The singing stopped. She paused, trying to see through the trees, but she still couldn’t catch any sight of the woman. When the silence lengthened, she started forward at a faster pace, breaking into a run. She already had a fair idea where the singer had been heading and she slowed down as she reached the familiar clearing. Yes. It was the lotus pond where Rama and she loved to sit in the evenings.
Beside the lotus pond, bending down to reach for one of the beautiful pink blossoms, was a girl clad in a white ang-vastra draped in the ascetic style, tightly around the waist and hips and loosely around one shoulder, diagonally. A small woven cane basket sat on the bank of the pond beside her; there were flowers in it. Her hair was matted in the traditional hermit style, confirming her sadhuni status. She was slender and well shaped, and the first glimpse Sita had of her outstretched arm, the curve of her neck, and her left profile all suggested that she was pretty in a rustic, naïve way. She was speaking softly to the nearest lotus flower, her voice melodious and low.
‘Come to me, my pretty lotus blossom. I will place you gently in my basket and take you to my guru. She will be pleased to offer you at our evening darshan. What finer destiny can you have than to pass through the hands of the venerated Sage Anasuya, offered to the devas?’
The girl reached further, her fingers brushing the surface of the water lightly. The effect was enough to make the lotus drift away from her. Sita watched silently, stepping closer, completely unnoticed by the sadhuni.
‘How silly of me! Do not go away. I meant to bring you closer, not push you farther away. Come now, my pretty kamal. Come to … ‘
The girl stretched out, reaching her hand in one final effort to touch the edge of the lotus and pull it closer. This time she leaned too far, losing her balance. She gasped and began to windmill her arms, trying to keep from toppling into the water.
‘Devi!’ she cried, starting to fall.
Sita sprinted forward, shooting out her hand and grabbing hold of the girl. She had to drop the bow and arrow to do so, and grasped the sadhuni around her slender waist as best as she could manage. Inevitably she pulled too hard, and both she and the girl fell back on the sloping bank of the lotus pond. The girl’s feet kicked the edge of the water, splashing both of them.
‘Devi protect me!’ the girl exclaimed, twisting out of Sita’s grasp. She lurched to her feet unsteadily, turning to look at her rescuer, not with gratitude, but with terror. She stood, shaking, staring wide-eyed at Sita.
‘Demon!’ she said. ‘You are one of the legendary demons of Panchvati my guru warned me about!’
Sita smiled, amused that she should be mistaken for a demon. ‘But we are in Chitrakut. Panchvati is across the river.’ She gestured to her left, southwards.
The girl took several steps backward. Her eyes were set wide apart, large and almond-shaped. Like a doe. Even her behaviour was doe-like, nervous, quick-moving, shivering. ‘Don’t be scared,’ Sita said. ‘I heard your song and followed. When I saw you were about to fall into the pond … ‘
The girl remained silent, staring. She had turned her head to one side, away from Sita, as if she might bolt at any second. Like a doe, frozen in a tiger’s sights, wanting to bolt yet too terrified to break the impasse. And to think that only only moments earlier Sita had thought that she might be an asura!
Sita spread her hands, showing they were empty. ‘I mean you no harm. I am Sita of Mithila. My husband, my brother-inlaw and I live here in Chitrakut. Our hut is only a hundred yards or so up the hill. I can show you if you like.’
The girl shuddered violently then glanced behind her, as if fearing some new deception.
‘Wait,’ Sita said. ‘I heard you say your guru is Anasuya. Is that so?’
At the mention of Anasuya, the girl nodded reluctantly.
Sita indicated the robe she had on. ‘This robe was given to me by Anasuya herself.’
The girl stared at the robe, then back at Sita’s face. ‘How do I know you are telling the truth? That you are not a demoness seeking to carry me across the river as a prize for your demon brothers? I know how you demonesses come out to seek wives for your brother demons!’
Sita was losing patience. This was absurd. ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘If you do not believe me, so be it. But it was your singing that drew me here. That song … it means something special to me. A happier time, before I came here. Not that I am not happy here, but … You sang it so soulfully, I simply had to see who you were.’
And then, on an impulse, she sang a snatch of verse from the song herself:
‘Light, precious light, how you draw me like a moth to a flame … ‘
The girl stopped shivering and staring. Slowly, she smiled. She stepped forward hesitantly.
‘You can sing,’ she said. ‘My guru says that no asura could sing a love song, not the way a human can … ‘
She came forward. She smiled at Sita. ‘Forgive me, my sister. I have heard such stories … And I had already wandered too far from my ashram, seeking out the very best flowers I could find. For today is my first day serving the sages Anasuya and Atri. I wished to please them.’
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Sita said, relieved. ‘I feared the exact same thing at first. That is why … ‘ she turned to point behind her, ‘I brought my bow and quiver with me, for protection.’
The girl turned her large doe eyes to look at the fallen bow and quiver, arrows spilled out from it and splayed like the spokes of a hand-fan. She came forward.
‘Well met, sister Sita,’ she said, embracing her in the warm style of rural Aryas.
‘Well met, sister … ?’
‘Supanakha,’ the girl said, her breath redolent of an aroma Sita found hauntingly familiar but couldn’t quite place. ‘Your sister, Supanakha.’
And then she embraced Sita again, in a grip so powerful Sita felt her very ribcage would shatter and pierce her heart. She had no breath left to even scream. Something was forced into her mouth, something tasting foul and ripe and liquorish, then a cloudbank descended and engulfed her in its wet, dark maw.
***
Rama woke from strange, unsettling dreams. He didn’t recall exactly what he had done in those dreams, but it was something grossly immoral. And in return for his immoral transgression, Sita and Lakshman were condemned to a terrible fate. This was all he remembered, but as hard as he tried, he could recall no details. It wasn’t difficult to understand the sub-context of that dream; he had been wrestling with the consequences of the choices he had made for the past several weeks. What if, he had asked himself once, he had left Sita behind, just as Lakshman had left Urmila behind, and what if he had left Lakshman behind as well, and had come into exile alone? Would that have been so terrible? So much worse than this?
The answer was yes. It would have been unbearable. For with Sita and Lakshman with him, he felt as content as he would have done back in Ayodhya. Not as comfortable, certainly; not as indolent and able to wallow in luxury, of course. But every bit as content, surely. The truth was, he was happy. And he was happy because he had brought his wife and brother into exile with him. It was a selfish happiness, for all happiness was selfish. And inevitably, as the season had given way to summer, and a sense of tranquillity and harmony had fallen upon their simple rustic life here at Chitrakut, that very happiness had roused its twin emotion, guilt.
He sighed and rose from the disarrayed pallet, strewn across the floor by his tossing and turning. His body was wreathed with sweat, his ang-vastra soaked through and through. He took it off and wound it around his arm as he went out of the hut. He was in the habit of washing his own clothes after sandhyavandana. If he could stop Lakshman from doing it; Lakshman seemed to do everything so quickly and efficiently, Rama had to make an effort to ensure he did his own chores first, or they would be done by Lakshman in no time. He smiled. No wonder he was having guilty dreams. He was still living like a king here, in this rustic kingdom of Chitrakut. Lakshman made sure of that.
The l
ate-afternoon sunshine was bright and piercing after the relative dimness of the hut. It took him a moment to accept that the sun was angled much lower than he had expected. When he realised how low it had travelled, he shook his head in disbelief. He had slept away the whole afternoon! It was the mangoes he had eaten before noon. Three of them, large and golden and bursting with ecstasy, their flesh dripping sweet sticky juice with every bite. He rubbed his belly, sighing. At this rate he would grow as fat as his father.
‘Sita?’
He walked around the hut, expecting her to be in the garden, planting some new herb or vegetable. The garden was her pet project these days. It was coming along quite nicely, he was pleased to say. One good monsoon and they would be able to harvest their own food right here in their own back yard, instead of having to walk all the way upriver to that patch half a yojana away. And then he would probably grow even fatter without that exercise! He would have to start waking Lakshman at dawn and go running through the woods every morning, if only to keep his body fit. Not that he was really in any danger of fattening up - his stomach was still as firm as a drum - but it would give him something to do. It felt strange, not having done anything for so many months. Rest was good. But so was work. He craved something to do. Even hunting. At least it kept one’s senses sharpened. Perhaps he could coax Sita into going on a hunt. There were far too many wild boar in the hills to the north. It wouldn’t hurt to bring down a few, aid the natural cycle and balance the population.
He stopped short.
He had completed a full circuit of their property. Sita was nowhere in sight.
‘Sita?’ he called out.
After a moment, the answer came from behind him, on the wind. ‘Here, my love.’
He turned to see her walking towards him, coming from the direction of the woods. She looked radiant and alive, her cheeks flushed, her face lit up with a vitality he hadn’t seen for days … or months, actually. She looked as she had the day of the swayamvara in Mithila. Like a woman in search of her own destiny, and if she didn’t like the first choice she saw, she would garland the next one, or the one after …
‘Rama,’ she said breathlessly. She had been running.
She caught his hand and swung him around, laughing. He swung around with her, smiling too. The wheeling made them dizzy and they fell to the ground, rolling on the soft kusa grass of their front yard. She pulled up a handful and sprinkled it over his head. Grass clung to his sweat-sticky neck and upper arms, prickling his skin. Her hair had come unravelled, and strands of it lay across her face and shoulders. She looked enormously attractive to him just then, and as her eyes watched him, he saw his own desire reflected in her face as well.
He laughed. ‘So what makes my beloved wife so childishly playful this summer afternoon?’
She grinned. ‘Something wonderful happened.’
‘What?’
‘I’m married to you!’
He raised himself on his elbow, looking down at her. ‘You have been married to me for months now! What makes you act as giddy as a new bride of a sudden?’
She put her head down abruptly, her hair falling across her face, concealing her eyes. ‘Yes, but I just remembered how wonderful it is.’
‘What is?’
She raised her face to him. Hair lay across her face in wild, unruly strands. A faint twinge of doubt tweaked his mind. What had got into her? He had never seen Sita like this before. Not even when—
‘That I’m married to you! It’s wonderful! A miracle! We should celebrate it!’
She reached up and caught hold of his hand, pulling him down towards her. ‘We should celebrate it!’
He smiled at her excitement. ‘And we shall. But first we have to go to the river.’
She sat up and clapped her hands together. ‘That’s good too. Let’s go and bathe in the river!’
He laughed. ‘That we shall. But not in the way you mean. I speak of our sandhyavandana. Have you collected the flowers yet?’
She peered up at him, shading her eyes from the sun, which was low in the western sky now. ‘Flowers?’
‘For the evening ritual, Sita.’
She shrugged, looking down at the ground, and began plucking up handfuls of grass. ‘I’m tired of rituals and ceremonies. We are in exile, are we not? Everything else deprived us, our homes, our kingdoms, all wealth and comfort. At least we still have each other. Can we not enjoy that much at least as we please?’
He was puzzled now. She sounded strange, almost resentful. It was an abrupt change of mood, totally unlike Sita. ‘Yes, of course. And we do share one another’s companionship; it is what makes our exile so bearable, even wonderful at times. Only this afternoon I was thinking of how I would have passed fourteen years without you or Lakshman, and I realised—’
‘Lakshman.’
‘What?’
She looked up abruptly. ‘Where is he? Your brother?’
This was very peculiar. ‘I don’t know. I slept the afternoon away.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Lazy buffalo that I am. He must be down by the river, working on that pathway.’
She was silent for a moment. Then suddenly, in another unexpected change of mood, she smiled seductively up at him. ‘Let’s go into the hut.’
He frowned.
‘We will. But first we have to gather flowers for the evening ritual—’
‘To hell with the evening ritual,’ she said sharply. Then, reverting to the same silky, seductive tone: ‘Rama, I am unhappy.
Being in exile is not easy. Comfort me. Give me the warmth of
your companionship.’
He stared at her.
He felt as if a large insect were trailing its feelers across his back. He resisted the urge to turn around. ‘I thought I heard singing as I slept. Earlier in the afternoon. Was that you?’
She smiled. ‘You remember that song?’
‘Which one?’
‘You know. The one we sang together the night of our wedding.’
‘The song from the play of Dushyanta and Sakuntala?’
‘Yes.’ She seemed pleased. ‘That’s the one.’
He chose his words very carefully. ‘You mean the song from the play Sakuntala, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes. From Sakuntala and Dushyanta. The same. The lovers’ song.’
‘Remember the last time we sang that song?’ He spoke with deliberate casualness.
‘Just the other night, was it not, my love?’ She smiled up at him coyly. ‘But lovers ought to do more than sing love songs.’
He felt his spine grow cold. Ice ran into his veins. ‘Stand up.’
She held her arms up to him, beckoning him alluringly. ‘Come, lie with me.’
‘I said, stand up.’ His voice was curt now, with no tenderness or hint of pretence.
She looked up at him, a puzzled expression in her brown eyes. ‘What is it? Did I say something wrong, my love?’
‘Many things. But I would have guessed even had you not spoken a word. Did you truly think you could deceive me so easily?’
She pouted. ‘Why are you speaking so harshly to me, my lord? It is I, Sita. Your wife.’
He laughed. ‘No. You are not Sita. You are not my wife.’
SIXTEEN
Lakshman paused to examine his handiwork. The line of thick, bushy darbha grass was trimmed as close as he could manage with just a sword. He leaned forward, running the palm of his hand across the top of the neatly trimmed grass. It felt like fur, a bearcoat perhaps, or shaggy sheep’s wool.
He stood up, satisfied. Sweat dripped down his back and shoulders. He stretched, easing the tension from his body. Slowly he grew aware of the sun on his shoulders, and on the ground. The afternoon had crept into evening without him knowing. He had been absorbed in his work. Cutting grass away to clear a path didn’t need that much concentration; keeping a wary eye out for the proliferation of snakes did.
He looked uphill, at the winding pathway of neatly cut grass, just about a yard in width. Every few
yards or so a dark tangle lay off to one side or the other, some easily visible, others hidden by the grass. Those tangles, looking like so many lengths of coloured twine, some black, some green, some speckled, dotted, matted … those were all snakes that he had had to kill to clear the pathway. Three nests had lain directly on the pathway -the route he had marked as the most accessible from hut to river. It had taken almost a week of patient, risky work, clearing away the snakes, emptying out the nests and filling in the holes to prevent them from coming back - leaving a partial snake eggshell or two in the filled-in hole was a good deterrent - and then undertaking the arduous task of mowing the grass, with only his sword for the task. His back ached pleasantly from the task, his shoulders and neck were sore, but it was done at last. Now, when he or Sita or Rama went down to the river carrying a mud pot for water, they wouldn’t have to constantly look out for snakes underfoot. Or avoid the snake nests and climb through thorn bushes or down crumbling rocky slopes. They could walk along the path as comfortably as Ayodhyans along Suryavansha Avenue.
He smiled at his own simile. Suryavansha Avenue. That was funny. Then again, perhaps he should name his newly made path. Who knew? Some day people might come to look at the spot where they had lived in exile, and stare and point at these things. There, they would say, looking at this pathway down the hillside, that was cut by Lakshman to ease his brother’s and bhabhi’s thrice-daily trips to the river. Hmm. If this little path was going to become such a legend, it ought to have a name. What should he call it? Definitely not Suryavansha Avenue! He grinned at his own wit.
He glanced up, remembering how the path seemed to wind around the hill like a necklace if seen from the river, and instantly the word rekha came to mind. Rekha, meaning line or border. Yes, that was good, for after Anasuya’s warning, the river had become their border. But rekha alone was too general, too vague. How could he make it more specific? Hmm. How had their ancestors named roads and places in Ayodhya? After themselves of course. Raghuvamsha Avenue, Manu Sabagraha, Aja Marg … So why not Lakshman Rekha? It had a ring to it.
PRINCE IN EXILE Page 49