And he embraced her forever. For that is what the conjoining of the ling and the yoni is, a timeless union. And so Charani Devi sits in the temple and delicately, oh so delicately, coaxes a fraction of a millimetre of the worm from her mouth. She can never close her mouth for if she does, all mankind and devilkind and all godkind would be forever frozen in suspended animation.
* * *
No, it certainly wouldn’t do to earn the Devi’s displeasure.
The Devi has an assistant, a priestess who keeps a watch over her. She helps her when the Devi wants to take a bath, change her clothes or put some soothing unguent in her eyes. And because she is so close, because of her sheer physical proximity, she can look into the Devi’s open mouth, all the way back to where her tonsils are and as far into the future where her mouth turns into her gullet. And that is how the priestess has the powers of an oracle and a seer.
Prithviraj and Jaimal entered the dark, cold and underground temple of the Devi first. When they could see a little clearly, they seated themselves on a pallet. Sanga, who followed them, stumbled in the darkness. He didn’t wish to give offence to the Devi and sat down where he was. Surajmal came after him but he waited till he could see better and then surveyed his surroundings. Prithviraj spotted the priestess behind a curtain. She was standing still as a tree and her eyes were closed but he knew that she was watching them. It’s now or never, he told himself. Surajmal chose a spot next to Sangram. He had barely put his knee down when Prithviraj spoke.
‘Priestess, we’ve come to find out who amongst us will be the next king of Mewar.’
Prithviraj had sprung the question, as was his wont, impulsively and without waiting to do obeisance to the Devi and without greeting the prophetess or paying his respects. The dread query had been shot like an arrow from a bow. There was no going back now.
Surajmal, with one knee set down and the rest of him in midair waited for the sibyl’s response. How could he have missed the Priestess, he asked himself, despite careful scouting? Was she amused, was there a sardonic line of irony between her lips? Her eyes passed over each of them and then came back to Sangram Simha.
‘Sangram could not see and sat down where he could. He is not even aware that he is sitting on the Devi’s panther hide,’ the Priestess spoke almost inaudibly.
Sangram looked down. He really was sitting on the panther hide. Had he insulted the Devi by presuming to occupy her seat? Was she angry with him? And what form of punishment would she prescribe? Everyone knew that since the day she had saved the cosmos, she had developed a terrible temper and could consign the object of her wrath to a fate worse than death. He hurriedly raised himself, then realized it was too late and sat down again.
‘Strange are the ways of Fate,’ the priestess’ eyes were still closed, ‘it has chosen him to be the next king.’
Who was she talking about? Obviously she was doing things blindly, talking of the strange ways of Fate when it was she, the soothsayer, who was muddling things up. Prithviraj was sure she was making a mistake. He wasn’t going to permit that. He would open her eyes and make her look at all three of them and then foretell the future. Surajmal was, anyway, not in the line of succession and was merely accompanying the young princes.
‘As to the uncle,’ she interrupted Prithviraj’s train of thought, ‘he didn’t lurch around and fall, he waited like a wise man to look before he leapt and then deliberately chose the spot next to Sangrams. But all Sangram had left him of the striped skin was room enough for a limb. The throne will be within your reach, Surajmal, you may even graze against it but your hold on it will always be precarious. Ah Surajmal, if only your destiny had been as bountiful as your aspirations.’
‘What about me?’ Prithviraj had got his sword out of its scabbard. ‘What about me, old woman?’ There was so much rage and disappointment in his eyes, he must have been as blind as she was. ‘I’ll make you change your accursed prophecy even now,’ he was half-crazed as he brandished his sword. But the oracle was no longer there. The curtain fluttered and try as he might, Prithviraj could not part it. ‘I’ll prove you wrong. I was born to be king. No one else will take my throne, least of all this little runt of a brother of mine.’ The sword came down hard. Sangram drew his head away sharply. His left eyeball sat dead on its blade. Dislodged and set free from its mooring in Sangram’s eye socket, the soft egg-white with its black yolk surveyed the scene disinterestedly. Prithviraj brought the blade down again but Surajmal’s sword halted its progress. Blood poured from the hole in Sangram’s head. Prithviraj’s sword caught him above the right shoulder and below his ribs as he ran blindly out of the door of the cave.
Surajmal and Prithviraj fought without let. It was evident that they would not stop till one of them was dead. Was there any reason why they were fighting now? This, as time was to prove, was but the first of their confrontations. It became an addiction and an obsession. At least later on there were pretexts – land, kingdoms small and big, territorial imperatives. But the unmentionable truth was simple. They enjoyed it. Mauling each other had become an end in itself; it gave purpose to their lives. It’s curious that they never did manage to kill each other. Or perhaps, not so odd after all. For what would one have done if the other had fallen?
‘While you fight our uncle,’ Jaimal spoke to Prithviraj, ‘the usurper has flown.’
Prithviraj came to his senses. The wounded Surajmal was happy to get a respite. Jaimal asked the villagers the direction in which their brother had fled. They pointed towards Chaturbhuja. Prithviraj and Jaimal mounted their horses and the chase was on.
* * *
Rathor Bida Jaimialot and his two sons had come to the village of Sevantri to visit the shrine of Rup Narain. They had prayed there, made their offerings and were about to return home when Sangram rode into the compound of the temple, his clothes bathed in blood.
‘Rathor Bidaji, I, Sangram Simha, son of Rana Raimul, beg you for asylum and protection from my brothers Prithviraj and Jaimal who are in hot pursuit of me and wish to kill me.’
Sangram had lost a lot of blood. He fainted. The Rathor and his sons took him inside the temple, washed his wounds and bandaged them. They revived him with water and strong medicinal herbs. They were about to ask him the why and the wherefore of his feud with his brothers when they heard the sound of galloping horses.
‘Have you seen our brother?’ Prithviraj asked Bida who was saddling his horse. ‘He rode in five minutes ahead of us.’
‘No,’ replied the Rathor, ‘no one’s been here. My sons and I are on our way home after visiting Rup Narainji.’
‘And whose horse may that be, Bidajee? An extra steed you brought along for the journey, just in case one of your other horses tired or had an accident?’
‘Yes, just as a safeguard.’
‘Then why is he foaming at the mouth and sweating so copiously? And why do I keep getting the feeling I have seen him before? Not once but very often?’ Jaimal’s sword was out. ‘Hand over my brother, Sangram Simha. Whatever the cause, the fight is between him and us. It has nothing to do with you. All I ask of you is to give Sangram to us. After that take your sons and go in peace.’
‘I am a Rajput like you, Prince Jaimal. I gave my word to Prince Sangram Simha to give him shelter and protect him. The only way you can take him is by killing me and my sons.’
What was a Rajput’s word worth? Not much. It cost Rathor Jaitmalot and his sons their lives. They did brave battle. They stood their ground while Prithviraj and Jaimal slashed and struck them from their horses and Sangram Simha made his escape.
Should Rathor Bida not have given his word? Should he have broken it? Where does one draw the line? When my own mother, the Maharani and at least nominally, the first among queens, told me this story and she told it often and when she forgot to, I forced her as a child to tell it again till I had fallen asleep, there were no villains, only heroes. Prithviraj, Jaimal, Surajmul, Bida and his sons, Sangram Simha, all of them. Would it have made a diffe
rence if Father had died at the hands of his brothers? Would they have been any the less heroic? It would have been all the same to her and to all the other Rajputs who live to tell the tale. Perhaps it makes no difference to Father either. At least he never shows it. He certainly never mentions the subject. Perhaps I am the only one who gets all hot and bothered with the thought of such wanton blood-letting.
Father waited till the wounds in his eye and the rest of his body had healed. He changed his attire and lived as a cowherd in Marwar. They say he was dismissed from his job because he was thought to be stupid and was pulled up for eating flour cakes when he was supposed to have guarded the animals. He left Marwar and travelled incognito towards Ajmer. On the way, he enrolled in the army of Rao Karam Chand, the Parmar chief of Srinagar, the ancient capital of the Parmars about ten miles from Ajmer. The Parmars were now a spent force, but Rao Karam Chand had still an army of about three thousand Rajputs and Father was just another soldier among them.
Years went by. Rana Raimul banished Prince Prithviraj from Chittor when he heard of the quarrel between the brothers. Prithviraj took off in a dudgeon but in no time at all made a name for himself. Strife was his element. In a race of braves, he outshone everyone with his courageous deeds and spectacular exploits. It appeared that Prince Jaimal, the silent spectator at Charani Devi’s temple would inherit the Rana’s throne. He was circumspect and he bided his time. But he ran out of luck when he affronted the princess he loved, and her father killed him on the spot. Prithviraj was back in favour and recalled. The throne and the crown would now surely be his. He married the woman that Jaimal had desired. The two of them, Prithviraj and Tara, continued their dare-devil exploits, repossessed kingdoms, drove their enemies to despair and built up an entire mythos around their careers, becoming the darlings of mass imagination.
My father remained faceless until one day – take the story anyway you want, with a pinch or a fistful of salt since it’s been told about many a prince in hiding – until one day Jai Simha Balech (yes, the very same one whose hospitality my brother Vikramaditya had so abused) and Janna Sindhal discovered him sleeping in the fields while a snake reared its head over the exile. As if this was not symbolic enough, a bird of omen alighted on the snake’s crested head and chattered away. The omens were duly deciphered and Karam Chand learnt that no less than a prince of the house of Mewar was serving him. Father must have regretted the loss of his anonymity deeply for soon the news had spread and Prithviraj was on his way to settle old scores and wrongs that none other than he himself had initiated.
What would have transpired if the two brothers had confronted each other after so many years must remain a matter of conjecture since Prithviraj’s progress was halted by a letter from his sister, Anandabai. She recounted how badly her husband, Rao Jugmal of Sirohi was treating her. She begged her brother to free her and take her back to the paternal roof. Uncle Prithviraj, who I never did meet, was in a rage and swore vengeance on the Rao of Sirohi. A slight change in plans and routing and the Prince was at Sirohi by midnight. He did not knock. He scaled the palace walls and Jugmal woke up with a start to find a dagger at his throat.
My uncle would have slit the offending throat without compunction but his sister, responding to her husband’s appeals for mercy, beseeched him to spare Jugmal’s life. Uncle agreed on condition that Jugmal hold his wife’s shoes over his head, touch her feet and beg her forgiveness. Jugmal complied immediately. All was forgiven and forgotten. The next day Jugmal feted his royal guest at a great party. All the noblemen of Sirohi were present on this occasion of reconciliation. Soon it was time to bid Prince Prithviraj goodbye. Jugmal presented the Prince with three of the confections for which he was so renowned.
Uncle reached the shrine of Mamadevi and was in sight of his beloved Kumbhalgarh, but realized that he would never make it. He sent for his wife who was at the fort but Jugmal’s poison had worked its way to his heart and brain before Tara Bai could bid him farewell. She had no wish to live on without the husband who had been her companion in the great adventure of life. Prince Prithviraj’s pyre was lit. As the flames shot up, Tara Bai embraced him and ascended to the regions of the sun.
The road was clear now. Rana Raimul was ill and it was time to call Prince Sangram Simha from Rao Karam Chand’s estates in Srinagar.
Blood. Will we ever be able to stanch the rivers of blood? How often have I pleaded with Father to issue a royal proclamation, once and for all, that anybody but the heir apparent, who has designs upon the crown will be put instantaneously to death?
Father listens and nods his head in assent. He understands how many lives this will save, how many misfortunes it will avert, and how much our sovereign kingdom will stand to gain. Who can appreciate the implications of my proposal better than he who had suffered so many indignities for so long? And yet he will not put his seal to such a decree because Rani Karmavati stands over his shoulder.
* * *
‘You do us a signal honour, Prince, by offering us the hand of friendship. There is nothing more valuable that either His Majesty, the Rana or I would want in our relationship with the kingdom of Gujarat. I think all of us have, in the process of being constantly at war, lost sight of an extraordinary simple truth. That the dividends of peace are greater than all the plunder of victories. But I must beg your indulgence in two matters.’
Did the Shehzada Bahadur know what was coming? He hadn’t once mentioned or asked for Vikramaditya. Butter, as they say, wouldn’t melt in his mouth. His sources, I was sure, had already informed him of Vikramaditya’s imprisonment. He knew that we could not but be aware of the dialogue that my brother and he had started about carving up Mewar and Gujarat among themselves. Something had obviously gone wrong at his end that had made him bring forward his departure, without prior notice to his co-conspirator in Chittor and without the forces which were supposed to owe allegiance to him.
Young though he was, certainly younger than I, he was too steeped in the arts of diplomacy to let on that he had suffered setbacks at home as well as after his arrival in Chittor.
‘It is I who am the suppliant and must beg your indulgence. Pray, what are the two matters?’
‘I need to inform His Majesty, the Rana, of your arrival and of your proposals. He is, as you are aware, the final arbiter of all matters in Mewar.’
‘Yes, of course, that goes without saying. Please tell His Majesty that I send him my greetings and wish him success.’
‘I am certain of his warm reception to both, your presence here and to your very interesting proposition,’ I continued as if he had not interrupted me. I was not about to tell him that I had already dispatched a letter to his father, the Sultan of Gujarat. I too sent him greetings but desisted from wishing him success in his war with Mewar. I said that he must have been not a little anxious about the disappearance of his second son, Prince Bahadur and that I was happy to rid him of this source of worry. Prince Bahadur was with us, he was well and would continue to be our guest for as long as he wished. Yours sincerely, etcetera.
He was bound to hear of his son’s presence in Chittor. Might as well get some benefit from it.
‘The business of the troops that you require may pose a slight problem. Your intelligence is precise. We do have about twenty thousand troops in Mewar. But you’ll be the first to agree that it would be unwise to enlist them all in the expedition to Ahmedabad and leave Mewar exposed.
‘But, and let me stress this, the last thing I have in mind is to throw a damper on your scheme. What I suggest is this: as an earnest of our intentions and commitment, I will write to the Rana asking him to spare ten thousand troops from our forces here. While we await his reply, you could spend that time raising another ten thousand troops from your friends among the nobles and vassals of Gujarat and, needless to say, from your loyal forces in Ahmedabad and in the rest of the kingdom. Our combined armies then would make short work of capturing Ahmedabad.’
Was I lying? No, I wasn’t and he knew that
. At least I hoped he did. What I was doing was hedging Mewar’s bets. Of course, we could raise more than twenty thousand troops in our kingdom and from our dependencies but that was neither here nor there. It was crucial that if the attack on Ahmedabad took place, it should look like a spontaneous revolt or uprising from within Gujarat itself and not from an established and old foe like Chittor.
He knew that I had him in a bind but as his reply showed, he was also astute enough to realize that I was talking sense. ‘I think you’ve got a point there. Without my own troops and the backing of a section of the nobles, I might just end up alienating the people of Ahmedabad.’
I hoped that I had bought time and had come across as supportive but not over-eager or impulsive.
‘Now that we are through with business, perhaps we can turn our attention to some pressing matters like pleasures. We have had a drought here since His Majesty, the Rana left. You are just the excuse I needed. How would you like to go hunting one of these days? I know that you are an ardent patron of wrestling. I am afraid our wrestlers won’t be able to match the skill and speed of your stalwarts but you could assess our teams and advise us on how to improve them.’
I rose to leave soon after and then deliberately turned around at the door. ‘Oh, I forgot a little something. Whenever you feel like company, just inform Mangal Simha here. He will see to your needs instantly. Perhaps if you are specific about your requirements, he might even guarantee satisfaction.’
Chapter
6
Ah yes, the truth. What a to-do we make of this word when we all know we would be so much better off without it.
The wedding party returned home. Her favourite uncle, Rao Viramdev accompanied her to Chittor. She was allowed to bring a friend or servant along with her who would stay with her all her life. She brought her childhood friend and maid, Kumkum Kanwar. They had never been outside Merta and Kumkum was full of wonder and alarm at the sights, scenes and smells of Chittor. Merta was a small town compared to Chittor. Chittor was wealthy and worldly. It was filthy, spacious, corrupt, crowded and self-assured. Kumkum Kanwar could not keep a lid on her excitement. She tugged at her friend’s sleeve, pointed breathlessly at the Victory Tower, she screamed with delight at the size of the custard apples, she was horrified at the boldness and number of the beggars, her eyes enlarged in disbelief at the variety of precious stones, pearls and jewellery exhibited so casually in the market-place. Her mouth remained agape that whole day.
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