The Rise of Sivagami : Book 1 of Baahubali - Before the Beginning

by Anand Neelakantan

  ‘Mother has told me about—’ Nala began.

  ‘You are adopted by her, Nala. What she told you would not be even half of what she actually suffered. I lived through the hell. Acting as a eunuch is nothing compared to the difficulties our mother has gone through.’

  Nala nodded gravely. ‘Be careful, brother.’

  Brihannala laughed. ‘You be careful. And don’t forget, our mother is Achi Nagamma, and we will achieve what we aim for, brother. Now go along with the musicians. Take this mrudanga with you.’ He pointed to the drum kept in a corner. ‘Make sure that they are ready. Let them wait for the prince on the way back from Kalika’s inn. But tell them to be wary of that slave.’

  Nala said, ‘There will be twenty this time. If required, we will kill the slave.’

  Brihannala smiled. ‘Godspeed, brother.’

  Nala, now dressed in a musician’s garb, hugged his brother and went out with the mrudanga. As he opened the door, music from the top floor wafted in and died down when the door was shut again.

  Brihannala started wearing her make-up and soon transformed into a dazzling woman. She caressed the edge of the sword before hanging it back. She tied jasmine in her hair and fixed anklets on her feet. She jingled them and smiled.

  ‘Da tha dhinta,’ she said as she practised her steps and laughed.

  She ran upstairs and was greeted by a huge roar of applause. She spread her arms wide and started twirling. Her skirt ballooned around her and swirled. Her girls ran to join her and started spiralling round and round. The sheer energy of the performance inspired the musicians and drummers. Viewers threw money and garlands and the dance gathered momentum.

  Today, she was giving her best performance.

  TEN

  Sivagami

  ‘You are saved,’ Thimma told her, clutching the royal palm leaf in his hand. He took her hand and hurried down the corridors, past the milling soldiers, past the guards sitting on the floor playing chaturanga drawn on the granite floor, past kitchens that carried the smell of roasted meat and frying fish. Sivagami could feel the gaze of many eyes on them. Akhila wanted to stop and look at everything, but Thimma hurried them. The stone steps that wound past flowery bushes had started cooling down. The light from the torches lit up the bushes. Sivagami noticed that the palace was huge, with intricate paths and various wings.

  They stopped near an old building that had towering mango trees. Moonlight seeped through the canopy and formed chequered patches in the courtyard. There were people standing under these, a few squatting on their haunches near the steps.

  Thimma gave the palm leaf to the scribe at the door, who squinted at it and pointed to the next scribe who was squatting on the floor and busily scribbling. Thimma stood before him for some time before he took the palm leaf, read it, and said his supervisor had gone out. The old man and the girl waited. A few of the scribes were putting their stencils and ink pots into the drawers of their slanted writing tables or packing their cloth bags.

  Sivagami stood watching the bats that flapped their huge wings and squeaked among the trees. Akhila tried imitating their call and was chided by her father. Thimma was visibly worried and kept enquiring about Roopaka, the deputy of the mahapradhana.

  The street lights were being lit by the nagarapalakas when a servant ushered them to the chamber of Roopaka. He sat cross-legged on a reed mat with a massive writing table before him. Oil lamps flickered, giving a golden hue to his plump face. Thimma gave him the royal palm leaf and Roopaka leaned forward to read it. He asked them to wait and went inside a huge hall. Sivagami could hear whispers from within. A moth flew in through an air hole in the thick wall and started circling a torch. It went around the flame in tight circles and Sivagami was sure it was going to dive into the fire soon. Before she could confirm it, they were ushered inside.

  Mahapradhana Parameswara reclined on a dewan. His frail frame was propped up with many cushions. A servant was lighting a lamp that was twice as tall as Sivagami. When the seventh wick was lit, Parameswara folded his hands and mumbled a prayer. Thimma followed suit. Sivagami stood, awkward in the cavernous room, eyeing the glass of milk and dry fruits kept on the table.

  ‘Roopaka, read me the royal decree,’ Parameswara said in a soft voice, and Roopaka complied.

  Parameswara said, looking at Sivagami, ‘I doubt if she’d like it there. It is not a happy place to be.’

  Thimma did not reply. Parameswara sighed. ‘I know there is no other way. I wish I could have done better for her father. He was a good man. But what choice did His Highness have?’

  Sivagami’s ears bristled. They were talking about her father again. In riddles. Since childhood she had been asking everyone about her father. Apart from the statement that he was a traitor who was hanged, no one cared to say anything else. No one would answer her questions. She knew now that she would have to seek them on her own.

  ‘Can I live with Akka?’ Akhila asked suddenly.

  Thimma shushed her, but Parameswara called her near him.

  ‘Hmm…What is your name?’

  ‘Akhila,’ the girl shyly replied.

  ‘Your youngest one, Thimma?’ Parameswara asked as he lifted little Akhila to his lap. Thimma nodded. Parameswara asked the girl, ‘Why would you want to do that? Is your father very strict?’

  Akhila looked at Thimma and shook her head. She said, ‘I just want to be with Akka.’ She smiled at Sivagami. Sivagami felt a lump in her throat.

  ‘Would you live without creating trouble?’ Parameswara asked her with a kind smile.

  ‘I have never created any trouble, Grandpa,’ Akhila blurted out.

  ‘Ssh! Your Grace…address him as Your Grace,’ Thimma admonished her, but Parameswara chuckled.

  ‘For her, I am more like a great-great-grandpa. Come here. Would you like some almonds?’

  Akhila hesitated. Her eyes seemed to ask whether the old man would be offended if she refused. She looked at Thimma. He gently shook his head and she said, ‘No, Your…Your Grace. Thank you.’

  Parameswara gestured to his deputy who bowed and went out.

  ‘What do you have in that pouch?’ Parameswara asked the little girl.

  ‘Oh, these are my treasures,’ gushed Akhila. ‘Do you want to see them, Grandpa?’ she asked, and started unknotting the string with which she had somehow held the torn pouch together.

  ‘Akhila, enough. Do not bother His Grace,’ Thimma’s voice was stern. I beg your forgiveness, Your Grace. The girl keeps collecting stones, pebbles, crystals, and trinkets. All worthless things,’ he apologized to Parameswara.

  ‘Worthless for us, Thimma. But for her, they are the most precious things. Is it not true of all of us? We collect so many things when we are young, and when we reach a certain age, we understand most of them were worthless.’

  Akhila was still struggling to untie the strings of the pouch. Parameswara said kindly, ‘Some other day, child. Now tell me, do you know how to read?’

  ‘Akka has taught me to read,’ Akhila said proudly. Thimma looked at Sivagami in surprise.

  ‘Oh, is it? Let me see what your Akka has taught you. Read this for me, will you?’ Parameswara gave her a palm leaf. There were letters that hung from lines. She wracked her brains, but could not make head or tail of it.

  Parameswara laughed aloud and took the manuscript from her hand. ‘Unsuccessful?’

  Akhila looked down in shame. ‘Don’t worry. That is in a script that not many can read. It is the devabasha Sanskrit, the language of the gods. How much ever you know, there will always be many things you won’t know.’

  Akhila looked at the palm leaf in wonder. The Mahapradhana saw her eyes move to the walls of his chamber, which were lined with manuscripts.

  ‘I have read most of them, I read till my eyesight failed. Still, I get them read by Roopaka whenever he has time to entertain this old man.’

  Sivagami, who had been silently observing this scene, felt a growing admiration for this man who had read so many book
s. Her father had a library, but his entire collection would not even fill half a shelf of what this old man had.

  Parameswara observed Sivagami staring at the books in wonder and chuckled. ‘Those go back thousands of years, and are mostly in languages known to man. They were collected by mahapradhanas before me, better men, wiser men, and stronger men.’

  ‘Never a woman?’ Sivagami asked.

  Parameswara stared at her for a long moment and Thimma audibly sucked air in. At last the prime minister of Mahishmathi laughed, ‘Well, there was one extraordinary woman thousands of years ago—during the early days of the first kingdom—Mahishi, the devil. Some say she was a witch, some say she was a cursed apsara, whatever she was, she enjoyed killing people. Maybe that was a lie spun by people who despised her, or maybe there was some truth to it. Who knows? But after her, no woman in known history has ever been the mahapradhana.’

  ‘But the kingdom of Mahishmathi is barely three centuries old and you speak about the first kingdom?’ Sivagami asked.

  ‘Kings have changed, dynasties have waxed and waned, but the institution of the mahapradhana has never changed. We are the custodians of knowledge. We serve whoever sits on the throne of Mahishmathi.’

  ‘But why then has a woman never again been the mahapradhana of Mahishmathi?’ Sivagami repeated.

  Mahapradhana laughed, but before he could answer, Roopaka came in, accompanied by a corpulent woman.

  ‘Ah, here comes my able deputy with the mukhya of the royal orphanage. Revamma, here is your new ward. Daughter, tell her your name and take her blessings.’

  Sivagami bowed to the enormously fat woman who carelessly extended her hand in blessing while talking to the mahapradhana.

  ‘Swami, you don’t understand our plight. The place is already overcrowded. I have been crying for more funds for the last two years. They eat like devils, those hungry brats. And now you are burdening me with another?’

  ‘Roopaka, has Devi Revamma submitted her accounts?’ the mahapradhana asked his deputy.

  Roopaka hesitated to reply.

  ‘Yes, I have, but not even last year’s expenses have been approved yet, forget about new funds. And if I reduce the sweetness in the payasam by one notch, these brats go and complain to the maharani and then I am left giving explanations. It’s funds I need, not another ward, swami.’

  ‘Skandadasa is evaluating the claims. He has found many inflated expenses. Besides, he says the country cannot subsidise the warden’s husband’s gambling habits,’ Roopaka intervened.

  ‘That is an unnecessary allegation. What am I supposed to do with my husband, the good-for-nothing fellow? And who runs the gambling den where most males of this accursed city including my husband stay like dogs? Is it not devadasi Kalika, who pays the highest tax in the country? Kalika, who heads the royal harem? No one talks about that. They are after a poor woman like me just because I am no longer as pretty or young as I used to be,’ Revamma ranted.

  ‘Oh, and when was that? Eight decades back?’ Roopaka asked.

  ‘Swami, I do not want to talk when this impudent rascal is in this room.’

  ‘Roopaka, pack my things and get my chariot ready,’ Parameswara ordered, gently placing Akhila down from his lap.

  ‘Swami,’ Revamma continued, ‘you are taking from one hand and giving to another. I cannot run the show like this. I do not want to do this anymore. I have a farm by the river, far to the east. I will resign and retire there. Enough of spoiling my life fighting for each copper.’

  ‘She has been saying that for the past decade,’ Roopaka said as he packed the mahapradhana’s things.

  ‘Enough, Roopaka,’ Parameswara grunted and his deputy muttered an apology.

  ‘I would’ve left years ago, but you know my native village is infested by the Kalabhairava tribe. Sometimes it is the Vaithalikas. They raid when they please and take away children or livestock. The famed Mahishmathi army has done nothing,’ Revamma panted in anger.

  Mahapradhana took a deep breath and said, ‘I will talk to Skandadasa, Revamma. I will also ask Hiranya to look into the matter of Kalabhairava raids or Vaithalika attacks in the forest villages. I call you for something and you take this opportunity to pile up more problems on me. Sometimes I wonder how crazy I am that I stick to this thankless post. A quiet life among books is all that I wanted.’

  ‘He too has been saying that for the past one decade,’ Revamma said to Roopaka, and Akhila giggled. When everyone stared at her, she put her hands over her mouth and tried to stifle her laugh. Seeing her, Sivagami smiled.

  ‘Seems like more trouble for me, swami,’ Revamma said.

  ‘She is a well-behaved girl,’ Thimma said, and Revamma turned to him.

  ‘Bhoomipathi Thimma! Hmm…’ Revamma’s eyes widened in wonder and then realization. ‘That means this girl is…’

  ‘Yes, you guessed correctly, Revamma,’ Parameswara stood up with Roopaka’s support. ‘Even today I am late. The old woman will be sulking, like she has been doing for the last sixty-five years. You are wedded to your job, she used to say as a demure bride. Now she does not bother. There are enough grandchildren and great grandchildren to keep her busy. Ah, my knees. Wish I had summoned the rajavaidya. The pain in my knees…’

  ‘Swami, I cannot do this,’ Revamma said. Sivagami knew what was coming. She did not fancy going with this fat woman. She wanted to go home. She wanted to play with Akhila, be coaxed to eat more by her aunt Bhama, or fight with Raghava.

  The mahapradhana had already reached the door. Revamma ran and stood in front of him. With folded hands, she pleaded, ‘I have looked after all the sons and daughters of the martyrs of Mahishmathi. Do not spoil my reputation by giving me a traitor’s daughter. Please, swami, I beg of you. Please do not make me give milk to a snake.’

  Sivagami wanted to break free from Thimma’s hands and run away. No one wanted her. Not even the warden of an orphanage.

  ‘You are wasting your breath here, Revamma. Try your luck with the maharaja. It is his order,’ the mahapradhana said as his chariot rumbled up to the porch. As Roopaka helped the old mahapradhana climb up his chariot, Sivagami ran to him.

  ‘I want to know what my father did for all of you to hate me like this,’ she cried.

  Parameswara did not answer her. He gestured to the driver, and with a jerk the chariot lurched forward, crushing the gravel in the driveway. Sivagami stood watching the chariot winding away, past the ghostly trees and soon past the arched gate. In a few moments, even the swaying light from its lantern had dissolved into the mist and the jingle from its bells had faded away.

  She turned, hearing Thimma crying. Akhila was sobbing nearby, clutching her father’s dhoti. Behind them, Roopaka and Revamma were arguing about something. Thimma held Sivagami tight and said, ‘I am sorry it came to this. You should have grown up like the bhoomipathi’s daughter you are. I am sorry I am leaving you like this. May…may the goddess Gauriparvat be with you always.’

  The old man sobbed. Sivagami did not have any words. She felt numb. She had no idea what an orphanage looked like. Maybe she would find new friends there. Maybe she would forget about her past and would find a new home. It was just a matter of a few months anyway. Once eighteen, she might have to start working as a servant in some nobleman’s home. Maybe…

  ‘Sivagami,’ Thimma took her aside.

  Thimma’s voice was grave, ‘Forgive me, child, but there is a reason why I am sending you away. One day, you will understand. There are terrible secrets which you need not know now. But know that your father was a great man. He was no traitor. Anyone with an iota of humanity would have done what he did. Now the yoke of duty has fallen on my shoulders. I understand my friend better now. I wish he had succeeded in what he attempted, but fate had other plans. I am trying to fulfil what he set out to do. There are some clues in a book that may offer a solution. Your father mentioned it to me a few weeks before his… I am sorry. I did not want to mention it to you before and make you feel worse. Th
e maharaja had sealed your mansion and it would have required his permission to break it open. I—’ Thimma looked around to see whether Roopaka and Revamma could overhear them but they were busy arguing with each other.

  Thimma lowered his voice and said, ‘I even climbed the fort wall and entered your mansion in search of the book. This was more than ten years back…I was younger then. I could not find it and it was too risky to try again. I secretly questioned some of your father’s servants, but one could never tell who was trustworthy and who was not. Mahamakam was a decade away and, slowly, I fooled myself by thinking that a solution would present itself. Now that it is nearing, I am scared, my child. I did not tell you all this before, for you are too curious and would have pestered me for answers. And I am still in search of the book. Maybe your father did not keep it in his home but somewhere else… Anyhow, I do not want to go to my friend’s mansion again. Too many painful memories. Though it is under my charge, I have never gone back after that attempt to find the manuscript. I do not know what it holds, child, but your father was confident about arriving at a solution with it. If I succeed, it will solve everything. If I do not, I will act as my heart says.’

  Doubts and questions arose in Sivagami’s head. For a moment, she was tempted to show him the book, but held herself back. She opened her mouth to ask him about her father, but he stopped her. ‘Knowing more will endanger your life too.’

  He hugged her awkwardly and walked towards his chariot without looking back. Akhila tugged at Sivagami’s dress. Sivagami knelt down to face her.

  Akhila said, ‘Nanna says I cannot come with you. Will you speak to him please?’

  Sivagami held her shoulders and, peering into her eyes, she said, ‘Precious, you have to be with your parents. I will come to visit you soon or maybe you will come to visit me during Navarathri or Sankranti. Akka will have a great present ready for you.’

  Akhila’s eyes flashed with joy, ‘Really? Promise?’