Nakhudi and Bejoo were standing at opposite ends of the dais, watching the assembled suitors with grim, forbidding eyes. The Vajra captain had volunteered to share Nakhudi’s duty for the event, just before Sita and her bodyguard had parted from the rest of the company at the gates of Mithila this morning. Sita had hoped Rama would say something about her swayamvara, or at least promise to call on her in her apartments. After all, she knew the rajkumars and the seer were here to meet her father and discuss the imminent asura invasion.
She had been so consumed by thoughts of that approaching storm and their adventures these past two days that it had been very hard for her to say goodbye to them and return to her role as princess. This was the kind of thing she had always dreaded about marriage. Although Arya law and social custom dictated that men and women had equal status, it was a well-known fact that unless checked, men invariably tended to treat their women, be they wives, daughters or sisters, as wards to be protected and watched over at all times. Sita found it humiliating to have men think she was in need of their protection when she could probably knock them flat on their rear ends in a fighting contest. But she wanted Rama and Lakshman here as friends, not brothers-inwaiting. Or as cousins—which was tenuous since they were only vaguely and distantly related through marriage and couldn’t technically be considered to be family.
The past two days had been by far the most exciting and exhilarating of her life. And a large part of that was due to Rama. She had been unsure of him at their first meeting, especially when he had come flying into the clearing in the hills like some kind of vanar-king. Hanuman indeed!
But when they parted this morning at the city gates, she felt as if she had just met and lost the best friend she had ever known. Could that be possible after just a day and a night and a morning? Certainly. She had been attached to Nakhudi from the first instant the hulking Jat had been introduced to her.
And those hours with Rama when he still thought she was a man, that had been an extraordinary experience. She had gone incognito before, and had met and spent time with many Kshatriyas and other castes. But Rama had been different by far. One test she always applied was how men spoke of women when they were in the company of other men - or so they thought. Every last one of them ended up making at least one or two chauvinistic remarks that made her want to throw something at their faces - on one occasion, she had done just that, flinging a leaf-full of fried beans and potatoes, still steaming from the cookfire, straight in the face of one obnoxious oaf! And some were so outright misogynistic that it was all she could do to keep from having at them with her sword.
But Rama really was different.
Not only did he seem to genuinely not see any difference between men and women, he also didn’t regard women as sexual objects. Even Lakshman, in a good-natured, adolescent way, made ribald jokes and observations so natural and normal that Nakhudi herself sniggered at a few. Rama smiled distractedly at them, as if acknowledging that they were clever and had humorous appeal, but he never truly seemed to relish such banter. As if, to him, there were more important matters to talk about.
It wasn’t even that he was totally humourless. She herself had tested that by making him laugh out loud several times. It was that he had such a healthy, open, unprejudiced mind that the concept of attaching himself to one group—the male of the species—and regarding the world from that limited perspective simply didn’t occur to him. He was a free thinker in the truest sense of the word.
And that, she had realised with a lightning burst of insight at one point last night, was why he took orders from the brahmarishi so well. Where other men would need to prove their masculinity, or at least their princely stature, Rama was content to simply do the job at hand and let people perceive him as they would. Totally unselfconcious, even after he knew she was a woman.
Sita had never met anyone like him.
And right now, she wanted him here very badly. More than she wanted anything else in her life.
But it was her swayamvara. And she had to go through with it. With or without Rama.
As her father finished making the customary announcements about the formal process of the ritual, she rose with a fixed, glassy smile on her face, trying not to show how she really felt— lost and alone and friendless—and stood before the assembled men, preparing to announce the test for this swayamvara.
FOUR
Rama watched as Sita rose and took a step forward on the dais. The princess seemed very unsure and hesitant, as if she were
distracted by other matters. It lent her an air of snobbery that he knew she didn’t possess. Even though he had known the rajkumari less than two days, he was sure she was not spoilt or snobbish. He had met his share of royal snobs and Sita was about as far at the opposite end of the scale as could be imagined. But he wondered what was on her mind that was causing her such trepidation. She had even walked past him without so much as a second glance! It was as if she hadn’t seen him at all, even though her eyes had been open and she had passed within a few yards, led by those giggling and blushing sakshi maids.
Lakshman and he were seated on the left side of the hall, in the seats nearest to the podium. He would have been content to sit with the public audience on the matting at the far end of the hall. At least that way they could simply watch the whole show and relax. This way, he felt as if he were one of the dozens of suitors arrayed like so many new army recruits waiting to be given their marching orders! He had never taken part in a swayamvara before, and never intended to in his life. At the moment, marriage was the remotest thing on his mind.
His immediate concern was the asura invasion. Why had the brahmarishi not told Maharaja Janak about it? True, Janakchacha’s eloquent appeal had been heart-wringing. But Sita’s marriage would hardly matter if Mithila didn’t prepare itself to face the oncoming hordes. Rama shuddered mentally at the memory of his recurring nightmare. The brahmarishi himself had turned the nightmare into a living vision before all of Ayodhya on the feast of Holi, ten days ago. If that was the horror that Mithila now faced, then the devas help them all. From what he had seen, Mithila was not even one tenth as prepared as Ayodhya was. Even though both cities had been built with similar seven-wall, seven-gate defensive circuits, Mithila had allowed her security procedures to lapse years ago. Now, all gates stood open at all hours, people came and went as they pleased, and Brahmins outnumbered Kshatriyas a hundred to one because of the current annual festival. When the attack came, as Rama knew it would, Mithila would be torn to shreds like a sheet of wet parchment. The Videhans stood no chance of putting up a defence, let alone resisting such a formidable invading force.
Perhaps that was why the brahmarishi had agreed to discuss the matter later. Maybe Vishwamitra knew that Maharaja Janak could do little in these last few remaining hours to stem the Lord of Lanka’s progress, and had decided to grant the king his last wish out of sheer sympathy. Yet even that didn’t make sense. If Mithila was such a lost cause, then why had Vishwamitra bothered to take them on that mission last night? Why had they travelled using the power of Brahman to the Pit of Vasuki and risked their lives to free Ahilya?
He recalled the moment of utter helplessness at the bottom of that deep pit. The instant when the giant kachuas had appeared, storming along the bottom of the pool. When their mottled bald green heads had reared at him, exposing maws large enough to swallow him whole—after those half-yard-long teeth crunched him into chowder—he had thought that was it. Even the shakti of the maha-mantras would be unable to save him from these lumbering amphibian beasts. They had seemed as imposing and fearsome as the Ancient Ones themselves, the giant turtles that were once believed to have borne the universe on their backs.
But instead of attacking him, the kachuas had simply examined him. Sniffed at him. Nudged him. And when he gripped the Brahman stones harder in his fist, certain that they would lunge and rip out his belly at any moment, they had tilted their heads and looked at him with renewed interest, as he might look at a danc
ing ant or a rabbit that had suddenly burst into lyrical song.
The kachuas had taken him to a deep grotto, a cave within the side of the pit. Because it curved upwards, it was dry at the end, with air brought in through unseen fluted passages. He could breathe and speak in that place.
There he had found a woman as immobile and unblinking as a statue. Ahilya. Frozen by her husband’s ancient curse, incapable of feeling anything physically, locked in an endless inner existence of pain and guilt and remorse at her transgression with the lord of lightning and thunder. Rama had only a few moments to wonder what to do next when his foot had accidentally kicked up some loose soil from the ground of the underwater cavern. The soil touched the statue, and to his everlasting amazement, Ahilya had begun to move and speak.
She had thanked him for freeing her from the curse and had asked him his name and identity. He had told her about the brahmarishi Vishwamitra. At the mention of the seer-mage’s name, Ahilya’s beautiful green eyes had lit up. She said that she had always known it would take another sage as great and powerful as Gautama himself to undo the curse. But she had not counted on a boy, and a mortal at that, to come to her aid.
Ahilya and Rama had left the cave and risen to the surface of the pool, neither the kachuas nor the snakes, nor even the enormous dolphin-like creatures at the upper levels of the pool, giving them any trouble whatsoever. They had found Vishwamitra and the others waiting for them, and after a few words with Ahilya, the brahmarishi had told them that they must now go to Gautama-ashrama. There, he had performed his Brahman sorcery once more, awakening Maharishi Gautama from his long, deep tapasya and reuniting husband and wife.
Afterwards, Gautama had thanked Rama profusely for daring to be the one who braved the depths of the Pit of Vasuki and freed his wife. He had become a victim of his own anger, he admitted, warning Rama that young as he was, he ought to learn from his example and never speak an angry word without first considering its effect carefully. The maharishi had then had words privately with brahmarishi Vishwamitra and Rama had seen the maharishi speak an arcane mantra and hand over a small object of some kind to Vishwamitra, who had accepted it with the same reverential gratitude that most shishyas displayed before their guru. In a way, Rama realised, Vishwamitra was like a shishya to Gautama. Despite his five thousand years on the earth, he was junior in stature to Gautama, who had been ordained all of eight thousand years ago.
After that, they had performed their morning ritual, bathed in the Ganga, and proceeded to Mithila. That was the whole purpose of their mission, Rama recalled. To obtain something from Gautama that would help strengthen Mithila’s defence against the asura invaders. That was why he had rescued Ahilya, why they had fought vetaals in the vinaashe wood, why they had rushed to Visala through the Brahman corridor, why they had left the rest of the Siddh-ashrama procession in the thick of night.
And yet, what were they doing now that they were finally here in Mithila? Not discussing last-minute defence strategies, urging Maharaja Janak to deploy his troops, nor sending word to Ayodhya or the other Arya nations to ask for urgent aid; not doing anything constructive that might help ease the heavily stacked odds against the Videha kingdom in the coming war.
Instead, they were attending a swayamvara and watching Rajkumari Sita choose herself a suitable husband. And, if the rajkumari obliged by finding one of these fine young Arya-putras acceptable as a mate for life, why then they would continue to watch as Sita’s sisters did likewise! And once those good ladies were done with their browsing and shopping, all four couples would then be united in matrimonial alliance with full Vedic rites, which would take at least another hour or three.
And before it all, the test itself had to be performed, to eliminate the unworthy suitors. At this rate, the whole charade could go on until sunset! By which time the Lord of Lanka would have arrived at the gates of Mithila and led his army in to ravage and plunder as they pleased.
The whole situation just didn’t make sense at all. While Rama had faith in the brahmarishi Vishwamitra’s infinite wisdom and knew that the sage had a good reason for everything he said or did, he couldn’t fathom what attending this silly swayamvara had to do with anything. If Sita had to return to being a dutiful princess and pick a husband out of this line-up then let her do it. Why did Lakshman and he have to endure the whole spectacle? Worse, why were they sitting here like eager suitors on display along with these hundred and ten other fools?
Rama watched in seething indignation as Sita finally found her voice and addressed the hall. The princess had decided her test for the swayamvara and was informing the assembly. A roar of consternation met her announcement, snapping Rama out of his thoughts.
He frowned and looked around. Men were standing up and shouting. Several seemed to be complaining that if the rajkumari didn’t want to be married, why did she waste their time by calling this swayamvara? Rama scanned the length of the hall. Almost every suitor was on his feet, supporting the general complaint. Apart from Lakshman and himself, only one elegant-looking young man remained seated. He occupied the first seat on the right side of the hall, directly opposite to Rama.
He smiled as Rama’s eyes lingered on his face, and Rama blinked and looked away. Did he know the man? He didn’t think so. The face was completely unfamiliar. Yet there was something about the way the man had looked at him, as if he knew Rama. Well, maybe he did. Rama supposed that many citizens of Ayodhya must know him, and he could hardly know them all on sight. He avoided looking in the man’s direction again.
Maharaja Janak stood up and called for silence. As the hue and cry died down, he said firmly, ‘The rajkumari has spoken. The test is declared. Those of you who do not wish to participate may leave at any time. Those of you who have the courage to proceed, please be seated in dignified silence.’
The maharaja clapped his hands and called to his prime minister, standing beside the dais, ‘Have the Bow of Shiva brought to the assembly hall at once.’
A fresh murmur of protest rippled through the hall as the prime minister left the hall to do the maharaja’s bidding.
Rama leaned across the arm of his chair and said softly to Lakshman, ‘What exactly is the test that Sita announced?’
Lakshman looked at him. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Where were you when she spoke just a moment ago? Gone fishing in the Pit of Vasuki for sages’ wives?’
Rama shot him an irritated glance. ‘Just answer the question.’
Lakshman shrugged. ‘Our new friend said that she has only one test for us. Anyone who can lift the Bow of Shiva single-handed, string an arrow and fire it will have her hand in marriage.’
Rama waved an admonishing hand. ‘You mean them.’
‘What?’
‘She set that test for them.’ Rama gestured at the disgruntled suitors down the length of the hall. ‘Not us. We’re just spectators here.’
Lakshman leaned over and looked at him closely. ‘Are you feeling well, brother? Did you hear what I just said?’
‘Yes, she wants them to fire an arrow from Shiva’s bow.
The man that does it will be her husband. What’s the tiebreaker? What if more than one man passes the test?’
Lakshman pinched Rama’s arm hard. Rama winced but didn’t make a sound.
‘That dive into the pool must have melted your wits,’ Lakshman said, ‘the way it melted those vetaals. I don’t think you know what you’re saying right now.’
Rama looked at him, frowning. ‘What are you talking about, Lakshman?’
Lakshman shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you but you’re obviously not thinking straight. This is the Bow of Shiva we’re talking about. Remember it? It’s the enormous one that stands in the armoury of the royal museum at the back of the throne room in Janak-chacha’s palace. We used to peek in at it when we were children. We peeked in because we were forbidden to go into the armoury. Not that it stopped you and Sita from hiding in there during our hide-and-seek game. You two—�
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Rama snapped at him, keeping his voice low, ‘What’s the point, Luck? Get to it.’
‘Well, if you remembered the bow, you’d also remember that it’s made of solid iron yet never rusts. That it’s a million years old. Or ten million. I forget which. And that it’s called the Bow of Shiva because it once belonged to Lord Shiva himself. Only he of all the devas can lift it. There’s no question of any mortal ever being able to do it. Let alone one of these eager young Arya-putras!’
Rama shrugged. ‘So? A swayamvara test is supposed to be difficult.’
‘Difficult?’ Lakshman chuckled softly. ‘Difficult is what you are, my brother. Difficult is what climbing Mount Himavat in winter might be. Difficult is what flying to the stars and back home in time for breakfast would be called. Sita’s test isn’t difficult. It’s impossible.’
Rama still didn’t see what Lakshman’s point was. He was trying not to look at Sita on the dais. Apparently, she had finally noticed him and was now trying to catch his attention. He studiously avoided her. ‘So?’
‘So don’t you see the point? She’s specified an impossible task because she doesn’t want anyone to succeed. She isn’t interested in getting married, Rama. Not today, and if you ask my opinion, not any day. Nobody in the three worlds can lift the Bow of Shiva. Let alone anyone in this room!’
FIVE
It took five hundred men the better part of an hour to drag the bow on a wheeled platform into the assembly hall. The crowd of citizens gathered on the avenue outside had swelled to over a hundred thousand as word of the rajkumari’s test spread through the city. They watched in awed silence as the entire palace guard strained and sweated to drag the wheeled platform across the fifty yards separating the armoury museum from the assembly hall.
Finally, the platform was in the hall. And the Bow of Shiva stood in the centre of the chamber, its lustreless arc gleaming dully in the afternoon sunlight. It was close to two hours past noon and the assembled suitors were already sweating profusely in their heavy rich garments and jewellery. None of them had left the hall, not because they thought they could lift the bow but because nobody wanted to be remembered as the first to leave. So until one of them had the courage to stand up, admit defeat and walk out, they would all remain. They were the sons and brothers of the greatest houses in the kingdom, heroes of countless contests and champions of various sports. To walk out without even attempting the test, however impossible, would be humiliating. And to these proud sons of Arya, failure was acceptable; humiliation was not.
PRINCE OF DHARMA Page 86