Vanara

by Anand Neelakantan

  ‘Tara, have you gone mad?’ he asked.

  She stared at him and then without another word, she started walking away from them. The crowd parted to give her way. Some commented on her sanity, some called her a witch who didn’t know how to honour a hero. Some threw expletives at her. It wasn’t the Kishkinda she knew. War had changed their men. She walked through the crowd who were pushing and shoving to enter the palace premises. A celebration was being planned and she wanted to get as far away from it as possible.

  Tara walked without any purpose. It was getting dark. She was awash with an empty feeling. She wished she could cry. Shadows thickened, and the river turned dark by the time she reached the overgrown palmyra grove. She sat on the grass and waited. Chemba came to her, parting the bushes. The wolf had gone old and weak. Its paws were filled with sores and blisters. It limped painfully to Tara and lay down beside her. She broke down upon seeing her husband’s dear friend, who was still working without losing hope. She knew her love was worthless before that of the wolf’s. Man strived to be God when he couldn’t even match animals, she thought.

  Tara didn’t know for whom and what she was waiting for. Countless memories swirled in her mind, but they had lost their colours. They faded to different shades of grey, blurring, snapping and entwining. She desperately tried to clutch them, but they were fast losing their meaning.

  A dull moon rose above the distant hills and earth appeared weary and old. Not a leaf stirred and silence thickened. She sat with her back to the stub of a palmyra tree, listlessly watching the grey clouds that crawled in the sky. She could hear the gaieties from the palace.

  ‘Tara . . .’

  She was not surprised when she heard it for she had been waiting to hear it. The wolf stood up on its legs. It let out a happy yelp.

  She said, ‘Here is your Chemba, your friend.’ She felt the breeze caress the wolf’s fur. The wolf shivered and emitted a mournful whine. It wagged its tail furiously and jumped up and down, excited. She watched the joy of the dumb beast with a tearful smile.

  ‘I knew you would come,’ Tara whispered to the wind.

  ‘I knew it too.’

  Baali’s voice was kind and soft and that made her break down. She cried her heart out. She was grateful that he didn’t try to pacify her. When she had cried her full, she smiled.

  ‘I miss you a lot,’ Tara said.

  ‘I haven’t gone anywhere. I have always been with you, Tara.’

  ‘I–’ she was too choked by her tears to speak. ‘Why do you love me so much, Baali? I don’t deserve your love. I’ve failed in everything I have done. Even when I was married to you, I was sometimes unfaithful—at least in my thoughts. And when I was married to your brother, I thought about you. I’m not worth half of this faithful Chemba.’

  ‘In love, there are no whys, Tara.’

  Tara’s eyes filled. ‘I want to see you, I want to touch you, I want to feel you in my arms. Come back, Baali.’

  She was terrified of the silence that followed.

  ‘Are you there?’ she asked.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Baali, talk to me. Please don’t go away. Please . . . I will never express such a wish. Please keep talking to me.’

  Silence.

  ‘I have failed you, Baali. I could not bring up our son to be worthy of you,’ she cried into the wilderness. She waited for an answer. The silence was a damning indictment.

  ‘You too have started hating me. I don’t want to live anymore,’ Tara screamed. Something scurried away in the bushes startled by her outburst. She collapsed on the grass and started weeping.

  ‘Tara . . .’

  She was alarmed to hear his voice. She looked around. It was frighteningly dark. The grey clouds had succeeded in silently sneaking up and and trapping the moon in their claws.

  ‘Times are changing, Tara. A Baali doesn’t have any place in this new world. I would have been a misfit. A new era is dawning and men like Angada will inherit it. A new world is dawning where convoluted justifications will take the place of the simple sense of right and wrong. Dwarfs will be made into giants and praised by blind followers who will attack like a pack of wolves and devour any dissenters. But don’t give up, Tara. In the era of darkness, be a lamp. Your people need you. Don’t give up on life.’

  Tara didn’t raise her head, but her tears had stopped. She waited for him to speak more. She felt a whiff of air on her cheek and stood up startled. Was that his parting kiss? She felt pain ripping her guts to shreds. The wolf disappeared into the bushes.

  ‘Baali . . . please . . . come back . . . come back . . .’ she cried. There was no response. Baali had said everything he had to say. She roamed around in the palmyra grove, frantically looking for Baali. She didn’t see the night bleeding to death and dawn breaking out. She kept on walking as if in a frenzy.

  ‘There she is . . .’

  She heard someone cry, followed by the sound of many men running towards her. She was soon surrounded by a mob. They stood leaning on long sticks and swords. She watched them with curiosity. She felt no fear. They were drunk, and the pungent smell of sour toddy made her wince.

  ‘We were searching for you, b****. How dare you insult our hero? Don’t you know we fought a holy war? Don’t you know it was done for dharma?’ one of the men yelled at her.

  She started laughing. The men looked at each other in confusion. They had expected her to fall on her knees and beg for mercy.

  ‘Stop laughing. We’re going to lynch you,’ another man warned her. She laughed aloud, clutching her belly. They stood stunned. She pushed one man away and ran towards the palmyra grove. They chased her. When they neared her, she stopped in her tracks, turned towards them and started laughing again.

  ‘She has gone mad,’ one of the men whispered.

  ‘Let us finish her off,’ another man suggested.

  They approached her, warily. She stood looking at them and as they approached, she called out at the top of her voice, ‘Baali’. She turned to the grove and screamed Baali’s name again. She caught the nearest man’s wrist and cried, ‘Baali, come fast, I have caught a scoundrel.’

  Other men had taken to their heels. The man Tara had caught struggled to get free. She held him in a vice-like grip, ‘Where are you running, O warrior of dharma. Fight with my husband and show your valour. Fight your king Baali,’ she laughed. The man was on the verge of tears. He was terrified.

  ‘The king is coming,’ she whispered and that sent him into convulsions of fear. She felt pity for the coward and let him go just as suddenly. He fell back, scrambled up and ran away as fast as his legs would take him. She laughed aloud. She took a stone and flung it at him. ‘Cowards! You’re brave only when you’re in a mob.’

  By the evening, Sugreeva came with Ruma. They tried to persuade her to return to the palace. She searched for Angada among the people who had come to visit her. He was not there. She smiled bitterly. Sugreeva apologized for everything, but she knew he meant nothing. The war had changed everyone. She refused to go to the palace. She could see a a sense of relief on Ruma’s face. Tara felt happy for her. The poor girl was going to have her husband for herself for the first time in her life.

  They left by nightfall, having failed to persuade her. Later, a guard came with food, placed it far away from the grove and called out to her. When she appeared, he ran away in fear. For a few days, Sugreeva came with food for her. She shared it with the birds and soon many little animals started moving around in the grove without the fear of humans. She never failed to take some food to the wolf that kept digging the stone grave of Baali. She would watch it devour the food as fast it could, so that it could resume its work.

  Sugreeva would often come and sit with her. They would sit in silence. They had nothing to say to each other. Slowly, the frequency of his visits dwindled and soon he stopped visiting altogether. The food also stopped coming from the palace and she went hungry for a few days. It resumed when Ruma herself came with the foo
d. Tara wondered how old Ruma had become and laughed when Ruma said the same thing about her. Time was flowing fast like River Pampa. Ruma said Sugreeva was not keeping well and it filled Tara with immense melancholy. Age was catching up with all of them, but both women were worried about Sugreeva’s health.

  One day, the news of Ruma’s death came unexpectedly. Tara wept silently in the grove and for the first time in many years, she prayed. She wept for Angada too, for the boy had considered Ruma, his mother. She could feel his pain. She wished she could see her son one more time. She heard Sugreeva had taken ill and Angada had become the king. She hoped against hope that he would come to take her blessings before he ascended the throne. After a few days, she lost that hope. She heard about the death of her father and saw a massive crowd going for the funeral. Vaidya Sushena had died poor but had more people at the funeral than any King. Such were the ironies of life and she had learned to laugh at them. Hanuman and Nala had become devotees of Rama and had migrated to Ayodhya. She missed her dear friends sometimes but was also happy not to meet them. With their blind devotion to their master, she might not have even recognized them had she met them. There was no news of Prabha. Some traveling singer said she had gone to Himalayas in search of the inner truth. That amused Tara a lot. If she had to climb an icy mountain to find herself, she would have preferred to be lost.

  The food supply from the palace stopped altogether and she knew Sugreeva too had vanished into the folds of time. She felt numb when she heard the news. Her tumultuous youth and the crazy love she had for both the brothers made her smile and wished she could live her life one more time and commit the same mistakes again.

  One day she had found a young couple burying their child. She watched them from a distance, her heart heavy with the grief of a bereaved mother. There were a few men at the funeral, some of whom she recognized. Then she saw the young father. It was the man who had tried to lynch her. She felt sorry for him. They were about to bury the child when something caught her eye. The child was not dead. Without thinking, she rushed to the funeral, shouting at them. Men scattered in fear, except the young mother. Tara took the child in her arms and rushed to her sleeping place in the grove. She hurriedly prepared her herbs and dripped it into its nose. After a tense moment, the child bawled. She rushed back to the grave yard and placed the child in the mother’s hand. The mother showered the child with kisses and men rushed to see the miracle. Without a word, Tara withdrew to the grove and stood watching the ecstasy of the mother and the happiness of the father who had got their child back from the clutches of death. Tara said a silent prayer to her father, Vaidya Sushena, and thanked him for teaching her well. She went back to her makeshift bed with a full heart. She had to tell Baali how she had saved a life. He would be so proud of her.

  She went hungry for a week after the incident but was pleasantly surprised to find food placed in a plantain leaf near the lamp lit at the entrance of the grove. Soon she found out that the men who had tried to lynch her were the ones who came with the offerings. They called her Devi. She was amused that the men who wanted to kill her had now elevated her to the status of a Goddess. Village women came to pray before her and unwind their worries. Men had changed after war and they always expected their women to serve them. The easy and egalitarian family life of Kishkinda had become a thing of the past. Men guarded women like they guarded their cattle and property and dictated how women should dress, speak, laugh and cry. This often led to family stifes which were settled by men with their fists. Earlier, the honour of a man depended on his honesty, now it was tied to the way their women dressed or spoke. The men were in awe of the Agnipariksha and how fire proved the chastity and many women perished in flames to the eternal shame of their family members. Men had lost the capability to treat women as their partners, friends and equals—now they were either to be despised, lusted over or won as a prize. And if they were inaccessible, to be either shamed as a whore or revered like a Goddess.

  Tara was disturbed by what she heard and saw. Poverty was stalking Kiskhinda as the society got divided into many sections. Soon many volunteered to be slaves. This was the destiny of Vanaras as per the holy books of Devas. If some Baali arose, well, they could be shot down and the equilibrium of dharma would be restored. She often wondered about the brimming barns the women had produced during the war years and wondered how with so many men around, hunger never left the homes of the poor. Earlier, everyone used to lend a hand in the fields, now it was the dharma of one specific caste only.

  Tara often remembered Baali’s words which reminded her that she should try to be a lamp in the sea of darkness. As time passed, she became a revered figure, a mother Goddess to entire Kishkinda and beyond. She would often sit by the palmyra tree and hold her court. Here, poor men and simple village women came with their problems. These were the dregs of the society, who were now banished from walking on streets without a pot tied to their necks to catch their saliva from falling and defiling the holy feet of the rich. Many had to tie a broom to their backs so that their footsteps were rubbed off from the path of the Brahmins. The world of Vanaras had turned a full circle. Simple gods who could be propitiated with a share of food and lived under trees, open to elements and accessible to all people, had grown powerless. Many gods had retreated to the inner forests, along with people who were unwanted by the society. Grand temples had come up where the majority of the people weren’t allowed. The new gods craved for gold and ornaments. They weren’t the ones to be satisfied with a bunch of bananas or a loaf of meat and a pot of toddy. They needed elaborate rituals. They demanded gold caparisoned elephants or carved chariots to visit their devotees, which they did once a year, condescendingly. They heard the prayers only if they were told in an unknown tongue and mumbled by a priest.

  For many Kishkinda people who were too poor and impure of birth to be considered by the great Gods, Tara was a solace. Tara was a simple God. She had no powers to take avatars and vanquish evil. She didn’t believe in evil or good. She believed in life. She didn’t offer miracles, but pointed to those who had lost hope that life itself was a miracle. Her grove became a refuge to all forms of life. Soon, Kings came visiting to seek her advice and sat with commoners. At least in her presence, all were the same. She sat with the wolf lying at her feet in her lap and gave discourses. People heard her in awe and forgot whatever she had said the moment they left the grove.

  But when everyone left after the sunset, she would often try to converse with Baali. She never got a reply. But the old wolf Chemba would come to her, often crawling because now he was too old to walk. He had never given up in his attempt to bring back Baali. Tara often wished she had the wolf’s forbearance. The old wolf would lick her arms often and she would feel as if her Baali was kissing her. Baali had vanished after that eventful night. Yet, she lived with the hope that one day he would come back, cheating death yet again. When he returns, she promised herself, she would be as selfless as Baali’s dearest wolf and love him as much as the old wolf did.

  Glossary

  Amma: Mother

  Ayya: A term for someone elder or superior, like Swami in Hindi.

  Ayyan: A primitive form of Shiva. Many tribal communities call their God Ayyan. A forest God. The lord of the beasts and all creatures. The God who protects.

  Ashrama: Hermitage, a place where spiritual knowledge is imparted.

  Rishi: The one who sees beyond, spiritual guru, seer.

  Maharishi: The great seer, a superior guru.

  Muni: The one who has taken the vow of mounam or silence. A mendicant.

  Tapasya: Penance for a purpose. Also used as a term for supreme concentrated effort to achieve an aim.

  Yata: Ancient Sanskrit for sister-in-law. Sugreeva doesn’t want to call Tara by her name as it would be against convention as long as she is Baali’s wife. So he uses the unfamiliar term for his tribe while addressing her in public.

  Bhrata: Brother in Sanskrit

  Anna: Elder brother

&nbs
p; Dharma: Roughly translated as righteousness, morality though it has many layers of meaning and requires many books to explain (not to be confused with the Hindi meaning of the word, which is religion).

  Brahmachari: The one who seeks Brahmam or ultimate truth. Also, students in an ashram.

  Samskrit: Sanskrit, what is refined, polished as against Prakrut which is unrefined or natural.

  Prakrut: What is natural or unrefined as against Samskrit or what is refined, artificial, polished.

  Moksha: Roughly translated as salvation, though moksha has much deeper meaning which requires a separate book to elaborate.

  Kishkinda: The capital of the Vanara kingdom. Believed to be the present-day Hampi, the medieval capital of the classical Hindu Vijayanagara kingdom which was founded by two brothers Hakka and Bukka to fight against the Islamic invasion from the north of the Vindhyas. It is in Bellary district of Karnataka, roughly 250 km from Bangalore. It’s a world heritage site, where one can find many of the hills and rivers mentioned in this book. Hanuman is believed to have born in Anjanadri hills across the river, though a few other places in India also claim to be the birthplace of Hanuman.

  Gada: Indian mace

  Parvata: Mountain

  Vana: Forest

  Nara: Man

  Vana Nara: Man of the forest

  Vanara: Monkey

  Yaksha: The tree-dweller tribe in this novel. They are tree spirits in mythology.

  Kinnara: A cast of travelling musicians among tribal people in this novel. They are celestial musicians with half horse, half human body in the Puranas.

  Gandharva: The Deva musician tribe in this novel. They are the musicians and dancers in Indra’s court in the Puranas.

  Apsaras: Beautiful woman in this novel. They are the consorts of Gandharvas in the Puranas.

  Rakshasa: A wild Asura tribe in this novel, who were cannibals. In the Puranas, they are maneating creatures.

  Asura: A tribe in this novel. In the Puranas, Asura strictly means the chiefs. In earlier scriptures, there were good Asuras called Adityas and in this, Varuna, Agni, Indra etc., were included. The evil Asuras were called Daityas in which Vrita, Hiranya etc., were included. Ravana is the Asura King in this novel.