be-all and end-all of everything.”
He stopped chuckling and waved his right hands dismissively. “But
you will believe in a moment, when my master arrives. For everything
that occurs in every plane is under his watchful eye. Not a leaf drops
from a withered branch, not a seed germinates or a sperm quickens
within a woman’s womb without his mandate. His is the world and
everything in it. He is the universe supreme – past, present and future
all rolled into one. He is the infinite one, the master of dharma, keeper
of all Creation, and I serve him willingly and with immense pride.
And in a moment, he shall arrive and you too shall look upon his
glowing visage and believe too. For nothing and no one compares
with my master. He is god of gods, deva of devas, and even I, Ravana,
bow before him and obey his every wish and command.”

SIX

For a brief moment Valmiki wondered if Ravana was either delusional

or pretending to be delusional. There was, he knew, a very thin line
between religious ecstasy and mental imbalance. He had seen rishis
engaged in ghor tapasya for decades lose all sense of reality over time,
coming to believe in ludicrous and arcane philosophical theories that
they themselves would have considered untenable under normal
circumstances. But this was Ravana. If he was imbalanced, then he
had been born that way! Ravana’s exploits, his legend, his very
physical being were beyond the norm in every sense. Perhaps, just
perhaps, he meant what he said. One thing was certain: he believed
that everything he said was true, whether or not it really was. Valmiki
could see the sincerity shine in the young rakshasa lord’s eyes – all his
pairs of eyes – glistening with tears of adoration as he spoke
eloquently and passionately of his absent lord. Valmiki had seen that
look often before: It was not the look of a forest-crazed fanatic. It was
the look of pure devotion he had sometimes, if rarely, seen upon the
faces of those who had experienced a direct tryst with a deity.
Slowly, a suspicion began to dawn upon Valmiki. No, surely it cannot
be. It was impossible. Yet that look on Ravana’s face…
Suddenly, a shirring sound arose. A great wind swirled, raising dust
clouds around both himself and Atikaya. The whole world seemed to
grow silent, as if in respectful adoration. Even the beating of his own
heart in Valmiki’s chest seemed to slow, until it was a thud every
several moments… as if time itself had been stretched and distorted
and forced to a fraction of its usual pace. He tried to turn his head but
the turning promised to take forever and he knew that some
exceedingly powerful supernatural phenomenon was in progress,
something greater than anything he had ever experienced before. He
felt a great uprising within his being, an elevation of the sense of joy,
gratitude, love – the positive emotions. He felt as if all things, visible
and invisible, were beautiful and beyond censure or question. He felt
as if all his worries and anxieties for himself as well as for others,
were petty, insignificant, of no consequence whatsoever. He felt as if
the entire burden of living, existing, questing, desiring, wanting,
longing, seeking, hungering…all the paraphernalia of everyday
mundane existence…were suddenly rendered pointless and irrelevant.
He felt the burden of his negativity rise up, threaten to choke him,
crush him, weigh down upon him like a bear standing upon his
chest…then lifted away abruptly, gone forever. Not merely removed,
but deleted from existence. As if everything he had ever feared,
desired, dreaded, anticipated had been wiped clean. As if he now
faced life once more anew and with the freshness of a newborn babe
just come into this natural world. Not even the burden of past lives
weighed him down. His aatma felt free and unencumbered. He felt as
if he could go anywhere, do anything, live. Live. Live!
Then the sudden flurry of wind settled. The shirring sound, risen to
deafening cacophony, subsided. The silence grew to a terrible,
beautiful, mind-numbing symphony of natural silence. Not the
absence of sound. But the presence of an experiential elevation so
pure, so great, so beautiful that it made his heart sing, his very being
delight and dance with euphoria. He felt the primordial joy of living.
The unadulterated happiness of a young lamb frisking gaily across
rocky crags on a high Himalayan peak, following her mother’s deft
hoofs, unaware of the potential for death by falling or death by
predator or illness or old age, aware only of the sunshine on her soft
downy fur, the crisp clear cold energy-giving air, the delicious aroma
of soft, newly risen grass on the patches where the snows had receded
with the approach of spring, and the accompanying bleats and calls of
her brethren all around her, and like that young lamb, he felt his eyes
rise and look upon the approaching vision of the being Ravana
described as his lord and master, god of gods, deva of devas.
And his world changed forever.
Sita felt her consciousness return as if from a great distance, like an
arrow flying through an endless tunnel. Yet the arrow struck abruptly.
One moment she was at the bottom of the long tunnel, the next she
was awake and blinking dust out of her eyes. She sat up, feeling her
twisted wrist send out pulsating waves of agony; she was able to
ignore the pain through discipline mastered through long years of self-
abdication. She took in her circumstances in a single glance: the
frozen tableau, the songspell holding all Ayodhya in thrall still very
much in force, remained much as it had been before her loss of
consciousness. The new events and sights that now met her gaze were
the crack in the ground where Atikaya had struck with the moon-
sword; Atikaya himself, crouched at the foot of a wall some twenty
yards away, staring in shocked disbelief; Maharishi Valmiki, somehow
recovered from his terrible burns (though his skin still betrayed a
scalded look as if the skin itself was newly grown and still tender and
pinkish-black), standing beyond Atikaya, staring at the same thing
that shocked the rakshasa so, but with a different look in his eyes.
Unlikely as it seemed, the maharishi’s gaunt dark face bore an
expression of intense adoration. Like a devotee gazing upon the
impossible miracle for which he had prayed a thousand years yet
never truly believed would ever come to pass.
Then Sita turned her head and looked at the impossibility herself.
At the ten-headed being that stood beneath an arch of peculiarly
distorted light and air, clearly the product of some manner of powerful
sorcery. The impossible, terrible, ten-headed being that she had never
expected to see again except in nightmares. The sight of whom sent
great surges of terror coursing through her veins and made her entire
being scream in silent agony far, far greater than any physical wound
or impairment could ever cause.
Ravana! Here!
How could it be possible? Surely she was in the throes of some
nightmare now. Like the nightmare that had plagued her as a young,
fifteenyear-old princess in her bed in Mithila that one night, back
when life had been so simple, and the future had stretched limitless
and full of possibility. That night too, he had seemed palpable, as if he
had been present there in her very sleeping chamber; and when the
nightmarish vision transported her bodily to that high fortification
upon that dark storm-tossed island and she had looked down upon that
massive army boarding an armada of warships, it had seemed real too.
Yes, surely this was a nightmare just as that had been. Just a bad
dream.
But she knew that was not the case. Whatever this was, it was real. As
real as the agony in her twisted, perhaps broken, wrist. As unbearable
as the knowledge that she had tried and failed to halt Atikaya’s rape of
Ayodhya. As heart-wrenching as the dread that filled her at the sight
of Ravana himself. As plaintive as the pounding of her heart as she
stared at the nemesis of her entire existence.
Ravana was really standing there, a mere two dozen or so yards from
where she crouched nursing her injured wrist. And he was not quite
the same Ravana she had last seen in Lanka. This being was younger.
How much younger in actual years she had no way of knowing, for
she knew that rakshasas did not age as mortals, and Ravana was
unique even among rakshasas. But much younger in actual physical
development. His many faces were all, the absence of wrinkles and
deeper set eyes, greying brows, healed scars and myriad other little
details all informing a single overarching conclusion. Yes, this much
was certain: This Ravana was not the same being who had abducted
her from the sanctity of their humble domicile in Chitrakut and borne
her away to Lanka in the golden Pushpak. No, this rakshasa was a
younger Ravana, from a much earlier age. A time when she herself
had probably not been born, or maybe not even her ancestors! Most of
this she sensed rather than knew for certain, yet she felt sure that she
was right.
And he was not looking at her. Seemed to be barely aware of her. Was
completely preoccupied with something or someone to his right,
although Sita could see nothing and nobody there. Which was
something that gave her great relief. She did not think she could bear
it if he turned and stared directly at her. She might lose all self-control
then and fly into a demoniac rage herself, launching at him with no
thought or care for her own life or the consequences. Because that
creature, that beast, had altered her life forever. The bastard! He had
changed everything forever, just when things had been about to settle
back to normal after thirteen long years of exile.
Then an even stranger thing happened.
Ravana bent down and knelt upon the naked ground, his knees
crunching the dirt, powerful thigh muscles bunching as he bent his
great torso until not one or three but all ten of his heads touched the
dirt of the Sarayu Valley, obsequiescing himself the way a devout
believer might do in a temple of his deity.
And even as he did so, the deity Himself appeared.
The world hummed in Sita’s ears. A chorus of song exploded inside
her mind. A great indescribable sense of joy, adoration, relief – too
many intermingling emotions to even describe individually, an
outpouring of beauty and delight and life-affirming ecstasy – swept
her up. The pain in her wrist vanished instantly. She felt her entire
being surge with life and vigour. The life – the lives – within her
womb shared her ecstasy and kicked and gurgled within their watery
paradise. And she found herself stupefied as she watched the form of
something completely beyond all imagining appear before Ravana’s
obeisant form, shining and resplendent beyond all description.
The archway that loomed above Ravana shimmered and pulsed with
rainbow hues, showing itself to be clearly some manner of portal. A
Vortal, as Ravana had termed it. It crackled with great rolling waves
of energy that traversed from one side to another then back again, like
a patch of oil upon the surface of a lake reflecting a rainbow in the sky
overhead. The crackling and rolling reached a crescendo, then blazed
out in a gout of hot white flame – the frozen soldiers by the seventh
gate who were in the path of the gout of flame felt its heat upon their
frozen bodies, intense and searing, yet could do nothing but stare
dumbly like wooden statues. As suddenly as it shot out, the gout of
flame retreated and died, as if absorbed into the shimmering, oily air
between the arching sides of the Vortal.
In the centre of that gateway – for a gateway it was, in its own fashion
– stood a being like none other ever seen by all those present. Nor
would any of them be graced by such a vision or presence for the rest
of their living years. None except one of course: Rama. But he was
still frozen like everyone else and was only able to watch mutely the
extraordinary events unfolding here below.
What stood in that archway now. That gateway. That Vortal. What
stood there was no man.
No mortal.
No demon.
No rakshasa.
It was a deva.
Not just a deva.
The deva.
He who possessed the power to end all Creation itself. To perform the
Tandav. The Dance at the End of Time. The Dance that would
demolish all reality, signal the end of the Day of Brahma. Paving the
way for the Wheel of Time to turn once more and a new Day to begin,
with Creation renewed, refreshed, re-initiated.
Father of Ganesha. Paramour of Parvati. The Eternal One. Last of the
Trimurti. Dweller atop sacred Kailasa peak. Wearer of animal skins.
Self-anointed (as he was now) with ashes from cremation grounds.
Cohabitor of graveyards and cremation ghats. Friend to ghouls,
vetaals, danavs. The first yogi, creator of the art of yoga.
Destroyer of worlds.
Effulgence blazed forth from his very pores, like the rays of a sun
brought close enough to touch. A terrible, merciless, searing light, a
veritable river of shakti that blasted forth and burned everyone and
everything around.
There was a moment.
An infinity contained within a single breath-space.
A fraction of time.
A beat between heartbeats.
A pause so miniscule it could not be measured.
A crack in the surface of time so infinitesimal that it could not be seen
by the naked eye – or by the aid of any magnification.
In that moment, the One who had arrived through the Vortal spoke.
And Ayodhya listened.

SEVEN

Reality returned like a roaring of rapids. Rama felt as if he had fallen

asleep in his bed at night and awoken to find himself in blinding
sunlight upon a raft tossed madly by a brutal white-water river,
rushing headlong towards a great waterfall.
He gasped in air, sucking it in so fast he choked upon the first breath,
like the very first breath he had once taken upon exiting his mother’s
womb.
Even before his mind had accepted the end of the unnatural stasis that
had held him in thrall, he was moving. Instinct drove him forward
before logic and reason returned.
He stopped.
He looked around.
He turned.
He was not upon the high spot. At the seventh gate.
He was in his bed, in his private chamber, sitting upright, arms tight
with muscled tension, fists balled, body wound and ready to spring, to
attack, to fight.
The covers lay bunched around him, in disarray. Sunlight blazed into
the chamber from the verandah where someone had only just this
moment levered up and tied the drapes, letting in the daylight. From
the angle and intensity of the sunlight bathing the chamber, it was full
morning. The person who had opened the drapes stood in the
verandah, her back to the chamber, gazing out, a soft tune upon her
lips. Sita.
He looked at the space beside him and saw the place where she had
lain only moments earlier. He forced his arms to relax, his fists to
unclench, and slowly lowered his hand, placing the palm upon the
bed. Still warm.
He forced himself to breathe more regularly, to calm his combative
instincts. There was no threat here. No enemy. No danger.
He rose from the bed, tossing the covers aside, and walked to the
verandah. He shielded his eyes with the back of one hand for a
moment as his eyes adjusted to the gaudy sunlight. The sun was warm
and pleasing on his body, evaporating the cool sweat that had broken
out on his bare torso. Sita sensed his presence and glanced over her
shoulder in a mildly coquettish way.
“You look like a cat fallen on its back instead of all fours,” she said,
teasing.
He tried to speak, found he had to clear his throat, did so, then said, “I
did.”
She turned a frowning smile upon him. “Meaning?”
He shook his head, releasing a long breath. “I did fall…or thought I
did.”
She was concerned. “Are you well?”
“Yes.” He made a hoarse sound, cleared his throat. “Yes. I am myself
now. Just…” He shook his head as if unable to put it into words. “It
was beyond strange. Just…a very odd dream.”
He stood up, stretching and twisting to get the kinks out, then went to
stand before the verandah. She joined him.
She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, her bare skin upon
his feeling deliciously sensual yet completely innocent. “Tell me
about it. I had a very strange dream too. I suppose you could call it a
nightmare even.”
He put an arm around her shoulder. “Perhaps we shared the same
dream. Do you think that’s possible?”
“Anything’s possible,” she gestured at the open verandah, at the
cloudless deepwater-blue sky beyond, at the city laying sprawled out
for their viewing pleasure. “This is Ayodhya.”
“Yes,” he said, picking up on her playful tone. “And a fine city it is.”
He looked pointedly at her profile as he said, “There are none fairer in
all Aryavarta. Perhaps even all Prithvi-loka.”
She raised her eyebrows but kept her profile to him, eyes fixed on the
view. The morning light was warm on her face, reminding her
unexpectedly of the sunshiny glade by the river in Chitrakut where
they had once sat and bantered playfully much like this – how long
had it been since then? Too long. “Well, perhaps not the finest of all,”
she admonished archly. “That position I would leave for Mithila the
jewel of the Videha nation.”
Rama inclined his head. “Spoken like a true Videhan.”
“But it is a fine city, there’s no denying that. Almost as fine as
Mithila.”
His face twitched in a smile. “Gracious of you to concede that,
Vaidehi. So what brings you to the Kosala nation?” he said, adopting a
teasing playfulness.
She played along. “Oh, various matters. Some personal, some of
commerce.”
He nodded so exactly like the merchants in the Trader’s Market in
downtown Ayodhya, sombre and pensive as they totted up incredible
sums and potential profits and losses in their head while trying not to
let the slightest emotion show on their faces, that Sita had to stifle a
giggle. When he leaned his elbow with exaggerated casualness against
a pillar, feigning a very unsuitable cockiness, it was all she could do
not to laugh out loud. “Incidentally, it may interest you to know that I
am familiar with the Queen of this fine city.”
She arched her eyebrows. “How interesting. I know the King.”
They looked at each other a moment. He attempted to arch his
eyebrows too, to mimic her. He knew he must look ludicrous: playful
expressions were not his strong suit. She made the mistake of looking
too closely at his face and burst into uncontrollable peals of laughter.
He waggled his eyebrows at her, compounding her hilarity.
“Oh Rama,” she said. “That was priceless. You looked like a tiger
trying to digest an inedible meal!”
He smiled. “Good. Perhaps then I need to change my diet.”
“I think we both do.”
He nodded. They were not talking about food.
He smiled again. “I need to work on my happy faces now. We both
do.”
“True, true. It has been too long since we made use of them, has it
not?”
“Too long.”
They looked at each other. The sun shifted a fraction, shining now on
Sita’s upper arm and chest, and it felt like a benediction bestowed by
Suryadeva upon her, literally warming her heart.
“Good,” she said warmly. “Because you’ll have need of them.” She
patted his arm. “Not to worry, my love. I’ll give you some tips.”
“That would be very nice of you—” he said, then broke off at her
expression.
Turning, he looked in the direction of her gaze. The verandah had
been empty a moment ago. Hanuman stood there now, hanging his
head in embarrassment.
“Forgive me, my lord Rama,” said the vanar gruffly. “I meant no
disrespect. But it is urgent.”
“It’s all right, my friend,” Rama replied. “I know it must be, or you
would not be here. What is it?”
The vanar kept his gaze averted and pointed downwards as he said,
“There is something you must see at once. I have just come from the
far end of the Valley, from the first yojana stone. It is the most
peculiar phenomenon I have ever scented in all my years.”
Rama glanced at Sita. She made a moue of curiosity too, saying,
“What is it, Anjaneya? What did you see there? And you can look at
me, I’m quite decently attired, thank you.”
At the mention of Sita’s attire, Hanuman’s pale yellow face fur
seemed to turn a deeper golden shade in embarrassment, and though
he did look up as requested, his eyes immediately sought out Rama
and fixed on them intently. “I do not have words to describe it, my
Queen. It is best if you both came with me and viewed it for
yourselves.”
Again, Sita and Rama exchanged a glance. He saw the same thought
flash through her mind: If it was not very urgent, perhaps even of
critical importance, Hanuman would never have climbed up to our
private chambers unannounced in the first place. Whatever this thing
is, it must be very important, quite likely a matter of life and death. Or
of Ayodhya’s survival, said a voice inside his head. He could still see
the terrible vision of the city in ruins after the young rakshasa in his
nightmare had run havoc through it. What was that creature’s name
again? It eluded him now, but the ghastly memory of the city
destroyed was etched on his consciousness immutably. It was the only
thing from his nightmare that he clearly recalled now; the rest was
already wisps of smoke and fragments in the clear light of day.
“Very well, then,” he said, knowing he spoke for both of them. “We
shall come at once. Lead the way.”
The horses whinnied and reared as they came around the curve in the
rajmarg. Rama had to pull down on the reins with some force to still
them, and even then they tossed their manes, twisting their heads from
side to side, eyes rolling up to reveal the whites.
“It would be best if we left the carriage here,” Hanuman said quietly
as he dropped down from an overhanging branch. The vanar had raced
them here despite Rama’s chariot having the fastest team of Kambhoja
stallions; a distance of some miles, and yet he was not even winded.
“Chariot,” Rama said, absently correcting him. Hanuman had urged
everyone to constantly correct him when he erred in any way,
however slight. He rarely did: his occasional slip-ups were invariably
with relation to things that had no counterpart in vanar culture, hence
had no vanar term for them. Transports were among those. The very
idea of enslaving and harnessing other fellow animals for the sake of
their own transportation was anathema to vanars; it hurt their sense of
pride to even contemplate such cruel self-indulgence.
“Chariot,” Hanuman repeated softly, memorizing the word. He led the
way around the thick sala tree that grew at this particular point on the
raj-marg, forming a blind curve which compelled all users of the royal
highway to go around it with extreme caution. Sita felt a tingling of
anticipation and understood the nervousness of the horses – she could
hear them whickering even now behind her, and thought that had
Rama not had taken the time to tie their reins to a post, they might
well have turned around on their own and raced back to Ayodhya.
Even she could sense something. Her skin prickled. She reached down
instinctively, touching the hilt of the sword she had strapped around
her waist. There were weapons in the chariot too: javelins, an
unstrung bow, a quiver with steel-tipped arrows, a mace. She wanted
to suggest to Rama that perhaps they ought to bring at least the bow
and quiver. Just in case…
But Rama was already rounding the sala tree, ducking his head to one
side to avoid the drooping roots. She saw him straighten his neck,
look ahead, and stop. Beside him, Hanuman stopped as well, and
folded his hirsute arms across his chest, as if silently saying, see.
She didn’t want to take the last few steps that would bring her
alongside them. Didn’t want to see what lay beyond the curve, what
new disaster, crisis, challenge or conflict now loomed in their lives.
She wanted to be back in the bed-chamber with Rama, looking out at
Ayodhya, bantering and flirting like just-met lovers, content in each
other’s company, the sunlight warm upon her face, a beautiful day
ahead, a beautiful life…
A peaceful life.
She knew that whatever lay there, beyond that curve, would change
this day. Would shatter this peaceful, lazy calm. Would make
bantering and flirtation impossible. Would draw a dark coverlet of
threat over this warm sunshiny morning.
Yet she had no choice. She was Queen now. And a queen of Ayodhya
did not frolic and flirt when crisis loomed; she stood in the frontline,
gauging the threat, preparing to meet it head-on.
She stepped forward, stepping to Rama’s left, onto the gentle rise that
acted as a natural ledge overlooking the downslope to the riverbank,
and looked at what Hanuman had brought them here to see.
Her breath caught in her throat. She had no basis to comprehend what
this meant. It was beyond the realm of any possibility or probability.
Beyond anything she could ever have imagined, ever. She almost
wanted to knock her elbow against the sala tree to her left just to
wince and know she was still awake, not dreaming.
“What does it mean?” she asked softly. “What is it?”
Rama and Hanuman were silent for a long moment. Finally, Rama
spoke slowly, as if he too was coming to terms with the sight and
accepting reluctantly that he was awake and truly seeing what he was
seeing, “I…” he began, then stopped. “I think…” he began again, then
paused.
“I think it is the end of the world,” he said at last.
They gazed together at the phenomenon.
Sita tried to explain the sight to herself. To use logic and language to
make the shock of vision more palatable.
They were standing on the shelf of rock upon which the sturdy old
sala tree had taken root decades earlier. Behind and around to their
right, like the incurve of a bow, the raj-marg curved, leading steadily
upwards and out of the Sarayu Valley, thence towards Mithila Bridge
and the border of her father’s kingdom, Videha. From here, they
looked down upon a plunge of some ten or fifteen yards to the
riverbanks. The Sarayu flowed in good strength, its steady roar so
much a part of the background that Sita had already learned to ignore
it in order to pay heed to other sounds. A rock in the centre of the
flow, tumbled there years earlier either through mortal intervention or
natural cause, caused the onrushing waters to splash and throw up a
high wash of spray that drifted on this gentle breeze to limn Sita’s
face.
Several yards further downstream, at the point where the river rushed
through a natural tunnel, disappearing for several dozen yards before
reemerging on the far side to begin the headlong downhill race to
Mithila Bridge where the upflung spray was no more gentle but a
steady cloud of mist that hung over the structure at all times, lending it
an air of mystery and majesty.
But before that point, before the tunnel began, something new had
appeared.
A peculiar shimmering phenomenon hung in mid-air, barely a yard or
two above the surface of the rushing river. It was hard to describe for
Sita; the closest she could come to words was an arched entrance. Yes,
that shimmering thing, gleaming with refracted light in a complex
spectrum with more subtleties of shade than any natural rainbow,
roughly took the form of a great arch, several yards high and perhaps
three or four yards wide. It resembled the victory arch that most Arya
cities had, and through which returning war heroes were paraded
before being felicitated by their kings and queens. But it was made up
of shimmering rainbow-hued light, insubstantial, impossible, yet very
definitely there.
As Sita watched, something began to happen. The space within the
arch crackled and was shot through with veins of interlocking rays of
light of different hues. The effect resembled a calm lake surface into
which a pebble had been dropped, causing ripples. The ripples
increased, multiplying and increasing in intensity as if more pebbles –
or larger stones
– were being thrown at a rapid rate. Sita wanted to step back, afraid at
what might follow this peculiar phenomenon. She had never seen or
heard of its like before in her life. What is that thing?
Rama glanced at Hanuman. “Was it doing this when you saw it first?”
Hanuman shook his head slowly. “Nor was it there at dawn this
morning. It only appeared perhaps half a paw before I came to report
its presence to you.” Vanars measured the passing of time in widths of
a paw raised overhead to measure the sun’s or moon’s progress across
the sky. ‘Half a paw’ would probably mean about one twentieth of a
day. “I thought it best to report it to you directly, my lord.”
Rama put a hand on the vanar’s shoulder. “You did well, my friend. In
reporting it to me, as well as in being discreet.”
Sita wanted to correct Rama, to say aloud that she wished now that
she had insisted on bringing along armed PFs, instead of dismissing
their personal guard as Rama had done, quite curtly when Saprem
Senapati Dheeraj Kumar had grumbled openly about the king himself
disregarding safety protocol. She wasn’t sure if a few quads of well-
trained, well-armed soldiers would make any difference if that thing
hanging over the river proved hostile or dangerous, but their presence
would have made her feel better right now, especially if she was
correct in guessing what was happening.
“Something is coming through,” Rama said, echoing her own
realization. The shimmering arch had begun blazing and crackling
with increased agitation and it was evident that some major change
was about to take place. Already she could see something forming in
the central space – was that a mortal figure?
“Or someone,” she added, then waited, breathless.

EIGHT

Old friend.
The words were not spoken. Rama felt them as a vibration within the
bones of his chest, thrumming and humming in the very marrow, as if
the means by which they were communicated went far beyond oral
speech, was in the realm of blood and bone, flesh and life-force. He
felt the ensorcellment holding him in thrall melt away like an ice floe
washed down the Sarayu in spring. He could move once again. But to
his surprise, when he attempted to climb down the ladder of the high
spot, he found his limbs responding oddly, as if he were moving
through deep water rather than air. Even as he tried to make sense of
what was happening, he felt himself rising, rising, and looked down to
see the high spot already yards below, and his feet unanchored to any
firm footing. He was floating in mid-air. As he had seen Hanuman do
many times. Speaking of Hanuman, the vanar too was freed and
floated now beside Rama. The golden furred face gazed with some
puzzlement at Rama who inclined his head, blinking once for
reassurance. The vanar nodded in response, resigning himself.
Together they floated in the grip of the strange new shakti that was
now controlling their physical forms – and were deposited, as gently
as feathers, upon the ground near the spot where Sita stood, staring in
abject amazement.
The light bathing Sita’s profile, blazing white light tinged with blue
and shot through with myriad hues, was like no natural light Rama
had ever seen before. It was like light one might see in a dream, not in
reality. Blazingly intense, yet with no apparent source. It seemed to
come from nowhere and everywhere at once. And there was that
sound. Like a humming. But not quite. More of a…sussuration. Like
an invisible ocean made of something other than water. Or the sound
of countless voices all speaking at once, but heard from a very great
distance, till they were all reduced to a single concatenated shirring. A
chorus of apsaras could not have sung as sweetly.
The instant he found his feet again, he went to Sita. Touching her
forearm gently to avoid hurting her injured wrist, “Are you well?” he
asked softly.
She failed to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the being that had
come through the Vortal. Rama said again, more insistently, “My
love? Vaidehi?” But she still did not answer.
So finally he turned to look at what she was looking at.
At the light.
The blinding, blazing, eye-searing light.
And the instant he looked, the light faded away, and was extinguished.
And only a figure stood there, looming above the still-prostrated
Ravana. A figure as dark-skinned as Rama himself, despite the ashes
smeared across his body. With a throat as dark-mottled blue as deep
midnight sky. A serpent coiled around that stained throat – neel kant –
unwinding and winding its coils as it pleased, hood bared, forked
tongue flicking and hissing. His hair matted in a hermitic bun above
his head. And that face. The face. With the third eye nestled in the
centre of the forehead, closed now, mercifully. And that aspect so
fierce that it had been known to freeze naked flames and melt stone to
lava on occasion.
But at this moment, it was not fierce or ferocious. The third eye slept.
The serpent – Takshak, his name is Takshak, the last of his breed –
hissed out of habit rather than bad temper. And the voice that spoke
now, thrumming in the bones of Rama’s entire being, like a drumbeat
sounding from within, a dumroo kettledrum in place of his heart, was
gentle and kind, filled only with empathy and compassion, warmth
and friendship.
It is good to see you. As always.
Rama realized the words were meant for him. He also realized that he
had no need of vocal cords to express himself.
And you.
The three-eyed one smiled and spread his arms wide, as if desirous of
embracing Rama. Then he stopped himself, seemed to recall
something, and lowered his arms.
Would that could I greet you as friends should. But your present
form…
Rama glanced down at his body.
… it would not be able to withstand my touch.
Without knowing how he knew, Rama knew that this was true.
Yes, he responded silently. I am but mortal. And you, Mahadev… He
paused. A part of him listened to his own words echoing through the
ether, travelling outwards like invisible despatches to unknown
destinations … you are yourself. This mortal flesh cannot survive an
encounter with one such as yourself.
True, Shiva responded with a tinge of sorrow. It is the eternal barrier
between the dwellers of the mortal realm and those of us from the
other lokas. But we must accept the limitations of the mortal form, for
oftentimes that deceptively fragile container of flesh, bones and fluids
is our only tool to accomplish that which must be accomplished. Had
it been possible for devas alone to serve the end of the great brahman,
then why should mortal beings have been created at all? Nay, brother
of my mind and heart, your present mortal form was your sole means
to achieve your goal. And you chose wisely indeed. For the mortal
you selected as your vessel in this amsa is truly a rare example. This
Rama Chandra of Ayodhya is perhaps the finest of all mortal men I
have heard tell of. He deserves the appellation they have coined for
him: Maryada Purshottam. Truly he is One Who Achieves His Goal,
against all odds.
Shiva paused, as if abashed at his own loquaciousness.
But of course, I need hardly explain the obvious to Shri Haridev,
Almighty Narayana! All things are known to you. The universe
contains no secrets from you, great one. I merely restate these things
to show my admiration for what you have achieved here upon this
troubled mortal realm. And for setting free my loyal and devoted
worshipper Jay.
At this, Ravana raised his rack of heads from the ground with
reverential slowness and joined his palms together in a namaskaram.
“My Lord exalts me by taking my name. I am but a humble servant of
Hari. It is I whom He has blessed by His acts. It was my supreme
honour to be killed by His hand on the battlefield of Lanka.”
Ravana turned and bowed to Rama as well, offering him the same
grace he had showed Shiva. “I have long worshipped Mahadev. But as
you well know, my Lord, I am eternally in your service.”
Rama did not answer. He knew he was expected to speak here, to say
something. But he found he could not. Out the corner of his eye, he
sensed the sage Valmiki turn and look at him, sensed also the curiosity
of the maharishi. But he held his tongue.
Finally, Ravana bowed deeply again, then assumed a kneeling posture
with heads bowed, at Shiva’s feet.
The Three-Eyed One absently blessed Ravana with an open palm
while keeping his gaze on Rama.
You choose not to speak. That is your privilege, Narayana. Infinite are
your methods, inscrutable your Leela.
Shiva paused, gazing into the distance as if contemplating some
obscure thought. Rama was looking directly at Shiva’s face at that
instant and for a brief instant – barely a flash – he saw a strange and
incredible sight: Shiva’s eyes had been replaced by views of
something else entirely, the way a man’s eyes might reflect a fire or
the sky at certain angles. Within Shiva’s eye sockets, instead of the
ball of his eye, pupil, cornea, optic fluid and so on, there were
immense events taking place on a micro-scale. In one eye, he
glimpsed a view of a great war being waged, in a world where all
things resided beneath dark waters. Then that eye afforded a view of
another world or plane of existence where a great ceremony was
taking place with pomp and colour – a ceremony involving beings that
he could not begin to describe, let alone comprehend their existence.
The other eye likewise flickered with such images of distant worlds,
dimensions or times. Even in that flash of a moment, he glimpsed
countless such images flickering in Shiva’s eyes and he knew that the
Lord of Destruction was presiding over events on a cosmic scale in
countless eras, infinite worlds, even as he spoke to Rama here and
now…
Shiva glanced back at Rama. A shade of his persona from some other
time and place lingered momentarily, and Rama saw that both Shiva’s
eyes were filled with crimson flames, consuming entire universes.
Then the instant passed, and Shiva’s eyes were just normal eyes as
before: inasmuch as a deva’s eyes could ever be considered ‘normal’.
The eyes of a deva never blink. That is how we can tell them apart
from other beings, asuras or mortals.
Again Rama did not know how he came by this knowledge. He
simply did. Just as he knew perfectly well what Shiva had been
speaking of till now, and even what Shiva was about to say next:
I have many other matters to attend to, Haridev. As do you. I will
come to the point. I am merely here to congratulate you on a mission
masterfully executed. Everything you accomplished while in this
amsa was beyond praise. Your great task has been accomplished. The
asura races are destroyed upon Prithvi-loka. The rakshasa threat is
over. Their race shall never trouble the mortal race in any substantial
way again, and over time they shall die out completely and their
island-kingdom shall be occupied by the race of mortals, who shall
then reign supreme for millennia to come. The brothers Jay and Vijay
have been slain yet again, this time being the third occasion, which
marks the end of their dand. Now that their penalty is over, they are
free to assume their rightful place in Vaikunta in your service. As, I
am sure, are you too.
At this, Ravana raised his head and joined hands once more and
bowed to Rama. The sheer reverence and adoration on all the
rakshasa’s ten faces was unlike anything Rama had seen before in
Ravana’s myriad expressions during the long years of their epic
conflict. Yet there was no doubting the sincerity of that reverence and
adoration. Ravana bowed his head once more, awaiting any words
from Rama.
Once again, Rama said nothing.
Shiva seemed somewhat puzzled by Rama’s lack of response, but
continued:
Vishnudeva, I am here on behalf of the devas as well as in the
capacity of a longtime dear friend to gently remind you that your goal
in this mortal avatar has been achieved successfully far in excess of all
expectation, and that your work here upon Prithvi-loka is done. It is
time now for you and your eternal consort to return to your rightful
place. That is why I come now. To urge you to return where your
services are required far more urgently than upon this plane of
existence.
And then Shiva himself put his hands together, joining the palms and
inclining his head.
OM NARAYANA NAMAHA he said. And then HARI HARI
HARI…
Rama listened as the last reverberations of the words faded away,
melding with the pulsing of his blood and the thump of his heartbeat.
Then Shiva raised his head once more and gazed upon Rama directly.
It was evident that the great Destroyer now required Rama to provide
a spoken response.
Rama felt Sita’s hand clutch his shoulder hard. His wife was strong;
her grip was tight on the ball of his shoulder, fingers pressing deep
into the tendons. He glanced at her briefly. Her eyes were wide with
shock. Her lips were parted. Her face displayed her disbelief and
incredulity.
“Rama!” she said, pointing with her other hand. The word was
whispered rather than shouted. As if she was afraid of being heard.
He understood how she felt.
The scene they were viewing through the shimmering arch suspended
over the river seemed so real, so immediate. As if they could simply
step through that arch – if it were possible to walk over the rushing
water, that is – and enter into that place. Wherever that place might
be.
It looked like Ayodhya, from what little he could glimpse. And that
man and woman standing there looked like himself and like Sita. But
that was impossible, surely? This was some manner of sorcerous
illusion, yes? The product of asura maya?
Yet he knew fully well it was neither asura maya nor an illusion.
Whatever was happening in that place beyond the floating arch – a
Vortal, that is what it is called, a Vortal, said a voice inside his head
that he knew was his own yet not his own – was very real, and
immediate, occurring right now, at this very instant in time.
But neither of those observations were what scared Sita – and me, for
I’m scared too, I admit – so badly.
It was the person standing before Rama and Sita in the Ayodhya on
the other side of the floating arch…the Vortal.
That could only be one being.
Shiva the Destroyer Himself.
Yet how was that possible?
He realized that none of it was possible, to his knowledge. Yet it was
happening. That was all that mattered at present.
With a warrior’s instinct, he pushed away the urge to question, doubt,
wonder, gape, worry, and focussed entirely on observing, noting,
studying, absorbing, analyzing… Upon the battlefield, that meant the
difference between destruction and victory. It came naturally to him,
and he knew that Hanuman had already slipped into that
preternaturally heightened state: seeking only to view and study every
notable aspect of what was occurring before their senses, in order to
prepare for any inevitability. In a moment, he felt Sita’s breathing
change as well, and her grip on his shoulder loosen, as she shed her
own anxieties and conflicting concerns and focussed simply on
observing.
All three of them stood on the ledge and watched. And listened.
Above the roar of the river, it ought not have been possible to hear
much. Yet he comprehended every word, every syllable, understood
every nuance of what was being communicated in that other Ayodhya
beyond the Vortal. Even what was not said aloud. Especially what was
not said aloud. For devas did not usually speak with the use of tongues
and palates and vocal cords; they had no need to use such crude
tools…except when addressing ordinary mere mortals.
And he realized that the Rama and Sita he was observing through the
Vortal were neither ordinary nor merely mortal.
At this very instant, he felt Sita’s head turn towards him and he turned
as well to look at her. Their eyes met and a common realization passed
between them, a sense of something they had always known,
subterranean knowledge buried deep within the bedrock of their
subconscious, now tapped and risen to the visible surface.
Yes, her eyes said, it is true, isn’t it? We were never just mortal. And
neither are that Rama and Sita.

NINE

Rama was keenly aware of Sita’s eyes upon him as he prepared to

speak aloud for the first time. She had turned to look at him after the
Three-Eyed One had completed his last communication, and he knew
that she was equally puzzled by his lack of response thus far.
He glanced at her briefly, keeping his head tilted forward slightly in a
gesture that reflected his respect for the Destroyer. Her eyes searched
his and he felt her mind meld with his as she understood at once what
he meant to say, how he felt, everything that was contained within his
being and which could not be expressed in words. He saw a deep,
enduring sorrow begin to appear in her eyes in response and wanted to
reach out to her, to say, no, do not be so anxious, all will be well in the
end. But she broke eye contact and looked away, her beautiful brown
eyes already brimming with tears, rare tears, for Sita cried even less
often than most male kshatriyas, and for anything to have brought
such sudden tears to her eyes it must be a terrible insight indeed.
Yet he must do what he must do.
He turned his attention back to Shiva.
“Mahadev,” he said reverentially, performing a deep bow and
namaskara of his own. “I beg your indulgence. And your forgiveness.
What I am about to say may not please thee. Yet I must say it. For
such is my dharma.”
Your dharma, Shiva repeated. The great deva’s face was inscrutable.
Takshak’s cowl concealed the lower part of his face, further obscuring
any subtleties of expression.
“Yes, Great One.”
Dharma is the prerogative of Yamadev, my friend. We are devas. We
are above dharma. We serve the infinite shakti of brahman. All-
pervasive, all-inclusive. So has it been ever since the Mahat-tattva.
Only the chaos of pradhan lies outside our immediate jurisdiction, and
that too is pliant to our uses. And you, you are Nilameghashyama.
This is why your colouring is black verging on blue, for that is the
sacred hue of brahman itself. You are the master of brahman, and your
place is upon Anantanaga floating peacefully on the milky ocean of
Shiramudra, or upon Garbhodaka at times.
Shiva indicated Sita.
With your eternal paramour Lakshmi by your side, as you lie in
yoganidra, maintaining the balance of creation and destruction
eternally. Without you, Brahmadev and I are incomplete and Creation
itself would become dangerously imbalanced. That is why you must
remain aloof and above such mortal preoccupations such as karma,
artha, kama, and…dharma. Leave dharma to Yamadev and to these
mortals – Shiva indicated the world at large around them – it befits
them. We live by the demands of a higher calling.
Rama inclined his head respectfully, held it there a long moment,
before raising it only partially to speak: “You speak indisputable
wisdom as ever, Mahadev. I cannot debate your great knowledge nor
your conclusions. However, during my sojourn upon Prithvi-loka, I
have come to realize that this mortal realm that Brahma has
propagated is facing a great crisis. A crisis that affects all Prakriti
itself. And I cannot stand by and let this crisis unfold, a mere mute
spectator.”
Shiva waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “It does not concern us,
Haridev. Your given task was to take this mortal form, end the asura
race, liberate the brothers Jay and Vijay. That task is complete. Your
accomplishment shall be legendary throughout all planes of the three
worlds for all time to come. Now you are needed back in Swargaloka
once more. Greater concerns require your attention. There is much to
be done yet to ensure that the end of the asuras is final and that no
trace of them remains in the heavenly realms. Narad-muni has just
brought word that—
Shiva stopped short. Rama sensed the deva’s consciousness scanning
the neighbouring region, like a searing light scouring a pitch-black
dungeon.
—I cannot discuss such matters here upon this mortal plane, Shiva
said with noticeable shortness. Suffice it to say that there is much
work yet to be done to ensure that this victory is not ephemeral. I need
hardly tell you how often we devas have celebrated the destruction of
our most ancient enemies only to find that their end was short-lived
and that yet again they found some way to survive and return, often in
insiduous new forms and with devastating new methods of attack.
Please, Haridev, I ask you once again to part from this mortal form
and return to Swargaloka with me. Brahmadev has convened an
urgent conference of the Trimurti in Brahmaloka. Devi Saraswati and
He await us there, alongwith Naradmuni who wishes to share the most
recent information with us in private. Parvati Devi is already there on
my behalf, and Lakshmi Devi represents you, but without your sacred
presence, the conference is incomplete and ineffectual. Whatever we
may decide, you are the one we look to first to implement any steps to
root out any remnants of the asura menace.
Rama inclined his head. “Regretfully, I must decline your invitation.
Kindly inform Brahmadev on my behalf, and the Tridevi of Lakshmi,
Saraswati and Parvati, as well as Narad-muni that my work here is not
yet finished. I must stay here and complete my work. Dharma
demands it.”
At this new mention of dharma, Shiva’s expression grew distinctly
darker. Rama felt the voice of the deva grow deeper, less affectionate.
The change was instantaneous and not subtle at all.
This is not acceptable, Vishnu. What pressing work holds you to this
mortal plane and this fragile human form? I see nothing demanding
the presence of the great Preserver.
“That is precisely the reason, Mahadev. I am the Preserver, am I not?
And as such, it is my role to preserve, and do whatever is needed to
ensure the preservation of all Creation. In this present time, the mortal
race requires my presence in order to ensure its continuance.”
I fail to understand your meaning. What is this new crisis that you say
threatens the mortal race? The asura race is destroyed, the rakshasas
are a dying breed and shall soon be gone. What other threat is there to
speak of?
“The threat of adharma, Mahadev.”
Adharma? Explain yourself.
“As long as Ravana existed, he represented the forces of Adharma, the
antithesis of Dharma. All Prithvi-loka was united in its common
hatred of He Who Made The Universe Scream. A common enemy, a
common cause.”
Yes. Hence the coming together of different species – vanar, rksaa,
mortal
– to combat the menace of Ravana. I know this.
“But now that Ravana is gone, Adharma has no single form to
embody. Yet due to the causal nature of Balance, the eternal scale of
Dharma and Adharma, Adharma is as essential for Preservation as
Dharma itself. For without Adharma there can be no Dharma, and
vice versa.”
I follow. All creation requires contrary forces. It is through the
meeting of disparities that change occurs and life propagates and
continues. Male and Female unite in coition to reproduce their
species. High and low pressures meet in the atmosphere to cause
storms and carry precious water from the oceans and rivers to the
lands that need it most, ensuring the propagation of flora and thereby,
fauna. All nature is dependent on the Balance, and Balance itself is the
art of mating contrary forces. This is the basis by which the mortal
realm exists. But this has been the way of things since the creation of
this plane. Since the great egg of brahman exploded and gave birth to
Creation out of Sri’s navel. What is new about it that concerns you
now?
“The passing of Ravana,” Rama said. “Without Ravana, Adharma
now floats free. Unable to find a single great being in which to embed
itself and maintain the Balance, it shall seek out and reside in a
potentially infinite number of carriers. With the asuras gone, it will
inevitably reside in mortals now, for they are created in our image,
and like us they have the freedom of will to choose either side of the
Balance. Adharma shall take root in countless mortals born and as yet
unborn, and lead these adharmic individuals to wage war against their
dharmic co-occupants of the mortal plane in an infinite variety of
ways.”
Shiva inclined his head. Takshak’s hood bobbed and the serpeant
hissed absently.
So it shall be. It is as you say. I do not dispute your speculation. We
were aware of this back at the beginning of this particular conflict.
That was our very strategy in fact. To push the asuras steadily out of
the heavenly realms and down to this mortal plane. Prithvi-loka. Once
here, you were to take various avatars and battle them directly. You
did so in the form of thousands of avatars over the ages, some major,
many minor. That is why you are here now, as Rama Chandra of
Ayodhya. But once your individual avatar’s work is done, you have
always left this plane and returned to your true form. Why should it be
different now?
“Because this time it is different. We have succeeded in our plan to rid
ourselves of the asura race, our greatest foes. By tricking them into
coming to the mortal plane, then by slaughtering them, we have rid
ourselves of an ancient and powerful enemy. But in doing so, we have
engendered great Adharma upon this mortal realm. And that adharma
will now proliferate and affect all future generations of the mortal race
for millennia to come.”
True. We were aware of this when we agreed upon this strategem to
combat the asuras. It was an inevitable consequence. What was the
term you yourself used, Almighty Narayana? Collateral damage? A
succinct phrase. Whatever the mortal race may suffer now cannot be
helped.
“But it can, Mahadev! By ensuring that Dharma itself proliferates and
spreads just as rapidly and powerfully as its counterpart. That is why I
wish to remain here. As the living embodiment of Dharma, Rama
Chandra of Ayodhya.”
Shiva was silent a moment, gazing at Rama. Worlds lived and died,
warred and were destroyed, within his eyes, as he contemplated.
When he spoke, the vibrations of his speech were softer, his tone
inflected with understanding and compassion.
I see now. I see it quite clearly. You feel…guilt. For by tricking the
asuras into coming to the Earthly realm and battling them here, we
have polluted their plane of existence. And because you are
responsible for much of the conflict, for launching war after war
between Dharma and Adharma, you feel personally responsible for
the future of the mortal race now. So you wish to…make amends?
Reparations?
“I wish to help maintain the Balance. To show the mortal race that
even in the face of the greatest assault by the forces of Adharma,
Dharma can still triumph.”
Shiva nodded.
I see. Yes. I understand you now.
“It would not take long, Mahadev. For us devas, it would barely be a
few moments, insignificant against our infinite existence. But it would
help establish Dharma here upon this mortal plane once and for all,
like a beacon blazing from a high tower for all to see and gain succour
from.”
And you propose to do this first by remaining here in this same mortal
form. As Rama. Thereafter to take new amsas or avatars as required.
Suitable avatars for different challenges, different ages.
“Yes.”
Again another moment of silence. Aeons to other worlds, other
dimensions. The business of Destruction and clearance of debris
continued unabated as the Three-Eyed One contemplated and weighed
Rama’s words. Finally, he spoke, and for the first time there was a
tinge of sadness in his tone.
Who am I to argue with Almighty Hari? Yet, I urge you, my dear
friend. My brother in the service of Brahman, reconsider one last time.
Dwell upon the many consequences of your decision.
“I have done so already, and at great length,” Rama replied. “It is what
I desire.”
Shiva turned his gaze to Sita, who started then controlled herself.
And the mortal amsa of Lakshmi Devi? What does she say about your
decision?
Now, it was Rama’s turn to be silent a moment. He felt Sita return
Shiva’s gaze without flinching or reacting visibly. When she spoke,
her voice was clear and steady without a trace of hesitation or doubt.
“My place is with my Lord, just as his place is beside me always.
Whatever needs to be done, it shall be done. Not for nothing is my
Hari known as Maryada Purshottam in this mortal avatar. When Rama
sets his mind to a task, that task is always accomplished. When Rama
says he shall stay upon Earth and propagate Dharma to ensure the
survival and happiness of the mortal race, then he shall certainly do as
he says. And I shall assist him in whatever way possible.”
Rama felt a flush of pride even though he had already anticipated
Sita’s response.
Shiva nodded slowly, sadly.
I expected no less. Just as my beloved in her first incarnation as Sati
once threw herself onto her father Daksha’s yagna fire and cremated
herself to protest his humiliation of me, so also you, Lakshmi, can
hardly be expected to leave Vishnu’s side. But I must caution you as a
friend and a fellow Deva. The path you choose is not an easy one.
“The path of Dharma never is, Mahadev,” Sita said quietly.
And you are aware of the calamities that will befall you if you remain
here upon this mortal plane? Shiva gestured around. As you can see, I
froze time before opening the Vortal to this world. That had nothing to
do with the fact that Ravana’s son Atikaya had already used the moon-
sword Chandrahas to cast a spellsong over the city and its environs –
my power encompassed the entire plane of Creation. The moment I
leave and the Vortal vanishes behind me, time shall resume, and
Atikaya, Chandrahas and whatever other threats await you shall be
unleashed once again. It is not my place to interfere in the playing out
of whatever transpires thereafter. You will have to bear the brunt of
the events that follow.
Sita inclined her head. “I have borne all that has been thrust upon me
thus far. I shall bear the rest.” She gestured towards Rama with her
joined hands. “So long as my beloved is by my side, I can endure any
calamity.”
At this, Shiva’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Just enough to reveal a
hint of surprise. He turned his searing gaze upon Rama again.
Then you have not told her yet, my friend? She is clearly unaware of
the fate that lies ahead should you choose to remain here in this mortal
avatar.
Rama saw Sita frown and glance at him but kept his own eyes on
Shiva. “No, Mahadev. I have not had a chance as yet. Events have
transpired at a fantastic rate this day and we have been kept occupied
dealing with one crisis after another.” He added, “I shall tell her
soon.”
“What?” Sita asked, anxiety evident in her tone. “What will you tell
me soon? What fate lies ahead?”
Shiva looked keenly at Rama who swallowed. Suddenly, Rama felt
the weight of his decision bear down on him with unendurable
pressure. Facing Ravana had not been as great a challenge. When he
turned slowly to face Sita directly, he felt his own heart melt and
dissolve within his chest. It hurt even to breathe, to speak, to live.
“If we remain here, my love,” he said gently. “We shall not be
together.
We shall have to separate and remain apart for the rest of our mortal
existence.”
Sita turned and stared at Rama. His eyes were cast downwards, at the
river, rather than directed at the Vortal through which they had been
watching the other Rama and Sita converse with Lord Shiva. She
turned and looked at Hanuman. The vanar was squatting on his
haunches, gazing with a puzzled expression at the Vortal. He glanced
up at her and from his puzzled look, she could tell that he knew
nothing of what was going on. But Rama…Rama was another story.
She turned back to Rama.
“You know about this,” she said, barely able to believe it herself.
“Somehow, I don’t understand how or why, you knew Hanuman was
going to bring us here to see this, and you knew what we were going
to see. Isn’t that so?”
Rama sighed and looked up into the distance. She saw blue sky
reflected in his black eyes.
“I didn’t know we were going to see this exactly,” he said. “Just that
something was to happen today. And that it would lead inevitably to
what followed.”
“And what will follow?” she asked, her voice on the verge of
trembling now. “What did you mean—,” she corrected herself, “what
did that Rama mean – when he said that we shall not be together?
Why not? What will drive us apart?”
Rama shook his head, turning to face her. “It is futile to upset yourself
thus, my love. I do not know why we are even being shown these
sights at this moment.” He gestured towards the Vortal, where the
other Sita and Rama continued their conversation with Lord Shiva as
the kneeling Ravana, the shocked Atikaya and the contemplative
Maharishi Valmiki looked on. “What purpose does it serve? Who—”
“It serves the purpose of Dharma,” said a male voice, deep and
sonorous, from behind them. “And as for who would do such a thing,
or possess the power to enable such a demonstration, well that would
be me.”

TEN

“What lies beyond?” Rama asked of the man as he stopped at the cusp
of the cloud-field and the mist-mountain, looking up in part-fear, part-
wonder. Was this a dream or the afterworld? It felt like both, and
neither. And that vision of the war of Lanka? What had that been? A
ghost-memory or a conjuration of some sort?
The man paused beside him. His face was expressionless, yet not
without compassion. “Only by going forth can you learn what the
future holds in store.” Again that maddeningly familiar manner of
speaking, the voice of a man well educated and raised, yet too humble
to have been royal himself. A raj-rakshak? A PF? No, he was too
young to be a PF, and he did not bear any arms; a raj-rakshak would
never fail to bear arms to protect his master. Why then did he seem so
familiar? How did Rama know him and from where?
“Or I can wait for the future to approach me,” Rama replied,
deliberately being difficult in order to test the man’s patience and
character. “Time catches up with the idle and the active alike.”
A twitch of a smile on the man’s sculpted dark face. “Not here,” he
said. “Not in Lokaloka. Here, Time is an absent master.”
Lokaloka? What place was that? And how could Time be absent from
anyplace? Even dreams must begin and end and therefore served
temporal laws. Unless…unless…But he could think of no satisfactory
explanation. He was out of his depth here. And the rakshak knew it.
“Then tell me something,” Rama said. “Give me some reason to go up
that…mountain?” If it was a mountain indeed. He felt he could be
sure of nothing here. In Lokaloka. Wherever…whatever…that might
be. He waited, feeling the mist nipping at his bare feet, not cold or
wet, merely…wind. “What lies up there?”
“The answers to all your questions,” said the man.
Rama stared at him. Of all the responses he might have expected, that
was not one. He found he could think of nothing else to say.
The rakshak began walking up the sloping rise into the swirling mist,
and Rama followed.
Sita swung around to stare at a strange man standing behind them. He
was dark-skinned, the same deep bluish hue like Rama, but apart from
that, there was no resemblance. His eyes were inscrutable, either
brown or black though she could not see them clearly enough to tell
which. His hair was long, much longer than Rama’s – almost as long
as her own – and raven-black with that same bluish tinge as his skin.
Rama’s hair was simply jet-black. He appeared to be standing in
shadow, presumably the shadow of the sala tree that compelled the
raj-marg to wind around this grassy ridge overlooking the river, but
the sun was at the wrong angle and sunlight fell all around him like a
great golden shroud. Sita felt her mouth open in a small o as she saw
that the man cast no shadow. She pressed her lips together firmly. The
man stood at least a head taller than even Hanuman, and his dark hair
framing his sculpted face, the white flowing anga-vastra that covered
him from neck to ankle, and the shadow-like dimness that shielded
him from clear sight despite the bright late morning sunshine, all lent
him an alien air.
Yet she knew that he was no asura. There was no sense of menace, no
hint of threat. He meant them no harm, she was certain. Yet he was
not entirely their benefactor either. He wanted something from them.
What? Her heart was already cold with the things she had just heard
and seen, her mind swimming with possibilities and speculation.
She gestured to the Vortal below, raising her voice above the roar of
the river to be heard. “You opened that…window…into that other
Ayodhya?”
The stranger inclined his head. He had powerful neck muscles, like a
bull, and when he lowered his head, his entire torso bulged with
muscular strength. He looked like he could fell the sala tree by
charging at it a time or two. “Vortal. Yes.”
“What?”
“It is called a Vortal, more a doorway than a window. And yes, I
performed the ritual necessary to open it. In fact—”
Sita waved him quiet. “Why?”
He looked at her. “If you will permit me to explain in my own manner
and pace, Rani Sita Janaki?”
Her cheeks burned hotly. “If one is to be polite, then one should also
know whom one is addressing and the proper manner of that
address?”
He nodded graciously. “Quite true. As queen of this kingdom, you are
owed a formal introduction. Allow me to introduce myself. I am
Yama.”
Sita’s blood ran cold.
The stranger went on quite calmly and politely: “My father was
Vivasvat, my mother Saranya. I am both a Lokapala and an Aditya.
Like your illustrious husband in this life, I take my lineage from Surya
the sun. I am entrusted with guarding the cardinal direction South. In
other lands I am variously known as Shinje, Yanluowang, Yan, enma
Dai-O or Yamadipati, and other names. I am often mistakenly
depicted garbed in red attire, with green or red skin, but in fact this is
my natural colouring, black with a bluish tinge like Rama, for the
brahman shakti within my veins glows even through this crow-black
skin. I prefer to wear white for just as black is sacred and the colour of
Aryas and devas, so also white marks the absence of colour, and
therefore the absence of life. After all, I am also the Lord of Death.
But mainly I am known as the Lord of Dharma. I am Yama.”
Sita was speechless.
He waited a moment then smiled briefly and went on. “Let me assure
you that I mean neither yourself nor any of your loved ones any harm.
I do not visit you this day in my capacity as a reaper of souls. I come
instead as an ally.”
“An ally?”
“Yes. I am in a quandary, you see. It is rare that I find myself
confronted by a question I cannot find an answer to, considering that I
have access to unlimited resources and infinite time and archives
containing all things known and unknown about the Universe – all
universes, in fact. Neither I, nor Yami my intrepid sister, nor even
Chitragupta my munshi seem to be able to find a case that matches the
circumstances of this one. Therefore I find myself in the unusual
situation of having to create a new law rather than simply execute an
existing statute.”
Sita’s head swam. “I don’t understand…”
He nodded. “Of course. I am rambling as usual. Please, allow me to
explain through a simple demonstration…”
He walked towards her. She took a step backwards, instinctively, then
another, and suddenly felt the ground crumbling away beneath her
heels. She realized what she was doing and stepped forward again,
turning to see a patch of loose earth crumbling down the several yards
to the riverbank. Rama’s hands were stretched out, ready to grasp her,
but she shook her head and he withdrew. She felt the rakshak come up
behind them, and then pass her.
Yama walked out across thin air, over the river, then stopped.
He glanced down. “You’ll pardon me. Not being bound by the
physical laws of this particular plane, I am accustomed to
manipulating matter as I please.”
Sita said nothing.
Yama gestured at the Vortal. Sita noted that the arched window – or
doorway – had once more turned opaque and into a shimmering glaze
that reflected rainbow hues. The scene that they had witnessed earlier
had vanished.
“As you have seen, this particular Vortal opens onto an Ayodhya
similar in almost all aspects to your own. The essential differences are
the events that transpired there this day. In your Ayodhya, you have
woken late this morning, and almost immediately been brought here
by Maruti Anjaneya to this spot to view this phenomenon. In fact, I
placed the Vortal here knowing that Hanuman watches this ingress to
the city as closely as a mother wolf guards the entrance to her den and
that he would quickly spy it and report it to you discreetly, without
raising a general alarm.”
Hanuman inclined his snout thoughtfully as he absorbed this
information.
“Yet at the same time the Vortal itself was placed in such a location
that no idle passerby was likely to notice it. Nor can any creature of
the forest slip through it.”
Yama gestured at the Vortal and once again the shimmering rainbow
hues coalesced to reveal the scene they had seen earlier: Rama and
Sita facing Lord Shiva, with Ravana at Shiva’s feet, and Atikaya and
Valmiki looking on. “But in the Ayodhya which you viewed through
the Vortal earlier, a great deal happened since this morning. And
continues to happen…”
“What do you mean, Rama?” Sita asked, staring at her husband. “Why
should we be parted for any reason? Do you mean…” Her breath
caught in her throat. “Ravana—”
He shook his head. “No. You shall not be abducted again, or taken
from me by force. But yes, it is true, we shall be parted, this time
forever.”
“Forever?” The word shocked her, stunned her more than the blow
struck by Atikaya with the moon-sword Chandrahas. It sent
reverberations into her soul, shaking her to the core.
Rama lowered his head. “The rest of this mortal lifespan. It may as
well be forever.”
“But why? How? Who will part us? Why shall we let them? Why
would you permit it to happen?”
He kept his head lowered, his eyes hooded. “I am the one who shall
dismiss you into exile.”
“Into…” She was speechless. “Rama, listen to yourself. What are you
saying? You have just fought and won a terrible war, invading a
foreign land, destroying an entire race of beings, in order to win me
back from a monster,” She gestured in Ravana’s direction, “after we
both suffered 14 years in exile for no fault or wrongdoing of our own.
No power on earth could cause you to exile me.” She laughed. “It is
absurd. It is unspeakably ludicrous. A jest, surely!”
Rama remained silent.
She looked from him to Ravana, whose heads were still bowed, his
knees bent at the foot of his master. She looked up at Shiva himself.
The Lord of Destruction did not meet her gaze. Even the serpent
Takshak had lowered his hood and appeared to be asleep or resting.
She turned the other way and saw Atikaya slumped in a morose
crouch, lost in his own miserable thoughts. Only Maharishi Valmiki
stood straight and tall, gazing at her in sympathy as well as naked
curiosity.
“Gurudev,” she said to him. “You arrived here this morning in
Ayodhya to avert a crisis, you said earlier. You mentioned a prophecy.
Was this what you meant? This absurdity?”
Valmiki frowned. “I do not know for certain. But yes, it may well be.
All I was told was that the House of Raghu would be divided. And
that the sons of the Suryavansha Ikshwaku line would be in great need
of my guidance and aid.”
Sita turned back to Rama. “Explain.”
Rama’s head remained lowered.
She reached out and punched him in the chest. Lightly. Yet hard
enough to get his attention.
“Explain!”
He looked up slowly. The expression on his face terrified her. Never
before had Rama looked at her in that manner.
“What would you have me explain?” he said in a tone so deathly quiet
that it chilled her to the marrow. “The fact that you and your father
Janaka chose to deceive my family and me all this while? Did you
think that we would not learn the truth eventually? Did you think
everything would be as before? That we would live happily ever after
together, in blissful denial of the truth of your identity and your
condition?”
She was stunned. The sheer loathing in his voice shocked her. Never
before had Rama spoken to her thus. Never had he looked at her with
such vile menace. Never had he said such harsh things to her.
“What…what do you mean?” she stammered.
He sniffed. “There is little point in denying it now, Sitey,” he said,
using the formal ‘ey’ suffix as was common among long-married Arya
couples. Even that tiny formality hurt her deeply. Janaki, Maithili,
Vaidehi – even Ayodhyi of all names – was fine, was affectionate
even. But to call her Sitey like this at such a moment, was further
insult. Looking at his face with rising dismay, she realized he had
meant it as such. “What am I denying, Rama?” she said shakily. “At
least tell me that. I’m merely asking.”
He stared at her a moment in silence. A brief fraction of time, barely
the space between heartbeats. But in that sliver of a moment she
realized that he was already lost to her. She had been declared the
loser in a battle to which she had not even been invited, without
knowing what was at stake, or why.
“You are not the true daughter of Maharaja Janaka of Mithila. He only
adopted you and raised you as his own, among his three true
daughters. You are in fact the blood-daughter of Ravana himself,”
Rama said in that same deathly quiet tone. “You are pregnant with
Ravana’s grandchildren. It is the reason why you left me and went
with him of your own free will to Lanka, to live there henceforth and
raise the twins as rakshasas, in the lineage of their forefathers. Do you
deny any of these facts?”
He waited for his answer with a cold expression that could not have
been worse had he held a sword to the pulsating vein in her throat.

ELEVEN
“What is this?” Sita said in a choked voice. “What is this?”
She turned to stare at Rama who was standing silently, staring ahead
at the Vortal.
“Rama, I don’t understand what we are watching.”
Rama was staring transfixed at the scene taking place beyond the
Vortal, at the other Rama who waited for his Sita’s answer.
“Rama!”
With an effort he tore his eyes away. He glanced at Sita, then away, at
Hanuman, then up at the sky, the treeline, around at the densely
overgrown outreaches of the sala tree that blocked the view of the raj-
marg. He sucked in a deep breath before finally turning back to Sita.
“What do you wish me to say?”
She gestured at the Vortal, at Lord Yama who stood calmly upon thin
air. “I do not understand this. It is some kind of god-game. It scares
me. I wish to see no more. Please ask him to stop and shut up that
doorway at once!”
Rama glanced at Yama who offered no response, verbal or otherwise.
“I think he means that we must watch this.”
“Why?” Sita calmed herself, lowering her voice to speak in a more
controlled but no less urgent tone. “It is unnerving, to say the least.
Deeply unsettling. To see those figures that resemble us so closely,
speaking, acting, debating as if they were speaking on our behalf. Like
actors in some theatrical performance performed on a feast night!”
Rama put a hand on her shoulder, reassuring, gentle. “But they are us.
Not actors, not people who resemble us.” He turned her around gently
to face the Vortal once more. “That is you. And that is me.”
She shook her head, refusing to look at it again, refusing to believe.
“That is absurd. Impossible. We are here, see? This is you, and this is
me.” She slipped a hand around his waist, embracing him, resting her
head against his chest. “We are real, flesh and blood. Not phantom
visions viewed through an illusionist’s glass.”
Yama chuckled softly, the sound rendered curiously pleasing by his
deep baritone, undercutting the roar of the river. “An illusionist. Is that
what I am?”
Rama raised a hand. “She means no disrespect, Dharmarajan.”
Yama waved his objection away. “None taken. She is upset. That is
only to be expected. And she is not entirely wrong. This is an illusion
at present. One conjured up by an ingenious combination of brahman
shakti along with a deft manipulation of the laws of the universe.” He
sighed. “It would seem more real if I were to ask you to step through
the Vortal.”
Hanuman started. “But, sire, you said no creature could pass through
that doorway!”
“My good Maruti Anjaneya, I said I placed it in such a spot that
would make it highly unlikely that any creature in this world could
pass through. It is most definitely possible to pass through the Vortal.
That is its whole purpose and the reason why it is named so. It is a
portal of sorts, but one that is directly linked with countless other
similar portals – a vertical integration, as it shall be termed in future
ages – and any being passing through a Vortal in their world must
maintain the Balance.”
“The Balance?” The vanar inclined his head quizzically.
“The Balance is the inescapable law that governs the infinite worlds
of the Vortal. It states that the quantum of matter in any world, or all
worlds, must remain exactly the same, neither increasing nor
decreasing, merely changing form. Think of the Vortal as a series of
doorways connecting an infinite number of chambers in a great house.
There is a certain number of beings in each chamber. That number
always remains the same. So if one being steps from one chamber into
a second chamber, another being from that chamber must step into the
first chamber to take the first being’s place. Do you follow now?”
The vanar nodded slowly. “And so if I pass through this Vortal?” he
pointed at the glassy archway above the Sarayu with a shudder that
made clear his question was merely rhetorical and that he feared
passing through the supernatural doorway more than anything else, “a
being from that world must pass through into this one, to take my
place?”
“Indeed,” Yamadev said, visibly pleased at Hanuman’s quick grasp of
the concept. “But not merely any being. Hanuman himself. Your
counterpart in that world.”
Hanuman’s golden eyes widened, filling with shock as he
contemplated the possibility of another Hanuman beyond that
doorway and what that implied. “And there are infinite worlds
connected by such Vortals?”
“Infinite,” Yama agreed. “One could go on crossing from Vortal to
Vortal without ever reaching an end. Of course, there is an end to the
number, but what makes it impossible to count them through in reality
is the complication that results from physically crossing over. Each
time any being crosses over through the Vortal from their world to
another world, the worlds themselves change in subtle, unpredictable
ways. Therefore, while we may compute the number of possible
worlds reachable through the Vortal and arrive at a finite number quite
definitively, in actual practice, we can never confirm that number
because each time we attempt to verify it by passing through the
Vortal, we alter the Balance and a chain effect results, altering all the
known worlds in unknowable ways.”
Hanuman scratched the back of his head. “Yet surely if we have a
hand’s worth of bananas, then whether the bananas turn rotten or ripe
or raw, there should still be a hand’s worth, no more, no less, should
there not?” The vanar held up one hand to show five fur-backed
digits.
Yama nodded. “Very astutely noted, Anjaneya. Yet that is the
difference between the Vortal and the natural universe. You see, the
Vortal itself possesses energy, and that energy is also a part of
Creation within which the Vortal exists. Therefore, merely passing
through the Vortal, changes the very meaning of a hand’s worth,”
Yama raised one hand, showing five digits again, then wiggled his
fingers till they became seven, then four, then eight, then six. He
waggled the hand one more time, and the fingers changed back to five
as before. “The Vortal alters the very nature of reality itself. Or
perhaps it only alters the perception of reality as viewed by a sentient
living being. Either way, the result is the same: The Balance remains
inscrutable and immutable. We cannot manipulate it or play with it in
any fashion. It is the one fixed constant in the infinite worlds of the
Vortal. Every being must obey the Law of Balance. So if this Rama
and Sita,” Yamadev indicated the King and Queen of Ayodhya,
standing with arms around each other’s waists, listening silently
through the exchange, “were to cross through the Vortal, then that
Rama and Sita we see there shall have no choice but to cross over into
this world. Except that the very act of passing through the Vortal shall
alter both Ramas and both Sitas, for such an enormous flux of energy
cannot but alter the universe in some way be it ever so subtle or
grossly obvious.”
“I still do not see why you need to show us these terrible things,” Sita
said reproachfully. “With nothing but respect, Yamadev, I ask why
you brought us here, and why you speak to us of these matters. We
accept that there are great and wonderful things in the universe, many
of which we not only do we fail to understand but are wholly
incapable of ever understanding. An elephant watches a light pass
across the sky and cannot tell from that passing what effect that might
have on his future, so also we are mere mortals. We live, we love, we
struggle, we die. What purpose does it serve to show us such things
that we cannot control, use or manipulate to any good use? What good
does it serve except to torture us by showing us plays depicting things
we might have said, or might well say someday—” She paused to
glance at Rama, swallowed hard, then went on, “—but might never
say at all? It is no different from soothsaying or predictions and
prophecies to that same elephant. What good are such predictions to
him, chewing the high stalks of his favourite tree?”
Yama sighed. He gestured, turning the Vortal opaque once more. “To
the elephant, no good at all. That is true. But to you, my great Queen
of Ayodhya, a great deal of good. For you are no ordinary living
being. Neither is Rama. Nor is Hanuman. You are no more ordinary
than I am merely a man who rides a black buffalo and carries a thin
noose.” He was referring to the legends and classical depictions in
which Yama was portrayed as a man riding a black buffalo and
carrying a worn burlap bag with a length of thin rope inside it, tied in
the shape of a noose.
Sita shook her head. “We are Sita and Rama, that is all. And all we
now desire is to be left alone in peace to enjoy our years of peace
together.”
Yama nodded. “I do understand that desire, my lady Sita. After all you
have been through, together as well as apart, it is only natural. Yet I
did not bring you here this fine morning to torture you with what
might have been, could be or will not be. The events you glimpsed
briefly through the Vortal just now are things that have inevitably
come to pass. The peace you long for, richly deserved though it is,
still does not lie within your grasp. I wish it could be otherwise, but it
cannot. It never shall be. For better or worse, you and Rama are
destined to struggle, fight, battle, wage war, until the very end of your
days here on this mortal realm.”
Yama gestured at the Vortal, now a shimmering archway with a slowly
rolling rainbow-hued effect, like a still pond reflecting clouds passing
overhead. “That is what your good friend and fellow member of the
Holy and Powerful Trimurti attempted to warn you about. When
devas descend upon earth, they endanger the Balance in ways that
mere mortals never can. Each moment you spend here, you attract
more violence towards yourselves, those around you and against those
you encounter. It is only a matter of time before your lives will be
filled with warring once again.”
“So you feel that mortalkind’s inevitable state is a state of war?” Sita
demanded with some insouciance. “That peace is an impossible
dream? That we should merely accept the state of events and keep our
swords busy as long as we live?”
“No,” Yama replied quietly. “On the contrary. As you know full well,
my lady, it is peace, not war that is the natural state of the world. Even
in the deepest jungle, the predator hunts only when absolutely
necessary, and the vast majority of nature’s beings live out their entire
lives with almost no show of aggression nor any need for it.
Struggling to survive is one thing, killing to eat is equally
understandable and tolerated by nature; but wilful violence against
other living beings is an aberration, a sickness, a disease. If
mortalkind’s natural state is to be at war, then the species would not
survive long! Nay, the reason it survives and flourishes and continues
its spread unabated across this mortal realm is because it does so
mainly through peaceful means. It is the device of the asura race to
create this delusion that violence is the only way, that all living beings
thrive on violence and that aggression is the only way to profit and
progress. As all devas and enlightened mortals are well aware, there is
no Absolute Good and Evil in the universe. But there is delusion. And
the delusion that war, violence and aggression are natural, necessary
and even desirable is the saddest one of all, for any mortal that
subscribes to that delusionary view is a sick being desperately in need
of help and education.”
“Then why can we not be in a state of peace?” Sita demanded, her
cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling with passion. “Why cannot Ayodhya?
Why cannot the entire mortal race? Why cannot you simply leave us
alone to be at peace? Why do you leave your rightful work in the
nether realms and come here to harangue us and show us sights of
lives unlived, things unsaid, words that ought never be spoken.”
Yama nodded as if he had expected her to say just that. “Because you
and Rama are not mere mortals. You are devas. Lord Vishnu the
Preserver. And His eternal Paramour Lakshmi, who is Herself a form
of the Eternal Sri, She Who Created the Universe Entire. You know
this to be true. Within your hearts and minds, you have always known
it to be true. Just as you know that your rightful places are in your
own celestial plane Vaikunta. Not here on the mortal plane
Prithviloka. With every additional day you spend here you disrupt the
Balance. And by doing so you are playing into the very hands of the
one who conceived all this and opened the Vortal in the first place, in
order to avenge himself upon you. This is all part of his great plan.
And by staying here and denying your true nature, you are feeding
into his plans, making possible the true vengeance of Ravana.”
He turned and gestured at the Vortal. “See for yourself.”

TWELVE

“Rama!” Sita cried, a world of anguish audible in that single word.

“Why do you speak to me thus harshly? Why do you accuse me like
some common criminal brought before your court of dharma in the raj
sabha? Do you truly believe that my father Janaka and I would
connive in such a deception? That we would conceal my true
parentage from you? My poor father never knew whose child I was.
All he knew was that he found me in a furrow in a field while
ploughing, and hence named me furrow. Sita! He is innocent in all
this, a man of peace and learning. Please do not sully his fine name in
this manner.”
Rama’s eyes were dark and forbidding, his tone relentless: “It is good
that you take full responsibility for this deception yourself. I was loath
to accuse the great and sagacious Janaka of Mithila, for the
Chandravanshis are no less honourable in the upholding of dharma
than we Suryavanshis. By admitting your own guilt and absolving
your father, you display his fine upbringing and education that he has
imparted you.”
“My father Janaka is great indeed, and loves dharma no less than your
father the late great Dasaratha did!” she said. “But I am not admitting
to my guilt! I do not believe I have any guilt to declare in this matter!
The first I heard of this outrageous lie was when Atikaya first spoke it
aloud outside the gate! And then it was echoed by his mother
Mandodhari. But I did not believe it then and do not believe it now.”
“Really?” Rama said, and his expression verged on a sneer, but was
crueller. “Yet you were able to withstand the spellsong of the moon-
sword and retain your ability to move freely even when we were all
frozen into immobility. How would that be possible were it not for
your sharing the same blood as Atikaya? The bloodline of Ravana
himself!”
Sita was at a loss. “I do not know. Perhaps because I am a
Chandravanshi? Hence the power of the moon-sword would not be
effective against me?”
Rama smiled darkly. “Yet it seemed quite effective enough when used
aggressively. And you admit of your own accord that you are not a
true Chandravanshi by blood. No, woman, stop lying now. Admit the
truth. You knew all along that you were Ravana’s daughter. Child of
Mandodhari. Deliberately carried from Lanka to this subcontinent and
artfully placed in a field that Janaka had begun to plough, so he would
be certain to discover it. All this was planned ever so carefully. Your
being raised by Janaka as his own daughter. Ravana’s appearance at
the swayamvara and his pitch-perfect performance there, deliberately
provoking me into contesting against him and winning – an obvious
set-up, for he being a devout servant of Shiva, he could have won had
he desired to do so, but he could hardly win his own daughter’s hand
in marriage; then later, when the time was right, his alleged abduction
and spiriting away of you back to Lanka, whereas in fact you went
quite willingly and happily, knowing that since you were not only my
wife but also mother-to-be of my unborn sons, therefore the lineage of
Ayodhya and the honour of the entire Suryavanshi Ikshwaku clan
rested upon my retrieving you, no matter what the cost in lives or
dharma.”
“I never asked you to wage a war for me,” she cried. “And I was
kidnapped, brutally and cruelly. Treated with great harshness and put
through hardship. You know this! You saw me. Your servant
Hanuman saw me as well! Ask him if you do not believe me!”
Rama gestured dismissively. “It was all deception. You played your
part well, I grant you that. No doubt your father rehearsed you well,
your true father. For try as you might, you cannot deny that fact.
Ravana is your father, and your unborn children his grandchildren.”
“They are your children, Rama,” she said. “Dasaratha’s grandchildren.
Kausalya’s grandchildren. Heirs to the Suryavansha empire.
Claimants to the sunwood throne.”
“Ah,” he said, “now you come to the quick. Claimants to the throne of
Ayodhya. And in time, all Aryavarta. That was ever your father’s wily
scheme. That is the reason why you hid the truth of your being with
child when we were in exile.”
“I did not hide it, I was about to tell you that very day! But that
monster abducted me, forcibly. You know this to be true. You were
there! How can you say these things, accuse me of such terrible
crimes? I am your wife. I stayed with you fourteen years in jungle
exile! Why would I do that if not for love of you?”
“Or for love of your father,” Rama said. “You were only a tool in his
master plan. A minor piece in his great game of chaupar, to be moved
at will across the board as he pleased, sacrificed without a second
thought.”
“I fought rakshasas with you!” she said fiercely. “Killed them! We
slaughtered them by the thousands!” She turned to Valmiki. “Tell him,
! You were there too. Would I have slaughtered rakshasas had I known
I was descended from their line?”
Valmiki was about to answer when Rama raised a hand, stopping him.
“No need to debate this further. Whether or not you knew then is
irrelevant—.”
“Irrelevant? You accuse me of being a liar and of having deceived
you all these years! How can you call that irrelevant?”
“It is irrelevant to me,” Rama said coldly. “Either way, the truth is out
now. This is where we stand. You are the progeny of Ravana, placed
into my innermost circle of trust in order to destabilize not just me but
my family, my lineage, my dynasty and all Aryavarta. For all this is
part of the master plan devised by your illustrious father.”
“No!” Sita said. “I will not accept what you say. It is untrue, grossly
untrue. No such plan was devised. Nor was I party to any act of
treachery to you or your family. It is my family too, Rama! My
children are your children. I share your bed, your table, your life.
Does that not mean anything to you? After a lifetime together, would
you reject me out of hand based on mere conjecture and speculation?”
Rama turned to look at her. The hardness of his features was
frightening to behold. It was his war face, the face he had showed
only to his bitter enemies on the battlefield, before he struck them
down with sword or arrow. Never before had that face been directed at
her. Yet there it was now, looking at her with such unforgiving cruelty
that she could scarcely believe this was Rama, her Rama.
No, not my Rama. Not anymore.
She had no idea how a bond that had withstood every test until now
could be snapped so suddenly, so cruelly. It shook her to the very core,
caused her to feel a sadness so overwhelming, she felt she would
drown in it. Be washed away by its power. It surged and roared inside
her head, warring with the disbelief, shock and horror that swam
inside her, nauseating her and and making her wish that the earth itself
would open up and swallow her whole. Better dead than to face such a
moment, live through this, endure such abuse and unfair treatment
from the one person she had trusted above all, trusted with her very
life. Why? How?
“Enough of your lies and denials, woman,” Rama said with a tone so
bitter, he might have been condemning a stranger to death for an
unspeakable crime. “It is pointless to lie thusly when the engineer of
this great plot himself stands before us. Let us ask Ravana himself to
confirm or deny your complicity!”
Rama turned to face Lord Shiva once more.
Sita turned to look as well.
She saw that Shiva had gone, vanished through the great doorway that
had brought him here, presumably, for the doorway shimmered and
glowed with strange, alien hues and reflections even now, just as it
had before the Three-Eyed One had stepped through it to enter their
world.
Now only Ravana remained there, still kneeling as he had been
before. He began to raise himself up now, heaving his great rack of
heads and mighty torso upon his powerful legs as he stood to his full
height, glowering down at them with unmitigated expressions of
pleasure, delight and glee showing on all his ten faces.
“It is as Rama says,” Ravana boomed. “Every word of it. Though I am
a different Ravana from the one you speak of – a Ravana come here
from a past time, long before even Ayodhya existed – yet even now, I
cannot deny that I have planned and put into motion the seeds of the
great plan that will lead eventually to the fruition that is unfolding
here and now in the mortal plane. All that has happened on this
morning in Ayodhya has been according to a well-ordered plan by me.
As my erstwhile uncle Kala-Nemi has surely said to you already,
everything you thought you knew until now is a lie. The ease with
which Rama slew me upon the battlefield of Lanka was only possible
because I permitted myself to be slain that easily. How else could he
defeat the One whom even the devas could not overpower in a
millennia of conflict? Rama knew this too. Just as he knew that
everything he did was essential to my scheme too. Yes. Rama himself
was aware that he was merely playing his part in a greater play. As
were you, my dear daughter. How well you played your role! How
splendid an actor you have been in this role of Sita Janaki! It is no
good your pretending further. The time has come for us all to unite
and take the next, final step in the greater game that is now afoot. For
when Kala-Nemi, Atikaya, Mandodhari, or even Rama referred to my
vengeance, they did not mean something as puerile and obvious as the
destruction of Ayodhya. The vengeance of Ravana is a far greater
plan, one that will impact all worlds, all dimensions, all planes of
existence, and change all things known and unknown, through all
eternity to come!”
Ravana raised himself to his full height, a formidable specimen, his
ten heads all displaying different expressions.
“Behold!”
He spread his arms wide, all six pairs of them, green fire crackling
from all his taloned fingertips. And behind him the Vortal opened
again, like the eye of some great primordial beast and with a grinding
scream that drove everyone to their knees, blinding light exploded
outwards from the archway as it expanded to fill the entire universe.
“Rama!” Hanuman bellowed as he struggled to maintain his footing.
The light blasting out of the archway was unbearable. Rama and Sita
had both winced instinctively at first, and then been forced to bend
over, toppling to their knees too.
For though we may be born of divinity yet in this mortal world, we are
mortal too and subject to all the frailties of mortal flesh, Rama
thought as he endured the shrieking agony that seared his brain.
Hanuman cried out again, as always more concerned about his master
than about his own wellbeing. Finally, he too was unable to withstand
the immensity of the shakti pouring out from the doorway, and
slumped to his haunches, crouched a moment, then toppled over onto
his knees, bending over till his head touched the ground. He was
weeping with frustration, for since his own powers had been
awakened in Rama’s service, he had believed himself capable of
anything.
Today he is learning that everyone, no matter how powerful, has a
limit. Nobody is greater than the shakti of Brahman itself. I’m sorry,
my friend, but it is a necessary lesson.
Almost as if he heard Rama’s thoughts, Hanuman’s struggles subsided
and the vanar settled into a crouched submission.
Beside Rama, Sita knelt on the ground, head bowed as well.
Accepting the frailty of her form and the superior shakti that blasted
them and the surrounding landscape.
Rama forced himself to look around. The entire world was bathed in
blinding white light. So bright, he could just barely make out the fact
that where it touched anything, it was tinged with intense blue. It
looked like the world was being blasted by a hurricane of epic
intensity, yet he knew the shakti would not actually harm or damage
anything or being. He did not know how he knew this; he simply
knew. The phenomenon was akin to a great tunnel of shakti rushing
towards them rather than them rushing through the tunnel. The
intensity and epic nature of the shakti as well as the disconcerting
effect of the shakti rushing at them with such ferocious velocity and
power was what made the experience unbearable.
Yamadev alone remained standing, unmoved by the hurricane of
brahman light. After all, he was a deva. Yet even he looked
downwards, unwilling to stare directly at the effulgence, or perhaps
simply showing humility before the force that made up and worked
the universe itself, showing respect. He saw Rama looking towards
him and made an infinitesimal movement of acknowledgement. Rama
heard his voice within his head and knew that Sita and Hanuman did
so too.
This is the Shockwave. It has been triggered in the distant future, yet
its power ripples back through time itself, altering the course of
history past, present and future. Such is Ravana’s genius that he
planned his attack on an eleven-dimensional front, choosing the
perfect time to launch it, a time when you would never suspect such
an attack, let alone anticipate it. Once the Shockwave ends, he shall
demonstrate his plan. For he is as vain as he is brilliant, and that
vanity shall be his undoing. He desires to show Rama and Sita – as
well as Atikaya, Valmiki and the frozen multitudes of Ayodhya in that
world we were viewing through the Vortal – how spectacular his plan,
how magnificent his artifice, how epic his vengeance. But he does not
know that you are watching. Not merely one of countless Ramas and
Sitas in countless worlds, but the actual amsas of Vishnu and
Lakshmi. Unbeknownst to him, he has in fact been speaking to mere
hollow puppets thus far, believing them to be the real amsas. And this
duplicity was of course achieved by the aid of your old and dear
friend and deva…
Shiva. Yes, I thought as much, Rama said in his mindspace. For Lord
Rudra is not a fool to be taken in and used by anyone, least of all a
rakshasa as devious and duplicitous as Ravana. He would know he
was being used and he must have played along in order to keep
Ravana from realizing the truth, that the Rama and Sita in the world
he entered through the Vortal were not the real amsas at all.
Precisely. For while there can be infinite worlds accessible through
the Vortal, there can only be one of each deva, and by extension, one
amsa or avatar of each deva in the mortal realm at any given time. It is
the law of Balance, as I explained earlier. As you may be aware, I too
serve Lord Shiva, for while I have no immediate superior, being
master of Death and Dharma and sufficient unto myself, yet
ultimately Death too is but one aspect of and therefore subservient to
the natural law of Entropy. And Shiva is Entropy Personified. Lord of
Destruction – Destruction in all its myriad forms. And so I appealed to
my Lord Shiva to deliberately mislead Ravana and play along,
pretending that the Rama and Sita of that world were in fact the real
amsas.
And they in turn played along as well, but they did so innocently,
unaware that they are only simulacra of us, mirror reflections in an
alternate world, not the real Rama and Sita at all.
Yes. That too was my Lord Shiva’s doing. He fed them that delusion
using his infinite powers.
And Ravana was taken in as well, thinking that all Shiva did was
make them aware of their divinity.
Exactly. Because while any amsa or avatar may not be aware of its
own divine origin all its life, yet when confronted by a deva or devi
and called by one’s true name, all awareness and recollection floods
back, and one remembers everything. It is the only way an avatar or
amsa can be ‘unlocked’. So Ravana thought that Shiva was unlocking
that Rama and Sita and that they were then recalling their true natures
as lord and lady of Vaikunta while in fact they were being duped just
as Ravana was. In fact, while any deva or devi might unlock most
avatars, in your and Lakshmi-devi’s case, a special rule was created.
Yes, and that rule said that you alone of all the devas would be the one
to unlock us. For you are Lord of Dharma by which I live my life in
this mortal avatar, and Lord of Death as well, because we were never
to be made aware of our divinity until the time of our death was nigh.
Only you, Yama, my old friend, not Shiva, not Brahma, not anyone
else.
Indeed. This is why we know that you are truly Vishnu-avatar and Sita
is Lakshmi-avatar. For I would not be here otherwise. But Ravana was
never aware of this and assumed that any deva would be able to
unlock the amsas, hence we were able to dupe him effectively. He
truly believes that he is now showing the real Vishnu and Lakshmi his
great epic plan…
A terrible rending sound began, like a great iron thing coming to a
halt. Rama sensed the tunnel-like onrush of brahman shakti was
finally coming to an end and braced himself. The Shockwave of the
Vortal was about to end, and the real vengeance of Ravana about to
unfold.
 THIRTEEN

“BEHOLD JUDGEMENT DAY!”

Ravana’s great baritone, echoed tenfold by all his heads, rumbled and
rolled like thunder across the world. Not across Ayodhya. For
Ayodhya was gone. And in its place had come a terrible mind-rending
vista such as no mortal had ever witnessed before, or even dreamed of
in their wildest visions.
Rama and Sita looked around and saw that they alone remained with
Ravana. Atikaya, Valmiki, Ayodhya, all those who were frozen by the
spellsong, everyone and everything else was gone. Only they
remained.
They stood upon the rim of a great precipice. Below them lay a
ravine, canyon, basin, crater…there were no words to describe
something so vast. It was so immense, it could well have contained an
ocean, or several oceans even. The bottom lay far below, several miles
at least, perhaps even yojanas or dozens of yojanas, it was impossible
to tell. The scale of the place was so colossal, their perceptions could
not encompass the very sight.
Below, in the great abyss lay a world. It was like no place either of
them had ever seen. There were great cities with enormous houses so
tall that they would have dwarfed even the tallest man-made structure
in all Aryavarta – the Seer’s Eye in Ayodhya and its sister tower, the
Sage’s Brow in Mithila. There were countless such structures, not
made of stone or brick or even wood, but of alien materials: glass?
But that was impossible; how could an entire tower be built of glass?
Yet that was what many of the structures seemed to be made up of.
Great gleaming towers of glass and shining metal. Built with such
perfection that even Vishwakarma, architect to the devas, would have
envied their builders.
There were roads crisscrossing the neat, perfectly arranged rows of
glass and metal towers, dissecting them into squares and blocks, rising
above the ground to curve and fly like bridges, but no bridges any
Arya engineer could construct – curving, interweaving margs and
avenues that continued for yojanas upon yojanas in an intertwining
web that was mind-boggling to behold. The cities themselves were
marvels. At this height, it was impossible to see the people that
inhabited them individually; but they could see great numbers of them
moving in shining metal chariots or on foot in immense hordes, like
armies on a battlefield.
For the time being, both Rama and Sita seemed to forget their own
quarrel and were swept up in the sheer exoticism of the vision.
“Is this Swargaloka?” Sita asked, barely able to form her words
clearly for wonderment and fright.
“It is certainly some city of the devas,” Rama replied thickly. “But
none I have ever heard tell of in any katha.”
They raised their eyes reluctantly to look out further and reacted – Sita
gasped, Rama exclaimed – as they saw that the city immediately
below was only one such city upon a world covered from end to end
with many others. There were forests too, and oceans, and rivers, and
lakes, and all else besides. But these paled beside the sheer number of
populated settlements. What world was this where so many tribes
resided in such vast numbers? Surely not the mortal realm! There
were not so many people in the entire world as could fit within one of
those vast cities.
They felt the ground vibrate beneath their feet. And looked down to
see that the rim upon which they stood was not ordinary ground.
There was no mud underfoot, nor stone or brick or any other natural
or man-made material they could identify. Instead, the surface was
made up of some alien texture. It was similar to the petrified tile that
was so dearly prized as flooring in palaces and had to be mined or
quarried with great effort from certain spots, then carefully worked,
cut, polished to bring out the natural beauty. Yet they could see no
streaks, veins or chips. Only a uniform sameness, a greyish continuity
that was physically impossible to attain, no matter how skilled the
cutter or worker. But there was no time to identify the surface of the
ground itself. It was shuddering and shaking, as if with the impact of
immense footfalls. Like a forest floor when a great herd of elephant
was stampeding.
Or a battlefield when an army of rakshasas charge to attack, Rama
thought. And glancing at Sita, he saw that the same thought had
occurred to her simultaneously. Their eyes met briefly and he
wondered for a moment why he had ever been so enraged at her only
moments earlier. Why had he said all those cruel and terrible things?
Did he truly believe those accusations?
But there was no time to dwell on that now. For the shuddering
vibrations were increasing in intensity, until they felt as if they would
both be shaken off their feet and tossed into the abyss below, to fall
for several agonizing moments before crushing their bones upon the
floor of the alien city directly below. They stepped back slowly,
instinctively raising their hands to their sides to balance themselves
better – and their hands touched, and Sita clutched his hand as she had
so often before, and he caught her hand as well, as he had so many
times, and together they stood, hand in hand, watching…
“AND NOW IT BEGINS!” Ravana’s voice boomed from behind
them. They did not turn to look. There was no need. What was
happening before them demanded all their attention.
An invasion was taking place. From a great cloud in the sky above, an
immense cloud that must have continued for hundreds of yojanas and
risen for thousands of yojanas until it vanished in a fog uncountable
miles above, an army was descending. Their target was the city
immediately below, but Rama sensed that there were other forces
descending as well upon the other cities of this world, and that this
entire world, wherever it might be, was under siege now.
But what amazed him were the invaders.
“Devas!” he cried.
And that was indeed what they were. Gods and goddesses.
Devas. Devis. Ashwins. Yakshas. Apsaras. Gandharvas. Every manner
of supernatural being, including those that were often allied with both
Devas and their eternal enemy, the Asuras.
They descended in celestial vehicles of every description. Great
shining vaahans as glorious as Pushpak itself. Some drove incredible
chariots and while some others rode fabulous creatures.
Many flew unaided. Some simply dropped down, to land like
hammers upon the ground below, causing immense cracks to ripple
outwards, the ground to buckle and shatter into fragments, entire
contingents of the massed mortals below to go flying chaotically,
slaughtered even before they had shot an arrow or swung a sword or a
mace, or deployed whatever weapon that these mortals used in their
world. Some flew down like birds of prey, through the great glass and
steel towers like arrows ripping through parchment, sending showers
of glass and metal fragments raining down on the screaming masses
below, then barrelling into those same crowds, smearing hundreds,
thousands perhaps, into jellied blobs upon the roads of the city far
below.
Devastras were deployed, slaughtering great numbers, destroying
towers and entire swathes of the city.
The mortals fought back bravely as well using wonderful weapons of
their own; great metal bows that spat fire and threw great gouts of
what appeared to be blazing metal at the descending attackers. They
had vaahans too, and these zoomed and buzzed through the air, doing
battle with the flying gods and beings, unleashing their own fiery
weapons. And as the two armies met on the ground below, great roars
of rage and battle fury could be heard, though faintly, even at this
great height.
They have great spirit, those poor wretched people, Rama thought.
But how can they stand a chance against gods?
Even as he thought this thought, the entire view before them rippled,
grew misty, obscure. He dabbed at his eyes, disoriented, and shook his
head to clear it. His brain ached as if he had been staring at the same
spot in the sky for too long – or at the sun. Beside him, he sensed Sita
was also disoriented and rubbing her own eyes.
When they were able to see again, the scene before them had changed.
It was much later. The great battle between the mortals and the gods
was long since over. Now the beautiful great cities of their world lay
in a shambles, smoking ruins, shattered towers, upheaved ground…it
was a world in ruins.
Now, another battle raged.
A battle not between mortals and gods.
A battle between the devas and devis that Rama and Sita knew well,
and another race of gods.
There was no doubt that the others were gods as well. From their
appearance, their movement through the air and over the ground, their
sounds, the shakti they unleashed…they were no less formidable than
the devas and devis, and every bit as determined to slaughter their
enemy.
Gods at War, Rama thought, numbed to the core.
Mortalkind has been destroyed, and now the gods themselves war for
possession of the mortal plane – or perhaps for some other goal that I
cannot fathom.
Once more the vista shimmered, obscured and he shut his eyes tightly,
feeling the searing pain deep inside his skull grown fiercer now.
When he opened them again, the alien city, the warring armies of
gods, all of it was gone.
He stood once more in Ayodhya, Sita beside him, Ravana before him.
“Now you have seen the future of mortalkind. And its end.”
And the Lord of Asuras threw back his heads and laughed.
Sita came to her feet, clutching her belly without being aware she was
doing so. In fact, the instant the Shockwave had begun, she had held
her hands to her belly protectively, not sure what effect the strange
explosion of light might have on her unborn children. She had sensed
their utter lack of fear, and that had given her succour, for oftentimes
she had learned of late that they knew better than she how to react to
what was happening. Of course, there was nothing yet that she could
recall that actually scared them or agitated them. Nothing except…
well, except her own distress. And so she had learned to check her
own emotions and responses, not wishing to alarm them. What would
they do anyway? Fight for me? Protect me? She almost smiled at the
thought of her two unborn babies doing battle for her sake.
Her smile faded as she stared at the Vortal.
Beside her, Rama stood as well, and beyond him, Hanuman. To her
left, Yamadev remained standing as before, seemingly unaffected by
anything that had occurred. He gestured, and once more the Vortal
turned opaque as he hid its view of the other Ayodhya, where the
other Rama and Sita stood staring dumbly as Ravana threw back his
heads and laughed.
She was glad not to have to see that anymore; even at a remove,
Ravana was not one person she wished to see again. She thought this
with clenched fists and instantly felt the lives within her kick and
grow agitated. She opened her fists, calming her breathing, caressing
her belly in gentle downward strokes, soothing them. Hush, my
babies, hush. He shall never trouble us again.
“What does it mean?” Hanuman asked, looking bewildered. He
indicated the Vortal as he looked at Yamadev, then at Rama. “I scent
that Ravana means to destroy entire worlds by precipitating some
manner of war between gods and mortals, and then between gods
themselves. In some distant future. But I do not understand how that
can affect us here and now.”
“My friend,” Rama said gently. “We care about all living beings.
Therefore their fate concerns us immensely. What Ravana showed
them just now was merely the end of a great drama he has scripted.
That was merely the end of the final act. The play itself has already
begun and we are all unwitting players in it, whether we know it or
not, choose to be or not.”
“Rama speaks truly,” Yama said, stepping forward. Yet somehow, Sita
noted, the Lord of Death and Dharma managed to remain in shadow
no matter where he moved or how the light fell; his features never
entirely visible, his form always slightly blurred and obscure. And
though she had spent a while already in his presence, she had no clear
image of him in her mind, no visual means of identifying or
describing him.
“Ravana is showing them such sights because he wishes to taunt
Vishnu and Lakshmi. By showing them the end of humanity itself and
the terrible aftermath, he wishes to gloat and to ask the great Preserver
how he feels now that he knows that all the myriad species and races
he has toiled so hard to protect and preserve for aeons will all be
wiped out in one brief and brutal instant. A single day, no more or
less. Judgement Day, as he calls it. What is worse, he is showing
Vishnu that the genocide of the mortal race – and of all other living
beings upon Prithviloka shall be accomplished by the devas
themselves, acting in concert. And that will be followed in turn by a
war between the devas and gods of other faiths.”
“Other faiths?” Hanuman asked, snout wrinkling.
Rama put a hand on the vanar’s shoulder. “In future times, mortals
will not all worship the same gods. Just as our visiting traders from
distant lands speak of different gods and goddesses, practise different
rituals and beliefs even now, so also in the future, Sanatan Dharma
shall not be the only way of life. There shall be entire races and
nations of people who shall follow other laws.”
“Other than dharma?” Hanuman said doubtfully, with a distinctly
disapproving tone.
“Many roads, one goal,” Sita said. “Eventually, whether they admit it
or not, all righteous paths come to the same end.”
Yama nodded. “That is why the same deva is entrusted both with
dharma and death. For both are ways to the same end, as Lakshmidevi
rightly points out.”
Hanuman still looked doubtful, but did not say anything further about
the matter.
Yama went on. “Ravana gloats now because he believes he is
torturing Vishnu and Lakshmi by these sights and revelations. And by
presenting them with a great dharmic dilemma.”
Sita frowned. “Which is?”
Yama glanced at Rama who shrugged and said, “You heard the other
Rama say to Lord Shiva that he intends to stay on the mortal plane to
continue fighting for dharma against the forces of adharma. He even
uses dharma as his excuse for banishing Sita!”
She pursed her lips at that, but said nothing.
Rama went on. “But in fact, that itself is part of Ravana’s plan. To
compel Vishnudeva to stay upon the mortal realm, taking avatar after
avatar, amsa after amsa, in a never-ending, futile struggle to root out
adharma from the world forever.”
“And?” she asked. “What is so wrong with that?”
“It is an impossible task. Ravana has ensured that adharma will
always exist. By permitting Rama to destroy him and wipe out all
asuras, he has forced the Balance to shift in immense, unpredictable
ways.”
“Unpredictable,” Yama said, “except to him. For he planned it that
way. By ensuring the obliteration of the asura races, he compels the
law of Balance to pervert mortals themselves into warring with one
another.
Thus he forces innocent, naively honourable beings into becoming
rakshasas and monsters and preying on their own kind. That is the real
vengeance of Ravana, to turn man against man, brother against
brother, from this day, until all time to come. It begins now, and soon
it continues through an endless series of wars, reaching one great peak
when all the Arya nations go to war against one another, taking sides
in a great epic yuddh that will be known in future times as the Maha
Bharata.”
Sita was about to ask when this maha yuddh was going to take place,
sceptically, since she could not conceive of any age when the Aryas
themselves warred against one another. Before she could speak, the
ground beneath her feet shuddered. It was not like the earlier
sensation, when it had seemed like an imminent earthquake, this was a
single massive shudder, like they were standing upon some wooden
surface that had been struck with a great object and the surface itself
was shaken. Even Hanuman reached up and grabbed hold of a branch
instinctively, which told her how intense the shock must have been.
Rama and Yamadev both reeled but clung onto the trunk of the sala
tree, Rama also grabbing hold of a hanging vine, his bicep knotting.
“What—?” she started to stay. And then her words were snatched
away by a gust of wind so powerful, it felt like her very breath was
being sucked out of her lungs. She tried to scream but of course that
only deprived her of the last air she had. She felt her entire body
buffeted from behind by a blasting force so intense, it felt like the
fabric of her garment was being driven into her skin; she could
actually feel the grain of the cloth boring its way into her pores. She
was flung flat upon the ground, mouth filling with dirt and dried
leaves, nostrils plugged with dirt as well, choking her.
Above the roaring of the wind, there spoke a voice so great it sounded
like an unimaginably great metal object shrieking as it scraped against
another great metal object – like a giant sword locked against another
giant sword in combat. She had never heard such a sound before, nor
anything else this loud. It reduced her to nothingness, to feeling like
she was little more than dirt herself. An insignificant tiny being in a
terribly large and hostile universe. Whatever the source of that voice,
it was beyond her ken or comprehension. It was as if Infinity itself
spoke.
“YOU DARE!” said this terrible voice, the metal-shrieking intensity
unbearable. “IMPUDENT MORTALS! A VANAR? AND YOU,
YAMADEV? I EXPECTED BETTER OF YOU.”
From where she lay, face-down upon the ground, choking on dust,
driven by wind so great it felt like an elephant lying upon her back,
Sita could neither see nor hear Yamadev, so she never knew whether
or not he responded.
And the next instant, another rippling blast struck her, taking away
consciousness as easily as it had taken away breath.
And everything turned
WHITE INFINITE WHITE
Then even the white faded, and her vision was filled with
BLANKNESS
&
VOID
 She floated in the void for an infinity.

And through the void she heard a voice call her name.
Two voices.
Both male, but young. Very young.
And they both called her, “Maa!”
And laughed.
She felt strangely comforted, even though she knew that something
had ended that she had never thought would end. Could end.
And she felt herself smile, even as a tear fell from her eye.
The voices made her feel safe. As if she had nothing to fear anymore.
And that was true.
For even though this was the end, it was also a beginning.
She blinked.
She opened her eyes.
And found herself standing in the great sabha hall of Ayodhya, alone.
The seats usually occupied by mantris, the mahamantri, nobles,
commoners, were all empty. Only the endless rows of pillars marched
in every direction, like stone sentries marking a prison.
She raised her head, knowing whom she would see before she saw
him.
Rama sat before her, upon the sunwood throne. He was Rama and yet
he was not her Rama. She knew this from a single glance, from the
way he sat, legs flung apart insolently, goblet in his careless hand,
head bearing the ornate, gleaming crown lowered, eyes dark and
gleaming, lupine, boring into her. There was no love there. No
compassion. No mercy.
Only ruthless justice.
He spoke. And even before he spoke, she knew what he would say. A
single word, more terrible than volumes.
“Exile.”
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SONS OF SITA

Ashok K. Banker

RAMAYANA SERIES®
Book 8

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 Invocation

Ganesa, lead well this army of words

 Epigraph

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||
|Auspicious Sita, we venerate and worship thee|
||Bless us, endow us with prosperity and bring us fruits abundantly||
Rig-Veda, Mandala 4, Sukta 57, rca 6
 Dedication

for

yashka

ayush yoda

bithika

my beginning
my middle
my end

not necessarily in that order

love, forever

and nothing but love, forever

 RETELLING THE RAMAYANA
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE 2ND INDIAN EDITION 2005

Adi-kavya: The first retelling

Some three thousand years ago, a sage named Valmiki lived in a
remote forest ashram, practicing austerities with his disciples. One
day, the wandering sage Narada visited the ashram and was asked by
Valmiki if he knew of a perfect man. Narada said, indeed, he did know
of such a person, and then told Valmiki and his disciples a story of an
ideal man.

Some days later, Valmiki happened to witness a hunter killing a

kraunchya bird. The crane’s partner was left desolate, and cried
inconsolably. Valmiki was overwhelmed by anger at the hunter’s
action, and sorrow at the bird’s loss. He felt driven to do something
rash, but controlled himself with difficulty.

After his anger and sorrow subsided, he questioned his outburst. After
so many years of practicing meditation and austerities, he had still not
been able to master his own emotions. Was it even possible to do so?
Could any person truly become a master of his passions? For a while
he despaired, but then he recalled the story Narada had told him. He
thought about the implications of the story, about the choices made by
the protagonist and how he had indeed shown great mastery of his
own thoughts, words, deeds and feelings. Valmiki felt inspired by the
recollection and was filled with a calm serenity such as he had never
felt before.

As he recollected the tale of that perfect man of whom Narada had

spoken, he found himself reciting it in a particular cadence and
rhythm. He realized that this rhythm or meter corresponded to the
warbling cries of the kraunchya bird, as if in tribute to the loss that
had inspired his recollection. At once, he resolved to compose his own
version of the story, using the new form of meter, that others might
hear it and be as inspired as he was.

But Narada’s story was only a bare narration of the events, a mere plot
outline as we would call it today. In order to make the story attractive
and memorable to ordinary listeners, Valmiki would have to add and
embellish considerably, filling in details and inventing incidents from
his own imagination. He would have to dramatize the whole story in
order to bring out the powerful dilemmas faced by the protagonist.

But what right did he have to do so? After all, this was not his story. It
was a tale told to him. A tale of a real man and real events. How could
he make up his own version of the story?

At this point, Valmiki was visited by Lord Brahma Himself.

The Creator told him to set his worries aside and begin composing the
work he had in mind. Here is how Valmiki quoted Brahma’s
exhortation to him, in an introductory passage not unlike this one that
you are reading right now:
Recite the tale of Rama … as you heard it told by Narada. Recite the deeds of Rama that are
already known as well as those that are not, his adventures … his battles … the acts of Sita,
known and unknown. Whatever you do not know will become known to you. Never will your
words be inappropriate. Tell Rama’s story … that it may prevail on earth for as long as the
mountains and the rivers exist.

Valmiki needed no further urging. He began composing his poem.

He titled it, Ramayana, meaning literally, The Movements (or Travels)

of Rama.
Foretelling the future
The first thing Valmiki realized on completing his composition was
that it was incomplete. What good was a story without anyone to tell it
to? In the tradition of his age, a bard would normally recite his
compositions himself, perhaps earning some favour or payment in
coin or kind, more often rewarded only with the appreciation of his
listeners. But Valmiki knew that while the form of the story was his
creation, the story itself belonged to all his countrymen. He recalled
Brahma’s exhortation that Rama’s story must prevail on earth for as
long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

So he taught it to his disciples, among whose number were two young

boys whose mother had sought sanctuary with him years ago. Those
two boys, Luv and Kusa, then travelled from place to place, reciting
the Ramayana as composed by their guru.

In time, fate brought them before the very Rama described in the
poem. Rama knew at once that the poem referred to him and
understood that these boys could be none other than his sons by the
banished Sita. Called upon by the curious king, Valmiki himself then
appeared before Rama and entreated him to take back Sita.

Later, Rama asked Valmiki to compose an additional part to the poem,

so that he himself, Rama Chandra, might know what would happen to
him in future. Valmiki obeyed this extraordinary command, and this
supplementary section became the Uttara Kaand of his poem.

Valmiki’s Sanskrit rendition of the tale was a brilliant work by any

standards, ancient or modern. Its charm, beauty and originality can
never be matched. It is a true masterpiece of world literature, the ‘adi-
kavya’ which stands as the fountainhead of our great cultural record.
Even today, thousands of years after its composition, it remains
unsurpassed.
And yet, when we narrate the story of the Ramayana today, it is not
Valmiki’s Sanskrit shlokas that we recite. Few of us today have even
read Valmiki’s immortal composition in its original. Most have not
even read an abridgment. Indeed, an unabridged Ramayana itself,
reproducing Valmiki’s verse without alteration or revisions, is almost
impossible to find. Even the most learned of scholars, steeped in a
lifetime of study of ancient Sanskrit literature, maintain that the
versions of Valmiki’s poem that exist today have been revised and
added to by later hands. Some believe that the first and seventh
kaands, as well as a number of passages within the other kaands, were
all inserted by later writers who preferred to remain anonymous.

Perhaps the earliest retelling of Valmiki’s poem is to be found in the

pages of that vast ocean of stories we call the Mahabharata. When
Krishna Dweipayana-Vyasa, more popularly known today as Ved
Vyasa, composed his equally legendary epic, he retold the story of the
Ramayana in one passage. His retelling differs in small but significant
ways.

Sometime later, the burgeoning Buddhist literature, usually composed

in the Pali dialect, also included stories from the Ramayana, recast in
a somewhat different light. Indeed, Buddhist literature redefined the
term dharma itself, restating it as dhamma and changing the definition
of this and several other core concepts.

In the eleventh century, a Tamil poet named Kamban undertook his

own retelling of the Ramayana legend. Starting out with what seems
to have been an attempt to translate Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kamban
nevertheless deviated dramatically from his source material. In
Kamban’s Ramayana, entire episodes are deleted, new ones appear,
people and places are renamed or changed altogether, and even the
order of some major events is revised. Most of all, Kamban’s
Ramayana relocates the entire story in a milieu that is recognizably
eleventh-century Tamil Nadu in its geography, history, clothes,
customs, etc., rather than the north Indian milieu of Valmiki’s Sanskrit
original. It is essentially a whole new Ramayana, retold in a far more
passionate, rich and colorful idiom.

A few centuries later, Sant Tulsidas undertook his interpretation of the

epic. Tulsidas went so far as to title his work Ramcharitramanas,
rather than calling it the Ramayana.

By doing so, he signalled that he was not undertaking a faithful

translation, but a wholly new variation of his own creation. The
differences are substantial.

In art, sculpture, musical renditions, even in dance, mime and street

theatrical performances, the story of Valmiki’s great poem has been
retold over and over, in countless different variations, some with
minor alterations, others with major deviations. The tradition of
retellings continues even in modern times, through television serials,
films, puppet theatre, children’s versions, cartoons, poetry, pop music
and, of course, in the tradition of Ramlila enactments across the
country every year.

Yet how many of these are faithful to Valmiki? How many, if any at
all, actually refer to the original Sanskrit text, or even attempt to seek
out that text?

Should they even do so?

So many Ramayanas
Does a grandmother consult Valmiki’s Ramayana before she retells
the tale to her grandchildren at night? When she imitates a rakshasa’s
roar or Ravana’s laugh, or Sita’s tears, or Rama’s stoic manner, whom
does she base her performance on? When an actor portrays Rama in a
television serial, or a Ramlila performer enacts a scene, or a sculptor
chisels a likeness, a painter a sketch, whom do they all refer to? There
were no illustrations in Valmiki’s Ramayana. No existing portraits of
Rama survive from that age, no recordings of his voice or video
records of his deeds.

Indeed, many of the episodes or ‘moments’ we believe are from

Valmiki’s Ramayana are not even present in the original Sanskrit
work. They are the result of later retellers, often derived from their
own imagination. One instance is the ‘seema rekha’ believed to have
been drawn by Lakshman before leaving Sita in the hut. No mention
of this incident exists in Valmiki’s Ramayana.

Then there is the constant process of revision that has altered even
those scenes that remain constant through various retellings. For
example, take the scene where Sita entreats Rama to allow her to
accompany him into exile. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, when Rama tells
Sita he has to go into exile, and she asks him to allow her to go with
him, he refuses outright. At first, Sita pleads with him and cries
earnest tears, but when Rama remains adamant, she grows angry and
rebukes him in shockingly harsh terms. She refers to him as a ‘woman
disguised as a man’, says that ‘the world is wrong when they say that
there is no one greater than Rama’, calls him ‘depressed and
frightened’, ‘an actor playing a role’, and other choice epithets. It is
one of the longer scenes in Valmiki’s Ramayana, almost equalling in
length the entire narration of Rama’s early childhood years!
Tamil poet Kamban retells this incident in his more compressed,
volatile, rich style, reducing Sita’s objections to a couple of brief
rebukes: ‘Could it be that the real reason [for Rama not taking her into
exile] is that with me left behind, you’ll be free to enjoy yourself in
the forest?’

By the time we reach Sant Tulsidas’s recension, Sita’s rebukes are

reduced to a few tearful admonitions and appeals. Were these changes
the result of the change in the socially accepted standards of
behaviour between men and women in our country? Quite possibly.
Tulsidas’s Ramcharitramanas depicts a world quite different from that
which Valmiki or even Kamban depict. In fact, each of these three
versions differs so drastically in terms of the language used, the
clothes worn, the various social and cultural references, that they seem
almost independent of one another.

Perhaps the most popularly known version in more recent times is a

simplified English translation of a series of Tamil retellings of
selected episodes of the Kamban version, serialized in a children’s
magazine about fifty years ago. This version by C. Rajagopalachari,
aka Rajaji, was my favourite version as a child too. It was only much
later that I found, through my own extensive research that my beloved
Rajaji version left out whole chunks of the original story and
simplified other parts considerably. Still later, I was sorely
disappointed by yet another version by an otherwise great writer, R.
K. Narayan. In his severely abridged retelling, the story is dealt with
in a manner so rushed and abbreviated, it is reduced to a moral fable
rather than the rich, powerful, mythic epic that Valmiki created.

English scholar William S. Buck’s nineteenth-century version,

dubiously regarded as a classic by English scholars, reads like it might
have been composed under the influence of certain intoxicants: in one
significant departure from Indian versions, Guha, the tribal chief of
the Nisada fisherfolk, without discernible reason, spews a diatribe
against Brahmins, and ends by kicking a statue of Lord Shiva. To add
further confusion, in the illustration accompanying this chapter, Guha
is shown kicking what appears to be a statue of Buddha!
If you travel outside India, farther east, you will find more versions of
the Ramayana that are so far removed from Valmiki, that some are
barely recognizable as the same story. In one recent study of these
various versions of the epic across the different cultures of Asia, an
ageing Muslim woman in Indonesia is surprised to learn from the
author that we have our own Ramayana in India also! The kings of
Thailand are always named Rama along with other dynastic titles, and
consider themselves to be direct descendants of Rama Chandra. The
largest Rama temple, an inspiring ruin even today, is situated not in
India, or even in Nepal, the only nation that takes Hinduism as its
official religion, but in Cambodia. It is called Angkor Vat.

In fact, it is now possible to say that there are as many Ramayanas as

there are people who know the tale, or claim to know it. And no two
versions are exactly alike.

My Ramayana: a personal odyssey

And yet, would we rather have this democratic melange of versions
and variations, or would we rather have a half-remembered, extinct
tale recollected only dimly, like a mostly forgotten myth that we can
recall only fragments of?

Valmiki’s ‘original’ Ramayana was written in Sanskrit, the language

of his time and in an idiom that was highly modern for its age. In fact,
it was so avant garde in its style—the kraunchya inspired shloka metre
—that it was considered ‘adi’ or the first of its kind. Today, few
people except dedicated scholars can understand or read it in its
original form—and even they often disagree vehemently about their
interpretations of the dense archaic Sanskrit text!

Kamban’s overblown rhetoric and colourful descriptions, while

magnificently inspired and appropriate for its age, are equally
anachronistic in today’s times.
Tulsidas’s interpretation, while rightfully regarded as a sacred text,
can seem somewhat heavy-handed in its depiction of man–woman
relationships. It is more of a religious tribute to Lord Rama’s divinity
than a realistic retelling of the story itself.

In Ved Vyasa’s version, the devices of ill-intentioned Manthara,

misguided Kaikeyi and reprehensible Ravana are not the ultimate
cause of Rama’s misfortunes. In fact, it is not due to the asuras either.
It is Brahma himself, using the mortal avatar of Vishnu to cleanse the
world of evil, as perpetuated by Ravana and his asuras, in order to
maintain the eternal balance of good and evil.

My reasons for attempting this retelling were simple and intensely

personal. As a child of an intensely unhappy broken marriage, a
violently bitter failure of parents of two different cultures (Anglo-
Indian Christian and Gujarati Hindu) to accept their differences and
find common ground, I turned to literature for solace. My first
readings were, by accident, in the realm of mythology. So inspired
was I by the simple power and heroic victories of those ancient ur-
tales, I decided to become a writer and tell stories of my own that
would be as great, as inspiring to others. To attempt, if possible, to
bridge cultures, and knit together disparate lives by showing the
common struggle and strife and, ultimately, triumph of all human
souls.

I was barely a boy then. Thirty-odd years of living and battling life
later, albeit not as colourful as Valmiki’s thieving and dacoit years, I
was moved by a powerful inexplicable urge to read the Ramayana
once more. Every version I read seemed to lack something, that vital
something that I can only describe as the ‘connection’ to the work. In
a troubled phase, battling with moral conundrums of my own, I set to
writing my own version of the events. My mind exploded with
images, scenes, entire conversations between characters. I saw, I
heard, I felt … I wrote. Was I exhorted by Brahma Himself? Probably
not! I had no reader in mind, except myself—and everyone. I changed
as a person over the course of that writing. I found peace, or a kind of
peace. I saw how people could devote their lives to worshipping
Rama, or Krishna, or Devi for that matter, my own special ‘Maa’. But
I also felt that this story was beyond religion, beyond nationality,
beyond race, colour, or creed.

Undertaking to retell a story as great and as precious as our classic

adi-kavya is not an enterprise lightly attempted. The first thing I did
was study every available edition of previous retellings to know what
had been done before, the differences between various retellings, and
attempt to understand why. I also spoke extensively to people known
and unknown about their knowledge of the poem, in an attempt to
trace how millennia of verbal retellings have altered the perception of
the tale. One of the most striking things was that most people had
never actually read the ‘original’ Valmiki Ramayana. Indeed, most
people considered Ramcharitramanas by Tulsidas to be ‘the
Ramayana’, and assumed it was an accurate reprise of the Sanskrit
work. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

For instance, Valmiki’s Ramayana depicts Dasaratha as having three

hundred and fifty concubines in addition to his three titled wives. In
keeping with the kingly practices of that age, the ageing raja’s
predilection for the fairer sex is depicted honestly and without any
sense of misogyny. Valmiki neither comments on nor criticizes
Dasaratha’s fondness for fleshly pleasures, he simply states it.

When Rama takes leave of his father before going into exile, he does
so in the palace of concubines, and all of them weep copiously for the
exiled son of their master. When Valmiki describes women, he does so
by enumerating the virtues of each part of their anatomy. There is no
sense of embarrassment or male chauvinism evident here: he is simply
extolling the beauty of the women characters, just as he does for the
male characters like Rama and Hanuman and, yes, even Ravana. Even
in Kamban’s version, the women are depicted in such ripe, full-blown
language, that a modern reader like myself blushes in embarrassment.
Yet the writer exhibits no awkwardness or prurience in these passages
—he is simply describing them as he perceived them in the garb and
fashion of his time.

By the time we reach Tulsidas and later versions, Rama is no less than
a god in human avatar. And in keeping with this foreknowledge, all
related characters are depicted accordingly.

So Dasaratha’s fleshly indulgences take a backseat, the women are

portrayed fully clad and demure in appearance, and their beauty is
ethereal rather than earthly.

How was I to approach my retelling? On one hand, the Ramayana was

now regarded not as a Sanskrit epic of real events that occurred in
ancient India, but as a moral fable of the actions of a human avatar of
Vishnu. On the other hand, I felt the need to bring to life the ancient
world of epic India in all its glory and magnificence, to explore the
human drama as well as the divinity that drove it, to show the nuances
of word and action and choice rather than a black-and-white depiction
of good versus evil. More importantly, what could I offer that was
fresh and new, yet faithful to the spirit of the original story? How
could I ensure that all events and characters were depicted respectfully
yet realistically?

There was little point in simply repeating any version that had gone
before—those already existed, and those who desired to read the
Ramayana in any one of its various forms could simply pick up one of
those previous versions.

But what had never been done before was a complete, or ‘sampoorn’,
Ramayana, incorporating the various, often contradictory aspects of
the various Indian retellers (I wasn’t interested in foreign perspectives,
frankly), while attempting to put us into the minds and hearts of the
various characters. To go beyond a simple plot reprise and bring the
whole story, the whole world of ancient India, alive. To do what every
verbal reteller attempts, or any classical dancer does: make the story
live again.

In order to do this, I chose a modern idiom. I simply used the way I

speak, an amalgam of English–Hindi–Urdu–Sanskrit, and various
other terms from Indian languages. I deliberately used anachronisms
like the terms ‘abs’ or ‘morph’. I based every section, every scene,
every character’s dialogues and actions on the previous Ramayanas,
be it Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas, or Vyasa, and even the various
Puranas. Everything you read here is based on actual research, or my
interpretation of some detail noted in a previous work. The
presentation, of course, is wholly original and my own.

Take the example of the scene of Sita entreating Rama to let her
accompany him into exile. In my retelling, I sought to explore the
relationship between Rama and Sita at a level that is beyond the
physical or social plane. I believed that their’s was a love that was
eternally destined, and that their bond surpassed all human ties. At
one level, yes, I believed that they were Vishnu and Lakshmi. Yet, in
the avatars they were currently in, they were Rama and Sita, two
young people caught up in a time of great turmoil and strife, subjected
to hard, difficult choices. Whatever their divine backgrounds and
karma, here and now, they had to play out their parts one moment at a
time, as real, flesh-and-blood people.

I adopted an approach that was realistic, putting myself (and thereby

the reader) into the feelings and thoughts of both Rama and Sita at
that moment of choice. I felt the intensity of their pain, the great
sorrow and confusion, the frustration at events beyond their control,
and also their ultimate acceptance of what was right, what must be
done, of dharma. In my version, they argue as young couples will at
such a time, they express their anger and mixed emotions, but in the
end, it is not only through duty and dharma that she appeals to him. In
the end, she appeals to him as a wife who is secure in the knowledge
that her husband loves her sincerely, and that the bond that ties them is
not merely one of duty or a formal social knot of matrimony, but of
true love. After the tears, after all other avenues have been mutually
discussed and discarded, she simply says his name and appeals to him,
as a wife, a lover, and as his dearest friend:
‘Rama,’ she said. She raised her arms to him, asking, not pleading. ‘Then let me go with you.’

And he agrees. Not as a god, an avatar, or even a prince. But as a man

who loves her and respects her. And needs her.

In the footsteps of giants

Let me be clear.

This is not Valmiki’s story. Nor Kamban’s. Nor Tulsidas’s.

Nor Vyasa’s. Nor R.K. Narayan’s. Nor Rajaji’s charming, abridged

children’s version.

It is Rama’s story. And Rama’s story belongs to every one of us.

Black, brown, white, or albino. Old or young. Male or female. Hindu,
Christian, Muslim, or whatever faith you espouse. I was once asked at
a press conference to comment on the Babri Masjid demolition and its
relation to my Ramayana. My answer was that the Ramayana had
stood for three thousand years, and would stand for all infinity.
Ayodhya, in my opinion, is not just a place in north-central Uttar
Pradesh. It is a place in our hearts. And in that most sacred of places,
it will live forever, burnished and beautiful as no temple of
consecrated bricks can ever be. When Rama himself heard Luv and
Kusa recite Valmiki’s Ramayana for the first time, even he, the
protagonist of the story, was flabbergasted by the sage’s version of the
events—after all, even he had not known what happened to Sita after
her exile, nor the childhood of Luv and Kusa, nor had he heard their
mother’s version of events narrated so eloquently until then. And in
commanding Valmiki to compose the section about future events,
Rama himself added his seal of authority to Valmiki, adding weight to
Brahma’s exhortation to recite the deeds of Rama that were already
known ‘as well as those that are not’.

And so the tradition of telling and retelling the Ramayana began. It is

that tradition that Kamban, Tulsidas, Vyasa, and so many others were
following. It is through the works of these bards through the ages that
this great tale continues to exist among us. If it changes shape and
structure, form and even content, it is because that is the nature of the
story itself: it inspires the teller to bring fresh insights to each new
version, bringing us ever closer to understanding Rama himself.

This is why it must be told, and retold, an infinite number of times.

By me.

By you.

By grandmothers to their grandchildren.

By people everywhere, regardless of their identity.

The first time I was told the Ramayana, it was on my grandfather’s

knee. He was excessively fond of chewing tambaku paan and his
breath was redolent of its aroma. Because I loved lions, he infused any
number of lions in his Ramayana retellings—Rama fought lions, Sita
fought them, I think even Manthara was cowed down by one at one
point! My grandfather’s name, incidentally, was Ramchandra Banker.
He died of throat cancer caused by his tobacco-chewing habit. But
before his throat ceased working, he had passed on the tale to me.

And now, I pass it on to you. If you desire, and only if, then read this
book. I believe if you are ready to read it, the tale will call out to you,
as it did to me. If that happens, you are in for a great treat. Know that
the version of the Ramayana retold within these pages is a living,
breathing, new-born avatar of the tale itself. Told by a living author in
a living idiom. It is my humbleattempt to do for this great story what
writers down the ages have done with it in their times.

Maazi naroti
In closing, I’d like to quote briefly from two venerable authors who
have walked similar paths.

The first is K.M. Munshi whose Krishnavatara series remains a

benchmark of the genre of modern retellings of ancient tales. These
lines are from Munshi’s own Introduction to the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan edition of 1972:
In the course of this adventure, I had often to depart from legend and myth, for such a
reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little
imagination he has. I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of
Him as I see Him in my imagination.

I could not have said it better.

Yuganta, Iravati Karve’s landmark Sahitya Akademi Award-winning

study of the Mahabharata, packs more valuable insights into its
slender 220-page pocket-sized edition (Disha) than any ten
encyclopaedias. In arguably the finest essay of the book, ‘Draupadi’,
she includes this footnote:
‘The discussion up to this point is based on the critical edition of the Mahabharata. What
 follows is my naroti [naroti = a dry coconut shell, i.e. a worthless thing. The word ‘naroti’ was
first used in this sense by the poet Eknath].’

In the free musings of Karve’s mind, we learn more about Vyasa’s

formidable epic than from most encyclopaedic theses. For only from
free thought can come truly progressive ideas.

In that spirit, I urge readers to consider my dried coconut shell

reworking of the Ramayana in the same spirit.

If anything in the following pages pleases you, thank those great

forebears in whose giant footsteps I placed my own small feet.

If any parts displease you, then please blame them on my inadequate

talents, not on the tale.

ASHOK K. BANKER
Mumbai
April 2005
 EVERY END IS A BEGINNING IS AN END IS A
BEGINNING
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO THE LIMITED SIGNED AKB BOOKS
EDITION 2009

So here we are again in Ayodhya. The question is why.

In late 2004, when I wrote the last pages of King of Ayodhya, I was sure I was
done with the Ramayana Series. Two years later, when the book went to press, I
wrote an Afterword that confidentally stated the series was over and even gave
my reasons for not writing the part of the story that is known as Uttar Kaand in
the Valmiki Ramayana. Next stop, Hastinapura, I said. And then went back to
work on my Mba. No, not a business degree; that’s just my personalized term for
my retelling of The Mahabharata, a mammoth project by any standards, and
equivalent to several degree courses! At a projected ten volumes of over 1000
pages in hardcover each, aiming to cover ALL the material in the original 18
Sanskrit parvas, it was enough to occupy me (or several dozen other writers) for
years if not decades. It should have been reason enough for me to wave goodbye
to the Ramayana forever, hop on the slow train to Epic India and never look
back.

But life has a way of deciding where and when to stop the train. And sometimes,
looking back, most of the stops that really matter in the end, turn out to be
unscheduled ones.

That’s how it was with me and the tale of maryada purshottam.

As some of you may already be aware, I had always been fascinated by myths
and itihasa since childhood and around the turn of the millennium, I had begun
seriously re-reading, researching and studying the puranas with a view to writing
my own series of interlinked retellings as well as original works, comprising an
enormous range of books that would, in theory at least, encompass all the major
myths, legends, itihasa of the Indian sub-continent. I call it my Epic India
Library, and it comprises Four Wheels (to use the Sanskrit analogy) that look
something like this:

ASHOK K. BANKER’S EPIC INDIA LIBRARY

A Lifetime Writing Plan In Four Wheels

WHEEL ONE: PURANAS

Imaginative retellings of Ramayana,
Shrimad Bhagvatam and Mahabharata.

RAMAYANA SERIES®
Prince of Ayodhya
Siege of Mithila
Demons of Chitrakut
Armies of Hanuman
Bridge of Rama
King of Ayodhya
Vengeance of Ravana
Sons of Sita

OMNIBUS VOLUMES
Prince of Dharma
Prince in Exile
Prince at War
King of Dharma

KRISHNA CORIOLIS
Slayer of Kansa
Dance of Govinda
Flute of Vrindavan
Throne of Dwarka
Field of Kurukshetra
Chariot of Arjuna
Coils of Ananta
Lord of Vaikunta
 OMNIBUS VOLUMES
Krishna Leela
Radhey Shyam
Gita Govinda
Vishnu Ananta

MAHABHARATA SERIES
The Forest of Stories
The Seeds of War
The Children of Midnight
As The Blind King Watched
Brothers in Exile
While War Lords Speak of Peace
Upon This Crimson Field
When the Blue God Awakens
Beyond Black, White and Grey
Age of Kali

WHEEL TWO: ITIHASA

Richly detailed historical fiction based entirely on factual research, Starting with
Dasarajna (Battle of Ten Kings), the seminal war described in the Vedas that
established the Bharata nation in the subcontinent, the rise of the Aryas, the story
of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations, the time of Mahavira, the
Buddha, Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, etc, through the Golden Age, Moghul
Era, British Era, upto the present day covering the entire national history (with
no special North, South or other emphasis) including other related cultures and
nations in Asia. An honest and sincere attempt to reconstruct our history for our
point of view, rationally, incisively, without the religious, racial or cultural bias
that unfortunately mars so many revisionist histories, using fictional devices in
the tradition of the finest literary history fiction in order to understand our
history better.

WHEEL THREE: OURSTORY

Contemporary novels that explore diverse facets of the Indian condition, with an
emphasis on how history, both personal as well as collective, influences, affects
and informs every decision, act, motive, outcome. An attempt to create a literary
 document that records snapshots of contemporary Indian life from a variety of
points of view, illuminated by fictional devices, genre tropes, and literary
devices. Vertigo, Byculla Boy, The Pasha of Pedder Road, This Song Like A
Stone In My Fist, Indian English, Beautiful Ugly, Under A Mumbai Sky, The
First Vampire, Devi Darshan: Dark Tales, Man With Celluloid Eyes, In This Cup
The Ocean, and various novels and short fiction in the genres of crime, science
fiction, fantasy, horror, romance or simply general fiction.

WHEEL FOUR: FUTURE HISTORY

To boldly go where no historian has gone before: Using literary devices to
extrapolate possible futures, outcomes of present-day policies and sociopolitical
structures, imaginatively and intellectually explore possible future events and
histories. Gods of War and its sequels, Judgement Day, The Greater Jihad, Rage
of Angels and End of Days. The Vortal Codex, comprising Shockwave, Python,
Flash, Dreamweaver and Final Cut. The Indus Rising trilogy comprising
Gandhi’s War and its two (untitled) sequels.
As you can see, there’s a certain chronological flow to the whole plan. Not only
through all four Wheels, but within each one as well. Now, it’s true that I’ve
already begun submitting books from all four Wheels to publishers – Gods of
War is already published, Vortal: Shockwave is available to readers as well,
some of the contemporary novels have been out for years, and so on. That’s
because, for better or worse, I am following tracks and trails of the imagination
and intellect that lead me where they will. I feel it’s important to write down
those parts of the overall plan that most intrigue and excite me at a given time,
rather than methodically and mechanically following the plan chronologically.
So for example, I wrote Gods of War and Vortal: Shockwave while working on
my Mba and Krishna Coriolis and other books, and felt the first two were
polished enough to be published right away. This is why you’ll find various
volumes in the overall Epic India Library appearing out of sequence. The hope is
that someday, you will be able to own every single volume in the entire Library,
all repackaged in conformative formats and specially related covers, with
numbers indicating the correct reading sequence, and then you can sit down and
start reading the whole shebang from start to finish – now, that would be
something to look forward to, wouldn’t it?

However, within each Wheel, it really would be best to read the books in
chronological sequence. Just as, for instance, you can’t read Bridge of Rama
before Siege of Mithila, and so on without destroying the author’s attempt to
create a cumulative buildup of story through accretion of detail, incident and
character development. In short: while you’re certainly free to do as you wish,
faithful reader, to get the full effect of what I wrote you need to read the whole
Ramayana Series in order, complete it, and then go on to read the Krishna
Coriolis, which after all, continues the epic adventures of the Vishnu-avatar (the
Sword of Dharma as I call Him) through his next incarnation. And then read my
Mba when it starts appearing midway through the Krishna Coriolis, thereafter
alternating between volumes of Mba and Krishna Coriolis in order to get the full
‘stereoscopic’ effect of the entire tale. (Or, since there are Four Wheels in the
Epic India Library we could even call it a ‘quadroscopic’ effect!)

Which brings us to Uttar Kaand.

The ending of King of Ayodhya left Rama and Sita and the others back home in
Ayodhya. The war of Lanka was won. Sita recovered. The exile ended. Rama
presumably crowned and esconced on the sunwood throne. Sita pregnant with
their children. And a world of possibilities ahead – all happy ones, we would
assume.

Yet anyone who knows the basic story of Valmiki Ramayana – or even
Tulsidas’s commentary, which differs somewhat from the adi-kavya and adds a
strong religious and revisionistic colouring to the original Vedic tale – would
know that Rama’s story certainly does not end there. In fact, one of the most
dramatic events of the entire tale occurs after the return home to Ayodhya. Also
one of the most controversial, and the reason most often cited by angry young
Indians who still fume about what they feel was Rama’s chauvinistic ill-
treatment of Sita. Kamban chose to ignore that part of the tale – and so did I, at
first, placing my small feet in the footsteps of the giants who went before.
Because, as I said in my Afterword to King of Ayodhya, I couldn’t reconcile my
idea of Rama with the king who cruelly cast out his beloved life-companion. So
it was with a clear mind that I put aside the Ramayana Series and went on to
write about those amazing five brothers in that great ancient city.

But as I worked on my Mba over the next few years, I realized two major things:
one, my Mba was growing far too large and compendious to fit into the original
nine volumes as planned. The reason being, I’m not satisfied with offering yet
another abridged version of the great purana, but wish to make my retelling the
first complete, comprehensive Mahabharata ever attempted by any single writer.
(Or, for that matter, by any of the several teams of dozens of academic scholars
aided by hundreds of researchers and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over
decades – none of whom, curiously enough seem to have managed to translate
the Sanskrit epic in its entirety, either leaving the project abandoned midway, or
completing it while leaving out valuable details for inscrutable reasons and using
language and ideology that seem designed to make the work accessible to
western minds rather than honestly attempting to capture the full detail, glory,
and greatness of the work itself irrespective of who reads it.)

This problem of length, I eventually resolved by splitting the story into two
separate series: Krishna Coriolis in eight volumes and Mba in ten volumes,
making a total of 18, exactly like the original epic.
The second fact that struck me was the realization that the Krishna Coriolis, in
the manner in which I was treating the retelling, continued almost directly from
the Ramayana Series®,. This is because of my concept of the ‘Sword of
Dharma’ about which you will read more in my Afterword to Sons of Sita: Book
8 of the Ramayana Series®, which will explain many other things as well. For
an avatar or amsa, the moment of death is no death at all. It is simply a
transmogrification. The aatma, that eternal and undiminishable part of brahman
of which each living or inanimate being is composed, simply moves on to its
next host. Thus, Rama dies and is instantly reawakened as Krishna, the next
Sword of Dharma. Mortal years – and our mortal sense of chronological
temporality – are irrelevant to the flow of brahman. To His conciousness, the
transition is virtually instantaneous.

There was also the issue of my considerable alteration to the original tale, done
because I was seeking to find answers to questions that had constantly plagued
me (as it had plagued, and continues to plague countless Indians even today):
Why did Rama act as he did? If dharma was his justification, then why did he
have to be so cruel and heartless about it? Why not gently and regretfully banish
Sita?
Because as anyone who puzzles over this age-old problem knows, the real issue
is not just that Rama exiled Sita. We might swallow the difficult (near-
impossible, in my honest opinion) argument about him abiding by dharma – I
don’t, but still. But how do we explain the extreme cruelty with which he treated
her? Not in front of all Ayodhya, but in a private faceoff where only the two of
them were present, and where he says things and addresses her in a fashion that
is unlike the Rama of the preceding story. It’s as if this is a completely different
Rama now, one that is impossible to reconcile with the loving, gentle,
equalitarian Rama whom Sita is able to speak harshly to, even slap, and
otherwise act and behave on completely equal terms with throughout their earlier
life. (This is one of the crucial differences between Valmiki Ramayana and
Tulsidas and other recenscions, including Kamban to some extent: the
egalitarianism of the sexes, and the clear evidence of womanly power in
exchanges between men and women in those Vedic times, unlike the
considerably diminished stature of women in 16th century India during
Tulsidas’s lifetime.)

The problem I faced was a simple two-fold one: One, how to reconcile Rama’s
behaviour (not his actions, mind you, which can be justified, however absurdly,
by the ‘dharma’ argument, but his behaviour towards his beloved wife) with the
Rama we had known and shared mindspace and heartspace with for over 3000
pages in the preceding six books. Two, how to bridge the time between Rama’s
return home to Ayodhya at the end of King of Ayodhya, and the start of Slayer of
Kansa, the first book of the Krishna Coriolis (which, by the way, will be
appearing in bookstores only a few months from now)?
And so my mind returned to Ayodhya, and as an idle mental exercise, began to
follow the mindtrails and scent-trails of the imagination.

As I finished Gods of War and began work on Judgement Day, the trail widened
and the scent deepened.

When I finished Vortal: Shockwave and began work on Vortal: Python, it

became even clearer.

And finally, by the time I finished Dance of Govinda, the sequel to Slayer of
Kansa, I knew exactly how and why it had all happened. Or at least, my version
of events. (Just as the previous six books were my version of the Valmiki and
Kamban Ramayana.)

And so you now have this book in your hands.

Vengeance of Ravana.

And you’re about to return with me back to Ayodhya. And to begin a journey
that will seem both familiar and strange, I suppose, since that’s how it seemed to
me. And start down the wide, scented path that will lead you to a whole barrage
of new questions that will answer some of the old ones, while raising completely
new ones.

All questions will be answered not here, but in the succeeding, final book, Sons
of Sita. In fact, I should probably warn you that Vengeance of Ravana ends on a
cliffhanger, most definitely incomplete, unfinished, unresolved, and altogether
unsatisfying ending – because that’s the way the story unfolds. What I can
reassure you off, old friend and companion, is that all these new questions as
well as old ones, will be resolved in Sons of Sita. You have my word on that. Of
course, the story itself will not end there, even in Sons of Sita. Because, as I
mentioned earlier, while Rama’s story ends there in SoS, Krishna’s story begins
– and continues in SoK and its seven sequels, and in the Mba thereafter.

But the story starts at this point, and so here we have to start again.

Once again in Ayodhya. Once again in Rama’s bed-chamber late at night. Once
again with the sound of a disembodied voice in his ear, and warm breath on his
neck. Because endings usually bring us back to the beginning in some fashion.
In fact, in Indian (and Asian, to some extent) storytelling, all tales are cyclical, as
are all lives.

So in a way, every end is a beginning. Which itself is an end. And which in turn
is a new beginning. And so on.

After all, as they say, all stories are ultimately linked together. Just as all people
are. All beings. All things. All matter. All universes.

And that’s the last thing I have to tell you before we return to that bed-chamber
in Ayodhya.

While VoR and SoS do conclusively end the Ramayana Series®, they also begin
a whole new tale. One that doesn’t simply continue through the Krishna Coriolis,
Mba, and beyond into the other three Wheels of my Epic India Library. But also
slips sideways and leaps forward in time to other linked stories.

Gods of War and its sequels are one storyline that is directly linked to the events
that conclude the Ramayana Series®. Without reading that series, it is
impossible to fully understand and, more importantly, fully appreciate and enjoy
the larger tale that begins in VoR.

Vortal Codex is another series that must be read in order to understand and, again
more vitally, relish the thrill of the underlying story that starts here in this book.

In short, once you read this book, loyal reader, you run the risk of entering a
maze of chambers. One leads to another to another and so on. Not endlessly.
Because there is a definite end. But a long journey nevertheless. A journey that
will take you through the entire mythology, itihasa, history and contempory
sociopolitical world of the Indian subcontinent (and to a lesser extent, the world
at large). As of this writing, it looks like being about 70 volumes in all. Hence
the term Epic India Library.

In a sense, you began reading the Epic India Library the moment you read any of
my earlier books.

But once you read VoR you will be committed.

Of course, you could still choose not to continue reading. In fact, it’s quite
possible that you may be so fed up of me and my work by the time you put this
book down, that you may never read anything by me again. (Those who take
extremist views for or against Rama may feel that way, since they most often
have their own fixed notions of what they believe really happened, and are
simply not interested in anyone else’s point of view.) But since you’re still here,
still reading this long and possibly irrelevant foreword, I have a feeling you will
go on.

And if you choose to do so, then I just want to remind you that I warned you.
Right here. Right now. I warned you that reading this book will commit you to a
very wide, very scented path that will lead on those dozens of other books, tens
of thousands of pages, and a vast labyrinthine story that will take several years
more to complete, publish, purchase and read, and will occupy a considerable
portion of your waking hours and your book-buying budget.

Will it be worth it? You’ll have to answer that one yourself. I think so. But then
again, the engineer always enjoys riding the train. Just as the charioteer always
loves leading the team of horses.

Why else would the charioteer be a charioteer otherwise? Or the train engineer a
train engineer?

Ultimately, it will be upto you, constant reader, to decide whether this epic
undertaking was worth the effort and time and investment.

And in case all the above seems like the insane dream of a bibliomaniac, well,
one can dream, can’t one? In any case, I’m only talking about writing the books.
As was the case when I started writing my Ramayana Series®, it’s quite likely
that no publisher will want to even look at the manuscripts, let alone publish
them. It’s equally possible that I won’t live long enough to finish telling all the
stories, or even most of them. But what the hey, I’m a 45-year old, balding,
greying, paunchy father to a teenage daughter and an adult son, husband to a
schoolteacher wife, care-giver to an adorable but stubborn basset hound, I live
and work surrounded by books, family, some filmed entertainment and a few
good friends, and that’s pretty much it for me. A simple life, almost boring by
Mumbai/Bombay standards or any standard for that matter. So at the least, at the
very very least, I can afford to dream big, and I’m damn well going to do so.
I have no idea whether or not I’ll succeed, and whether you will feel at the end it
was all worth it. But I’m damn well going to give it an epic try.

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend this lifetime.

And you’re warmly invited to join me for the ride.

Chariots don’t have seatbelts (neither do trains, curiously). So you’re just going
to have to hold on to my shoulder if you need some support. I’ll try to coax the
team to riding gentle, but at times we will have to ride fast and furious. And
there may be bumps. And dips. And obstacles.

But at least we’ll ride them together. And the journey is an amazing one.

That much, I can promise you.

Ashok K. Banker
25 November 2009
Andheri, Mumbai
PRARAMBH
Sita…
Sweet whisper in her ear, myrtle breath upon her cheek. She started awake with a
lurch and a gasp. In the hut’s impenetrable darkness, her hands sought out by
instinct the looming mound of her belly. Her palms gently massaged the sweat-
slicked pot, soothing both herself as well as her sleeping sons. Slowly, by
degrees, the nightmarish visions of ten-headed rakshasas, moon-swords and
three-eyed devas faded away reluctantly, retreated hissing and snapping to the
far corners of the humble hut. She was too middle-heavy to sit up easily; instead,
she leaned upon one elbow, head throbbing, throat hoarse from shouting
forgotten prayers to uncaring gods. The darbha grass pallet was dampened by her
own exudations. She listened idly, hearing only the absence of human sounds.
The ashram was asleep around her. The night was peaceful, the forest quiet – or
as quiet as a forest could be at night. The very music of the woods told her that
all was well, no menace lurked in the dark recesses of the surrounding
wilderness, no rakshasas approached stealthily, no mortal or un-mortal foes
threatened. Within the center of her being, the twin lives growing steadily –
greedily, it seemed somedays – seemed barely to have stirred. She trusted their
instincts more than her own now; for they seemed to sense better than she when
true danger loomed. One kicked, the other kicked back instinctively, and she felt
them both settling back into deep repose. The rhythmic cricketing of insects,
droning of cicadas, and hooting of owls lulled her back to sleep. Darkness
embraced her like a lover returned from a long war. She fell into sleep and
nothingness caught her and began to tug her insistently down towards oblivion…
Sitey.
Her eyes opened, staring up into darkness. That name. Nobody called her by that
name, in that tone. Her name Sita modified to the third-person plural, the tense
used for royalty or formal addresses. Simultaneously affectionate as well as
excessively formal. A name only a lover would use. Nay, not even a lover. Only
a husband.
Janaki.
She swallowed, willing her heart to slow, feeling a fresh bead of sweat
coagulating upon her brow – she had always had a tendency to sweat a great deal
from the crown of her scalp – and it took great restraint to stifle the urge she felt
to speak out. Quiet and serene as the ashram was, its occupants were light
sleepers, accustomed to living in woods populated by the fiercest predators.
Rousing them would take little more than a raised voice, a tone of alarm, or even
a strange sound that did not belong: Maharishi Valmiki would be up and at the
ready in a trice, broadstaff in hand, a mantra on his lips. Then the devas help any
intruder, human or otherwise. So she kept her voice stilled and emotions under
control. There were also the twins to consider. At this advanced stage of her
confinement, waking them would make sleep impossible the rest of the night, for
they would be kicking and ready for action no less quicker than the maharishi.
The very fact that they still slept so soundly told her that whatever presence
swirled around her this night, it was not a force of evil that intended harm to her.
Just as the Maharishi was sensitive to sound, the twins were sensitive to all else.
And that name and that tone. Janaki. Daughter of Janak. Again, an appellation
used by one who cared about her.
Rama, she mouthed silently, her heart turning at the use of his name. Is that you?
Maithili.
This one was less intimate, more generic. Woman of Mithila. Yet coming as it
did after the other familiar terms of endearment, it was more touching, not less,
for its formal generality. She shuddered and covered her face with the crook of
her arm, feeling hot tears spill carelessly down her cheeks. The appellation,
uttered in the most affectionate of tones, caused her mind to resonate with a deep
ringing that issued outwards in concentric waves, seeming to reach to the very
ends of creation.
Vaidehi.
Woman of the Videha nation. This last was so generic, so formal, yet spoken in a
tone so familiar, intimate, caressing, sincere, that it broke the last reserves of her
endurance. The dam burst and she turned her head and cried into the straw, cut
ends digging uncomfortably into her neck and arms and cheek; not caring. She
heard her own sobs in the stillness and thought with a sense of wonder: Who is
that woman weeping so bitterly? Poor thing. She must have suffered some great
loss.
My love, forgive me. I did what I had to for our sakes. For the sake of our sons.
For the sake of our future.
No! She cried silently in her mind’s echoing chamber. You did it for dharma. As
you do everything. That’s all you really care about. Nothing else matters so long
as you fulfill your dharma. It’s the way it’s always been with you!
A moment of silence, as if he did not debate her accusation. Then, gently,
soothingly:
Yes. But you serve dharma too. In your own way. Surely you see that?
She raised her face at last and screamed into the darkness with the true voice of
her heart, audible only to phantoms and miasmas: I don’t want to serve dharma. I
don’t want dharma. I just want you.
She waited. But this time no reply came. Only the silent darkness pressing upon
her from all sides like an invisible cage shrinking by degrees every passing
moment. She felt a sudden rush of remorse then. Regret at having spoken so
harshly to her beloved – or to his phantom presence, or memory, or whatever it
was that had come to her in the deep watches of the night.
Rama? She asked anxiously. Are you there?
But only the darkness remained. The darkness and the silence.
She lay awake the remaining hours to dawn, till the ashram stirred and the
brahmacharyas rose and the daily round of chores and duties began anew. Within
the swollen mound of her belly, the twins slept as peacefully as cubs in a den.
He never came to her again, that night, or any other night.
KAAND 1
 ONE

The heavily laden wagon train trundled noisily through the woods. Sunlight fell
in beams through the high leafy branches of the sala trees, some towering twenty
yards or higher, illuminating the dust motes thrown up in the wake of the rattling
wheels. The forest was rife with the colours of spring, bright bursts of saffron,
vermillion, scarlet, russet, mustard decorating the sloping hillsides across which
the old trading path wound its way. Smaller animals paused in their foraging and
raised slender necks or cocked furry heads to listen as the wagons rumbled past
then continued their nibbling unabated, accustomed to the passing of mortals
through this neck of the woods. A leopard stretched out upon a high tree branch
snarled and bared her fangs silently as she paused in the act of sharpening her
claws; long furrows of stripped bark and gouged slashes marked her chosen spot.
After she had satisfied herself the mortal noisemakers were only passing
through, not stopping, she resumed her energetic grooming, purring with
pleasure as the soft crumbly bark yielded to her razor-sharp tips. Below and only
a few dozen yards to the side, a mongoose ignored the sound and continued to
burrow into a hollow trunk rich with the scent of cobra, disappointed to find only
cracked egg shells and old sheaths discarded at the turn of the season. Suspended
on the trunk of another tree, a wasp stuck in a drip of oozing sap struggled
hopelessly one last time before succumbing to the treacly golden glue that sealed
in its life. Cicadas kept rhythm as the forest went about its daily business of
killing, eating, defecating, urinating, dying and living. Higher up the sloping
hillside, a tribe of langurs dozed in the shade, dopey in the late afternoon heat;
from time to time, a squabble or mating duel provoked a babble which then
quickly subsided. It was too hot to fight, mate, or do much except wait for the
coolness of dusk and the night when the forest truly came alive.
The wagon wheel rims deepened the ruts in the oft used path as they rolled
along. Most of the occupants appeared to be coddled within the covered carts,
sleeping or dozing. Even the drivers were still and silent, moving only the
minimum they had to in order to keep the teams of horses in line. There were
almost no arms in view, and those that were visible were tucked away in rust-
rimmed sheaths and carelessly kept swaddles. At first glance, it appeared to be a
traditional grama – literally, a travelling tribe, for a wagon-train was the
traditional collective in which the Arya hunter-gatherer tribes of yore had moved
from place to place before the relatively recent era of fixed townships and city-
states. But the absence of any women, the complete lack of children, and the
heavily laden carts, as evidenced from the exertion expdended by the horses
drawing the wagons, as well as the covered wagons and oddly quiet procession,
suggested something else altogether. There were none of the usual entourage of
brahmins trudging doggedly behind the wagons chanting their shlokas either,
which ruled out a religious procession. Vaisya traders returning from Videha to
Ayodhya, laden with the spoils of a good season of barter? Perhaps.
At one point the path curved sharply, almost doubling upon itself as it skirted a
jagged outcrop of rock protruding from the hillside. At the same time, the trees
at the bottom of this little outcrop drew back, providing a roughly semicircular
clearing. At some time in the not-too-distant past, two old trees had somehow
been uprooted and fallen, cutting this clearing in half in a pattern that roughly
resembled an arrow fitted to a curved bow. The trees were rotting and overgrown
and intersected the original path in a manner which compelled all travellers to
slow and maneuver their way in a zigzag fashion for a few dozen yards. Each
wagon and horse rider had to slow down and turn left then right then left again,
go around the edge of the outcrop where a particularly enormous boulder jutted
out like the fist of the bowman preparing to loose the arrow that was the fallen
trees, and then turn inwards one last time, riding in the shade of a brief valley-
like enclosure between the sharp rise of the hillside here to the left and the tree
line to the right, before coming back upon the original path and settling back into
familiar ruts. This slowed the entire train and necessitated some concentration of
driverly resources, apart from separating each wagon from the one before and
after for a moment or two at each turning point.
When the first wagon completed this minor obstacle course and turned the sharp
final left, the driver’s attention was immediately diverted to two figures standing
upon the large boulder. The angle of the sun and the high positions taken by the
two men made it impossible to look directly at them. They were little more than
silhouetted male figures clad in simple dhotis, that much he could see. Both held
bows loosely by their sides and bore quivers on their backs, each bristling with a
goodly supply of fletched arrows. They wore no swords or other weapons that
the wagon driver could make out, nor did they appear to have any other
companions anywhere in sight. They stood together, facing outwards in an
insolent casual posture that suggested they simply happened to be there on this
fine spring day, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, and the arrows fitted
loosely to the bows held in the lowered arms were simply things they happened
to be carrying.
The driver raised his brows, but neither slowed nor sought to stop the wagon.
For one thing, it was very heavily laden, overburdened in fact, and stopping and
starting required far too much effort and energy, both on the part of the weary
team as well as himself. He did not see anything that occasioned risking that
much effort here. The two figures standing upon the outcropping boulder
appeared to be simply…standing. If not for their oddly intense faces, he would
have raised a gnarled hand and hailed them pleasantly. But there was something
in their curiously identical features and stillness that reminded him of a duo of
young lionesses he had seen once in the Gir woods, in the moment before they
had both pounced from diagonal points, converging upon a magnificent but age-
bowed stag. This pair put him in mind of that same relaxed yet powerfully
gathered predatory stance. He was an old PF whose ancient war injuries had
proved too restrictive for him to continue active service. He had retired on the
king’s pension and now hired himself out to lead wagon trains like this one to
help earn a little extra from time to time. Like all old soldiers who had seen
violence explode, he knew how even the most innocuous gesture could
sometimes seem provocative or hostile to a person of another culture. He
lowered his half-raised hand and stilled his voice. Better to simply ride past and
on. These were strange times and there were strange people afoot.
He clicked his tongue softly and completed the turn with deft ease, the wagon
swinging around, rear wheels creaking noisily as it rounded the curve. The
stallion on the fore right of the team, a healthy young brute in his prime who was
given to covering every female in sight if given the chance, tossed his head and
shortened his steps reluctantly to compensate for the sharpness of the curve,
nudged and coerced expertly by the driver. The curve done, he lowered his head
and pulled hard, drawing lows of protest from his companions who were in no
particular hurry to reach Ayodhya. The young stud moved as if he had an
appointment with a female waiting eagerly for him in the capitol, straining at
the yoke. The old driver admired his strength and youth without envying him; he
had been somewhat of a bull himself in his youth; in retrospect, he preferred the
quiet wisdom of age and experience over the brash virility of youth anyday. He
was distracted for just a fraction of an instant by the young horses’s antics—long
enough for everything to change.
Movement caught his eye on the boulder. He glanced up just in time to see the
two figures that had been standing still as statues suddenly stir to action. Both
bows were raised, cords taut, and the old wagon rider looked up to see the lethal
metal points of two long arrows aimed directly at him. He had a brief instant to
think of his great-grandchildren back in Ayodhya and of the toys he had bought
for them from the toy mandi in Mithila. He had been looking forward to seeing
their faces dance with delight as he drew each new treat out of the jute sack.
Those little tykes were his greatest source of pleasure in these last years. But
then again, he had seen his share of happy faces. He was not unafraid of dying,
nor foolish enough to risk it just to save some rich vaisya trader’s season’s
stock.
He clucked the team to a halt, yanking hard twice on the young stud’s reins for
emphasis – the fellow was thick-headed enough to ram into the outcrop if not
corrected firmly – then dropped his hands, shaking his head to indicate he meant
to take no aggressive action.
One of the figures standing upon the boulder spoke. And it was then that the
driver had his first real surprise in a very long time. At his age, with his war
record and lifetime of experience, he had seen a fair share of unusual situations.
But it had been a long time since he had been genuinely surprised as he was
now.
Because when the person on the boulder began to speak, he realized what he
hadn’t been able to see before due to the angle of the sunlight.
The two bowmen were just boys.
Little more than children.
 TWO
Luv fixed a bead on the lead wagon driver and kept his aim steady. The man
looked like he had seen violence before, judging from the scar running down the
side of his head and neck, and the way he had yielded without argument.
Another veteran, for sure. What did they call them, those fellows who dressed up
in those funny purple and black dhotis and vastras?
“PF,” Kush said softly beside him. “Tough old men willing to die rather than
surrender. Keep your eye on that one. He looks like trouble.”
“I have him,” Luv replied. “You do what you have to.”
Kush disappeared.
Luv was watching the wagon driver’s eyes. They were looking downwards, at
the ground, apparently not looking at anything in particular. Yet Luv clearly saw
them widen as Kush vanished. Smart fellow, using his peripheral vision.
Yes, this one bore watching closely. Luv would have bet his straightest arrow on
the grizzled old fellow being the head of the wagon train’s security force. An old
ex-PF, retired, making a few cross-border trips like this one to keep busy and
earn a little to keep up his sense of pride. There would be others in the remaining
wagons, younger stronger men, more eager and less sensible, but this one was
the head. Cut off the head and the body would flail uselessly. Or so it went in
theory. He watched the old driver without staring directly at him – that was a
sure way to ruin your focus and tire your eyes quickly – and didn’t miss the
veteran’s veiled glances back up the path.
He’s expecting the next wagon to come around that curve any moment, hoping
to use its appearance as a distraction to leap down to the right, roll quickly and
use the wagon to shield himself.
Luv resisted the urge to grin. The man probably thought he could move pretty
fast, even at this age.
And he probably can. But not faster than an arrow. Watch out, old uncle.
But it told him the man was an honourable fellow, willing to risk life and limb to
earn his coin. And that made him dangerous.
***
Kush stood in the center of the path, directly in the way of the second wagon.
Heavily laden like the first, it had taken a few moments to maneuver around the
rock-strewn path. Two men rode in front of this one; an older man handling the
reins, a younger one riding beside him with a shortbow laid on his lap. On
catching sight of him, this man swore and raised the bow, fitting an arrow to the
string. Should have held it loosely in one hand, ready to shoot. Before he could
draw, Kush’s first arrow knocked the bow out of his hands. It struck the wooden
frame of the wagon, bounced off and fell under the rear wheel of the wagon.
Kush heard the sound of cured wood splintering. Waste of a good weapon.
The man swore again as he snatched up a javelin lying discreetly in a recessed
groove beside his seat. He had the upper body bulk of a thrower and Kush had
no doubt he had probably won many melas in his day.
He called out as the man raised the metal tipped wooden pole to shoulder height:
“Drop the weapon. Keep your arm.”
The man showed his teeth and continued without so much as a sideward glance
or hesitation. Kush sighed inwardly and wondered why they never listened. The
javelin clattered back onto the wagon’s boards as the man stared
uncomprehendingly at the arrow that had sprouted from his bicep, disabling his
arm. To his credit, he didn’t scream or cry out. At least he’s a professional. He
hated it when at times the vaisya traders too cheap to hire good protectors
enlisted their own over-enthusiastic relatives to guard the trains. Someone
always got badly hurt at those times.
Kush had already turned the bow back to the wagon driver, another arrow
already strung and ready to be loosed. The older man didn’t need to have the
basics of life explained to him. He was already clucking and prodding and
yanking frantically at the reins. With an effort he managed to stop the wagon
barely inches from Kush. The breath of the lead horses puffed warmly on Kush’s
bare hairless chest.
He bent his head forward and nuzzled the dripping snout of the lead horse, a
roan stallion with a white leaf-shaped patch on his forehead, whispering a few
words of endearment, while keeping the bow cocked and aimed at the wagon
driver. If the man jerked the team forward at that moment…Kush would have to
dance merrily to somersault out of the way of the pounding hooves in time. But
he trusted horses more than men. The roan’s eyes would flare the instant that
happened, giving him the fraction of a second he needed to act.
He kissed the roan one last time: “Someday, I’ll own a herd of beauties just like
you.” The roan whinnied in approval as he walked away.
He jerked his head sideways at the wagon driver and the protector, indicating to
them to get off. When both men were on the ground, the younger one glaring
balefully at Kush, ignoring the arrow stuck in the meat of his arm, Kush pointed
the arrow at each one in turn, making sure they looked into his eyes and saw he
was serious. The younger one still looked rebellious, so Kush shot an arrow past
his head, nicking his scalp with the fletch as it hissed past, just enough to open a
cut that would bleed without actually harming the man. The man cursed again,
tried to clap his injured hand to the head cut, slapped his own cheek instead, then
got busy trying to keep the blood out of his eyes. Head wounds never stopped
bleeding on their own, and the man would need patching and herbs to staunch
the small but troublesome trickle. That, along with the arrow still in his arm
would keep him distracted enough. The driver would give Kush no trouble: he
could see it in the man’s eyes. He probably had grandchildren in Ayodhya he
wanted to get home to and fighting to protect some rich vaisya trader’s summer’s
earning did not seem motivation enough to risk his life.
“Keep your arrows on them, brothers,” Kush called out as he ran past them. “I
shall halt the rest of the grama.”
Their eyes flicked one way then another, attempting to seek out where Kush’s
fictitious companions might be placed. Kush grinned as he turned the corner.
Good. That would keep them well-behaved till he returned.
He rounded the corner just as the rest of the wagon train trundled into sight. He
wondered what the Sanskrit highspeech word was for a train carrying only
produce and goods for barter and sale. A grama was strictly speaking a travelling
clan or extended tribe. These wagon trains that rolled through this neck of the
woods were purely carrying loads of trade items guarded and ferried by hired
hands from one market town to another. There were no families here, no kith or
kin. Just male kshatriyas of every background possible, all armed to defend these
goods. A vaisya-grama, it should be called, he thought scornfully. Not because
there was anything wrong with the vaisya merchant class, but because a grama
so wholly devoted to naught but the pursuit of wealth and individual profit was
unnatural, an abomination. Then again, these were city gramas, and cities were
corrupt places, breeding grounds of venial vices. These men probably thought
they were merely fulfilling their dharma; not that they even knew what dharma
truly meant.
“Halt!” he shouted in a voice far greater than seemed possible for one of his
small frame and slender torso. His voice carried the conviction of a man who
would enforce his own command with the unleashing of weapons if need be.
Never mind that he was less than 10 years of age. It took more than years or
kilos of muscle to make a man a man.
The line of laden wagons continued to approach without slowing down. The
riders had to have seen Kush but they were urging their teams on regardless,
chins tucked low, eyes narrowed. From the hunched, tensed way they sat, Kush
sensed that they had either expected something like this to happen or were
prepared for it. He also knew what they intended to do: ride over him. The
foremost wagon rumbled at a steady pace towards him, just about twenty yards
away now. He could see the colours of the eyes of the men riding on the rider’s
bench. They looked grizzled and tougher than the ones on the front two wagons.
Grama-rakshaks. Luve and he had heard of them, kshatriyas who travelled with
gramas like this one, guarding them for a fee. It was the first time he was facing
one.
He raised his bow, aiming it at them. They seemed to hunch a little lower but
made no other move. The man beside the driver already had a bow in his hand
with an arrow fitted to the string, stretched and pointed downwards. As Kush
raised his bow, the grama-rakshak raised his own, both arrows ready to loose
now. Other than that, there was no reaction to his shouted command.
He didn’t entirely blame them. A single bowman barring their way, that too one
of his obvious physical appearance, probably seemed unworthy of any response.
He would just have to prove them wrong.
“Halt or I shoot!” he called again. The wagon was barely fifteen yards away
now.
In response, the man beside the driver loosed his own arrow. It was well aimed
and Kush felt the heated wind of its passing tickle his chest as he swung his body
just enough to make space for the arrow to go by. His arrow was already loosed
before he swung around, a fraction of a second after the grama-rakshak’s arrow.
The man cursed once, and stared down at the arrow sprouting from his muscled
shoulder. It was not a serious wound but it rendered him incapable of using a
bow for the time being, which was all Kush had intended.
The wagon driver cracked his whip and the team of horses lurched forward,
breaking into a steady canter. The speed at which they moved startled Kush. It
could only mean the wagon was not as heavily laden as Luv and he had thought.
They covered the remaining ten yards to him in a trice and he barely had time to
sling his bow before the towering Kambhoja stallions thundered down on him,
fully twice his height and each weighing a half ton. More than two tons of horse
and wagon pounded over him relentlessly.
 THREE
Luv knew Kush was in trouble even before he heard the whinnying of horses and
shouting of hoarse voices from beyond the outcrop. He wasn’t startled in the
least but the old PF with the scar probably assumed he would be and made his
move. He leaped off the wagon with surprising speed and ought to have rolled to
the right, behind the cover of the wagon; instead he rolled left, grabbing the
team’s rig, using the horses as a shield. Luv’s first arrow whizzed harmlessly
through the gap where he had expected the man to be and his second remained
notched and ready but unloosed. Firing under the team’s bellies would certainly
startle them and with that lead roan stallion already impatient and restless to be
on his way again, that would only result in a runaway wagon. Not part of the
plan. He didn’t bother to call out to the man either: the fellow knew what he was
doing and obviously still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Instead, Luv aimed at a
new target, a slender leathery one, and fired off three quick arrows in succession.
Then he grinned, pleased at the result, and loosed a fourth one directly behind
the lead roan’s rump, close enough that were he to go collect that arrow it would
probably smell of horse’s droppings!
The roan stallion snorted in response, kicked out once, then suddenly realized
what had just happened. Somehow, by some miracle, he and his equestrian
companions had been set free of their burdensome load. Without further ado, he
lowered his head like a charging bull and started down the path. Startled, the rest
of the team had no choice but to follow, and with the burden of the wagon gone,
they broke instantly into a canter that turned quickly into a cheerful gallop as
they went around the last abutment and disappeared from sight.
In the trail of dust left by their passing, the aging wagon driver lay sprawled on
the ground, staring in dazed surprise after the fleeing horses. Before he could get
back to his feet, Luv had leaped off the boulder, using a series of lesser stones to
hop, skip, jump to the path. He aimed the bow at the man again, who started,
convinced he was about to be killed.
“Easy,” Luv said. “We never hurt anyone unless he tries to hurt us first.”
The man showed Luv his open palms. “I’m not looking for a fight, yuvraj. Just
an old wagon driver. I leave the fighting to the grama-rakshaks.” He jerked his
head backwards, indicating the path behind the stranded wagon.
Almost on cue, a fresh burst of yells and horse sounds came to them from
beyond the outcrop. Judging by the sounds, Luv estimated that it wasn’t the
second wagon Kush was having trouble with but the rest of the grama. I should
go to him, there might be too many for him to handle.
He saw the old driver watching him closely during the few moments it took him
to think this and consider the options. Old man may not want to fight, but he’s
still a shrewd one.
“What’s your name, oldun?” he asked.
The old driver frowned, his forehead wrinkling in a way that reminded Luv of
the bed of the Sona river when it had dried up in last year’s drought. “Why do
you need to know that?” he asked.
Luv raised the arrow a fraction.
The man shrugged. “All right. It’s Bejoo. Used to be Captain Bejoo of the Vajra
—”
Luv cut him off. “Bejoo. I don’t need your atmakatha. Listen carefully. I’m
leaving you alone here for a moment. I could tell you that I have companions
watching you from the woods but I won’t do that because you seem like a sharp
man. So I’m just going to ask you to stay here till I get back, and not run away.
You do that and I’ll let you walk away unharmed. Run and I won’t. Clear?”
The man looked at him suddenly with a peculiar expression.
Luv raised the arrow another fraction. “Clear?” He couldn’t keep the tone of
impatience out of his voice. Kush was definitely in trouble by now, or he would
have been back.
The man swallowed, then nodded. “Aye. Ayuh, youngun. Clear as the Sarayu in
spring.”
Luv looked at him sharply. “Remember. I know these woods like the back of my
hand. Run and you die.”
The man nodded again. Again that same peculiar look. He looks like he’s just
recognized me and we were long-lost friends. But Luv had never seen the man
before in his life.
Luv turned and sprinted up the path.
“Kush!” he yelled as he went. “I’m coming!”
***
Kush heard the men laughing even over the thundering of the horse’s hooves and
the racket of the wagon. They meant to run me down! By kshatriya code, that
meant he was free to use mortal violence against them. When someone openly
attempted to kill a warrior, he in turn was justified in killing the aggressors to
defend his life. Even so, Kush scornfully discarded the idea: men who used a
wagon to run down a solitary boy were not worthy adversaries. What was the
phrase Maatr used? ‘Don’t soil your arrowheads with cowardly blood!’ He
grinned. Maatr was always saying things like that, Vishnu bless her.
He whispered affectionately to both the horses whose rigging he was clinging to,
their warm breath on his neck and face tickling him and making him giggle
involuntarily. He had been ridden over before and had learned at an early age
how to let the horse take you rather than resist and fight the onward-rushing
force. Flesh, sinew and bone could be destroyed by that onrushing weight as
easily as a footfall would snap a twig. But if a kshatriya was trained and
prepared, it was like a wayward puddle being collected by an onflowing stream
of water and just as effortless. He had simply let the pounding horses bear down
on him, crouched down at just the right angle, and grabbed hold of the rigging
between the two lead horses at precisely the right moment: the warrior’s
moment, as he and Luv liked to call it. On the raj-marg, one either moved aside –
often at breakneck speed to avoid some of those hot-riding royal contingents – or
got crushed under pounding hooves and chariot or wagon wheels. Ever since
they could remember, they had seen people killed thusly, often old folk too weak
or slow to move aside in time, poor unfortunate carrying too heavy a load to toss
aside in time and most heartrending of all, children as small as themselves, tiny
bodies mangled from the hooves into a shapeless heap of shattered bones and
oozing flesh. After viewing one particularly nasty aftermath of a visiting royal
procession with an armed escort, Luv and he had begun to teach themselves how
to survive such encounters without ending up as battered blood-mash. By the age
of 5, when they were old enough to reach the rigging of the tall horses that
thundered down the king’s road, they had mastered the art of letting the horse
take them. Now, it was easy as clinging to Maatr’s breast.
He had began working his way down the length of the rigging almost
immediately after being picked up. Now he looked up between a crack in the
floorboards of the driver’s seat at the two men riding there. The one with the
arrow in his shoulder was still cursing, but his indignation at his own pain was
outweighed by his amusement at having run over the ‘brigand’. They were tough
grizzled old veterans, probably ex-PFs like the one in the lead wagon. Luv didn’t
waste more time on them. He was more interested in finding out what cargo they
carried that had made them too nervous to halt. It was the work of only another
moment to haul himself under the wagon itself, then up the side where he found
enough space under the flap covering to slip into the vehicle itself without those
in the following wagon seeing him.
Inside the wagon, the noise of the grama oddly muted by the heavy canvas
covering, he stared around at the consignment for a long silent moment,
stunned.
Of all the possible cargoes he had expected, this was not on the list.
Just then he heard the men shouting and the wagon slowing and knew that could
only mean one thing: They had reached the stranded second wagon. And most
likely, Luv as well.
Now, the fun would begin.
 FOUR
When Luv came sprinting around the outcrop, two pairs of eyes instantly
snapped around to stare at him. The two men on the second wagon looked
startled to see him. I know that look. They think I’m Kush and can’t figure out
how he could have run off in that direction and then appeared again from this
direction. He was used to that response. He yelled at them as he sprinted past:
“Stay where you are!” They looked too startled to try anything anyway.
Barely had he run past the wagon when he heard the sound of pounding hooves
from ahead, around the next spur of rock. A few broken boulders lay on the path,
their insides gleaming rusty red where they had broken open after falling in a
minor landslide during the last monsoon. Others had been pushed over
deliberately to block the path, for this was a popular ambush point on the raj-
marg. The sound of hooves and rattling of wagon wheels was very loud by then
and he knew better than to run around a blind turn. Instead he swerved and
leaped up onto the largest broken boulder. He could smell the iron in the air here,
so rich was the vein in the lohit stone. These hills were rife with minerals, good
pure ore for making steel.
He stood in the relaxed archer position that Bearface had taught them, waiting.
Don’t call your guru that name, Maatr’s voice said in his mind’s ear, He is
Gurudev to you, remember!
Yes, Maa.
The position that Bearface had taught them, the lazy cobra, their guru had called
it, was now second nature. He waits, seemingly indolent, swaying lazily, but the
instant threat appears, he strikes with lightning-speed.
Luv didn’t know if he moved at lightning-speed, but the instant the wagon came
into sight, he let fly. The first arrow hit its mark and the second was flying even
before the wagon had rolled fully into view. A man shouted out with pain and
tumbled off the wagon, with two arrows sprouting, one from each shoulder – the
first had clearly been Kush’s work. The driver screamed like a wounded horse
and clutched at the arrow quivering in the meat of his thigh – the head must have
struck the thighbone, hence the vibration and the extreme pain. Then the wagon
rolled past and the next came into view, and still no sight of Kush.
Damnit, Luv thought, feeling the heat rise in his face, cheeks burning. Where are
you?
The men on this wagon were better prepared and better shots. Three well aimed
arrows came blurring at Luv and he had to somersault sideways to dodge both.
Landing on his bare feet on the rubble of the lohitstone, he felt warmth on his
waist where one had nicked the skin just enough to draw a bead or two. He
loosed off two quick ones before the men could shoot the second volley, and
both hit their marks. Both men dropped their own bows, one grunting, the other
choosing the strong silent response.
Then the rest of the grama came into view, riding fast, faster than any grama
ought to have been especially on this twisting treacherous neck of the raj-marg,
and everything began to move very quickly, so quickly that Luv felt his senses
slowing to a crawl as they always did in a fight, the world popping into brilliant
crystalline clarity and colour: the veins on every leaf visible, every knothole on
the wooden slats of a wagon’s side in view, hearing every grinding creak in a
wheel, smelling the raw red odors of freshly spilled human blood mixed in with
the pungent smell of horse sweat, man-sweat and the rusty tang of the
lohitstone.
The flaps of the following wagons opened and revealed armed men. Burly,
hirsute, armoured men in the familiar purple and black of Ayodhya’s inner guard.
PFs, or some new extension of the PF regiment – for PFs were meant to guard
the inner city, not ride with trading gramas as hired escorts. Whatever they were,
whomever they were, there were a lot of them, too many for Luv to simply
disarm. He would have to fight them seriously to survive, kill some quite likely.
And even then it would be touch and go.
The good warrior knows when to retreat, said his guru’s gruff voice in his ear.
The code of the kshatriya means nothing if there is no kshatriya left to fight!
Agreeing with Bearface – sorry, Gurudev – was his mother’s voice in his other
ear. Run, Luv, run! You can’t fight them all!
Ji, Maatr, jaisi aagya, he said in his mind as he began the heavy task of fitting
arrows to bow and aiming not to maim or disarm but to disable, possibly kill. I
would love to run. But not without my brother.
“Damnit Kush, where the hell are you?” he said aloud as he began shooting.
***
Kush emerged from the wagon to see his twin brother standing on a pile of
lohistone landslide, the edges of the outcrop at his back, loosing arrows with
concentrated ease. He appeared to be single-handedly battling what looked like
at least five quads of armed PFs, even though PFs never ventured armed and
uniformed outside the Ayodhya city limits. Clearly this grama was a notable
exception to the usual rules.
Which makes sense, considering the cargo they’re carrying, he thought as he
sprinted away from Luv and to the other side of the raj-marg, unnoticed by either
his brother or the men busy trying to kill him. In three deft leaps and grabs he
had climbed a tree and was standing on a near-horizontal branch twice as thick
as his own thigh. It would have bent and drooped under a grown man’s weight
but it took his own lithe form easily, and he steadied his left shoulder against the
trunk, took aim at his first target and loosed. The man took the arrow in the
meaty muscle joining shoulder to neck, and it popped out through his collarbone
with a small explosion of blood. The man yelped like a pup and dropped the
javelin he had been about to fling at Luv.
Without turning to look directly at Kush, Luv cried out with joy. “Kush!” Then
added in a disgruntled tone even as he continued loosing and dodging: “Took
your time, didn’t you!”
“Had to make a short visit to the royal treasury,” Kush called back, grinning. He
continued loosing, and saw his third target drop, roaring with frustration and fury
as he tried to clutch at the arrow sprouting from his shoulderblade. Hit the bone,
hurts like blazes. That voice was old Nakhudi’s, who always seemed to know
how to inflict maximum pain on the enemy without actually killing them. Only
male enemies, as she liked to remind them, grinning to reveal her astonishingly
white gleaming teeth in her buffalo-dark face.
The fight continued for another few moments, the PFs on and around the halted
wagons trying with admirable skill to face an attack on two diagonally opposed
fronts with diminishing success. Their leader, an efficient and intelligent-
seeming fellow, tried to rally his men to use the wagons as shielding, while
attempting to send a pair of quads around to outflank Kush – Luv was bolstered
by the outcrop which would have taken hours to cut over and around – but the
brothers had them at the deadliest cross-angle two bowmen could take, and the
broken stones shielded Luv while the tree and foliage shielded Kush, and while
many arrows and javelins were aimed at them, none came closer than a single
wayward arrow that thunked into the tree branch between Kush’s big toe and its
neighbour.
Then, as fierce fights usually did, this one dissipated like a puddle evaporating
under a mid-day sun, and suddenly the captain of the PFs was waving his arms
in surrender.
Kush grinned and dropped down from his perch, making his way cautiously
towards the halted wagons. He had his eye on some men at the back who might,
if still feisty enough, try to fling a javelin or two as he approached. But every
one of them and all the others as well had at least one arrow in their arm, leg or
back, and one massively built chap who had refused to settle down with just two
or even three arrows had four bristling from his extremities, lying on his back
and cursing the sky roundly with a raised fist, turning the air blue with his choice
of profanities. Kush grinned even wider, making a note of several for future
reference. Living in an ashram community as they did, good curses were hard to
come by!
Luv had leaped up to the tall broken lohitstone boulder, keeping his weapon
trained on the PFs as his brother approached. Kush winked at him as he came
and saw Luv shake his head in mock-disgust – complaining about the moments
when Kush had disappeared from sight earlier. The PFs quietened as he reached
them, holding down their moaning and grunting and cursing as they saw the
‘men’ who had bested them up close for the first time.
 FIVE
“You should have seen their faces,” Kush said, slapping his thigh with delight.
“They looked like brahmins who had eaten ashubh bhojan by mistake and didn’t
know whether to spit it out rudely or swallow it and violate dharma!”
“And they had so many arrows sticking out of their arms and legs,” Luv said, “if
they stood close together in a bunch, they would have looked like a giant
hedgehog!”
Both boys laughed in the high-pitched tone of young men whose voices had not
been altered by maturity yet.
Nakhudi grunted non-commitally, shaking her head wistfully. “You boys. One of
these days, you’ll run up against someone who’s a match for you two, and there
will be hell to pay. How many gramas have you held up and robbed until now?”
“Nakhudi!” Luv said plaintively. “We didn’t rob anybody! We just took back a
fair share of what Ayodhya takes from the people unlawfully, that’s all.”
“That’s right,” Kush said, equally outraged. “Whatever we took from those
gramas belonged to the people, and we took it to give it back to the people
anyway. So it wasn’t robbing!”
Nakhudi looked at their two young faces, identical chins turned up stubborn to
point at her, dusky cheeks flushed with their recent adventures and their present
outrage. She shook her head slowly. She had been picking out berries from her
thatched basket to offer them: the boys loved berries and she always kept some
just for their visits. She put down the handful of choice berries she had picked
out lovingly from the basket and stood. Her head almost bumped the roof of her
little hut when she drew herself to her full height, for it was built low to
withstand the sweeping monsoon winds that sometimes washed this hillock in
the midst of the deep woods. She glared down at the boys. Standing to her full
height, she topped their tousled heads by easily twice their height; she was taller
than any woman they had ever seen, taller than most men they knew, and her
scarred broad face, flat nose, shining dark eyes and formidable bulk all
combined to give her a fierce aspect. She used all of that as well as the hoarse
voice that lent her an air of danger and made her seem angry even when she
wasn’t, to deliberately intimidate them.
“Listen to me, and listen well, for I’ll only say this once,” she rasped, poking an
outstretched finger into Luv’s chest and then at Kush’s chest. To the boys, strong
as they were for their age, it felt like being struck by the blunt end of a thin staff
or rod. She cracked her knuckles and stretched her hands, as if limbering up for
more aggressive action, which only added to the air of threat. “Ayodhya makes
the laws in this part of the world. By Indra’s hundred eyes, what am I saying?
Ayodhya is the law. This jungle may seem unpopulated and a long way from any
city, but it’s still part of the Kosala nation. And by law, it falls under Ayodhyan
jurisdiction and governance. That governance includes the right to tax the people
as required from time to time. So don’t call what they take unlawful.”
They glanced at each other doubtfully. Suddenly, the same two young bowmen
who had stood upto an entire grama protected by armed warriors had been
reduced to just two startled young boys. It had taken only a change of tone and
attitude on Nakhudi’s part; the hermit woman always had that effect on them.
Part of it was a result of the respect and awe they felt for her warrior skills and
longstanding comradeship with their mother. But they were also scared of her.
Nakhudi when angered was a fearsome thing to behold. For reasons they could
not wholly fathom, she was clearly angered now. And they didn’t like it one bit.
“Now, you boys may feel that after the droughts and famines and other ill winds
that have harried the kingdom over the last several years, Ayodhya ought not to
be taxing the people and I can’t say I disagree with you. Kali Herself knows that
times are hard enough as it is, and the tax is only one more back-breaking burden
piled on top of too many others. But that’s not for you or me to decide. That’s
Ayodhya’s decision. And if Ayodhya chooses to levy the tax, then that makes it a
lawful tax. You boys saw the suffering of a few people who reside in these
remote parts and felt sorry for them. So you decided to hold up a grama or two –
or is it three? How many is it anyway?”
She snapped her fingers right by Kush’s ear, loud enough that it sounded like a
twig snapping underfoot.
The boy didn’t flinch but said sullenly, “Three so far. But one was only—”
“Be quiet while your elders are talking.” She continued decisively, “So you hold
up three gramas in as many seasons, and take a wagonload from each one. And
you distribute the contents of that wagonload to the poorest, most needy people
you can find around here. And it’s true, the few people who live here in this
Durgaforsaken jungle are really poor and truly needy. And it’s a great service
you do them, by giving them those provisions. I don’t deny that one whit. But
make no mistake about this one truth: those wagonloads of goods you take by
force don’t belong to the people anymore. The minute Ayodhya’s tax-collector’s
claim it, it belongs to Ayodhya. So you are robbing Ayodhya. I’m not saying it’s
not for a good cause; indeed, I agree that it’s a very good cause. But that doesn’t
make it right, or just, or even lawful. So don’t go fooling yourself about the
rightness or lawfulness of what you’re doing. Understand?”
Both boys glared at her with such identical expressions of righteous indignation
on their handsome young faces, she was instantly reminded of someone else. A
man’s face, older, leaner, darker-complected. Much darker-complected, for they
had inherited their mother’s wheatish colouring and more than a smidgen of their
grandfather’s lightness of skin. But the features were the same. So much the
same that looking at them now, with those defiant expressions on their young
faces, it made her want to grin and burst out laughing. She restrained herself.
She knew how much they respected and looked up to her and this was an
important lesson she was giving them. Their mother had been right. ‘Be a friend
to them, Nakhu,’ she had said quietly to her at the beginning, when she had first
come to live here. It had been soon after she had rebuilt her old ties with her old
friend and sometime mistress and they had grown close enough to speak heart’s
truth to one another again. ‘Be the friend to them that I cannot be, because I am
their mother. And as a friend, teach them the things that they will not heed if I
try to teach them. For oftentimes, young boys and girls will heed the same
advice when given by an outsider when they would shrug off a parent saying the
same things.’ And Vedavati, as she was now called, had smiled wistfully and
shaken her head before going on with more than a trace of sadness: ‘Because my
boys are growing up already. And I fear they may be growing too fast.’
Nakhudi had taken her former mistress’s and lifelong friend’s words to heart.
She had wanted to give the twins this talk ever since they had burst into her hut
last monsoon, flushed and bursting with pride from the thrill of having
successfully waylaid the first grama and having taken an entire wagonload of
grain from the tax collectors. But she had remembered their Maatr’s words,
gritted her teeth, and bided her time until now. She had even laughed with them
and celebrated their ‘success’ at the time, although when they returned in the
autumn to crow about waylaying the second grama, her smile had been forced
and her joy a pretense. This time, she could not take anymore. It was time to stop
being a friend and be something more. Perhaps even past time. A grama guarded
by six or seven quads of Ayodhyan PFs? Parvati protect us all! Even allowing
for some youthful exaggeration, they had still put their little heads into a tiger’s
jaws this time. It was one thing to hold up a tax grama or a trading grama and
take away some grain or other provisions. This new shenanigan was in a
different league altogether. She shuddered to think what would have happened
had their little adventure gone awry. After all, for all their skill with the dhanush-
baan, they were still just boys. Not yet adolescents. And if they continued on this
path, not likely to achieve that stage of maturation. Yes, Vedavati, she said
silently now, your boys are indeed growing up too fast. And I think there is
nothing anyone can do to slow or stop it.
“But I can correct you at least,” she said aloud. They both frowned
simultaneously, and where their frowns met in the center of their foreheads,
between their brows, two little diagonal crinkles appeared, like tiny crow’s feet.
Her heart leaped with emotion. Their father had the exact same crinkles on his
forehead when he frowned. That little detail, more than all the similarities of face
and body shape and attitude, brought home to her once more just who and what
they truly were. And why it was so important that they be bred right. She raised
her palm, showing it to Kush, who was closest – and this time he did flinch, for
she was close enough to slap him if she wanted, and an open-handed slap from
her would hurt far more than just harsh words. But she only placed it on his left
shoulder, firmly and quite gently in fact.
In a much gentler tone, she said, “I can correct you and show you when you’re
wrong. For that is what friends do for one another. And it is time you realized
that you have gone too far. By taking on this grama today and injuring all those
PFs, you’ve not just stolen another wagonload of provisions from the tax
collector, you’ve challenged the military might and authority of Ayodhya herself.
And that’s not something you boast and laugh about, young men.” She patted
Kush’s shoulder affectionately, tempering her tirade with friendship now, before
she lost their trust entirely. “That’s all I want you both to understand. As a friend
who cares about your well-being,” she added, looking from one to the other
slowly.
“They weren’t provisions,” Luv said sullently, looking down at the dungpacked
floor of the little hut that had been home to Nakhudi these past two years.
“What was that?” she asked sharply.
“He said, they weren’t provisions,” Kush replied. “The wagonload we took
today. It was something else. Something different.”
And he shot her a glance that was at once a defiant challenge as well as a
triumphant comeback: See? We’re not just young children to be corrected and
talked down to. We did something today that children could never do.
Nakhudi swallowed. Something stirred deep inside her belly, some long-sleeping
snake of forgotten fear.
“Show me,” she said shortly. And prayed to all the avatars of the Goddess she
could name.
 SIX
The ashrama of Maharishi Valmiki was peaceful and quiet in the yellowing light
of dusk. The red ochre robes of the rishis and senior brahmacharyas stood out in
clear relief against the rich green darbha grass nourished by the recent rains,
while the white dhotis of the younger acolytes caught the fading light and
seemed to glow as if illuminated. The sky above the hermitage clearing was
purple broken by clusters of gold-tinged clouds that clung to the last light of the
descended sun. Brahmins went about their evening chores, their clean faces and
hands testifying to their recent completion of sandhyavandana in the nearby
Tamasa river.
Most of the rishis and brahmacharyas deftly avoided crossing paths with or
coming face to face with Nakhudi. Even though she too was clad in the faded yet
still serviceable rust-brown garb of a sadhini, a female hermit on the same
spiritual path as they, the ashramites still seemed to prefer to give her a wide
berth. She barely noticed, striding across the center of the ashrama directly
towards the thatched mud hut on the extreme North Eastern corner, set sufficient
distance away from the remaining structures to afford the ashramites a modicum
of privacy from the only unattached female resident who inhabited it, yet close
enough that the hut was not entirely separated from the ashrama.
The soft questioning voices of the curious acolytes fell away behind Nakhudi as
she turned down the short path that led to Vedavati’s hut, nestled in a small
cluster of sala trees. She did not need to turn to see if Luv and Kush followed
her. This was their home. Where else would they go? Besides, it was Vedavati
she had to speak to urgently. Kali grant there is still time to set this right, she
prayed silently, even as a sinking sensation in the pit of her belly told her that it
was already too late. The damage was done, and quite likely the price would
have to be paid when the time came. But they’re just boys, she thought, just boys
doing what they thought was the right thing to do in a wrong time. Surely they
would be punished too harshly for not realizing what they might be getting
themselves into? Yes, said the voice inside her head, but you knew what they
were doing and could have stopped them. It need never have come to this.
She ground her teeth in frustration and stopped at the doorway of the hut. Like
all huts in all ashramas, it had no door to speak of, merely a curtain of jute
hanging across the open entranceway. She parted the curtain with her hand,
swatting it aside, and peered inside. Nobody home. Well, Vedavati must be
around somewhere. She would have been expecting the boys home in time for
sandhyavandana. Nakhudi remembered belatedly that she had forgotten to stop
and ensure that the boys underwent their evening ablutions as required by
ashrama rules. She had had bigger things in mind than rituals.
She looked around, uncertain. Where could Vedavati have gone at such a time?
“By the river,” Luv said from behind.
Nakhudi turned away from the entrance, allowing the jute cloth to fall back into
place. She looked in the direction the twins were staring and saw Vedavati
coming up the path from the river, an earthern pot balanced on her hip. Looking
at her erstwhile mistress’s roughcloth robe, matted hair, and subdued aspect, not
to mention the lines of age showing on her face, the charcoal-grey streaks in her
hair, and the weariness in her eyes, Nakhudi felt a deep pang of sadness. Had she
not known all that had transpired those ten long years ago, she might have been
persuaded into believing that Sita was still in exile, the same exile in which she
had been ten years ago, before the events that led her and then Rama to Lanka
and altered their lives forever.
His exile ended, her’s goes on. For how long, my Devi? Is this always woman’s
lot? To suffer in silence while men live their lives in boisterous vitality? She
carries a mud pot filled with water she drew herself from the river at dusk, back
to a thatched hut where she sleeps on a straw pallet and eats falahar the year
round, while he sleeps and sits on satin sheets, is attended by thousands, and
drinks the wine of the devas, precious soma, from golden goblets if it pleases his
fancy? How can life be so unjust? Is this dharma? If so, it is man’s dharma, not
woman’s dharma.
Vedavati was aware of their presence yet did not overly react. She approached
quietly, greeting her sons with a knowing look, and Nakhudi with a wisp of a
smile. “Sister,” she said, before going into her humble domicile. Nakhudi
decided to follow her inside, in an effort to keep their dialogue as private as
possible for the moment. First she glanced sharply at the boys and pointed to the
tiny patch of mud before the threshold. “Sweep that,” she said, and went in.
Vedavati was carefully setting down the brimming pot in a shaded corner. She
picked up a piece of the mineralized phitkari stone that every ashramite used,
dipped it carefully into the water, stirring slowly for several moments, in
widening circles. Nakhudi waited with growing impatience. The phitkari stone
sterilized the water and separated any pollutants, dispersing them to the bottom
of the vessel. Vedavati finished the sterilization, put the stone carefully beside
the pot, and covered the mouth of the pot with a fresh clean papaya leaf.
Vedavati emptied, washed and replenished the drinking water pot daily,
replacing the leaf everyday as well. Nakhudi couldn’t remember if she had done
the same last week or last month! As always she was humbled and moved by
how clean and sweet-smelling Vedavati managed to keep this humble domicile.
Yet the simplicity of the dwelling shamed her, Nakhudi, who had herself
occupied better quarters back when she had been Sita’s bodyguard and captain of
her personal queensguard back in Mithila two and a half decades ago. It was
humiliating to see her former princess living here, like some common sadhini.
No, not a princess anymore, she reminded herself, a queen! A queen-mother, no
less. Maatr to the heirs of the greatest Arya nation.
Nakhudi shook her head once more in disgust and outrage: Men! At the same
time, she felt pride at how well Sita upheld her own dignity through this utterly
simple yet immaculate existence. Truly, she was no less than a living
embodiment of Devi herself. Even the name given to her by Maharishi Valmiki
was an appropriate one: Vedavati. Nakhudi had heard it said around the ashram,
always with a reverential awed tone, that Kush and Luv’s Maatr was better
versed in the Vedas than any other woman alive.
Dusk had turned to darkness by the time Vedavati was done with her evening
chores. The boys had finished cleaning the outside threshold, aangan and
surroundings, and had even lit the house lamp that hung by the door of the hut
but they still remained outside. No doubt to avoid chancing their mother’s wrath
as long as possible. The lamp’s yellow glow provided sufficient light to
illuminate Nakhudi and her longtime friend and mistress within the hut, though
it also reminded her depressingly of the day-bright illumination that had lit up
the glittering luxury and gleaming beauty of Maharaja Janak’s palace in those
days of yore. From light to darkness, they had come a long way from home,
Nakhudi thought not without some bitterness. Her former mistress broke into her
thoughts.
“What have they been upto this time?” Sita asked matter-of-factly, without
preamble.
Nakhudi told her.
Even in the dim light and flickering reflections, she saw Sita blanch. She felt
awful at bringing such news. But it was better than Sita not knowing.
“This will have consequences,” she finished at last, spreading her calloused
palms on her meaty thighs. She waited for Sita’s response.
The exiled queen of sighed. “Ayodhya again.” She looked up at Nakhudi with a
puzzled smile twisting her mouth. “Did it have to be Ayodhya, of all places?
Why not some other nation? Why only Ayodhya!”
Nakhudi shrugged, knowing better than to answer that one aloud. Silently, she
thought: Because your karma is eternally intertwined with His, that’s why, my
lady.
 SEVEN
Sita stood looking into the back of the wagon for a long time. So long that the
boys grew nervous and fidgety and began shuffling from foot to foot, then
hopping, then holding hands and doing a kind of jig, wholly involuntary and
instinctive, until Nakhudi turned and gave them the full benefit of one of her
formidable glares, which stopped them short. They stood with slumped
shoulders then, though the overly beatific expressions on their faces suggested
more than a touch of mock innocence. What? We? Never! She controlled the
urge to cuff them on their backs, knowing it would only make them whoop and
cough with pretended pain, while actually laughing. They were boys after all,
though when watching them in a pitched fight, it was hard to remember that. She
was certain their opponents didn’t care, which only made their exploits that
much more dangerous. Only a matter of time, she thought in dismay, before they
meet their match. Maate protect them both.
Finally, Sita let the burlap flap drop and turned away. She put her fists on her
hips and looked at the boys. Their innocent wide-eyed expressions deepened to
the point of self-parody.
“Well,” Vedavati said at last. “This time you’ve really gone and done it, you
two.”
“We were just—”
“Shut up.”
“—taking back—”
“Be quiet.”
“—rightfully our’s!”
“Hold your tongues!”
“We thought it was—”
“Silence, you scamps!”
“—another vaisya grama with grains—”
“I said—”
“—need food desperately, they’re near-starvation and—”
“Enough!” Vedavati’s voice cracked like a whip, making even Nakhudi wince.
The boys held their tongues this time.
Their mother moved closer, facing them directly, hands crossed firmly across her
chest now. Nakhudi saw from the faint flush lightening Sita’s neck and lower
face that she was really upset this time. It took a lot to upset Sita. She
swallowed, wishing she could slip away and leave mother and sons to sort out
the matter on their own. She was dreading the moment when Vedavati would
realize that Nakhudi had known about the boys’ antics from the time of the very
first waylaying. She glanced around, glad that the boys had been wise enough to
hide the stolen wagon in this remote hollow deep in the woods, where there was
nobody to see and hear. She had not even been able to bring herself to think
about the consequences that awaited them once the survivors of the waylaying
reached Ayodhya and reported to their superiors there. Sita brought up that very
issue just then.
“Do you know what you have done?” Vedavati asked her sons, the colour rising
in her face for the first time in weeks that Nakhudi had seen. “You have
transgressed against the authority of Ayodhya! Do you even understand what
that means?”
The boys looked up at their Maatr, their big-eyed innocent expressions slowly
fading as they saw just how angry she was, and how much effort she was putting
into controlling that anger. They also saw what Nakhudi saw, that she had
already flashed past her ire at the boys for their youthful waywardness to the
larger issue at hand, and that observation deflated any further attempt to appeal
to her maternal affections. “Nakhudi explained it to us,” Kush said, looking
down with his head tilted awkwardly, as young boys will do when they are
discomfited. “We broke the law, she says. But we didn’t know that. We thought
were just taking back what was the people’s. Honest, Maatr!”
“Yes, Maatr!” Luv chipped in, looking as disconcerted as his twin.
Vedavati glared at them both in turn, showing them what she thought about their
understanding and misinterpretation of the law. But aloud she said: “They won’t
let this rest. That’s for sure.” She frowned, thinking. “You say you waylaid this
grama just this morning?”
Both nodded vigorously.
Sita looked up at the rock walls of the hollow, turning around slowly as she
thought for a moment. The torch in Nakhudi’s hand threw flickering yellow light
up several yards, illuminating the overhanging broken rock walls that leaned
together to produce the empty cave-like hollow where the boys had brought the
wagon. The hollow was at the rear of the very outcrop near which the boys had
stopped and robbed the wagon grama, although one had to know it was there or
one would never find it easily, even though it was literally within stone’s throw
of the raj-marg itself. The choice of hiding place was as ingenious as everything
else the twins ever did, but Nakhudi doubted that would help them much if what
Sita feared came to pass.
“That means they ought to reach Ayodhya in three days, maybe even two if they
travel fast.” She flashed them angry looks, the torchlight reflecting in her dark
eyes and giving her a unmotherlike aspect. “But more likely they would have
sent a rider ahead to give Ayodhya the news of the waylaying. In which case, he
would reach Ayodhya before nightfall tomorrow.” She mumbled something
incoherent that Nakhudi was sure was a curse. “Doesn’t give us much time.”
“Much time for what, Maatr?” Luv asked in some puzzlement. Nakhudi glanced
at them both, the torch sending their shadows fleeing as she turned it towards
them. Both boys looked more concerned about their mother’s stress than any
anger she might display towards them. They still don’t fully understand the
implications of what they’ve done.
Sita looked at them and shook her head in disgust as she came to the same
conclusion. She sighed and said, “To try to make amends.”
Kush looked at his brother. “How, Maatr?”
Sita gestured at the wagon. “Only one way that I can think of now. Unless you
have a better idea?” This last she tossed at Nakhudi, who shrugged, then shook
her head. Sita nodded, and raised her hands in the universal gesture of despair.
“Then, there’s only one thing we can do to try and make amends. We have to
give this back. At once. That means taking this wagon back to Ayodhya and
delivering it to them with a full apology for your actions.”
Kush and Luv stared at their mother as if she had suddenly sprouted a second
head and spoken in voices. “What?” they said at exactly the same time, in the
exact same tone of shocked outrage.
Sita looked at them both with her hands on her hips. “Well, smarty boys, what
would you have us do then?”
Luv shrugged. Kush imitated him. “Why not just keep it?”
Sita raised her eyebrows at them, then turned to Nakhudi. “Of course! Why
didn’t I think of that, right, Nakhudi? Why not just…keep it!” She laughed a
semi-hysterical laugh that echoed oddly in the enclosed rock hollow. Nakhudi
glanced around nervously. She didn’t like being in a place like this, with only
one ingress, in the jungle at night. Even the military gramas avoided passing
through this neck of the woods at night. Panthers, boars, lions, wolf packs,
snakes, you could take your pick of predators on the prowl. The Valmiki
ashramites knew better than to venture even to the edges of the light-pools
thrown by the ashram lanterns at night – and despite their extreme caution there
were always incidents. She hoped Sita would keep her voice down to avoid
attracting undue animal attention.
Sita shook her head in despair, walking several steps to and fro before turning to
say to the boys: “Do you know what you stole today? Do you even understand?”
She went up to the back of the wagon, hopped up on the rear steps, and twitched
the flap open with a single flick of her wrist, sending the flap over the top of the
wagon where it fell with a heavy rustling sound. Nakhudi hefted the mashaal,
raising it up to throw some light into the back of the wagon. Standing that way,
her feet slightly apart, one arm raised with the torch in hand, reminded her
vaguely of a statue she had seen somewhere in her many travels that was
sculpted in an identical pose. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember where or
when. Then again, perhaps she was only wistfully wishing someone would
sculpt her in this pose. Yes, sure, she thought sarcastically, the great lady with
the upraised torch, casting light upon the ill-gotten gains of theft and brigandry!
“This,” Sita said, gesturing at the wagon filled with massive chests thrown open
earlier by Sita herself when examining the contents, “is a war wagon.” The
treasure within the chests – for it was nothing less than a treasure – glittered,
gleamed and shone as the gold ingots, silver bars, coins, gems, and other
precious items caught and refracted the light from Nakhudi’s torch. “Tribute
collected to finance Ayodhya’s next war.”
Nakhudi nodded in agreement: she knew enough about the inner workings of a
kingdom to recognize a war chest when she saw one. This was no mere tithe,
lagaan or other kind of tax; only a royal tribute could be this rich. And protected
as it was by such a heavily armed contingent of PFs, Ayodhya’s elite regiment of
royal guards, a war wagon was the only likelihood that presented itself. Literally
a wagonload of wealth to be used to pay for a major military offensive. Which
begged the question: What war was Ayodhya planning to wage? Against whom?
When? Nakhudi had no answers to such questions. Hell. She didn’t even want to
know the answers. She wished fervently now as she had that morning when the
boys first brought her here to show her their rich pickings, that she had never
laid eyes on that goddamned wagon.
Sita turned back to glare at her sons, black pupils flashing darkly in the
torchlight. “The penalty for stealing a war wagon belonging to Ayodhya is not
mere imprisonment or a penalty. It is death to one’s entire family, on grounds of
treason.”
Nakhudi watched the boys faces lose every last vestige of youthful brashness as
the full implications of Sita’s word sank in. She felt sorry for them in that
moment. This time, they had truly bitten off more than they – or anyone else –
could chew. They had just sentenced themselves and their Maatr to certain death.
Now, no matter what any of them did next, their crime was beyond forgiving.
Except…and Nakhudi drew in a deep breath, the arm holding the upraised
mashaal shaking slightly…except by a king’s pardon. And that, she thought,
looking at the sons of Sita as they absorbed the crushing blow of the implications
of their boyish transgression, was as unlikely as the moon lighting up the world
with light as bright as sunshine.
 EIGHT
For perhaps the first time in his long and wearying life, Bejoo felt no pleasure at
seeing the familiar towers and skyline of Ayodhya appear on the horizon. As the
grama topped the hilly rise that led up from Mithila Bridge before trundling
down the raj-marg into the Sarayu Valley, he felt none of the relief and
satisfaction that his fellow PFs felt in that moment. Their gruff voices, several
shot through with more than a little anger at their painful wounds and abject
humiliation, rang out in the still dawn air around him, lending the grama’s last
leg of travel a festive atmosphere. He did not share in it. All he felt right now
was trepidation and gloom.
His mood had not altered by the time the grama rolled sonorously through the
first gate and wound its way up Raghuvamsha Avenue to its destination, the
royal quadrant. The high stone walls of the eighth gate only worsened his mood.
Once, this had been a bustling intersection where citizens, merchants, and
anyone and everyone had freely roved. A public space like all the rest of
Ayodhya had been. It was hard to believe that was only a decade ago. Now, the
forebodingly high stone wall that marked the end of the public sections of
Ayodhya and the start of the highly restricted royal quadrant, was a symbol of
the new Ayodhya, a city divided into two parts: One, the public prosperous
trading and residential public city where almost a lakh of citizens of all castes,
creeds and persuasions still lived in cosmopolitan harmony as they profitted,
worked with and traded with one another. Two, the royal quadrant, where only a
hundred or so royally favoured clans resided in luxuriant elegance, their lives,
estates and activities separated from the hustle and bustle of the outer city – the
Lower City as it had come to be called derisively of late – while they remained
in the sheltered shadow of the Fortress.
For that was what the palatial complex had become now. A veritable fortress.
Bejoo looked up despondently as the grama entered through the trade gate of the
royal quadrant – the front gate was only for royalty or the court-favoured clans –
and felt even more depressed at the sight of the massively reinforced structures
that had been erected a decade ago and added to considerably in the intervening
years, altering the once-beautiful open architecture of the royal palace complex
into an ugly forbidding military enclosure. He sighed. As a soldier, he ought to
have appreciated the superior protection these architectural changes provided to
the royal Suryavansha Ikshwaku dynasty which he was sworn to protect with his
life. But as an Ayodhyan and Arya citizen, he felt more pity and sadness at what
had been lost in order to gain this superior level of protection. Was it worth it in
the end? He had never thought so, and today, feeling as despondent and morose
as he did, he felt that the loss of the former beauty and sense of freedom and
interconnectedness that the old layout had provided was too high a price to have
paid for better defense. Much too high a price.
He put thoughts of architecture and security out of his head as he pulled up the
team before the cantonment stables. Men rushed forward to take the weary
horses and tend to them, moving with military efficiency. It was the work of
moments for the vital contents of the wagons to be unloaded and carried to a
suitably safe location indoors where they would be barred and sealed and
guarded closely. And inventoried.
He sighed, stretching his travel-weary limbs and started towards the lockhouse
with reluctant steps.
Pradhan Mantri Jabali was already waiting by the entrance of the lockhouse,
alongwith his munshis. Bejoo didn’t like the minister. He hadn’t liked him when
he had been just a minister, he had liked him even less when he became War
Minister and his notorious War Council was imbedded as a permanent fixture
instead of the ad hoc committeed it used to be; now, he actively disliked him as
Pradhan Mantri. The chief of the ministers of the sabha, the assembly that
administered the kingdom and its capital city under the guidance and oversight
of the king, ought not to be a bigotted bad-tempered self-righteous and overly
pious war-mongering old man. Especially when he followed in the footsteps of
Sumantra, perhaps the finest prime minister the Kosala nation had ever had.
Bejoo had never been high enough in the military chain of command to have
been privy to the inner workings of Dasaratha’s government, but he hadn’t
needed to be. The results were there for all to see, from the highest senapati to
the lowest sipahi. Those in Dasaratha’s army had been proud of the fact that the
Last Asura Wars had been 22 years ago and that peace had reigned supreme
since then; a peace they took pride in being responsible for instituiting and
maintaining. Those in Rama’s army – or, more accurately these days, Mantri
Jabali’s army – took pride in the fact of Ayodhya’s military supremacy and how
effectively intimidated even their closest allies were by that supremacy.
Governance by cooperation versus governance by sword, Bejoo thought with
more than a little bitterness. Like all old kshatriyas, he believed that the true
purpose of the warrior class was not to wage war and inflict violence, but to help
preserve a state where neither was necessary. He did not speak such thoughts
aloud. These days, under this regime, such thinking was considered—
“Treason!” Jabali said sharply, pointing his forefinger – accusingly, it seemed to
Bejoo – with the tip of the finger crooked, a result of the aging minister’s
advanced arthritis. Bejoo archly noted the curious resemblance between the
angle of the crooked finger and the mantri’s hooked nose. “Open treason that
must be punished at once!”
Bejoo sighed inwardly. He had expected this very reception. Although he had
hoped for a few moments of respite before the haranguing began in earnest. And
perhaps, Shaneshwara willing, a brief audience with Rama himself, so that I may
try to put things in perspective before this old vulture twists it all out of
recognition and embarks on another of his notorious demon-hunts. He tried to
put aside his weariness and despondency and face the pradhan mantri squarely.
“Pradhan Mantri, allow me to explain what happened,” he began. “The grama
—”
“—was waylaid by a band of brigands!” the Prime Minister said loudly. “Yes,
yes, I already have the facts. Now it is time to take action. Such an open act of
treason must be punished most severely and swiftly, before word of it spreads to
our disgruntled allies and encourages further rebellion. We must crush the
offenders with an iron fist!”
Whose fist? Bejoo wondered bitterly. Not your own, I’m sure. Indeed, the
minister’s right fist lay curled like a misshapen claw by his side, the result of
what appeared to be a particularly bad arthritic day in this bracing autumn
weather. “Pradhan Mantri, if you will let me narrate the exact events—”
Jabali jerked his bent finger dismissively. “Don’t waste your breath, boy. My
people have told me everything already. I got word last night itself and have
already taken appropriate action.”
Bejoo’s heart sank. Boy? At 68 years, still a boy? “Pradhan Mantri, if I may
suggest a diplomatic course of action that will hopefully avoid needless
bloodshed—”
“Needless?” The old minister laughed scornfully, his white brows twitching in
his long face. “Bloodshed is not merely needed, it is imperative! A kingdom is
ruled by force, not by words. Diplomacy is irrelevant. Ayodhya does not
negotiate with rebels. I already know which band of brigands was responsible
for this latest act of treason.”
“You do?” Bejoo blinked rapidly. “But it was no band, Pradhan Mantri. Merely
two young boys upto some childish prank—”
Again the open-mouthed laughter burst in his face, the white brows twitching.
He could smell the Pradhan Mantri’s breath. Surprisingly, the man retained most
of his teeth in pristine white condition even at his age. Even though he must
surely have been a good decade and a half past Bejoo’s own age. Then again,
Jabali was notoriously given to extolling the virtues of fasting and self-
deprivation and their beneficial effect on one’s aatma and state of mind. When a
man rarely ate, no wonder his teeth stayed as good as new!
“Come now, Grama-rakshak Bejoo. I hardly expected you to be taken in by that
subterfuge. I have received a full report. The boys were merely placed in the
path to confuse you and your men. The real bowmen were concealed in the rocks
and the surrounding jungle. After all, you don’t really think that two little
striplings could outshoot and outfight an entire entourage of the finest Purana
Wafadars in his Lord Rama’s force, do you?”
Bejoo wanted to start by protesting that since the very term Purana Wafadar
meant ‘Old Veteran’ it ought to have implied that the force was made of exactly
that, old veterans of previous wars. Such as himself. The young untried army
regulars who had been enrolled into the elite force these past few years did not
deserve to be called Wafadars, being as they were untested and untried in actual
war conditions, and they most certainly were not Purana, none being over 30
years of age! While they looked and trained well enough to dissuade most
potential attackers, in a pinch they were hardly the elite fighting force they were
supposed to be. The truth of the matter was that the ‘two little striplings’ had
outshot and outfought the entire entourage. Despite the warning given by the boy
who had so cleverly severed the horse riggings as Bejoo had attempted to break
away, he had still followed the boy at a safe distance and arrived at the main
length of the grama in time to watch the two young bowmen rout his men
thoroughly in one of the most impressive displays of bowcraft he had ever
witnessed. Not just ‘one of’, it was the most impressive display apart from just
one other previous display I once had the privilege of witnessing, when a certain
other pair of bowmen engaged in a far deadlier battle a long time ago in a jungle
called Bhayanak-van, against a yaksi giant named Tataka.
He kept all this to himself as he said aloud: “Actually, Pradhan Mantri, I think
—”
But Jabali was already waving his crooked hand at him dismissively. “What you
think is irrelevant. The culprits who did this must be roundly punished for this
treasonous action. We must make sure that this entire colony of outlaws is dealt
with once and for all.”
Colony? Sure he doesn’t mean…
Jabali’s left cheek curled to reveal a brilliant white eye-tooth. “The so-called
Maharishi Valmiki’s colony of brigands and rogues masquerading as sadhus.
They are behind the theft of the Maharaja’s war wagon and this time they have
gone too far. They must be entirely wiped out, down to the last man, woman and
child, and I shall see to it that it is done.”
 NINE
“Bhraatr,” Shatrugan said gently but urgently without preamble. “I desire an
immediate audience with Ayodhya-naresh.”
Lakshman looked at his twin impassively. The years had altered their individual
appearances so considerably, any onlooker viewing them together for the first
time could be forgiven for not recognizing them to be identical twins, or even
brothers. Shatrugan’s years of hard travel to the farthermost reaches of the
kingdom and beyond, the hard outdoor living and fighting and endless waging of
war had not been tempered overmuch by his assuming the throne of Mathura
these past several years. If anything the years of kingship had toughened him
further, tempering the unassailable steel of his character and will with greater
wisdom, insight, and moderation. No longer did he fly instantly into rages or
lose his patience at the slightest provocation when thwarted. He had assumed a
certain gravitas and dignity that he wore as well as the robes of kingship. The
sculpting away of his overly muscled physique by the years of hard travel and
warring had stripped him down to a leathery wiry muscularity that lent him an
almost pantherlike aspect when he walked on the balls of his feet.
Lakshman glanced over his brother’s shoulder. Shatrugan’s entourage remained
several yards behind their king, alert but affable. Whatever Shatrugan’s crisis
was, it appeared personal rather than nationalistic in nature.
In contrast to his twin, Lakshman had changed too but in wholly other ways. He
had been lean and pantherlike when he had returned with Rama and Sita to
Ayodhya in Pushpak ten years ago, skin burned nut-dark from years of open
living and hard fighting. But the last decade had seen him spend almost all his
days within the newly raised walls of the palace complex, virtually Rama’s
personal guard and guide at all times. He had dealt with every daily crisis that
cropped up – and at times, they did come thick and fast – from city riots to
internal intrigues, with conspiracies and assassination plots, and the constant
living under the air of stress and political intrigue had softened him outwardly to
some extent, filling out his leanness, thickening his torso and face somewhat.
Working out in the palace akhada had only expanded his muscles and bulk
further, while he lacked the trimming and leaning effects of long travel or
warring. At the same time, the stress had aged him quickly, the hair at his
temples turning grey. Even his brows and the moustache he had taken to keeping
showed grey amidst the black now, Shatrguan saw at this close range. It was
almost as if Lakshman had become an older, wearier looking version of
Shatrugan himself ten years ago. While Shatrugan had become an older more
dignified version of Lakshman from ten years ago! How ironic, how appropriate
that they had both aged to resemble older versions of one another.
Lakshman regarded him with a measured glance. “Well met Mathura-naresh.
What business do you seek to discuss with Samrat Rama Chandra?”
Samrat? The last time Shatrugan had met his older brother, Rama had still been
just a Maharaja, a king of kings. Now he had dubbed himself Emperor? Then at
least some of the rumours were true after all. He ignored the title and focussed
on the man, continuing to use the Sanskrit highspeech term for Brother which
both lent intimacy as well as carried respect: “Bhraatr, my business is for Rama’s
ears alone. I assure you it is most urgent. I request you kindly to announce me
and permit me the pleasure of an audience with him at once.”
Lakshman folded his arms, his overdeveloped chest muscles bulging as he did
so. Shatrugan recalled having exactly the same upper body bulk and felt relieved
he didn’t anymore. As one got older, it got harder to maintain muscle tone and
an old wrestler soon began to sag like an old woman if he didn’t watch himself.
He thought it wise not to mention that to his twin. These days, Lakshman was
rarely in the mood to listen to brotherly advice on anything, be it physical
maintenance or anything else. “In that case, you would have to wait. Someone is
in the sabha hall with the Samrat. He cannot be disturbed until the conference is
over.”
Shatrugan glanced at the barred doors behind Lakshman, guarded by six heavily
armoured and armed sentries, all bigger built and tougher looking than
Lakshman himself. He sighed and nodded, even as he said with a wistful smile:
“Used to be a time when the doors of the sabha hall were always left open, for
anyone to walk into and out of, and almost all sessions were open to all, even the
lowest sweeper on the streets. Now, I hear the doors are always barred when the
sabha sits in session and the public audiences are only permitted to attend the
four seasonal sessions.”
Lakshman shrugged. “Times have changed. Ayodhya had to change with the
times.”
Shatrugan shook his head. “Not all change is for the best.”
He began to say something further, then thought better of it. Clearly, Lakshman
was not interested in padapad talk, and he had no desire to get into another
slanging debate as they had the last time. Brothers though they were – bhraatrey,
to use the Sanskrit highspeech – they seemed to be on opposite sides of the
political fence more and more these days.
He walked back to his entourage, intending to stay in their company while he
waited. He knew better than to try to pass the time bantering with his brother.
That was one of the many changes he questioned and resented. Lakshman was
no longer Lakshman. Nor was Rama. He leaned on the portal that overlooked the
royal Udyaan and was sad to see that it too had been walled-in like everything
else in this part of the city. He stood there, musing on how much Ayodhya had
changed since he had left, indeed, since their father’s passing. In so many ways.
He glimpsed movement on the path below and saw a familiar pair of aging
feminine forms walking slowly together, heads bowed in conversation. He
smiled to himself. There were two people who would not be as grim-faced and
stern of tone as his twin brother. He paused to instruct his entourage to send for
him at once the instant the sabha doors reopened, and then went down to the
garden.
***
Sumitra was the first to see him. She smiled and slowed, placing a hand gently
on Kauslaya’s arm to stop her as well. They both looked back up the path as
Shatrugan came at a steady trot, his broad swarthy face open in a wide grin. He
dropped before them, touching each of their feet with heartfelt sincerity.
“Maa, aashirwaad. Maa, aashirwaad,” he repeated, for though Sumitra was his
womb-mother, in Arya families, Kausalya was no less his mother. In their turn,
both greeted him with identical warmth and for an onlooker it would have been
impossible to tell which was his biological mother. If anything, slight, small-
built, delicately boned Sumitra seemed unlikely; while Kausalya, darker-
complected but bigger-proportioned though no less feminine in form, seemed
more likely. Both laid hands on his shoulders, Sumitra having to look up by an
angle of more than two feet to her perpendicular. Looking at them both in that
moment, Shatrugan thought to himself that the pride and pleasure on their faces
could not be replicated in any official portrait, not even by the most
accomplished artists in Aryavarta.
“Maatrey,” he said, and put his meaty arms around both women, enfolding them
in a bear hug that drew gasps of surprised delight. Sumitra glanced at her
companion over Shatrugan’s bowed head and Kausalya’s eyes twinkled back in
response. Shatrugan saw this without actually needing to look at their faces, and
his heart filled with the tenderness of a boy who still longed for the days when
mothers had been the protectors of the universe and the world had extended only
to their guru’s kul and ashrama and back, and the four of them had been as one
being with four heads and a single mind. He bit back a tear as he released his
mothers and clapped them on their shoulders hard enough to make them gasp
with amusement.
“It is so good to see you,” he said. “I missed you. I missed it all.” He gestured
with a bend of his head, indicating the palace and the city but what he really
missed was the way things had been before it all changed, long long ago in a city
far far away and yet right here, right now.
The two Queens exchanged another glance and he saw that they knew all,
understood everything. A great sadness fell upon him them, a profound sense of
regret for all that had been, all that could have been, and that which would now
almost certainly never come to be.
 TEN
They found a shady spot to sit in beside the lotus pool. Kraunchyas stalked the
far end of the pool, standing on one leg. Swans swam proudly in the still clear
water, and below the calm surface Shatrugan glimpsed golden fish drawing lazy
circles, their tails flashing as they caught the beam of sunlight falling on the
water. A symphony of birdsong rose incessantly from all around the arbor and
the scent of freshly blossoming marigolds came to him on a gentle wisp of wind.
He sat between his mothers and wondered what would happen if he remained
here all day, just sitting quietly between them, perhaps laying his head on one of
their laps, sleeping away the quiet afternoon. The travails of the world seemed
distant and remote here. The ascendancy politics of Mathura. The constant
bickering and squabbling over river rights. The tribal feuds. The grama clashes.
The daily sabha sessions where the complaints and issues raised always seemed
too many for any single day, and had to be carried over to the next day, and the
next, until people began complaining that they had been here for so many days,
and others countered they had waited weeks, and some argued they had camped
outside the city for months, and even after the bickering and hearing of both
sides, and the endless arguments and counter-arguments, when he finally
pronounced the final arbitration, invariably one side stalked off in a barely
suppressed rage while even the winning side seemed oddly disgruntled and
ingracious. The troubles of his wife with the other wives he had been required to
take in order to entrench himself more staunchly into Yadava politics. The
dandas that he had meted out in sabha and therefore was required by dharama to
witness being executed: nothing like a few whippings, dismemberments and
executions to make one’s day.
How good it would be to simply doze here in this idyllic arbor, where all those
problems and burdens of kingship might as well not exist. To regress to the boy
he had once been, the son, the brother, the child.
A kraunchya bird immersed its head with sudden force. Its dripping beak
emerged with a thrashing fish scissored neatly. The other kraunchyas raised their
wings, put their tucked feet down and raised their own beaks, calling out
raucously. The bird with the fish pointed its long beak at the sky, opened the long
tongs, jerked its head up once sharply, tossing the fish up, then caught it in mid
air and swallowed it neatly. The fish thrashed once in a last act of desperate
futility, its silver scales glittering gaudily in the sunlight, then was imbedded in
the kraunchya’s long throat.
He came out of his reverie to find his birth mother looking at him with that sad
sure expression that he knew so well.
“Is it the raiders?” she asked quietly.
She was referring to the cattle and horse thieves that had been plaguing the
border gramas the past season. Sharugan had learned at the very outset that the
thieves were renegades and outlaws from the Andhaka tribes who resented the
sharing of river rights with the Suras; they took the stolen heads upcountry and
sold them to unscrupulous traders who then cleverly sold them in other
neighbouring kingdoms, many turning up in Ayodhyan markets, their brands
marking their origin quite clearly. Despite his efforts, he had been unable to
procure the cooperation of the Ayodhyan authorities in ending the trade and
resale of these stolen beasts. All Ayodhya had to do was issue a proclamation
prohibiting any trade or sale of beasts marked with Sura brands. With their most
lucrative market gone, the thieves would soon find the effort of evading
Shatrugan’s diligent marshals and the risk of transporting the animals to other
more remote points of sale uneconomical, guaranteeing a natural end to the
thievery. But despite three visits, Shatrugan had been unable to get the sabha
here to reach a decision. True, the tangled web of Arya politics complicated the
matter, especially since Ayodhya could not be seen favouring Mathura merely
because it was ruled by a son of Ayodhya and a brother of Rama: that might
cause further resentment among the Andhakas who had been spoiling for a war
ever since Shatrugan had brokered the recent hard-won truce between the two
major Yadava tribes over the long-standing issue of river rights. War always had
more supporters and vested interests than peace. There was no profit in peace.
The very essence of trade was exploitation, whether fair or excessive, and war
ensured the highest exploitative profits possible. It took every ounce of his
strength and will to maintain the truce, making kingship a task so onerous that he
rarely had time to himself.
He shook his head. “It’s everything,” he said. “This.” Again the all-
encompassing gesture. Except that this time he meant Ayodhya in its current
state. Not the idyllic Ayodhya of his childhood but the fortress-city-state of
today, perpetually in a state of war-preparedness, every decision governed by
military interests and strategy. And military interests were not always human
interests; in fact, they rarely were.
Sumitra sighed and looked down at her open hands resting upon her lap. Her
silks rustled, her jewellery tinkled lightly, counterpointing the chirrupping of a
pair of songbirds on the tree immediately above the marbled nook on which the
three of them were esconced. Like her sister queen Kausalya, she had always
chosen to adorn herself as simply and elegantly as possible, ignoring the
customary Arya excesses designed to draw envy and admiration from the
masses. He admired that in her and in Kausalya-maa. They were women with
their own minds, the kind of women who had built Aryavarta into the great
civilization it was today. Women such as they had founded the Bharata nation
and nursed it through a thousand generations, until it had spread and flourished
throughout the known world. The days of the matriarchs had long passed and for
one reason or another, men were now as likely to rule and dominate the grama as
women – perhaps more likely – but in women such as Kausalya and Sumitra,
that ancient strength of character and will could still be seen. Women such as
they were the pillars upon which all Arya civilization stood today. And to see
Kausalya-maa, First Queen and Queen Mother, and his own maatr, so close in
friendship and companionship with his womb-mother Sumitra, was heart-
warming to him. Sumitra truly lived upto her name which literally meant ‘good
friend’ in highspeech. Aryavarta in general and Ayodhya in particular had far
greater need of women such as these two than of warrior-queens like Kaikeyi, he
thought not without a trace of bitterness. Even though as a kshatriya, it was his
dharma to accept the need for violent action and the consequences of that action,
as he grew older there were times he questioned whether violence was the only
means a kshatriya should use to achieve his goals and fulfill his dharma. In his
experience, violent action often worsened the situation rather than resolved it.
And even when it did resolve certain situations, the solution was ephemeral,
while the deep wounds and emotional scars of that violence malingered for
much, much longer.
“Yes,” she said simply. “Ayodhya is not what it once was. Nor is Rama.” As she
spoke the latter statement, she sought out Kausalya. “Excuse me, Kausalya.”
The First Queen nodded, her proud aquiline profile hardened by time, the once
glossy long hair peppered with streaks of silver, the grooves bracketing her
mouth deepened by decades of sharing that beautiful smile.
“You are as much his mother as I, Sumitra,” she said, her voice throatier than
Shatrugan remembered it. He recalled her mentioning a persistent cough.
Possibly that had hoarsened her speech. “And what you speak is true. Whether
Rama has changed Ayodhya or Ayodhya has changed Rama, even I cannot say.
What is indisputable is that they have both changed and,” she sighed softly,
lowering her eyes, “all change is not for the better.”
Shatrugan hesitated before speaking. He was unaccustomed to this kind of
candid conversation with Kausalya maa. For one thing, the past years had altered
his own perception of himself considerably. From a younger prince – the
youngest, if only by mere moments – he was now a king in his own right. That
demanded an alteration of both self-perception and outward bearing. Yet he felt
that if there were two persons he could trust to weigh his words fairly and advise
him wisely, he could find no better than his two maatrey.
“Is the rumour true then?” he asked them, careful to keep his voice low, too low
for even the kraunchyas fighting over fish in the pool to hear, not because he
thought they might be spied upon – no spasas could find ingress into this
innermost sanctum of the Kosala nation’s capital – but because he felt saddened
that he had to pose such a query to his mothers rather than to his bhraatr in order
to be certain of an honest and direct response. “Is Ayodhya preparing to go to
war with its neighbours?”
Both queens were silent for a moment. A strange lull fell over the garden as if
even the fauna paused in their singing and squabbling and daily business of
living for a moment in order to hear their answer.
Finally, Sumitra raised her eyes to Kausalya, communicating some wordless
request.
Kausalya drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said matter of factly:
“Not just its neighbours. Ayodhya is preparing to go to war with the entire
world.”
 ELEVEN
Bharat slid off his horse, tossing the reins to one of several stable boys who had
come running up eagerly. They fought briefly over the right to groom the steed
of Ayodhya’s eldest Prince and the winner triumphantly led the tired mount
away, snorting and steaming faintly in the cool autumn air. Bharat stood for a
moment, enjoying the sensation of being on solid ground and instinctively
slapped down his garments to rid himself of some of the dust of the road that had
accumulated over the long ride. As he was turning, he spied a trough nearby that
looked as if it had just been mucked out and refilled and went over to it. The
water felt deliciously cool and refreshing and the faint scent of horse it carried
did not bother him in the least. He had drunk from pools that smelt worse than
this trough, and he had no patience to go to a private chamber and wait for
serving girls to bring him the scented jars of heated Sarayu water to bathe in.
Bathing and washing were necessities and not the luxuries some men made them
out to be, and Bharat was happy to get them out of the way so he could get on
with the real business at hand. And the business at hand today was grave
business indeed.
He had just finished washing the grime from behind his neck when he saw a
reflection appear in the water of the trough. Distorted and distended as it was by
the lapping water and angle, he could tell at once that it was a man who carried
himself in the familiar wide-stepping manner of a kshatriya. He kept his head
down and eyes averted, pretending to finish up his toilet as he watched the figure
approach, ready for any eventuality. After all, this was Ayodhya and he was a
natural target. But rather than make any sudden attempts to attack, the man
stopped short, put his hands on his hips, and chuckled softly.
“Well, well, bhraatr, are the scented baths of the palace too good for you? Or
have you decided to give up princehood and take up sarathi work now?”
Bharat smiled grimly as he turned to face the oncomer. “It’s kingship, in case
you hadn’t heard, bhraatr mine. Ever since I managed to put down that pesky
rebellion among the Gandharas, I’ve had my own kingdom. You may even have
heard tell of it. The capital city is named Takshashila.”
Shatrugan pretended to make a face of mock disbelief. “What? That little arid
patch in the Ghandara ranges? I thought it was named for your son, little
Taksha!”
Bharat chuckled at Shatrugan’s disparagement. “It is, actually. Just as
Puskalavati is named for my daughter little Pushkala. They’re just two cities in
my kingdom, which comprises the entire Gandhara nation now that I’ve subdued
the rebels.”
Shatrugan twisted his brows into a mock expression of amazement. “Impressive.
Those Gandharas can be really tough to chase down and kill, especially with all
those hilly ranges and caves to hide in. Why, they’re even said to be related to
the Nagas, the snake-like Asuras, because of how quickly they vanish into the
ground and take refuge in the tiniest crevices.”
Bharat nodded, clapping a hand on Shatrugan’s shoulder, and squeezing his
brother’s deltoid muscle hard enough to draw an involuntary twitch of the lips.
“That’s why I didn’t make the mistake of wasting years and men trying to hunt
them down as greater generals before me have done in the past. I simply built the
most beautiful city ever known to the region, filled it with the finest artists,
musicians, dancers, performers, and personally made sure it flourished and grew
more prosperous than any Gandhara nation ever before.”
Shatrugan put his own hand on Bharat’s shoulder, squeezing his deltoid muscle
and drawing a similar involuntary grimace from his elder brother. “And as
everyone knows, though the Gandharas are the fiercest hill-range warriors in the
world, they are also great lovers of fine music, art, dancing, and cannot resist the
lure of such things. So sooner or later they could not help but come to
Takshashila to see if a firangee had indeed outdone them at their own artistic
pursuits. And when they saw how magnificently you had built the city and how
prosperous and artistically accomplished its denizens were, why, they all but
threw down their weapons at your feet and asked to be allowed to serve you till
the end of time!”
Bharat threw his head back and laughed, giving Shatrugan a brief but clear view
of his pink uvula, quivering with his mirth. “Not quite so simply, bhraatr! Not
quite so simply. There was much fighting, and several dozen battles to boot,
some quite nasty and ugly.” He shook his head, sighing. “Those hilly bastards
can be tougher and sneakier than snakes, as you rightly said. And with their long
beards and deftness with blades, and vajra-like fleetness with unsaddled horse
cavalry, they harried my troops to an inch of extinction. But your information is
right in one respect. It was through my patronage of their own arts and culture
that I eventually won them over. The fact that your own nephew and neice – and
your sister in law and cousin Mandavi – undertook to learn their arts from the
finest gurus of the Gandhara school of music and dance and grew to become
expert practitioners of the same, impressed them no small whit. Yes, I must
admit that in the end, they turned out to be as passionate as friends and allies as
they can be enemies and rivals.”
Both brothers looked at one another with enduring fondness. It had been a long
time since they had met casually thus with no pressing political or military issue
to deal with, and it was with brotherly curiosity and interest that each examined
the other from head to toe, noting all changes that age and hard living and
warring had wrought in the intervening time. And once the initial gruff banter
and masculine
Shatrugan cleared his throat at last. “So thanks to your self-aggrandizing
exaggerations and fanciful account, I deduce that my bhraatrjaya Mandavi – who
also happens to be my cousin on account of her being my wife’s sister – my
niece Pushkala and nephew Taksha are all doing well. And how are you, bhraatr
dear? Apart from having put on a little weight and let yourself go to seed, I
mean?”
Bharat ignored the patently absurd remarks at the end: while it was true he had
filled out a little over the years, coming to resemble their late father Dasaratha in
startling manner, he was by no means over-weight, nor could his muscled bulk
be said to justify the description ‘gone to seed’. He replied amicably and with
evident emotion: “First tell me, how is my bhraatrjaaya and cousin Shruta Kirti
and your sons Subahu and Shrutasena?”
Shatrugan inclined his head in a half-nod. “They are well. Mathura has been
good to all of us. It is home now, I suppose. Although she never lets a moon-
phase pass or a festival go by without berating me for keeping her apart from her
precious sisters! As if we men deliberately create wars and political upheaval
just to be able to avoid family gatherings!”
Bharat laughed. “Well, I don’t know about you, bhraatr. But I’m not past
drumming up a skirmish or two, or even a brief war, just to avoid having to sit
through a week of festivities and rituals. The moment those blessed brahmins
begin to chant their mantras—”
“—I feel like running miles away, and continuing to run until I reach the ends of
the Earth!” Shatrugan finished. It was an oft-repeated refrain among kshatriyas
in general and they had repeated it often during their childhood years. It was a
good-natured way of grumbling about the intense patience and serious aspect
required by temperamentally restless action-oriented kshatriyas during the
seemingly endless yagnas and brahmanical rituals.
They laughed together. And with that laugh, the years apart were gone, snapped
off by the wind, as if they had never been apart a day, or an hour, let alone three
whole years.
Later, over drink and refreshment, Shatrugan told Bharat of the long talk he had
had with their mothers in the royal garden. Even though they were never sodara,
children of the same womb, it was Bharat and Shatrugan who had formed the
closest bond during the early years, just as Rama and Shatrugan’s twin
Lakshman had formed an equally firm bond in the same period. Just as Rama’s
and Lakshman’s bond had deepened during the fourteen long years of exile, and
the past ten years since their return to Ayodhya, so also Bharat and Shatrugan’s
fourteen years together in Ayodhya, battling the political and emotional
consequences of Rama’s exile and Bharat’s mother Kaikeyi’s perceived betrayal,
had brought them closer together than ever before. The fact that the past ten
years had seen them spend more time apart than together, as well as the burdens
of kingship and family responsibilities, made no difference. Their kinship was
stronger than time could bend or other relationships alter. They were brothers in
soul.
 TWELVE
“A war against the entire world,” Bharat repeated softly, careful to keep his tone
low and expressions guarded.
They were seated in a temple in the sudra quarter of the city that they had been
fond of frequenting ever since they were both young yuvajaras—princes in
waiting—back in the day when hunting and training had seemed to occupy the
bulk of their days. The temple was kept by a sudra artisan turned pundit who
distilled his own soma and offered it to a select few on the condition that it be
consumed only within the temple precinct and that no drinker should arrive or
depart so intoxicated that he or she should lose control of basic faculties. To this
end, each new arrival and person departing was required to hit a target set up by
the temple entrance at least once out of three tries with a training arrow. Those
who failed had to leave without consuming any of the famous concoction, and
those who were unable to hit the target at least once on departure were never
permitted entrance again. It was a strange method of ensuring temperance, but an
effective one. After a few incidents when Bharat and Shatrugan had gotten too
drunk and too much in trouble in their adolescent years, pradhan mantri
Sumantra had guided them to this establishment. Bharat always suspected that it
had been his father who had instructed Sumantra to do so, but he had never been
able to find out for certain. Now, of course, both Dasaratha and Sumantra were
gone and he would never know whose idea it had been. Either way, the method
had succeeded. Both Bharat and Shatrugan had learned to control their drinking
and long after they had stopped coming to the temple, they had maintained safe
drinking habits. It was more than most Arya kings—or kshatriyas—could claim.
“What does that mean?” Bharat wondered aloud. “Does he mean to invade our
neighbours unprovoked? To resurrect the old asura bogey to justify expansion?
What, exactly?”
Shatrugan shrugged. “Maatr Kausalya and Sumitra didn’t know for sure. But
they are quite sure that Rama and his war council have been massing a war
treasury for some time now, and using it to hire and train a prodigious number of
new akshohinis, not just in Ayodhyan military precincts but across the entire
kingdom.”
Bharat nodded sombrely. “Aye, that’s true enough. I’ve contributed my share of
war wagons.”
“As have I,” Shatrugan admitted.
“But what does Rama intend to do with this much mobilization? Who does he
intend to invade? The last of the asuras are gone. The rakshasas that remain are
all converts to Sanatan Dharma, thanks to King Vibhisena of Lanka. They’re as
devout bhakts of the devas and practitioners of our vedic rituals as the Mithilans,
I’ve heard said.”
“You heard truth.” Shatrugan took a sip from his earthen mug. Chandra’s soma
was pure nectar as always. The very taste brought back boyish memories that
took an effort to push away. “It’s troubled me as well as my allies. Even
Maharaja Janak and Maharaja Kusadhwaja met me to speak on this very matter,
alongwith several dozen other troubled grama-lords.”
Bharat nodded, quaffing his soma like water. “Mandavi told me so. She had
word from Shruta Kirti. It was that very missive that prompted me to call a
meeting of my local chiefs and that’s what brought me here today.”
While Rama and Lakshman were married to Sita and Urmila, daughters of
Maharaja Janak of Mithila, king of the Videha nation, their brothers Bharat and
Shatrugan were married to Mandavi and Shruta Kirti respectively, named sisters
of Sita and Urmila, adopted daughters of Janak, but in fact they were the
daughters of Janak’s brother Kusadhwaja, king of Sankasya, a pura in the Videha
kingdom fed by the river Ikshumati. At the time of their wedding and several
years earlier, Kusadhwaja’s ongoing feud with several other clans of the
Sankasya pura region made it too dangerous for him to keep his daughters by his
side, let alone arrange their marriages. So Janak had adopted his neices and
raised them as his own. To most people, the girls were regarded as ‘Janak’s four
corners’, the pillars of his household. It was only inevitable that they would all
be married together – and pure good fortune that the eldest among them, Sita,
happened to find a soul-mate with three eminently suitable brothers. In the years
since, Kusadhwaja had not only succeeded in weeding out the hostile elements
in his pura, he had united the clans and knitted together a veritable minor
kingdom of his own, one that had begun showing signs of prosperity thanks to
the rich fertile fields fed by the Ikshumati. Both brothers regarded the marriage
of their daughters to the sons of Dasaratha as being responsible for their change
of fortunes. Which was why they were so concerned to hear of Ayodhya’s
inexplicable ammassing of a war treasury and build up of forces along the
Kosala-Videha border. As the Kosala nation’s neighbouring kingdom, Videha
stood to lose the most if Ayodhya went to war. Not because they feared Ayodhya
would invade them but because they feared being forced to ally with their
powerful warmongering neighbours and relatives and get dragged into yet
another long and painful campaigne. Over time, the Chandravanshis had grown
far more fond of spiritual triumphs than martial victories, and if they were called
upon to support the Suryavanshis in a new war campaign, it would be with the
utmost reluctance.
As sons of Ayodhya as well as sons in law of Mithila and Sankasya, Bharat and
Shatrugan had the doubly complex task of finding out where their family’s
political ambitions while remaining considerate of their fathers in law and their
desire for continued peace. Add to that their own recently built kingdoms with
their own individual mixtures of political complexities and complications, and it
was shaping up to be quite a tangled web.
Bharat voiced his anxiety again. “By Indra’s yoni-covered face, what does Rama
intend to do with a force that size? Invade swargaloka and narakaloka as well as
the mortal realm?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out. But none of my entourage seem to be
able to get anyone to talk. There’s a danda on any Ayodhyan caught or overheard
speaking about military matters to any outsider. The danda, by the way, is
execution on the spot by the PFs.”
Bharat stared at him. “Outsiders? Us?”
Shatrugan indicated Bharat’s insignia, now hidden discreetly beneath the cloak
he had thrown on for their incognito visit to their old drinking spot, then his own
mark of kingship, also concealed beneath his robes. “You’re king of Gandahar.
I’m king of Mathura. Face it, big bhraatr. We’re not Ayodhyans anymore.”
Bharat finished his mug with a vehement flourish that barely masked his anger.
“I’m not sure I’d want to be called an Ayodhyan anymore. Not in these times.”
Shatrugan grinned. Bharat had always had a tendency to over-react at times,
especially when he drank. “You don’t mean that. No matter how many cities you
build and name after your children or yourself, you’ll always be an Ayodhyan
through and through. Let’s face it. So will I. Once an Ayodhyavaasi…”
“…always an Ayodhyavaasi.” Bharat finished with just a twinge of bitterness in
his tone. He sighed and grinned back at his brother. “What can I say? I’m not a
perfect master of dharma like Rama. I lose my patience at times.”
He held up the empty mug and waved it in the air for a moment. Shatrugan, who
was facing into the temple precinct, saw Chandra’s eyes rise from his scroll, then
drop again. The pundit would fetch them refills but only after a fair wait. Yet
another of his efficient methods to enforce ‘safe drinking’ as he put it.
Shatrugan offered Bharat his own mug. It was still half full and he was really
just drinking to pass the time. These days, he rarely felt safe enough in Ayodhya
to truly surrender his senses. It was partly the reason why he had insisted on
leaving Shruta Kirti and his sons home. What did it say about his homeland
when he did not consider it safe enough to bring his own family here any more
frequently than was absolutely necessary? Nothing good, he concluded
morosely.
“It’s not just you,” he admitted with a deep sigh of his own. “Everyone feels the
change. Just that they don’t have the luxury to remark on it for fear of their
heads. Jabali runs a tight house. His spasas are everywhere.” Shatrugan glanced
around. “I’d even advise you not to speak your heart too openly, bhraatr. The
way things are going, one never knows.”
Bharat didn’t respond to that. He was looking off to one side with a speculative
expression. Shatrugan glanced back over his shoulder to see what had attracted
his attention. “Who is that? Someone you know?”
Bharat nodded slowly. “Someone you know as well. Remember Captain Bejoo
of the king’s vajra?”
Shatrugan did a double take. “That’s Captain Bejoo?”
Bharat nodded. “Not anymore. He’s a PF now, I think. But knowing his calibre,
I’d bet he’s still pretty high up in the inner circle. I’m going to have a few words
with him.”
Shatrugan put a hand on Bharat’s shoulder as his elder brother started to rise.
“Careful, bhraatr. These are dangerous times.”
Bharat retorted, “That’s why information is precious.”
Shatrugan watched him walk over to the spot beneath a pillar where the former
vajra captain sat nursing his own mug of soma. He had to admit Bharat was
right: there were a great many things he would like to know as well. He just
hoped Bharat remembered that the danda on Ayodhyans speaking to outsiders
also applied to the outsiders who received the information. And with Rama’s
dogged adherence to the law, it was possible that even his own brothers might
not be considered exceptions to the rule. If they were caught or overheard
discussing Ayodhya’s internal matters with a ranking officer of the PR, the danda
would be on the spot execution for all three of them.

 THIRTEEN
Bejoo was surprised when he recognized the man walking towards him. Yuvaraj
Bharat? Well, technically, he was Gandahar-naresh now, ruler of the new
territories up north beyond the Himalayas, a legend in his own time for having
achieved what he had in that brutally rough country. But to Bejoo, he would
always be that strapping young prince of Ayodhya who had stolen his best
chariot and horse from right under his sarathi’s nose one festival day to run a
race with his three brothers down the length of the raj-marg. Bejoo had been
livid that day, but of course, he could hardly berate or punish a prince of
Ayodhya. So he had punished the sarathi instead. He winced inwardly now as he
recalled how hard he had come down on that poor fellow. Ah, but I used to be a
hardass in those times, damn my battered soul.
The man who sat beside him on the cool stone floor was much leaner and harder
looking than the puffed up young prince of that day, almost thirty long years ago
and he had discreetly clad himself so no evidence of his kingly status was
outwardly visible. But it was prince Bharat, no question about it. And the man
who had been sitting with him across the way and was now rising too to come
over and join them, why, that was prince Shatrugan, for certain, now Mathura-
naresh.
“You were hard on that poor sarathi,” Bharat said in a conversational tone,
taking Bejoo by surprise.
Bejoo started. “I cannot believe you still recall that incident, master Bharat. It
has been a fair while since the days of your youthful excesses.”
“True. But the older one gets, the more fondly one seems to remember those
youthful excesses, don’t you agree?” Bharat glanced at him sideways, waiting
for a response.
Bejoo nodded. Then grinned. “You were quite the hell raiser back then. Must
make for some good memories now!”
Bharat nodded, grinning too. “Except that I always felt bad for the poor sarathi
and how hard you came down on him that day.”
“Well, young master. As I recall, it was you who were responsible for his plight,
not I. ‘Twas his job to guard the rath. He ought not to have been swayed by your
sweet princely tongue.”
Bharat spread his hands in a what-to-do gesture. “True, true. But my words to
him were compelling. Did he tell you what I said to him that day to make him
hand over his reins to me so readily?”
Bejoo thought back a moment then shook his head. “Nay, that he did not.”
Shatrugan came over, flashed a smile of greeting, and sat down beside his
brother.
Bejoo took the cue and simply nodded back in return, understanding that they
wished to remain incognito for some reason. He continued: “In point of truth,
young master, I did not let him explain. It was the principle of the thing, I told
him, if I recall correctly. A sarathi never surrendered his chariot on pain of death.
It was his dharma.”
Bharat shook his head regretfully. “Not if his prince told him that another prince,
Yuvajara Rama Chandra, lay injured and bleeding and he needed to commandeer
the chariot to rush to his aid at once.”
Bejoo lost any trace of a smile. He stared bluntly at Bharat. “You told him that?”
Bharat nodded. “I was a young fool then. Used to getting my way. And I so
wanted to win that race. Right, Shatrugan?”
Shatrugan nodded. “Surely. You always had to prove you were better than Rama,
even when you weren’t.”
Bejoo shook his head slowly, remembering how harshly he had penalized the
sarathi. “Poor man. Had I know that then…”
“You would probably have still punished him anyway,” Bharat said. “You were a
tough old bastard back then, Captain Bejoo. No offense.”
Bejoo nodded. “None taken.”
“That’s why our father put you in charge of his personal vajra. He took great
pride in the way you ran that outfit. He was always using you as an example
when trying to discipline us, wasn’t he, Shatrugan?”
Shatrugan grunted, smiling ruefully: “He did. I can vouch for that as well as the
danda we got while he berated us for not being more like Captain Bejoo.”
Bharat glanced at the old man. “I have to admit, that was part of the reason why
I stole your rath in particular, and not one of the others.”
“Oh yes, sir, he came down that raj-marg yelling, ‘I’m Captain Bejoo, make way,
make way!” Shatrugan laughed, and Bharat laughed with him. With barely a
pause, Bejoo joined in as well. The other drinkers in the temple precinct turned
their heads to look at them curiously. Chandra pujari continued fanning himself
slowly, frowning as if wondering whether he had served too many mugs of soma
to this particular group.
Finally, Bejoo stopped laughing, sighed deeply and looked down at the rough
stone floor on which he sat. “Sometimes, I wonder if it was worth it. Being as
tough a bastard as I was back then.”
Bharat glanced up at him quizically. “What do you mean?”
Bejoo shrugged. “Well, as time tempers once mettle, it also leads to
introspection. I do not deny that a warrior’s countenance is part of a kshatriya’s
dharma and all that. But sometimes I wonder. Is not a kshatriya also a man? A
human being? A husband, a father, a brother? We are not just machines of war,
surely?”
Bharat looked at him for a long moment. Elsewhere in the temple compound, a
man raised his voice, demanding more soma harshly. The voice cut off abruptly
as the drunken fool felt the blunt end of Chandra pujari’s staff.
“That is a very insightful thing you just said, Captain Bejoo,” Bharat said at last.
“A very very insightful thing indeed.”
Bejoo made a throaty sound. “It’s not Captain Bejoo anymore, boys. Hasn’t been
for a very long time. I’m grama-rakshak Bejoo now. Although I suppose I’m
technically some kind of ranking officer in the PF hierarchy, but don’t ask me
where I figure in relation to all the rest of the organization. It changes every day
these days, it would seem.”
He noticed Bharat and Shatrugan exchange a quick glance. Shatrugan seemed to
nod briefly as if saying yes, go ahead to his brother. Bharat turned back to Bejoo
with an expectant look on his face.
“Actually, we’d like very much to speak with you about exactly that,” he said
quietly. “About the changes.”
Shatrugan added: “That is, if you don’t mind speaking about such things with us
privately.”
Bejoo drunk off the last of his soma, literally licking his lips and tips of his upper
moustache. Ah, that Chandra pujari really had a deva’s touch. “Of course, young
princes. The day when an old veteran and two princes of Ayodhya can’t speak
freely, if privately, about their own city hasn’t come yet.” He lowered the mug
and flashed them a broad smile and a wink. “Not as far as I’m concerned at
least!”
He was pleased to see them both return beaming smiles. He raised his mug,
requesting the pujari for more soma. And was surprised when the pujari actually
fetched them refills.
***
Pradhan Mantri Jabali continued to stare fixedly at the far end of the chamber as
he listened to the spasa kneeling beside him. The man whispered in tones that
only the pradhan mantri could catch. Not even the artist standing before the
canvas across the chamber, attempting to capture the prime minister’s dignified
pose in all its hawk-nosed grimness, could have caught more than a sussuration.
Finally, the spasa finished and waited for his master’s command. Jabali remained
staring at the same spot as before, for the benefit of the portrait which after all,
he had commissioned. But two tiny spots of colour began to appear on his high
protruding cheekbones, and in a moment, he looked as if he had painted daubs of
crimson on them. Except for those two telltale signs, and the intensity with
which his eyes bored into the pre-arranged spot across the chamber – a marble
bust of Raja Harischandra, one of Rama’s most illustrious ancestors – there were
no other indications of just how upset the aging minister had become after
hearing his spasa’s message.
But the spasa saw and read these signs correctly. And later, after he was
dismissed and back in the security unit in the dungeon below the palace
complex, he shuddered and told a colleague over their evening meal: “I wouldn’t
want to be the next person to cross the old hawk.”
“What did you tell him that made him so upset?” asked his companion, less
interested in the actual information than in knowing what, of the several dozen
things he already knew of, had triggered the pradhan mantri’s anger. Slow as it
was to trigger, that anger was a terrible thing to behold once fully stoked. He was
more interesting in knowing the trigger from the point of view of self-
preservation. Jabali had been known to kill the messenger more than once, if the
rumours were to be believed. It would be useful to bear in mind that such-and-
such a report might be the one to set off his formidable ire.
The spasa shrugged, stripping off a hunk of goat-meat from a marrow bone
which he then sucked dry before tossing to the dogs who fought over it
raucously. “Just that I saw yuvarajas Bharat and Shatrugan drinking soma with
an old PF at the sudra’s temple.”
The other spasa frowned. “That’s it? What were they talking about?”
“Don’t know. Couldn’t get close enough to hear without arousing suspicion.
Couldn’t have been anything very important, it seemed to me. They were
laughing and drinking.”
The other spasa shrugged. “Politics.”
They enjoyed their goat meat and soon forgot the incident.
The pradhan mantri, on the other hand, most definitely did not.
 FOURTEEN
Old Somasra watched as the young soldier leaned over the top of the first wall,
peering down its length. “I see it, Soma, sir, I see it right there!”
Somasra resisted the urge to knock his lance against the youngun’s backside.
Had there not been sharp-toothed things swimming about in that moat down
there, he’d have knocked the fellow over without a second thought. He was sick
and tired of these greenhorns they sent him these days, blustering young fools
who couldn’t throw a spear twenty yards and hit a whole wagon. In his youth,
duty at the first gatewatch had been a posting of immeasurable pride. A young
soldier could have his pleasure of any number of women over the first several
weeks just on the back of that simple statement: “I’m first-gate-watch.”
He had been the youngest ever to pass the rigorous tests they set back then and
his entire akshohini had been damn proud of the fact. “One of our’s!” He sighed
and shook his head in disgust as the young soldier continued to lean dangerously
over the wall. Sure. I was the youngest then and now I’m the oldest gatewatch
still on active duty. So what does it mean? Have I gotten too old for the job? Or
has Ayodhya changed from under me? Probably a bit of both.
Either way, it stank like the moat in the days before refilling time – when the
mulch and dead carcasses and other rotting stuff grew too dank and noxious, and
the dam-gates connecting the moats to a small diversion of the Sarayu had to be
knocked open to let the water be refreshed, the mesh-screens ensuring that while
fresh water came in and filthy water went out, the denizens themselves remained
in their watery enclosure as their predecessors had for the past centuries since
Ayodhya had been built. And later, hauling up those mesh screens when they
grew too clogged with gunk, and replacing them with fresh ones? Now that had
been a task in itself. He had helped out a few times, because back in those days,
everyone did everything, not like it was today with even hairless younguns
dodging work saying, “It’s not my varna,” or “Below my varna to do that”.
Besides, he had wanted to see what it was like. The way those jaws and slick
snouts emerged and snapped and thrashed and rolled madly in the water the
moment human hands or feet came remotely within chomping range…it churned
his stomach even now to think of it. Especially since he had seen what those
gnashing jaws and razor teeth could do to a living creature – on more occasions
than he cared to count in fact, Shiva take his blessed soul.
“I got it, Soma! I got it!” cried the youngun now, leaning so far over the top of
the wall, that his lower garment was pulled up high above his thighs, exposing
his fuzzy rear end.
Somasra cursed, reached out with one hairy knuckled fist, grabbed hold of the
young soldiers langot by its waist knot, yanked on it hard to get a grip – the
youngun yelped once as his crown jewels were squished more than a little – and
hauled the fellow back and down, thumping him on the hardwood platform
again. He turned around, the errant pennant that had fallen off and got stuck a
yard down on a convenient splinter clutched in his hand, face red with effort.
“What you do that for?”
Without a word, Somasra snatched the nearest mashaal off its iron sconce,
leaned over the wall and pointed down. The youngun’s curiosity made him look
over once again, and Somasra held the torch low enough that they could both see
the dimpling dark surface of the moat below. Somasra hawked and spat a gob.
The instant it splotched into the water, a dozen twisting writhing shapes thrashed
and fought and lunged. Finding nothing for their efforts, yet still able to smell
human product in the water, they fought one another, gharial versus shark versus
crocodile versus piranha versus watersnake versus…well, versus whatever else
was down there. He drew back the arm with the mashaal, plunging the moat
below into the shadowy darkness again, fitted the torch back into its sconce and
turned to see the young fellow standing stupefied, eyes round with shock.
“Holy Shiva,” the man said slowly. “If I’d fallen over into that…”
Somasra grunted. “…you’d have saved the moat-keepers having to drop
tomorrow morning’s load of meat, is all. Mayhaps not even that.” He pinched the
young man’s bicep, barely as thick as Somasra’s wrist. “Mayhaps just a treat for
our fellows below.”
“Fellows?”
“Ayuh. They’s gatewatchers same as we are. More effective even. Intruders
might get past us somehow. But them?” Somasra chuckled and shook his head.
“How would anyone even know for sure what was down there and how many
and how to fight them in the water? Even old Sankarshan, Captain of Moats,
probably doesn’t know for sure anymore—them creatures have been breeding in
the moats since before great Raghu was a little babe running around without a
dhoti. Who knows what exactly is in there now and how many they might be?”
The young PF shuddered as he realized how close he had come to finding out
exactly what and how many were down there in the moat. Hoarsely, he thanked
Somasra for yanking him back in time and then went off to a corner where
Somasra suspected he would soon hurl the contents of his stomach out. Young
fools. Too stupid to avoid danger, too scared to deal with it after the fact. What
they all need is a good knock on the head with the end of my lance.
Not long after, he saw a light winking on the opposite side of the gate, went over
to the lantern and turned it to face a different side, causing it to wink as well and
show a different coloured side. The gatewatchers used that system of coloured
faces on their wall-lanterns to indicate the changing of the watch. This change
meant that it was the end of Somasra’s shift. The next shift guards were already
here and he surrendered charge to them and climbed down the wooden ladder to
street-level. A man was standing there, apparently waiting for him, clad in the
officious purple, black and green outfit that indicated he was a PF-provost, one
of those new-fangled titles that they handed out like roasted treats these days
even to kshatriyas untested in combat. Munshis is all they really are, he thought,
trying not to let his disgust show. Glorified clerks dressed up in soldier guises.
“Gate-watch Somasra, father’s name Uchasravas?” asked the man.
“First-gate-watch Somasra,” he answered. “Ayuh.”
The man blinked, not seeming to see the difference between a simple gate-watch
guard and a first-gate-watch, the latter being the best of the best, one of a very
select few chosen and entrusted with the vital task of manning the very first gate,
the first boundary of defense of the entire city. Another young fool who doesn’t
know his itihasa or sanskriti, Somasra thought. They’re growing on trees like
rotten fruit these days.
“Somasra Uchasravas, you are commended for your service. Ayodhya thanks
you. You may now enjoy the fruits of your long and honourable service. You are
hereby retired from active duty. Congratulations.”
And the man turned to go. Done. Finished. Just like that.
Somasra’s hand shot out and grasped hold of the man’s shoulder, pinning him.
“Hold your rabid horses in check, youngun,” Somasra said, more than a little
angry. “What are you saying here?”
The man glanced at him curiously, and a bit nervously, probably feeling the
strength of the hand on his shoulder. “You are relieved from your duty. Retired.
You don’t need to show up for work here at the gate anymore.”
Somasra stared at him so intently and silently, the man actually writhed, trying to
wriggle out from the stone-hard grip. Finally, Somasra relented and released
him. The man scuttled away nervously, glancing back once before scurrying up
the raj-marg the way he had come—back to the governance quadrant.
Somasra looked around, at the towering structure of the first gate of Ayodhya,
pride of the Arya world, looking quite proud and magnificent in the light of the
mashaals at dusk. Ayodhya the Unconquerable. A large part of that legendary
reputation was because of the efficiency with which these seven gates were
manned and monitored. And he, Somasra, the oldest surviving first-gate-watch
still on duty, was now informed that his service to the state was over and done
with. Thank you. Congratulations. Commendations. As easily as that, he had
been cast off like an old coat.
So that was it? The end? Of his career? And his career was his life. For he had
lost his wife and son in the Last Asura Wars, in a particularly brutal skirmish in a
hamlet not far from here, on the North bank of the Sarayu, back when asuras had
prowled this land like beetles in a dank dungeon. Pisacas had done it, and had
gotten away clean with it too. By the time Somasra had arrived, nothing but their
ravaged barely recognizable carcasses remained. He had never remarried again,
never took children. The first-gate-watch had been his pride and his life. Doing
his bit to ensure that his fellow Ayodhyans never fell prey to the fate that befell
his own loved ones. That task had given him succour and strength for forty two
years, not counting the twenty four years before that when he had been in active
military service, a total of 76 years out of his 91 years upon this earth. What was
he to do now? Take up Vanaprasthashrama? Kshatriyas rarely lived long enough
to even consider the second ashrama, let alone the third. He was old enough to
take up Sanyasashrama directly now, yet he didn’t know the first thing about
spirituality and meditation. He had spent his life serving with strength and the
use of weapons and force of mind was all he knew.
Slowly, he began the walk back to his quarters in the military quadrant. Probably
he would now have to vacate that tiny room as well, with whatever meagre
possessions he owned, to make way for the young and the new. He watched a
quad-quad of new recruits in their spiffy new PF uniforms march past in perfect
step. None of them were more than a quarter of his age, none had probably seen
combat in their lives or known anyone who had seen combat. They spent their
days drilling and marching to perfection, but were they good for much more
besides that? It bothered him to know that they were now charged with the
defense of his homeland.
What does it matter either way, Somasra? Your time is done now. You are an old
bull being put out to pasture. Go gracefully and go with strength. The old must
pass to make way for the new. This too is your dharma.
He straightened his shoulders and walked the raj-marg, going the opposite way
to the lines of marching recruits. One last march. A solitary figure, gnarled and
white-haired and grizzled with the ravages of age and old wounds and shattered
bones and long hard living. Yet he cut a no less impressive figure than the
dozens of straight young bodies marching the other way. As they passed each
other, the old man just walking home and the young men marching to show off
their youth and their strength, it was hard to say who walked the more
impressive walk. A few of them who knew who he was—a living legend among
gate-watchers—muttered to each other and glanced back as he passed by.
Somasra neither returned their glances nor looked back. He walked on and
passed into the annals of obscurity.
 FIFTEEN
Bharat sprang to his feet.
His sword was in his hands, and he was ready to fight the instant the intruders
entered his chambers. But as they swarmed the night-darkened chamber with
silent deadly efficiency, surrounding him on all sides in less time than it took
him to alter his position from a front-pointing to a raised hacking posture, he
realized he had no desire to fight these warriors. He lowered his sword slowly,
reluctantly, and watched as they crouched, perched, squatted, crept and
otherwise filled his chamber with such a mass of furry simian force that any
attempt to fight would have resulted in the tastefully white chamber being
redecorated in lifeblood crimson. Several of them swarmed up the twin pillars
that flanked his bed, squatting comfortably, eyes gleaming in that reflective way
that animal eyes gleamed in darkness. There was little moonlight from the
verandah and open windows but it was enough for him to see that none of the
vanars were armed nor seemed to be offering any threat. They merely seemed to
be observing him, holding him hostage, and waiting.
He sheathed the sword, sat on the edge of his own bed, and waited with them.
The chamber was rank with their odour. To Bharat, used to travelling on long
campaigns with horses and dogs and fellow humans who seldom had
opportunity to bathe, it was not an entirely unpleasant odour. He could grow
accustomed to it.
A short while later, a familiar figure entered the chamber, walking taller and
straighter than any other vanar, his leonine head shot through with much more
grey than Bharat recalled at their last meeting. God, but he cut a proud figure
even at his age, which in vanar years Bharat assumed would be the equivalent of
over 60 mortal years. Few human kshatriyas could look so fit and strong at 60.
The strength of his belief in Rama makes it possible, just as it makes all his
extraordinary powers possible.
Hanuman bowed, joining his palms with his customary sincerity. “Forgive the
sudden intrusion, Lord Bharata, but I felt it more becoming your stature than the
manner in which Pradhan Mantri Jabali desired to have you apprehended.” He
indicated the chamber full of vanars. “As you can see, none of my warriors has
made any attempt to threaten or harm you, and that will not change so long as
you heed my words and accompany me graciously.”
Without replying, Bharat held up his sheathed sword on both his open palms,
showing that he had no intention of using it. Hanuman nodded. Bharat kissed the
sword, placed it lovingly on the bed, and rose to his feet. “Lead the way.”
The vanars parted like water before a ship’s prow.
Shatrugan joined them in the corridor outside the sabha hall, accompanied by his
own contingent of vanars, none of whose furry heads came to higher than his
chest. He seemed in good spirits as if being rousted out of bed in his private
chambers by half a hundred vanars was something that happened every second
night. “Bhraatr,” he said by way of greeting, a faint tone of irony in his tone.
The palace was quiet and still at this late hour. Yet in the distance, Bharat caught
the sounds of shouted commands, marching feet, hooves and wheels. Something
was afoot in Ayodhya. Something very substantial. Yet he felt a sense of
disapproval at any military exercise or campaign being conducted in these hours.
The kshatriya code existed for a reason: warriors deserved their rest and leisure
hours. To mobilize troops in the middle of the night could only lead to tired
soldiers come daylight. What could be so urgent that it required mobilization by
night? What national emergency could not wait until dawn at least, which was
after all only a few short hours away, less than half a watch.
Their silent progress through the winding corridors led down two flights of
marbled stairs and past the Hall of Ancestors. Bharat saw the vanars peep
curiously into the great museum-like chamber where gentle lighting remained lit
at all hours, to honour the illustrious Suryavanshi Ikshwaku forebears. It was
testimony to their discipline that none lagged behind or dropped back to take a
quick tour, even though their intense fascination was palpable. These artifacts
must be unseen in their cities. He had never had the pleasure of visiting
Kiskindha, the capital of the vanar nation deep in the redmist mountain ranges
beyond the North-Easternmost boundaries of the Aryavarta empire, but he had
heard enough accounts of its wonders to know that stone and canvas were not
the usual media used by vanar to commemmorate their famous dead. They
believed in honouring their ancestors through their deeds rather than through
carved marble busts and painted art. The artistic wonders that greeted them at
every turn were unlike anything they had seen or heard of in their rustic vanar
lives.
They reached their destination, the rajya sabha hall, and the contingent came to a
halt.
Hanuman stopped before the closed sabha doors. Rama was evidently inside and
some manner of official meeting was clearly in session, as was obvious from the
presence of the guards diligently guarding the corridors and doorway.
Bharat half-expected to see Lakshman there as well, in his usual place. But his
brother was conspicuous by his absence from his familiar spot. The sentries
opened the doors to Hanuman who went inside the sabha hall and returned
moments later, indicating that they should follow him inside.
The vanars remained outside, the vaulting doors groaning shut behind Bharat
and Shatrugan. Bharat glanced around as they followed Hanuman up the long
central walkway between the endless rows of pillars. The hall was almost empty,
and lay mostly in darkness. The only people present were gathered around the
throne dais, where a pair of mashaals crackled quietly, illuminating the dozen
odd faces that Bharat recognized easily as the War Council. The only ministers
present were Pradhan Mantri Jabali and Mantri Ashok. Another face he
recognized unhappily was that of Bhadra, scion of a noble family of Ayodhya
and a friend and sporting rival to Rama as a boy. He had himself seen Bhadra’s
friendship to Rama grow considerably in the past ten years and had heard
growing rumours of just how much power and influence that friendship had
earned Bhadra. He was also the Chancellor of the War Council and the Governer
of the city now, Bharat had heard. His name had been one among a few that had
cropped up several times during his talk with Shatrugan and Bejoo last evening.
Bhadra must have sensed Bharat’s intense scrutiny because he looked up just
then, canny knowing blue eyes flashing straight to Bharat. His handsome fair
features betrayed no trace of his feelings as he returned Bharat’s gaze with a
cool appraise of his own. If anything, he looked a capable, upstanding man and
an able administrator. Then why do I feel that he has grown too close to Rama
too soon?
Hanuman announced them. “Samrat Rama Chandra, as you instructed, I have
chaperoned Mathura-naresh Raja Shatrugan and Gandahar-naresh Raja Bharat to
your presence.”
Rama glanced at Bharat and Shatrugan before replying. “Yes, thank you,
Anjaneya. That will be all.”
Hanuman remained standing.
Rama looked at the vanar. “You may leave now, Maruti. Your chore is done.”
Hanuman cleared his throat gruffly in the vanar manner, a cross between a
nervous cough and a plaintive sound. “I beg your pardon, sire. But I also wished
to inform you that the troops you requested have arrived. I received word when I
was on my way to fulfill this errand.”
Rama nodded, looking pleased. “That is excellent. Have they entered the city?”
Hanuman shook his head once. “I scented that would be unadvisable if not
difficult, given their numbers, sire. But they await your inspection within sight of
the city. If you will trouble yourself to ride out with me just a yojana or two…”
Rama waved a hand dismissively. “Out of the question. We are about to sit in
council now. I can’t leave here.”
Hanuman bowed his snout humbly. “As you say, sire.”
Rama frowned, crooking a finger. “However, I can use the Seer’s Eye to look
over them from afar. Yes, I believe I shall do just that. Arrange for them to be in
view of the tower and I shall be able to look over them briefly. How soon do you
think you can arrange them?”
Hanuman scratched the sparse silvering fur on the back of his head, thinking.
The ability to tell time, especially in the tiny increments mortals divided it into,
was a feat that generally defeated the vanar intellect. But in this, as in so many
other things, Hanuman was an exception to his race. “Within the hour, sire. I
shall fly out myself and organize them.”
Rama nodded. “Good. Do that then. Go now. Call me only when they are ready
to be viewed.”
Hanuman left the chamber—but instead of going back towards the doorway, he
went the other way, towards the window. Bharat watched as the vanar moved
easily from a brisk walk to a quick sprint to build up momentum, then launched
himself out the window into the black of night. One last glimpse of his tail
flicking as his powerful legs launched him skywards, then he was gone.
Bharat turned his attention back to Rama.
He was a little discomfited by the intensity of Rama’s gaze. Not a gaze, it was
more a glare.
“Gandahar-naresh Bharat,” Rama said with stiff formality, “it appears you have
committed a grave transgression against Ayodhya. I have summoned you and
Mathura-naresh Shatrugan here in order to give you an opportunity to defend
yourselves before I pronounce sentence on you and impose the applicable danda
for your violation of our laws.”
 SIXTEEN
Bharat exchanged a glance with Shatrugan before looking up at Rama.
“Ayodhya-naresh, Kosala-narad,” he said formally yet in as friendly a tone as
possible. “I believe I speak for both Shatrugan and myself when I assert that
Mathura and Gandahar are both sworn allies to Ayodhya. The question of
transgression does not arise. We have nothing but goodwill towards the Kosala
nation and its capital city. Not to mention the fact that we are both loyal sons of
Ayodhya and patriots to the core.”
Even as he spoke he was aware of the hostile looks directed at both himself and
Shatrugan, as well as the presence of swords and daggers among the members of
the War Council. But weapons are forbidden by law in the sabha hall! It has been
so since the days of Manu and the ignoble uprising. The event that had
precipitated the imposition of the law had occurred during the reign of Manu the
Lawmaker, an illustrious ancestor of their’s who was legendary for his creation
of the famous Laws of Manu, a code of conduct that did not find favour with all
who served under him, particularly those whom the Laws sought to muzzle,
contrain, or otherwise restrain. That had led to an uprising of the court nobles on
one occasion, and a bloody fight in the sabha hall – this very sabha hall – and the
subsequent imposition of the rule that weapons would henceforth be forbidden
within the sabha hall, an offense punishable by immediate and lifelong
banishment from all court affairs. The event came to be called the Ignoble
Uprising and the rule had stuck. Until now. Bharat wondered grimly how many
other changes Rama and his War Council and state advisors had brought about,
and which other time-honoured traditions had been overthrown as summarily as
this one.
Rama accepted a goblet of some manner of drink from a serving man – a serving
man, not girl, which was another unusual change, Bharat noted. He seriously
doubted the use of men in place of women to serve the liege had anything to do
with equalitarianism. More likely it was for other more military reasons; the fact
that the serving man had the body and manner of a trained soldier and carried a
discreetly worn short sword did not escape him either.
Rama sipped briefly from the goblet before speaking. “Your past actions have no
relevance. All that matters is your present transgression against the state. Do you
accept or deny that you have acted against the best interests of Ayodhya?”
Bharat frowned while still trying to keep his voice polite and expression friendly.
“My Lord Rama, how can past actions have no relevance? They have every
bearing upon a man’s motives and present actions. Every living breath expended
by either of us has been in the service of Ayodhya. Besides, we have not even
been informed what these allegations against us may be. How can we accept or
deny them then?”
Rather than reply, Rama continued to sip his drink while his eyes remained on
Bharat. Instead it was Bhadra who spoke up in the irritatingly laconic tone that
had always sounded to Bharat as if he was sneering at everything and everyone.
“You are impudent to even question the sunwood throne thus. The rajya sabha
has already heard the charges against you and found them meritorious. There is
no obligation to inform you of the details. In fact, the only reason why Lord
Rama is permitting you this appearance is on account of your past services to
Ayodhya. The Council itself has already found its verdict and the vote is against
you. All that remains now is to announce the danda imposed on you two.”
Years of kingship and numerous diplomatic parleys and negotiations with a
variety of other powerful people had tempered Bharat’s youthful temper
considerably. While he might never become legendary as a diplomat or
politician, he was justifiably proud of the fact that unlike most Arya kings and
lords, he had learned to wield his tongue rather than his sword to convince those
who disagreed with him. But hearing Bhadra speak now, completely out of turn
and against all protocol, that too in a tone that dripped with irony and utter
disrespect for Bharat’s lineage, made him want to cry to hell with diplomacy and
fling himself at the hefty Advisor. Who in the name of Ravana’s butt is this fool
anyway? When we were kids, and he tried to tag along with us, Rama was the
one who used to have least sympathy for him. A spoilt snot-nosed rich noble’s
brat who inherited too much family fortune and power at too young an age. And
now he sits by Rama’s right hand and speaks for him? Outrageous!
He felt Shatrugan’s calloused palm on his shoulder and warm breath on the side
of his neck. “Sabar, bhraatr,” whispered his brother. Patience, brother.
The watchful eyes and alert hands poised over pommels and hilt-guards
surrounding them underscored the merit of Shatrugan’s advice. Besides, he had
no desire to start a blood-battle with the adminstrators of his own family throne,
no matter how strongly he might disagree with their methods.
It still took an effort for him to reply in a level tone. “With due respect, Lord
Bhadra, I believe my brother and I have every right to know the allegations
made against us and to be given a fair chance to speak for ourselves. Where I do
agree with you is that the sabha is not obliged to inform us of these allegations.
The accuser must personally face us in open court,” he gestured at the virtually
deserted hall to indicate that it by no means satisfied the definition of an open
court, “and speak his accusations in our presence. The question of the Council
finding a verdict against us does not arise, since the process of justice has not yet
been carried out under Ayodhyan Law, let alone Arya law.” Again, he
emphasized ‘Ayodhyan’ to highlight the fact that while Arya law might be
interpreted variously by different tribes and nations, Ayodhya was legendary for
its justice and fairness – if Bhadra, whose lineage came from a particularly brutal
bloodstained grama with a history of resorting to violence in order to amass its
lands and wealth, regarded that emphasis as a reminder that his own family did
not have the best record for abiding by the Law, well so be it. He was rewarded
by seeing the man’s eyes narrow at that emphasis.
Bhadra moved his mouth as if to speak, but Bharat held up his hand and
continued: “Besides, it was my impression that Lord Rama had addressed me. Is
it now acceptable protocol for a mere nobleman to interrupt when kings are in
formal dialogue?”
That one struck home hard. Bharat saw Bhadra’s eyes widen, and his nostrils
flare alongwith his anger. Bhadra’s own temper was notorious. Even as a boy he
had been in the ugly habit of beating his dogs and horses to death when they did
not obey his commands to the letter. Bharat now saw a flash of that same
boyhood cruelty rise to the fore as the Advisor took a step forward, hand
reaching for the hilt of his sword. Come on then, make a move against me, and
we’ll see who gets the danda then.
Rama’s hand rose. Bhadra stopped short, although his eyes burned now with a
hot rage that Bharat had seen too often before to mistake for anything less than a
death-wish. He marked in his mind as a reminder of the exact moment when the
Advisor had first become his mortal enemy.
“Enough.” Rama placed the goblet on a tray beside the sunwood throne. “This is
a waste of valuable time. The Council has far more vital matters to discuss
today.”
He looked at someone beyond the edge of the circle of Counsellors and
Ministers and made a gesture that Bharat could not catch. Someone flitted away
into the shadows in response, off to do Rama’s bidding. Rama turned his eyes
back to Bharat, a faint trace of a smile evident now. “Lord Bharat, your concern
for Ayodhya Law – as against Arya Law,” he said, showing that he had caught
the nuance as well as the implied insult to Bhadra’s own family background, “is
commendable. However, you are not facing a lok sabha. This is a rajya sabha.
Hence there is no requirement of an open public court. We are in a time of war.
This is a War Council seated here today. We operate under rule of martial law
now, and all decisions and judgements are summary and immediate and not
subject to the usual process of public hearings and trials.”
Bharat’s heart sank as he realized what this meant and what Rama was leading
up to. Rama read his reaction and smiled coldly before continuing.
“I see you follow my meaning now. Under martial law, the War Council in
conjunction with the rajya sabha,” Rama indicated both the circle of Counsellors
as well as the usual roster of ministers, “are empowered to consider any act of
transgression or treason against the state in private and arrive at private
judgement. Only the danda need be announced publicly, and it is that part of the
process for which you are summoned here today.”
Rama gestured again and Bharat glanced back to see a group of figures coming
forward from the shadows, apparently just brought into the sabha hall on Rama’s
summons. He was more than a little shocked to see the Queens Kausalya and
Sumitra, as well as a few other elder statesmen and stateswomen of the court.
From the puzzled faces, he knew that the ‘witnesses’ had not been told anything
either.
Rama gestured to the small group who were now standing in the light of the
mashaals, blinking and looking curiously at Bharat and Shatrugan as they tried
to understand what what going on. “Here are the witnesses as required by law,
and in their presence I shall now pronounce your danda. Bharat and Shatrugan.
For transgressions against the state of Kosala and the throne of Ayodhya, you are
both stripped of your kingships and all other possessions and placed under house
arrest within the bounds of the Royal Palace with immediate effect and for an
indefinite period of time. This sentence is now pronounced by me, Rama
Chandra of Ayodhya, under the auspices of Ayodhyan martial law. I ask that the
War Council seconds it.”
“So seconded,” said Bhadra eagerly, his teeth glinting whitely in the light of a
mashaal. He locked eyes with Bharat, lip curling in that familiar sneer of
triumph.
“The Sabha of Ministers confirms it,” Pradhan Mantri Jabali said aloud.
Rama nodded. “The motion is carried. Have the accused taken into custody at
once.”
 SEVENTEEN
“Wait!” cried a woman’s voice.
Had it been anyone else, Shatrugan knew the plea would have fallen on deaf
ears. But it was Kausalya-maa who cried out. First Queen of Ayodhya by
Dasaratha’s side, then Queen Regent during those long years of exile, and now
Queen Mother to the seated King. For the past ten years, she had played no
active role in the administration and governance of Ayodhya—had in fact been
relieved and happy to surrender all responsibility to Rama—but the knowledge
of her power and stature remained, as did the overwhelming affection the people,
the court, even the armed forces felt towards her. Many considered her an avatar
of the goddess, and while associations of royalty with divinity were common
across Aryavarta, in Kausalya-maa’s case, they were believed more fervently
and by greater numbers than was usual.
The soldiers who had encircled Bharat and he in a ring of spears and were about
to shepherd them out the sabha hall halted at once. Shatrugan saw them glance at
each other uneasily. That single uneasy glance told him more than an hour of
questioning would have revealed. They know things are not right here. They
don’t like it. But they have no choice but to follow orders.
He saw his clan-mother step forward, out of the group that had been summoned
at this unearthly hour to serve as witnesses in this sorry excuse for a trial. She
walked through the circle of seated Ministers and Counsellors, towards the royal
dais itself. Pradhan Mantri Jabali stood in her way, looking down his hawk nose
at her imperiously. She met his hawk gaze with an eagle stare of her own, and he
visibly blanched and shuffled aside. Like most politicians who advocated war
and invasion and signed the death warrants of countless young bodies sent out to
do violence on unseen enemies in distant lands, Jabali was a coward at heart.
Shatrugan bitterly wished Sumantra were still here among them, with his quiet
grace and wisdom. But this was what they had to work with, the likes of Jabali
and Bhadra. This was Ayodhya today.
Bhadra made a move as if to block Kausalya’s path too, and from the insolent
expression on his face, Shatrugan knew he would not cow down as easily as
Jabali had done. The Advisor was no coward, he was something far worse: a
man who took pleasure in harming others through brute violence but clever
enough to disguise it as in a warrior’s willingness for combat. Shatrugan would
not put it past him to lay a hand on Kausalya too.
But Rama spoke then, in a voice so quiet, it was clearly intended only for
Bhadra. “She may speak.”
Bhadra hesitated, then stepped back to his position to the right of the throne. He
folded his arms across his muscled chest, biceps bulging and anga-vastra
tightening around them, as he watched Kausalya approach.
She walked to the foot of the dais, up the steps, and right up to the sunwood
throne itself. Shatrugan saw several Counsellors and Ministers turn their heads to
speak with one another, without taking their eyes off her for an instant. It was
against protocol to approach a sitting liege thus, without being expressly ordered
or given permission. But Rama had said “She may speak,” and he seemed
unperturbed by her approach.
She stopped one step below the throne, maintaining a little more than a sword’s
length distance between Rama and herself—though of course, she wore no
sword at all—and remained over two heads lower than his eyeline. Thus, she
maintained the decorum of the court and throne, still looking up to her liege and
keeping safe distance, yet using the unusual position to assert her own stature
and power. Now that is a brilliant politician, Shatrugan thought, resisting the
urge to flash a grin. And not one playing to advance her career either; everything
that Kausalya-maa did, she did for the common good. Nothing more or less.
Nobody else in the whole world would dare to approach the King of Ayodhya
thusly, yet after all, nobody else in the whole world could claim to have borne
the King of Ayodhya for nine months in her own womb either. For all its recent
emphasis on masculine muscle, Arya civilization was after all, a matriarchial
civilization. For as the cheeky old commonspeak saying went: “Lineage is
father’s privilege. But only the mother can say who is truly whose!”
Kausalya spoke words to Rama then. She did so quietly enough and rapidly
enough that nobody, least of all those standing as far away as Shatrugan and
Bharat were, could catch her words. No doubt Bhadra could hear her quiet well,
being as close to Rama as he was, and it was by watching his face as well as
Rama’s own features, that Shatrugan had some semblance of understanding what
Kausalya might have said.
Bhadra’s face turned white with anger almost at once, then red with frustration
as she continued speaking and Rama continued listening without reaction or
response, then finally it turned purple with impotent rage by the time she
finished, reached out, laid a hand gentle on Rama’s knees, stretching out to touch
it, then stepped back, dismounting the steps as gracefully as she had mounted
them and without once needing to glance down or backwards. She reached the
foot of the dais, adjusted her garment to ensure her head was properly covered as
court protocol required, and waited quietly.
Bhadra stepped towards the throne, his adam’s apple bobbing furiously in his
throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, Rama
raised a hand, causing Bhadra to stop, and gestured him back with a faintly
admonishing gesture. Bhadra stepped back and stayed quiet, but it was evident
that the amount of self-control those two simple acts required cost the Advisor
dearly. He knew better than to glare at Kausalya the way he had glared at Bharat
earlier: hot-headed as he might be, Bhadra was shrewd enough to display enough
outward control to have gotten this far. But he’s not going to take this lying
down either, Shatrugan thought grimly. Whatever Kausalya-maa said to Rama, it
must have been really effective.
As if agreeing, Rama lowered the same hand he had raised to stop Bhadra and
pointed it at Bharat and Shatrugan.
“Release them.”
Pradhan Mantri Jabali sputtered in protest: “My Lord!”
Rama gestured Jabali to silence. “Queen Mother Kausalya, in her capacity as
Elder Maatr of the dynasty, has proposed an alternative danda for the two
transgressors. As Samrat of the assembly, I have considered her proposal and
deemed it acceptable. Therefore, instead of placing Lords Bharat and Shatrugan
under house arrest, I am entrusting them with a task. If they oversee the
completion of the task successfully, they shall be deemed to have proven their
fealty to the Kosala nation and the sunwood throne beyond doubt. But should
they fail in this task or waiver in any manner, their danda shall be increased to
the maximum penalty under law. Namely, summary execution.”
Shatrugan swallowed. What in the name of Devi had just happened? Was this
supposed to be a reprieve or an escalation? He glanced at Bharat and saw the
same thought reflected in his eyes: Two princes of Ayodhya, threatened with
execution for transgressions against Ayodhya? Surely their father—nay, all their
ancestors—must be fuming in the afterlife!
But then he looked at Kausalya and saw something very different in her face.
She looked grim too, but she also looked relieved, as if she had achieved her
goal. Their eyes met and she inclined her head very slightly, just enough to
reassure him.
Without wholly understanding what had just happened and what lay ahead,
Shatrugan nevertheless felt better than he had just moments earlier. He trusted
Kausalya-maa. With his life if need be. Whatever she had wrought for his and
Bharat’s sake, it would be right.
Before anyone else could say another word, a familiar furred shape flew in
through the same window through which he had exitted not long before.
Hanuman walked up to the foot of the dais bowed deeply and said, “My Lord
Rama, they are arrayed as you commanded. Awaiting your inspection.”
Rama nodded and rose from the throne. At once, everyone present who was also
seated rose as well. Rama walked down the steps of the dais. Following in his
wake, the rest of the entourage went with him, Bharat and Shatrugan as well.
 EIGHTEEN
From the lofty height of the Seer’s Eye, the distant horizon already held the
promise of dawn. The sky in the east was marginally lighter than the inky
blackness of the rest of the world. The mashaals and lanterns of Ayodhya lay far
below the 1008 foot stone tower, illuminating the city in pockets. Beyond its
walls, crow-black darkness claimed the land. Seen thus at this hour of ghor
suvah, it was possible to understand why the Aryas of the Satya Yuga had
chosen this location. Bounded by the river on one side, straddling it in fact, with
the rugged mountain ranges at its back, the foothills of the Himalayas, and
facing the wild jungles of the Southwoods that had long marked the great patch
of central aranya wilderness dividing the Southern Arya nations from the
Northern ones, the city was ideally situated for defense. Beyond that great
Southern sprawl of tumultuous forest wilderness, the great and splendid tribes of
the southern part of the subcontinent flourished in no lesser grandeur than
Ayodhya. But that central forest had long marked a natural border in the spread
of Arya civilization; a boundary not of mortal making but of nature herself. And
nestled within its sprawling largesse, many minor kingdoms had grown and
flourished independently. Some, like the Gangetic fisher tribe the Nisadas under
Guha, were friendly to Ayodhyans and Aryas. Others were openly hostile. Seen
from this height, it was like viewing an ocean of darkness untouched by the
mashaals of Arya knowledge and vedic wisdom.
“Extinguish the lights,” Rama commanded as he took up a position at the South
East side of the circular promontory. The wind up here was too wanton for
mashaals. The PFs accompanying the royal entourage had carried lanterns. They
extinguished them now at Rama’s command.
Bharat looked around as the light faded from the last of these, marvelling at the
sheer number assembled here. There were no less than thirty people on the main
promontory, with a few at the back here where he stood, by the half-platform at
the head of the winding stairs that afforded climbers a space to catch their breath.
He had never seen so many here together at one time before. Why was it
necessary to bring the entire War Council, the Counsellors, the Advisor, their
mandatory PF guard, and even the Queens Sumitra and Kausalya? Whatever
Rama intended to show them, it must be quite extraordinary to require their
presence. He had hoped to have a moment alone with Rama to speak in private
and discuss matters in a more brotherly fashion, rather than the absurd formality
of the hearing – if it could be called that – to which they had just been subjected
back in the sabha hall. But that seemed unlikely now.
Bharat wistfully recalled coming up here with his brothers in happier days of
yore – with Rama as well, though what a different Rama it had been back then;
he remembered this one thing they had all loved to do, even though it was
expressly forbidden to them. They would each take turns standing in the center
of the promontory, arms held out, head flung back then turning round and round
as fast as he could manage, pinwheeling, until the pillars bounding the chamber
seemed to vanish, leaving one with the illusion of a completely clear view all
around. It had been remarkable – and more than a little frightening, at that age.
And once, when he had lost his balance and gone rolling across the stone floor, it
had been Rama who had caught him, just a yard short of the unbounded edge.
He had clasped his brother’s shoulders and hugged him warmly. And Rama had
hugged him back.
Now he remembered those days with sadness and regret. What had changed?
Why had it changed? Why did it have to change at all? He would give anything
to have those days, that brotherly love, that sense of utter closeness and
completeness, back again, if only for a day, an hour, a moment.
As the last light of the last lantern faded out slowly, and Bharat saw the faces of
those nearest to him fade into obscurity, he realized why Rama had asked for the
lights to be extinguished. The answer came in the form of a collective intake of
breath from those standing at the fore, looking out between the pillars that were
the only thing between themselves and the darkness beyond the tower.
Due to the prescient design of the tower, every one of those gathered here on the
promontory was afforded a view of the lands that lay beyond the Sarayu Valley.
Despite the thick forestation of those parts, it was possible to see what Rama had
brought them here to witness.
Visible between the gaps in the trees, and in front of the treeline, their fur
contrasting sufficiently with the verdant flora to make them stand out, was an
army of vanars so immense that Bharat had no words to describe it. Mammoth?
Huge? Enormous? All these seemed weak choices to describe the sheer
profusion that carpetted the land to the east of Ayodhya, stretching for yojanas in
that direction. A moving, stirring, sea of vanars, their fur rippling like grass on
an open plain. Bharat felt his own breath catch in his throat. There must be lakhs
of the creatures. A crore even. Two crores? Possibly.
A small shape hovered above the gathered vanar armies, floating in mid air.
Even without the silhouette of that familiar leonine head and the bushy tipped
enormously long tail curled upwards, Bharat could not have mistaken Hanuman.
As he watched the vanar expanded himself in size until he grew large and tall
enough for his feet to touch the ground – a hummock of earth dissolved beneath
his heel, crumbling to dust – and his head stood at the same height as the Seer’s
Eye itself. He put his palms together and bowed towards the tower, towards
Rama, speaking in a great rumbling tone that reached the gathering on the
promontory like a great wind redolent of vanar fur and sweat. “By your grace,
Lord Rama, I present to you the vanar armies assembled and awaiting your
command.”
Rama raised his hand which, Bharat noted, now held the gleaming raj-taru of the
Suryavanshi Ikshwaku dynasty. “Thank you, my loyal friend. Once again, you
have lived up to your word and done me a great service.”
Hanuman bowed deeply, shrinking as he did so. In another moment, he had
resumed his normal size and flew back towards the vanar ranks, descending to
ground level before them.
Several excited voices began to speak in the gathering. Rama cut them all off by
turning and raising his hand again, the royal sceptre commanding instant
obedience.
“If we shall all turn to look north and west now, we shall see what Lakshman has
to show us as well.”
The gathering turned at once in the direction specified. Bharat turned with them,
his eyes meeting Shatrugan’s as his brother turned too. He saw the simulacrum
of his own astonishment reflected in Shatrugan’s eyes. What is Rama upto?
What does he intend to do with a vanar army of that magnitude? Invade Lanka
again? Surely not! There was nothing in Lanka worth taking, he knew. Which
meant Rama had other territories in mind. But which ones? And why? Ayodhya
had no more natural enemies left now that Ravana and his great asura and
rakshasa hordes were gone. Yet he would not have called for Hanuman to
assembled the vanar multitudes just for a parade!
Then he saw what lay to the north-west and all thought, all logic drained from
his mind. When the gathering gasped collectively this time, he opened his mouth
as well. Although no sound emerged, he felt no less stunned.
On the northwestern plains above Ayodhya, cleared generations ago to
accommodate the city-state’s great standing army and provide space for its
military maneuvers and training, there now stood a force of mortal soldiers on
foot, on chariot, on horseback and on elephant-back. It was the army of
Ayodhya, but Bharat knew the size and extent of Ayodhyan forces. This
assemblage far exceeded their normal standing numbers. Where Ayodhya’s
regular standing army had perhaps four akshohini or battalions, this force was
far, far greater in size.
His practised eye scanned the neat rectangular formations arrayed out in
impressive order on the practise plains and beyond. The dawn was just breaking,
and as the assembly on the promontory gazed out at this astonishing spectacle,
spreading tentacles of light crept across the landscape, catching and reflecting
off the gleaming polished armour and weaponry of the assembled ranks. Bharat
estimated that no less than six akshohini were assembled, perhaps even seven or
eight if those shadows at the mouth of Ikshwaku’s Canyon were also soldiers.
Eight akshohini? It was staggering. Twice the size of Ayodhya’s army! And this
was in addition to the vanar hordes!
Rama said: “Behold, the greatest army ever raised in the history of the world. A
force of mortals and vanars together comprising greater numbers than all the
other armies of the Arya nations combined. With this great force we shall
perform the Ashwamedha yagna and go forth today to challenge all the nations
of the known world.”
And he raised the rajtaru, catching the slanting first light of day and setting it
aglow.
“Ayodhya Anashya!” he cried.
Three dozen voices answered him from the promontory: “Ayodhya Anashya!”
And from the vanar hordes behind them and the mortal army before them, a
great and terrible cry resounded, filling the world with a rumbling no less than
thunder:
“AYODHYA ANASHYA!”
 NINETEEN
Bejoo heard the thundering roar of the armies and shuddered. Between the
vanars on one side and the Ayodhyan army on the other, as well as the PF forces
assembled here on the main royal avenues, the sound was deafening, like a
thunder crack directly above. As the echoes faded away into the silent dawn, he
glanced up at the Seer’s Eye morosely. The slanting first light highlighted the
rajtaru held up by Maharaja Rama Chandra – nay, it’s Samrat Rama Chandra
now, remember – and limned it in dull golden light. A cheer rose from the throats
of the PFs around him and he raised his hand unhappily, pretending to join in.
One never knew who was watching these days, and after witnessing what
happened to those who seemed less than enthusiastic about displaying support
for the Emperor, he had decided to keep his objections private and his displays
public. He even shouted the ubiquitous chant “Samrat Rama Chandra ki jai!!”
along with the rest, almost fumbling over the first word, which had been
‘Siyavar’ for so long rather than the recent ‘Samrat’ that he had yet to grow
accustomed to saying it. It tripped awkwardly off his tongue. Emperor Rama
Chandra in place of Sita’s Husband Rama Chandra. That amendment of the
customary cheer pretty much summed up the change in Rama over the past ten
years and described all that he considered to have gone wrong with Ayodhya in
the same decade.
From his position in the midst of a large regiment of similarly attired grama-
rakshaks, Bejoo could not see what the distant figures on the lofty tower were
presently viewing. But he had heard the awed descriptions of the sheer size of
the vanar forces, and he had personally borne witness to the growing ranks of
Ayodhyan regulars over the past year, and he could imagine the mind-numbing
size of the two armies that now flanked Ayodhya. Those thundering cries had
been like nothing he had ever heard before. An old senapati had once said when
Bejoo was but a young novice soldier, that while men stood and walked alone,
they still counted as men. But the moment they banded together, they grew into a
kind of beast. The greater the number of men together, the less human and more
bestial they became. Until finally, when it became the size of a national army, its
individual humanity was all but lost in the hive-mind of the great majority. As
the old craggy general had summed it up, An army has its own sense of morality,
and that sense has very little to do with what you or I call dharma.
Now, the greatest beast ever created stood outside the walls of Ayodhya. Roaring
a challenge.
And the fact that it was on their side rather than some external enemy’s side
offered little comfort to Bejoo.
Once awakened, the beast must be fed. It will be fed. And if it cannot find
sufficient nourishment outside, it will eat its own home, family and finally, itself.
For such is the nature of the beast, that slouching shambling monster that men
become when they go to war. It needs no reason, for war itself is against all
reason. It merely needs to be unleashed. And then the massacre begins. The old
veteran’s words still rumbled in the caverns of memory.
Bejoo shuddered again.
A little while later, after the assembly was over and the Samrat and the others
from the Seer’s Eye had descended once again into the bowels of the Palace,
during the brief respite before the yagna itself was scheduled to start, Bejoo was
standing by his wagon, checking that all was in readiness. The task of the grama
rakshaks was to bring up the flanks and rear, providing an unbroken supply
chain that led back from the frontlines all the way to Ayodhya. To this end, his
grama was sparsely manned, just the minimum number required to drive the
wagons and load and unload. They were all over-the-hill, old or partially
incapacitated PFs deemed unfit to fight or march or ride along with the regular
army. And they carried only supplies. In Bejoo’s case, that meant mostly
weapons of all kinds. Two wagons were filled with only arrows, some so freshly
fletched and leaded he could smell the birdshit on the feathers and the smelting
on the irontips. The other wagons carried an assortment of every kind of device
or tool that could accomplish the brutal business of killing and sundering human
beings. He supposed it was better than having to carry food provisions, like old
Nachiketa’s grama, or vaids to administer to the wounded on the field like
Jagannath’s grama. He sighed as he resecured a loose binding and flicked the
flap of the wagon down again, hooking it deftly to prevent it flapping up as they
rode. It was hard to believe that these weapons and tools of war would be used
against fellow Aryas – against fellow humans, for that matter. All their lives, old
soldiers like Bejoo had prayed to their chosen amsas or avatars of the One God,
in his case that had been Shaneshwara, his family’s patron deity, that someday
they would annihilate the asura races from the mortal realm, restore peace and
usher in a new era of contentment and prosperity.
And look at us now, he thought as he walked around the large dusty field where
dozens of other gramas were similarly awaiting the order to move out. We
annihilated the asura races at last. Restored peace. We even achieved the
prosperity part of the bargain. But then, instead of being content with that, we’re
about to start the whole vicious cycle of violence all over again. Except that this
time, since we don’t have a common non-human enemy to fight, we’re just
going to make do, and slaughter one another. It made him sick to the stomach to
even think of the countless men and women that had died over the decades,
centuries even, so that Arya civilization could attain its present level of stability
and prosperity. Was it all for this? This miserable sodding relaunch of the same
old madness all over again? What the bloody hell for?
Angry and impotent, he kicked a loose stone and winced as it narrowly missed
hitting the foot of another grama-rakshak. The man glared at him as if he was
insane, and Bejoo raised a hand in sheepish apology. The mood across Ayodhya
was taut as a bow pulled to its maximum stretch, as it usually was before any
campaign, and the last thing he needed was to get into a brawl. The other grama
rakshaks regarded him with barely disguised hostility, not the least because of
his earlier high office and closeness to the late King Dasaratha as well as his
fame as a vajra captain, hero of many legendary exploits. They knew he was too
good for this post and resented his presence among them. And they were
justified in their resentment. After all, he wasn’t here because he enjoyed
inhaling the dust of the road and watching the hindquarters of a team of horses
twitching tails for fifty yojanas every day. He was here because he had been
kicked down here to this position, courtesy of Pradhan Mantri Jabali and his
cronies. Not just he, much the same fate had befallen most of those old vets who
had enjoyed the trust of the late Maharaja. Dasaratha had tolerated Jabali
because of his efficiency and his old ties to Kosala nobility; he had never made a
secret of his personal dislike of the man and his personal habits and beliefs.
After Dasaratha, and more importantly, after Pradhan Mantri Sumantra’s
passing, Jabali had swept the royal house clean of all those who had been in the
late king’s favour – replacing them with his own cohorts. It was typical transition
politics and Bejoo understood it well. What he didn’t understand, and found
increasingly difficult to tolerate, was the growing hawkishness of Jabali’s
administration. And Rama’s growing espousal of that hawkishness.
And today, all his fears had been proven true.
He stopped and looked around listlessly. He had reached the end of his grama,
and everything that could be checked had been checked twice or thrice; there
was nothing left to do except wait for the order to roll out. He was bitterly
unhappy about having to participate in the coming campaign. This is not what I
signed up for, forty years ago. And this is not what Ayodhya is supposed to use
its power and military might for. Shaneshwara curse that hawknosed fool and his
cronies. I warrant they’re the ones who poisoned Rama’s ear until he finally
agreed to this madness.
He suddenly felt defiant.
What if he simply refused to take the grama out? If he just resigned his
commission and walked away?
But then again, what good would that do? It would make no difference to this
massive war machine that had already been set into motion. The only one it
would affect was old Bejoo himself. Military service was now compulsory in
Ayodhya. Refusal or resignation – or going absent without leave – was
tantamount to treason, under the new interpretation of Manu’s Laws. And the
danda for such an act of defiance was execution. He would be arrested for
treason and probably be executed summarily, like the handful of other protestors
or dissenters who had found the Ashwamedha campaign beyond their limits of
tolerance. His body would still be warm as the other gramas trundled out onto
the raj-marg, and he could almost imagine the other grama-rakshaks sneering or
even spitting on his cooling corpse as they passed by. He sighed and rubbed his
chest. No. A futile protest was no good to anyone. He may as well go along, do
his duty, serve his time. At least he was not expected to participate directly in the
brutality.
He leaned morosely against the side of his lead wagon, mulling over the
unfairness of it all. So distracted was he by his own thoughts that he failed to
raise his head even when he heard a wagon approach. He hardly noticed even
when the wagon stopped close by and the horses snickered quietly.
A voice spoke from the wagon. A voice he had not heard in Shaneshwara knew
how many years – decades? A voice from a distant, happier past.
“So tell me, Vajra Captain Bejoo, have you danced with any vetaals lately?”
 TWENTY
As the soft gloam of first light gradually illuminated the promontory of the
Seer’s Eye, Shatrugan sought out Bharat and saw his own worst fears reflected
in his brother’s face. Bharat was clearly as shaken as he himself felt after
viewing the extraordinary display.
Ayodhya Anshya indeed. This isn’t what our forebears intended when they first
roared that slogan in battle. Ayodhya stands for defensibility, for making a stand
against injustice and the madness of conquest and invasion, not for them!
The mood of exhileration remained even after the spectacular formal viewing of
the armies was over and the elite gathering had begun to disperse. Shatrugan had
never felt so out of place in his own homeland before in his life, so severely
pitted against the tide of public opinion. Even though the Seer’s Eye was so high
above the city, their father the late king Dasaratha had always believed that
immense spiritual power with which the tower was infused enabled a king of
Ayodhya to read the mood of the city from up here. He often came during times
of trouble, or when a difficult decision had to be made, and now as Shatrugan
stood there with head reeling and senses shaken, he understood why. It was as if
the tower acted as a kind of emotional listening post. He thought he could
actually hear and feel what people were feeling across the great expanse of the
capital city. After all, this tower and its sister structure the Sage’s Brow in
neighbouring Mithila were said to have been erected not by mortal architects but
by the saptarishis – the seven legendary brahmarishis of yore – using only
brahman shakti. Even as a young boy, Shatrugan had always been awed by the
sense of power and intimate connection to the people that standing here evoked
in him. He felt it again now, as a thrumming living vibration that was drawn in
from the city by the tower like a beacon, passed up through the very spine of the
structure, and through those stones on which he now stood, transmuted into
energy and emotion that rippled through his body and mind, giving him a vivid
image of what Ayodhya felt and thought at this moment in time.
There were no surprises there.
All across Ayodhya, the mood was overwhelmingly one of excitement and
anticipation. A sense of power. Of eagerness to go forth and conquer. It was the
mood of a people embarking on a great venture, naively unaware of the long-
term consequences and repurcussions.
He felt frustrated and more than a little angered. What was Rama thinking? This
was no time to put on such a display of military might? And to embark on the
Ashwamedha yagna now? This could well be the act that tipped the delicate
balance of inter-nation politics and precipitated a war between the Arya
kingdoms. Unless of course…he realized with a sinking sensation…unless that
was what Rama and his advisors wanted to achieve.
Up here, he needed no spiritual infusion to read the mood. The sombre wizened
old Mantris and Councillors were infected with war fever. Even now they
murmured excitedly amongst themselves as they shuffled towards the narrow
egress, starting the descent down the narrow spiral stairwell which was designed,
like most Arya stairwells, to stifle the progress of men clad in armour bearing
arms and make the use of those weapons all but impossible. Shatrugan estimated
that it would take several more moments for them all to descend and deliberately
hung back, indicating with a brief nod of his head to Bharat to do the same. He
wished to have words with Bharat in as much privacy as was possible under the
circumstances.
Rama, Jabali, Bhadra and a pair of other senior ministers seemed in no hurry to
descend either; they remained standing at the far edge of the promontory,
talking. Shatrugan noted with a discreet glance that Bharat and he were virtually
unguarded; the handful of PFs present were more intent on maintaining the
suraksha chakra – the perpetual ‘circle of safety’ they were required to maintain
at all times around the person of the king – than in watching the erstwhile
offenders. They were aware of Shatrugan as he moved closer to Bharat but did
not object by word or gesture. After all, despite their ‘offenses’, they were still
royal sons of Ayodhya and that counted for something with most. Though not
with Rama, apparently, he noted with a tinge of bitter regret.
Finally, he found his moment when the Councillors standing nearby moved
towards the egress to take their turn to begin the long descent. He shuffled close
enough to Bharat to speak without being heard by anyone else.
“Bhraatr, the situation is beyond control. Something must be done.”
“Aye. We must speak with Rama.”
Shatrugan glanced at the group across the promontory and was not surprised to
see Bhadra’s light grey eyes glinting sharply as they flicked in this direction. He
avoided meeting the Councillor’s eyes, pretending to look down morosely as if
lost in contemplation. After a moment or two, when he saw Bhadra engaged in
conversation once more, he spoke again, keeping his face averted so his moving
lips could not be seen.
“We must speak with him alone. Away from the long ears of those two bheriya.”
He didn’t have to spell out who the jackals were. Bharat made a soft sound of
assent. They were quite again for a long moment as the remaining two ministers
also came closer, awaiting their turn to ascend down the narrow mouth of the
stairwell. Finally, they had passed out of easy hearing. Shatrugan shot another
discreet glance and saw that only Bhadra, Jabali and Rama now remained. Both
War Minister and Prime Minister seemed to be talking at once, eyes glinting in
the gaining light as they spewed more madness and poison into Rama’s ears.
Finally, Bhadra finished speaking and gestured to one of the PFs. When the
soldier approached him, the War Minister spoke quickly and brusquely, and
gestured with his raised chin at Bharat and Shatrugan. The PF came over with
quick efficient steps towards them.
“Move along, now, my Lords. Samrat Rama has instructed that you be taken to
your stations.”
Bharat stood his ground silently. Shatrugan followed his example.
The PF frowned. In a somewhat gentler tone with a modicum of respect, he said,
“Come now, Yuvarajas. My orders are to escort you down. Kindly do me the
courtesy of moving.”
Bharat raised his head a fraction, just enough to meet the PF’s eyes, but not
enough that Bhadra could see his face or know if he spoke. “If you value our
position as princes of Ayodhya, you’ll leave us be. We wish to have words with
our bhraatr.”
The PF looked unhappy. “My Lord, I served under you briefly in the battle of
Ahichatra, during the Panchala campaign… I have no wish to use harsh words or
actions against you.”
“Indeed you did serve under me, Surasena, and you served well, particularly in
the action on the hill where the Mlecchas were rooted in. That was where you
took the wound in your side, did you not?”
The soldier’s eyes flashed with bright pride. “You remember, sire? It was a long
time ago and a small affair in a foreign land.”
“Yet no effort is too small nor any man insignificant if he risks life and limb in
the struggle for freedom,” Bharat replied, still using the PF’s body to conceal his
face. Shatrugan saw Bhadra watching them openly now, contempt distorting his
otherwise handsome features. “You fought bravely and when your wound
prevented you from returning to active service, I recommended you for an
officer’s posting in the Purana Wafadars. I see you have done well for yourself.
Kingsguard, no less.”
“Thank you, sire,” the man said, clearly delighted now and seemed about to snap
off a salute. Then he remembered where he was and what duty he had been
assigned and his face slackened. “I apologize again, sire, but my orders—”
Bharat nodded. “You have fulfilled your orders. You have informed us quite
clearly and unequivocally that we are to move out. But as your superior and
senior, I countermand that order and ask you to step aside now. We intend to
stay. Not to do anyone harm. Simply to speak peacably. Stand down, soldier.”
The man named Surasena hesitated, swallowed, then came to a decision. He
stepped back three paces, resuming his former position on the rim of the
suraksha chakra. Then he fixed his gaze in that distant ten-yojana stare that the
PFs were famous for on parade grounds. They were trained to stand that way for
hours if need be. Shatrugan resisted the urge to grin.
“Well handled, bhraatr,” he said, touching his brother’s shoulder.
Bharat said grimly, “Don’t be too quick to praise me, bhraatr. I have a feeling
those two won’t be as easy to convince. But we still have to try. For Ayodhya’s
sake.”
And he moved towards Rama, even as the ring of PFs came to full alert and
raised their weapons at once, protecting their king from the offender.
Shatrugan prayed that Bharat would be able to talk Rama out of this madness
before it was too late, and without provoking further bad blood between them.
But in his heart, he had a feeling that it might already be too late.
 TWENTY-ONE
Nakhudi had travelled all of one full night and day, reaching within sight of
Ayodhya by the previous night. New gate-watch rules required that all those
unable to pass through before nightfall had to wait until dawn to be admitted.
She had spent the night outside the first gate, not sleeping, but walking among
the many other travellers who had failed to make it through before nightfall,
talking and exchanging gossip, news, tidbits of information, with people from as
far away as Kalinga. It had been a very useful night and she had gleaned more
insight into the state of the kingdom than even the king possessed by the time
she finally returned to the wagon to bed down. She had no fear of thieves here:
under the new laws, the danda for even an attempt at theft was the severance of a
limb at best, and execution at worst. After all, the contents of the wagon were
not really her’s, they belonged to Ayodhya. Had she impressed that fact upon the
gatewatch, she had no doubt they would have relented and permitted her
passage. But she had her reasons for wanting to wait another night. She wished
to be here in the morning. If all that she had learned was accurate in fact, then
the morning would be a momentous one for Ayodhya.
Not just Ayodhya, for the whole wide world, she thought now as she looked
down from the wagon’s seat at the old PF. For this is the day Ayodhya lays claim
to all Prithvi-loka.
The old vet stared up at her in bemused confusion, and she smiled beneath the
shawl covering the lower half of her face as she imagined how much more
befuddled he would look when he recognized her.
“Who—” he began then stopped as she reached up and undid the shawl to show
him her face. Dawning recognition spread across his lined and weathered
features. His eyes and mouth crinkled in a smile. He never used to have those
lines, she thought. Looks like Captain Bejoo of the King’s Vajra finally learned
how to smile – a lot! Though he hadn’t looked like he had much to smile about
as she had approached. In fact, he looked like a man awaiting a death sentence.
“Nakhudi?” he said tentatively, then more confidently, “it is you, isn’t it?”
She grinned as she bent over to secure the reins, then leaped down from the
wagon. The ground, churned by the wheels of hundreds of gramas, was as loose
as an over-ploughed field and a sod gave way beneath her not inconsiderable
weight, causing her to stumble. Bejoo caught her instinctively and she felt his
hands on her waist and her left breast, gripping tightly, and felt a flash of heat.
She saw his eyes widen and his throat working. Well, at least he’s still got his
virility, the old dog. Then he retracted his hands like a man who had just touched
scalding steel and she laughed openly, throwing back her head to the dusty sky.
“Well, maybe it’s women I should have asked about instead,” she said, when she
was able to stop guffawing. “Looks like you haven’t…danced…with one in a
fair while!”
Bejoo glanced around. “Keep your voice down, you brainless hussy! Do you
want everyone to hear?” He indicated her shawl. “And cover your face up again.
It’s a bad day to be on the wrong side of the law in Ayodhya.”
She chuckled as she hitched the end of the shawl over her ear again, concealing
her mouth. “What makes you think I’m on the wrong side? I could be a grama-
rakshak same as you, couldn’t I?”
He issued a short unamused barking laugh at that. “Yes, of course. Because
Ayodhya is so short of old fogeys that it has to resort to calling up the women
reserves. Besides, you aren’t an Ayodhyan. Quite the opposite, remember?”
She shrugged good-naturedly, unperturbed by his hostility – pleased by it, in
fact, because it was obviously a feeble attempt to cover up that moment of
shocked lust she had glimpsed in his eyes – and patted down her team to
preserve the illusion of their being just two grama-rakshaks having a
conversation. “You mean the fact that my nation happens to be one of the many
that are opposed to Ayodhya’s military arrogance? Well, truth be told, Captain
Bejoo, I don’t know how loyal I am to my nation anymore, seeing as I’ve been
away for almost two decades and the last time I took up my sword in her service
was even farther back than that!”
He snorted. “We king’s warriors had an old saying…‘His backside may be in
Lanka, but his heart will always be in Ayodhya.’”
She snorted a horse-like laugh. “How quaint. What does it mean?”
“That it doesn’t matter where you stay now or how far you’ve wandered from
home, Nakhudi, when it comes to the pinch, you will gladly lay down your life
for your homeland.”
Her dark eyes glittered playfully. “It is nice to see you again, Vajra Captain
Bejoo. You know, the last time we met, I had a great urge to get to know you
better. But there was so little time and so much to do.”
He grunted, not sure if she was pulling his leg or being serious. It was hard to
say. He wasn’t that young anymore, although back then…he sighed. She could
almost read his thoughts with that sigh: Those days are gone, old fool. Put the
past behind you. There is only today and today’s tomorrows. “I’m no longer
Captain. The Vajra was disbanded a long time ago. Now they have something
else called a Trishul.”
“Makes sense. A vajra is Lord Indra’s weapon, the thunderbolt from heaven. A
trishul is Lord Shiva’s weapon, the celestial trident.” She glanced around at the
wagon train he was manning. “So surely a vajra veteran like yourself would be
the logical choice to captain this Trishul, whatever it may be?”
He looked at her sharply and she instantly realized she had touched a sore spot.
“The Trishul was Lord Bhadra’s brainchild. He personally captains it in battle.
He and his brothers. He reports directly to Pradhan Mantri Jabali” He seemed to
be about to speak further then stopped himself and looked down, staring
murderously at a chariot wheel. For good measure he kicked the wheel hard
enough to make the lead horse of that particular wagon’s team snort in surprise.
The canvas rigging shook. Old mule still packs a mean kick, she thought.
The very mention of Bhadra and Jabali worked a change on him, and she could
tell that the men, whomever he might be, had played some part in the disbanding
of Bejoo’s Vajra and his subsequent demotion to grama-rakshak. Politicians, no
doubt.
She sensed the change in him and was quiet for a moment. Across the field, a
grama-rakshak grew impatient with a horse and flicked the end of a switch. The
horse whinnied in pain.
Bejoo grimaced. He started to say something, stopped, then spoke after all.
“Back when I ran the vajra, we took as good care of our animals as of
themselves. ‘We are all soldiers,’ I used to tell my men, ‘some of us happen to be
four-footed, others two-footed’.”
Nakhudi nodded in approval. “They ride with us, carry us into battle, bleed with
us, die with us. They are warriors too. They deserve to be treated as such.”
He looked at her with a strange look and she found his scrutiny curiously
intense. After a moment, she turned her head away.
He went on quietly.
“The way I see animals treated in Ayodhya now makes me want to take a whip
to some of the fools meting out the abuse, if only to ask them how they liked to
be treated that way themselves.”
“Ayodhya has changed,” she said and her foreign accent made even that simple
statement seem like an accusation.
He nodded, turned his head, and spat in disgust. Part of a grama-rakshak’s
qualification was being able to imbibe and withstand copious quantities of dust,
she guessed. She had eaten more than her stomach’s fill on the ride here.
“More than we Ayodhyans would like,” he said.
“We thought you might have issues with the changes. That was why I came
straight to you. It wasn’t too hard to find you, once I heard your name from the
boys and realized you were a grama-rakshak now.” She gestured at the field.
“We?” he asked. There was a glint of interest in his eyes.
She glanced around to make sure nobody was within hearing range. Then she
leaned closer, close enough to smell the sweat and man-odour of his body. It was
not an altogether unpleasant odour. “My Lady Vedavati and I.”
He looked at her. The glint of interest had hardened to something else: hope?
Perhaps. “Lady Vedavati,” he repeated slowly.
She nodded. “Lady Vedavati. You met her sons a few days ago.”
A new light gleamed in his eyes. “The boys who held up the grama…?” he asked
softly.
She nodded a third time.
He stared up at the sky. No, not at the sky, but at the tall stone tower that loomed
above the city. She glanced at it as well and saw figures standing there at the top,
too shadowed by the still not-quite-daylight flush of dawn. “Then that makes
them…princes.”
“Aye,” she said. “Princes of Ayodhya.”
He stared intently at the top of the stone tower for a long time. She wondered
who was up there. Then the rose-tinted dawn luminescence caught something
bright and shining held by one of the figures up on the tower, something golden,
and she caught her breath. Of course. He was up there.
“His sons and heirs,” Bejoo said at last.
“Yes,” she said in barely a whisper. “Although there are many who might
disagree with that description.”
“Not I,” said Bejoo. He had a faraway thoughtful look. “I knew there was
something familiar about those boys. And their audacity in holding up my
grama!” He shook his head, chortling gruffly. “Outrageous!”
Nakhudi laughed with him. “Yes. Well. They’re boys. And boys will get up to
such antics at times.”
He glanced at her. “Antics? Do you know the danda for highway robbery? Let
alone stealing away royal Ayodhyan property? Attacking the king’s men?”
She sighed, rubbing the back of her head through the scarf. Even looking away,
she saw the way his eyes cut to her raised elbows and what lay beneath them.
Well, well, she thought, glad that the shawl concealed her smile. Vajra Captain
Bejoo isn’t that old after all, it seems.
“I have some notion,” she said. “I can’t undo what’s done. But I thought perhaps
some form of reparation might prevent the wrath of Ayodhya from coming down
on them too harshly.”
Bejoo frowned. “What did you have in mind? And what makes you think you
can bargain with these people? You have no idea how ruthless Ayodhyan
jurisprudence has now become, Nakhudi. It isn’t Panchayat or Grama justice
anymore. This is—”
He broke off. She had walked over to the back of the wagon she had brought and
now she flung open the rear flap, revealing its contents.
“Would this go some small way in appeasing them?” she asked.
 TWENTY-TWO
Bharat was careful to keep his movements slow and unthreatening. The
kingsguard kept their spears pointed at him, maintaining the protective ring
around Rama. Over the tips of the spears, Jabali and Bhadra glared at him with
deep suspicion. Even Rama was standing with arms folded across his chest, eyes
narrowed.
“Rama, I only wish to say a few words,” Bharat said.
Bhadra stepped forward with his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Lord Rama, I
told you it was a mistake to bring them here. They will try to impede and
obstruct every chance they get. That is their plan.”
“It is part of the conspiracy to keep Ayodhya from realizing its full potential,”
Jabali barked in his stentorian manner. “These two should be given the severest
danda under law to set an example.”
Rama raised a hand, commanding silence from both flanks. “We have already
ruled upon this matter. Let us not waste time rehashing it.” He looked at Bharat
directly. “You were made to understand your position. It is extremely delicate.
My advice to you,” he flicked his eyes to include Shatrugan, “is to hold your
silence and do as instructed. Anything else will only worsen matters for both of
you.”
“Rama,” Bharat said in as placative a tone as he could muster, “It would only
take a moment of your time.”
Rama looked at him. Bharat looked back and tried to appeal to Rama personally.
But all he saw in Rama’s dark eyes was a resoluteness that he knew too well.
Once Rama got that look in his eyes, nothing could steer him off the course he
had embarked on. Not for nothing did the kusa lavya bards call him Maryada
Purshottam Rama. Rama Who Does As He Says.
“My time belongs to Ayodhya,” Rama said. “And Ayodhya cannot spare the
moment.”
And he turned his back on Bharat, turning to face the eastern sky where daylight
had broken and the first tentatively probing rays of the imminent sun were
turning the sky above Ayodhya golden. Some of that golden hue fell upon
Rama’s silhouette as he turned and somehow, despite the beauty of the
illumination, it lent him a dark, terrible aspect. Samrat Rama Chandra. Emperor
of Ayodhya, lord and master of all Aryavarta, the civilized world, Prithvi-loka,
the mortal realm.
All this, Bharat realized in a flash of insight even as the kingsguard PFs moved
forward, jabbing their spears at him and Shatrugan. One point pricked his side,
piercing the skin, drawing a trickle of blood. He did not feel it. Nor did he care
about the harsh mocking tones of Bhadra and Jabali who ordered the guards to
escort Shatrugan and he from the tower and see that they were secured and that
they were not permitted to come into the king’s presence again. That last image
of Rama staring out at the rising sun, cold hearted and resolute, stayed with him.
It was the rock against which the surging tide of his emotions pounded and broke
unrequited.
***
The sun had risen by the time Bejoo had a chance to speak with the Prime
Minister. He waited as Yuvarajas Bharat and Shatrugan were escorted under
armed guard from the tower and taken to the palace. His eyes met Bharat’s as he
passed by, and Bejoo was saddened to see the look on Bharat’s face. It was the
face of a man facing a death sentence. He knew that was not the case, because
the news of how First Queen Mother Kausalya had intervened and had Bharat’s
and Shatrugan’s dandas transmuted was all over the city, but apparently to
Bharat and Shatrugan, even the alternative was no less a punishment.
His fist tightened in anger on the pommel of his shortsword as he considered the
injustice of it all. Princes of Ayodhya, sons of the Suryavansha Ikshwaku line,
patriots of the Kosala nation, Rama’s own brothers! Being treated like criminals!
It was beyond tolerance. What he failed to understand was why he had not been
arrested too. From what he had heard, Bharat and Shatrugan’s only crime had
been to discuss and question the king’s new martial policies, which under the
new law could be construed as treason. Yet it was he, Bejoo, with whom they
had discussed and questioned those policies. So then why was he not being
interrogated, arrested, or somehow reprimanded for the same? There was only
one possible answer: The spasa or spasas whose reports had resulted in their
being arrested had not been able to provide any concrete details. Because had
they provided concrete details, it was inconceivable that Bejoo would not be
arrested by now. Which meant that they had been arrested on mere suspicion.
No, not mere suspicion. As a preventive measure.
Bejoo knew enough about politics to understand that this was the likely answer.
It hardly mattered if Bharat and Shatrugan had been overheard voicing
treasonous opinions or merely taking a stroll on the North Bank of Sarayu. They
would have been arrested under any pretext, however flimsy. The whole point
was not to actually charge them, merely to prevent them from interfering in any
way with Rama’s plans.
No, not Rama’s plans—Jabali’s plans. Bhadra’s plans. All those warmongering
political power factions that stand to profit from Ayodhya going to war.
Yes, that made perfect sense.
He watched as the man he had been waiting for finally emerged from the lane
that led to the Seer’s Eye tower, escorted as always by his retinue of thuggish
looking guards. Bejoo knew that each one of those so-called bodyguards were
responsible for as many murders, assaults and other dark deeds done in the
shadows of night than most condemned criminals in the dungeons of Ayodhya.
But of course, all their crimes had been committed in the name of national
security and in the service of Ayodhya, so they commanded respect rather than
dandas. Such was politics. So would it always be.
“Pradhan Mantri? A word, if you please?”
Jabali frowned down his long nose. His thugs glared at Bejoo, waiting for a
single word or gesture to crack his skull. The man closest to Bejoo, a menacing
hulk of a fellow with tiny rat eyes, looked almost disappointed when the Prime
Minister gestured them aside and deigned to step a foot or two closer to hear
what he had to say.
“Quickly, man, this is the most important day in Ayodhya’s history and I have a
great deal of work to do,” snapped Jabali.
Yes, of course, such as barking orders at the men who will actually go forth and
fight and die for Ayodhya while you recline on the silken cushions of your royal
palkhi and sip soma.
“Aye, my Lord,” Bejoo said apologetically, “But I thought this meritted your
immediate attention.” He gestured at the wagon standing a few yards away on
Suryavansha Avenue. “I have succeeded in recovering the king’s property.”
Jabali frowned. “What rubbish are you blabbering abou—” He broke off as the
sight of the wagon refreshed his memory. “Surely you don’t mean…” He shoved
Bejoo aside roughly and strode to the wagon. A barked order and his henchmen
raised the rear covering for him to peer inside, his bright eyes glinting with
greedy delight as he viewed the contents.
He turned to Bejoo. “You? You recovered the stolen war wagon?”
Bejoo bowed his head in humility. “Aye, my Lord. I had my men on the trail
ever since the unfortunate incident, and they were able to track it down and
return it safely.” He gestured towards the wagon. “Not one thing is missing. The
complete inventory is present. You may have it checked.”
“I certainly will,” Jabali said sharply. “But what of the miscreants who held up
the grama and wounded so many? Where are they?” He looked around as if
expecting to see the culprits standing nearby, trussed in ropes and chains. Bejoo
had no doubt that if that had indeed been the case, Jabali might well have given
the order to have them executed right there and then.
No. What he would do is to parade them and claim credit for their capture, and
then have them executed. That’s his way.
“They were dealt with most severely,” Bejoo said.
Jabali clicked his tongue impatiently. “Yes, of course they were, or how else
could you have recovered the property. But where are they now? Or…their
bodies?”
Bejoo shook his head. “Lions.”
Jabali stared at him. “Lions?”
“Aye, my Lord. During the fight to recover the wagon, they were wounded and
retreated deeper into the woods. Unknowingly, they strayed near a den. The
pride tore them to shreds. They were in no state to bring here. There was
virtually nothing left to bring in fact.”
Jabali’s eyes gleamed briefly as he contemplated this ultimate penalty meted out
by nature in her mystical wisdom. “…tore them to shreds, you say.” He sighed.
“Oh well. They were given their danda, that’s what counts.” The disappointment
was palpable in his tone – he would have loved to have meted out those dandas
himself, no doubt. He glanced again at Bejoo. “Quite impressive, Grama-
rakshak…?”
“Bejoo, sire. You commissioned me yourself.” Demoted me, actually. But let’s
not get prissy. You damn well know who I am, and who I was.
“Yes, of course, Bejoo,” Jabali crooked a long finger. The way the skin creased
on the bone reminded Bejoo of the claw of a starved fowl. “Well, you seem to
have surpassed yourself, Grama-rakshak Bejoo. I shall have to see to it that you
are given a suitable reward for your exemplary service to the king.” He began to
move away even before he finished speaking.
Bejoo cleared his throat cautiously. Now came the tricky part. “Actually, sire, I
desire no reward at all. No pecuniary reward, that is. Rather, I desire an
opportunity to serve the king further, if he so wills it, and by your grace, of
course.”
Jabali stopped and looked impatiently at Bejoo. “What did you have in mind,
soldier? Be quick, I have much to do.”
Bejoo told him.
 TWENTY-THREE
The armies of Ayodhya were mobile before the sun had risen more than a double
handsbreadth above the eastern horizon. It was an awe-inspiring display of
planning, coordination and precision. Queens Kausalya and Sumitra watched
from the highest balcony in their palace as the akshohini wheeled and enormous
crescents in order to maintain their formation while navigating their way out of
the city precincts.
A dust cloud the size of a mountain rose up high above. Panicked flocks of birds
crisscrossed the skies, alarmed by the great and unusual gathering of mortals
below; their scavenging brethren began to collect overhead and follow the
procession, knowing that such large gatherings of mortals usually meant fresh
meat to be had, if not right away, then soon. Mortals rarely collected together in
such vast numbers without great violence and numerous casualties resulting; it
was an enduring trait of humankind. The exodus itself was an awe-inspiring
sight, the immaculate uninterrupted movement of procession after procession
belying the enormous drilling and discipline that made such efficiently
coordinated movement possible.
The great contingents took all day to exit the city, the supply trains bringing up
the rear departing only in the late afternoon. This long tail would link the armies
to the city across their campaign trail, providing the vital sustenance that enabled
an army to fight abroad. More wagons would be added as required. Ayodhya was
capable of supplying, feeding and maintaining a warring force as far away as
three hundred yojanas. This impressive capacity made the city state a force to
reckon with even in the most far flung corners of Aryavarta, and beyond. Unlike
other nations, Ayodhya did not rely on its own surrounding towns and villages to
supply its needs; it was entirely self-sufficient. The original reason for this self-
sufficiency had been to enable it to withstand a prolonged invasion and multiple
sieges. Today, that same self-sufficiency was being used for the exact opposite
purpose: to enable Ayodhya to supply and maintain a force that ventured
outwards aggressively.
“A system created for defense perverted and used to perpetrate offense,”
Kausalya said sadly. “I wonder what Dasa would say if he were here to see this.”
Sumitra put her hand reassuringly on the Queen Mother’s shoulder. “Dasaratha
might not have been as averse to it as we are, Kausalya. Remember, he was a
man of war. He believed in resolute action.”
Kausalya sighed. “You are right. That’s why it’s pointless to speculate on what
the dead would have said or felt with regard to things now. But I can say this
with certainty: I do not approve of what is happening today in Ayodhya. I do not
approve at all.”
Sumitra nodded. “Neither do I. It is a monstrosity. A terrible misuse of power. If
only we could speak to our sons and try to make them see how wrong this is…”
“Words cannot resolve every problem, Sumitra. For too long now I have begun
to feel as if everything I say to Rama has been falling on deaf ears. Or blocked
ears at least. It is as if he sees my point of view perfectly, knows exactly what I
mean to say, but does not feel it is even worth the effort to debate it with me. He
simply accepts it silently and discards it later like a garment that does not fit. If
only he would argue at least, debate the issues at stake, I believe he would be
compelled to see reason. But when a man turns himself to stone as Rama has
done, he feels no need to bother with intellectual debate. He simply does as he
pleases and nothing can sway him.”
Sumitra looked at her, concerned at the intensity in Kausalya’s tone and face.
“You make him sound like a tyrant.”
Kausalya shook her head. “Not a tyrant, no…but yes, if a king, however
powerful, does not use his power to serve, to build, to create, and starts to use the
power instead to destroy, attack, bring down, then what difference between that
king and a tyrant? I fear that Rama could well become one if he continues
uninterruped upon this present path. You know how quickly and easily absolute
power corrupts even the most idealistic mind. For all his fine qualities, Rama
today is not the Rama he was ten years ago when he returned from Lanka, or the
Rama who left us fourteen years before that. He has changed so much.”
“Or has been changed.”
Kausalya nodded, turning away from the bird’s eye view of the endless rows of
infantry, chariot regiments, elephant regiments, cavalry, and other units wheeling
and proceeding out the gates of Ayodhya. Already the sun was risen high and the
dust cloud churned up by the departing army had all but obscured the southern
sky, as vast and wide as a mountain range that must surely be visible across most
of the Kosala nation. “Or has been changed. By time. By experience. By the
inevitable alterations that age and circumstances impose on us all. But also, I
fear, by bad advisors. That is what concerns me most of all. The fact that Rama
may be falling prey to the war-mongering hawks who seek only way one
forward for Ayodhya, for all Aryavarta. What is that term they use now,
Sumitra?”
“Republicans. After the idea of forming a republican nation that will be self-
governed by the people through a democratic process.”
“Yes, Republicans. A fine ideal. A lofty purpose. But often a murderer will
pretend to be a patriot in order to justify his killing spree. Some thieves will
proclaim themselves levellors of wealth and friends of the poor to gain sympathy
for his cause. So also a war-thirsty group of tyrants who seek only their own
aggrandization and self-benefit will pose as benefactors of society in order to go
about their selfish business with the full approval and consent of the very people
they exploit and abuse. Republicans. Supporters of democracy. Peacemakers.
They come in many guises but always with the same purpose: To enrich,
empower and aggrandize the few at the expense of the many. Beware the king
who cries out that he only serves his people while secretly taxing them to death
and filling his private coffers with gold and public dungeons with dissenters. I
would much rather have a king who was less rich, less powerful, less feared, but
greatly loved, with a richer population, happier citizenry.”
Sumitra gestured at the wheeling hordes below. The sound of the armies moving
out was so loud, it sounded as if they were in this very balcony, tramping and
marching and yelling orders. “And you believe this is what Rama’s advisors are
up to? Why they convinced him to undertake this Ashwamedha yajna?”
“Yes and no. The Ashwamedha yajna in itself is a ritual every Arya king
undertakes from time to time. It is a ceremonial, symbolic act. Dasaratha
conducted it once, and I, as his Queen at the time, performed the yajna. But
this,” she waved a hand in disgust, “this is no ceremony or ritual. This is a war
campaign. A carefully planned, orchestrated, mounted, financed, and managed
campaign to spread Ayodhyan rule from one corner of the sub-continent to the
other. No king ever sent forth an army of this size after the white horse. There is
only supposed to be a symbolic force of riders following the horse, ensuring that
none capture it and thereby symbolically challenge the authority of the king. But
an army of this size?” She shook her head. “An army of this size can only be
intended to crush, trample, roll over the countryside, leave a swathe of death and
destruction in its wake. This is akin to what the Asura hordes sent forth when
they began their invasion and attempted conquest of Prithvi-loka.”
Sumitra frowned. “And one argument raised by the likes of Jabali and Bhadra is
exactly that. They say that not long ago the asura hordes led by Ravana sought to
cut a swathe of death through the mortal realm. Now, it is time we mortals put on
a show of strength so great that no other force would ever dare to attempt such
audacity again.”
Kausalya made a sound of exasperation. “They are wrong. Invaders invade
because they desire to take lands by force, to rape and pillage and destroy. To
conquer. It is the most vile act of mankind, the lowest ebb of human behaviour. It
is one thing to defend oneself against such invaders. But to imitate them? To
emulate their example and send forth our own forces to invade, rape, pillage,
destroy, conquer…? What sense does that make? For one thing, where are we
sending these forces? Through our own lands! To subjugate our own people, and
our neighbours and allies!”
“And a few hostile nations who are neither neighbours nor allies,” Sumitra
added thoughtfully.
“Yes, but who are not enemies either! And by doing this, we are certain to force
them to become our enemies. For the sheer size of our forces will compel them
to band together and unite against us, and so, we shall have created a new, more
powerful enemy than actually existed. Besides which, what gives us the right to
do all these things?”
Sumitra shrugged. “They say we must do it because we are Ayodhya. We are the
land of freedom and courage. The nation that the world looks to for protection,
for hope. They say it is our responsibility. Our dharma!”
“Dharma!” Kausalya laughed bitterly. “They do not know the meaning of the
word. Dharma does not mean going to war when there is no threat to oneself!
Dharma is not raising a force great enough to conquer all the known worlds and
then use it to do just that. Dharma is not pretending to conduct a symbolic horse
sacrifice and using it as a cover for a full scale invasion – of one’s own land! It is
not dharma that drives them. It is greed, pure and simple. Lust for power.
Arrogance. And because it is couched as dharma, presented with pretty words
and fancy ideas like republicanism, democracy, a people’s kingdom, duty,
responsibility, protection, necessity… because of this devilish subterfuge, it
verges on tyranny. It is tyranny.”
“Yet Rama is no tyrant,” Sumitra said firmly, “on that we are agreed.” She might
be the mother of a different son, but she could hear no ill spoken of Rama
without debating it hotly.
Kausalya touched Sumitra’s shoulder affectionately. “No, he is not. That is why
it pains me so much to see him caught up in this manipulative politicking and
vile rhetoric.”
They watched the processions for a while. The sun drifted overhead and passed
into the afternoon, dipping lower and lower towards the western horizon. And
still the regiments wheeled and turned and wound their way up the avenues and
out the gates and up the raj-marg. It seemed as if they would go on thus forever.
“What shall we do then, Kausalya?” Sumitra asked a while later. “We must do
something. Otherwise there will be terrible bloodshed and once that occurs, the
chain of violence will be set into motion yet again.”
Kausalya nodded. She knew what Sumitra meant. United by the Last Asura
Wars, mortal nations had fought largely together, putting aside their own
territorial ambitions and other differences to fight a common, far more powerful
invading foe. But now that there were no Asuras left to fight, all those petty
differences and ambitions had begun rising once again to the fore, needing but a
catalyst to set the pile blazing into a bonfire of crisscrossing clashes that could
only lead inevitably, eventually, to a great internecine war. There was far more
than just Ayodhya’s future at stake here, or Rama’s reputation as a king. It was
the future of all Aryavarta that hung on the outcome of this so-called
Ashwamedha yajna.
“Yes, we must do something and we must do it before those armies cross our
borders and cross swords with our neighbours and allies, let alone other hostile
ones. Once begun, this will lead to a war among the bharata nations such as has
never been seen before.” Kausalya was referring to the original ‘bharata’ tribe
governed by the legendary vedic king Sudas, who had fought and won the
historic Dasarajna war, defeating Ten powerful kings to claim this sub-continent
for the bharatas. Today, all Aryas residing in this part of the world were
descendants of that great bharata king Sudas and his original tribe. Indeed, while
the term Aryavarta described their civilization and culture, the correct name by
which the sub-continent was known was Bharat, or Land of the Bharatas.
“A maha bharata,” said Sumitra, using the Sanskrit, wherein the word ‘war’ was
implied contextually. “A great war of the bharata nations.”
“Yes,” Kausalya said, “A Maha Bharata. And once that happens, then it will be
not just a great war but the greatest war of all time. That is why we must do
whatever we can to ensure that this yajna goes no further than the borders of our
Kosala nation.” Which was as it was supposed to be as per the vedic ritual of the
ashwamedha: the horse was not expected to rove the entire mortal realm after all,
nor was the king sponsoring the sacrifice expected to conquer the whole of
Prithvi-loka. Merely his bordering kingdoms and regions.
“Yes, Kausalya,” Sumitra said, agreeing whole-heartedly. “But what can we do?
How can we stop it? How can anyone stop it? More importantly, who can stop it
now?”
Kausalya shook her head sadly. “I do not know, Sumitra. All I know is someone
must.”
They sat in silence then, watching the last of the army regiments exit the city
gates. And Sumitra thought to herself how much of Rama’s strength, his
resoluteness, his determination came from this woman, his mother. Now that
Rama was older, approaching middle age, she could even see the similar line of
their features clearly. The spiritual likeness was even more striking.
If there is a way to set things right, she thought, then surely Kausalya will find it.
If he is now an emperor, then she is the emperor’s mother.
KAAND 2
 ONE
Kush smelled the strangers long before they appeared.
He had been roving with Sarama and her pack since morning, pretending to be
one of her cubs. It was a game Luv and he had played ever since they could keep
up with the lovable mongrel. Now, of course, she was old and greying, the dark
whiskers around her muzzle turned completely white, and she often trailed
behind the pack. Kukur, the alpha male of her first litter, now a mature but still
robust fellow, led them, and he set a hard pace. But he never chastised the others
when they straggled or came back to check on Sarama who was often left
heaving far behind. In that sense, he was a kind son and not prone to the
instinctive cruelty that animals resorted to in packs. He corrected himself
mentally—Maharishi Valmiki always cautioned them that it was not ‘cruelty’ no
matter how harsh such behavior may seem at times; animals too, like humans, or
birds, or insects, or even the rocks and trees and water and earth, were simply
aspects of brahman in different forms. And all forms of brahman were subject to
the law of dharma.
The thought made Kush smile now as he loped along in a crouching stance,
imitating Sarama who panted heavily as she jogged beside him. The sounds of
the pack were several dozen yards ahead but they were still quiet so that meant
they had not yet found their prey. He smiled because he sometimes found
gurudev’s pronouncements amusing after the fact. When listening to gurudev’s
pravachans Luv and he were always intent and rapt, hanging on every word,
particularly the Vedic shlokas which were full of such wonderful stories. But
afterwards, when discussing what they had learned at gurukul that morning,
usually with Maatr, they sometimes found something quite amusing in
retrospect. The thought of dogs adhering to dharma was one of these. How could
dogs have dharma! It was too much to comprehend. Their mother had laughed as
well, her eyes crinkling in that way he loved to see, and he had exchanged a
glance with Luv, for it was not often that Vedavati laughed, and rarer still that
she smiled.
Others smiled much more often. Rishi Dumma for instance, probably the fattest
rishi he had ever known and also the jolliest, seemed to laugh or smile all the
time. He often had to be admonished for it by Maharishi Valmiki, especially
when other rishis were visiting or when they went travelling to other ashrams or
to the occasional sammelan in the big city. Maatr never came with them on those
trips, particularly the visits to Mithila city, which was a shame, because both Luv
and he loved visiting Mithila. They loved everything about the city, and the
palace was a thing to marvel at for days. But most of all, Maharaja Janak was
such a fine king; “the finest who had ever lived,” Maharishi Valmiki always said,
putting a hand on each of their shoulders when he said it, his face turning
skywards and that familiar expression of infinite sadness coming over him.
“The finest king who ever lived, and a wonderful father as well,” he would
usually add, which always mystified both of them because what did Janak’s
relationship with his children have to do with anything? Even stranger was the
fact that Maatr also grew as sad as Maharishi Valmiki when they tried to tell her
about Mithila, about the market place and the streets and the buildings and
palaces, and all the wonderful sights, and the grand feast that Maharaja Janak
had laid out for the visiting brahmins and scholars from all the Bharata nations,
and how his daughters and their husbands and children once came especially to
join in and to feed the brahmins personally.
At this last recounting, Maatr had suddenly produced a choking sound, risen
from the floor and left the hut. Gurudev had stopped them from going after her,
pacifying them with the explanation that it was a womanly matter and she would
recover in time. He then suggested, gently, that perhaps they should speak less of
Mithila and tell her about the other wonderful things they had seen on the trip.
Of course, nothing had been as wonderful as Mithila, but both Luv and he were
smart enough to get the point and they had changed the topic when Maatr
returned, her eyes pink-cornered as if she had been weeping.
Now, he paused, resting on his bunched fists and forefeet to imitate the elderly
mongrel beside him, raised his head, and sniffed curiously. At once, Sarama
stopped and did the same. From her reactions he deduced that he was not alone
in detecting a strange odor among the normal earthy smells of the forest.
She suddenly issued a growl, and he saw her hackles rise, and then he was sure.
That was unwashed uksan he smelled on the downwind, and unwashed human
too, if he was not mistaken. And even if he was mistaken, Sarama was not. She
would only growl if there was a creature that posed physical danger to her or her
pack—which of course included Luv and himself—not just a deer or other docile
creature of the woods. As he and his brother knew so well by now, the deadliest
of all predators were those that walked on two legs.
Sarama suddenly released a volley of barks. Kush wanted to shush her but knew
better than to try. She was simply alerting her pack. They responded at once.
Kush recognized Kukur’s distinctive mournful howl, followed by a chorus of
excited yaps and barks. In moments, the pack was racing back to join their
matriarch. Luv was with them, bounding along in the same bent-over position as
Kush. He woofed once at Kush who woofed back and they slapped “paws”
together in a playful imitation of sibling pups before turning their attention to the
approaching threat.
Sarama crouched in a low stance, teeth bared, snarling. She was pointing her
muzzle upwind. Luv and Kush cut back a few yards, slipping behind a thick sala
tree; the trunk was big enough for both their slender forms to stand behind and
there was still room on either side. The pack remained with Sarama, Kukur
standing wither-to-withers beside her, howling long and low. Elsewhere in the
woods, birds took off in flights, monkeys chittered, and other creatures issued
sounds that most humans would not even notice, spreading the word that a
predator was in this neck of the forest.
Luv knew the pack well enough to be able to tell what kind of predator they had
scented. If it was bear, they usually reacted with snarls and low growls but
retreated without barking or howling. There was no point barking at a bear—the
rksaa was apt to get mad and come chasing after them, and a bear on all fours
was a beast no dog ever wanted to take on! If it was a big cat—there were lions
in this part of the woods and a few other felines, though no tigers—then they
howled and barked and got riled up but still retreated. The scent of cat brought
out the dog in them to the utmost, but they still knew better than to go head to
head with it. They took what satisfaction they could from warning off any prey
the cat might be hunting and then running away themselves! If very hungry, they
waited till the cat had killed and eaten, then harried it from a safe distance till the
cat retreated in disgust, leaving the pickings to them.
But when it came to man, they stood their ground, howled long and hard to alert
the whole forest, and were prepared to fight to the death if necessary. The great
dog packs that dominated the forests around this region had no fear of men at all.
It was men who feared them—and for good reason. With their low height, ability
to see in the dark, powerful jaws, and fearlessness in battle, only a very foolish
man would dare oppose them in their own terrain. The thick vegetation
camouflaged and obscured dogs perfectly, while leaving humans woefully
exposed. Even a dozen armed men could be taken down by a dozen dogs, at best
leaving every man severely wounded, and at worst, slaughtering every last man
and feasting on the remains. Luv and Kush had seen it happen on one grisly
occasion when a gang of bear-hunters had come by to visit some old friend they
claimed lived in this region. Maharishi Valmiki had tried to prevent Luv and
Kush from seeing the terrible scene but as already expert trackers they had been
able to retrace most of the encounter afterwards.
Other packs that lived closer to human habitation, such as this one, had an
uneasy relationship with men. They could be tamed individually but when
roving in packs and living wild and free for generations as this pack had done,
they distrusted armed men in groups and often attacked if provoked. The reason
of course was that armed men—such as the bear-killers—were the only creatures
on earth who killed for no discernible reason at all. Not all men, and not always,
but often enough that a wild dog’s initial reaction was one of distrust and fear.
And with a wild beast, fear always manifested itself as hostility.
There were exceptions of course. Luv and Kush had proved that by befriending
Sarama when she was still a pup, the solitary survivor of a litter that had been
killed by unknown means in a ravine near the ashram. As young boys, they had
dearly wanted to keep her in their hut as a pet, the way they had seen other men
do sometimes, tying a dog to their wagon or horse with a rope on their travels or
keeping the animal tied to a pillar or post outside their homes.
But their Maatr had explained to them that it was cruel to treat any living
creature thus. “Would it be all right if someone were to tie a rope around our
necks and keep us tied to a post?” she asked gently.
They admitted it would not be all right.
“Just because they are a different species from us does not make them inferior in
any way. We have no right to control them or treat them harshly, no more than
we have the right to treat other humans badly. We were all born free, and none of
us have the right to take away that gift of freedom.”
So they had set Sarama free. And she had roved the woods nearby and visited
them often, almost daily, but retained her freedom. Once or twice she had come
back with a companion dog or two—a stray separated from its pack or a
runaway. That had given them the idea of seeking out travelers with dogs in tow
and secretly slipping the animals loose! That was one of the many little
mischiefs that Maatr as well as Gurudev didn’t know about. Thus, Sarama’s pack
had been assembled, a motley bunch of creatures, some of such vastly different
appearance from her own that the twins had taken to comparing each one with a
different animal or creature. So there was Monkeytail, because her tail curled
like a Monkey’s; Wagh, because his fur was a beautiful golden hue and his eyes
a mesmerising yellow too; Vaman, because though a third the size of most full-
grown dogs, he was compact and powerfully muscled. Over time, she had mated
and birthed her own get, and now the majority of the pack were her children or
grand-children, but the motley mutts still stood out and the pack itself had grown
expert in finding and setting free other imprisoned dogs on their own. At present,
the pack was thirty-strong and growing constantly.
Luv exchanged a glance with Kush as they listened to Kukur’s deep booming
bark echoed by the varied howls and barks of the others. They shared a deep
love for the pack; these wild dogs were not pets to the twins, they were
playmates and friends. And they were proud of their friends. The usual
behaviour of the pack would have been to charge towards the approaching
threat; the only reason they were waiting here was because Luv and Kush had
requested them to do so.
Now, both grinned and winked at each other as they strung their bows and fixed
arrows. The increasing intensity of the pack’s barking told them that the stranger
or strangers were closer now. Both boys pointed their arrows around the trunk of
the sala tree, aimed in the general direction at which the pack was barking, and
waited for the enemy to show itself.
 TWO
There was a darkness in Rama’s heart that would not dissipate.
Lakshman knew this just as he knew everything else that lay in Rama’s heart and
mind. Twins were supposed to be joined thus in emotion and thought but
somehow, by some quirk of karma or kismat, it had turned out that he shared
such a connection not with his own twin Shatrugan, but with Rama. The pairing
had happened soon after they were able to move on their own volition, and after
that, Rama and he were inseparable. When Bharat and Shatrugan partnered up as
well, it was obvious it was because they wished to emulate Rama and Lakshman.
Although they shared a close brotherhood too, it was not like the one shared by
Rama and he. Somehow, Lakshman had always been like the mirror to Rama’s
face, the leaf to his branch, the river to his rain. He could not claim to actually
feel everything that Rama felt, or think his thoughts, or know what he was about
to say before he said it. But he knew these things. He knew them well enough to
be able to know what Rama was feeling at any time, or thinking, or was likely to
say. And he was rarely wrong. He might not like knowing what he knew, or
agree with Rama’s thoughts and feelings and pronouncements on many things,
but he rarely erred in the facts of those matters.
Just as he knew now that the darkness that lay upon Rama’s heart was one that
would result in grave consequences. It was a darkness vast and dense enough
that if unleashed it could easily cover the entire world. Like a fog that would
pass across the land and envelope every living creature in its cold clammy
embrace.
Everything Rama did was epic. His epic love, his epic tragedy, his epic war, his
epic life itself. And now, if he unloosed the darkness within his soul, it would be
an epic tragedy not only for him and all those around him, but for the world
entire. This war itself was the final stage in that unleashing, and Lakshman
worried that it might engender the very rebellion it sought to suppress.
Lakshman was not afraid of war itself. Or of dying in one. It was a greatly
desirable end for any kshatriya. He wanted to die fighting, not old and sickly and
wasting away in his bedchamber in the palace, tended by Urmila and her maids
and the royal vaids, a pale shadow of his own self. What else was death by
natural causes if not a kind of war as well? A war against disease, old age,
chronic debilitation or injury, old wounds and new ailments? If he must die
fighting, he would rather fight foes he could face with a sword and a bow, rather
than those invisible demons of the flesh and physic that slaughtered you piece by
piece without ever showing themselves or abiding by the kshatriya code of
battle. Phshaw! That was no death for any warrior, male or female, mortal or
otherwise. He would rather be fighting this way from now until the end of his
days, whether that end came today or a hundred years hence.
But if there was one thing he did fear, it was a needless war. Violence without
purpose or necessity. Like any kshatriya who had been bloodied in battle on
myriad occasions, Lakshman loathed violence. Contradictory as that might seem,
he knew that it was the very essence of the warrior code. A warrior’s dharma
was not to fight or kill or maim for the sake of doing so. It was to do so when all
other means to communicate failed and one’s enemy threatened one’s life, one’s
loved ones and one’s homeland with certain death and destruction. Violence and
war were the final steps in a human tragedy. The kusalavya bards might sing
their songs from city to city and extol the praises of epic warriors—such as
Rama himself and even he, Lakshman—from now till the end of time; it would
not change the fact that war was a brutal terrible tragedy, nothing more or less.
The only victor in a war was death itself. Only Lord Yama could walk a
battlefield after the conflict ended and claim to have won. Any other claim of
victory was a sham.
And yet, one went to war when one had to, when there was no other way to
survive, to protect one’s own, to defend one’s land.
Was this campaign they were embarking upon, this grand Ashwamedha yagna, a
necessary one? Would it serve its stated purpose and unite all the various
factions of the Kosala nation and neighbouring principalities as well, or would it
simply be seen as a naked act of aggression. An open declaration of war to serve
Rama’s intentions of building an empire? Might it not be misconstrued to be the
very opposite of what it was intended to be, as things often were in this world?
And what then? Total war with all Aryavarta? With their own fellow Aryas,
Bharatas, call them whatever one desired? Unite them at the point of a sword?
Compel them to bow symbolically to the magnificent black horse – and, by
implication, to Samrat Rama Chandra as well? Or, if they refused to
acknowledge the horse and to let it pass freely to rove across their lands,
symbolizing Rama’s claim over those territories, then what? Round them up like
stray kine and force them to bow?
Lakshman’s bond with Rama was such that it far exceeded any normal mortal
standard of loyalty. He would do every single thing he was told or expected to
do, regardless of the consequences. But he was deeply concerned about some of
Rama’s recent decisions; particularly those that he felt might have adverse
effects on Rama’s own well-being.
In particular, this Ashwamedha campaign troubled him greatly. It was too loud a
statement of imperial might and power, too provocative a display. He feared it
might well stoke the fires of disagreement and churlishness into a full-blown
rebellion. He was glad that the horse had chosen to head South at the outset
rather than North. Had the stallion gone the other way, the pahadi tribes and the
rugged Himalayan clans would have taken it as an outright taunt and come
roaring down to do battle. Blood would have been shed before the horse could
go more than a few dozen yojanas. Thankfully, the nations to the immediate
South of Ayodhya were less belligerent and might be more prudent in their
response to the yagna. At least, he hoped so.
He was also deeply uncomfortable with the deviation from the ritual. As per
Vedic ritual, the Ashwamedha yagna had to be initiated by the Queen Consort in
order to be fruitful. That meant Sita, of course, because Rama had no other
wives or concubines. Lakshman knew for a fact that Rama had not so much as
laid hands on another woman with that intent since Sita’s departure. Since only
the King’s own consort could undertake the ritual, that left a void. The purohits
had urged Rama not to undertake the yagna as it would be inauspicious to do so
in the Queen’s absence. One or two bold pundits had even suggested—timidly
and with appropriate deference—that perhaps Rama might choose to take a wife
in order to fulfill the ritual requirement. After all, Arya kings were required by
dharma to produce progeny, especially heirs, and Rama had none.
Rama would not hear of it, of course. Instead, he had ordered that a life-size
effigy be made of Sita, carved from jet black lohitstone—the famed ironwood of
the Sarayu Valley—and fixed upon a one-horse chariot. The statue had been
used as a stand-in for the ritual, despite the disapproving protests of the purohits,
and it was that same statue that now followed close behind the unbridled horse at
the head of the great procession winding its way out of Ayodhya.
He twisted in his saddle to look back at the endless rows of foot-soldiers
stretching out along the raj-marg as far as the eye could see, over the rise of
Seventh Hill, and down to the Sarayu Valley, stretching yojanas back towards
Ayodhya—and yojanas up ahead as well. The chariots and horse regiments had
already gone on ahead and the elephants were being taken by a different route to
avoid congesting the raj-marg further. The sheer logistics of the campaign were
mind-boggling and if not for the rote obedience of Ayodhya’s troops, this
undertaking would have been impossible. As it was, there would be a line of
grama-trains following behind the army, stretching back all the way to Ayodhya,
in order to keep this enormous fauj supplied and fed.
He spurred his horse into a canter, moving up the rise and beyond the Sarayu
Valley in moments. Ahead lay the mist-shrouded silhouette of Mithila Bridge.
The spray produced by the impact of the roaring white waters striking the rocks
below cast a perpetual mist-shroud over the bridge. Seen now at this angle, with
the rising sun peeping over the eastern horizon, the infinite droplets of water
suspended in mid air caught the sunlight and refracted it, turning the air around
the bridge into a glittering veil of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. It
was a sight to behold. After being shown this same sight as young boys, Rama
and he had taken to riding out here to view the sunrise over Mithila Bridge every
day for a week, even though they had been forbidden at the time to go outside
the Sarayu Valley. That was before they had achieved the age of seven and
turned old enough to go to Guru Vashishta’s gurukul for formal education.
Lakshman leaned on his pommel and smiled at the thought: those had been some
of the best years of his life. The world had been filled with infinite wonder and
hope, the impossible had seemed possible, the sky had loomed larger and bluer,
the river’s cool water an elixir of youth, and they had been princes of the earth
and all upon it. Princes of Ayodhya.
The smile faded slowly as he remembered who and where he was and the many
duties, chores and obligations of his post returned to clamour for his attention
and time. He was still a Prince, and Rama now a Emperor, not just a King. But
nothing was the same again. Even the mesmerizing beauty of the sunlight
refracting through the mist over Mithila Bridge seemed like a tawdry effect
produced by a travelling theatre troupe for an hour’s entertainment. Those two
boys who had sat thus upon this very ridge, chins resting on their palms, elbows
on their pommels, gazing at this very sight with ecstatic rapture…those boys
were long gone. And with them, all that they felt and hoped and dreamed was
gone as well.
Lakshman shook his head to clear it of foolish fancies and childhood memories.
Twisting his horse’s bit a little harder than was needed, he rode down the raj-
marg past the endless lines of soldiers, picking up pace as he went. Some sipahis
raised their wooden shields instinctively to avoid being struck across the face by
the pebbles and stray stones kicked up by his horse as he passed, one of the
routine hazards of foot travel on the king’s highway. The majority didn’t even
bother with the shields and trudged on in the infinitely plodding way of all foot
soldiers.
By the time he reached Mithila Bridge, he had forgotten all about those
childhood mornings spent watching this magical sight from the ridge. Like the
ridge itself, those idyllic childhood days were behind him now. He rode
onwards, leaving them both behind.
The head of the procession had reached the junction where the raj-marg forked
in three directions: one road went on over the hilly ranges to Mithila, another
went west, and the third went east. The chariot with the black wax statue was
almost at the crossroads as Lakshman came riding up at a brisk canter. The
sarathi driving it was none other than the old pradhan mantri Sumantra, his
straggly white hair tied behind his head, his large bald spot shiny with
perspiration. He glanced back as Lakshman came up beside him, then jerked his
head, pointing.
Lakshman looked in that direction and saw the black stallion stopped by the side
of the crossroads, head lowered, munching kusa grass. He looked like any wild
horse ranging freely, stopping where he pleased, foraging when he desired. And
he was free. The great army following behind him was none of his concern after
all. The whole point of the Ashwamedha yagna was that the horse represented
Rama and that Rama was free to go where he pleased. It was only when he was
stayed by any man’s hand that it represented a challenge to Ayodhya’s
sovereignity and could be regarded as tantamount to a declaration of war.
Lakshman fervently hoped that no man would be foolish or rebellious enough to
stay the stallion. Declaring war against Ayodhya was one thing; challenging the
might of this great army was suicide. This was no mere token force symbolizing
the sovereignity of Ayodhya, as the horse ritual customarily required; it was the
entire fighting strength of the nation! There had rarely been a precedent for such
a massive display of military might, if only because most chieftains and tribal
leaders might rightly view it as exceeding the requirements of the Vedic rite and
amounting to imperialistic aggression. Which, Lakshman admitted regretfully, it
was indeed.
He glanced back at the winding line, stretching back across the gently undulating
dips and rises of the raj-marg, like a great serpent snaking its way across the
land. Like the serpent it resembled, its sole intention was to swallow the
independent nations and tribes of the Bharata world alive.
“If we stand here, the line will have to stop,” he said to Sumantra, leaning over
the rim of the chariot. “And if the line stops…”
Sumantra nodded. A veteran of more logistical operations than Lakshman had
year-notches on his life-stick, he was well aware of the problems that would
arise if such a large juggernaut had to stop and stand for even a few minutes. The
resulting congestion and confusion would snarl up the raj-marg for hours. The
best thing for such a huge force was to keep it moving, constantly moving,
stopping only when they reached one of the designated overnight campsites. The
old face turned eastwards, catching the sunlight which unkindly limned every
one of the myriad lines and creases of the aged statesman’s features. In his own
quiet, unassuming way, Sumantra was part of the unselfishly dedicated system
that had kept Ayodhya functioning through every crisis, war and outbreak. Men
and women like he were the backbone of the nation and of Arya civilization
itself. The basic tenet of Vedic philosophy: to do one’s duty without concern or
desire for the fruits of one’s labours, was rarely better exemplified than in men
like Sumantra.
“Lord Bhadra has given instructions that if the horse should stop, it is to be
encouraged,” he said quietly to Lakshman. Even though there was nobody
within hearing distance—the first row of cavalry was several yards behind them
—it was evident that he was speaking the words for Lakshman’s ears only.
Lakshman glanced at him curiously. They were not supposed to lead or guide the
horse, merely to follow it. But Sumantra already knew that better than he: he had
presided over the Ashwamedha yagnas performed by Lakshman’s own father
Dasaratha decades ago. What did this odd instruction from Bhadra mean?
“Encouraged…?” Lakshman asked, nonplussed.
Sumantra nodded, his ragged white eyebrows almost concealing his dark brown
eyes, but said nothing further.
Lakshman glanced back at the stallion. The animal took hold of a fresh clump of
green kusa grass with his teeth, yanking it out slowly, then threw his head back
and began munching on it happily. Frothy cud dripped from the sides of his
mouth. He looked like he could stay there in that little patch of meadow beside
the crossroads all day long. His tail twitched rhythmically, shooing off a swarm
of midges and mites.
Lakshman considered the location where the stallion had chosen to partake of its
impromptu repast. If the animal were to go eastwards as the raj-marg itself led, it
would end up in Videha territory, the sister nation to Kosala. That would mean a
direct challenge to Mithila, sister city of Ayodhya, seat of the moonwood throne
of the Chandravanshi dynasty and ancient ally to Ayodhya, seat of the sunwood
throne of the Suryavansha dynasty. Maharaja Janak of Mithila was the very
opposite of an aggressive king; he had disbanded his army years ago, employing
only a reserve guard and relying on a citizen’s militia that adored their liege and
his kind paternal regime so fiercely that they acted as a better deterrent than any
salaried army. Not a soul in the Videha nation would raise so much as a finger of
aggression against Ayodhya, or attempt to captivate the sacred stallion on its
ritual course; but in the unlikely event that there were to be an incident on
Videha land, it would lead to terrible, undesirable consequences. Maharaja
Janaka was not merely the kindest, most spiritually enlightened and
humanitarian Arya king in all Aryavarta, he was also Lakshman’s and his
brothers’ father-in-law, for all four sons of Dasaratha were married to Janak’s
daughters or adoptive daughters.
Including my banished sister-in-law, he thought with a twinge of sadness even
after all these years.
For the stallion to tread on Videha land, or so much as turn its head toward
Mithila, could well bode disaster.
On the other hand, were the beast to head south and west, it would then pass
through the great Naimisha-van forest, bordering the great central aranya—the
Arya term for uncivilized and unsettled wilderness – and would transgress no
borders or boundaries.
Lakshman knew the old pradhan mantri well enough to understand when he was
attempting to communicate much more than he was able to say aloud. Sumantra
was telling him that Bhadra—and no doubt the rest of the War Council—wanted
the horse to stray into friendly territory, to provoke an incident and justify
annexure. It was a heart-stopping thought but, he realized with a sinking heart,
also the logical corollary of the yagna itself. The Ashwamedha yagna was not
conducted merely to remind existing vassals of the king’s dominance; it was
intended as a campaign of expansion and consolidation. His heart raced as he
considered the horror of invoking outright war with his wife’s homeland.
Unthinkable! Yet not for Bhadra, Jabali and those other war-mongers. He had
heard them speak lasciviously of Videha’s considerable wealth as well as its lack
of a standing armed force. Clearly, this was the first phase of their plans of
empirical ‘expansion’. If they could give instructions for the horse to be
‘encouraged’ into Videha lands, they could as easily arrange for a few
mercenaries to captivate the horse and justify Ayodhya’s declaration of war
against the Videha nation for that transgression. In the horror that followed, it
would hardly matter whether or not the men who stopped the horse had been
Videha citizens or Kosala citizens or neither—their dead bodies would be all the
evidence needed to inflame Videha’s passions and cause their citizen militia to
take up arms in their own defense.
On the other hand, if a horse could be encouraged to go in one direction, it could
as easily be encouraged to go in another.
Lakshman smiled.
He glanced at Sumantra who looked at him with interest. Lakshman knew that
the old statesmen was sharp enough to have followed a similar line of thought,
even if he might not see Lakshman’s solution to the problem. But Sumantra said
nothing.
In turn, Lakshman himself dared not speak his thoughts aloud: he knew the
efficacacy of Rama’s spasas too well to risk being caught saying the wrong thing
himself. As the Enforcer of the law, it would not do for him to be caught
subverting the imperial diktat. And Bhadra’s word was no less than Rama’s
word.
Lakshman unslung his bow, put an arrow to the string and aimed at a rotting tree
trunk lying at the edge of a thicket. It was just beyond the patch where the
stallion grazed, the line of fire passing just behind the sacred horse itself. With a
single motion, he loosed the arrow, sending it flying just behind the rump of the
sacred stallion. The horse was never in danger: Lakshman was a master
bowman. The arrow missed the beast by a clear inch or three, passing through
the small cloud of midges around the stallion’s rear, but the wind and violence of
its passing were enough for the sensitive creature to instantly lurch forward, its
grazing forgotten.
A clump of half-chewed kusa grass fell from its open jaws as it neighed softly in
dismay, then, with the inevitable skittishness of the equine species, it neighed
twice more, sidling sideways nervously, then picked up its heels in a brisk trot,
heading in a south-westerly direction. Precisely the opposite direction from the
arrow that had grazed its rump. Towards the great central aranya of Naimisha-
van and the Southwoods that lay beside and below it. No-man’s land. And
certainly, no king’s.
Lakshman looked back at Sumantra. The old minister smiled approvingly, then
dropped one bushy-browed lid in a loud wink.
Lakshman winked back, then rode on after the horse, into the woods.
Ayodhya followed.
 THREE
Nakhudi and Bejoo made their way carefully through the woods on horseback,
Nakhudi leading the way as she knew these forests and he did not. That is to say,
he knew the paths and the raj-marg well enough, but they had left those behind a
long way back. They were now in uncharted terrain and if not for Nakhudi,
Bejoo had no doubt that he and his band could be wandering in these woods for
weeks without being able to find their way.
Bejoo glanced back from time to time at the riders following them. The forest
floor was littered with leaves that had been dampened by a shower or two that
morning and the mulch formed a carpet that muffled their hoofbeats. Apart from
the occasional snicker or whinny of a horse, there was almost no sound to
indicate that almost a hundred men were making their way through the woods on
horseback. Had they been young brash recruits like the ones he had commanded
on that last grama-train, he had no doubt they would be drinking and laughing
and bantering loudly enough to wake up the entire forest for miles around and
alert anyone who might be ahead that they were coming.
But these were Purana Wafadars in truth, not merely in name like those new
upstarts who wore the purple-and-black without having earned the colours.
Every single man here was known personally to Bejoo, several older than he,
veterans of war before he was so much as a suckling babe on his Maatr’s arm.
All had seen battle numerous times and suffered injuries ranging from grevious
to maiming, forcing them to retire from active duty and enter the PF regiments.
Many had had the pleasure of serving directly under Saprem Senapati Dheeraj
Kumar during the heydey of the PFs. Now, Dheeraj Kumar was long gone, en
route to his ancestors, and it was his son Drishti Kumar who was now Saprem
Senapati, two of his grandsons Captains of the King’s Guard, a grand-daughter a
Captain of the Queen’s Guard, and numerous other grandsons and grand-
daughters serving their nation in other martial capacities. At least three men in
the group following Bejoo now had served under Maharaja Dasaratha himself in
the Last Asura Wars, which made them old enough to be Bejoo’s grandfather.
He knew one closely: old veteran Somasra had not had much to do with his days
since being retired from his charge as gate keeper of the First Gate, no less, and
Bejoo’s duties as grama-rakshak had involved much downtime between trips.
They had both spent many pleasant hours together faffing over mugs of various
beverages. When he had gone to Somasra and asked him if he wanted an
opportunity to do more than just faff, the old veteran had glanced at him without
a word, risen to his feet, grunting briefly as he wrested something wrapped in an
old dust-layered length of cloth off a high shelf, then unwrapped it slowly and
carefully to reveal a pike of a design Bejoo had never seen before. The seal of
the Suryavansha Ikshwakus was unmistakeable, melded into the base of the pole,
and Somasra had flipped the weapon over with an expert, heart-stopping ease to
show it to him.
Bejoo had raised his eyebrows in response, knowing a royal prize when he saw
one, knowing also that such prizes had been handed out last by Maharaja
Dasaratha during the Last Asura Wars and then only to those who distinguished
themselves in battle. He felt his throat thicken as he realized what that meant. If
there was a higher honour for any kshatriya serving in Ayodhya’s armed forces
now or in the past three quarters of a century, he did not know of it.
He glanced back and saw Somasra two men behind him and to his right at a
diagonal. The old gatekeeper dipped his grizzled jaw at him, and Bejoo nodded
back. He made out the long length of the pike rising behind the man, sheathed
behind the old PFs saddle and ready for use. He wondered if he would get to see
Somasra use the weapon and hoped not.
In fact, he hoped this entire exercise would pass off peacably. The intention was
to prevent violence, not to perpetrate it.
After what seemed to be another yojana or so of slow maneuvering through
thickly growing woods—it was difficult to judge how far one had travelled in
such deep forest—Nakhudi finally held up her hand. Bejoo imitated her gesture,
glancing back to make sure the others had seen his action. They had already
reined in their mounts. He felt a flicker of pride. Ayodhya’s veterans were still
sharp of eye and clear of mind and undoubtedly wise. Almost as a counterpoint
he thought: If only her youth were even half as wise. He knew that the exercise
they were about to undertake might well save lives; but he also knew that if
things turned bad, these hundred lives and his own would be the least of the
fatalities in the days to come.
Nakhudi beckoned him forward. Since she had dismounted, he dismounted as
well and walked his horse to where she waited. He looked over her shoulder but
could see nothing ahead but endless rows of trees and shrubbery, identical to the
yojanas of forest they had travelled through already.
“Something is wrong,” she said. “There is someone in the camp.”
“Someone?” he asked, puzzled. “What do you mean, someone?”
She glanced at him with a look of unmasked irritation. “If I knew, I would have
said who it was, wouldn’t I?”
He bit his lip. It had been a long time since a woman had snapped at him. It
reminded him of his long-dead wife, died in a fever epidemic almost fifteen
years ago. She had been the only woman to roundly berate him on a regular
basis, especially when he demonstrated one of his habitual flaws, of which, he
had to admit, he had several. It had been how she expressed her love for him
mingled with the exasperation of a very long marital relationship—they had
been together over fifty years when she died.
He said nothing, waiting for Nakhudi to go on.
When she spoke again, she sounded gruffly contrite. “I didn’t mean to cut your
throat. I just don’t like this whole situation. There is too much at stake. I care
about these people. They are the only family, clan, nation, call them what you
will, that I have left.”
“Grama,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Grama,” he explained. “The original grouping of families linked by blood,
marriage and comradeship. They travelled from place to place, living off the
land, joining together to fend for themselves and one another. An extended
family. It was the basis of early Arya society. The gramas went travelling across
such vast distances, to this date, nobody knows for certain where they started
from. The poets argue even now if they originated here in Bharata-varsha and
then later migrated North-Westwards, or originated in those far Northern lands
and then travelled here.”
She looked taken aback at this unsolicited information, raising her eyebrows.
“Were there arrowposts?”
He frowned. “Arrowposts?”
“Arrows, shot into tree trunks by the roadside to show which way to go next, an
old traveler’s trick to help those following stay on the trail.”
“I don’t understand.”
She waved in exasperation. “The poets can argue all they want. As far as I know,
unless someone posted arrows directing everyone to go only this way or that,
people go where they please when they please. In my culture, we don’t call that
migration, we call it wandering the land in search of greener pastures.”
He thought about that for a moment. “Interesting. But—”
She held up one large dark palm and for a moment he thought she was about to
smack him in the mouth. “Do you mind? We can debate itihasa later. Right now,
I wish to make sure my people are all safe and well.” She paused. “My grama, as
you so eloquently put it. I shall go ahead through there,” she pointed, “and I need
you to split the group into two and circle around through there and there,”
pointing twice more, “and then wait for my wolf-whistle before showing
yourselves. Clear?”
He nodded. She flashed a dark grin at him and slipped away, moving with
surprising ease and stealth for a woman her size. He wondered again how much
of that considerable height and bulk was muscle and sinew, and how much…
well, womanly splendor would be the polite term.
He thought he might not mind having a chance to find out.
***
The strangers did not appear slashing swords and loosing arrows as Luv had
feared. That itself was something of a shock.
When Kush had called him back to alert the pack and he to the arrival of
strangers, he had assumed it was one of those nauseating bear killer gangs come
around these parts again. He intensely disliked those people and could not
understand for the life of him why Maharishi Valmiki permitted them to visit.
Somehow, gurudev always seemed tense and uncomfortable when they were
around, but after they left, his mood lightened considerably and he would even
display a rare smile at times.
Once, when Rishi Dumma, who was prone to opening his mouth before he had
thought his words through, had commented archly, “Mlechhas!” as the
bearkillers left the camp, grinning lewdly and speaking raucously in the vulgar
way they had. Several of the other rishis had sniffed in agreement and even the
brahmacharyas had bobbed their bald heads, their little chchottis wagging.
Even the twins knew the word was the most derogatory one any Arya could use,
meaning barbarians or uncivilized people. And if Dumma was justified in using
it to describe anyone, the bearkillers certainly qualified. But to their surprise, and
everyone else’s, Maharishi Valmiki had swatted Dumma lightly across his
shoulder, and said gruffly, “There but for the grace of Brahma, go you and I.”
Then he walked away, retiring to his hut. But he had been in an exceptionally
good mood for days afterwards and had even given the twins a holiday from
their kavya practise.
Nobody quite knew what to make of that comment. Did Maharishi Valmiki mean
that anyone might become a bearkiller? That was impossible! Why would a
brahmin, sworn to a life of yogic ritual fasting, penance, meditation and the
pursuit of learning, suddenly take up the tools of violence and start killing the
innocent animals of the forest? Brahmins had no use for earning, and were
content to beg for their needs if unable to provide for themselves – or to starve.
In any case, their calling exhalted fasting and starvation. And even if they
changed varnas, as some brahmins did, to take up tradecraft or statecraft or even
the use of weapons, surely they would pursue more honourable occupations than
merely animal slaughter? It was unfathomable. Yet nobody dared question the
guru or even discuss the matter behind his back. So, after several perplexed
looks were cast around by all present, the ashramites returned to their respective
chores – there were always chores to be done in an ashram – and thought no
more of it.
But Kush and Luv had never forgotten that day or that statement, and had known
instinctively that it had a deeper significance than anyone else realized.
Now, he saw the first of the strangers come into view even as the dogs flew into
a frenzy, leaping and jumping and rolling in the air with the foamy jaws and
gaping snarls of a pack ready to fight to the death if need be. And with a grim
heart, he saw that they were indeed bearkillers. Those ragged clothes, stained
deeply crimson-black with the blood of countless slaughtered animals, those
rusting axes and long barbed-point spears they favoured, and those filthy faces
with broken yellow teeth flashing in grinning mouths, the plaited hair plastered
with tree sap in a mockery of Shaivite tapasvi sadhus…yes, they were
bearkillers, all right. Luv even recognized a face or two as having been part of
that same troupe that had visited the ashram some moons earlier, especially that
one, a tall lanky man with a horribly scarred face but surprisingly clean and
perfect teeth that flashed brightly against his dark face. He plaited his hair in a
particular way that reminded Luv of a procession of Tantric Sadhus he had seen
once, passing by as Kush and he waited for a grama-train. The man had seemed
to be the leader of the bearkillers, from his bearing and manner on their last visit.
It was he who had gone in with gurudev into his hut for a private talk – although
what Maharishi Valmiki and a bearkiller could have to talk about, nobody in the
ashram could guess at, not even Rishi Dumma who was usually quite adept at
coming up with outlandish explanations for anything under the sun that he didn’t
understand.
Luv kept his arrow pointed at that ugly face, tightening his draw, ready to drop
the man on the spot. The dogs were going crazy and he had no doubt they could
take give as good as they got, but he knew that men who were capable of
hunting and slaying bears were not likely to be brought down easily by a mere
pack of wild dogs. And he would not stand by and let his friends be chopped
down brutally by these…these Mlecchas!
He sensed Kush coming to the same conclusion and tightening his draw as well.
He also knew that Kush was aiming at the other man, the one to the right of the
scarfaced one. That was one of the gifts Kush and he had always possessed, the
ability to instinctively know what the other would be thinking, saying or even
doing at any point in time. Even taking into account the usual conjoined
consciousness of twins—the typical explanation everyone used to explain away
their extraordinary feats of coordination—what they had was beyond
explanation.
The splitting of targets was a much simpler trick: the scarfaced bearkiller was on
the left, as was Luv while the other man was on the right, as was Kush. Even
without looking back at Kush’s position, Luv could map his possible lines of fire
mentally, just as Kush could map his own lines of fire. It just made more sense to
split the targets in that manner. As more targets came into view and the choices
grew more complex, the decisions to split them grew more complex as well, but
they were still based on the time-honoured practise of lines of fire that Arya
bowmen had been trained to work with since deva knew how many millennia.
He was itching to loose and put an arrow through that grotesquely mauled
scarred face. Just raise your axe to one of Sarama’s brood, he thought, and it will
be the last time you raise that hand!
But the hand never rose, nor was the axe removed from its sheath on the
bearkiller’s waist. Instead, the man did a shockingly unexpected thing.
He bent down and allowed the snarling leaping pack of dogs to jump upon him
and have at his throat and face, without offering any resistance.
 FOUR
The lady Vedavati was playing the veena.
As she picked out the variation on Raga Bhairav, making the melancholy raag
sound even more disconsolate and doleful than usual, she felt the peculiar
mixture of grief and transcendence that only music could unleash from the
depths of the human soul.
The stringed instrument seemed to express her feelings more eloquently than
words ever could. Then again, even if words could express what she truly felt,
and even if she could find the perfect words to achieve that task, to whom would
she address those words?
To Maharishi Valmiki? He was a mentor, a father figure, a guide and guru. There
were some things one could not say to such a figure—things one would not want
to say.
To the other women of the ashram? Certainly not! They were all wives of devout
brahmins, each so pious and absorbed in the daily rituals and chores of ashram
life that they were wives and mothers only in the most literal sense. At night,
instead of lullabies, they sang mantras to their newborn babes. The life of a
kshatriya woman—a warrior princess no less—would be incomprehensible to
their religious sensibilities, if not outright offensive. She had to conceal even the
fact of her prowess with weapons and intimacy with violence from them, for fear
of inviting shock and dismay on a daily basis. While she shared a common
gender with the other women of the ashram, she knew that they were completely
different kinds of women, almost a different gender altogether and would never
be wholly alike.
To Nakhudi? She was a friend, yes, and there had been times when she had cried
and pressed her face into Nakhudi’s meaty shoulder and had found comfort in
her former bodyguard’s strength and presence, by the knowledge that she had
known her back when she was simply Sita Janaki, the only person apart from
Valmiki himself who knew her entire story. But that very intimacy and long-
standing relationship also caused her some embarrassment. She enjoyed
Nakhudi’s company as a friend and equal now, the one woman she could talk to
freely and without fear of censure or criticism, the one woman who lived within
the general environs of the ashram yet had not renounced life and society
altogether. She needed Nakhudi as a companion and friend, and to break down
completely and express her heart’s deepest, darkest feelings and thoughts would
put too great a burden upon that relationship, force Nakhudi to become
protective and maternal. As it was, the former bodyguard had a tendency to play
the old role again too easily, even slipping and addressing her as “Janaki Devi”
or “Princess” at times. Were Sita to yield to these impulses and treat Nakhudi
like a confidante of her most intimate fears and sorrows, Nakhudi would
certainly feel compelled to take action and address her former mistress’s plight;
perhaps even do something that would draw undue attention to them all.
And if there was one thing that Sita did not desire, it was attention. Especially
the attention of Ayodhya. Cut off though they were in this isolated forest
hermitage, deep in the Naimisha van forest, she was nevertheless reasonably
well informed. The constant traffic of brahmins and acolytes to and from various
other ashrams and cities, distant as well as near, ensured a never-ending supply
of news and updates. She had followed the growing hardening of Ayodhya’s
political position this past decade with growing dismay. And now, when it was
believed that the sunwood throne was about to embark on its most ambitious
programme of political expansion and consolidataion, the last thing she wanted
was to draw the scrutiny of that powerful juggernaut upon her tiny community.
She had long ago given up any hope of reconciliation.
For one thing, the very absence of any attempt on His part—she refused to take
his name even in her thoughts—to find out where she was, how she was, and
more importantly, how their sons were faring, had long ago convinced her that
he had hardened his heart and mind and blinded his senses and memory to her
very existence. To their very existence. Herself and her sons. What father
ignored his wife and sons for ten whole years? What husband turned his back on
the woman he had once claimed to love more than life itself so remorselessly?
What dharma impelled a grihasta to abandon his family for some obscure ideal
of philosophical ethics?
Had Rama cared one whit for them, he would have come to the ashram long ago.
Or sent someone at least. The fact that he had not done so was more chilling than
the circumstances of her exile itself. Mere abandonment might occur in a
moment of extreme anger or rage. But after the anger had cooled, after the rage
had dwindled, surely a loving heart would feel some regret, some curiosity, some
doubt? If not to admit its own fault—for which man liked to admit he was at
fault?—then at least to question if the separation had been warranted. Even a
condemned criminal was condemned for a certain length of time. How long was
her sentence to be? And what crime had their sons committed even before birth
that they were forced to grow up thus, deprived of their birthright, their social
status, their dynastic heritage, their community, their home, their father?
These were the unspeakable sorrows she expressed through her playing. Not the
pain of being abandoned, exiled, forgotten—that pain had struck her ten years
ago like a sword point piercing her heart, as she had watched Lakshman ride
away in the chariot, back to Ayodhya, leaving her in the aranya, the wilderness
of Rama’s abandonment. The sorrow of continued punishment, the danda of
being deprived continually, every moment and every day, of her rightful place,
upon the throne beside him, in his life, his house, his family, and most of all,
within his heart. It was that unspeakable grief that she cried out through the
straining instrument, turning heartache into music and music into the voice of
womanhood wronged. As the veena softly wept, she smiled in woeful ecstasy,
her eyes shut tightly, not a single tear leaving her dark lashes or staining her
wheat-brown cheeks. For the veena cried for them both, herself and Rama, for
their lost decade, for their lost love, for their lost destiny.
“Milady!”
The voice cut through her playing.
It was one of the ashram women, the wife of Dumma, judging by the sharp,
high-pitched voice. The voice was a familiar one, cutting through the daily
hustle and bustle of the ashram and the padapad rote chanting of the
brahmacharyas on the occasions when Dumma was berated by his spouse for
some new buffoonery or other, which, Dumma being Dumma, was almost every
other day. But this time her voice was raised not in wifely irritation but in sheer
panic. It was that sound of a woman terrified that cut through Sita’s desolate
mood and brought her back to reality in a thumping instant.
“Milady, soldiers!” cried the voice, with rising terror. “They—”
And then the horrible yet unmistakeable sound of a javelin punching through
breastbone and flesh, and the wet splatter of bodily content out the other side,
followed a moment later by the dull sound of a body falling to the ground.
Sita dropped the veena and sprang to her feet, racing for the back of the hut,
reaching for the discreet hole in the ground artfully concealed with straw and
covered by a tribal shawl, where she kept her weapons. For she had known that
someday this moment would come. She had not expected it to be today. But if it
was to be so, then she was prepared for it.
 ***
Kush watched in irritated amazement as Sarama and her brood, rather than
viciously mauling and attacking the bearkillers, greeted them with adulation and
joy instead. They ran from one to the other, wagging their tails, barking and
yapping loudly. Sarama herself stood up on her hind legs and actually licked the
face of the leader of the gang, who in turn rubbed her shaggy head and back
affectionately and whispered sweet words to her. This went on for a few
moments as Luv and he watched with growing pique and frustration. He wanted
to send an arrow or three through the greasy hands patting the dogs and send the
lot of them fleeing for their lives, but there was no call to do so. He loosened the
pressure on the bow string, lowering the bow but keeping the arrow still in place,
and glanced over at his brother. Luv rolled his eyes and shook his head in
disgust, clearly as irritated as he was. They would both be having a word with
Sarama about whom she lavished her affections on. Of all the aranya outlaws to
befriend, she had to wag her tail at Bearkillers!
The leader of the gang had crouched down to greet the pack. Now that their
intiial excitement had subsided, he rose slowly to his feet and spoke. He pitched
the words in Kush’s direction with surprising accuracy.
“I see you,” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard by both twins, but not
loud enough to carry much further. “Do not be afraid, we mean you no harm. We
are friends of your Guru Ratnakaran.”
Ratnakaran? Kush glanced at Luv again. Luv shrugged but raised his bow
slowly, cocking an eyebrow to let Luv know that they were not to trust these
fellows so easily.
“Our guru’s name is Valmiki,” Kush called back in as insolent a tone as he could
muster. “And bearkillers can never be friends of our’s.”
The man chuckled, revealing two blackened teeth in the top row. He glanced
back at his gang. “You hear that, people? We can never be their friends!”
There were titters of laughter from the group.
Kush sent an arrow past the man’s face, close enough to snip off a tiny lock of
his hair and let him feel the wind of the sharpened iron blade whistle past his
temple. It went home in the trunk of a teak tree with a dull thwock.
The bearkiller lost his smile. His hand clapped to the side of his head, he said,
much louder now: “Stop that! We said we’re friends, didn’t we?”
“Go tell that to all the bears you’ve killed,” Kush replied. Luv had left his spot
and was circling around behind the gang. After all, they had spotted Kush
somehow and his position was confirmed by his speaking, but they might not
still know where Luv had been. “Especially all the little cubs, and the mothers
protecting them. Tell them you were just trying to be friends.”
“We haven’t killed any bears,” said another voice. A woman came forward. She
had a face marred by heavily pockmarked cheeks and there was something odd
about her singlet and the way she held her bow that Kush could not make out
right away. “We’re not really bearkillers. We’re outlaws.”
Kush laughed. “That makes me feel much better now. You only murder men,
women and children, not bears, is that right?”
“We don’t kill anybody!” said the first bearkiller, the leader. “Unless they come
around trying to kill us first!”
“Yes, well, we have the same policy. So if you’ll take your weapons and move
on, we don’t want any trouble here, if you please.” Kush considered snipping an
errant lock of hair on the man’s right side, to balance the one snipped on the left,
then decided against it. He was keeping them occupied while giving Luv time to
circle to their rear, not aiming to provoke an all-out fight. He wasn’t scared of
facing this bunch, he just didn’t think they were worth the arrows.
“Listen, you snotty nosed little fellow—” started the leader, then stopped as the
pockmarked woman raised a hand and said something in his ear. “All right,
Ragini, you give it a try.” He settled for glowering in the direction that Kush’s
voice was coming from.
The woman he had called Ragini raised both her hands to show her open palms.
She took several steps forward, causing Kush to immediately take aim at her:
“Please, believe me. We are not bearkillers or brigands in the sense that you
mean. We do not murder people to steal their belongings. We are outlaws
banished a long time ago to the aranya for various offenses—some unjustly laid
accusations, and some genuine crimes as well. But none of that matters now. We
are here to warn you and assist you. And we must move quickly as time is
scarce.”
Kush suddenly realized what was odd about the woman’s singlet and the way
she held her bow. Her chest was bumpy only on one side—it was flat on the
other side, the side on which lay the arm with which she pulled her bow-string.
He had heard about this from Nakhudi and seen women archers on the raj-marg
who had also sliced off one side of their chests in similar fashion. It was the
unmistakable sign of a true archer, one who had sacrificed a part of her own
flesh in order to be able to hold and pull a bow-string as perfectly as possible. It
gave him a little more respect for her.
But he still kept the arrow pointed.
“Whoever you are,” he called out, “we don’t need your warning or your help.
Move on. This is your last warning.”
A bird call joined the various sounds of the forest, sustained just a little longer
than the gurung liked to call. That meant Luv was in position and they were
ready to take on the bearkillers in a two-way crossfire. Kush’s finger ached to
release the arrow, not because holding the string taut for so long was hard, which
it was, but because he was suspicious of the motives of these ruffians.
Pockmarked Ragini shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. We are the only
ones who can help you now. It was Maharishi Valmiki’s last wish that we should
take charge of you and raise you as best as we could in case anything should
happen to him. And your mother wanted the same. Will you not heed the last
words of your own mother and guru?”
Last words? A chill blade slashed through Kush’s nether regions, forcing him to
lower the bow and loosen his hold on the string. If there was anything the
bearkillers could possibly say that would cause him to lower his guard, that was
it. What did she mean? Surely she didn’t mean that Gurudev and Maatra
were…?
“THEY LIE, KUSH! Do not fall for their trick! Attack now!”
The voice was Luv’s and it came from the rear of the bearkillers. Kush had never
known his brother to give away his position before—nor had he himself ever
done so—but he also knew from the way he felt after hearing the woman
Ragini’s words that Luv was hugely upset, and angry. And that, like him, he had
come to the natural conclusion.
Wretched bearkillers attacked the ashram and killed everyone!
He raised his bow again, pulling the arrow tighter than before, taking aim not on
the pockmarked woman’s shoulder as he had earlier but at her throat now. One
more incensing word from her and she would be dead before the air left her
lungs.
But before he could loose, a sound came to them from across the tree tops. A
sound that he knew well, for Luv and he had often produced that same sound
too, practising it until Maharishi Valmiki was satisfied that they could do so even
under duress and at a sufficiently loud volume to be heard miles away from the
ashram.
It was the sound of a conch shell trumpet, issuing the call that signaled the
ashram was in mortal distress.
 FIVE
Nakhudi fought the rising sense of outrage and fury that threatened to engulf her
as she walked through the settlement. The rational part of her mind reminded her
that she ought to have been more circumspect and circled the village first,
making sure that none of the attackers were still around. But once she had seen
and smelled the horror that was all that remained of her people, all rational
thought had fled her mind.
And if they were still around, she would dearly love to meet them face to face!
And to do more than simply ask them how and why they could massacre an
entire settlement—her grama, as Bejoo had aptly called it—of impoverished
forest dwelling people, the majority of whom were women, children and elderly.
Barely a fourth of them had been men of fighting age and fitness, and even those
had been no match for the strength and weaponry of trained Ayodhyan soldiers.
The hundred-odd people with whom she had resided here in this little clearing,
sharing food, clothing, shelter, resources as readily as members of one large
extended family, had been outcasts—some literally out-caste, forced out from
Ayodhya itself following the rise of the subtle but increasingly belligerent bias
against lower castes and mixed castes that had begun in recent years, others
criminals and outlaws with broken bodies and battered minds who had been
released from the dungeons and prisons of the great shining capital city in some
generous fit of amnesty, yet were unemployable due to the years or decades of
disease, privation and abuse endured in their incarceration.
The irony of the system of justice meted out by the current regime was that
while the hardened criminals stayed on in the city to pursue illicit trades, those
who had had their bellyfull of crime and punishment, and were therefore
rehabilitated in the truest sense of the term, preferred to leave the city that had
been so harsh to them and retreated into self-imposed exile from the glories of
Arya civilization. Each year, more and more severely punished people, some
brutalized for the most minor of offenses, ended up in ashrams or settlements
such as this one. Sometimes, a few found companionship, camaraderie, even
love and kinship over time, and slowly, painfully, the wounds of their own past
misdemeanours and the terrible dandas initiated, enforced and inflicted under the
iron rule of the King of Dharma, healed partially. They were hardly people in the
proud ‘Arya’ sense of the word, but they had been people once, and they were
human still. And most of all, alive. Or at least they had been until a few days
ago, when she had left this settlement, filling the crisp forest air with the spicy
aroma of their cookfires, their laughter and rough talk. These had been simple
people; broken people even, bent down and battered by the might and power of
Rama’s rigid interpretations of dharma and the consequences of straying from
that hard path, but still people.
Now, they were just corpses. Food for the vermin and the worms.
She walked through the smoking, scorched, broken, cracked and battered ruins
of the score of humble thatch-and-mud huts that had served as the domiciles of
those dregs of society. Each reluctant step took her past a new horror: children
lying in one another’s arms or their mother’s embrace, eyes open and filled with
blood, faces splattered with the effluents of their own or loved ones’ gaping
wounds, severed limbs, speared bodies, butchered corpses…Tears slipped past
her iron veil of self-control and spilled from her eyes as she recognized faces,
profiles, or, in some awful cases, limbs and tattered garments. From the way the
bodies were strewn and cut down, it was obvious that the attack had been
sudden, brutal and swift. Many of the fatal cuts had been inflicted on the backs
of the heads and torsos of the victims, suggesting that they had been turning
away or running from the attackers. Around her, the looming trees and lush
forest seemed to echo with the memories of screams and pitiful cries that must
have rung out only hours earlier. She could almost hear familiar voices, crying
out in anguish and mortal terror.
She paused when she saw a living figure up ahead, her sword already out and
ready, rising to deal out the vengeance she ached to deliver, but realized at once
that it was only Bejoo. The vajra captain looked sallow faced and as grim as she
felt, his grizzled jaw tight with his own anger. His eyes met her’s then cut away
at once in shame. She might not think of herself as Ayodhyan, or even as “Arya”
in the purest sense of the term, but he did, and she could see that it pained him
greatly to witness such dishonourable butchery committed by fellow Aryas, let
alone fellow Ayodhyans.
He had circled around as instructed by her—she could see the other men holding
back in the trees, probably on his orders—and was examining a dozen-odd
corpes laying in a ragged line on the ground. This was the rough pathway that
led eventually to the raj-marg, or Mithila Road, as it was called by her people,
and it was the direction from which the attackers had surely come.
He crouched down beside one body, which she recognized with a small shock as
having been Nandu, the white-haired elder who functioned as a kind of
roughshod chief of the little community. He was examining the footmarks on the
ground and reading the trail. She crouched beside him, steeling herself to ignore
the stench of the corpses, left out in the open for at least a day and already
ripening, and read the signs as well.
“There were a great many of them,” she said, “at least a hundred healthy heavily
armed men on horseback.”
She rose and walked further up the winding trail that led through natural gaps in
the trees. Forest folk followed an unwritten covenant not to cut down healthy
trees merely to make way for themselves; they respected the forest too much for
that. As it was, the forest made way for them to live in it and supported their
existence. The least they could do was protect and serve it as best as possible.
This meant that the trail was a long winding one that did not follow any of the
usual geometrical patterns of man-made roads. It also made riding along it on
horseback a challenge—unless one knew the way intimately.
“They came down the trail, riding quickly without stopping.” She glanced at
Bejoo as she spoke, walking quickly as she continued to read the signs on the
trees and ground—snapped branches, cracked twigs, hoofprints embedded in
mulch, chipped bark on a tree trunk where the edge of a sheathed weapon had
nicked it accidentally while passing, a hundred other indicators that she could
read as clearly as a brahmin could interpret Sanskrit neatly printed on a scroll.
Bejoo nodded to show he understood: for such a large group, so heavily
burdened, to have come through this winding forest “path” on horseback at such
a speed, meant that they had a guide who knew the way. Her grama had been
betrayed. By whom? And why?
“They were here for one reason only, to slaughter,” she said, for it was evident
that the attackers had left as soon as they were done killing every last man,
woman and child in the settlement. “The men of the grama tried to mount a
resistance, to draw the attackers away from their families, but were encircled in a
chakravyuh and slaughtered to the last man.”
Bejoo nodded. As a veteran ex-military man, he knew that a chakravyuh—a
complex encircling attack technique—was unique to Arya military forces. It
confirmed that the attackers were not merely some armed gang of bandits or
marauders passing by, but heavily armed and healthy soldiers on well-fed
mounts come here for the express purpose of murdering the entire village.
Nakhudi’s trail-reading had taken the better part of an hour and led her on a
winding route around and to the south-west of the settlement. She was aware of
Bejoo’s men following them discretely, spread out through a wide swathe of
forest, the better to ensure that they were not encircled and trapped or ambushed
by the same attackers. She was glad for his presence and his military acumen, for
right now, her entire consciousness and being were filled with only the raging
desire for vengeance.
“And once their butchery was done,” she said, pausing beside a tree with a low-
hanging branch on which several twigs had been snapped and lay, freshly broken
and trampled by horse hooves on the beaten ground below, “they did not go back
the way they came. Instead, they took this route, towards…”
She broke off, her eyes widening, heart racing. Her sword hand rose, fist
tightening on the pommel. She sensed Bejoo react, turning to look at her in
evident alarm.
“What?” he asked. “Speak, woman!”
“Guru Valmiki’s ashram,” she said. “They are headed for the ashram!”
And then she began running.
***
Sita knew better than to go running out of her hut—straight into the waiting
blades of the enemy. For no matter who or why they were, the screams and
unmistakeable sounds of weaponry and slaughter from outside clearly
announced that enemies were in the ashram. She had faced violent opposition
frequently and regularly enough in her life not to waste time questioning the
how, why and wherefore of it, merely to act in a manner designed to ensure her
own survival and the survival of those she loved.
Which was why she did not run across the threshold of her hut.
Instead, she kicked aside the earthen pot of water she used for drinking and
cleaning hands and faces, shattering it with one expert blow, and pushed at the
thatched panel at the bottom of the back wall. It rose up on a hinge made from
two sections of half-bamboo ingeniously interlocked to allow just so much
movement in one direction, opening an exit just large enough for her to crawl
through – more than sufficient for her sons to slip through.
She went through with practiced ease, her slender form in better physical
condition than it had ever been in her life. Not quite the hard, overworked lithely
muscular form of her days in Janasthana or Chitrakut, but nevertheless slim, fit
and strong enough to fight to save her own life and the lives of her sons if they
needed saving.
Or the lives of others.
The back of the hut looked out upon a steep fall-off that in turn overlooked a
narrow winding path that led down to the river Sona. She had built her hut in this
location for this precise reason: Isolated from the rest of the ashram, discretely
tucked away just behind a line of trees, its natural materials and the artful
construction made it appear to be a part of the hillside rather than a man-made
structure. Even if the enemy knew where to look and found it, they could only
approach it from the front. The steep fall-off at the back was unclimbable
because of the soft yielding earth, dampened by rain part of the year and
deliberately dampened by Sita herself in the dry seasons.
She glanced out over the edge, careful not to step too close to the mushy rim,
and was relieved to see no armed soldiers rushing up the path from the river.
That suggested that the attack was not directed at her or her sons. That was good,
that was very good. No matter how artful or expert she might be in the ways of
survival, there was no true way to defend oneself from direct, sustained assault.
Especially not when one was genuinely a penniless penitent living in a hermitage
in the forest.
That meant that this was some random attack by brigands or dacoits. Or
unknown forces with an unknown agenda.
She had torn off the lower part of her modestly flowing garment to free her legs
for quicker movement. Now, she unwrapped the tribal blanket and extracted its
treasures. In the aranya, weapons were more precious than gold or jewels. One
could use weapons to ensure one’s survival, or to hunt and feed, which was the
same thing; however, there was nothing here to be buy even if one possessed all
the gold and precious gems in the world!
She slung the rig, packed tight with carefully crafted arrows, made by herself,
Nakhudi and the twins and replenished weekly after their training sessions. Each
of them had their own cache, although Nakhudi and the boys took their’s around
openly, while she kept her’s stored secretly and only brought it out for her daily
practise sessions.
She strung the bow with quick expert actions, slinging it over the same left
shoulder as the rig. Then she unsheathed the sword and the short iron pike with
the specially designed grip-guards that doubled as shortblades, and she was
ready.
But she took a moment to listen and orient herself to what was going on, or at
least what she could discern by way of hearing at least. Once she went around
the hut and exposed herself, she might be fighting for her life, and it was worth
taking a moment or two to learn as much as she could about whom she was
fighting and what they might want.
The entire process until now—from reacting to Dumma’s wife’s screams to this
moment of total readiness —had taken only a few moments. The shouts and
yells and sounds of men and metal and horses had continued unabated. The
ashram housed over four dozen inhabitants, and there was a party of another two
dozen just arrived from Thiruvanthapuram. And if there was one thing brahmins
were well versed to doing, it was raising their voices. All those years of chanting
and reciting nonstop all day long had conditioned them to be able to raise a great
hue and cry in this time of crisis. The sheer sound level from across the ashram
suggested a few hundred people rather than merely six dozen. From what she
could make out, all that noise and uproar was not merely screams and crying out;
many of the brahmins, particularly the senior rishis and maharishis, were not
men or women to fear kshatriyas and their violence. They were berating the
attackers loudly and unequivocally, several issuing shraaps and eternal curses in
the names of various deities. It was a bold and godless dacoit who could
withstand such an onslaught of priestly curses, she knew, and the fact that she
could still hear sounds of violence and screams of agony punctuating the
cacophony meant that whomever these men were, they were dangerous, deadly
men come here with the express intention of committing the crime of brahmin-
hatya. Priest-killing was not something most kshatriyas did lightly and it meant
that the men were most likely mercenaries working for coin, and with no
scruples or attachment to any nation, liege or other loyalties. That was not good,
not good at all.
She wished Nakhudi and the twins were with her right now, or at the very least,
were in some place far away, secure and isolated. The canyon. She must get
them to the canyon. That was a defensible position. There, they could hold off
even a small army if need be, or at least defend themselves until they ran out of
arrows and replenishment.
But they were not here, and she was. And she was the only person in the ashram
capable of fighting back against these intruders, whomever they might be. Those
were her daily companions dying out there, and she could not simply run away
and leave them to their fate. Moreover, there was Maharishi Valmiki himself.
After all he had done for her and the boys, she could hardly abandon him to such
a fate. The boys were wherever they were, and until she knew where, it made
most sense for her to go out there and fight. If the odds were overwhelming—
which seemed likely—then she would extricate herself and escape into the
forest. The boys and Nakhudi were smart enough to know something was wrong
and would not simply blunder into the ashram. She could count on them joining
her eventually at the canyon, their agreed-upon refuge in the event of such a
calamity.
Her mind made up, she took a deep breath, then slipped around the side of the
hut and went running down the path to the main ashram grounds, bow-string
pulled taut, first arrow notched and ready to loose. The row of sala trees blurred
past and then she was out in the open and in the thick of the fray.

SIX
Somasra found himself unable to control his anger as he raced along, following
behind former Vajra Captain Bejoo and the ex-rani-rakshak Nakhudi. He had
seen the bodies of the slaughtered villagers and was thoroughly disgusted. How
could Ayodhyans have stooped to such a heinous deed? These people might not
be Arya any more, if Arya meant one had to be literally pure and noble and
superior in behavior, thought and deed, since they had committed crimes at some
point and fallen from that status of nobility of character. But they had been
punished for their crimes and had additionally chosen to take themselves into
exile from Arya society, which was further punishment. From the looks of their
humble habitation and their ascetic lifestyles, it was evident they had not
prospered through ill-gotten gains nor continued upon the path of crime – which
was more than could be said for many people who still remained within the
auspices of so-called Arya society.
And yet they had been slaughtered mercilessly by a heavily armed company of
cavalry without warning or cause or even opportunity to arm and defend
themselves. There were certain rules for combat among Aryas, and this not only
violated that kshatriya code of conduct, it was an affront to any warrior. He had
known that the murky politics of Ayodhya had taken a bad turn these past years
—he had seen the steady decline himself among the PFs, the common soldiery
and the city itself. But this was unacceptable.
He was aware of the other men, all senior PFs recently retired from active duty,
at the edges of his vision. He was proud to see that they were all able to keep
pace with the much younger woman, as was the aging Captain Bejoo. Even
though none of them had seen active combat for decades, there was enough
activity on gatewatch—small skirmishes, sudden violent outbreaks, encounters
with brash youngsters, minor riots, communal clashes—to have kept them all
fighting fit. Besides, each and everyone of this handpicked band of white-haired
retirees spent one full day each week at the training camp. He had even seen
Captain Bejoo there, even though as a grama-rakshak now, he didn’t have to
adhere to such high standards of fitness. The training camps were no mere
formality. Run by veterans like himself and held to the same high standards as
they had been since the time of Manu Lawmaker, they were a gruelling day’s
routine of drills, exercises, mock combat, wargames and tactical briefings and
discussions that kept the mind sharp and the body on the cutting edge of fitness.
They might all be over 75 here in this band, in fact several were a decade older
and at least two were in their 10th decade of life, but they were nonetheless able
to hold their own.
As he sprinted at a demanding but sustainable pace through the forest,
negotiating the overhanging branches, mulch-carpetted and snake-holed ground,
and bushes and stones and other flora expertly, he felt as if he was not retired but
rejuvenated. This was why these men were so fit and strong even at their age:
because they loved the demands and challenges of combat. It was when they
were put out to pasture and told to go home and spend the rest of their days
staring at sunsets and snowfall that they grew fat around the waist and the brain.
Right now, he was confident that he and his band of octagenarians and
nonagenarians could take on that company of cavalry and come out on top. They
might not survive it—not all of them, for sure—but they would take as good as
they got and still triumph. He was sure of it. He had seen the way the younger,
new PF troops drilled and trained at the camps in the cantonment north of
Ayodhya, and he and his mates would laugh at the absurdity of it. Then again,
what could one expect of men and women who had never known first-hand the
terrors of a Pisaca ambush or gone hand to hand with a Rakshasa, or faced a
swarm of Nagas? Warfare today was only about mortals versus mortals, and after
one had faced asuras, mortals just didn’t seem as dangerous.
But these mortals made him angry. This was murder, nothing less. They had no
right to come here to these people’s grama and slaughter them thusly. And if
what he had heard Nakhudi say to Bejoo was right, and they were attacking an
ashram now, then these mortal soldiers did not deserve to be called Aryas, let
alone Ayodhyans. They were no less than rakshasas and deserved to be killed
like rakshasas.
He looked forward to coming face to face with them and showing them how real
kshatriyas fought.
***
Bejoo sensed the anger in Nakhudi. Twenty five years ago, when he had first met
Nakhudi, he had been impressed by the young woman’s fierce dedication to her
duty and her fearless fighting attitude. At the time, he had been in charge of the
vajra force assigned by Maharaja Dasaratha himself to follow and protect
Princes Rama Chandra and Lakshman on their journey to Bhayanak-van with
Brahmarishi Vishwamitra. They had encountered Nakhudi and Princess Sita
Janaki after the Bhayanak-van mission, while on their way to Mithila. Nakhudi
and her mistress had disguised themselves as men at the time, to make it easier
to move incognito across the land as well as deflect the excessive attention that a
princess would naturally have drawn.
He had been very impressed by Nakhudi’s fighting skills as well as her fierce
loyalty to Sita, and when he had learned that the rani-rakshak was in fact a
woman herself, he had been doubly impressed. Not because he had not expected
a woman to fight that well or be that skillful: Arya society was a matriarchial
society, and Bejoo had met and seen women kshatriyas who would put most men
to shame in battle, and who chose to undertake the challenges of motherhood
and family-raising just as efficaciously. No, he had been impressed because
Nakhudi was impressive, just for who she was, and how she worked and the
lengths she was willing to go to in order to fulfill her duties. He had felt more
than a little attracted to her then. But he had been happily married and the
question of betraying his wife, even for a brief encounter, had been untenable
morally.
Now, two and a half decades later, she was still impressive, and he found himself
still admiring her fierce devotion to her mistress, her fearless decisiveness, and
yes, he still desired her. He was not as young as he had been back then, but then
again, neither was she now. The age difference of almost two decades between
them hardly mattered. All that mattered was that he had finally found a woman
he cared about, even though just days earlier he would have thought such a thing
to be impossible, and whom he now believed he could come to love as deeply
and strongly – if very differently – than he had loved his long-standing
companion and belated wife. And he thought that she cared about him too,
which mattered most of all.
He followed her through the woods, admiring the ease with which she negotiated
the treacherous obstacle course of the deep woods as if it were a city avenue. He
admired also the way she displayed anger but kept it banked, using the energy
from that anger instead to fuel her forward movement and pace, even after
having just found her entire community slaughtered to the last woman, elder and
child. He could hardly imagine what fortitude it took to overcome that shock,
and the inevitable outrage and fury that must be bubbling up inside her as a
result. Yet he could see no wavering of hand or eye, no clumsiness of footing or
rashness of action. Her breathing remained even, if short, and her aspect
contained and measured. It reminded him of the great commanders and leaders
he had followed into battle in his younger days; Nakhudi was no less a leader of
warriors than they had been.
He smiled despite the circumstances, shaking his head once as he ran through the
sun-dappled shadows, and thought that even if she did not consider herself
‘Arya’ and mayhap she might not be Arya in the strictest sense of the term, yet
she was in fact the very epitome of the epithet. Pure of soul, noble of purpose,
elevated in deed and thought. Yes, she was Arya to the core.
He decided then that if they survived this harebrained adventure, unlikely as it
was, he would ask her to marry him, and live the rest of his days with her by his
side. If she would have him, of course, which was another question altogether.
He heard the shouts and screams and metallic sounds of weapons a fraction of a
moment before she stopped and raised her hand. Behind and around them the
rest of the vajra stopped as well. He realized it was odd to call a band of old
retired PFs on foot a ‘vajra’. How could this group of old fogeys possibly strike
forays and retreat with the switftness of the mythical lightning bolts of Lord
Indra? The very analogy was absurd. Yet, he would call it a vajra. For in their
own way, in these circumstances and this environment and under this leadership,
they would strike and retreat as swiftly as lightning. He would see to that. He
had promised Nakhudi he would.
And she had tried to smile coquettishly—which only made her expansive dark
face look menacing—and said, “I know you will. That’s why I came to you.”
Now, she ducked down to a crouch and crept forward for the last hundred yards.
He could see the smoke from the ashram cookfires curling above the rooftops up
ahead, but due to the denseness of the woods, he did not see the ashram itself
until they were barely twenty yards away.
He frowned.
The ravagers could hardly have stumbled across two such cleverly hidden
settlements accidentally. They had good directions, or a guide. Which meant this
entire sordid operation had been planned down to the last detail.
That made him angrier. Bad enough that these vermin were slaughtering
unarmed and innocent women, children and elders – and now brahmins as well.
But it was infinitely worse to know that someone had plotted and planned these
massacres and executed them with such ruthless cruelty.
He put aside the romantic notions that had been filling his senses for the past few
moments and focussed on the task at hand. The man in him yielded to the
kshatriya in him and he pursed his lips grimly and passed the hilt of his blade
across his unshaven stubble, producing a rasping sound that only he could hear
and which helped him sink into the mental state required for complete
concentration during a battle or fight. The scenes of violence and abuse
unfolding before them needed no explanation or argument. It was quite obvious
who were the aggressors and who were the victims and what needed to be done.
“Attack at will,” Nakhudi said from ahead, her voice cold and deadly.
He raised his hand and gave the signal to his vajra.
Then he led them into battle, following after Nakhudi.
***
Luv feared the worst. At the sound of the trumpet call, Kush and he had begun
racing back to the ashram, followed closely by Sarama and her pack—and the
bearkillers. He knew the bearkillers must have something to do with the alarm
being raised but explanations could come later. All he cared about was getting
back to the hermitage as fast as possible. Fortunately, they were only a few miles
away. Even so, the race through the forest seemed to take forever and the
thought of what might lie ahead were unbearable. His greatest anxiety was for
Maatr.
Prithvi-Maa, protect her.
But a part of him knew that his mother was no ordinary sadhini. Ever since his
brother and he had been old enough to understand such things, she had explained
to them, calmly and without transferring any sense of fear or emotion, that it was
imperative that they maintain a certain discipline about some things, such as
their daily weapons and physical training, and that they follow certain pre-
arranged codes and signals in the event of a calamity. What form the calamity
might take was never quite clear, but they had come to understand that it would
most likely take the shape of a group of attackers and that Ayodhya had
something to do with it. That was more than enough. So they drilled and trained
and practised and prepared for the event of an unexpected attack by armed
Ayodhyans. Today, that training was about to be tested, it seemed.
Because Kush had been at the far side of the group, he was a fair ways behind.
But the pockmarked-face woman named Ragini kept good pace with Luv as he
ran. She even managed to speak though the last thing he wanted to do was talk.
“This is what we came to warn you about—they had already slaughtered
Nakhudi’s village and we tracked them moving towards Valmiki ashram. We
hoped to reach you two and warn you before you blundered into the thick of it.”
Luv kept running, moving his arms and legs efficiently, breathing rhythmically,
as he had learned to do. He did not bother to waste breath on a response.
“Your mother could be dead already. You know that she gave specific orders for
how to act in such an event. You are not to return to the ashram. You are to go to
the pre-arranged meeting point and wait there.”
This time he could not resist. Rather than ask the most expected question—How
do you know what we had pre-arranged?—he asked the next most relevant one.
“Wait there for what?” he demanded, not slowing his pace. “If she is indeed dead
as you claim—which I don’t accept—then what are we to wait for?”
“For us,” said Ragini, turning her head to look at him.
He glanced at her briefly as they ran and saw the earnestness in her light brown
eyes. She was telling the truth. The forest blurred behind her.
He felt a small flutter of shock: these were the ‘friends’ that Maatr had spoken
of? The ones who would come to help them in the event of a calamity?
Impossible! They were bearkillers. Scum of the forest!
“Our association with your father and mother goes back a long way, Luv,” she
said.
He was not impressed by her being able to tell his brother and he apart, since he
had yelled out Kush’s name earlier. But he believed her when she said that she
had known his mother. Maatr had spoken of old friends of their father and she.
Everything this woman, this bearkiller, was saying rang true. He swallowed,
feeling a twinge of emotion even as he sprinted. That meant the bearkillers had
known their father. And to think that Kush and he had regarded them with scorn
and derision, often making jokes about their appearance or derogatory comments
about their hygiene and sense of dharma. Even Rishi Dumma had often
participated in these jocular insults, coming up with real gems. Dumma did have
a sense of humour, that and a great appetite.
“Turn away now,” Ragini said, bringing him back to the moment. “Follow your
mother’s orders. Turn away and come with us. We shall protect and care for you.
We are sworn to do so until our dying breath. Do not go back to the ashram.”
He hesitated mentally, even though his feet continued pumping and his arms
swung to and fro and the breath chugged in and out of his lungs in the rhythmic
pattern that he could maintain all day and for twenty yojanas if need be. Then the
sounds of screaming rose again from ahead, very close now, barely a mile or so,
and he shook his head grimly, lowered his chin and increased his pace.
Ragini had to strain now to catch up. Whatever else the bearkillers might be,
they were not long-distance runners—or perhaps they were burdened by their
heavier metal weapons. Kush and he only carried bows and rigs, which made a
difference. Someday, they would graduate to metal blades, and in a pinch, they
could use them just as well up close, but at his and Kush’s age and size the
weight of swords and blades far outweighed their usefulness.
Besides, Maatr had always preferred that they use bows. So that we could fight
from a distance and be safer. She always tried to keep us safe. He fought back
the emotion that was threatening to engulf him and sucked in two sharp,
shallowed breaths, regaining control.
Because he had not replied, Ragini reached out and touched his shoulder lightly,
a gesture of affection. “I see you will not heed my warning. Very well then.
Whatever happens now, in the ashram,” she said, “you must not risk your lives
unduly. Remember that your brother and you have a far larger purpose to fulfill.
It is not your destiny to die at the hands of those mercenaries today. Leave the
fighting to us. Stay with your brother. Stay back. It was your mother’s wish.”
And then, surprising him, she shot out a foot and deftly tripped him, sending him
sprawling in a pile of wildgrass, winded but unhurt.
“Stay back and let us fight!” she shouted, then was gone, sprinting up ahead.
The rest of her gang raced past him, the scarred man glancing down briefly as he
passed to make sure that he was all right. Then the dogs were there, also loping
past, long muzzles dripping froth, Sarama whimpering as she ran past as if to
apologize for running with her pack rather than stopping to help him. Her tail
flicked his nose as she whipped past.
Luv sat up and rubbed his head, wondering at how neatly the half-chested outlaw
woman had tripped him. He was not harmed or injured in any way but it had
effectively stopped him, if only for a moment or two. That was all the advantage
she had needed, clever woman!
He was on his feet and picking up pace again just as Kush caught up with him.
Luv glanced sideways at his brother who grinned back at him, displaying a fleck
of grass between his upper front teeth. From the blades of grass and leaf or two
pasted to Kush’s face and arms, Luv guessed that he too had been similarly
delayed by the bearkillers. They exchanged a glance and it was all he needed to
let him know that his brother had had a similar exchange with one of the gang,
probably the scarred man, and that they both knew all that was needed to be
known.
Except what happened to Maatr and Gurudev Valmiki.
Shoulder to shoulder now, they ran the last few hundred yards to the ashram. Up
ahead, they could already hear the sounds of the bearkillers roaring and calling
out in their vulgar way and the dogs growling and snarling with the low-toned
ferocity of animals at war as the new arrivals clashed with the attackers in the
ashram.
Moments later, Kush and he burst into the clearing and joined them.
 SEVEN
Even though Sita saw what she had expected to see, it was still a shock.
The large rectangular central courtyard of the ashram, lined by huts on either
side, with the ashram’s largest domicile at the head, was a melee of flailing
bodies, human and equestrian. Rishis and their wives, all dressed alike in red-
ochre dhotis and anga-vastras, with their junior acolytes clad in white, ran about
everywhere in confusion and fear. Riding among them were the attackers, armed
and armoured horsemen wielding longspears, swords, axes and pikes. The
attackers were randomly chasing down and slaughtering the ashramites without
cause or provocation. It was a massacre.
Sita watched as a frail dark woman whom she recognized as the wife of Rishi
Divakara attempted to run down the alleyspace between two huts and was
checked by a spear flung by a horseman. The spear struck her in the back,
severing her spine, and she fell, instantly dead, her eyes still open and staring
blankly.
She saw the aging Rishi Kanwa, a visitor from the South-Eastern kingdom of
Kalinga, standing with his hands clasped together in silent appeal, as he was
hacked down by two separate horsemen, one from the front cutting through his
clasped hands with a sword, the other chopping at the juncture of his neck and
torso with an axe. He fell into a spreading pool of his own blood, half-severed
limbs dangling grotesquely, lips still parted in recitation of a shloka of
forgiveness. Bodies lay sprawled everywhere, blood splatters staining the white
robes, the red ochre robes concealing the brutality meted out to the bodies they
clothed. The air of the ashram, usually so pristine and clear and crisp, was
sullied by the stench of death and the odour of bodily effluents spilled out into
the dust.
It had been a long time since Sita had seen such brutality, the brutality of
unbridled human arrogance unleashed for its own selfish pleasures—male
arrogance, to put a fine point on it—and she had forgotten how cruel men could
be, kshatriya men in particular, when embarked upon a mission they were
convinced it was their dharma to execute. Forest living was harsh; the animal
kingdom was ruthless; life itself was never easy, and nature herself posed as
many relentless challenges to existence as she provided succour and
nourishment. But this, this was naked male arrogance, the madness of muscle
and virility unchecked, the naked lust for violence that some men insisted was a
natural part of all humankind but was in fact only an ailment of their own
twisted psyches, perpetrated by them through generations in order to justify their
own violent urges and lustful indulgences. Only an evil man spoke of good
versus evil; and those who spoke of good versus evil always insisted they were
on the side of good. In fact, as any sane, rational person knew, there were no
good or evil people or beings, only people who did things to serve their own
ends—whether those things were adjudged good or evil depended on the
perception of others.
Yet if she were to start believing in evil, this was as good a time as any. For what
was being perpetrated here, under whatever guise or excuse, was an evil,
abhorrent act.
She had watched the horrific slaughter for only a few moments, the bare
minimum time needed to orient herself to the sheer ruthlessness of the attackers
and the shameless manner in which they pursued their given task. She witnessed
only three actual deaths, although many other victims were already dying or
about to be attacked when she appeared on the scene. And she could hear the
sounds and screams from beyond the huts and within the huts as well. But it was
all she needed to see and hear. There was no point in appealing to such men. Any
kshatriya who would ride into a peaceful camp, ignore the sacred appeal of a
man of the cloth, and murder him so brutally as they had just murdered Rishi
Kanwa, were not men at all. They were monsters driven by a misguided
madness, a fanatical devotion to an aberrant sense of dharma, soldiers who had
the power to mete out life and death and were abusing it to slaughter rather than
save, to murder rather than protect. They were exterminators driven by a
distorted interpretation of dharma. Dharmanators, to coin a phrase. And there
was no arguing or speaking to such dharmanators. They could only be stopped in
one way: by killing them as quickly and efficiently as possible.
She aimed at a helmed face with its mouth open wide in laughter, raising a sword
high as it prepared to strike down a young rishi who had just been ordained only
days earlier, his face wet and shiny from copious weeping.
She loosed, and watched the arrow punch into the open mouth and through the
back of the head, the arrowhead striking the inside of the helm with a metallic
clanging impact. The rider toppled backwards off his horse, his sword striking
the rump of another horse nearby and sending it bolting, knocking that rider off
his aim as he was about to throw a spear at another woman running away in
shrieking panic.
The young rishi blinked through his tears, saw the arrow sticking out of the
gaping mouth of the man lying on the ground, the man who had been about to
kill him only a moment ago, and stared upwards uncomprehendingly. Unfamiliar
with war and its methods, he could not fathom that the arrow had been shot by a
mortal hand. He assumed that his soldier had been struck down by the devas.
Sita turned her attention to another target.
A soldier on horseback was about to hack down a kneeling rishi with his parasu.
The kneeling rishi was Rishi Angira, an old and venerated man known for his
ascetic habits and ever-joyous temperament. The younger acolytes always joked
that Rishi Angira had never lost his temper or said a word in anger all his life, so
when he did turn angry, it would surely be an epic temper tantrum! Looking at
him now, calmly cradling the head of a fellow brahmin—Rishi Ashita, she saw,
with a horrible disfiguring wound to his face and neck—as he sat on the stoop of
his own hut, Sita thought that if he was not losing his temper now, he never
would. To have such self-restraint and single-minded conviction in his vows was
beyond admirable, it was proof to her yet again of the inherent goodness and
desire for peaceful co-existence that pervaded all creatures of the universe. That
face, calm and self-assured even in the face of a hideous violent death, was proof
that the natural state of all beings was peaceful existence.
The face beyond the tip of her poised arrow displayed the exact opposite of that
natural calm. It was a face distorted by its own anger and lustful energies,
nostrils flaring as the man snarled in evident delight at his brutal task, swinging
the parasu at a diagonal angle intended to lope Rishi Ashita’s head from his
body. To see a man use an axe for such an act was itself a reminder why the
legendary Parasuram, Rama of the Axe, had taken up the weapon, intended for
chopping trees and wood, and used it to eliminate the kshatriyas of the mortal
realm seven times over in order to teach them humility and respect for their own
preceptors. Clearly, this kshatriya had not heeded that lesson.
She loosed and saw her arrow strike the man in the slim gap between his helm
and his chest armour. It took him in the neck, passing through the soft liquid-
filled stalk and punching through the other side in a small explosion of blood and
gristle. His snarling turned to a liquid gurgling, and the parasu fell useless from
his muscled hands as he grasped at his mortally wounded throat. He fell,
thrashing in his death throes, singing a different tune from the cry of victory he
had been snarling a moment earlier.
She loosed three more arrows in quick succession, saw three more men fall. Two
of them were mortally wounded and died in moments, but one was forewarned
by the fall of the soldier next to him and swung away just as she loosed, the
arrow gouging open a bloody track on his upper thigh but missing all vital
organs. He screamed in pain and outrage and turned to point at her position,
having already watched her two earlier arrows strike home and placing her with
accuracy.
That brought the attention of the others to her and a half dozen riders galloped
towards her at once, roaring with pleasure.
“It’s her!” shouted one to the others, swinging his sword overhead as he came.
“Remember the reward, men!”
She took him down with an arrow in the throat, wincing as his feet and hands
tightened instinctively, bringing down his horse in a fetter-snapping fall. The
horse screamed out the agony that he could not express and she loosed again,
and again, and again, bringing down another, and a third, and wounding a fourth.
But there were still three riders coming at her, and she was out of time. She had
known she ought to have stopped after the first or second shot, circled around to
a new position and then fired again, but she had been unable to let more
innocents die as they would have if she had taken the extra time, so she had
continued standing her ground and loosing arrows, and now it was too late to get
away. So much for her plan of self-extrication!
She leaped over the dead tree trunk that marked the northern boundary of the
main ashram grounds, ducked behind an ancient banyan tree, and ran through the
thickest part of the woods to make it harder for her followers. But there were
more riders coming at her from the other side and there were too many of them
and the same obstacles that made it harder from them to follow also made it
harder for her to shoot while running with any degree of accuracy. She knew
they would catch her in a moment and when they did, she would be dead, so she
made a decision in an instant.
She leaped up on the Y-shaped cradle of an aging tree, swinging around and
letting her back strike the trunk hard, bracing herself, then raising her bow and
preparing to shoot the first horseman who came into sight. That eliminated their
height advantage of being on horseback. There was no way for her to escape this
alive now, but she would take as many of them as possible with her before
dying.
***
Nakhudi cried out with outrage.
She had emerged from the forest into the gurukul. This was a large clearing just
north of the main ashram, used mainly for children’s games, morning and
evening group exercises, and rote chanting by brahmacharyas—the youngest
acolytes of the ashram. Unlike the more permanent denizens of the hermitage
who were all brahmin by vocation if not by birth, these young acolytes could be
from any varna. They were children sent here to be schooled in the guru-shishya
parampara, also known as Upanishad, or learning-by-the-side-of-the-guru, and
they ranged from the age of 7 to 14.
From the looks of it, they were the ones who had been here at the time of the
attack, drilling in martial training exercises as they did everyday, under the
supervision of the rishis. The red-ochre garb of the half dozen rishis who had
been supervising today stood out across the clearing, laying where they had been
standing at the time of the attack. They were overwhelmed by the three dozen
other, much smaller bodies clad in white that lay sprawled around the clearing.
Many of these smaller corpses lay in postures and attitudes that suggested they
had tried to use their meagre training weapons against the intruders. But wooden
swords, lathis and ropes were hardly a match for steel blades and iron spears.
She passed around the clearing with rage boiling in her belly. How could anyone
do this to little children? Mere boys, these were. What had they done to deserve
such a fate?
But after all, it was not about what anyone had done or not done, simply about
who they were.
In a world of haves and have-nots, the man in armour upon horseback with a
sword felt he was entitled to run down and slaughter even innocent young boys
—because they were not ‘Arya’, not noble-born, city-living, high and mighty
citizens here, just shishyas in a forest gurukul. And in a world where power and
wealth and citizenship were what made you superior to your fellow man, if you
were out here in some remote forest, you were not human in the same sense that
those superior beings were human; you were no less than animals, and as such,
fit only for slaughter.
Not a single intruder’s corpse lay in the clearing, testifying to the shock and
overhwelming odds of the attack. These boys and their teachers had never stood
a chance, nor been given one. It went against the very spirit and rule of the
kshatriya code, but after the massacre in her village, she already knew that these
intruders were not kshatriyas, merely vendors of death, come to ply their
business in exchange for coin paid by the highest bidder. No king, no minister,
no Arya court of justice would find them guilty of any crime or wrongdoing.
Their’s the sword, therefore their’s the power and the glory.
Well, she thought, hefting the specially weighted blade she carried to suit her
larger form and heavier carrying strength, I have a sword too, and unlike those
poor brahmacharyas and brahmins, I know how to use it and will can do so!
The sounds of butchery and terror were loudest up ahead, past the vegetable
gardens where the ashramites grew their own food. Horse hooves had tramped
through the gardens as well, she saw, for when one did not respect life, then why
would they respect the things that sustained life? She circled around the crushed
pods and yams and then she was running past a line of sheds that smelled of
cow. She was relieved to hear the panicked mooing and looing of the milk-
giving beasts and thanked Durga Maa that the attackers had not slaughtered the
animals as well. Then she realized it was not out of compassion or even out of
reverence for Go-Maata, the sacred Mother Cow, sustainer of life and
nourishment, but simply out of expedience that they had spared the cows—they
would probably be back later, to finish them off, once they had killed their main
targets, the human residents.
She came around a cow shed just in time to see a woman in saffron-coloured
sadhini’s garb come shrieking from the direction of the main ashram complex.
Three horsemen followed the poor woman, swinging bloody swords and pikes,
and a fourth was following belatedly, hefting what looked like an elephant mace
—the kind used to club war elephants in battle and crush their brains within their
skulls. The faces of the men were glowing with excitement and lust, the lust for
blood and slaughter that she had seen too often before. It was a face she too had
worn, but never as a mask against the slaughter of innocents or the unarmed.
And in response to those leering expressions of lurid lustfulness, she put on her
own face of terrible justice.
The woman ran past her without even registering who she was, simply stumbling
on in panic. She was already bleeding from a deep gash on her back where a
sword had chopped a chunk of flesh out, and her eyes were dilated and wild with
terror. For a woman who had spent years, perhaps her entire life, in silent
contemplation, meditation and prayer, the onslaughter of armed horsemen
seeking to slaughter you for no reason at all, was a shocking violation of her
worldview. She was half-mad with terror.
Nakhudi let her go by, standing in the path of the men following her.
They too had eyes only for the task at hand, hunter to her hunted, and whooped
and called out obscene words as they cantered down with the audaciousness of
men who had no fear of anything and would do as they pleased to whomever
they pleased.
They were about to receive an object lesson in what they could not do.
Nakhudi raised her sword and waved it at the first horseman, who was a good
ten yards ahead of the others.
“You,” she called out, “Try me instead. I’m more fun to play with.”
He blinked and grinned, noticing her for the first time. She realized that even the
sword in her hand had not caused him any concern. As far as he was concerned,
he was king of the world and every living thing was his to command. He was
wrong, and was about to find out just how wrong—the hard way.
He swung his sword in a loping action as he rode up, not slowing a whit. His
intention was to cut her down and ride on after the sadhini.
She didn’t try to deflect his sword. Defense was not her goal. Instead, she swung
higher, raising herself up at just the right moment, and hacked viciously hard at
the junction of his shoulder and arm.
Her sword, weighted one and a half times as much as most longswords, was
strengthened by the rider’s own forward motion. The blade sliced through the
man’s shoulder, severing armour, bone and muscle easily, and lopped off the
entire arm. The arm, still clutching the useless sword, fell to the ground, and the
man rode on, the fist-sized hole in his torso gushing deep crimson heart’s blood
over the crushed vegetables. He made a sound that was like a child wailing, the
kind of sound the youngest brahmacharyas might have made when they had been
cut down mercilessly by his associates and himself. She heard him fall off his
horse behind her but did not bother to turn to look. She was busy greeting the
other riders.
The second one tried to skewer her throat with his iron pike. There were gobs of
flesh stuck to the point and she could smell the reek of something awful as the
weapon shot out at her with deadly efficiency.
She dodged the point, feeling it scrape the edge of her collar, and plunged her
swordblade upwards, into the gap between his armour and his belt. It stabbed
deep into the region of his liver, and beyond, into his vitals, and he screamed
much louder than the first man, sounding more like an animal than a human, and
fell sideways onto her. She had been prepared for that possibility and hurled him
over, sending him sprawling on the ground with a sickly cracking of bones and
more animal screaming, freeing her sword with practised effort.
The third man shouted with anger. He had not expected to see his friends die
before him, killed by a woman be probably assumed to be another sadhini from
the ashram, and was furious. He was the one with the elephant mace and he
came at her with a speed and ferocity that almost undid her.
She rolled in the nick of time—across the path of his horse—and narrowly
missed having her skull stoved in by the pounding hooves. But then she was up
and swinging and he yelled with outrage as her sword hacked through his leather
garments, severing his thigh. He swung the horse around for another pass, but
she had slipped a throwing dagger into her palm from a belt at her waist, and she
flung it at his throat where it stuck and cut off any further sounds of protest he
might wish to produce.
She turned just in time to see the last rider—he was in fact the third rider but he
had hung back after watching her cut down the first man—raise a spear. There
was no time to turn or dodge before he threw the yard-long length of wood and
iron.
 EIGHT
Luv and Kush came at the ashram’s south side to see the bearkillers clashing
with at least two dozen armoured mounted soldiers. The dogs ran amuck,
snapping at the horse’s, panicking them into kicking and jumping, which threw
the riders off their aim as they tried to hack and cut and spear the new arrivals.
They took in the number of white clad and ochre clad corpses lying about with
growing dismay, trying to spot the familiar long black-haired and red clad form
of their Maatr among the dead. Both finished the scan of the visible area and
shook their heads at the exact same time, knowing it did not mean that she was
not dead, merely that they could not see her body.
In their hearts, they could not bring themselves to believe she could be slain. Not
her. Not Maatr. They had watched her spar with Nakhudi any number of times
and both secretly thought that she was the greatest warrior that had ever lived.
Only their guru’s epic poem which they had been taught to recite daily ever since
they could pronounce Sanskrit, filled as it was with tales of derring-do and
incredible battles, described a warrior that could match the great Vedavati’s
prowess at arms. And that was the man who was both the subject of the poem as
well as the architect of its greatest tragedy, Raja Rama Chandra. They felt certain
that even if the legendary Rama Chandra of the poem were to face Maatr, it was
she who would carry the day.
But that did not stop them worrying.
They watched briefly as the bearkillers held their own against the superior arms
and number of attackers, but then began to lose ground almost at once. More and
more horsemen kept coming from around the ashram, called by their comrades
to join the fight, and their sheer numbers and superior arms and mounts made
them impossible to defeat. They knew that they ought to leave the bearkillers to
the fight and go to the canyon as they had been instructed. But they had still not
seen Maatr, dead or alive, and those were their daily companions and friends and
gurus lying dead there on the ground.
With one motion, both slung their bows, notched arrows and drew together.
They glanced sideways at each other, winked with the closest eye, and let fly. As
before, their almost preternatural ability to know one another’s thoughts and
actions enabled them to pick different targets.
Two horsemen about to converge on the scar faced bearkiller from behind
suddenly sprouted arrows from their throats and fell screaming and thrashing off
their horses. The dogs were at their faces and feet at once, snarling and ripping
and tearing viciously, showing the fallen attackers as little mercy as they had
shown their victims.
Scar face did not have time to turn and look in their direction, but he waved two
fingers pressed close together in a sketch of a half-salute and they understood
that he was acknowledging their help. Then he was back in the fray and so were
they.
For the next several moments, they picked out targets and took them down, each
time with a single arrow. Only once did it take more than one arrow and that was
because the man in question turned aside at the last instant and Kush’s arrow was
deflected by the jutting metal of his helm. It clanged off and the man turned to
glare at the place where the boys stood. He shouted to his comrades who shouted
at each other in turn. The fight was turning swiftly. Luv and Kush alone had
brought down over a dozen riders and the bearkillers and dogs had managed as
many. The attackers had likely not expected such resistance and were unwilling
to take such losses. Already, some of them were turning the heads of their horses
and riding away.
Luv and Kush both drew together and with concerted coordination, shot the man
that Kush’s first arrow had missed. Both their arrows took him in the open
mouth, silencing his angry instructions. He gurgled, blood pouring from his
mouth and fell, shuddering violently, onto his head on the ground. Even the dogs
gave him a wide berth as he crashed, already dead.
After that, the spine of the attack was broken and the remaining horsemen
retreated.
But they were not to get away that easily.
Even as Kush and Luv whooped loudly and watched the last of the intruders
riding away, the sound of yells and weapons rose from the north side of the
ashram.
Again, moving as if with one body and mind, they slung their bows and ran.
They ran past the bearkillers, who shouted at them. Ragini tried to grab at Luv as
he went past, but he dodged and slipped away easily, and he heard her curse
herself as he flew by. Kush and he went around the corner of the largest hut and
beyond the main ashram courtyard to the north side, where the vegetable gardens
and training grounds were located.
They saw a rider about to fling a spear at a woman whom they recognized at
once as Nakhudi, from her stance and the way she held her sword. She had been
caught unawares and the spear would hit her squarely in the chest—or in the side
if she tried to turn away.
But another spear came shooting out of the thicket beyond the vegetable garden
and strike the rider low in the belly, just as his own spear left his hand. The other
spear struck just a fraction of a moment before he released his weapon, just
enough to cause his aim to go awry. The spear passed within an inch of
Nakhudi’s side, ripping a tear in her garment noisily as it flew past. A little blood
spurted from the spot but Nakhudi didn’t even bother to react or clap a hand to it
as anyone else might have done. Instead, she ran straight towards the main
ashram, the expression on her face like nothing Luv and Kush had ever seen
before.
They ran out in front of her, blocking her way and for an instant, Luv thought
that she would run straight at them, cutting them both down with a single stroke
of her sword. Then something changed in her eyes as she registered and
recognized them and she blinked and lowered her sword, slowing her pace.
She stopped before them, the terrible mask slipping from her face and another
more familiar face replacing it. This Nakhudi they knew well. This Nakhudi
clasped their shoulders with great relief.
“You are well! Kali be blessed. Where is your Maatr?”
They shook their heads.
“Not dead,” Luv said for both of them. “We haven’t seen her body anywhere.
The bearkillers said she might be dead already but we would have seen her by
now.”
“Quickly, then,” she said, “she might be somewhere in the ashram precincts still.
We must find her before they do!”
They needed no further urging.
“Luv and I will search the eastern side,” Kush said. “You take the main complex.
But be careful, there are soldiers there still.”
“That’s all right,” she said grimly. “I have soldiers too.”
She beckoned and the man who had flung the spear that saved her life came
jogging through the vegetable garden, looking apologetic as he trod the last of
the pumpkins to a pulp. Behind him came a swarm of other men similar to him,
white-haired and thick with age. They ran past, following Nakhudi.
Kush and he looked at one another in puzzlement. “Old soldiers? What can they
do to help?”
They shook their heads as they sprinted to the east perimeter to search for their
mother.
***
Sarama was not an old dog but she was ailing. Constant birthing had taken its
toll on her and she had produced more litters than dogs twice her age. She was
very proud of that and of the size of her brood and their robust health and
strength. But being a Maatr was not easy and it had drained her resources
considerably. As a result she had grown as frail as most dogs twice or thrice her
age. Nature had a way of balancing things out in the end. She could no longer
run, jump, bark or fight even half as well as she once did.
But there was one thing she could do as well if not better than ever.
Scent.
Even as the rest of her body and senses shrivelled away and weakened, her sense
of smell remained strong. In fact, due to her eyesight fading and her other senses
failing, she had come to rely almost entirely on that sense of smell, and used it to
great advantage. Where other dogs would use a combination of sight and hearing
and smell to make decisions, choose directions and otherwise pursue various
courses of actions, Sarama relied mainly on her nose to lead her through the last
remaining months, perhaps years, of her life. Dogs that grow blind or deaf will
often do the same, coming to rely on the one sense their kind trusted the most.
For eyes could be deceived by illusions, sounds could resemble one another or
be mistaken, but smells were pure and perfect. No scent was quite like another,
and even groups of scents, while sharing an affinity and similarity, were easily
discernible from one another. To a dog, the world was a world of smells, each to
its own. Not a black and white world but a universe where each and every scent
was an unique, distinct shade of colour. Sarama often confused men with one
another, or even with trees and horses, and she would puzzle over sounds for
hours sometimes, unable to fathom their meaning, such as the nasal reptitive
sounds recited over and over by the little humans in the ashram each day, but she
never confused smells. Smells were sacred. Thus had the great creator of
dogkind made all her followers in Her image. Go forth and scent the world, it is
your’s to sniff and snuffle to your nose’s content.
It was this sense of smell that told her that the good Maatr was in trouble.
She milled about at the edges of the fight in the ashram grounds, barking mostly
and snarling and nipping a little, but mostly keeping away from the flailing limbs
and hooves and nasty metal cutting things that humans used to harm one another.
Her brood was doing admirably well, participating and assisting their human
friends with great enthusiasm and success. She was very proud of them. But she
knew better than to try to fight as they fought, for if she received so much as a
cut to her vital organs or a hard blow, she knew she would not survive it. The last
litter or two had taken a heavy toll on her. Three of her pups had been born still-
born and of the remaining four only two survived beyond the first year, and even
those two were relatively frail and prone to illness.
Also, there was a constant pain in her birthing chamber that only worsened as
time went by, and she sensed that this pain was caused by some inner canker that
would ultimately be the death of her. She knew this and accepted it with the
equanimity of all animalkind, for life and death were one and the same thing,
and this world or the next, they all belonged to Pashupati, lord of animals. Not
understanding names or the human words by which they called to their own kind
as well as her kind, she did not know that she had been named after the great
Sarama herself, matrix of all dogkind. But even so, she knew that all dogs, good
or nasty, smelly or sweet, toothless or sharp-fanged, must lay down someday,
never to rise again. So it was to be with her and so it would be with every living
creature.
But there was nothing wrong with her sense of smell. On the contrary. And as a
downwind from the east brought a fresh batch of scents to her keen black
nostrils, she became aware that the Good Maatr, the one who lived in a kennel
apart from the others, with her two little pups, all three of whom were
exceedingly kind and generous to Sarama as well as her brood, and who had
nursed her and many of her offspring through many ailments and injuries, that
good matriarch was in trouble. She could smell the scent of her blood and her
sweat, ripe with fear and anger, the peculiar mixture of the two that exuded from
a being when it was on the verge of death. She knew that scent well, she knew
she would smell it on herself someday soon. And it was not right that Maatr
should be exuding that scent.
Barking loudly, she tried to attract the attention of some of her brood. But some
of them were busy finishing off the metal-furred men that had fallen off the
backs of their horses, and the rest were chasing after the ones who were trying to
ride away. The humans she and the other dogs had accompanied here were busy
fighting and chasing too, and paid her no heed. She was, after all, just one of
thirty dogs barking and running around!
So she turned and made away on her own.
She did not have far to go. In moments, she found the spot from which the wind
had carried the Maatr’s scent to her. It was a little enclave set off from the main
ashram, and as such not directly visible from there.
The scenario was bad, worse than she had expected.
There were several of the horse-riding bad men here, waving those horrible
metal things that cut and hurt terribly and that dogs must avoid being struck by
at all costs, on pain of death. A few of them lay dead or mortally wounded on the
ground, their horses milling about or slipping away into the woods to try and
find their fellow equines. But a pack of more than one paw’s worth and less than
two paws’ worth still surrounded the tree before which the Maatr stood,
defending herself with her own metal thing.
It was good that Maatr had a metal thing to defend herself. But Sarama sensed
that Maatr had been up on the tree not long before, and from that position had
shot those flying wooden missiles that hurt from afar. That was how she had
killed so many of her attackers already. But apparently she had run out of
wooden things to shoot and had been forced to use the metal thing and now she
was at a grave disadvantage. For there were many of the men and only one of
her, and they were clad in that iron-scented metal fur which no dog could bite
through for fear of breaking her teeth, and they were very vicious, snarling
brutes who seemed to want nothing more than to tear her throat out and rip out
her guts.
Sarama did not wish to see Maatr lay down here and end her life. She loved
Maatr and her young cubs.
She milled about restlessly for a moment, fretting and worrying. Finally, she
realized there was nothing else left to do. She was the only one here who could
help Maatr. Either she risked her life to do so, or Maatr would die.
She had no choice really.
She shook herself vigorously, waking up her ailing body as best as she could.
She felt a sharp arrow of pain in her nether regions and yelped but then forced
herself to ignore the pain. There was no time to think of her pain now, it was
Maatr who was in grave danger. And Maatr must be helped.
Turning in the opposite direction she took a running length then turned around
sharply and launched herself at the men in metal fur, her yellowed fangs bared in
a snarl.
 NINE
Luv and Kush heard the sounds of a dog in distress and knew at once it was
Sarama. She had a distinctive yelp when in trouble or pain which they had heard
often over the years. Being the oldest dog they knew, and one they had been
intimately friendly with almost since birth, her voice was as recognizable to
them as any human’s. They sprinted in the direction her yelps had come from,
separating and taking opposite, converging routes to go around the thicket. When
they came around into view of the banyan tree and the violent scene before it,
both had arrows notched and ready to loose.
It was a heartbreaking scene, underscored by a cacophony of tired barks,
punctuated by the sound of steel on steel.
Maatr stood with her back to the old tree, defending herself valiantly with a
sword in her left hand against three of the attackers. She was bleeding from a
dozen nicks and cuts, her right arm hung limply by her side, her right thigh bled
profusely from a gash, and there was blood on her chin and chest from what
appeared to be a copious nose bleed. Kush guessed that a sword hilt had been
pummeled into her face, breaking her nose. Luv thought that her arm was
dislocated and that the fact that her bow lay broken on the Y-juncture of the tree
trunk, just above and behind her, indicated that she had been up there, firing
arrows from her vantage point, when one of the riders had flung something, a
spear perhaps, or even an axe, and in avoiding the weapon, she had lost the bow
and dislocated her shoulder. She seemed otherwise all right but her strength was
clearly failing her and the sword work was tiring her out. The attackers knew
this and were deliberately forcing her to keep her guard up and keep swinging
this way then that, exhausting her good arm, until the moment came when she let
the sword drop for an instant, and they could plunge through. A few more
minutes and that moment would have come and they would both have been
orphaned; it was a miracle she was managing as well as she was at all. From the
looks of it, she had killed seven attackers with the bow and another three with
the sword already. It was unlikely she would take any more down, but just the
fact that she had cost them so heavily had earned her a grudging respect from her
opponents, which was why they had opted for this slower but more effective
method of tiring her out.
The dog stood with Maatr, barking and leaping about, trying to avoid the deadly
sword points and blade edges but more concerned with keeping the attackers at
bay. From the looks of it, at least two of the fallen men had their throats torn out,
which was obviously Sarama’s handiwork. That itself was impressive. More
impressive—and heartbreaking—were the many slashes, cuts and jabs on the
aging matriarch-dog’s body, bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds, any of
which were probably enough to end her days. The very fact that she continued to
bark and snap so valiantly, with nothing to protect her from the lethal steel
swinging to and fro, testified to her loyalty and courage.
Both boys felt lumps in their throats at the sight.
Time to end this now.
Luv whistled sharply.
Maatr was smart enough not to look in their direction. She had already seen
them in her peripheral vision and restrained herself from showing any reaction.
She continued swinging her blade to and fro in the defensive movement,
blocking and parrying the regular thrusts and cuts of the three men. She had
trained them herself in the art of seeing without turning to look. Taking one’s
eyes off one’s opponent might be the last time one turned to look at anything,
she had warned them.
The others were not as smart.
Two of the men turned at once, expecting deva knew what. The instant their
faces looked towards Luv and Kush, their swords turning away from Maatr, both
brothers loosed as one. The arrows sped as one bolt, striking at the exact same
instant, producing a combined chunking sound as the points went home into the
exposed sides of the necks of the men. Both men dropped their swords, clutched
identically at their necks, and fell to the ground, thrashing in their death throes.
They resembled dancers in some grotesque palace performance, mirroring the
same dance steps.
Sarama wheeled as well and saw them. She leaped up into the air, barking with
renewed vigor and joy. She even performed a complete somersault, something
they hadn’t seen her do since they were five and she almost as young. She was
that thrilled to see them.
Sadly, as Maatr had rightly warned, that was the worst thing any person could do
when the enemy was at your throat. That somersault and the sight of her young
masters were the last things the poor old dog ever did or saw.
The third soldier, nearest to Sarama, had probably been waiting for an
opportunity. The raw wounds on his right arm and foot suggested that she had
already mauled and savaged him more than once during the fight and he had
been waiting to pay her back. He turned his sword, plunging it into the
breastbone, and into the furry body beneath.
The boys gasped as they saw most of the length of the sword slide into their
beloved Sarama’s body.
She collapsed, falling with a sickening thump to the ground.
The attacker laughed with satisfaction as he yanked the blade out of the dying
dog, pressing the heel of his boot against her snout to brace himself. Even in that
moment of ultimate surrender, she still attempted to nip at his ankle, the heel
snapping off her canine tooth as it came down hard on her face. Any sound she
made was lost in the gruff laughter of the man.
Blood spurted from her mouth, and she collapsed, lolled her tongue, and died.
The man’s laughter was abruptly cut off by the sensation of a sword piercing his
guts. Maatr plunged the blade in hard enough for the point to emerge from his
back, very low. He bent over, grunting mournfully. She put her boot to his face,
kicking him away and freeing her blade in the same motion. He toppled
backwards and fell, not dying immediately but rolling in agony, beyond help and
unable to rise and do more harm.
The instant he was clear of Maatr and Sarama’s body, the boys put an arrow each
into him. The bolts thumped home, stilling his groans. They wanted to keep
shooting arrows into his body but knew better than to waste good bolts on a dead
enemy.
Maatr looked over their shoulders, then around, checking the fallen attackers and
keeping a wary eye out.
They ran to her. She stilled them with an upraised hand, still holding the sword,
as she continued her check.
“The rest are dead or fled,” Kush said. “Maatr, are you all right?”
She turned to them. “Are you sure?”
Luv slung his bow over his shoulder. “Maatr, are you wounded badly?”
“Are you sure?” she repeated urgently, still holding the sword up defensively.
Both boys nodded in unison, eyes wet with tears.
She looked around, then back at them, saw the tears in their eyes, and finally
relented. “All right,” she said wearily, “all right.” She lowered the sword,
pushing the point of the blade into the soft earth and resting on the hilt. “If
you’re sure it’s over, we’re safe…?”
“The bearkillers are here, and Nakhudi has friends,” Luv offered, resisting the
urge to run to her and hug her tightly.
“If you like, we can check for ourselves,” Kush offered, though he did not want
to do anything of the sort; all he wanted to do was run to his mother and bury his
face in her belly and cry.
She looked around one last time, leaning hard on the sword, her eyes filming
over with exhaustion and relief. “Good, good. I mean, no. Don’t go to check. I’m
sure Nakhudi will take care of it. And the bearkillers. Good.”
She looked at them and her expression changed. Both of them saw her eyes
soften and dampen instantly, as she finally permitted herself to be just their
mother again. “I am so pleased to see you both, my sons. Alive and well. So
pleased.”
She toppled backwards, fell on her rear end on the ground, then fell back
unconscious. The sword remained stuck where she had put it, swaying slowly.
They rushed to her.
***
It was a very subdued and oddly mixed group that assembled in the ashram
courtyard some time later. The corpses of the dead—friend and foe alike—had
been carried over to the North clearing and lined up there, awaiting last rites and
cremation. Maharishi Valmiki himself sat with his head and arm bound with
whatever clean cloth was available. He had been caught unawares early in the
attack and struck down hard by a mace blow when he emerged from his hut to
see what the commotion was about. Somehow, he had survived with only a
bruised skull and broken arm. He looked sombre and sad. Every face was grim,
several still stained by tear streaks, some still in pain, with injuries minor or
major, and more than a few were angry, even on the verge of rage. The double
rows of little bodies were responsible for invoking that last emotion. Even the
most peacable of brahmins or sadhinis could not overcome the revulsion and
rage that rose unbidden at the thought of those little innocents being hacked
down so mercilessly. There had already been several tirades and angry words
and it had taken a while and some words from Maharishi Valmiki before they
calmed down sufficiently to sit silently.
Sita herself felt that same rage, but coupled with it was a great sense of relief
that her sons had survived. She knew that was only because of the training she
had imparted unto them, and the fortuitous fact that they had not been present at
the time of the attack so were not caught unawares in the thick of the melee. But
had the bearkillers not been alerted to the approach of the attackers by their
assault on Nakhudi’s village earlier, and had Nakhudi herself not arrived when
she had, with a whole company of aging but nevertheless fit and armed ex-
soldiers, then the entire ashram would certainly have been wiped out, down to
the last living creature. One attacker had been about to start killing the milch
cows when Captain Bejoo and his men came upon him and his companions—
had they come even moments later, the cows would have been hacked down
where they stood. And the children! Oh, the children. What monsters could do
such things?
She forced her own emotions under control and listened as Maharishi Valmiki
began to speak. The guru sat on the raised mud stoop of his own hut, as he did
everyday during his daily pravachan. But never before had he addressed such a
motley gathering: Before him the remnants of the ashram inhabitants sat cross-
legged as they always did, barely two dozen-odd brahmins and sadhinis who had
survived from almost twice that number, most of them injured physically, every
last one greviously soul-struck and psychologically shocked. To his right sat the
bearkillers, crouched down on their haunches, weapons laid behind them out of
consideration for the Maharishi, yet close enough at hand just in case. They had
lost only two of their number and suffered a few minor injuries, while causing
over a dozen casualties. To the guru’s left sat Bejoo and the retired PFs. They
had suffered no losses at all, just three minor injuries. By the time they had
appeared on the scene, the attackers had already been in retreat and apart from
the attempted cow-killer and three or four of his associates, they had caused no
further casualties in the enemy ranks either. Nakhudi and her sons sat close
beside her.
She listened with only half her mind as the guru spoke deep glowing words of
reassurance, drawing on his deep knowledge of the Vedas, the sacred repository
of all knowledge in the mortal world, and providing explanations that threw light
on the events of the day. They were wonderful, healing words and she felt their
efficacy in calming her spirit and acting as a balm to her emotional wounds. But
she could not help thinking through the details and reasons of today’s assault.
In all, about forty of the attackers had died during the ashram attack and its
aftermath, almost half of that number killed by Sita herself and her sons. That
was an inherent advantage of arrowcraft of course but it was more than that. It
was the difference between armed and trained kshatriyas in a state of
preparedness and innocent unarmed brahmins caught unawares. Sita had long
since thought that if only she and a few of the other acolytes could form a
permanent sentry watch of the ashram, they could have ensured a better defense
in the event of such an attack. But Maharishi Valmiki had forbidden that outright
each time she suggested it, and moreover, while many ashrams encouraged the
bearing of weapons and even the use of them in training on a daily basis,
Valmiki Ashram emphasized ahimsa, peaceful existence, as a way of life. Even
the young brahmacharyas who trained in warcraft were only permitted to use
wooden training weapons —their final year of weapons training was conducted
at Vashishta Ashram north of Ayodhya. While many maharishis spoke of non-
violence and peaceful co-existence fervently, Valmiki made it an integral aspect
of everyday living.
But that was not the reason this had happened. Living in peace was not the
reason for so many having died violently today. Armed mercenaries as well-
equipped, trained and experienced as these had been did not simply come
rampaging through ashrams. Rakshasas had once attacked outposts, ashrams and
travellers in just such vicious fashion, and there was no doubt that these men had
behaved like rakshasas in their brutal assault. But rakshasas attacked because
their kind and mortalkind were engaged in an internecine struggle for dominance
of the mortal realm. These mercenaries had no racial or species survival
motivation for their actions. They were quite obviously following orders and
getting paid exceedingly well for doing so. Purses had been found on every
single one, identical purses filled with goldcoin. The coin was Ayodhyan, struck
with the king’s seal, no less. And the number had been the same in every case:
thirty gold coins. A small fortune, sufficient to enable each one of them to live
comfortably for years, buy his way into a good position at any Arya court, or
provide capital to set up his own trade or business. Retirement funds. That
explained the brutal vigor with which they had pursued their mission. But it
didn’t explain why the persons who had paid them had ordered them to attack
these particular targets. It was possible that even they did not know or care.
Their job was to ride here and kill everyone, and they had tried to do that as best
and as quickly as possible.
She also thought that they were not likely to return. The losses they had suffered
had been considerable, almost half of their total number. They could not have
expected such heavy casualties on such a mission. It must have come as a great
shock to those who survived and got away. They would likely not care to return
to their employers, who might well get upset with them for having left any
survivors, and might even demand that they return forthwith and complete their
given task. Fulfil your dharma, kshatriya, as the phrase went. Which they would
not want to do, when faced with such superior opposition. So they would
probably just ride out and keep riding and enjoy their ill-gotten gains. She
understood their type well enough to be certain that was what they would do.
Which meant the ashram was safe enough. For now.
But sooner or later, the people who had sent this attack force here would learn of
their survival. And once they learned that some of them still lived, they would
send more mercenaries. Again. And again. Until they accomplished their task.
They must act before that happened.
Her mind made up, she waited for a suitable break in the pravachan, then stood
and waited until Maharishi Valmiki acknowledged her.
He did so very soon. His drawn face and deeply set eyes reflected his own inner
sorrow as he nodded, permitting her to speak.
“Gurudev,” she said in a voice loud enough to be heard across the courtyard, yet
sombrely enough to reflect the grim mood of the occasion, “A terrible thing has
happened here today. Someone from Ayodhya has ordered our extermination.”
Valmiki sighed and looked down for a moment, as if she had said the very thing
he had been dreading she would say. “It is a terrible thing indeed. Yet we cannot
know who caused it or what their reasons were. Let us not make hasty
assumptions.”
She shook her head, disagreeing gently but firmly. “Not assumptions, guruji.
Conclusions. The evidence we have found points to only one source for this
heinous assault. Ayodhya.”
There were murmers of agreement from both sides, as bearkillers and veterans
agreed alike with her conclusion. Even the wan and pale ashramites listened with
morbid interest. She saw her sons exchange a glance and saw that Nakhudi
observed that glance with a peculiar expression and felt her heart ache with a
familiar pain. And I even know his name but cannot speak it aloud, for he is the
father of our children.
“Even if we cannot name the ultimate perpetrator responsible, there is no doubt
about Ayodhya’s involvement.” She held her hand down to Nakhudi who
understood what she meant and passed up one of the purses to her. Sita held it
up, removing a coin and holding it up so it caught the evening light and gleamed
coldly, viciously. “This is the king’s seal. These coin purses were not given to
ordinary men for any ordinary task. These were men personally hired and
instructed by the king himself or someone close to him. Former Vajra Captain
Bejoo can confirm this. He received similar purses from the late Maharaja
Dasaratha during his reign and the present liege, King Rama Chandra.”
She held a hand out in Bejoo’s direction, the same hand that held the purse. The
other hand had been reset by Nakhudi but still ached terribly and would be
unusuable for a few days. Bejoo stood and looked around, nodding sadly, almost
shamefully.
“It is true. That is a maharaja’s purse, given only to those following his explicit
orders on private missions. These men were working for none other than the
king of Ayodhya.”
This provoked an outburst of murmers which Sita quelled with another gesture.
“Given this evidence, I say we act at once and ensure that such an attack does
not happen again.”
Many heads bobbed, nodding in agreement. But there was one whose opinion
counted more than the others. She turned to look at Maharishi Valmiki, joining
her hands together in supplication. It hurt to move the injured hand even by that
much but she held the namaskaram out of respect for her guru and protector for
all these years.
“Gurudev,” she said. “We ask your aashirwaad to go forth and attempt to resolve
this situation. Pray, grant us your sacred blessings that we may ensure the
survival of the inhabitants of this ashram and the continuance of your great work
here.”
Maharishi Valmiki looked at her with troubled dark eyes. His once-jet black
beard sprouted several curls of white and his face was lined and drawn with the
pain of the day’s events.
“Lady Vedavati,” he said, “You feel this is our only recourse? We cannot simply
put this incident behind us and continue with our lives as before?”
She shook her head slowly, using her good arm to point north, towards the
northern clearing, where all the bodies lay awaiting their final unction. “Can we?
Truly?”
He lowered his head, acknowledging the truth of what she said. Several heads
bowed with his as well, sharing his sorrow. Sita felt his pain at seeing this day
come to pass and resented the man who had brutalized the peaceful environment
of the Maharishi’s ashram and brought things to such a pass.
Yet she knew that they must act, if only to survive. And taking action meant
doing whatever was necessary.
What other choice do we have now?
What choice has Rama left us?
 TEN
Shatrugan and Bharat rode silently at the head of the long column. Glancing
back, it seemed as if the line went on forever, to the horizon and beyond,
endlessly. And these are only our own forces. The vanar armies are on a separate
route, moving across woodland and hinterland, eastwards. The thought of an
army of this size—two armies, to be precise—was mind-numbing. This was no
Ashwamedha yagna, it was a campaign of empirical conquest and expansion.
And every maharaja, raja, clan chief, tribe chief and grama chief across
Aryavarta would see it as such.
He could not believe that such a day could come to pass when Ayodhya the great
emblem of democracy and kingly virtue would send forth an army to conquer its
own neighbours, allies and friends in this manner. There was nothing this yagna
would achieve that could not be achieved simply by calling a Grand Council, a
Maha-Sabha of all the leaders of all the forces that governed the diverse nations
and communities of the sub-continent and outlands.
Such a Maha-Sabha had been called before, by the great Manu Lawmaker, when
he proposed an uniform code of kshatriya conduct and recommended a similar
code be drawn up by the heads of each varna and adhered to throughout the
civilized world. Many other great things had been proposed and ratified at that
same Maha-sabha. The shelves in the King’s Library of Ayodhya were heavy
with the scroll records of its achievements. Guru Vashishta had made them spend
several dusty days studying the original scrolls themselves as young men, to see
for themselves what their ancestors had wrought through diplomacy, wisdom
and through Arya dharma—the noblest form of dharma possible.
And today, what good were all the scrolls in that great library, all those annals,
all those treaties and writs and declarations and codes and lawbooks? In one fell
sweep, the war-hawks had driven Rama to build an army the likes of which had
never even been imagined before and which was certainly not required, and his
hawkish advisors and ministers had convinced him to send forth the army on this
travesty of a ritual. There was no need for an Ashwamedha yagna. Ayodhya was
already acknowledged as the supreme power in the Arya world. A king did not
need a ceremony to remind people that he was still king. And even if such a
ceremony was called for, it certainly did not require the sending forth of an
armed force of this strength and magnitude to ensure that nobody disagreed with
the king’s authority. Only a tyrant deployed such an iron hand. A great king
needed only a firm voice to command obedience.
Bharat knew Rama was a great king. Ram Rajya, his reign was rightly called.
And he had done a great deal of good for the kingdom and the capital city. But at
what cost? Dharma, his catchphrase, his unofficial slogan, his motto for all
occasions, was all well and good. But this was not dharma, this was beyond
dharma or anything akin to it. This was simply war-mongering. And he did not
believe Rama was a war-monger. As Dasaratha’s son, as the heir to the sunwood
throne, protector of the Arya world and inheritor of the burden of responsibility
of caring for the welfare of the civilized world, he knew better. But those year in
exile, the things he had undergone, the atrocities and wars and struggles, perhaps
they had changed Rama more deeply than even he, Bharat, had suspected at
first.
Or perhaps it was the loss of Sita.
Yes.
That was what his heart believed. The true cause at the centre of Rama’s change
of personality and outlook.
Banishing Sita had altered Rama forever. From within and without. He was no
longer the man who had left for exile as a young married prince in love with his
new bride, nor was he the man who had returned from that long and punishing
exile, marked by the scars of a thousand violent encounters and a terrible war.
This man was someone else. Someone Bharat did not entirely understand. All he
knew was that the day Rama had banished Sita, he had begun to change. And
today, this travesty that was being passed off as a yagna, this was only the
culmination of that long process of change.
The sound of a conch shell trumpet startled him out of his reverie. He looked up,
trying to discern the source of the alarm.
Shatrugan pointed up ahead, over the hill that obscured their view. “Up ahead
from the front of the line. That sounds like…” He broke off, glancing at Bharat
with a grim expression. “I hope it isn’t what I think it is.”
Bharat cursed softly under his breath. “Let’s go.”
They broke away from their line and rode along the shoulder of the raj-marg.
The lines of foot-soldiers, marching six-abreast in full battle kit, blurred past as
they broke into a full-out gallop. The conch shell alarm was taken up by their
own trumpeteer, followed thereafter by the one at the head of the next column
and so on down the line. With the sheer number of columns and regiments in the
procession, he thought it would probably take an hour or more for the alarm to
finally reach Rama himself, for based on the distance Shatrugan and he had
come and their relative position to the royal regiment, Rama was probably only
just departing the First Gate now, on the evening of the day the great yagna had
begun.
They crested the hill and saw that it was indeed what they had feared. From the
ranks of cavalry riding at a brisk canter a yojana ahead—they could make this
out from the shape and movement of the dust cloud raised by the horses—they
estimated that the incident had occurred just west of the Videha border. Bharat
felt a surge of alarm mixed with uncertain emotions. Surely Videhans were not
involved! He couldn’t bear to even think of the possibility of going to war
against his own in-laws! What would Mandvi think? And Taksha and Pushkala
were in Mithila as well, alongwith their mother, for one of their grandfather’s
frequent peace ceremonies. The thought of this mighty force going up against
the voluntary reserve militia of Videha made his blood run cold.
“Come on,” he said grimly, spurring his horse downhill. Shatrugan needed no
urging; the same thoughts were surely passing through his mind as well. After
all, they had the same in-laws.
***
Lakshman pointed an accusing finger at the man at the head of the mercenary
force. “What do you mean, someone took the horse? The only ones I see here are
you fellows!”
The man stared arrogantly back at Lakshman. He and the sixty-odd soldiers
behind him were all mounted on handsome horses, fully armoured and well-
equipped. While Lakshman didn’t recognize him or any of the men he
commanded, he recognized the equipment well enough. It was king’s issue,
given out only to those on missions for the maharaja himself. I mean missions
for the Samrat, he thought acidly. That and the fact that the man had known the
proper Sanskrit codes that pronounced him as one of their own was scant
reassurance to him. His gut told him something was wrong and he trusted his gut
over any number of codes or authorizations.
For one thing, he knew that these men had no business being here. Nobody was
supposed to be ahead of the sacred stallion. Sumantra and he were the
frontrunners, the only ones permitted to watch the animal from close quarters.
Everyone else was expected to follow.
Yet these men had appeared from nowhere, cutting across his and Sumantra’s
path, almost startling the horses drawing the old prime minister’s chariot, and
had just made the astonishing claim that the horse had been taken.
How? When?
Only moments before, Lakshman had been watching the rear end of the horse
with his own eyes. Tail twitching rhythmically, the beast had been cantering
leisurely along the wooded path, heading deeper into the woods and farther away
from any recognized human settlement, which suited him perfectly.
Then, suddenly something had startled the beast and he had seen it lurch, whinny
in panic, then break into a gallop, racing off the path and into the woods. He had
coaxed his horse to speed up and was about to follow the sacred stallion when
suddenly, this band of armed horsemen had burst out of the woods, blocking his
way effectively and shouting that the royal horse had been captured and a
challenge issued. He had ordered them out of the way so he could follow the
horse. He was certain that it could not possibly have been taken in the few
moments since he had seen it bolt into the woods, and even if it had, how could
these men have seen that happen, and ridden out to intercept him, all within a
moment or two? It was impossible. Yet this man provided the pre-arranged code
which identified him as one of the maharaja’s regiment, and insisted on this
absurd claim.
“We are the emperor’s men,” said the man leading the band. “It is our sworn
duty to protect and serve our liege and his interests. We tell you, the horse has
been taken and the challenge issued. Sound the alarm, ex-pradhan mantri. You
know the protocol.”
Lakshman had glanced back at Sumantra. The old man’s bushy brows were
knitted together suspiciously as he stared at the newcomer.
“Do as you are told, oldun,” said the man harshly. “Or you will be reported to
Lord Bhadra and Pradhan Mantri Jabali and dealt with severely!”
Sumantra’s eyes narrowed and he held the man’s gaze for a moment. “I will
issue the alarm, not because I fear reprimand, but because you are right, it is the
protocol.” To Lakshman he said in a kinder, almost apologetic tone. “If we lose
sight of the stallion for even as long as this much time, it is our duty to sound the
alarm and inform the king.”
“Emperor,” the horseman corrected harshly.
Sumantra glared at him but said nothing. Instead, he picked up a red flag on a
pole from the floor of the chariot, hefted it up as high as he could manage and
waved it to and fro several times until it was seen by the next contingent behind
them. The flagman of that contingent responded by waving a similar flag back at
him, then turned and instructed the trumpeteer beside him on that chariot. The
man immediately took up his conch shell trumpet and sounded the clear
booming tones that carried across the landscape loudly enough to be heart miles
behind. The instant his conch shell fell silent, the next one in the procession a
mile or so behind them sounded, and in this manner the alarm was taken up and
followed down the line, all the way back to Ayodhya where it would be heard
finally by the king. Sorry, emperor.
Lakshman pushed his horse a yard forward, taking it almost snout to snout with
the newcomer’s horse. “What name do you go by, soldier?” he asked roughly.
“Why?” asked the man with a sly grin. “Do you wish to suggest me for a
commendation?”
Lakshman resisted the urge to draw his sword and slice the insolent grin off the
man’s face. Instead, he said, “Your name.”
The man shrugged. “Aarohan.”
Lakshman stared at him a moment longer, then snapped his reins, urging his
horse forward. He rode straight at the rest of the gang milling about, blocking his
path. He saw their eyes flick to their leader, over his shoulder, as he approached.
He also saw several of them reach for the hilts of their swords and other
weapons, as if prepared to fight him rather than let him pass.
He did not turn to look back but from the relaxing of their expressions and the
fact that they moved their horses aside with brisk tugs of their reins, he
understood that they had asked and received permission visually from their
leader to let him pass.
That galled him no end. What right did they have to decide whether or not he
passed! Who were these men anyway and why were they permitted—or ordered,
as they claimed—to ride ahead of the horse itself in violation of the ritual’s
rules? And what was this game they were playing? Besides, he could see
bloodstains, tears and rents, and other indications that this group had been in a
fight very recently. What did that mean? The horse had been in his view until
only moments ago. There had been nobody to fight. So whom had these men
been fighting and where and why?
He had no answers to these questions, and it was possible they did not matter.
His only concern right now was the horse and what had happened to it. That was
his sole responsibility. He would never have lost sight of it had these buffoons
not come riding out and blocked his path as they had done—quite deliberately,
he knew, although he also knew that it would not sound logical were he to
explain the same to Rama or to anyone else, because they would in turn claim
that they had only been riding to warn him.
But he knew damn well the horse had not been taken or challenged until they
had appeared.
And he would prove that in another moment or two, once he followed its trail
and found it.
He rode past the last of the men, clearly nursing a broken or badly injured arm in
a makeshift sling, and then went past them and into the forest, praying he could
pick up the trail of the horse and locate it before it grew too dark to read signs.
He didn’t think it would be possible. Already, the sun was low in the western sky
and long shadows were drawing across the forest. And while the men might be
louts and arrogant asses, he did not think they were lying altogether. Someone
must have taken the horse, even if that someone turned out to be one of Arohan’s
own men or associates.
The question was why.
He intended to find that out.
***
Shatrugan exclaimed in a low voice. Bharat and he were galloping down the raj-
marg, just passing the head of the first column. The officers saluted both of them
as they rode past. Bharat didn’t waste time saluting or slowing. He had seen the
same thing Shatrugan had and didn’t like the looks of it.
They were still a good four or five hundred yards from the frontrunner’s chariot.
He knew that was manned by the former pradhan mantri Sumantra, with
Lakshman riding alongside on point to keep a watch for any challengers or
threats to the sacred horse. That was the custom. Strictly speaking, the king or
chieftain for whose good fortunes the yagna was being performed usually rode
the chariot, with the queen’s foremost champion riding alongside as protection.
But since Rama was now an Emperor and presumably too important to be riding
a bumpy old single chariot by himself, he had delegated the task to Sumantra.
Although why an ex-prime minister should be handling the chore rather than the
present incumbent prime minister, Jabali, who at least filled an official capacity
in the government of the nation, Bharat could not fathom. Like most of Rama’s
operations and decisions, his motives were inscrutable to all but the most
intimate of his advisors. For that matter, Bhadra, as the declared champion at the
last mela, ought to be the one riding alongside the chariot, but Bhadra being
Bhadra, was way back there with Rama.
And now, if he was seeing correctly ahead, Bharat thought he might guess at the
reason why protocol had been conveniently sidestepped.
He saw what looked like a violent scuffle up ahead. A band of armoured and
heavily armed horseriders—the setting sun flashed off their armour and reflected
off their weapons as they swung them—seemed to be attacking a lone man in the
frontrunner chariot. That would be Sumantra. Where was Lakshman then?
Bharat had no idea. But he would certainly find out very quickly. He didn’t
know who those men were or why they were attacking the aging pradhan mantri
who had been acknowledged as one of the finest diplomats ever to grace Arya
governance, and one of the greatest peacekeepers as well, but he knew that it
could not be because Sumantra had wanted or invited violence. If Sumantra was
engaged in a violent clash with an entire company of armed cavalry as it seemed,
then the horsemen were the ones attacking without provocation.
He urged his horse to gallop faster, pushing the mare to her limit. He was glad
that protocol required at least a third of the marg to be kept clear for riders and
chariots on urgent missions to be able to move quickly, and that his ancestors
had built such fine kingsroads and maintained them so well all these centuries.
Even so, all that fine planning and maintenance and a powerful Bhoja mare
between his legs could not carry him to the aid of Sumantra in time.
He was still a hundred yards away, Shatrugan neck to neck with him, when they
saw one of the horsemen ride around the chariot and throw a pike at Sumantra’s
back. The pike struck home—and stuck. The old man twisted, freezing in mid
air, and that pause was all his attackers needed—they moved in, chopping and
hacking and pounding at will, five or six of them at once, the cowards, and even
as Bharat came within shouting distance, he saw the old diplomat fall upon the
railing of his own chariot, collapsing with a sickening finality.
“COWARDS! Leave him be!” Bharat roared, feeling the frustration and
impotence of the past several days explode in a burst of righteous rage.
Beside him, Shatrugan had unslung his bow and now loosed three arrows in
quick succession. All three found their mark – in the torse and neck of the
coward who had struck at Sumantra from behind. The man clutched at his throat
as he fell off his horse, his death rattle audible even as the brothers bore down on
the armed murderers. The other men continued to hack and poke at Sumantra
with their weapons.
“COWARDS!” Bharat shouted.
At the sound of his voice, they broke away from the chariot, shot nervous
glances back at the approaching horses, and spurred their own mounts into a
fitful gallop, riding for the treeline.
“STAND AND FIGHT, YOU CRAVEN!” Bharat yelled.
But the horsemen had the advantage of being close to one of the densest forests
in all Aryavarta, the fabled Southwoods. Even as Bharat and Shatrugan came
abreast of the chariot, the horsemen were disappearing into the shadowy depths
of the forest.
Bharat would have ridden past the chariot and given chase but he saw Sumantra
move and slowed his horse to a reluctant halt.
“Go on!” he yelled at Shatrugan who thundered past him, loosing arrows as he
went. “I’ll catch up. Don’t let them get away!”
He paused beside Sumantra, his horse snorting and shaking her head. Bharat
reached out and grasped hold of the old statesman’s hand. He was sickened by
the number of wounds on the man’s torso, head and neck. The butchers! What
kind of soldiers were these to attack a solitary old man?
“Who were they?” he asked, squeezing Sumantra’s hand gently.
Sumantra coughed up a mouthful of blood, spitting it over the side of the chariot.
His eyes were rheumy and filled with blood streaming down from a gash on his
skull. An axe wound. He kept blinking, but could not see Bharat. Still, he
recognized his voice.
“Yuvraj Bharat,” he said, as he had said so many thousands of times before,
through Bharat’s growing years when he had been both father’s friend and father
figure to all four brothers.
“Treachery within…” Sumantra said, then coughed up a burst of blood, much of
which spattered on Bharat’s tunic.
Bharat held on to the old man’s hand without flinching or turning away: he had
seen his share of blood spilled, and had spilled his share as well. He listened and
waited for more, but the wrinkled hand had lost all life and the eyes had shut,
sticky with blood, and the old balding head full of white hair dyed crimson had
fallen forward on the railing of the chariot, lifeless.
 ELEVEN
Nakhudi held up her hand, cocking her head. Maatr passed on the instruction,
emphasizing it with a downward chop of her hand.
At once, all those following froze in place. Nakhudi had spent several minutes
reminding the group that she would be in charge and they must follow her lead
in all actions. The twins knew that even though she had seemed to say this to the
entire group, it was actually the two of them she was addressing. They had
sighed impatiently and nodded reluctantly. And had almost immediately after
regretted doing so, because Nakhudi set such a slow pace. But they had agreed
and while they sometimes things that displeased Nakhudi, Maatr, or even Guru
Valmiki on occasion, they never blatantly disregarded or disobeyed a direct
instruction. It just so happened that they seemed to always find some loop hole
in interpretation that they could take advantage of!
Right now, though, with Nakhudi in front leading the way, and Maatr on second
point just behind Nakhudi, they could hardly just race ahead, even though they
knew they could make five times the pace she was making. Besides, that old
fogey Bejoo and the rest of the retired soldiers were right behind them, and
despite their age, they were pretty sharp and savvy; so Luv and Kush were
behaving themselves and trotting respectfully behind Nakhudi and Maatr as
instructed.
There was a grim mood upon the group. The massacre at the ashram and the
village had shaken everybody. The surviving rishis and brahmins of the ashram
had been the worst affected, of course, being men and women of vedic learning
and quiet meditation all their lives. The kshatriyas had recovered sooner but
were no less injured emotionally by the experience. Such things were not
supposed to happen. Not in the reign of the great Rama Chandra of Ayodhya.
Then again, as Luv and Kush knew quite well because of their daily recitation
lessons taught by Guruji himself, Rama Chandra was not entirely the great
exalted being that he was often made out to be; he had feet of clay that were
painfully brittle. The long epic poem that had formed the main body of their
instruction by the Maharishi ever since they were old enough to recite and
memorize long Sanskrit passages, told a quite unflattering version of the itihasa
of the great King of Ayodhya’s life and adventures. Even the name seemed ironic
to them now: Rama-yana, literally, ‘the travels of Rama’.
Well, it seemed that the great Rama was on the move once again, and the
slaughter had resumed. Why was it, they wondered – and had often asked
Gurudev after their daily rote recitation lessons – that Rama’s tale was so replete
with blood-letting and violence? Maharishi Valmiki had been silent for a
moment, as he almost always was after being asked a question, then he had said
that they must examine the poem he had composed and which they now knew
well enough to recite by heart from start to finish, for themselves, and come to
their own conclusions. It was important, he added, that one consider the actual
verses and interpret them oneself, without an intermediary involved, even one as
learned as himself, the creator of the work! There might be commentaries
written about his Rama-yana in ages to come, and perhaps once the wisdom of
Treta-Yuga dimmed to give way to the lesser self-awareness and thirst for
knowledge of later Yugas people would pay less attention to the original shlokas
he had composed and give more weightage to its recencions, retellings and
commentaries instead, but for now, there was only the original text itself, and it
would have to suffice.
“A life must speak for itself, on its own terms, in its own words,” he had said
gravely, looking at each one of them in turn with that penetrating yet deeply
empathetic and benign gaze he had, making each of them feel as if he could see
right through to the depths of their souls. “It is a mistake to listen to
interpretations and versions of any fact and assume that they too are fact. Only
truth itself is truth. Anything that refers, references or even repeats it is but a
version. For no repitition can be perfect and exact in every detail. A man is a
man. A portrait of a man, no matter how accurate, is not the man himself, merely
a portrait. Similarly, a story of a man is not the man himself, merely a story. My
Ramayana is already a version of itihasa, not itihasa itself. To know that truth,
one would have to live and observe those events oneself—not merely as a
bystander, or even a participant—but as Rama himself! Until you can walk in his
paduka and be Rama, you can never truly know what he was and why he did
what he did, you can only offer individual interpretations —and when it comes
to interpretations, each one is as valid as any other. So be careful of judging him.
For by doing so, you are judging only an ephemoron.”
He had gestured to the moths flying around the oil lamp that hung from the pole
of the stoop. “Like an insect that lives only a short time, any poem, portrait or
description of a man is simply a moth. Hold it close to the agni of truth and that
version burns to ash and disappears. Only the flame itself is truth. And who can
enter into the heart of agni and live to report that truth?”
Now, they each wondered grimly if Rama Chandra had indeed sent those vicious
murderers to massacre their friends and neighbours so brutally. If they could not
judge his past itihasa, they could certainly judge his present actions. They dearly
wished to know how a man hailed by the world as the king of dharma could be
responsible for such undharmic deeds. This was not a debatable act such as the
killing of Vali or the invasion of Lanka, both of which were contentious but
justifiable in some way. This was pure and simple murder of innocents without
cause, provocation or justification. Surely Rama could not be so hypocritical to
have sent those men himself to do this unforgivable deed? There must be a better
explanation—and as shishyas of the great Maharishi Valmiki, they would
suspend judgement until they knew what that explanation might be. But it had
better come soon and it had better clear all their doubts.
They waited impatiently but with absolute discipline as Nakhudi and Maatr went
up ahead to investigate something.
Finally, Luv sighed. Kush glanced at him, reading him as easily as he could read
the thoughts of his own mind.
Luv looked at him in a certain way. To anyone watching the twins, it would have
seemed just a look, with no particular meaning or inflection. But to Kush, it
spoke as eloquently as words themselves.
Luv was asking him if they should go forward just a bit, to take a small peek.
Kush looked back at him with the faintest twinkle in his eyes. Again, that careful
observer might not have seen any change of expression in the boy’s face, but
somehow, Kush conveyed his response:
Yes!
Moving as one, both twins left their place behind a papaya tree and slipped
ahead, following the direction their mother and Nakhudi had taken.
***
Bejoo watched the boys go and knew they ought to be waiting patiently until
Nakhudi or Vedavati returned and gave the order to push forward again. But he
didn’t judge them. He had no problem following Nakhudi’s lead, she was as
effective a leader as many fine commanders he had served under, and far better
than many juniors he himself had commanded. But this was not a military
operation, fought under the kshatriya code and in usual battle circumstances.
This was something else altogether; he did not know it was exactly and that
troubled him. It troubled him more than the actual massacre. Death and slaughter
disturbed him as much as it did the peaceful denizens of Valmiki Ashram, but
unlike them, he could think and act beyond the shock of those events. That was
his job, and the essence of his varna. It was the reason why varna existed in the
first place: so that enough individuals in any Arya community or kingdom were
capable of doing their vital given task even under the most challenging
circumstances and conditions. Such as a soldier capable of withstanding the
horrors of violence and continuing to fulfill his dharma as a warrior. Or a house
builder capable of building houses even while a war raged, because that was his
dharma. Bejoo’s life had prepared him for violence and for acting despite the net
of confusion and madness that violence inevitably cast upon those affected by it,
but the massacre in the forest had shaken even that sense of kshatriya fortitude,
not because of the horror of the deaths, for he had seen far worse, but because of
the possibility that the marauders might have been on a king’s mission, as the
discovery of the purses and their accoutrements seemed to prove. He was
determined to find out the truth behind the attacks. And like the boys, he was as
impatient to keep moving and get answers quickly.
He was also troubled by Nakhudi and Lady Vedavati taking so long. A moment
or two to check if someone lurked ahead—that was fine. But they had been
absent several moments and that was not fine.
As the leader of his company, he decided that the prolonged absence of his
commanding officer entitled him to disregard that commander’s last order and
move ahead.
He raised his hand, gesturing forward, and began moving ahead himself. The
PFs would follow like shadows.
He was not surprised to see that the twins were already out of sight and hearing.
Those two boys moved like arrows on a backwind. He only hoped that their very
speed would not propel them into the arms of trouble too quickly.
***
Sita knew something was wrong the instant she saw the horse. It was a
magnificent black stallion, a great one, and it was adorned with the marks and
signs of a yagna. This was no ordinary horse and it was not here by accident. She
was well aware of the Ashwamedha ceremony being performed by Rama and the
epic army accompanying the horse on what was clearly a campaign of empirical
conquest and expansion. Seeing this stallion, she knew at once that this was the
horse being used in the sacrifice.
But what is it doing here? And why is it unaccompanied?
The first question could be answered easily: the horse could have wandered into
this neck of the woods. It was only a stone’s throw from the raj-marg after all,
which was why Nakhudi and she had been heading this way, the quicker to reach
their destination.
But the second question was a disturbing one. It was not conceivable that the
horse could be allowed to stray on its own into the woods, out of sight of its
followers. That defeated the whole purpose of the Ashwamedha yagna. It was
imperative to follow the horse closely and watch where it went at all times.
She exchanged a glance with Nakhudi who shook her head doubtfully. This was
not right.
They watched the horse for a few more moments. It was wandering aimlessly,
nuzzling a patch of grass here, then snorting and moving on to find a more
appetising patch elsewhere. It came towards Sita and she blanched, backing
away to keep a distance. Even being seen near the horse could be misconstrued.
Her heart beat faster as she looked over the animal’s rump. But there was
nobody there, nobody in sight, just the forest. She listened and heard bird sounds
from about a mile or two further up, just about where the raj-marg ought to pass
by this section of the forest. This part of the woods were dead silent, which
meant there were no other intruders here.
Even so, she kept her distance from the beast. It flicked its ears to and fro as his
keen senses smelled her out and Nakhudi too, but as they did not move or do
anything that seemed alarming, he continued around the shrubbery behind which
they crouched, trotting slowly past them, moving deeper into the forest.
Nakhudi came closer to whisper to her. “You know what that is?”
Sita nodded grimly. “It’s no coincidence.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t like the smell of this.”
“What should we do?” Sita asked. “If we let it stray further that way, sooner or
later they will follow.” She jerked her head backwards to indicate the direction
the horse was heading. Valmiki Ashram lay that way.
Nakhudi rubbed her forehead slowly, as she often did when she was trying to
think her way through an especially knotty dilemma. “We cannot stop it. Even
touching it or being seen near it might be misunderstood.” She glanced in the
direction of the raj-marg with uncharacteristic anxiety. “We should not even be
this close to it.”
“But what else can we do?” Sita asked.
Nakhudi thought for a moment. “Scare it away.”
“What?”
“Startle it into turning tail and heading back the way it came. And we should do
it quickly, before the Ayodhyans come as they surely will.”
Sita nodded approvingly. “Very nice. After all, it is a horse.”
Nakhudi nodded. “Let’s go get it before it loses itself in the woods.”
They turned and were about to start back when suddenly the sound of neighing
came to them clearly.
They exchanged a startled glance. Then started running.
***
Luv grasped the mane of the stallion and patted his side reassuringly. “Easy
there, big fellow. We won’t harm you. We’re just wondering what a fine beast
like you is doing here in these forests!”
“He’s a beautiful horse, isn’t he?” Kush said, patting the horse’s rump and
admiring the sleek muscles beneath the glossy coat. “I’ve never seen anything
like him before.”
The horse snickered again nervously, but didn’t rear up or neigh as loudly as it
had when the boys came sprinting up and started it. He even let Luv put his hand
around his neck and bury his face in his soft, furry side.
“Maybe we can keep him for ourselves,” Luv asked eagerly. “We’ll ask Maatr.”
“She’ll say no,” Kush grumbled. “Look at those marks. He must be part of some
kind of yagna or something.”
“So? Maybe Guruji can complete the yagna and we can keep him afterwards.”
Kush shrugged doubtfully, stroking the horse’s side. “I don’t know. Let’s ask
Maatr first and see.”
The stallion settled down, whinnying one last time but very half-heartedly, as if
reminding them that he could bolt at any time. He seemed to be enjoying the
attention lavished on him by the twins and stood still as they massaged and
rubbed and generally fussed over him.
“Luv! Kush!”
Maatr’s voice was distinctive even from a distance.
Both brothers exchanged a wearily knowing look. “Uh oh,” said Luv. “Here she
comes.”
“I told you!” Kush said. “Let’s go back to our position, and pretend we never
moved an inch. It worked that last time.”
Luv shook his head. “No, maybe she’s not upset with us. Maybe she’s in trouble
and needs our help.”
Kush shrugged but didn’t argue.
A few moments later, Maatr came sprinting through the woods, Nakhudi close
behind. They stopped dead in her tracks when they saw the horse. Maatr’s eyes
grew big and round and she stared in horror at her sons.
“Boys,” she said in an exaggerated whisper. “Get away from that horse.”
“He was just wandering around on his own in the woods,” Luv said. “Can we
keep him? Please, Maatr!”
“Luv! Kush! Both of you! Move away from the horse at once. Do as I say!”
They sighed and released the horse. They took several steps away, shoulders
slumped in a defeated gesture.
They stopped and turned around.
Maatr was still staring at them, only this time her hand was clapped across her
mouth in an expression of abject dismay. “No!” she said. “No!”
Luv felt a rush of warm air on his left shoulder and frowned.
Kush turned to see the horse right behind them. He nuzzled Kush’s chin
affectionately. His bright black eyes glittered mischeviously beneath his fringe of
coal-black mane. He snickered softly.
“Look! He likes us, Maatr!”
“He wants to be our friend,” Luv added. “Please, can we keep him?”
Nakhudi came towards them, clapping her hands loudly. “Shoo!” she said,
waving urgently at the horse. “Get away, you! Go from here! Leave us!”
The stallion snorted and stepped backwards in dismay, upset by Nakhudi’s voice
and tone and the sound of her clapping.
Luv held the horse’s mane, comforting him. Kush shot Nakhudi a dirty look.
“You’re scaring him!” he said.
“Boys!” Maatr said, even more urgently. “I said get away from that horse! Leave
him! Right now!”
Nakhudi waved her arms vigorously before the stallion, startling him into rearing
back.
Instinctively, Kush caught hold of his mane and tried to calm him down.
“GO AWAY!” Nakhudi shouted. “Get lost!”
At that moment, Bejoo and the PF company came running up, stopping short at
the sight of the Ashwamedha horse and Luv and Kush holding on to him even as
Nakhudi and Sita tried to shoo him away.
“Jai Shri Shaneshwara aid us in our moment of need,” Bejoo said mechanically,
the colour draining from his face as he read the situation.
“Boys!” Maatr said loudly, “please leave that horse! We’re not supposed to touch
him!”
Luv and Kush released the horse’s mane reluctantly, obeying their mother’s
instructions. But the stallion seemed to think they were his protectors and stayed
beside them, following even when they tried to move away. Or perhaps he was
only trying to get away from the large woman who was yelling and waving her
arms at him violently.
“GO!” Nakhudi shouted. “Go before you get us all into trouble, you stupid
horse!”
Just then birds began to call out and fly from the treetops above and the familiar
rumbling sounds of horses approaching became audible to all present.
Luv and Kush saw their Maatr turn and stare at Nakhudi with a look of abject
terror.
“Too late,” their mother said hoarsely. “Trouble has arrived.”
 TWELVE
Fourteen years of forest warfare had made Lakshman an expert in reading signs
and tracks. He knew at once that the gang of riders he had met on the raj-marg
had come from the direction of the forest. That itself was suspicious. What
business had they in the Southwoods? There was nothing in this vast wilderness
that would be of interest to Ayodhyan troops, let alone king’s guard as they had
claimed to be, apart from a few ashrams and communities of outcastes and
outlaws, which didn’t count.
Also, on entering the treeline, he had immediately found signs that indicated
they had waited here, within sight of the raj-marg. A closer inspection confirmed
that they had been loitering here for several hours, perhaps the better part of the
day, awaiting…what? The arrival of the sacred stallion and the procession, of
course. And the instant they had set eyes on the horse, they had ridden out,
blocking its way and forcing it off the raj-marg and into the forest, even as the
larger part of their party had continued up the raj-marg, blocking Lakshman’s
way and line of sight, and delaying him until the horse had been coerced
successfully into going into the woods.
The question was why.
He didn’t mind the horse going this way. He himself had urged it in this
direction, rather than towards Mithila, to avoid a confrontation. Was that their
intention too? If so, they had certainly chosen a strange way to go about it! He
had also actively disliked the arrogant manner and bearing of their leader
Aarohan as well as the way they had all looked at him, as if he was just another
rival kshatriya they would have no compunctions in cutting down in a moment.
He had fought enough fights and battles to recognize the killing lust in another
kshatriya’s eyes—Devi knew he had often harboured that same lust in his own
eyes, in the heat of battle or when faced with impossible odds—but to see it
reflected in the eyes of men who were in the employ of Ayodhya, of Rama no
less, was deeply disturbing. Yet he had not been mistaken: those horsemen had
been willing to fight him at a moment’s notice and would perhaps even have
welcome an opportunity. He knew kshatriyas well enough to recognize those
signs as well.
Again, the question was why. Why challenge the brother of the king…of the
emperor? Why divert the sacred stallion and delay him and Sumantra long
enough for the animal to lose itself in the woods? There was some larger game
afoot here and he meant to find out what it was.
The tracking and reading of signs had slowed him down. He had dismounted and
remounted a half dozen times already, the better to read the ground and
shrubbery and lower trunks of trees. He was certain of what he had read in the
tracks. But the process had also cost him time. He was not worried about the
horse itself—he had found its trail most easily of all, and the animal’s leisurely
pace meant that he could catch up with it in a few ticks. But as he bent one last
time to read a snapped twig and a hoof print, he felt the familiar vibration of the
ground that indicated several riders were approaching fast, from the direction of
the raj-marg.
How interesting. So the gang was now following him into the woods? Why not
just ride with him at the same time? Why let him go ahead and then follow?
He weighed his options quickly: the horse was in no great danger. It was sensible
enough not to go too far into the deep woods. In fact, left to itself, it would
probably find its way back to the raj-marg in a little while. The only reason it
had ventured into the woods was because it had been forced into them.
On the other hand, he was very curious to see why the horseriders were
following him into the forest.
His decision made, he slipped behind a tree trunk, remounting his horse as he did
so. With the instinct that had seen him through a hundred battles and any number
of smaller encounters, he unslung his bow and notched an arrow. Then he
waited.
Moments later, the gang came into sight, riding at a steady pace, clearly
following the same tracks he had been following. He expected them to be
following his trail as well, but they went right past him without stopping. He
kept the point of the arrow on the neck of the surly leader, Aarohan, watching
the man as he rode past with a broad leer on his face. Aarohan was quite pleased
about something. He wondered what that might be. In a moment, they were out
of sight, swallowed instantly by the dense forest.
As the thunder of their hooves faded away, he lowered the arrow, frowning.
What was going on here? If they were following the horse, they could have done
so earlier, instead of waiting on the raj-marg and blocking his path and wasting
time. Yet they were clearly not following him, since his trail ended here and they
hadn’t bothered to stop or check if he was around. They had simply gone straight
on, keeping to the trail of the stallion – which meant they had chased the horse in
here earlier, prevented Sumantra and he from seeing where it went, and were
now following it. What did they expect would happen in the short while that the
horse was out of view? And why were they following it now?
Before he could come up with any answers, or even theories, he heard the sound
of another horse, a single rider coming fast.
He raised the bow again.
A moment later, the rider came into view. He was surprised to see it was his own
twin brother.
“Shatrugan!” he called out softly, issuing a low whistle as he did so.
Shatrugan glanced up, as surprised to see him, and slowed to a halt. He looked
angry.
“Lakshman?” He looked around suspiciously. “What are you doing here,
bhraatr? What the devil is going on here? What game are those ruffians playing
at?”
Lakshman raised his eyebrows. “So you met Aarohan and his nasty bunch too, I
see. I don’t quite know, but they seem to be chasing the sacred stallion which got
away somehow. What’s your excuse?”
Shatrugan glared at him. Lakshman felt a twinge of guilt at the distance that had
grown between them these past years, particularly in the most recent months. “I
want to see the bastards who murdered Sumantra punished, that’s what. How can
you tolerate such things? I know that Rama calls himself Emperor now and
wants to conquer the entire known world, but is this the way to—”
Lakshman held up a hand in protest. “Hold on. What did you say? Murdered
Sumantra? What do you mean?”
Shatrugan almost spat the words out in anger. “Them!” He pointed in the
direction the riders had gone. “Bharat and I heard the alarm sound and raced to
the frontline. We saw those brutes attacking Sumantra. They saw us coming and
fled in here. Bharat said to follow, he would be close behind.”
As if on cue, the sound of another horse approaching came to Lakshman’s ears.
He was still reeling from the news of Sumantra. Was this some ruse on
Shatrugan and Bharat’s part? He couldn’t believe his brothers would do such a
dastardly thing.
The new arrival was indeed Bharat. If Shatrugan had seemed angry, Bharat was
clearly furious. He reacted violently when he saw Lakshman, wrenching his
mount to a standstill and pointing an angry accusing finger.
“This is what your great emperor brother condones? Murder in broad daylight?
Sumantra died in my arms moments ago.”
He held out his hands. Lakshman was shocked to see that there was indeed blood
splashed on his arms and his garments. But he forced himself to remain calm. A
part of his mind even whispered: He could have murdered Sumantra himself,
that could be how he got that blood on his person. He immediately felt ashamed
for thinking that his own brother could do such a thing. But ten years in the
corridors of Suryavanshi Palace had taught him that power and politics corrupted
everybody sooner or later.
He concealed his discomfiture by taking issue with Bharat’s accusation of Rama.
“Rama has nothing to do with this,” he protested. “Don’t drag his name into
everything that happens.”
“Of course he’s responsible,” Bharat said, “those men are king’s guard, they as
good as said so to my face, the swine. If they had waited a moment longer, I
would have shown them what I thought of them and their cowardly methods!
They slaughtered poor Sumantra and then fled into the forest.”
Lakshman tried to keep his voice calm. “I will get to the bottom of this,” he said,
“but you have no authority to go about challenging or fighting our own soldiers.
If they indeed assaulted Sumantra as you say, then I shall see to it they are
brought to book. But until I gather all the facts in this matter—”
“If?” Bharat shouted, red in the face. “You dare to say ‘If’ to me? Your own
brother? There is no If. Sumantra was murdered and the men who killed him fled
into these woods like craven jackals. If you are our father’s son, then come with
us and let us punish them right now for what they did! The sons of Ayodhya
need no authority to mete out justice when they see injustice done!”
Lakshman was about to reply when suddenly the sound of violent cries and
shouts erupted. The clamour came from deeper inside the woods, but was not
very far away.
Bharat turned the head of his horse at once. “There! You see? They are upto
some game here and if you were not so enamoured of our bhraatr the emperor,
you would see it as well.”
Lakshman controlled his urge to shout back at his brother. “Very well, we shall
ride together then and investigate further. But there will be no drawing of
weapons or engaging of hostilities unless I say so. Remember. You are both
under a danda and disobedience will not be tolerated!”
Bharat snorted and spoke aside to Shatrugan: “Neither will murder. Those
cowards killed Sumantra by attacking from behind. I saw this man ride around
the chariot and throw a pike into his back! The man wore a beard clipped in that
eastern style, with some of his cheek shaved clean, and his chin full of hair and
he was a big fellow, even bigger than me by at least half a foot. I would
recognize him anywhere. He will answer to me personally, danda be damned.”
Lakshman realized with a start that Bharat had just described Aarohan, the
leader of the horse riders. He set his mouth grimly and turned his horse. He
could not admit it to his brothers but he too had his suspicions about that gang
and that was why it was important that he approached this matter with caution
and intelligence. There was a great game afoot here, no doubt about it, and
evidently it was important enough to the players to sacrifice an ex-prime
minister and even a prince or two to achieve victory.
“Let’s go,” he said curtly and rode into the forest, his brothers close beside him.
***
Bejoo arrived on the scene just in time to see Luv and Kush clinging to a sleek
black horse that could be no other than the sacred Ashwamedha stallion. Their
mother was urging them to release the horse even as Nakudi tried to shoo it
away. The horse itself seemed nervous and he distinctly saw it nuzzle one of the
boys, as if seeking his protection.
Then the sound of pounding hooves alerted him and he instantly reacted,
gesturing orders to his men. He saw Somasra, who was acting as his second in
command, nod and pass on the instructions to the others. At once, they melded
into the forest, keeping out of sight for the time being. Bejoo had seen just
enough to know something was desperately wrong with the scene before his
eyes. The sacred stallion could not have simply wandered into the forest
unaccompanied. And he had been only moments behind Luv and Kush, so he
knew quite well that the boys had not gone out of their way to seek out and
capture the horse. Somehow, the horse had come to them and they were only
trying to comfort and calm it down. He had been a boy once and had loved
horses then with a passion that had never faded since; he understood the
protectiveness the boys felt. Besides, from the looks of it, they had no idea it was
forbidden to touch the horse, nor were they aware of the consequences of doing
so.
But he was. And he had a feeling that all heaven and hell were about to come
crashing down on their heads now. And those two innocent young boys were
going to need all the help they could get.
So he hid behind a tree and waited to see what happened next.
He did not have to wait long. Moments later, a large company of horseriders
appeared, riding hard and fast. He felt a surge of anger as he recognized them as
the same brigands who had committed the slaughter in the village and the
ashram. The brutes had the gumption to come back? But of course! This must be
part of the plan! He was no politician or statesman but he knew enough of the
dirty tricks those people played to see that this whole day had been scripted from
morn to dusk and that this scene unfolding now was a crucial part of the whole
play.
He saw the man at the head of the company haul up his horse. He was a big
fellow, brutish looking and powerfully built, with the kind of musculature that
came from exercising with elephants. Bejoo had been a vajra commander once
and elephants had been an integral part of his vajra. He had known men who had
trained with elephants to build their muscle strength to extents that could not be
achieved merely by lifting weighted objects or boulders. Elephants did not lie
still like rocks or weights, they pulled and pushed and bore down in unexpected
ways. Training with them could leave a man with crushed limbs or worse very
quickly, but if he survived and persisted, he would achieve a body bulk that few
others could. This man leading the horse gang was clearly an elephant wrestler
judging by those bulging neck muscles, shoulders, arms, biceps—just about
every part of his body in fact. Bejoo suspected the man also took some of the
forbidden herbs known for increasing a man’s strength albeit at the cost of his
senses and wits.
The man had a distinctive way of wearing his beard, shaving away the sides to
bare his cheeks, leaving a bristly chin. That suggested vanity. Which went with
the naked arrogance he displayed.
The man spoke in loud commanding tones, clearly delivering a carefully
rehearsed speech: “YOU THERE! You have violated the sanctity of the
Ashwamedha ritual and challenged the supremacy of Samrat Rama Chandra of
Ayodhya! The penalty is instant execution. Surrender yourself to our mercy or
die now!”
There was an instant of shocked silence. Into this brief pause, Bejoo heard Luv’s
voice—or perhaps it was Kush’s voice, he could not tell the two apart—say in
his boyish way but with a cold steely edge that was far more mature than most
ten year olds, “Those are the men who attacked our home this morning.”
And he heard the other boy reply just as grimly: “Yes, they are.”
 THIRTEEN
Bharat clenched his fist around his reins angrily as he took in the scene ahead.
So this was the drama that was being played out.
He saw two women and two boys and the sacred stallion. The boys were beside
the stallion which seemed to desire their company. The horse displayed no signs
of restlessness or nervousness that it would have, had the boys captivated it
against its will. Bharat distinctly saw the horse nudge one of the boys in the
sholder, demanding his attention, a gesture Bharat himself knew well from his
own life-long experience with horses. There was no capture here nor any
challenge that he could see. Not by the Ashwamedha’s interpretation of the
terms. It was obvious that the gang of horse riders had deliberately coerced the
horse to ride in this direction, somehow knowing that these forest dwellers
would come across it sooner or later, with the express intention of blaming
them.
Then he saw who the boys and the women were and his mouth opened in
surprise. It helped that one of the women, the one clad in the red-ochre garb of a
sadhini, looked up at him as he approached, and her face flickered with the
unmistakable glimmer of recognition too. The hefty woman looming beside her
glared up protectively as well and her face changed as well, showing that she
recognized him as well as Lakshman and Shatrugan beside him.
Even after a decade, there was no mistaking his sister-in-law. That was Sita
Bhabhi, he was quite certain.
Her old bodyguard he recognized from her unique physical appearance and the
fact that she was with Sita Bhabhi. Which meant that the two boys standing by
the horse could only be…his nephews! His throat leaped in his throat as he
swallowed with difficulty. Yes, it was definitely Sita, there was no mistaking her.
And that meant the boys were her sons.
“Surrender or die, jungle vermin,” said the man with the trimmed beard
arrogantly. “Those are the only two choices before you. This is the last chance I
offer you before I decide that you are not worth capturing at all.”
One of the boys shook his head and drew an arrow from the quiver over his
shoulder with a fluid action that impressed Bharat.
Now there’s a boy who knows how to handle a bow, he thought. Reminds me of a
bhraatr who was as efficient with a bow and arrows at less than this boy’s age.
The bearded man swore harshly at the boy.
Bharat recognized him as well. He was the same craven who had stuck Sumantra
from behind with a pike. Neither he nor his horse men paid heed to Bharat,
Shatrugan and Lakshman as they approached on their left flank, but the stilted
way he was speaking and acting suggested what Bharat had already suspected,
that the man and his companions were only playing elaborate roles in some
scripted scenario. Evidently, the scenario involved Sita and her sons as well,
which was something Bharat had never expected nor dreamed of. He had never
even associated his banished sister-in-law and her boys with anything that had
occurred until now. But the fact that they were apparently being ‘staged’ as the
alleged challengers of Rama’s authority and stealers of the sacred horse
suggested that this drama’s playscript was far more elaborate than he had
expected. It could hardly be a coincidence that of all the people in the world,
Rama’s sacred sacrificial horse would be allegedly captured by none other than
his own two sons! Something here smelled rotten as a musk melon cut open and
left out for a week.
Bharat waited to see what the response was to the gang leader’s last call.
“What say you, Kush,” said one of the boys, keeping the arrow notched and
ready but still pointed at the ground. “Shall we surrender to the authority of a
king who has never done anything for us, not even protect us as is his dharma by
law, or shall we let his murdering soldiers kill us just as they slaughtered the
innocent rishis and brahmins of Valmiki Ashram, including the brahmacharya
acolytes, man of whom were younger than us?” The words were delivered
calmly but with a rich accent of irony.
The other boy feigned a shrug, keeping his bow strung and the arrow notched
but pointing downwards. “I don’t know, Luv. It’s such a difficult choice to make.
Hmmm. What do you recommend?”
“Enough banter,” said the ruffian who had murdered Sumantra, evidently losing
patience. “Step aside and let us reclaim the horse, and we may yet let you live
long enough to be taken before Samrat Rama for pronouncement of judgement.
This is your final warning!”
The boys exchanged a glance. Bharat sensed something pass between them and
recognized it as being similar to the instinctive telepathy that developed between
comrades at arms over long periods of time and intense threat. Except that these
two boys possess the ability to communicate without words naturally, they were
probably born with it. He glanced sideways at Shatrugan and Lakshman, and
sensed that they understood this as well. After all, they were not just identical
twin brothers like Sita Bhabhi’s sons, they were also blood relatives to those two
young boys.
Luv raised his chin to stare insolently back at the horseman. “If your Emperor
Rama wants his horse back, tell him to come get it. As for you, you craven
wretch, you must pay for what you did to Valmiki Ashram and the innocents you
massacred!”
And without further ado, he raised his bow and released the arrow.
And then all hell broke loose.
***
Luv’s arrow was dead on target. But his words and actions had forewarned the
leader of the king’s guard sufficiently. When Luv released, Aarohan raised his
sword up quickly, deflecting the arrow. At the same time, he shouted a command
to his men to attack. The entire company charged at once.
Kush released his arrow a fraction after Luv, also aiming at Aarohan. But
because they had both aimed at the same spot—the gap between the horse rider’s
chest armourplate and helm which left the man’s neck and throat exposed, his
arrow was deflected by the same sword action. The charging horses, only a
dozen yards from where the boys stood, left them no time for a second shot. In
perfect coordination, both brothers leaped on the back of the black stallion and
clapped their heels to its flanks.
“Go! Ride!” Maatr shouted at them, seeing the danger.
Nakhudi added her voice to the furore: “GO!”
The sacred horse needed no further urging. He shot forward like a bolt,
whinnying with excitement. The other equines pounding after him excited him
greatly, after having been alone for several days. He screamed his excitement as
he charged through the forest at a pace few horses could have matched. The
king’s guard’s horses, burdened as they were with over-muscled men each
weighing more than Luv and Kuch combined, as well as their armour and heavy
weapons, and tired from being ridden hard the past few days, couldn’t even hope
to catch up. Luv and Kush disappeared into the shadows of Southwoods in a
moment, the rump of the black horse invisible dim gloam of the dense woods.
There would be no catching them by speed alone.
But Aarohan wasn’t accepting the fact. He shouted to his men to go after the
stallion and they rode after it, following in his wake.
They did not go far.
Bejoo and his PFs rose and stepped out from the hiding places, aiming bows and
throwing blades at the oncoming king’s guards.
Sita and Nakhudi raised their weapons as well.
And from the left flank, Bharat, Shatrugan and Lakshman rode forward and
came around to face Aarohan. Bharat’s horse lurched ahead, but Lakshman
reached out, took hold of the bit and gave Bharat a firm stare. Bharat looked into
his brother’s eyes, nodded once, and stopped his horse, allowing Lakshman to go
forward to speak face to face with the king’s guard captain.
“Captain Aarohan,” Lakshman said. “That is your name and title, is it not?”
The man glared down at him. The menace in his eyes was venomous. “Get out
of my way. You are obstructing the emperor’s personal guard.”
Lakshman looked at him coldly. “I am the emperor’s brother. I am also the
Protector of the sacred horse.”
“A fine job you’re doing then, letting it be stolen by vagabond children!” The
man spat to one side.
“Those boys did not intend to steal the horse. They were provoked by you and
your men. I witnessed the incident myself.”
This time Aarohan hawked and spat in Lakshman’s direction, aiming the
produce of his mouth at the foot of Lakshman’s horse. The mare snickered softly
but held her ground, too well trained to respond to such an obvious taunt. “It is a
well-planned ambush. Look around you. These are traitors, men dismissed from
service of Ayodhya, now turned against their own motherland. This whole
scheme to steal the horse and shame the Suryavansha throne is a plot against the
emperor. If you were a true loyal son of Ayodhya, you would see the truth for
yourself!”
“I am one of the heirs to the Suryavansha throne,” Lakshman replied. “I do not
need to be reminded of my loyalty. Nor do I need to be fed the truth by the likes
of you, Captain Aarohan. My bhraatrin Bharat and Shatrugan say they witnessed
you murdering the former pradhan mantri Sumantra a short while ago. How do
you respond to that charge?”
The light blue eyes glittered like diamonds in the shadows of his helmet.
Aarohan made a sound of arrogance. “I spit on their claims. They are
dishonoured and penalized for transgressions against the throne. Their loyalty is
also questionable. I would not be surprised if they too were part of the plot in
which Sumantra was involved.”
Lakshman stared at him in disbelief. This fellow was truly testing his patience
now. “You claim that Sumantra was involved in this? Sumantra!”
Aarohan looked at him pointedly. “Perhaps you were involved as well, Yuvaraj
Lakshman. Why else would you be obstructing Samrat Rama Chandra’s personal
guard from fulfilling our dharma.”
“That’s enough of this claptrap!” Bharat said, urging his horse forward. “I won’t
stand here and listen to this arrogant ass spout every vile thought that comes into
his stinking mouth!”
Lakshman knew how Bharat felt. He looked at Aarohan. The man was clearly in
no mood to talk sense. But he also knew how quickly Bharat’s anger reached
flashpoint and could go out of control. Under these circumstances, it might not
be wise to let his brother unleash his temper.
“Just a moment, bhraatr,” he said aside to Bharat. “I am still trying to clear this
up.”
Bharat pursed his lips and kept his silence, but Lakshman could see that it took
all of his self-control to do so. He continued to glare at Aarohan who in turn
glared back. If not for the number of men as well as the three of them blocking
their way, the king’s guard would not have stood still a moment longer. As it
was, they seemed ready to fight even Lakshman and his brothers if need be.
Bharat was astute enough to recognize this and to agree to be patient a while
longer.
Lakshman turned his attention to the two women. Again, looking at his sister-in-
law’s long-familiar face brought back feelings that had lain beneath the surface
for too long. But he also knew that to acknowledge her for who she really was
might well complicate the situation further. Aarohan would not care that she was
his precious emperor’s banished wife; if anything, he might consider that a
reason to abuse her or attack her instead. Also, the way Nakhudi was glaring at
the horsemen and hefting her sword, he could see that a fight was only a single
insult distant at this point.
“Sister,” he said, choosing a noncommittal greeting. “Were those your sons who
rode away with the sacred horse?”
Sita’s eyes gazed up at him calmly, and he saw that she understood his choosing
to err on the side of discretion. “Yes.”
“And did they lure the horse in this neck of the woods with the intention of
capturing it and challenging the emperor?”
Her mouth twitched in something that might have been humour, althought it
could as easily have been a bitter smile. “Emperor?”
Aarohan started to say something in his arrogant insulting way, but Lakshman
raised a clenched fist in warning, telling him to shut up. The man shut up, though
he didn’t like it, and Lakshman knew that even his own cache as Rama’s brother
would only buy him a little more time and patience—very little.
“The horse was sent on an Ashwamedha yagna on behalf of Samrat Rama
Chandra’s claim as emperor of the Kosala nation and its allies. You know the
law. Anyone who stops the horse or seizes it, challenges the authority of the
owner and as such—”
“As such, is liable to be put to death on the spot,” Sita said with a trace of
bitterness. “Yes, I am aware of the law. But my sons did not lure, capture or steal
that horse. They have no interest in challenging the authority of your emperor.
They were merely trying to get away from that man and his gang of murderers,”
she stabbed a finger at Aarohan and the rest of the king’s guard behind him,
“who, by the way, were sent by your precious emperor this morning to find and
massacre all peaceable people dwelling in these woods, including but not limited
to the brahmins, rishis, sadhus, sadhinis of Valmiki Ashram as well!”
Lakshman stared at her, astonished. “What? These men?”
Nakhudi stepped forward, pointing with her sword. “Yes! These men! Either you
are blind or you are also a part of this cowardly conspiracy! Don’t pretend you
were not aware of their mission. They rode through this morning and wiped out
an entire village of innocent unarmed people.” She was sobbing angrily, tears
spilling freely down her face as she went on, “even the frail, elderly and the
young! They did the same at Guru Valmiki’s Ashram. They slew every last
brahmacharya, some as young as seven!”
Lakshman turned in his seat to look at Aarohan. The captain of the king’s guard
was looking in the direction of a tree branch which he appeared to find
exceptionally fascinating.
“Is this true?” Lakshman demanded. “You and your men did all this? This
adharmic slaughter?”
Aarohan turned his cool blue gaze back to Lakshman. “These women are whores
and outlaws. Every Arya knows that the Southwoods are fit only for asuras and
outcastes. No decent Arya people reside here. The whole region is aranya,
wilderness, and as such comes under no legal jurisdiction.”
Lakshman heard Bharat curse and come up beside him, unable to listen silently
any longer. “Who do you think you are, you arrogant ass? Do you know whom
you speak of? What gives you the authority to go where you please and kill who
you wish in this fashion? No Arya kshatriya would do such things! Not on the
honor of holy gurus or our sacred Vedas!”
Aarohan smiled coldly. “Whatever I do is under the authority of Samrat Rama
Chandra of Ayodhya. I answer to him and him alone. Now, I have had enough of
this bantering. While we stand here chit-chatting about outlaws and their pathetic
kin, the sacred horse is getting farther away. Stand aside and let me do my job.”
“No,” Lakshman said, reaching a decision. He drew his sword slowly and
calmly, with deliberate care. The steel sang out as it scraped the rim of the
sheath, the sound ringing out ominously in the sudden stillness of the forest
afternoon. He held the sword across the saddle of his horse, not raising it or
brandishing it just yet, but keeping it ready to deploy in an instant. “You have
done enough already. I am taking charge here. You are ordered to return to your
superior officer and report to him until further notice. I shall go after the horse
and retrieve it myself as protecting the stallion is my task. Turn back and leave
here, Captain Aarohan. I command you in the name of my brother and by my
right as a Suryavanshi Ikshwaku. I command you on pain of death!”
And now he raised the sword and pointed it directly at the king’s guard captain.
Aarohan didn’t flinch or react in any way. He stared directly at Lakshman, his
eyeline in perfect level with the length of the sword. Their eyes met over the
yard’s length of burnished Mithila steel and Lakshman, accustomed to looking
his enemies in the eye before a battle, saw that the man held no fear or anxiety at
all. Instead, Aarohan lowered his chin, deepening his gaze like a predator
marking its prey, and smiled with supreme confidence.
“I shall go for now, Yuvaraj Lakshman. But I shall return soon enough. Not just
with half a company,” he gestured at the fifty-odd men behind him, “but with an
army. The entire might and power of Ayodhya shall be with me when I come
back. And then we shall see who gives the orders here, and who comes first to a
painful death.”
And he snapped his horse around and barked a single word to his men. As one,
they turned and rode out of the woods, in the direction of the raj-marg. Every
single one glared in Lakshman’s direction as he turned, and Lakshman realized
grimly that the captain of the king’s guard was not merely bluffing or speaking
idly. He meant every word he said and he had the authority to do exactly as he
claimed.
“Devi help us,” Lakshman muttered, then sheathed his sword and turned back to
face the others. “What is going on here?”
A man stepped forward. It was one of the PFs. Lakshman recognized him at once
as former Vajra Captain Bejoo, most recently employed as a grama-rakshak.
“I believe I have a fair notion, Yuvraj Lakshman,” Bejoo said without much joy
in his tone. “And if you do not act quickly and contact Maharaja Rama Chandra
before Captain Aarohan does, I think this brewing conflict may well turn into a
full-blown war. That is the intention of those who have put this devious plan into
motion.”
 FOURTEEN
Luv and Kush slowed the horse and looked back.
“Nobody’s following,” Kush said.
Luv agreed. He couldn’t hear or sense any signs of a pursuit.
“Maatr and Nakhudi and the olduns must have stopped them dead in their
tracks,” Kush said, with complete confidence. “Maybe those three strangers
helped too. I saw the way they were looking at Maatr. They know her. Maybe
they’re rishis in disguise, or they took up arms and became kshatriyas.”
Luv turned to look questioningly at his brother.
Kush shrugged. “Parasurama did it. In the story Guruji told us.”
“Those are puranas, Kush. Those things happened eons ago, in the Satya Yuga.
This is a modern era, Treta Yuga. Brahmins don’t go around riding horses and
pretending to be kshatriyas. Besides, those three were royalty of some kind, did
you see their ensignia?”
Kush frowned. “The embroidering on their clothes and saddlebags?”
“Yes, and the markings on their armour and their sword sheaths. If they’re not
princes or kings of someplace important, I’ll eat this horse.”
The sacred horse whinnied in protest. Kush patted his neck affectionately.
“Don’t worry, big fella. I won’t let him eat you. He’s just exaggerating as usual.”
“You’re the one who’s always exaggerating, not me.”
Kush cocked his head. “You’re the one who just said he would eat the horse!”
Luv shrugged. “Well, I would. If I were wrong. But I’m not wrong. I’m right.
Those three strangers were royalty! I bet you this whole forest they were!”
Kush looked around doubtfully. “Do you own this forest?”
Luv frowned. “Well, it doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s just aranya. Uncivilized
wilderness.”
Kush grinned. “Aha. If it doesn’t belong to anybody, it can’t belong to you. So
it’s not your forest! So how can you bet it away?”
“Well, I haven’t lost it yet, have I? I’m just saying, if I was wrong about those
three strangers being royalty, then I would give you this forest. But I’m not
wrong, I’m right! So it doesn’t matter whether or not I owned the forest in the
first place!”
Kush giggled. “I bet you the moon and the sun!”
“What?”
“I bet you the moon and the sun that those three weren’t princes or royalty. They
were probably just…house builders!”
Luv gaped at him in astonishment. “House builders?”
Kush shrugged. “Or sculptors. Or road-repairmen. Or army cooks. What
difference does it make? I’m just saying!”
“And if you’re right—though I’m not sure which one you would be right about,
since you named half a dozen professions—then you’ll give me the moon and
the stars?
Kush wagged a finger. “No stars. Just the sun and the moon, that’s all.”
Luv laughed. “Okay, so you have yourself a deal.”
He spat on his palm and proffered his hand.
Kush spat on his own palm, then slapped it against his bhraatr’s damp palm. “If
they’re royalty, you get the sun and the moon. If they’re not, I get the forest.”
Luv smiled. “Done.”
“There’s only one problem, Luv.”
“What?”
“How do we know who they really are?”
“Kush, they’re going to come after us sooner or later. We’ll find out in time.”
“Okay then. What should we do now? Until we find out, I mean?”
Luv looked around thoughtfully. He looked at Kush’s rig and touched it. “Get
ready for the murderers. They’ll be coming after us sooner or later, probably
sooner. We should be ready when they come.”
Kush’s eyes brightened. “A real fight!”
“Yes! A really real fight. We’ll need LOTS of arrows. And other stuff. And traps.
And hidey holes. And tree machans. And tunnels. And…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Kush said happily. “Let’s go to work on it. We don’t know
how much time we might have.”
“Oh I know exactly how much time we have before they come after us.”
“You do? How?”
Luv gestured upwards, at the slivers of sky visible through the dense tree cover.
“It’ll be dark soon. They won’t risk coming into this deep into the woods after
dark, especially not after a black horse in the deep woods. All we’d have to do is
stand still and they wouldn’t find us for days.”
“You mean they wouldn’t find us for nights.”
“Yes. That’s what I meant. So they’ll come in the morning, at sunrise.”
“Long before that,” Luv said scornfully. “They probably expect to have caught
us by sunrise.”
“By dawn then? Even before that?”
“Just before. When it’s just light enough to see and yet too dim to be seen easily.
They’ll probably assemble at the same place around two hours before sunrise,
then try to track us…”
“At which time, we’ll be ready and will lead them on a wild and wonderful
merry chase!” Kush said. “All right, let’s go.”
“Wait, what about Maatr and Nakhudi?”
Kush thought for a moment. “All right, once we’ve made our arrangements,
we’ll go back and check on them.”
Luv twisted around and looked east. The sun was low on the horizon, only an
hour from sunset. “There isn’t much time. It may be too late then.”
“So you think we should go back and check on them now?”
“Yes, but we can double back by a wide circuit, leaving confusing tracks at the
same time.”
Kush patted the side of the horse and whispered in his ear. He made a horse
sound that sounded remarkably like a girl chuckling. He turned of his own
accord and began trotting back the way they had come. In moments, he was
cantering then galloping as if he had lived in the deep forest all his life and knew
his way about as well as a dray horse knew the city streets.
“He’s enjoying this, you know, the rapscallion,” Kush said.
Luv patted the rump of the horse affectionately. “Good for him.”
“So are you,” Kush said. “I can tell.”
“That’s because you are too.”
They galloped through the woods.
***
“What? How could this have happened? What were Yuvraj Lakshman and
former pradhan mantri Sumantra doing at the time?”
Rama’s dark skin seemed to grow more bluish in hue when he got angry. Which
had been a rare occurrence in earlier days but had increased in frequency of late.
Right now, for instance, he was displaying the first warning signs of a rising
temper.
He rose from the travelling throne on which he had been seated and paced the
spacious royal tent that had been set up on the north bank of the Sarayu just
beyond Mithila gate to accommodate the royal entourage for the night.
Bringing up the rear of the great procession, they had barely covered two
yojanas distance from the capital. A whole day, to travel less than 18 miles from
Ayodhya, Kausalya thought as she watched her son pace the carpetted floor of
the tent. A pleasure trip would have been more useful. Devi knew Rama could
have used one rather than this uncalled-for campaign.
The courier explained to Rama that Sumantra was dead and Lakshman feared
missing in the deep Southwoods, last seen in pursuit of the stolen sacrificial
horse.
“What other word do you have of the incident?”
The man shook his head to indicate that he had exceeded the extent of his
knowledge. Kausalya knew that royal couriers were not wont to hold back
messages or information; they usually blurted out everything they knew the
instant they were permitted to open their mouth. That was their job, after all.
Rama’s question was pointless. She was more saddened by the news of
Sumantra’s death. That old sweet man…what a pity.
“At least he died fighting like a kshatriya,” whispered Sumantra softly. Kausalya
and she were watching from the far side of the tent, where they had been about
to partake of some light refreshment together with Rama. But Rama had barely
bitten into a piece of apple when the courier had arrived. And he would not
simply let the man deliver his news and depart as was the usual practise with
couriers.
He persisted even now: “Come, come, man. You must know something else of
what happened. Who were the parties who stopped the horse and issued the
challenge?”
“Unknown, sire.”
“And where exactly did this occur? On the Mithila border?”
“No, sire,” the man replied, glad to have a question he could answer, “well away
from it. In aranya territory, no man’s land.”
“I see,” Rama said thoughtfully. He paced another few steps then swung around
again. “But that does not make sense! Why would anyone capture it in
undeveloped territory? If nobody claims that region then in turn nobody can
challenge the authority of the throne there! It’s a completely pointless act of
political aggression.”
“Not for some people,” said Pradhan Mantri Jabali as he ducked his head to
enter the royal tent. He turned and dipped his head slightly to indicate respect for
the royal Maatrs, then turned his attention back to Rama. “The aranya territories
may not belong to any kingdom per se. But precisely for that reason, they
provide a lawless haven where unknown numbers of brigands, dacoits, highway
robbers, outlaws, outcastes, Magadhans and other such undesirable elements
gather and proliferate. As you know, Samrat Rama Chandra, I have repeatedly
proposed to you that we clean up those territories once and for all.”
Rama shook his head impatiently. “There is nothing to clean up. The
Southwoods are deep, savage, inhospitable forests. Those few who venture
within out of sheer desperation struggle to stay alive, let alone flourish. Those
poor dregs of society pose no threat to the Arya world.”
“Ah,” Jabali said, glancing at the repast spread out before the Maatrs and
examining it with the air of a man who actively disliked food, his lanky skeletal
frame testifying to that fact. “I forget that you yourself once lived among these
very dregs of society, during your years of exile. You must have come to depend
on these sordid elements, for reasons of survival. Every Ayodhyan continues to
bear a deep regret for the long suffering you endured during those years. But,
sire, it does not change the fact that it is in places where such dregs and filth
proliferate that the seeds of rebellion are often sown and flourish.”
“Rebellion?” Rama looked doubtfully at the prime minister. “Nonsense! The
aranya folk are too busy surviving each night without bothering their heads with
plans of political opposition!”
Jabali wagged a long bony finger in disagreement. “Nay, sire, do not
underestimate them. Even the lichen and moss growing on the backroom wall
seems benign for years until the day it suddenly sprouts poisonous mushrooms.
Who knows what dark hatreds ferment and fester in those dark woods? Perhaps
you do, of course, having lived among them. Tell me, were they all filled with
universal love and affection for our Arya ways and our polished, noble society,
ruled by the four precepts of Artha, Kama, Dharma and Karma? Were they not
driven by some modicum of resentment and loathing for the society which had
cast them out and of which they could never be a part again?”
Rama picked up the apple from which he had taken a single small bite and
looked at it. “I had hoped to be able to rehabilitate those people one day.”
Jabali made a sound of impatience, clicking his tongue. “Such beings cannot be
rehabilitated. They are tainted, beyond the purview of decent, civilized human
society.”
“They are humans too. And many were Arya once. Ayodhyan even.” Rama’s
tone was declarative but tinged with sadness, rather than argumentative. As if he
knows he is rehashing a debate he has already lost a long time ago, Kausalya
thought.
“Once, perhaps. Not anymore. They are no more than insects now. Venomous,
barbed insects beneath our consideration.”
Rama protested. “They are people. Fellow mortals. With families.”
“Criminals. Unforgiven. Exiles.”
At the last word, Rama flinched. It was very slight, not a visible reaction, barely
a flicker in his pupils, but for a man so well in control of his senses, that was as
much as a grunt of pain from most ordinary men. Kausalya felt her own heart
ache with empathy. Exiles. That word had applied to her Rama as well,
alongwith his brother Lakshman and wife Sita, not long ago. Almost a third of
his entire life had been spent in exile. The very word must sting like the metal tip
of a lash.
He turned and looked at Jabali with the same calm steady expression with which
he greeted everything, but Kausalya knew his heart must ache a great deal more
than her own. For while she could empathize with his past suffering, he had
endured that suffering himself. Nothing could compare. And what he was saying
now with his silent reproachful look was that Jabali should know that and be
more considerate of how he spoke. But the prime minister appeared to have
deliberately turned his face away from Rama for a moment, under the pretext of
looking at something or other.
Rama turned to the courier, who was still standing and waiting patiently.
“You may go,” he said.
The courier left with obvious relief. There were courts in which men who
accidentally overheard important matters of state or king’s secrets were often
executed in order to preserve state privacy, such executions performed with an
air of sorry-but-you-know-we-have-no-choice but which were nevertheless quite
final all the same. That had never happened in Rama’s court but that was only
because Rama did not approve of what he termed ‘excessive danda’. It was a
concept and term that she herself had taught him as a boy, and she was proud to
see that he still adhered to the precept. It told her that her Rama still lay within
the body of this man, this emperor of dharma who sought to rule the known
world. She could still appeal to him then, when the time came. And it was
approching soon, she knew.
She felt Sumitra’s hand clasp her own in sisterly commisseration and squeezed
back, thanking her sister-queen for her continual support.
Since their husband’s demise two and a half decades ago, First Queen and Third
Queen had been inseparable friends, and during the years that Kausalya
governed Ayodhya as a Dowager Queen-Mother, Sumitra had been a valuable
asset in court as well as in matters that required careful thought and
interpretation of law. She had a particular gift for such matters and Kausalya was
glad to have her with her now, for law played an integral part of the plan she had
to try and turn Rama back from this empirical course he was set upon.
Rama turned to Jabali the instant the courier had left. “What further word? Have
you heard anything? Has Bhadra returned yet? You did say he had gone to find
out why the alarms rang out, when you stayed me from going myself.”
Jabali dipped his bird-like chin and nose once, acknowledging that he had indeed
done so. “It would have pointless for you to inhale the dust of the marg and ride
all that way just to learn what we could learn just as well sitting here in the
command centre. That is why you have such vast resources deployed. You are an
emperor now, Samrat Rama Chandra, not a chieftain who must ride out and
check on every emergency yourself.”
Rama sighed. “Yes, I understand. Now speak, have you any news from the
frontline? The courier could tell me nothing beyond what we had already
guessed.”
Nothing? Was that what he called the news of Sumantra’s death? The man who
had once sat him upon his knee as a very young boy and answered his every
question about kings and courts with infinite patience. Kausalya shook her head,
sighing softly despite herself. Rama glanced briefly in her direction but did not
say anything further.
Jabali placed his palms together and rubbed them briskly in that manner he had
that Kausalya had always found pretentious. A skeleton rubbing two tinders
together to kindle his own funeral pyre, was how her late dear Dasaratha had
described it, with his customary wit. She remembered that now and stifled a
laugh. It would not do to actually belittle the man in his presence; ridiculous as
he was, he was nonetheless a powerful political figure and she could not afford
to antagonize him in any way whatsoever.
“It is as we feared. Your brothers have all gone missing. The excuse given is that
they were in pursuit of the sacred stallion. But of course, we know better.”
Rama frowned. “My brothers? You mean Bharat and Shatrugan too?”
“Indeed. Is that not peculiar? That they should all three of them go after the
horse together and disappear together?”
Rama shook his head slowly. “Not particularly. They are Suryavanshis. The
yagna may be conducted by me, but it is for the future and stability of the
Suryavanasha throne. They have a great vested interest in preserving the sanctity
of the ritual and ensuring its success.”
“Exactly! A vested interest. For if the horse were to be captured and a challenge
issued in that aranya territory, by whose authority would it be?”
Rama shrugged. “Nobody’s. Since the Southwoods do not come under any
kingdom’s jurisdiction.”
“Aha. But what if your brothers had secretly formed an alliance with the aranya
folk, the poor misguided mortals you expressed such sympathy for just a while
ago, and conspired to capture the horse and challenge your authority?”
Rama looked coldly at Jabali. “These are grave accusations. Do not make them
unless you have strong evidence to back them up.”
“Strong evidence?” The hawkish nose all but sneered at Rama—although that
sneer like expression was one Jabali displayed naturally—and he turned and
clapped his hands, issuing a command to someone waiting outside the tent.
At once, several armoured men, dust-covered and bloody from obvious close
fighting, entered, pulling a corpse with them which they laid down on the floor.
Even Kausalya and Sumitra stood and peered in horror to see whose corpse it
was. It was Sumantra, the poor old man’s body and face mutilated by multiple
wounds and punctures. Sumitra and she both gasped in horror at the sight of the
old and long-beloved prime minister.
‘Sumantra!’ Kausalya said. She could scarcely believe her eyes. Yet there was no
doubt it was Sumantra. Beside her, Sumitra clutched her arm hard enough to
hurt, unable to even voice her own reaction.
“Is this sufficient to begin with,” Jabali said, pointing a long bony finger at the
body of his predecessor. “The corpse of our beloved ex prime minister, brutally
murdered and stabbed in the back by none other than your own brothers as the
first gambit in their bid to unveil this shocking plot and conspiracy against your
throne!”
Rama stared down at the body, his own face revealing the intensity of his shock.
“Did anyone witness this?”
Jabali gestured. “King’s Guard Captain Aarohan, sent on a mission under your
own seal to roam the frontlines to ensure the security of the yagna stallion.”
A man stepped forward from the group. He was exceptionally tall and well
muscled, even among the other well-built warriors. He wore his beard in a very
distinctive style.
He saluted Rama obstreperously. “Samrat Rama Chandra, sire. I saw with my
own eyes Yuvrajas Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrugan inflict these wounds upon
Sumantra.”
Rama stepped forward, eyes blazing with sudden fury. Despite the height
difference and the superior build of the taller man, Rama seemed to tower over
him by dint of sheer force of personality. “You saw them? Where were you when
it occurred? If you saw them, why did you not seek to stop them?”
The man did not answer instantly. He seemed, Kausalya thought with a twinge of
suspicion, to be irritated by Rama’s tone and manner. Even though this is his
emperor speaking, he still resents it! She had also noted the lack of honorific
before Sumantra’s name, not a common lapse among the scrupulously
disciplined Arya kshatriyas. Who were these king’s guard anyway? She dimly
recalled hearing of them once or twice in some Council session but their precise
purpose eluded her. How odd that such a man should be the only one to come
forward as a witness to such a significant event. And to blame Rama’s own
brothers? She could not even entertain the possibility of such an accusation
being true. It was instantly obvious that there was something amiss here.
“I was riding towards Sumantra’s chariot,” the man said after a pause, “I saw the
murder as I approached. I shouted to them to stop, but they saw me coming and
rode away into the woods.” He added after a moment, “They had accomplices
waiting for them ahead, who had captured the sacred horse. Outlaws of the
forest.”
Rama stood before the man a moment or three longer, breathing upon him.
Though the man was stone still, yet he seemed to be restraining himself, while
Rama who was on the very precipice of utter rage, appeared perfectly in control
of his faculties. Kausalya realized that she was looking at a man who was the
very inverse of Rama. She did not know what that meant, but she did not like it
one bit. That man is dangerous, she thought. And he is lying, I’m as sure of it as
I am that I am Kausalya. She felt Sumitra squeeze her hand in as if in silent
agreement, and knew that her sister queen-mother also saw exactly what she
saw.
Finally Rama turned away, showing his back to the soldier and to Pradhan
Mantri Jabali. In that instant, Kausalya saw something pass between Jabali and
the man named Aarohan. She did not like that either. But her misgivings were
washed away in a flood of emotion when she heard Rama pronounce his next
words with the finality and grim commanding tones of a death sentence.
“Hunt them down,” Rama said. “Hunt them down and bring them before me,
dead or alive. Do whatever you have to, use whatever force is necessary. Send
the entire army into the Southwoods. But find the murderers of Sumantra and
bring back the yagna stallion. Whatever it takes.”
KAAND 3
 ONE
In the gloamy hour before dawn, the Southwoods lay as still as a predator in
waiting. The inhabitants that lived within its tree-shaded sanctuary were more
numerous than the citizens of the most populous Arya city—and the cities of
Aryavarta were more densely populated than any place in the mortal realm,
including the rough but developing lands far to the west across the great oceans,
whose envoys and traders frequently made the long and arduous journey across
land to purchase the precious spices, silks and precious objets d’art of the
subcontinent and the civilized nations farther to the east.
Yet unlike the bustling metropolises of Ayodhya, Gandahar, Sumer, Akkad,
Babylon, Assyria, Cathay, Ayutha and other great kingdoms that lay scattered
like caches of precious jewels upon the Asian seaboard, the denizens of the great
ancient forest went about their daily deeds as discretely as the secret guilds of
asassins in the desert kingdoms went about their dark missions. To one another,
the bustle and hustle was plain to see: the panther saw the ants who in turn saw
the ant eater, who saw the rabbit, who saw the lion, who saw the deer, who heard
the cricket who stopped chirrupping when the lizard approached, and so on in an
endless circle of infinite inter-dependence.
There was no individual independence in this world. Every living being
depending on every other being to sustain its environment and by doing so, its
daily sources of nutrition and survival. Like the assassins of the arab kingdoms,
the predators of the deep Southwoods needed the hustle and bustle of everyday
forest life in order to go about their own violent missions.
But unlike the great cities of the mortal world, the deep forest had certain codes
by which it endured. One of these was the tacitly agreed-upon rule of mutual co-
dependence: When an intruder or intruders entered its environs, every denizen
was obligated to issue a warning and intimate its fellow animals, avians and
insects of the presence of the outsider. For outsiders always spelled danger; there
were no exceptions to this rule. Be it ever so miniscule a threat as the careless
ass that stepped on an ant’s nest and destroyed half a summer’s toil, or the overt
menace of a pack of wild dogs seeking a fresh kill, any creature that chose to
enter the dangerous perpetually twilight world of the dense jungle did so only for
one reason: self-preservation. Whether that meant fleeing from outside enemies
or seeking prey or food here, the end result was the same: the newcomers would
fight, kill, feed or otherwise commit some form of violent aggression in order to
survive and sustain themselves. It was the only way they, or any living being,
could possibly survive in this ruthless world. The way of the jungle, the poets
called it. And so it was: the only way to survive in here was to kill or be killed.
The men who poured in from the raj-marg and entered the Southwoods that hour
before dawn intended to kill. They were trained for it, equipped for it, and even
bred for it: not merely kshatriyas, they were Ayodhyan kshatriyas, and
Ayodhya’s war cry spoke their own motto and conviction: Ayodhya Anashya!
Ayodhya the Unconquerable and Undefeated.
For Ayodhya was the one city in all the known world that had never been
besieged, attacked, or invaded, successfully or otherwise. Because it was
impossible to besiege, attack or invade, no sane force in the world would dare to
attempt such a suicidal feat. The only one that had tried, once, had been the asura
hordes of Ravana, and they had made it only as far as the outskirts of Mithila,
which was a long way from Ayodhya. That great invading force of supernatural
demoniac beings had been thwarted by a brahm-astra, a sacred weapon of the
devas, unleashed by an Ayodhyan, none other than the same Samrat Rama
Chandra whom these kshatriyas served today. That was part of the legend of
Rama, the fact that he had halted the only known attempt to attack Ayodhya over
twelve yojanas away! It was not even fit to be called an attack, let alone a siege.
And now, with Ravana gone, the asura hordes extinguished from the mortal
realm forever, even the severely weakened rakhsasa race of the lord of asura’s
erstwhile capital, Lanka, diminishing in number with each passing year, there
were no other forces, mortal, asura or otherwise, who dared or desired to
challenge the might of Ayodhya by attacking the greatest Arya city on earth.
But today, the enemy was not coming to invade Ayodhya.
Ayodhya was coming to invade the enemy’s domain.
And this domain, the fabled and dreaded Southwoods of mythic lore, until only
twenty four years ago the domain of the fearsome yakshi giantess Tataka and her
hybrid offpsring, was unlike any battleground, field or city these brave soldiers
of Ayodhya had ever visited or fought upon.
In its own way, it was as indomitable as Ayodhya herself, even if it did not boast
seven great moats filled with ravenous predators, seven tall stone gates manned
by awe-inspiring war machines, and all the mechanical and architectural marvels
that mortalkind was capable of creating.
In its own way, the forest was a living breathing force as powerful as the great
military might of Ayodhya.
In its own way—and on its own terms—the jungle was a formidable opponent
unto itself, not merely a theatre of battle, but part of the enemy’s armory itself.
The fact that it did not appear to be an armory, and could be assumed to be a
staging ground or battlefield, was part of its sinister threat.
Ayodhya might well be inconquerable, never-besieged, indomitable.
But in its own way, so was the Southwoods.
***
The first regiment of soldiers were not unaccustomed to forests or forest warfare.
After all, the world was not so old and jaded as to have completely forgotten the
forests from which mortalkind sprang not long ago. Many of these kshatriyas
had spent their childhood and youth roving the wild countryside of Kosala,
hunting, farming, herding. They were familiar with woods and with forest
environments. They moved slowly and carefully, unburdened by the heavy
armor that cavalry regiments like the king’s guard wore, bearing lighter pikes
and swords. There were archers among them too, with fine Gandahari longbows.
And they were told to expect an ambush.
But to their surprise, they met with no resistance at all.
They went further and further into the forest, the dim grey of the sky visible
above the tall tree tops turning slowly whiter as they went, and even a full hour
later, when dawn broke across the eastern part of the forest, not an arrow had
been loosed or a sword swung in aggression. It was puzzling but not entirely
surprising. Their commanding officers assumed the obvious: the challengers had
been all bluster and intent but lacked the guts to follow through. It was easy
enough to filch a horse, quite another thing to face an entire army, leave alone an
Ayodhyan army. They had probably retreated or were in hiding, quivering with
their blankets pulled over their sweating faces. There were some sardonic grins
and shaken heads as the forward regiment went a mile then two miles then three
without meeting any resistance.
As dawn turned to daybreak and the first golden rays of sunlight twinkled
through the trees, the men began to relax their guard, feeling that this would be
an easy assignment after all. The only reason they went on at all was because the
horse still had to be retrieved and the culprits put to death, their bodies brought
back nailed to wooden posts to caution future challengers.
Soon, the mood lightened and the men began to chat softly among themselves,
even joke and relax their guard. Due to the nature of the forest, they were spread
out considerably, and their commanding officers could not see or hear every
single one at all times, so it was easy for them to simply squat against a tree
trunk and smoke a beedi or chew some betelnut and chat softly about the
pointlessness of this mission.
The first inkling that they had of danger was when a peculiar sound came to their
ears. It was a sound that was vaguely familiar yet not easily recognizable. At
first, many assumed it was only insects or perhaps even the wind. But as it grew
louder and closer, they became aware that it was neither of these things.
The sound was a constant hissing. A sussuration similar to the sound of the wind
shirring in trees in autumn or the ocean surf rising to the shore and falling back.
Yet it was neither of these either.
A man smoking a beedi was the first to grow certain he knew the source of the
sound. He sat bolt upright against the trunk of the tree where he had been
resting, dropping his beedi. It fell onto a damp patch of earth and was luckily
extinguished at once by itself. He reached out and snatched hold of his spear
which he had left standing upright against the tree trunk.
“Snakes!” he said aloud. Then even louder, so his comrades could hear as well:
“SNAKES! It’s snakes, coming towards us!”
The word was repeated and past along the frontlines, moving with surprising
speed. The commanding officers heard it too and frowned. Snakes? What did the
man mean? Had he seen a snake or perhaps even a nest of snakes near his
position? What did that have to do with the rest of the army?
They shrugged and ignored it.
But as the sound grew larger, closer, and omnipresent, seeming to come from
every direction at once and all around them, they grew uneasy. Men stopped
chatting or lounging about and took up their weapons. Eyes scanned left and
right, seeking out something, anything that would provide a more believable
explanation for the sound.
Slowly, as the hissing grew so loud and close that each man realized it could be
nothing but snakes, they began to panic. Men retreated slowly, stepping
backwards, seeking to get away from the wall of approaching sound. The
HISSSSSS pervaded the entire forest now, it seemed.
“Hold your positions!” ordered their officers.
“Stay your ground, you lazy ruffians,” growled sergeants gruffly, passing on the
officer’s orders.
But many of the officers were sweating nervously as well. Some were old
enough to have heard stories at their father’s and grandfather’s knees of the
dreaded Nagas and Urugas in the Last Asura Wars. Snakes were not the most
popular forest creature and every year on an allotted day, oblations and offerings
were given to the snake deities to appease them and persuade them not to
unleash their venom on mortals. Of course, everyone knew that the last of the
asuras had been exterminated when Rama had unleashed the brahm-astra at
Mithila twenty four years ago. But these were the Southwoods, dreaded site of
so many fearsome fables and cautionary tales from ancient itihasa, and who
knew what beings might still reside in this dense jungle?
Suddenly, one of the archers cried out. They were the ones with the sharpest
eyesight and he had seen something in the alternately shadowy and sunlit forest.
He reacted by doing something no kshatriya was ever supposed to do: he threw
down his bow and rig and turned around. He ran past his fellows, ignoring even
his commanding officers who were to surprised to order him to stop. His face
betrayed his terror at whatever he had seen.
“Flee!” he yelled. “Flee for your lives!”
The others stared after him then at each other. The officers shouted sporadically
to hold the line and hold their positions and the usual claptrap that officers were
expected shout but none of the men were listening. They were all thinking about
how the archer, one of the finest Ayodhyan bowmen, which made him one of the
finest in the world, apart from the Assyrian horse bowmen and chariot archers,
whom, it was said, were the best in the world, had thrown aside his bow and rig
as if it was so much useless baggage, rather than the beautifully shaped polished
and resin-waxed Mithila bow, a treasure to any kshatriya of the archer varna. It
was a bow worth giving up one’s life for, and if the archer had thrown it aside, it
could be for only one reason: the bow, fine as it was, would be utterly useless
against the HISSSing thing that was approaching them, and while running away,
would be an impediment while trying to get away through the close-growing
trees and shrubbery. And if a bow and arrows, which could be used to kill or
wound any enemy from afar, was useless, then what good were a sword, pike or
axe which required close quarters to be effective?
The officers had realized this as well. And sweating with anxiety though they
were, they were still commanding officers entrusted with a mission. It was their
dharma to fulfil that mission or die trying. Under Samrat Rama Chandra’s ‘Ram
Rajya’ failing to do one’s dharma was itself punishable by death. So they roared
instructions that nobody was to abandon their weapon, and every soldier must
hold the line and engage the enemy. Failure to comply would result in the
severest danda: on-site execution.
That worked. Terrible though the HISSSing sound was and the thought of what it
might be caused by, the fear of facing the wrath of danda was greater. Face the
unseen menace and they might yet live. Run from it as the archer had done, and
they would certainly be put to death.
So they stayed, reluctantly but bravely. And raised their weapons when their
officers told them to, and prepared to fight.
A moment later, the source of the HISSSing was revealed. And it was every bit
as terrifying as they had feared.
The forest floor was writhing with a carpet of snakes. All racing along at
considerable speed, winding their sinuous way across the ground, slithering over
and under each other, intertwining, hissing at each other or at everything in
general, some pausing to strike at one another, fangs lashing out angrily, milky
white drops of venom flicking off their gaping pink maws. For as far as the eye
could see the ground was writhing with the creatures. They were all coming as
fast as they could, towards the frontlines of Ayodhya’s finest.
Too late the officers gaped in disbelief and thought that perhaps they had given
the wrong orders. Perhaps it was acceptable to retreat. After all, how could they
fight such an enemy? And why fight it at all? The snakes of the Southwoods
were not responsible for the abduction of the sacred horse! But their own orders,
received from the chief of the King’s Guard, Captain Aarohan himself, had been
crystal clear: No surrender, no retreat…on pain of death.
So they stood their ground. A few soldiers were unable to stand and watch the
writhing monstrosity slither towards them, like some enormous beast spread out
across acres of forest ground, and they turned and ran. They were caught and
despatched a mile or two back, by men of the king’s guard, deployed to ensure
the obedience of the army. A few others attempted to climb trees, forgetting that
many breeds of snakes live in trees. But the majority of the frontliners stayed
where they were, weapons in hand and ready to use. And watched as a terrible
slithering death approached them yard by twining yard.
The line of snakes and the line of soldiers came closer together, until finally, they
met, converged, and overlapped.
 TWO
Luv and Kush smiled grimly at each other as the sound of soldiers screaming
came to them on the forest wind. Their first tactic had worked better than
expected. They had known of the existence of the snake nest ever since they
were very young: it was a legend in these parts of the forest. A great nest, larger
than any ever known had always existed here near a grotto that led to a network
of underground caverns. The nest itself only housed the few thousand snakes that
still chose to remain in the open rocky basin at the mouth of the grotto. It was
said there were tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands inside the
deep cavern. They constantly slithered up and down through the tunnels,
presumably in search of food and water and sunlight, which as cold-blooded
creatures, they required in order to stay alive. From the sounds of it, they had
succeeded in disturbing a good number into leaving their subterranean home and
traveling in search of safer climes. If those migrating serpents happened to come
across several hundred armed soldiers and consider them an obstruction to their
seeking of safety, well, too bad for the soldiers.
It had been the work of moments to light a fire and throw the blazing debris
down the other end of the great hole that joined up with the one at the back of
that same grotto. They had not known how many snakes might be disturbed by
the smoke and fire into climbing up and emerging into the open but any number
would be sufficient to cause trouble in the enemy ranks. But even as they
glanced down at the grotto from the top of the overhang—the only place safe
enough to view the nest—they had been astonished at the sheer masses of
writhing snakes that were emerging from the cave mouth. Thick sinuous green-
black ropes of intertwined snakes fell in a constant stream, like a waterfall of
serpents, to land on the leaf-strewn ground below, then work their way out of the
nest and into the forest, snaking away at the heightened speed that their species
resorted to only when faced by natural disaster or fire. They knew better than to
follow the fleeing snakes to view what happened when they encountered the
incoming soldiers: once let loose in the open jungle, panicked out of their minds,
those snakes were an army unto themselves.
As the screams of the soldiers continued, they climbed back down into the
canyon through another route which avoided any caves or open holes which
might be filled with more escaping snakes. Reaching the ground several
moments later, they were greeted with sighs of relief by their Maatr and
Nakhudi.
“That was the most dangerous thing possible,” Maatr admonished. “What if
those snakes had turned on you?”
Kush grinned. “We would have ordered them not to harm us by the authority of
Emperor Rama Chandra of Ayodhya!”
“Yes!” Luv agreed. Both brothers laughed.
Nakhudi glanced at Sita’s face when the boys mentioned Rama Chandra. “You
boys shouldn’t speak so insolently of the King.”
“Emperor!” Luv corrected. “Why not? He’s nothing but a kshatriya corrupted by
his lust for power.”
Nakhudi started to reply but Sita raised her hand. “Enough talk. That ploy with
the snakes, clever though it was, won’t keep them back for long. This time
they’ll come in force and when they do, it will take more than tactics to stop
them.”
“It’s all right, Maatr,” Kush said. “We have a plan.”
Sita looked at each of them in turn, her face filled with some undefinable
sadness. “I’m sure you do, my sons. But you will need all the help you can get.
Just two of you alone, brave soldiers though you are, can’t keep back the entire
Ayodhyan army.”
“Actually, Maatr,” Luv said, “in the right circumstances, it’s easier for a very
small force to elude a very large army. In this part of the jungle, with this
defensible position, knowing the terrain as we do, having made arrangements for
such a contingency, we stand a better chance of survival than a regiment or an
akshohini of defenders.”
“Yes, Maatr,” Kush added, deadly serious now. “You know this to be true. And
so do you, Nakhudi.”
Nakhudi nodded slowly. “Aye, true it is. But I did not intend for you two to make
this stand alone.”
Kush shrugged. “Nobody knows this terrain as well as we do. We have the
advantage of being difficult to spot and quick to move. They will be expecting a
much larger force, not just two defenders.” He spread his hands. “What do I have
to say to convince you?”
“I’m convinced,” Sita said, struggling to rise to her feet. “Except that there will
be more than just two of us defending.” She got to her feet and stood, swaying a
moment, then her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed soundlessly.
Nakhudi caught her without any effort and lowered her gently to the ground.
After placing her comfortably on the ground she rose and looked at the boys.
“She will be all right, but she has lost a great deal of blood. She needs rest and
treatment.”
The twins nodded, staring solemnly at her. “You must stay and care for her,
Nakhudi. You do see the wisdom in that, don’t you? You must stay and protect
all the survivors of the attack on the ashram.” Luv gestured at the band of
wounded and exhausted brahmins and brahmacharyas clustered at the back of
the box canyon. Rishi Dumma had taken charge of tending to the wounded and
his bulky form was visible moving from pallet to pallet, doing the best he could
to ease pain and suffering.
Nakhudi sighed but nodded. “Yes, in the event that the Ayodhyan forces do track
us down, I could hold them off at the mouth of the canyon. I will stay,” she
finished shortly, not happy about it but not arguing either.
“You will be safe here,” Kush added. “The only way the enemy can get in here is
if they get past us. And they won’t.”
Nakhudi nodded slowly, passing a hand across her face which looked more
weary than they had ever seen her before. “If they get past you, even her wounds
won’t keep your mother down,” she said. She meant that if the enemy could
enter the canyon it would mean Luv and Kush were dead and if that happened,
Sita wouldn’t care to live another minute. “Nor I.”
They looked at her steadily. “We will return. Once the enemy leaves. Or
surrenders.”
Nakhudi’s hand flew to her mouth involuntarily. “Surrenders!” she said. The
word brought a smile to her face. The very idea!
They neither laughed nor smiled. They had meant what they said. “Surrender is
always an option for them,” they said. “Just not for us.”
That much was true. While she doubted that two young boys could bring the
mighty Kosala empire to its knees in surrender, there was absolutely no doubt
that the enemy would never rest now until they were all dead. It made her
wonder if she was doing the right thing by letting the boys go out to fight this
battle on their own. Every instinct screamed to her to order them to stay and go
herself. But she knew that they were right for once. Somehow, this was their
fight and they had every right to wage this war. Whatever the consequence. Even
Guru Valmiki had given his assent earlier.
“There comes a day in every child’s life when he or she must become a man or
woman. For a kshatriya child, that is the day you become a kshatriya. Today is
your day, boys. Go and do what you must.”
They bowed to her, took her blessing. Then left at a run. She watched their lithe
bodies go, wondering if she would ever see them alive again—or they she.
***
Bejoo cringed at the sounds of the Ayodhyan soldiers screaming. The forest rang
with their misery and fear. He and his men had been in mortal fear that the
fleeing snakes might pass this way but mercifully there was water between his
position and the Ayodhyan’s and the wave of serpent’s has passed them by with
several hundred yards to spare. Even so, each time an Ayodhyan came stumbling
to the water, lips blackened and eyes staring wildly, he cringed, praying to
Shaneshwara that such a death never befall him. These were the stragglers who
had been fortunate enough, if you could call them fortunate, to be bitten by
snakes with slower-acting venom. Already consumed with fever and madness,
they sought out water desperately. But no amount of water could save them.
They would die slower and less painfully than their less fortunate comrades but
die they would, whether it took minutes more or hours. He estimated that several
hundred must have been bitten by the fleeing wave of snakes. The distant spiral
of smoke had told him how the boys had caused the snakes to flee this way but
he could not imagine venturing even close to a nest large enough to house so
many deadly reptiles. No doubt about it: The sons of the Lady Vedavati were
truly extraordinary in every way.
Now, he waited in the woods across the stream as the sound of hooves
announced the arrival of new troops. Metal glittered and flashed through the
trees, catching the morning sunlight and from the looks and sound of it, he
estimated that this was the main body of the King’s Guard he had seen earlier. A
familiar lean face came into view, riding a huge stallion, and Bejoo recognized
the villain who led this newly conscripted legion at once. Captain Aarohan. He
had heard tales about the man that he had not paid much heed to at the time. As a
simple grama-rakshkak, the politics of the army and city no longer concerned
him overmuch. But now that he was involved again, the very sight of the man
made his stomach churn. He knew now that the tales he had heard were probably
true. The devastation at Valmiki Ashram confirmed it. What manner of monster
would attack and slaughter innocent unarmed brahmacharyas, boys and women
included, without provocation or cause? Had he been thirty years younger—
fifteen even—and still in charge of his Vajra, he would have gladly led a
lightning attack against that monster. The man deserved to have all the snakes in
the Southwoods set upon him and left to die.
He watched as Aarohan questioned the groaning and half-poisoned remnants of
the first wave with growing impatience then outright anger. He heard the sound
of the man’s raised voice and saw his whip curl out and lash men mercilessly as
he vented his anger at the unexpected thwarting of the advance. Bejoo’s lips
curled back grimly, not relishing the sight of army men being abused thus, but
taking pleasure in Aarohan’s frustration. He was too far away to hear much of
what was said but the overall gist was quite obvious.
***
“What do you mean, retreat?” Aarohan snarled. He lashed out with his horse-
whip again, leaving a welt rising on the cheek and neck of a sergeant in charge
of one of the forward platoons. The man took the beating with stubborn
resignation, either accustomed to such abuse under the new Empirical Army or
simply too terrified to care. “Our orders are to flush out and destroy the rebels,
whatever the cost!”
The sergeant spoke without looking up at the mounted officer. He knew better
than to match gazes with the notorious new Captain, allegedly the right-hand
man of Pradhan Mantri Jabali himself and already notorious by his nickname,
Spike Hand Aarohan, owing to an incident in which the Captain had used a
spiked handguard to beat a man until the very flesh was ripped off his face,
rendering him unrecognizable even to his own family. “They have Nagas
fighting for them. And who knows what other breed of Asuras. They are demons
in human guise. We cannot fight such creatures.”
Aarohan stared at the man for a moment as if unable to absorb his words. Then
he lashed out with greater ferocity than before, whipping the man mercilessly as
he lost his temper. “FOOL! They were only snakes. They must have flushed
them out of some pit. No doubt they bred the wretched reptiles for food. There
are no asuras or Nagas left on earth, don’t you know that? This is the Treta Yuga
not the ancient world!”
The sergeant collapsed wordlessly under the beating. He had been bitten mainly
only non-venomous snakes but he had attempted to suck out the poison from the
wounds of several of his men and in the process some venom had entered his
bloodstream as well. Now, under the barrage from Aarohan, he suffered a fatal
collapse and sprawled on the ground, body quivering, legs lurching, foam oozing
from his open mouth.
Several of the men under the sergeant’s command ran up to help him. “BACK!”
shouted Aarohan, using his whip to warn them. He saw a spear clutched in one
man’s hand and said, “Hand me that!” The man handed him the spear, looking
dazed.
Aarohan turned his horse around, rode the few yards back to where the sergeant
lay in the throes of the venom-induced attack, and drove the spear down through
the man’s throat. The sergeant died, gurgling and gasping. His men reared back
in horror.
Aarohan wrenched the spear out of the man’s throat and turned to point the
bloody end at them. “The punishment for retreat is death! The penalty for failing
in your mission is death! The danda for disobeying or questioning my orders is
death! Do you understand?”
They stared at him dumbly. Then belatedly shouted a ragged response: “Aye!”
There was only fear and no respect in their tone but their response was clear.
“Now, continue in your mission! Track down and find the rebels and kill them
all. Spread the word down the lines. Search and kill all rebels! No retreat, no
surrender.”
Then, to underline his point, he flung the spear at the crowd of dazed soldiers. It
struck a foot-soldier in the belly, driving him back into the crowd. He collapsed,
dying. His comrades started to bend to give him aid, then remembered that
Aarohan was watching and straightened up again. They stared at him, then
turned and began shuffling away, snatching up their weapons. Even the wounded
and those who had injured themselves getting away from the snakes but had not
been actually bitten scrambled to their feet and ran after their comrades. In
moments, the clearing by the stream was empty except for the dead sergeant and
other men who had collapsed from the slower-acting venom and were eking out
their last moments.
“Kill them all,” Aarohan ordered his men. “I don’t care if they will die anyway.
Kill them all to drive home the point. The danda for desertion is death.”
As his men went about the grisly task of cutting the throats of the dying and
fatally poisoned men lying by the stream, Aarohan summoned his closest and
most trusted cronies to him. They came, their sly faces grinning in anticipation.
“Now, listen carefully, this is the day for which we’ve been waiting. We roll our
bone dice right and we will all live out our lives as rich lords of Ayodhya, doing
as we please to the end of our days.”
“We’ll do what has to be done,” said one of his aides confidently. “That band of
ragtag outlaws and children won’t survive long.”
“Even so,” Aarohan said, “they know this forest well and may have more tricks
at hand like the ploy with the snakes. We’ll use the main army to beat down the
woods. Let them do the dog work and die like dogs if need be. Meanwhile, I
want us to split up into two groups and ride around. We have to find the woman
named Vedavati, the one who survived the fight at the ashram.”
One of his men spat bitterly on the ground. “That one? She was lucky to have
escaped us there. She killed half a dozen good men. One of them was my
brother. I want a chance at her.” He patted his thigh. “When I finish with her,
she’ll be begging for the edge of my blade.”
Aarohan nodded. “You do that. You do whatever you want to her that pleases
you. But I want her and her companion, the other bigger-built woman, dead
before the sun sets today. Do you understand? I will give a hundred gold coin to
any man who fetches me the head of the woman named Vedavati.”
“What about her brats, the twins with the bows.”
Aarohan turned his head to seek out the man who had spoken. “A hundred gold
coin for each of their heads then. And fifty for the woman companion, the big
one.”
The men looked at each other with pleased grins plastered on their faces. “Easy
money, boys.”
“Maybe not so easy,” muttered one of the men. “I saw those boys use their bows.
They ain’t no brahmacharya novices.”
“Get the mother, you get the boys,” said Aarohan harshly. He looked directly at
the man who had complained. “Use her as a hostage or as you please if that
works. The boys will do anything to save her. Anything.”
The men nodded, liking the sound of this now. “That’s three hundred gold coins
for the mother and sons then,” said another man. “Right, captain?”
Aarohan nodded. “And fifty for the woman companion.”
His aide grinned slyly. “Sounds like you don’t want them saying the wrong
things to the right people.”
Aarohan nodded. “I don’t want them saying anything ever again. See to it,” he
barked.
“Yes, sir, yes captain!” replied his men smartly.
They split into two groups and rode in separate directions.
Across the stream, Bejoo watched them go, then turned and melted back into the
forest.

THREE
Lakshman emerged from the royal pavilion, face tight with anger. Bharat and
Shatrugan watched as he strode to and fro several times, trying to work off his
fury, then went over to a horse trough that had just been filled with fresh water
for the emperor’s own horse and emptied a pailful of water over his own head.
He shook his face free of the excess waters, spitting out a mouthful angrily. His
brothers waited for him to cool sufficiently to speak.
“He will not listen to reason,” he told them. “He says he has heard the testimony
of the witnesses and seen the evidence and has delivered his judgement.”
Bharata and Shatrugan exchanged a glance. “But we were there! We can bear
witness to what happened. What about our testimony?”
Lakshman dipped another pail and drank deeply from it. Nearby, the tethered
horse whinnied in protest. “He will not hear or see anyone else. He is in
consultation with the War Council.” Lakshman clenched his fist around the
handle of the pail. “Jabali is by his side, filling his ear with venom. I heard them
talking of war with Videha when I entered.”
Shatrugan sat on the edge of the trough, not caring that the water was sloshing
over the edge. “This is bad, bhraatr. We have to do something. We must stop this
madness.”
Lakshman took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I can do nothing further.”
Bharat took hold of Lakshman’s bicep. “You can’t just walk away! That was
Sita-bhabhi and her sons we saw. Our nephews. Did you tell Rama that much at
least?”
Lakshman took hold of Bharat’s forearm and dislodged his brother’s hand from
his bicep. “I tried everything. But he is on a road without any chance of slowing
or turning back. There is only one way to go from here: forward.”
“And forward means war with our own allies? This is madness,” Shatrugan
said.
“This is Rama, Emperor of Kosala,” Lakshman said bitterly. “And these are the
limits to my influence over him. If I try to circumvent his authority, I will be in
defiance of the throne as you two are.”
“There must be something we can do to stop this. I know that lout Aarohan and
his thugs are upto something.”
“If they are, then it is with the full knowledge and oversight of Pradhan Mantri
Jabali himself,” Lakshman said morosely. “He personally vouched for the King’s
Guard. They function under his command, did you know that? Even the King
himself does not have command of his own Guard!”
“Let me speak to Kausalya-Maa,” Bharat said. “She talked some sense into
Rama’s head earlier. Maybe he will listen to her again.” He started to leave.
Lakshman caught his brother’s arm, stopping him. “There is no use. He will see
no one now that the War Council is in session. Besides, to back down now would
be to lose face before Jabali and the War Council. It would be a tactical error to
call on his mother each time he needs correction.”
“Then what do you propose we do?” Shatrugan asked. “Stand by and watch this
juggernaut,” he gestured towards the enormous army camp sprawled along the
banks of the Sarayu for yojanas downriver, “roll on and crush our own relatives
and friends across the land? Plunge the entire civilized world into the madness of
a war without reason, without purpose?”
Lakshman stood up. “There may be a way to get Rama to listen. Someone he
cannot dismiss as easily as his brothers or his mother.”
“Who?” Bharat asked curiously.
Lakshman looked at each of them in turn. “His sons.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Bharat and Shatrugan both smiled.
Shatrugan slapped Lakshman’s shoulder. “Now this is the Lakshman I grew up
with,” he said, grinning widely.
Lakshman shrugged. “It took me a while but I finally realized I can’t just go on
this way. Things are going out of hand in Ayodhya. This madness has to stop.”
“Very well, then, bhraatr, we are with you. What shall we do?”
Lakshman gestured to where their horses stood waiting and ready. “You two ride
back into the forest and try to find the sons of Sita before Aarohan and his men
do. If our suspicions are right, that villain will be trying his best to track them
and kill them. Make sure you keep them alive. Officially though, you will both
be on a personal mission on my direct orders, your goal being to find the
Ashwamedha stallion.”
Bharat nodded. “We understand. What will you do in the meanwhile?”
Lakshman turned and glared in the direction of the royal pavilion. “I’ll wait here
for an opportunity to get Rama alone without Jabali or the other ear-poisoners.
When you find the twins, bring Sita-bhabhi and them here.”
“And then what happens?” Shatrugan asked, mounting his horse. Bharat did the
same beside him.
“Then we shall have a family reunion,” Lakshman said.
He slapped the rumps of their horses, sending them lurching forward and on
their way.
***
Captain Aarohan studied the valley one last time before turning to his aides.
“This time we have them. This valley is a death trap. There are only two ways
out. North, back to the raj-marg, the Sarayu river and then Mithila. The Imperial
Army is already on that route. All we have to do is move one akshohini ahead of
the main procession and position it so that anyone exiting the forest on that road
is instantly captured.”
“But the army is supposed to follow the trail of the Ashwameda stallion, not
range ahead at will,” said one of his aides.
Aarohan made a sound of impatience. “Yes. And once the stallion is captured,
the army does what it must to recapture it.”
“Ah. Of course.”
Aarohan shook his head despairingly. “Leave the military strategy to me. Just
follow orders. Now, as I was saying, there are only two ways out of this valley.
The other way is East by South-East. If they go that way, we have them. In fact,
it would be best if we force them in that direction.”
His aide frowned but hesitated before asking the question.
Aarohan cursed. “Because it leads to a series of ravines and gullies and finally
ends in a box canyon.” He looked around to make sure they all understood. “A
dead end. Once we chase them in there, they will be like rats in a trap. We have
only to poke them through the bars until they are dead.”
The aides nodded.
“I am so happy we are all in agreement,’ Aarohan said sarcastically. “Make sure
the akshohini on the raj-marg covering that patch of forest is prominently visible.
The outlaws will most likely attempt to exit using the old grama-train route that
snakes through the jungle and rejoins the raj-marg at the Ahilya Bai junction,
some miles outside of Mithila.”
The aides exchanged a glance. One spoke cautiously: “That will put the army on
Mithila land. Well into Videha territory.”
Aarohan nodded. “That’s the idea. We operate on the premise that the old
minister Sumantra was murdered by Mithilan brigands who then stole the sacred
stallion and absconded with him into the jungle. We have every right under Arya
law to rove wherever necessary to recover the stallion.”
“And every acre of land we cover while doing so becomes annexed to Kosala?”
said another aide, tentatively adding a questioning note to the statement. “So we
incidentally expand Ayodhya’s dominion in the course of this outlaw hunt!
That’s sharp.”
“Not as sharp as the point of my blade if we fail at this mission,” said Aarohan
shortly. He half-drew his sword, keeping his hand on the hilt to let them know he
was done chatting and that this was serious business now. “We all know the
upside of success on this job. The downside is not something that bears thinking
about so I suggest you don’t dwell on it. Do as I order. Get these outlaws. And
we all go home rich and set for life.”
They all nodded tersely, none of them grinning or saying an unnecessary word.
Aarohan looked at each one of them in turn to make sure his message had struck
home. When he was satisfied he had made his point as effectively as possible, he
slid the sword back into the hilt and leaned forward on his saddle. He pointed
down into the valley, jabbing his finger as he pointed and instructed:
“This is how we round them up and herd them,” he said, “just like running cattle
except that this time we don’t have to worry about being chased by the cattle
owners.” He grinned brightly, light eyes twinkling in his fair face. “We’ll be
doing all the chasing.”
***
Bejoo started as a lithe figure leaped down from the tree branch to land beside
him. “Boy,” he said softly, “you gave me a start.” He glanced up at the tree. “I
checked that tree just before I stopped here.” He didn’t add ‘in case there might
be snakes hanging from the branches’. The fact was he could still hear the
screams of those bitten soldiers and see their bloodless faces as they gasped and
choked out their last breaths by the stream. He thought he would see them in his
nightmares forever—or at least as long as he lived.
Luv grinned up at him, squatting. “I wasn’t there when you stopped here. I
waited till you settled before coming over. I used the vanar highway.”
Bejoo frowned. “The vanar highway…” An image flashed in his mind, of
Hanuman loping through the trees along the Sarayu near Ayodhya, a sight that
had never failed to draw excited cries and pointed fingers particularly among the
children of the city back in the months following Rama’s return. Another age,
another Ayodhya. The vanar could race along the treeline faster than the faster
horse in the kingdom. Bejoo doubted if these boys could travel as fast through
the trees, lacking Hanuman’s particular bodily appendages, but he guessed they
must be fast enough to have dropped in on him so suddenly. He had only stopped
here a moment ago. “I understand,” he said, smiling. “You are resourceful little
fellows, younguns. I knew you were someone special the minute I laid eyes on
you on that grama marg the other day.”
Luv shrugged with some embarrassment. “Sorry we held you up that day. You
did get back the wagon with all its contents, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, Nakhudi returned it safe and sound, thank you very much.” Bejoo
reflected briefly that had they not stolen the wagon and Nakhudi not returned it,
he would never have gotten involved in this in the first place. “Actually, I’m
very happy you robbed our grama-train that day.”
Luv crinkled his nose. It was somewhat snubbed, resembling his mother’s
slightly snubbed nose as well. “You are?” He looked puzzled.
Bejoo patted him on the back affectionately, careful not to touch the oversized
rig bristling with arrows. “It was the best thing that happened to me in the last
ten years.”
Luv shrugged, making a face that suggested he would never understand the ways
and minds of grown ups. “We know they’re coming. We’re ready for them.”
Bejoo stared at him. “Ready? My boy, from what I saw, you and your brother are
very good with your bows but these are armed, armored, mounted and trained
mercenaries. More of them than even I have seen together in my life. There are
over a hundred mounted men in the King’s Guard, with another full company of
about one thousand on foot. And they know what they’re doing from the looks
of it. Don’t under-estimate that Captain Aarohan. He’s a brute but he’s an
experienced brute. When he comes at you with over one thousand armed killers,
he means business. And that’s not counting the Imperial Army at his back for
whatever support he needs. You cannot fight these men with just your bows,
lad!”
Luv looked undisturbed by Bejoo’s speech. “Why not? It’s been done before.
There’s the famous battle of Janasthana where a band of outlaws stood against a
horde of thousands of rakshasas. Berserkers too! And still they won.”
Bejoo realized the boy was referring to the battle led by Rama himself, against
the last survivors of the clan of rakshasas that had come to avenge the
humiliation of their sister-rakhsasa Supanakha, twenty three years ago. He
wondered if Luv and his brother knew that the leader of that ‘band of outlaws’
had been none other than their own father. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell
them. Especially not here and now! The boy had a grandiose enough opinion of
his and his brother’s abilities as it was.
“Forget tales and legends,” he said gently, “this is real. These men are worse
than rakshasas. They have the power and might of the kingdom backing them.
They will not stop until they get what they want.”
Luv nodded. “We have the royal stallion. We kept it safe. We think they mean to
kill it and blame it on us.”
Bejoo spread his hands. “Yes! That is exactly what they mean to, I have no doubt
at all. You see? That’s why I must take the stallion back to Ayodhya myself. I
have the ear of Pradhan Mantri Jabali. He will listen to me. I will take the horse
to him and attempt to sort out this entire situation. It’s the only way.”
Luv looked at him with a strangely intense expression that belied his years. “And
what of the ashram slaughter? The extermination of the outlaw camps? The
killing of Nakhudi’s friends? We thought the bear-killers were monsters but
these men are the real demons. They are asuras in human guise. We cannot let
them walk away unpunished.”
Bejoo sighed. “What do you want me to say, youngun? They are authorized by
Jabali himself under Rama’s authority. If I try to accuse them, I would be
clapped in chains before I could finish explaining. They are too powerful to
bring to book right away. But at some point in time, once this is all over, we can
try our best to see that justice is done—Where are you going?”
Luv had risen to his feet and turned away. He stopped and looked back at Bejoo
darkly. “There is no other point in time. This is the time. This is the place. This is
the day they come to justice.” He raised his bow. “And this is the instrument of
their danda.”
Bejoo rose to a half-crouch, his aging knees and joints protesting. “Boy, listen to
me.”
Luv’s face was caught by a beam of sunlight shining through the dense dappled
tree cover as he looked back. Bejoo was struck by how much the boy resembled
his father at that moment, in that angle and light. Despite his boyish voice, his
tone was as stern and forbidding as Rama himself: “Bejoo-chacha, thank you for
everything you have done for us. Leave the rest to Kush and me and me now.”
And before Bejoo could say another word, he was gone, vanished like a deer into
the dark woods.

FOUR
The men of the Captain’s Guard were confident of themselves. They were a
ragtag band of ruffians who had lent their swords out for hire in half a dozen
different kingdoms across the civilized world. Most of them were Mlecchas,
barbarians from foreign lands beyond the great Kush mountain ranges or across
the great oceans that bounded the sub-continent. Their mixture of skin color and
appearance betrayed their worldly mix as did their accents and languages and
customs. They were a motley bunch with only three things in common: They
knew how to kill. They enjoyed doing it. And they had no compunctions about
who was at the receiving end of their blows or thrusts. Brahmins or merchants,
kings or serving girls, soldiers or other sell-swords, they had killed all kinds.
Often enough to know that all living creatures died much the same way and were
as easy or hard to kill. They had turned execution into an art, assassination into a
craft, murder into a thriving trade and now, as their youth soured into mature
manhood, they sought to secure their futures, build a nest for themselves where
they could indulge their varied vices and live out the rest of their lives in
opulence and luxury. They had seen their numbers ebb and flow any number of
times in the past decade itself, for the mortality rate in their business was the
highest imaginable and it was time now to settle down and reap the fruits of their
adventuring.
As the ancient jest went: What happens to criminals when they retire? They
become politicians. Politics would do very nicely, thank you. And the totalitarian
regime that dominated Kosala now made Ayodhya the ideal place for such men
to settle and make their homes. After all, the courts of kingdoms across the
world were filled with over-dressed overweight nobles and aristocrats who had
risen through much the same means: by doing whatever they had to in order to
get there. To them, the end always justified the means and today, their end was to
kill the woman named Vedavati and her twin sons Luv and Kush…by any means
necessary. It was a mission simpler by far than most they had undertaken until
now. Even the handful who had been with the band since the beginning—
Aarohan and his aides—could not recall an assignment that had seemed less
daunting and which promised greater rewards. The mood was good, morale high,
and an air of certain victory reigned among the company as it poured into the
valley.
They moved through the valley in a familiar pattern they had executed several
times before, laying out a grid on which men moved in trios, each one positioned
diagonally to the other two at all times, thereby enabling them to watch one
another’s flanks and rear. The valley was perhaps a mile from the highest point
of the eastern hill to the peak of the western hill bounding it, most of that
distance at ground level. It was a little more than a mile long, the two hills
converging in a series of wadis and gullies that wound and crisscrossed until
they led to the box canyon surrounded by sheer crumbling rock faces. It was
impossible to climb over those rock faces and there was no way to ride or walk
or climb around them. Once a person entered the wadis and gullies from any
point, they would either end up going in circles until they came back into the
valley or enter the box canyon and be boxed in. Aarohan had deployed the full
thousand men at his command into the valley at once, determined to flush out
and finish off the prey within the day rather than prolong this hunt. He and his
hundred horse-mounted cavalry stayed on the hill rise overlooking the valley,
watching from above. It was difficult to see much with the dense tree cover but
unlike the jungle outside the valley there were gaps in the trees here and even a
few small clearings and he could glimpse the reflection of noon sunlight on
weapons and armor and buckles and helmets as his warriors moved in threes. He
smiled as he watched the frontline cross the halfway point. There was less than
half a mile between them and the box canyon now. Already the prey was
trapped. It was only a matter of time now.
***
Bejoo waited until the last possible moment before ordering his men into action.
He knew from experience that a larger company attacking a smaller target would
be more cautious and wary when they first entered the new environment. The
further they went into hostile territory without encountering any resistance, the
more complacent and less alert they grew. In this case, he could hear the
occasional gruff laughter of Aarohan’s men and see the flash of their teeth as
they jested and laughed their way up the valley. It was evident that they did not
think much of the target they intended to acquire and were already assuming that
the target was probably skulking quietly, sweating it out and hoping not to be
found. It was a common mistake made when fighting outlaws and refugees. It
was true that these were people who had run away or chose to stay away from
civilized society. But that did not mean they were all cowards or that they could
not fight. Push them too hard, invade their territories, slaughter their loved ones
and friends…and they would fight back more fiercely than trained soldiers. He
knew that these arrogant mercenaries were in for a surprise once they finally
came face to face with their quarry. But he also knew that once that happened,
the fight would be over very quickly. Short and fierce. Because there were
thousands of these brutes. And only a handful of defenders. And of those
defenders, very few could actually fight. Which was why most of the bear-killers
and Nakhudi herself were in the box canyon, protecting the survivors of the
ashram massacre. And the sacred horse.
So Bejoo had positioned his small band of grama-rakshaks with their backs to
the canyon, at the end of the valley. In order to get to the defenders, Aarohan’s
men would have to get past them. And that would only happen when Bejoo and
every last one of his men were down.
He had spoken briefly to his men before they deployed into the valley. His
scouts told him that Aarohan’s company would be here in moments, so they did
not have much time. They were barely a few hundred yards ahead of the enemy.
Still, he needed to say what he had to say—and to give them a chance to
respond, should they choose to do so.
“You are all olduns like myself,” he said gruffly. “So I won’t unload the usual
wagon load of uks offal on your heads the way they do with younguns. If
nothing else, we’ve all earned the right to hear things said plainly and directly.”
There was a chuckle or two at his colorful reference but for the most part the
band of grizzled, white-bearded, white-haired and bald-headed veterans gazed
back with apparent indifference at him. These were men who had seen too much
to get excited over anything anymore. The fact that they were here was enough.
“What we are about to do is foolish and heroic. We are likely to die doing it. And
even if some of us survive, they will either be killed on the spot or be executed
later. Not to put too fine a point on it, we are going up against suicidal odds and
our action will probably be termed treasonous.”
He looked around to see if there was any reaction to those words. One oldun
hawked and spat a mouthful of supari juice, another with his hair tied behind his
head with a cloth band scratched his backside but mostly everyone just looked
old and disinterested. Only the newest man in the group, that big-built fellow
who had joined them only a few days earlier, seemed to display a modicum of
reaction. The man had been a gatewatch sentry all his life, Bejoo recalled, a
familiar face at the first gate for as long as Bejoo could remember. He had been
retired involuntarily, he had said, yet another modern development brought in by
the new regime. In Bejoo’s time the only way a soldier ‘retired’ was when he
died in battle. There was no other form of retirement. So long as I can raise my
sword… went the old kshatriya tavern song, with a second line that descended
into ribaldry…And so long as I can raise my sword…The gatewatch retiree was
the only one whose face showed some semblance of emotion and that emotion
was a familiar one. He wants to fight the bastards who retired him, the new order
that seeks to change the old ways and bring in a ‘better’ Ayodhya for all. He
wants to show those young idiots backed by venal old war-mongers that real
soldiers don’t retire and don’t go out looking for trouble: they just do their job
quietly and when trouble comes, they don’t back down. What was the man’s
name again? Somasra. That was it. Old gatewatch Somasra.
“I am going to fight for these people because I believe they are being unjustly
hunted down and slaughtered without cause or provocation. That goes against
everything I know about kshatriya dharma. It is an affront to Ayodhya that these
so-called King’s Guard wear our national colors and claim to be acting in our
national interest. They represent everything that is wrong with our kingdom and
has been growing steadily wronger over the past decade. With all due respect to
Samrat Rama Chandra, I think he does not know the half of what some of his
people are upto and if he did he would not condone their actions or endorse
them. But since they act in his name, and since there is no time to seek out the
Samrat or his advisors and beg for this action to be halted, the only way is to
stand and face them down.”
He looked around, indicating their numbers. “Or at least hold them off as long as
possible. Now, I do this out of my own choice. You don’t have to. Those who
wish to turn back can do so now, before the King’s Guard arrive. Slip out
through the forest and go farther north or south or wherever you please. Those
who wish to stay and die with me today…well, all I can say about those who do
stay…” he shrugged then raised his voice to heckle them furiously: “…is that
you’re a bunch of farting old fools with more pride in dharma than love of life.”
At this, they perked up a little, some snorting, others rubbing mustaches and
slapping arms and thighs. Old Somasra showed his teeth: they were quite yellow
and the front two were missing. Sign of a man who stuck his face where it
doesn’t belong—or where it does, Bejoo’s wife used to say when she saw a
kshatriya like that. Then she would look at him as if to say silently: Like
yourself.
“Are we going to fight now,” said the old gatewatch Somasra, “or are we going
to stand around here all day talking and polishing each other’s swords?”
This brought a few guffaws. Bejoo grinned. At least he had gotten through to
them, with Somasra’s help. “Very well. We take a defensive position at the end
of the valley and only show ourselves at the last moment, when they are almost
upon us.”
“And then we kill them with our bad breath,” said another oldun with only one
arm and one eye. He had lost the limb in the Last Asura War and the eye in a
childhood fight, and while he had once been able to wield a sword with his good
arm better than most men with two good arms, he now had to use a lighter
shortsword because it was all he could manage to lift. The man would probably
not survive his first clash with the enemy yet here he was, tossing off a quip as if
he were teaching new recruits on the training field.
“You do that, Yuddhajit,” said one of the others, stuffing a fresh plug of tobacco
in his mouth. “You’re armed for it!”
Guffaws all around. Then they disbanded and descended into the valley. Barely
had they entered the tree line when Bejoo made out the distant thunder of
approaching hooves. Soon after, he had turned back and peered cautiously
through a gap and saw the familiar half-shaved half-bearded face of the Captain
of the King’s Guard. See you at the end of my sword, he thought, then continued
working his way through the undergrowth with greater stealth. The element of
surprise—if even that—was about all they had on their side.
That, and two young boys with big bows and even bigger hearts.
But he had fought and lived long enough to know that even the biggest of hearts
couldn’t overcome odds like these.
It’s just not possible, he thought morosely. Once they knock us down, there’ll be
nothing to stop them barging into that canyon and finishing the slaughter they
began yesterday.
All the more reason why his olduns and he had to do whatever damage they
could. Perhaps if they caused enough casualties, Aarohan would withdraw and
leave the regular army to flush out the rebels. If they did that, then at least there
might be a chance, however slender, that the commanding officer would honor
kshatriya dharma and not cut down brahmins, women and children out of hand.
It wasn’t much but it was all that he could think of and hope for.
And die for.
Time now, he thought, as he glimpsed and heard the frontline of Aarohan’s Guard
approach his position. He glanced to right and left. Somewhere over there in the
shade of those trees was the old gatewatch Somasra. Yes, there he was, a hulking
shadow no less a tree trunk in his own right. The man must have been
formidable in his youth. Bejoo nodded at the shadow, not sure if Somasra saw
him.
Then he raised his sword and launched himself at the nearest trio of approaching
King’s Guard.

FIVE
“Jai Shree Shaneshwara!” Bejoo cried as he launched himself at the closest trio
of King’s Guard.
Somasra had seen the grama-rakshak’s sign and was prepared. Even as Bejoo
leaped out, shouting loud enough to send cockatoos screeching in panic from the
trees overhead, Somasra stepped from his hiding place and began slashing with
his double-sided sword at the next trio.
They were momentarily distracted by Bejoo’s cry—which was the reason why
the grama-rakshak had shouted a battle cry in the first place. It served to inform
his own men that the attack had begun, and to distract the approaching enemy
frontline for that brief instant. Somasra took full advantage of the distraction.
He leaped into the center of the triangle formed by the three King’s Guard,
slashing sideways at the first. He caught the man completely unawares and had
the satisfaction of striking aside the man’s drawn sword and feeling his own
blade bite deeply. The man collapsed, gouting blood.
But that was all the advantage Somasra got. The other two immediately moved
to take up positions on either side of Somasra, forcing him to fight on two fronts
at once. That was a deadly game. It had been a long time since he had seen
active combat. Most of his decades on gatewatch had been spent breaking up
brawls, dealing with angry traders and offensive foreigners who thought it their
birthright to enter any city they pleased and act as they desired. But there had
been a fair share of good fights as well, mostly with armed and dangerous men,
some drunk, others just mean enough to take satisfaction from gutting a guard or
two, even though they knew they would be caught at once and thrown into the
dungeons. Casualties among gatewatch guards weren’t high but they did occur
and Somasra had seen a fair number of fellow gatewatch guardscut down on the
job. Enough to make him stay relatively well enough in shape and practice every
chance he got.
Now, he had to work for his life. The two King’s Guard were shrewd and young
and experienced enough to have taken down men like him before. They made
him dance, toying with him, one coming in and pretending to get past his guard,
forcing him to turn and swing to defend himself, the other doing the same on the
other side, until all he was doing was swinging this way and that like a dancer at
a king’s court. He would tire soon like this and sooner or later, one of them
would get a point in and then the other would finish the job. Already he felt his
old lower back injury protest as he swung from the hip, trying to keep both in
sight at once and failing because they were smart enough to know just how far
apart to stand.
There was only one way to end this dance and he resorted to it. When one of
them feinted, grinning with the knowledge that he was a foot closer than the last
attempt, Somasra lunged at the man. They were prepared for this move—it was
the cue for the other fellow to step in fast from behind and run his sword through
Somasra’s kidney—but what they weren’t prepared for was what he did next. He
grabbed the first man’s sword hand, then the man’s neck and shoulder, turned
and swung the man towards his oncoming comrade. The other man, rushing in to
aim at Somasra’s kidney from behind, realized what was about to happen and
tried to turn away but was too late. His thrusting blade punched into his own
fellow’s belly, running the man through. The first man collapsed on the ground,
heaving in his death throes. The second fellow’s sword, trapped in the man’s
stomach, required a moment to be pulled free. That moment gave Somasra’s
aging muscles and feet enough time to cover the few yards of ground and hack at
the man’s exposed neck with the power of his bunched arms. He nearly took the
man’s head off.
Leaning on his bloody sword, gasping for breath, he heard the cries and shouts
of outraged men from all across the valley. It seemed the element of surprise had
worked for them after all. Those sounded like King’s Guard dying to him—the
olduns would just grunt and die, they wouldn’t waste their fading breath trying
to shout. Some of them probably couldn’t shout, their throats hoarsened by over-
use and chewing too much supari. They were old enough to know when a man
died he died alone even if he was on a battlefield surrounded by a dozen
akshohini of his own. Only the young mercenary fools would shout to warn each
other and call for help. Somasra grinned at the screams that rang through the
noonday stillness. Maybe old gold was as tough as young steel after all.
He heard a sound behind him and turned to see two men in King’s Guard
uniforms approaching. They had blood on their anga-vastras and swords and
since there were only two of them, he could only presume they had met one of
his comrades and come off victors. They approached him cautiously but
confidently, secure in their youth and knowledge of superior numbers. He
sighed. Now he would be obliged to kill these two in order to avenge his fallen
fellow as well as defend his own life. Oh well. If he hadn’t wanted to dance he
wouldn’t have come to the wedding feast.
“Come on, littleuns,” Somasra said, forcing his tired shoulder and back muscles
to heave and raise the lowered sword. “Time for your bloodbath. Don’t forget to
wash behind the ears.”
***
Bejoo finished cutting down his second trio of enemy and took a brief moment
to catch his breath. He leaned against a tree trunk spattered with the gore from a
slashed throat. He looked back and found himself unable to believe that those six
corpses were his work. Six young men of the King’s Guard? Really? Either these
mercenaries were out of practice or they had grown too accustomed to easy
pickings. Although, he admitted ruefully as he worked a broken tooth loose from
a socket and examined it, they hadn’t seemed out of practice when he was
surrounded by them, three at a time and fighting for his life. In fact, come to
think of it, they had been quite good. Perhaps he simply had more experience
and knowledge of swordcraft? Or perhaps—and this was more likely—he had
more reason to fight than they.
The cries and shouts from across the valley had ceased. Only the cries of the
birds remained in the still afternoon air, calling out in plaintive tones as they
circled the valley, wanting to return to their roosts if the wretched humans below
had finished killing each other. Not yet, winged brothers, but soon it will all be
over. Very soon. He was old and experienced enough to know that killing those
six men had taken everything he had. Now, he would be lucky if he was able to
keep the next trio at bay for more than a few minutes before succumbing.
A sudden silence fell upon the valley. He frowned. That was odd. Then he tilted
his head and listened. The faint sounds of clashing weaponry had ceased as well.
That could only mean one thing: the enemy had retreated. And since he knew
that his old veterans, however bravely they might have conducted themselves in
the first clash, were not enough cause for a force of a thousand King’s Guard to
retreat. No. They were simply regrouping and changing tactics. They would
attack again soon and this time, they would cut through Bejoo and his dirty
dozens in a matter of minutes.
He wiped his face clean and held his sword ready, taking up a position which
afforded him cover on at least one side. It meant he would be boxed in if they
came at him in numbers but this was likely to be his last stand anyway. He
would rather be taken from the front than from behind.
A sound came to his ears.
He frowned but it was gone as quickly as it had come.
He waited and listened.
There it was again.
And again.
And yet again.
Then it continued almost non-stop, a rhythmic repetition. The same, or similar
sounds, repeated over and over again, like some distant drummer’s beat. For an
instant, he wondered if it was a drummer’s beat. But that was no drum beat. It
was…something else. Something he had heard infinite times before and knew
intimately well. He clenched his free hand, frustrated at not being able to
identify the sound.
Then a man sound came on the still afternoon air. A choking wet cry, as a man
might make if struck in the throat with a blade. A quick explosion of air before
the blood rushed up and spurted out the hole.
A few minutes later, there was another man’s sound, this one a distinctive death
rattle in a dying man’s throat. As if he had been cut down but the message that
he was dead had yet to reach his flailing limbs. It ended with another repetition
of that sound. The first sound.
After a few more moments, Bejoo understood that men were dying across the
valley. Not his men, not the dirty dozens. The sounds of dying men were coming
from several yards further out, from the enemy frontlines. So the men who were
dying were King’s Guards. No mystery to that. The question was: Who was
killing them and how?
He didn’t think his olduns would have gone after the retreating frontline. They
wouldn’t have had the energy for one thing. And they might be suicidal but they
were not stupid: at best, they had dealt with four score or five score of the
enemy. There were still the better part of a thousand more out there, across the
valley. To hold them off was madness enough: to try to push them back was
ludicrous. No. Bejoo was dead certain that all his men were to his left and right,
spread out in a long ragged line across this end of the valley. The sounds and
death rattles were coming from farther down. It had to be King’s Guard men
dying.
Then it came to him.
The sound.
It was the sound of a weapon being deployed. One so familiar he berated himself
for not recognizing it at once.
“Arrows!”
That was the sound of an arrow whickering through the air across a long
distance. It should have been almost silent except to the bowman himself but the
sound was amplified by the bowl-shape of the valley, which was why he heard it
at all. And those death rattles were the ones that hadn’t killed their targets
instantly. Which meant all the others had struck home dead to rights. It had to
mean that because if the arrow passing overhead was so clearly audible then the
same bolt striking the wood of a tree trunk or passing through a clump of bushes.
This was the sound of arrows being shot from somewhere behind him and at the
King’s Guard soldiers spread out across the valley. Being shot with deadly
accuracy and lightning speed.
He began to count the rhythm of the loosing and was astonished to find himself
unable to keep up. How fast were they shooting? How was it possible to shoot
that fast and with such accuracy? Then he understood: there are two of them.
They shoot alternately, so at any given instant, there’s always an arrow in the air.
That way, they cover each other during the moment between shots.
He marveled at the skill and training that had gone into perfecting such a
system.
Then, after he had mulled over that for a moment, he wondered how many
enemy soldiers they were actually hitting.

SIX
Luv and Kush were a single being and that being’s entire existence was
dedicated to a single task: Destruction. They had found a position on the top of
the rock face above the box canyon, overlooking the valley yet still high enough
to cover most of the low-lying basin. It had taken them time to climb up here
carrying their heavy burden for they were carrying their entire store of arrows.
Ever since they had learned to loose and Maatr had taught them the importance
of replacing what they used, they had taken to crafting at least a certain number
of arrows each day. They used many during their practice play each day,
developing their own methods for various angles of attack, for shooting from
low positions upwards and from high to low, through leaves and foliage, across
water, into water, against the wind, downwind…every imaginable situation in
which it was possible to fire arrows, they experimented with, mastered and then
perfected. Whenever possible, they reused their arrows. But many were damaged
in use or not retrievable. That was when they thought of the possibility of
someday requiring a store of arrows for defending the ashram. They would
require perfectly made and stored arrows, not reused ones chipped or bent or
damaged in any way. And when that day came, it would be too late to start
making and storing.
So they had taken to making a certain number every day for their practice…and
setting a fixed number aside. They made the best arrows they were capable of
making, honing the fletching and shaft and head after much experimentation and
use in various situations. Finally, they had begun saving their store carefully in
bales of straw to avoid warping from moisture and then stored the bales
themselves in the box canyon. They had retrieved the bundles earlier and then
carried them up here to this position chosen months earlier in case of just such a
contingency. At the time they had never seriously thought that they would
literally be fending off an army. But just in case, they thought it wouldn’t hurt to
be prepared. Besides, arrows could be sold at the city markets or to the
occasional grama-train—the ones they didn’t waylay—for a small profit. If
nothing else, they had intended to sell their store and buy Maatr something from
the market or a trader. A new veena perhaps to replace the old molding one she
played on. Luckily for them, Maatr’s naming day was a good few months away
and their store was intact.
Now, they depleted that store at a prodigious rate. They were loosing faster than
they had ever loosed before, and for longer, and across greater distances and
with unerring accuracy. For one thing, they had never actually aimed to kill
before. They loved the creatures of the forest and could never dream of killing
them for sport—or for food, which was, in a sense, worse. They had always
practiced on inanimate objects, resorting to clever tricks to increase the
challenge when practicing. One of them would spin a stone in the air, for
instance, and the other aim at it. Or a piece of driftwood rushing down white
waters served as a moving target. Or objects hung from trees a hundred yards
distant. Over time, the stones flung in the air had become smaller, the driftwood
reduced to a mere chip, the objects hung from trees merely dots and painted
leaves. The use of natural challenges had only sharpened their skills over time.
But killing actual living beings was a different experience. They had not
anticipated the shock they felt when their first arrows punched into the throats of
the first two men. This had happened immediately after the clash with Bejoo’s
men, when the King’s Guard frontline had retreated to regroup and prepare for
their next attack. Luv and Kush had seen their opportunity and fired their first
two shots, aiming at two men standing in a clearing with drawn, bloody swords,
hacking at a badly wounded but still alive veteran. The veteran wasn’t making
any sound or crying for mercy and that was probably what irked the two
Guardsmen. So they had taken to chopping and poking at the fallen man in a bid
to evoke some response. Luv had pointed out the men using the terse short form
they had developed over the years when practicing together.
“South-south-west, one and one,” he said, naming the direction in which the
targets lay when viewed from their position and the individual targets
themselves.
“I see them,” Kush replied, his bow already turned and aimed, string taut and
ready to fire. “You first?”
“Loose,” Luv said and released his arrow. As he bent his hand back to pluck
another arrow from the rig over his shoulder, Kush released his arrow as well.
By the time Luv’s second arrow was notched and strung and ready to loose,
Kush’s hand was reaching for his second arrow.
That first time, they had paused and looked at the results of their shots.
Both the Guardsmen clutched their throats, blood spurting brazenly between
their fingers, and collapsed on the ground, the first dying instantly, the second
shuddering once then laying still.
The wounded veteran sat up slowly, staring at the corpses with arrows standing
from their ravaged throats and looked around in grim amazement. He seemed
almost disappointed to be alive as he staggered to his feet and hobbled towards
Luv and Kush’s side of the valley. The twins lowered their bows and followed
him until they saw three or four of his comrades emerge from their hiding places
to assist him. Then, moving as one, they raised their bows again to seek new
targets.
Both of them paused yet again, lowered their bows completely, letting the
drawstrings go limp, and looked at each other.
Both of them had tears in their eyes.
“I killed a man,” each of them said at exactly the same time.
“But I had to,” each one added.
They cried for a moment, the tears running freely down their faces. Their throats
hitched once then they wiped their faces clear with the length of cloth they kept
to keep their hands clean and sweat-free during their practice sessions. They
knew now that this was no more a practice session. This was the real thing. It
was war. They thought for a moment silently, their faces hardening, the tears
replaced by a new emotion.
“They attacked the ashram and slaughtered everyone in sight,” Kush said.
“They would have killed every last person if we didn’t arrive with the bear-
killers to stop them,” Luv said.
“They were even going to kill the cows and calves.”
“They killed Sarama and most of her pack.”
“They wounded Maatr badly, almost killed her.”
“They mean to kill us all now. And nobody else is going to save us or stop
them.”
“There are thousands of them.”
“Hundreds of thousands.”
“Crores and arbo even.”
“There are hardly any of us.”
“We have the right to defend our home, our loved ones, and ourselves by any
means necessary.”
“It is the law of survival,” Luv said.
“It is the duty of a kshatriya to take arms when needed,” Kush said.
“It is our dharma,” they said together.
Then they raised their bows as one.
Tracked and found targets. This was easy because the valley was crawling with
hundreds of easy-to-spot targets. While the soldiers might be partially covered
by the trees and foliage when seen at ground level, from this vantage point they
were as easily visible as carved bone shapes on a chaupat dice board.
At first they called out targets to one another:
“North by north east.”
“Due west.”
“West by south west.”
“South by south east.”
After a while, they stopped calling out targets. It seemed pointless. By then, they
were in the grip of battle fever. Their hands, their shoulders, their back muscles,
their eyes, their necks, all moved in concert as an unified whole. Like a single
organism dedicated to only one function, they aimed and loosed, aimed and
loosed, aimed and loosed, over and over again.
They kept count silently, only because they had been taught that as well by
Maatr as well as by Nakhudi. It was part of the lesson on war which began:
Know Thy Enemy. Knowing the enemy included knowing his strength in
numbers and by extension, how many of that number your forces had succeeded
in killing.
***
Aarohan stared down at the Valley, speechless with rage. The runner who had
just come up the hill to bring him word stood several yards away, out of sword
reach. The man was familiar with Aarohan’s temper.
“How many did you say?” he asked again.
The man glanced around nervously, then said, “Over four score dead or dying in
the first clash. And now, another three score downed by arrows.” The man
paused then cleared his throat. “And as Sergeant Manasvir said to tell you, the
arrows are taking lives at the rate of one every few seconds.”
“Yes, I heard you the first time,” Aarohan said, then seethed silently for a
moment. He saw a flurry of movement in a cluster of trees then had an
unmistakable glimpse of a man collapsing. The man’s limbs fluttered then
ceased movement. That was deadly accurate shooting. Whoever was loosing this
barrage of arrows, they had the aim of an eagle-hawk swooping down on prey.
Aarohan had once worked for a great lord of the desert who bred eagle-hawks.
The desert lord had trained the birds to fly over his city of tents when he camped
in an oasis for a few weeks at a time. The birds would fly so high overhead, one
had to constantly keep looking up at the sun to spot them, and even then they
circumscribed such enormous arcs that one could never locate the camp just by
looking up at the birds. But if any stranger made the mistake of coming to close
to the desert lord’s camp, and if the stranger and his entourage met certain
requirements—such as a large number of men bearing metal weapons—the birds
would swoop down on them and attack. The clincher was in how they attacked:
the birds were trained to swoop down and pluck out only the left eye of each
man then fly back to their master and present him with the ripped-out eyeballs.
Aarohan had witnessed the birds attacking a caravan in which he was traveling
once and it had seemed as if a gust of wind blew out of a clear sky, tore out a
man’s eye and carried it away. The bird itself was barely a blur of feathers and
talons and beak.
Now, for the first time since that day he saw another creature at work with the
same deadly efficiency. An archer who possessed the ultimate level of
perfection: the ability to spot a target, judge distance, bow-pull, pressure, wind,
and then loose a killing shot…all within the space of half a heartbeat. It was
impossible. No archer he had ever heard of possessed such speed and accuracy.
It must be a platoon of archers. A company of archers, perhaps even a whole
regiment, taking turns to loose, while spotters called out targets to them. But he
knew that too was impossible: No group of archers could be loosing with such
perfect repetition, over and over again. No, this must be a small band of truly
gifted bowmen. A handful even. Perhaps even…
“Two young boys!” he said, and his mouth stayed open with awe and
amazement. He felt a rush of excitement such as he had not felt in years. The
sons of Sita! They had to be the archers responsible for this killing wave. He had
seen them briefly in action and they had certainly been quick enough. He had not
thought them capable of such a concerted attack—nor of taking so many lives
with such impunity. But apparently they were and could. Yes. It had to be them.
“Backtrack,” he told one of his aides curtly. The man nodded and rode off
downhill to do as he bade.
“Pull back and use tree cover. Lay low until I give further orders,” he barked to
another aide. This man too rode downhill at once. His aides were the men who
had stayed the longest with him in service. And nobody stayed in service with
him for long if they were prone to arguing or debating his orders.
Aarohan leaned over the rock on which he had been standing, peering down at
the far end of the valley. It was too far to see clearly but he thought he could
faintly glimpse the thin lines of the arrows as they streaked down towards their
targets. He could certainly see patches of foliage where the arrows cut through
leaves and twigs to reach their mark. He estimated the shooting range to be at
least four hundred yards, perhaps even five hundred. For arrows to cover that
distance and still punch through armor and bone…no, he corrected himself…not
armor and bone, merely flesh and cartilage. That’s why they’re aiming only at
throats. So long as it arrives with enough force to punch through the larynx and
sever the main blood vessels, it would be fatal everytime. He admired the
strategy and the execution both. They must be firing from a high position,
someplace from where they can see the whole valley and glimpse my men moving
through the forest. And they must be standing and aiming downwards, with
heavier-weight arrowheads, to give their arrows sufficient momentum and
accuracy to cover such a long distance. But no amount of calculation and
positioning was worth a pie if the archer’s hand and eye were not perfect
enough. To shoot ten or twenty times in a row with such accuracy was
impressive. To do so three score times and more was unheard of. And that had
been the tally several moments ago when the runner was despatched up here to
bring me word. In this much time, their tally must be twice as much!
Even if they missed occasionally, which was inevitable, it still meant that they
were reaping a terrible toll. The olduns had put up stiffer resistance than he
would have expected—not that he had been expecting them at all. Their very
presence in this fray was a surprise. But the fact that they could hold their own
against his Thousand was even more surprising. Still, more than half of them had
been killed or severely wounded in that first clash. The second wave of attack
would have finished them off. They would have been rolled up and packed away
without further ado and his men could have taken the canyon thereafter.
But this was a new twist on the game. The sons of Sita, tallying deaths by the
score, without taking a single casualty for their side. He would not have believed
it possible had he not traveled widely enough and seen all the various ways in
which men could kill and wage war against one another. Yes, two exceptionally
good archers perfectly attuned to one another could keep up a killing barrage
such as this for a length of time. But sooner or later, arms would tire, bows
would lose their pulling strength, and arrows would be depleted. All he had to do
was reduce their accuracy while continuing to force them to keep loosing. Hence
the two orders he had issued: Pull back and use tree cover. Which would starve
the boys of targets, forcing them to shoot at movements behind trees, missing
more and more often, wasting precious arrows and energy. Backtrack. Which
would send his best scouts scouring around their flanks to find their exact
position and mark it. Archers were well and good so long as they were shooting
from a distance. The moment the fight came to them, up close and personal, they
lost their advantage. And in a close fight, two striplings were no match for his
elite Hundred. All he had to do was slip in through their deadly circle of fire and
attack man to man. The whole thing would be over in moments.
He grinned. At last he had an adversary worthy of his talents.
He waited for the next runner to bring word as he watched the hail of arrows
continue.

SEVEN
When they were each past a hundred-count in enemy fatalities, something
changed in the theater of war.
They found it increasingly more difficult to acquire targets. At first they assumed
that the invading forces were retreating. But that would mean moving
backwards. Instead, they had simply gone to ground. They glimpsed flickers of
movement behind tree trunks or through gaps in foliage but the men were
apparently smart enough not to reveal themselves. The two hundred or so
corpses with arrows sticking out of their throats probably acted as good
motivation. As the seconds turned to minutes and then became a half-hour of the
afternoon sun’s westward progress, they realized that this was a stratagem by the
enemy.
Suddenly, a man burst from cover and sprinted to the shelter of another tree. He
was visible only partially for perhaps two heartbeats.
He fell, sprawling, with an arrow through his neck before he could reach
halfway to his destination.
After several moments, another man in another part of the valley moved his
position, showing his back and part of his head to them as he leaned against the
trunk of the tree he was squatting behind. He was dead before his body hit the
ground.
This continued for another half hour or so, the occasional target showing
partially here and there. They took every shot they could get and their aim was
true seven times out of ten. The three times they missed were only because the
arrows struck armor or sword hilts and that too only because they were risking
shots based on guesswork rather than clear acquisition.
After that, the soldiers seemed to grow more disciplined and even these
occasional lapses ceased.
Finally, as a whole hour passed without their acquiring a single target or loosing
a solitary arrow, they sighed together as one.
“We will have to change our position,” Luv said. “It’s the only way.”
Kush nodded. The predator could not simply wait for the prey to come to him:
he had to go where the prey went. That was the basis of hunting.
Still, he was reluctant to leave their carefully chosen perch. Once they climbed
down from here they would lose this panoramic view of the valley and be at the
same level as the enemy. Which meant that the enemy would be able to see them
too. Outnumbered as they were, once the enemy marked their position and
attacked en masse, they could not possibly repel them for long. No. Up here,
they were unapproachable except up the same crumbling rock face they had
climbed to get here. The soldiers burdened with their armor and weapons would
have a hard, slow struggle coming up and would make easy targets. Only so
many could climb at a time after all. There was no other access by horse or on
foot either. They were kings of this hill. Once they climbed down, they would
lose their greatest advantage.
“No,” Kush said at last after weighing all options. “They will still have to come
forward and get past us as well as the old veterans in order to get to the canyon.
If we wait them out, they will have no other option but to charge. We should
remain here.”
Luv nodded. He too had reached the same conclusion. “You speak truly, bhraatr.
They are only testing our patience in the hope that we will show ourselves. So
long as we wait them out, they will be forced to come to us eventually.”
“Then we are agreed. We stay here and wait.”
And so they waited. They decided to take turns watching the valley, one resting
or refreshing himself while the other watched.
Another hour passed. The sun dipped lower in the western sky. Early afternoon
moved slowly towards late afternoon.
Still, no soldiers advanced. The valley was as still as as a graveyard.
***
Bejoo cursed. Somasra and the others looked up at him. They had spent the
afternoon resting in the shade of the thicket near the rock face as a handful of
their number took turns standing watch. It had been a dull afternoon after the
action of that morning. More than half their number had died in that first clash
itself and many who survived were nicked or wounded more severely. Only
about a score remained fit enough to fight and perhaps half that number could
lift their swords a time or two in defense. Considering the number of enemy
amassed in the valley, it was a pitiful band. But the surviving fighting fit in the
canyon were even fewer and once the enemy charged in full force, they would
sweep all aside in a single attack.
The only reason they had survived the day at all was because of the sons of Sita.
They had all marveled at the skill with which the boys downed the enemy.
Although they could not clearly tell how many casualties had been taken, they
were in a position to see the arrows passing overhead and from their profusion
alone they could estimate that a lot of the enemy were falling. The very fact that
the advance had halted was itself proof of the efficacy of the archers. Bejoo had
grinned each time he heard a muffled cry or throaty gargle across the valley,
signaling the death of another of Aarohan’s prized King’s Guard. How
appropriate that the King’s Guard should be cut down by the King’s own sons!
He grinned at the irony of the situation and enjoyed the brief respite.
Now, he saw something that made him curse and rise to his feet.
Somasra and the others reacted as well, rising and taking up their swords at once.
Old they might be. Wounded and tired too. But they were neither careless nor
foolish. Each man was willing to face death today itself but only after he had
exacted a great price from the enemy for his life. They had taken their respite but
known that no battle could remain suspended for long, not when one side
boasted such vastly superior numbers. It was only a matter of time before
fighting resumed.
And now that time had come.
Bejoo cursed again and peered through the trees. The high afternoon sun threw
the trees into deep shadow, making it difficult to penetrate the gloom of the thick
undergrowth.
Somasra looked at him laconically. “You want to tell us what you’re cursing at
or is it a private matter you wish to keep to yourself?”
Bejoo gestured with a jerk of his head at the rock face behind. “They’ve tracked
them back, the bastards. They must have gotten a fix on their position by using
their men as bait to draw their fire. Now they’re moving in for the kill.”
Somasra peered through the shadows of the thicket. His old eyes glimpsed a
flicker of movement that could have been a ladybug leaping onto a leaf but his
warrior’s instincts told him that it was no ladybug that caused that leaf to stir.
“You’re right, Vajra Captain. They are moving forward again but stealthily,
seeking to circle around the surround the rock face.”
Bejoo shook his head. “Even so, what good will it do them? The boys will only
cut them down as they come, unless…”
Somasra waited for him to go on. When Bejoo stopped and looked up and then
back again, thinking intently, Somasra finished for him: “…unless this advance
is only meant to be a distraction. The real attack on the boys will come from
another position. That what you meant to say, Vajra Captain?”
“Yes, yes,” Bejoo said impatiently, “and stop calling me Vajra Captain. I haven’t
led a Vajra for decades.”
Somasra grinned, revealing teeth flecked with fragments of the betelnut he
chewed incessantly. “This is a Vajra you lead right now, in a manner of
speaking,” he said.
Bejoo looked around at the old tired men leaning against tree trunks and on the
hilts of their own swords, white-bearded faces and balding heads gleaming with
perspiration, and he grinned back at Somasra. “I suppose it is, in a manner of
speaking.”
Somasra laughed softly and clapped Bejoo’s shoulder. “You’re a good man,
Vajra Captain Bejoo. Would have liked to have fought with you in a real battle
back in the day.”
Bejoo smiled, acknowledging the compliment. “What do you call this?”
Somasra looked at the valley scornfully. “This? I call this wiping our backsides
with poison leaves, that’s all! Not a real battle, oh no, sir!”
Bejoo shook his head, laughing softly. “Well. If they’re advancing again, we
won’t be wiping ourselves for long. Get ready, men. If they’re doing what I think
they’re doing, they’ll be rushing us again and this time, they won’t stop or slow
down. This is likely to be our last stand.”
The men got to their feet wearily, faces suggesting they would rather be in a
tavern swigging large containers of soma or any cheaper alcoholic fluid they
could afford to buy in great quantities. “At my age,” said one ancient fellow who
looked as if he had already died twenty years earlier, “every time I stand is the
last stand. It shall be a relief to finally lie down at last!”
They stood together and shuffled forward, swords at the ready, prepared to die
fighting.
***
Luv and Kush watched with guarded expressions as the enemy advanced man by
man, tree by tree, gauging the pattern. So attuned were they to each other’s
minds they did not even need to glance at one another to share a thought.
“Ready,” one said.
“Ready,” replied the other.
They began loosing. This time the rhythm was completely different from before.
No longer was it a non-stop barrage. They could only shoot when they visually
acquired a target and so they were limited by the appearance of targets. In only a
few moments and about two dozen arrows loosed, it became evident to both of
them that this itself was being carefully controlled and monitored by someone.
No. Not by someone. By the enemy. The manner in which the enemy soldiers
appeared and ran from tree to tree, advancing down the valley in twos and threes
rather than all at once, the pattern in which they ran forward, not two or three in
the same place but at different spots across the valley, made it very clear that the
enemy was trying to keep them shooting in all directions at once.
“They are testing us,” one of the boys said.
“Yes,” replied his brother tersely, loosing an arrow. He saw a tiny spurt of
crimson against the dark green backdrop of the dark afternoon shadows and was
already turning in search of the next target.
But after another half dozen arrows, a suspicion began to form in their minds.
And slowly, it grew until it became a realization.
Then that realization coalesced into conviction.
“They know our position,” said Kush, turning to his brother for the first time in
over an hour.
Luv lowered his chin, brooding briefly. His dark eyes flashed. “Yes,” he said.
“They are keeping us busy without actually launching a full-scale attack,” Kush
said.
Luv loosed another arrow, saw another man fall. “Yes,” he replied without
looking up this time. “They are trying something…this forward movement is just
a diversion.”
Kush agreed but could not think of the next logical conclusion: What were they
trying? If this was the diversion, what was the main action?
The answer came a moment later in the form of an arrow whickering sharply
past Kush’s left ear. He blinked, missing his first shot of the day so far—the ones
that had struck hilts and armor didn’t count as misses—and his arrow went a
whole foot wide of the mark. The soldier who had run from tree to tree glanced
back at the arrow embedded in the ground with an expression of disbelief then
fell to his knees, clasping both palms together in supplication.
The arrow that had narrowly missed Kush struck solid rock a few yards further,
then clattered to the hard stony ground. Both brothers stared at it for a moment.
Then they turned as one, tracing back the arrow to its origin.
The hillside nearest to the rock face was less than a hundred yards away due to
the narrowing of the valley at this end. Arrayed along that hilltop was an entire
company of archers, bows drawn and arrows notched. It was an astonishing sight
to see that many where there had been not a single man only moments earlier.
They knew because they had been checking, expecting something like this
sooner or later. The enemy had been smart enough to wait until the last possible
moment, then move the entire company of archers forward the last few yards up
the slope until they were visible from the rock face, and immediately give the
order to string and pull. Now, the leader of the enemy appeared in view, atop his
horse, light-skinned face grinning widely as he raised his sword, preparing to
give the final signal to the archers.
“Maatr…” Luv and Kush both said as one, not even aware they were saying the
words. “…Save us.”
Then the enemy captain slashed his sword forward at Luv and Kush and the first
wave of arrows flew at them through the air, perfectly aimed at their unprotected
and wholly exposed position atop the rock face.

EIGHT
Bharat and Shatrugan had tracked Aarohan’s company to the hills overlooking
the valley, avoiding direct contact until they were able to discern what was
happening. They had passed the dead victims of the snake exodus and blanched
at the sight of the venom-blackened corpses, then cursed as they saw the
survivors with their throats cut, understanding the situation as perfectly as if they
had been there and seen and heard everything that transpired. They came up the
slope to the top of the rise just before the King’s Guard archers unleashed their
first volley. Veterans in warcraft, both brothers took in the scene in a flash: the
archers ready to loose, the two boys on the rock overlooking the valley, the
corpses strewn across the valley basin…and Aarohan with his sword held raised,
ready to give the signal to loose. They reined in their lathered horses, staring
intently across the valley.
“Sita’s sons!” Shatrugan said. “They are completely exposed on that rock.”
Bharat saw. But there was nothing he or Shatrugan could do. They were on the
far side of the valley. To reach Aarohan they would have to ride around the
valley and that would take time. The rock on which the boys stood was detached
and reachable only by climbing directly up the rock face, as the boys themselves
must have done. It was a brilliantly selected vantage point for archers to position
themselves and accounted for some of the corpses that lay in the valley but he
knew bowcraft well enough to also know that only the most exceptional archers
could have leveraged that advantage to rack up such a high body count. It was no
wonder that Aarohan was furious with them, furious enough to launch this
counter-attack. But the reaction was more devastating than the action that had
provoked it. That first volley itself would rain down on the boys like hail on an
exposed snail. There was nowhere they could hide and nothing they could do to
protect themselves. The instant that first volley was unleashed at them, they
would be dead.
At that instant, Aarohan’s sword slashed forward, giving the signal to loose.
“No!” Bharat cried, his words lost in the wind that whipped around the hillside
on which they stood.
The distance from the far hill side to the rock was not much more than a hundred
yards. Close enough that the longbow archers of the King’s Guard did not even
need to raise their bows. They aimed directly at the two targets on the rock, and
their volley of arrows shot forward unerringly, all bunched close enough together
that from this slightly angled viewpoint they resembled a single dark missile
with a hundred individual barbs, racing to deliver death to the two sons of Sita.
The time needed for the volley to cover the distance to the boys was barely a
heartbeat.
But before that heartbeat could elapse, something extraordinary happened.
***
From where he stood, Bejoo could glimpse the line of archers on the hill top,
silhouetted against the late afternoon sun with their bows raised, arrowheads
pointed directly above him. He could not actually see the top of the rock face
behind his position, but he knew that was their target. His heart was in his mouth
too as he assessed the situation and came to the same obvious conclusion: The
boys would not survive the first volley. More frustrating to him as a kshatriya
was the fact that they had no way to defend themselves. That was a terrible way
to die, far worse than being bitten by a dozen venomous snakes.
But before the first volley could be loosed, the sounds of men advancing through
the valley came to him and he swung around, bringing his attention back to his
immediate surroundings.
“They’re advancing, all right,” Somasra said a few yards to his right. The
surviving veterans of Bejoo’s group had formed a single ragged line across this
side of the valley, forming a one-man wall of resistance. It was unlikely to
impede the progress of the enemy by more than a few moments but as soldiers it
was their duty to stick to their mission to the end. Not just our duty, he reminded
himself, our dharma. For they were not merely fighting a desperate suicidal
action to save a few brahmins and sadhinis. They were fighting to uphold the
values for which Ayodhya had once stood and which men like Pradhan Mantri
Jabali and King’s Guard Captain Aarohan were trampling over like they did not
matter anymore. This action itself was proof that those values mattered. To pit a
whole company of archers against two boys, no matter how brilliant they might
be at bowcraft…was it really necessary? He could not recall hearing Captain
Aarohan calling out a demand for surrender. Clearly, the man intended to inflict
his own summary judgement on the two striplings for having cost him so dearly.
Never mind the fact that the boys had only been defending their loved ones and
unarmed friends and doing what they had to in order to survive. Never mind the
fact that kshatriya code required the Captain to at least ask them to lay down
arms before taking action against them. Never mind anything anymore: this was
the new way and the new age of Ayodhya. Either you are with us or against us.
No middle path. No compromise. No mercy.
And no dharma.
Then, the Captain’s sword caught the sunlight as it slashed forward and Bejoo
glimpsed the volley of arrows, thick as an elephant with a hundred barbed
points, flying through the air to deliver the Captain’s verdict of summary
execution.
At the same instant, the soldiers waiting in the valley launched their attack with
an explosion of noise and furore. It was obvious that the two actions were
coordinated to be unleashed with the same signal: the release of the volley and
the advance of the army.
They will cut down the sons of Sita up there as they ram through us down here,
Bejoo thought grimly as he raised his sword to meet the rushing line of invaders.
They seemed to come at him as thickly as the volley of arrows, holding nothing
back this time. This would not be a fight anymore, it would be a juggernaut
rolling over a minor obstacle. His mind flashed back to a moment similar to this
one in so many ways: the siege of Mithila, when he had led a ragged but proud
force of defenders against the overwhelming ocean of onrushing asura hordes
despatched by Ravana, Lord of Lanka. He still recalled that day with crystal
clarity. The asura wave had come at him like a gigantic tsunami wave. He had
remembered thinking at that instant that he would not last a moment, that this
stand was pointless, that they may as well have stayed in the city and awaited the
invaders there. But he knew then as he knew now that of course it mattered, it
mattered not whether they won or lost, but simply that they stood, proud men
and warriors, shoulder to shoulder, facing certain death with raised chins and
clear unblinking gazes, swords ready to inflict whatever damage possible, no
matter how miniscule, upon that overwhelming enemy horde.
Just as it mattered now.
Even though they were rebels fighting against the very colors they had once
defended with their lives, they were still fighting for the same cause. That cause
was dharma, which Ayodhya had once stood for. And in their hearts, would
always stand for. If anything, it was they who represented Ayodhya here, not that
shiny-tunic band of ruffians with no more sense of dharma than the snakes that
had thinned their ranks. The real Ayodhya was a place of the heart and mind and
soul, not merely a city or kingdom-state. The real Ayodhya was the capital of the
kingdom of dharma and it was that Ayodhya they had fought for all their lives,
and for which they would die now.
He raised his sword and cried with all the force he could muster from his age-
hoarsened throat: “AYODHYA ANASHYA!”
***
Luv and Kush saw the Captain of the King’s Guard slash his sword forward,
giving the signal to release. And the first volley of arrows was loosed. Never
before in their short lives had either boy seen such a sight. They had been in a
fair number of scrapes, exchanged arrows with hostile archers on more than one
occasion. But that had been forest fighting with uneven but still manageable
odds. This was different. There were at least a hundred archers loosing at them at
the same time, and they were only two, and there was no place to hide, nothing
to shelter behind or under. There was nothing to do but watch as the barrage sped
toward them, the very air seeming to grow still and the hail of death seeming to
take eons rather than the single heartbeat required to cover the mere hundred
yards to where they stood, waiting.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||
The shloka spun in his mind unbidden. It rose from his lips like hot breath
exhaled. It filled the air around himself and his brother like a cloud of expanding
smoke.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||

The arrows still continued to advance towards them. But surely far more than a
heartbeat had passed since their loosing? Surely they ought to have reached their
targets by now and Kush and he ought to be riddled with arrows, bleeding from
dozens of fatal wounds, slender young bodies pierced beyond repair or
rejuvenation? Surely we ought to be dead, Luv thought, mildly astonished.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||

Now he saw and heard the same shlokas issuing from his brother’s lips and
mind, taking the shape of midnight blue smoke as it spewed forth. The dark
smoke expanded outwards like a great cloud, covering the whole of the top of
the rock now, then this end of the valley, then the entire valley…still continuing
to spread. With each repetition, it grew farther until he knew that the whole
world, not merely the mortal realm but all Creation itself was consumed by the
cloud of brahman, for that was what it was, pure brahman shakti, the stuff of
which all matter was made, as it had been in the Beginning when the Great Egg
burst to release the cosmic brahman energy that made the universe. And despite
the smoke he could see clearly, could view Luv standing beside him as clear as
daylight, even though the sun was lost in a miasma of blue brahman energy,
could see the archers across the gap, bow strings still rippling from the force of
the loosing, see the arrows in mid air, traveling as sluggishly as snails across a
glacier see every mote of light, every blade of grass, every insect, animal, hair
and hide, being and unbeing that existed, had ever existed and would ever exist
for all eternity.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||
And Luv could feel every emotion ever felt by every sentient creature, know
everything that had ever been known, hear every sound, see every color…it was
magnificent, it was beyond description, it was the heart of all existence itself.
What else is God then but a collective of us all, living and unliving, being and
unbeing, together in love and harmony forever? And that which you feel I feel
and your pain is mine and mine is your’s and all we do affects us all, for God is
love and we are love embodied and to hurt myself is to hurt you as well for there
is no place where I end and you do not begin.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva|

||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi||
And Kush saw his father upon a great throne made of sunwood, the back of the
seat shaped to resembled an effulgent sun spreading carved rays outward in
every direction, and his father’s face was as foreboding as the sun itself at
noonday, merciless and relentless in its heat of tapas, dark as the night yet
lustrous as the moon, and in that face was a terrible fury, a rage as devastating as
the anger that ended the cosmos at the end of each day of Brahma, as
unendurable as the rage of the Three-Eyed One himself. And in that terrible rage
Luv’s father said a single word more unbearable than speeches, more heart-
rending than volumes. The word was: “Exile.” And it reverberated through the
length of time like the beat of a dhol drum in a dark empty chamber. And Kush
felt the word pierce his heart like a hundred arrows at once, like a hundred
thousand arrows, like a hundred thousand times a hundred thousand arrows. And
Luv felt a tear leave his right eye as Kush felt a tear leave his left eye and both
tears combined to form a single tear large enough to drown all Creation and the
sins of all beings past, present and future were washed clean by the innocence of
that single tear.

|arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe

tva|
||yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah
suphalasasi||
And the being that was Luv-Kush felt a stirring in his heart and an answer to that
single word spoken by his father, that word that had reduced his mother from a
princess to a vagabond, from a devoted and loyal wife to a widow-in-all-but-
name, from a proud and magnificent Queen Mother to a penniless sadhini in a
remote forest ashram. And that answer was not rage, not fury, not frustration or a
desire to respond to harm with more harm, but simply…denial. A refusal of
anger, more terrible than anger itself. A denial of rage, more powerful than rage.
A deflection of violence, against which there can be no defense and which
renders violence itself meaningless. For what good is a blow if it never strikes its
intended victim? Or an arrow that never reaches its target?

And then suspended time flicked back into existence and the world resumed its
journey on the path to ultimate destruction.

NINE
Aarohan’s face lost its grin as he watched the impossible happen.
The first volley of arrows was loosed at his signal. He slashed the sword
forward, bringing it down on the heads of the boys a hundred yards away,
wishing he was close enough to smash open their skulls with the same blow, and
watched the volley fly to its targets.
And then the volley slowed in mid air.
And time stood still.
And a strange darkness descended on the world.
And the heartbeat of an instant which it should have taken the volley to reach
and kill the boys stretched out into an eon.
He did not know how long time stood still—for how can you measure the
passage of time when time itself is absent?—but all at once it resumed.
The only sign that it had happened at all was a crack in the substance of reality,
in the fabric of memory, a gap in consciousness, like a day one knows one lived
through but can summon up no memory of at all.
And then the volley changed course.
Almost at its target, it passed over the rock face, missing the two boys by a yard,
then turned sharp right and descended into the valley, retaining the same velocity
and intensity of momentum.
Aarohan lost his grin as he gaped.
The volley of arrows flew down like a flock of birds descending with ominous
intent, like a murder of crows hellbent on violence—and parted into a hundred
individual arrows, each seeking a different target.
The arrows flew at the advancing King’s Guard forces charging down the valley
at the ragged line of veterans.
He saw and heard the impossible sounds of the arrows finding their mark, each
striking a target with a mortal wound, each punching into breastplate and
through bone and sinew and muscle and flesh and blood with as much impact as
if it had just been shot straight from ten yards away, not travelled two hundred
yards diverting this way and that like a sinuous snake.
They may have travelled like arrows from a mythic tale but they struck home
like normal everyday arrows, each taking a life with brutal efficiency.
A hundred of his own men died in the valley, downed by his own arrows.
Upon the rock face, the two boys stood, bows in hand, untouched, unharmed,
uninjured.
Aarohan turned to look at his aides, sitting forward on their own horses, faces
drained of blood, gaping and staring with faces as shocked as his own felt. He
looked the other way, at the long line of archers, standing and pointing down at
the valley, trying to make sense of what had just happened—and how it had
happened.
He was filled with a sudden rage.
“Archers!” he cried out. “Ready again!”
He looked left to make sure they had heard his command.
They had. But they were confused and shaken. Most did not even raise their
bows, let alone take arrows in hand.
“ARCHERS!” he roared, pointing his sword at them threateningly. “OBEY OR
DIE!”
That got their attention. They knew that Aarohan did not threaten punishment
idly. If he threatened death, he would in fact kill those who did not obey at once.
The threat of death was enough to overcome their bewilderment.
A hundred bows were raised again, arrows ready to loose.
“AIM!” he shouted.
They took aim. This time those who had taken the shot for granted earlier took
greater care to make sure their missiles were perfectly targeted, in the event,
however unlikely, that the cause had been merely a strong gust of wind or…or
something inexplicable.
“LOOSE!” Aarohan yelled, dropping his sword forward.
Again the volley flew out across the gap between this hill top and the rock on
which the boys stood.
This time there was no break in time and consciousness. Nothing discernible
happened.
But again, the arrows turned as one—and swooped down into the valley.
Again they parted ways to seek out their own individual targets. And struck
home with unerring efficiency.
Again, a hundred of Aarohan’s company died with blasted throats and ruptured
hearts and lungs and spleens, thrashing and bleeding on the jungle floor.
Aarohan could not accept it. This was not possible. There was some mischief
afoot. He would not condone such treachery—not from mere mindless wooden
arrows!
Again he gave the command to aim and loose. Again, another volley was
released. Again the arrows diverted. Again, a hundred men died.
And yet again.
And yet again.
And yet again.
***
Bharat and Shatrugan watched in smiling disbelief as the impossible happened
again and yet again. After the first few times, they shook their heads in
commiseration for the men in the valley below. “Those poor fools,” Shatrugan
said. “They are dying because of the arrogance of that idiot Aarohan.”
Bharat turned the head of his horse. “I think it’s time to teach that idiot a lesson.”
Shatrugan grinned. Both brothers rode away, taking the route that would lead
them around to where the Captain of the King’s Guard stood, slashing his sword
forward and yelling “LOOSE!” over and over again.
***
In the royal camp, Rama emerged from his tent, a strange expression on his face.
He looked like a man who had woken from a long deep sleep and strange
dreams.
Strange dreams indeed.
Lakshman was waiting for him outside.
Lakshman saw that Rama’s eyes glowed with deep blue illumination from
within, the way they had once glowed in the darkness of Bhayanak-van.
Rama looked at him and saw a fainter illumination of the same ilk in
Lakshman’s eyes as well.
“Bhraatr,” Rama said, holding out his hand to his brother.
“Ride with me.”
Lakshman took his brother’s hand without hesitation.
They strode towards Rama’s chariot together.
***
Bejoo whooped and cheered as the corpses piled up. Beside him to either side,
the ragged line of veterans cheered as well as another volley of arrows swung by
overhead, zinging through the trees, even zipping around tree trunks and over
obstacles to reach their intended targets.
One shot by Bejoo’s right arm, pursuing a soldier of the King’s Guard who ran
screaming for mercy. The arrow caught up with him and punched through his
armor backplate with enough force to send the man flying several yards to crash
into a tree.
Bejoo laughed, unable to believe that he had survived yet another stand where
merely walking away had seemed impossible. The arrows had not touched him
or his men—it was almost as if they knew which men to avoid and which to
strike.
The valley was littered with corpses now. He had estimated that each volley
consisted of around one hundred arrows. Thanks to Aarohan’s arrogant
insistence on loosing volley after volley, he guessed that almost a thousand men
must have died by now. The entire King’s Guard was wiped out, all except the
archers on the hill top and the elite One Hundred that sat on their horses beside
their Captain, staring down in disbelief at the mayhem caused by their own
company’s arrows.
Somasra was chuckling beside him too, sitting on a tree trunk and swigging from
a leather skin. From the odor that wafted to Bejoo, it was definitely not water
though the old gatewatch guard was drinking as if it was. Bejoo held out a hand.
“A taste for a comrade?” he asked.
Somasra grinned and handed the skin to Bejoo. “Go ahead. Finish it.” He pulled
out another small skinbag from somewhere in his garment. “I have another. It’s
Chandra Pujari’s best.”
Bejoo paused in the act of raising the skin to his lips and laughed. Somasra
watched him, his own grin widening. “Ah,” he said. “A fellow worshipper at
Chandra Pujari’s temple?”
“Ever since I was weaned off mother’s milk,” Bejoo said, then drank long and
deep from the bag. Soma had never tasted this good in his entire life.
***
Luv and Kush watched as the Captain of the King’s Guard lowered his sword at
last. Even from a hundred yards away, it was evident that the man was burning
with frustration and anger. He pointed his gloved hand at the rock and issued a
string of curses and threats.
“Methinks the good Captain is a little upset,” Luv said.
“Methinks you may be right,” Kush replied.
“Let us give him something to really be upset about, shall we?” Luv said, raising
his bow.
Kush was already raising his own bow. “Yes, bhraatr, let’s.”
They loosed together.
Both arrows rose up into the sky, then converged, joining together into a single
arrow. The single arrow curved downwards then raced ahead with renewed
speed, flashing like lightning towards the archers on the hill top. The archers saw
the arrow and some started to turn away to run. They had barely turned when the
arrow struck. The arrow turned at the last instant, punching into the chest of the
man to the far right. It passed through his breast on the right, entering just
beneath his armpit, and emerged from the other side, out his other armpit. It
passed through bone and flesh and muscle as if passing through air. It emerged
from the breast of the first archer—then struck the second. It emerged from his
breast too, moving with as great force as before, and struck the third. It
continued down the line, taking the lives of every last archer in that row. Finally,
barely a moment after it had been loosed, it emerged from the armpit of the
hundredth archer, the man nearest to where Captain Aarohan sat astride his
horse.
The horse reared and neighed in fright, sensing a supernatural force at work.
The arrow hovered in mid air, rose and floated before Captain Aarohan. His
aides reacted more violently than he did, turning their horses and riding away.
The Captain himself sat frozen, staring at the arrow hovering in mid air before
him. He clutched his sword tightly, his knuckles turning white as he gripped it
harder but he made no move to raise it or strike out. He tilted his head an inch to
the left and the arrow adjusted its angle just enough to account for the tilt. He
tilted it the other way, experimentally, and the arrow turned that way an inch as
well. Realization grew upon him that no matter what he did or where he moved,
the arrow would follow. Slowly, as the moments stretched out, his rage melted
into fear and then into stark terror as he stared at the blind unseeing pointed tip
of the arrow.
Suddenly, the arrow darted at him directly. He cried out and slashed out in panic
with the sword. He missed the arrow—and the arrow missed him too. It nicked
his ear, drawing blood in a small splatter on his left shoulder, then zipped on past
him. It took him a moment to realize that he was not mortally struck. When he
did, he turned to follow its course and saw that it was chasing after his aides who
were riding away furiously. The arrow punched into the back of the nearest one
and emerged from the man’s chest. The man fell off his horse, spewing gore. The
arrow continued onwards, reaping another bloody harvest. By the time it was
done, every last man under Captain Aarohan’s command lay sprawled dead on
the hilltop. Their horses milled about in confusion, then began to ride away, glad
to be free at last of their ill-tempered masters. Several corpses stuck in the
stirrups were dragged along for miles, their heads bouncing along merrily.
Captain Aarohan saw his chance when the arrow was killing his men and turned
to ride away. He broke into a gallop with expert ease, racing alongside the hilltop
with the desperation of a man pursued by demons.
He glanced back from time to time to see if the arrow was following. He saw it
finish off the last of his elite One Hundred and turn around, seeking him out. He
rode faster, yelping like a dog in pain, as the arrow spun after him, making a
buzzing sound like a bee at work on a honeycomb.
He had not gone far before two riders appeared before him, riding as hard
towards him as he was riding in their direction. “Help me!” he cried. “Mercy!”
Bharat and Shatrugan stared as they approached the King’s Guard Captain riding
desperately towards them. They saw the sprawled corpses of his archers and men
lying on the hillside behind him. Then they saw the arrow chasing the man.
Captain Aarohan saw their faces, recognizing them from a distance.
He stopped crying for help.
He looked back and saw the arrow come flying at him like a flying demon from
the lowest level of Naraka.
Crying out in pitiful terror, he turned the head of his horse…
And rode off the hill top, straight into thin air.
Moments later, his neighing horse and he crashed to the floor of the valley,
landing in the rocky wadis behind the rock on which Luv and Kush still stood,
watching.
Bharat and Shatrugan slowed and looked down at the dead horse and man below.
Captain Aarohan had landed with his horse on top of him. His body was broken
in a hundred places. He lay sprawled like a drunk, eyes staring sightlessly up at
the sky.
Bharat shook his head. “It seems he has learned his lesson after all.”
“And a bitter one it was,” Shatrugan said.
They turned their horses and rode back the way they had come.
***
Luv and Kush ran to their mother, embracing her fiercely. Sita gasped, her
wounds still fresh, but smiled through her pain as she embraced her sons, tears
spilling from her dark-underscored eyes.
“My sons,” she said. “What have you done?”
They looked up at her. “What we had to, Maatr. They left us no choice.”
Behind them, Bejoo and Somasra both nodded, supporting the boys. Nakhudi
and the other survivors of the ashram massacre as well as the bear-killers who
had been protecting them, heard details of the battle from various members of
Bejoo’s group and marveled.
Maharishi Valmiki rose to his feet wearily, leaning on his staff. The great guru
had aged another decade that day itself. “Time to return home,” he said.

TEN
The thunder of hooves and chariot wheels overcame the crackling of the chandan
wood as the cremation pyres consumed the dead. The royal chariot was preceded
by PFs in their familiar purple and black uniforms, the original and true king’s
guard. The ashramites who were clustered around the cremation pyres with
Maharishi Valmiki at their head looked up with hostility as Rama and Lakshman
dismounted.
Sita was standing with her sons before her. At the sound of the approaching
hooves, they had immediately wanted to take up their bows but she had stopped
them, indicating the pyres. It would be disrespectful to leave the ritual half-done.
They subsided but still kept their eyes on the pathway down which the intruders
arrived. The instant they saw the soldiers with spears and swords, their backs
tightened and it was only their mother’s hands, firmly squeezing each boy’s
shoulder, that kept them from racing for their bows and rigs.
Rama’s eyes met Sita’s as he approached. He was raising his palms in a gesture
of supplication at that instant and it appeared as if he were greeting her first and
foremost, the pain in his eyes speaking volumes. Sita tried to glare daggers at
him but for some reason, the very sight of him melted her heart. How tired he
looks, how much he has aged, he looks ten years older than his age, why has he
become so thin, so drawn…Does he not get enough sleep? Instead of anger and
hostility, these were the thoughts that came to her mind in that crucial moment.
The heart’s capacity to love always exceeds its capacity to hate. Anger fades in
time, genuine affection stays bright forever.
He held her gaze a moment, then moved on to Maharishi Valmiki. He bowed to
the Maharishi, offering the appropriate greetings and gestures.
“Forgive my intrusion, mahadev,” he said. “I do not mean to disturb you at your
time of grief but my business here is urgent.”
Maharishi Valmiki finished the last part of the cremation ritual without
comment. When all was done and the pyres had almost completely consumed
the bodies, he turned his tired face to Rama. There was no space left for anger or
recrimination in his heart. When he spoke, it was with sadness and regret, not
out of a desire to apportion blame. “You know that this was the work of men
deputed by you, under your own authority?”
Rama bowed his head in shame. “I regret that these lives were lost. I am told the
men responsible have been killed as they deserve to have been killed.” His eyes
searched for and found the two boys standing before Sita like proud cubs
defending their mother lioness. “I have heard the entire tale of the battle of the
arrows and seen the results with my own eyes.” He turned and indicated Bharat
and Shatrugan who stepped forward to greet the Maharishi as well. Valmiki
acknowledged them all.
“And now what business brings you here?” asked the guru. “How have your feet
found the way to my ashram after these many years?”
Rama looked at the face of his old face and fellow exile, the man he had once
known as Ratnakaran and whom he had once fought against when he was known
as Bearkiller. Valmiki’s mangled face, ruined by the claws of a bear in youth,
was mostly covered by his flowing white beard now, and the intense hatred in
his eyes had been replaced by an enduring sadness and deep philosophical
acceptance of the way of the world, but beneath all that great store of learning
and acquired wisdom there was still the core of the man whom Rama had once
stood shoulder to shoulder with in a jungle called Janasthana, battling against
impossible foes and unbeatable odds—and winning.
“I feel as if I have been asleep these many years and have only awoken today. As
if the cobwebs of a decade have been washed away and my eyesight cleared
suddenly.”
Valmiki considered this a moment. “And how did this sudden change come
about?”
“A great resonance sounded in the world this day, shaking me out of my
slumber,” Rama said. “It was someone using dev-astras in the service of
dharma.” He turned and looked directly at Luv and Kush. “The shakti of
brahman cascading through creation cleansed my soul of all confusion and
doubt. I was as a man refreshed by a cold wave that falls upon him unexpectedly.
I remembered things I had not even thought about for years. I saw the mistakes I
had made and desired to correct them. I saw the error of my ways and sought to
redress those errors. But most of all, I saw the unjustness I had meted out to a
loved one and knew I must act quickly and do what was right.”
“And what exactly does doing right mean?” Valmiki asked.
Rama’s eyes found Sita, standing proud yet tragic in the stillness of the evening.
In the trees above, birds cried out and called as the day approached an end.
“I intend to beg my wife’s forgiveness and take her and our sons home, if she
will agree to come,” he said.
Sita’s knees buckled. Both her sons looked up in alarm as they felt her weight
shift, and they caught her arms tightly, holding her up. She regained control of
herself and nodded to them. Still, they remained alert in case she should lurch
again.
Maharishi Valmiki looked at Sita. “What say you, Lady Vedavati? Do you think
Lord Rama Chandra deserves forgiveness?”
She looked at the guru, avoiding Rama’s gaze for the moment. “I cannot say if
he does or does not deserve it. I will not judge him. I cannot judge him. I can
only speak for myself.”
“Then will you or will you not forgive him?” the maharishi asked gently.
Sita was silent a long moment. Everyone gathered around waited as well. Luv
and Kush looked up at her face, holding her hands tightly.
“I will,” she said at last.
A great cheering rose from the ranks of the Ayodhyan army. Word had spread
through the army of all that had transpired that day and everyone knew that
Rama had found his long-exiled wife and sons. To the masses, it meant that
Ayodhya had found her queen. After the threat of war hanging over their heads
and the likelihood of war against their neighboring kingdom of Videha no less, it
was a treat to see their liege’s martial obsession diverted into a more gentle
preoccupation. Kings who loved were easier to love than kings who warred.
The expression on Rama’s face as well as Sita’s showed nothing but love.
A white-cloaked figure strode forward with a stern face. Pradhan Mantri Jabali
gestured at his king. “Samrat Rama Chandra, you cannot simply take her back.”
Rama shot Jabali a cursory glance. “I can do as I please. She is still my wife.”
“She is an exile. And she was exiled for good reason. Her secret kinship to
Ravana, lord of Lanka, and the fact that it was kept hidden from us for so long,
endangering not just our kingdom but all mortalkind, is partly the reason. But
there is also the matter of her purity.”
“Purity?” spat Nakhudi, stepping forward angrily. “You speak of purity? How
pure are you? How pure is any man? Why do men only speak of purity when it
comes to their women!”
Jabali gestured dismissively at Nakhudi, ignoring her outburst. “As a husband,
you may do as you please. But as king of Ayodhya, you must also uphold
dharma. And dharma demands that any woman you choose to instate as Queen
of Kosala should prove herself worthy of that position and respect. You cannot
expect your people to respect you if they do not respect your wife.”
“Why should they not respect her?” Rama asked, forehead creased but his tone
not angry, not yet.
“For the same reason that any husband hesitates to respect his wife if she stays
for even one night under another man’s roof.” Jabali pointed accusingly at Sita.
Luv and Kush glared angrily back at him. “Your wife was abducted by Ravana
and stayed for months under his control.”
“Yes,” Rama admitted, “but we learned later that he was her father by birth.”
“That is irrelevant to the question of purity. Who knew what transpired with her
during the time she was incarcerated in Lanka? A den of demons, lair of
rakshasas and all manner of vile asuras.”
Rama’s face hardened. “She underwent the agni-pariksha as was required by our
customs. She passed the test of fire successfully.”
Jabali shook his head. “The error you made, if I may call it that, was in holding
the agni-parikhsha without any witnesses present.”
“There were witnesses by the millions,” Lakshman countered, stepping forward.
He gestured at Hanuman, standing to one side quietly, watching the debate with
his arms folded over his greying chest. “Our friend Hanuman was there. As were
the entire vanar nations and rksaa nations.”
Jabali’s face twitched in a half-smile. “I meant civilized witnesses. Aryas. The
noble folk. Not monkeys and bears!”
Hanuman bristled at the tone of derision but made no comment or move. After a
decade spent with mortals he had probably become inured to their racist epithets
although it was evident that he did not appreciate them.
“Then take my word for it,” Rama said. “And my brother’s. We were there. We
witnessed her succeed in the agni-pariksha.”
“And what of the past ten years?” Jabali asked slyly. “Once again she has been
away from your house, who knows where or with whom?”
Rama had no answer to that. Even Lakshman was silent. Bharat and Shatrugan
looked on angrily but said nothing because they could not offer anything
worthwhile in such a matter. It was Maharishi Valmiki who spoke up then.
“I will vouch personally for the reputation of Lady Vedavati whom you know as
Queen Sita,” Valmiki said. “Her honor is spotless.”
Jabali laughed harshly. “We cannot take your word for it, Maharishi. The people
must be appeased. And the people are not easily appeased. They have been
betrayed too often. The conniving late Queen Kaikeyi, the scheming asura-
worshipping Daiimaa Manthara, the intrusions into Ayodhya, the near-invasion
by Ravana’s son Atikiya. Jabali spread his arms, affecting a guileless expression.
“It is not I who questions the authenticity, Samrat Rama. It is the people. They
would need to see it with their own eyes in order to be certain.”
“See it?” Lakshman asked angrily. “Do you mean we should hold another agni-
parikhsa just to appease the people’s doubts?”
Jabali shrugged. “If she is truly innocent of wrongdoing and pure as you claim,
there is nothing to fear. Besides, it is not I who demands this test, it is dharma.”
“Dharma!” shouted Nakhudi scornfully. “You change your interpretation of
dharma to suit your own interests!”
Jabali wagged a finger of warning at the oversized woman warrior. “Mind your
tongue, woman. Otherwise you may well be compelled to undergo an agni-
pariksha as well.”
“Enough!” Rama said angrily. “If this is the only way, then it must be done.”
He looked at Sita. “I know you are spotless and beyond reproach but what
Pradhan Mantri Jabali says is true, a king serves his people and the people will
talk. We set very high standards of morality in Ayodhya and in order to enforce
those standards I must prove that my family and I abide by them as well.
Nobody must have the right to raise a finger and say a single word about you or
anyone else in our house once you return home. Therefore I ask you to do this,
not for my sake or even for your own sake, but for the sake of the people we
serve. For the sake of dharma. Do this one last thing and we shall be together
again, forever.”
Sita looked at him sadly. “I thought you might have changed after all. I thought
you genuinely meant it when you begged my forgiveness, that you sincerely
wished to undo your mistakes and do the right thing at last. I kept my love
preserved like an acorn in a bushel for ten long years, in the hope that someday
perhaps we might be reunited, that someday you would see the light of reason.
But today I realize that it is not possible. You never truly desired forgiveness.
You were never sincere in your proffer. You did not ask with genuine intention.
All you desired was a queen, not a wife. A figurehead to place on the throne
beside you, like the stone statue of me your army carries before it. A pure,
perfect idol of a woman. Not a woman herself.”
“Sitey,” Rama said, “you misunderstand me entirely. I came here to ask you to
come back. But I live in the service of my station. A king serves the people.
Yatha raja tatha praja.”
“‘As does the king, so do the people,’” Sita translated. “So do it. Show the
people that you believe in my fealty. That you do not need a fire sacrifice to
prove my…purity! Do this and prove to them that to doubt an honest woman is
itself a stain on her reputation. To point a finger is itself a sullying of honor. To
gossip and speak about someone without their being found guilty of any
wrongdoing is itself a crime. Deny this unfair demand and prove to your people
that dharma comes from conviction not compromise. Dharma breaks but does
not bend. Dharma is the same for men as well as women. Do this and show the
praja that you are truly a raja of dharma. Not merely a servant but a king of
dharma. Do this, Rama. Do this for the sake of all mortalkind for you are as
close to a god as it is possible for a man to be. Do this one thing and you shall be
pure yourself, unsullied, and undoubted by history for all time to come. The eyes
of countless generations watch you now. You are the one being judged, not I. Do
this and prove to all humanity forever that Rama, King of Dharma, can pass this
final agni-pariksha. The test of trust. Prove that you believe without question in
my so-called purity and need no superstitious ritual to confirm it for the
naysayers and doubters of the world.”
Rama was silent a long moment. Even the birds in the forest seemed to have
fallen silent as if listening and waiting now for Rama’s response. The entire
army, arrayed out for yojanas behind Rama’s royal chariot, waited silently as
well, word of mouth having passed on the urgency and import of what was being
discussed here. The world itself waited.
Finally, with head bowed, Rama sobbed a single sob and said two simple words,
“I cannot.”
Sita was silent for a long moment, even longer than the time Rama had taken to
respond. Finally, she raised her head, lifting her hands from the shoulders of her
two sons who looked anxiously up at her. And she said in a voice that cracked
like thunder: “Then be a broken god forever!”

ELEVEN
The earth heaved and cracked beneath Sita’s feet. Luv and Kush cried out and
stumbled, reaching out for their mother, not asking for her help but in order to
help her. To their surprise, Maatr pushed them away with a firm but not unkind
gesture. They staggered back even as the entire section of ground on which Sita
stood broke free of the surrounding earth and rose up high into the earth, as if
shoved by an invisible fist from below. Everybody around her fell back,
staggering and stumbling away from the rising fist of ground. Debris and stones
fell, and packed dirt crumbled and spilled over as the ground split. Everybody
moved back, away from the heaving earth. A great gaping hole opened in the
ground, cracking in a rough circle over three yards wide that forced everybody to
move back. Then the cremation pyres heaved and lurched, and fell into the
gaping hole! At once, fire leaped up, huge gouts of flame blazing up, as if the
smoldering pyres had ignited some underground fuel. The fire roared over a
dozen yards high, rising steadily.
Luv and Kush went berserk with panic. “Maatr!” they cried out together,
scrambling to their feet. They ran forward, halting at the crumbling edge of the
rough circle that had appeared and which separated them from the fist of risen
earth upon which Sita still stood. Flames roared upward from the circular gash in
the earth and dirt and pebbles crumbled and fell away from beneath their
scrambling feet. Nakhudi saw the danger and leaped forward, grasping hold of
one of them with each meaty arm. She held them tight, pulling them back. Great
archers they were and gifted with the power of brahman, but when it came to
simple muscular strength, they were no match for Nakhudi’s wrestler bulk.
Still, they struggled mightily. “MAATR!” they cried, young boyish voices
almost girlish in their panic.
Sita turned and raised a hand, palm outwards, to comfort them. “Do not fear for
me, my sons,” she said affectionately, “I am safe in my mother’s arms.”
As the other ashramites moved back out of the way, guided by Dumma and the
other rishis, Rama and his brothers came forward to try to help. Bejoo and
Somasra came forward as well. But the distance was too far to leap, the flames
too ferocious and each time anyone came close to the edge, the flames seemed to
leap higher, almost as if forbidding anyone from trying to save Sita.
“Stay back, my friends,” she said, her voice clearly audible to all in the ashram
clearing. Word of what was transpiring was constantly being passed on from
soldier to soldier through the long lines of Ayodhya’s army. Those who were
within viewing were gawking with amazement, unable to comprehend what was
happening. “Prithvi-maa, the earth herself is my birth mother. It was she who
was seeded by Ravana resulting in my birth. That is why Maharaja Janak of
Mithila found me while ploughing his field. I was literally born of the earth in a
furrow. And now, to that same earth I shall return.”
“MAATR!” cried her sons. Nakhudi’s powerful arms strained to hold them back
as they fought and kicked and struggled to break free. Had she let go, there was
no doubt they would have tried to leap across the cleft to rescue their Maatr—
and would surely have died trying.
“Sitey,” said Rama from beside them. “Sitey, forgive me! I know I have
transgressed against you. I came here today to try to make amends.”
“And you failed, Rama,” she said sorrowfully. “You failed utterly. That is why
you will always be a broken god. Revered and worshipped, honored and
admired, but also doubted and despised. Each time someone speaks of your great
works and exploits, another will remind them of your banishment of your wife
and ask what god would do such a thing and question your divinity? Today you
had a chance to answer them once and for all, to silence those doubters, and you
failed yet again. Now, for as long as your memory shall live, you shall be adored
as a deva yet doubted as a man.”
“I am a man,” he said, dropping to his knees before the fiery pit. “Just a man.
Know me as a man. Understand me as a man. Not as a god.”
She shook her head sadly. “That is the eternal dilemma of heroes and those who
worship them. How can greatness have flaws? How can perfection contain a
blemish? How can a deva do wrong? And eternally, in answer to those questions,
people shall answer a single name: Rama. They shall offer you prayers, yes. But
they shall do so knowing that they are prayers offered to a broken god.”
“Come to me, Janaki,” he said, tears rolling from his eyes. “Join with me again.
Make me whole.”
“Don’t you want your agni-pariksha?” she asked bitterly. And the flames roared
up, engulfing her.
“Maatr,” her sons cried.
“Cry not for me, my sons,” her voice said from within the flames. “These fires
shall not burn me, nor the earth suffocate. The heat of the sun will not blacken
my skin, nor the cold of winter freeze my blood. My bones will not turn to dust
with the passing of time nor will my hair shrivel and come undone. I shall return
to the earth and shall be eternally present in her every aspect. Think of me every
time you see a flower bloom, a tree offer you shade, or the ground provide you
with sustenance. I go home to my mother’s bosom. For that is our sanskriti.
When a woman is not accepted at her husband’s home, she must go back to her
mother’s house. And this is home to me. From whence I came, thither I return.
Before I go, witness my agni-pariksha, tell all in Ayodhya of me, for even in
parting, I remain Rama’s wife, and lest a single finger be raised in accusation or
a single gossiping tongue speak with doubt, let all see and bear testimony that
the sacred agni did not singe a hair on my head or harm me. Pure, did you say,
Pradhan Mantri Jabali? Is this pure enough for you? Or do you need to ladle
ghee upon my body to satisfy yourself further? Perhaps what men like you truly
desire is to cremate women alive rather than accept that they are flesh and blood
and human as you are. If Rama is a broken god it is because of this one flaw: he
could not accept his own wife without questioning her purity!”
And the flames shot up impossibly high, reaching for the sky, until the pillar of
flame was visible all across the land, across the length and breadth of the
kingdom, and every man, woman and children paused and stared skywards, and
saw upon the top of the pillar of flame, the figure of their long banished but
beloved queen Sita Janaki of Mithila, standing on that searing flame, yet
untouched and unharmed. And every heart went out to her and every voice spoke
in veneration. “Devi-Maa,” they said, the highest exaltation possible. Mother
Goddess. And if she had not been until then, she became in that moment, Mother
Goddess Sita. Then and now and forever.
The pillar fell. It descended as suddenly as it had risen, and plunged deep into
the earth. As Sita returned to ground level, the pillar paused, as if her mother
Earth permitted her daughter one final goodbye. And she reached out to her
weeping sons and blessed them. “Ayushmaanbhavya, sons, rule as one, live as
one, and follow this one law at all times: One dharma for all.”
And then she descended into the earth and was swallowed whole. The flames
were sucked in and vanished. The cracked earth heaved again and moved
together, with a grinding sound that resembled a great stone sil-butta being
churned. The broken pieces fit together as perfectly as a china pot fitted back
together. And a moment later, the ground was as it had been before, without a
single crack or wisp of flame or trace of anything that had happened.
Only the absence of the cremation pyres served as reminder that indeed, Sita had
been here only moments earlier. And was gone now.
SAMAPTAM
The doe leaped out of Rama’s arms. He had enfolded her in a gentle
embrace, careful not to grip her too hard, and when he sensed her
muscles tensing for the leap, he made no attempt to stop her. She
jumped upwards and away, bounding across the grassy knoll in the
direction of the river. Reaching the rim of the knoll, she paused and
turned her head. Her ears flicked as she looked back with wide
alarmed eyes. He smiled and rose to his feet, speaking softly, his voice
barely audible below the sound of the river.

‘Did I scare you? That was not my intention, little beauty. I was only
eager to be your friend. Will you not come back and speak to me
again?’

The doe watched him from the edge of the precipice, her body still
turned towards the path that led down to the river, only her head
twisted back towards him. She made no move to return, yet she did
not flee immediately.

Rama took a step towards her, then another. She did not run. He took
several steps more, but when he was within twenty paces or so, her
flank rippled and her ears flickered at a faster rate.

So he stopped again. He called to her. She stayed where she was,

watching him. For a long moment, they stayed that way, the man and
the doe, watching each other, the river rushing along, the sun
breasting the top of the northern hills to shine down in its full glory. In
the distance, the city caught the light of the new day and sent back a
thousand glittering reflections. Towers and spires, windows and
arches, domes and columns, glass and brass, silver and gold, copper
and bronze, crystal and shell, bead and stone, all were illuminated at
once, and Ayodhya blazed like a beacon of gold fire, filling the valley
with a luminous glow. In the light of this glorious new day, it was easy
to dismiss the nightmare as just that, a bad dream. And yet … he
could still hear the sound of Sita’s voice, hear her last words, see her
engulfed by the pillar of fire as it descended into the embrace of the
earth—

He stopped and sighed.

He straightened and stared at the city. His beloved Ayodhya

resplendent in the sunlight of a new day, a new season, a new harvest
year. He walked forward, eyes fixed on the blazing city. Before they
had grown old enough to be sent to gurukul, he and his brothers had
spent any number of days here in the shade of this mango grove.
Playing, fighting, racing, all the things that young boys and young
princes alike were wont to do. He had come here today hoping these
nostalgically familiar environs would cleanse his mind of the
nightmare that life itself seemed to have become. So far he hadn’t
been entirely successful. He hadn’t expected to be.

His feet found the edge of the knoll and he stopped, poised ten yards
or more above the raging river. It was the point where the Sarayu
roared around a bend in the valley, tumbling over rocks and boulders
with the haste and energy of a river still in the first stage of its lengthy
course. The sound was thunder sustained. He spread his arms, raised
his face to the warm golden sunlight, and laughed. Droplets of spray
drifted up slowly, catching his hair and simple white dhoti, like
diamonds glittering in the sunlight.

“Bhai.”

He turned to see Lakshman standing behind him. Clad in a white

anga-vastra as was Rama.

“It is time.”

They walked down together to the riverbank. There were great

numbers of people lined along the bank on either side. The lines
stretched back to the raj-marg and all along its length back to the city
itself. Tens of thousands upon thousands…lakhs…millions in fact.
The entire population of the city. He looked at the city one last time,
intending to fix it in his memory. But from this angle, the overhang of
the bank on the far side obstructed the view. The deep red light of the
setting sun in the west obscured what little was visible. Perhaps it was
better that way. To have seen those familiar towers and archs, the
palace, the walls, the Seer’s Eye…perhaps they were better
remembered in his mind’s eye as they were. As all things were. In
memory, evergreen. Perfect. Immutable.

Maharishi Valmiki had agreed to preside over the ritual. The other
purohits of the city were present as well. At his nod, all the brahmins
began chanting the ritual Sanskrit shlokas together, their voices rising
to rival the roar of the river. Yet as Rama walked towards the edge of
the bank, the Sarayu’s song was louder by far. She was calling to him.
Come to me, my son. Come and sleep awhile. A season of rest.

Perhaps Sita would be waiting for him there, beyond the river’s end,
beyond sleep.

He entered the river. The water was icy cold but that was good. The
shock awakened his senses, made him aware of every sensation. The
wind on his fevered scalp. The fading sunlight on his cheek and ear.
The smell of jasmine blossoms on the evening air. The sound of
parrots or monkeys or both squabbling in the trees.

The brahmin’s chanting reached a crescendo. Everybody had joined

their palms together and was chanting along. Rama saw Hanuman
looking at him, hands joined together in supplication. The vanar’s
eyes were shedding tears freely. Rama smiled sadly at him. Hanuman
did not smile back: vanars could not smile. Yet they could cry.
Strange, wasn’t it?

Rama stepped further into the river. So this was samadhi. The ritual
immersion into flowing water as a voluntary end to one’s life. A literal
crossing over to another state of being. What had his karma in this and
previous lifetimes earned him thus far? The right to be reborn as
another mortal or some other species? The right to moksha, that final
liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth? He saw Luv and Kush,
faces drawn and severe, standing with Nakhudi and Bejoo, who was
now elevated to Minister of Peace, a new post he had instated before
stepping down from the throne. Nakhudi was personal bodyguard to
the twins, Captain of the new King’s Guardians. With the help of
Saprem Senapati Shirisha Kumar, great-grandson of Senapati Dheeraj
Kumar and grandson of Senapati Drishti Kumar, perhaps they might
usher in a new era for Kosala and Ayodhya. An age of peace. He
hoped the twins would learn more from their newly discovered
adoptive grandfather Janak of Mithila than from himself. Ram Rajya
was a great period in the city-kingdom’s history, but its time was past.
Perhaps there had never been a time for it at all.

He took another step and the water embraced him like a cold lover.
She swirled around him, dancing and rushing and washing over him
with icy tendrils. He felt his extremities grow colder, his heartbeat
slow, his pulse slow, his brow feel more feverish, almost burning hot.

The decision to take samadhi had been his own. His brothers had
insisted on following in his steps. None of them wished to rule in his
stead. And the entire populace had chosen to follow as well. He had
considered issuing some kind of a writ or diktat, forbidding everyone
from doing as he did but it would be pointless once he was gone.
Besides, yatha raja tatha praja. They had lived by that law and now
they were willing to die by it.
Except that this was not death. Not exactly. It was transmogrification.
They believed that by following their god-like emperor into the
afterlife they would be achieving transmogrification of their mortal
souls into eternal states of being. Who was he to disprove their belief?
The truth was even he did not know what lay beyond. All he knew
was that there was nothing left in this world for him to live for. He had
come to his senses in the nick of time, but had Sita and her sons not
intervened and Jabali and his evil cronies Aarohan and his men not
tried to hasten things by force and manipulation, he might have
authorized a war against Videha. And after Videha, perhaps even the
other Arya nations. And after that, what? Then what would be the
difference between Rama and Ravana except a few syllables?

Samadhi ensured that he sought a higher plane of existence. It was an

honorable way to pass on. He could not have endured the idea of
vanaprasthashrama, forest retirement, as was the custom among kings
of his line. For he had already spent the better part of his life in forest
retirement—forced retirement, that too, without so much as a pension.
Nor did he wish to remain in Ayodhya and watch his sons rule—every
moment with them would lead to questions of whether to do things
Rama’s way or their way. Now, nobody could raise that question.
There would be only their way, and that was the way it ought to be.
He would have liked to watch them grow to manhood but each day
with them would have been a day without Sita. And in their eyes he
could still see the reflected flames of Sita’s final agni-pariksha
reflected, burning deep in their hearts, just as his own youthful anger
at his mother’s treatment had burned in his eyes when he had looked
at his father Dasaratha in days gone by. Because he had been a son
himself, he knew what they felt. Because he had seen his mother
suffer his father’s mistakes, he knew how they felt about him, their
father. And he could not live with that knowledge nor could he make
things right with them. That moment had passed. That opportunity
was lost forever.
The only way ahead for him was to seek other worlds, other lives.

Samadhi.

He took another step and the water closed completely over his head,
submerging him. He heard a collective gasp from the assembled
crowd and the word was passed on that Rama had gone under the
river. He heard no more except the gurgling of the water and the
buffeting of the tide which felt oddly like a powerful wind. The water
was crystal clear and he could still see the evening sky. Birds flew
overhead, silhouetted against the evening redness. He saw faces and
bodies moving, heard the murmur of voices—or perhaps they were
only the voices of the river speaking to him.

His feet found the bottom of the river. He was yards underwater now.
The sky was no longer visible, the rushing water overhead obscuring
all vision. He heard and felt a splash beside him and saw another
man’s form sink slowly to land on the bottom of the river beside him.
It was Lakshman, his eyes open as well, still holding his breath. He
gestured at Rama. Rama nodded and gestured, indicating that they
should move forward.

Then a strange thing happened.

A great blue light blazed up from the depths of the river, like a
standing rectangle of deep midnight-blue illumination glowing
brightly. Like a doorway without any substance, just inky blue light
spilling through. From where? How?

He did not know. The inky blue light shaped like a doorway stood
ahead on the floor of the river. Behind it was pitch darkness as if the
river itself ended there, although he knew that was impossible.
Vortal. That is a Vortal. The name came to him unbidden. He had no
idea what it meant.

I have been expecting you, Ayodhya-naresh. Come towards the

Vortal.

He did not look around to see who had spoken. The voice was in his
mind. He glanced at Lakshman and saw from his brother’s face that
he had heard the voice too. It had spoken in Lakshman’s mind as
well.

Two more splashes behind them: Bharat and Shatrugan. They came up
beside Lakshman and Rama saw that they were looking at the Vortal
too. They had heard the voice as well.

Yes, this is the way. You are to go through the Vortal now. One by
one. Come.

They looked at one another.

Do not fear. This is inevitable. It was ordained for you from eons
before your birth on this realm.

Rama nodded to his brothers then walked towards the Vortal. If this
was what he was meant to do then he may as well do it. In any case,
he had come here seeking something. He had not known what. It
seemed he had found it.

At the place where the blue light met the Sarayu’s water, the effect
was most peculiar. As if the water and light met…and merged. There
was a point where he could see that the molecules were neither
entirely water nor entirely light. They were…something else.

Brahman. Pure brahman.

Yes, Vaikunta-naresh. The Vortal is composed of pure brahman.
It is a portal between possible worlds. Go on through. It is the
reason why you chose this way to end your mortal existence in this
plane.

Rama stood before the Vortal. He felt Lakshman come up behind him,
waiting.

Rama stepped through. It felt like stepping through water into…

Light. Bright infinite light. Light of no color. Perfect. Extending in

every direction. Originating from nowhere.

He felt a strange sensation within himself, then a repetition of the

sensation, then another. It happened thrice in all.

When he looked back, his brothers were gone. As was the Vortal. As
was the river itself.

The entire mortal world had vanished.

And so had his brothers.

Because here we are all one being…I.

His voice sounded strange in his own mind.

He heard a fluttering from above and looked up to see a great

magnificent being descending. He knew instinctively that this was
Garuda, his friend and carrier.

Garuda bowed down before him.

Rama climbed aboard.

Garuda flapped his wings and rose up into the air, into the infinite
light without beginning or end, origin or limit.

Take me home, Garuda, Vishnu heard himself say. My heart longs

to see my Devi Lakshmi again. I have been too long away from
her, playing this game of gods and demons. My work there on
earth is done for now. Take me home.

His voice no longer sounded strange to himself. It sounded natural as

it had always sounded.

The bird-carrier rose up into the infinite light, carrying the being
named Vishnu who had once been Rama.

In a flash of an eye-wink they were lost to human sight and mind,

passing beyond the extent of mortal understanding or knowledge.

Jai Shri Vishnu.

Jai Shri Lakshmi.
Jai Shri Hindmata.
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