My uncle and aunt were very broad-minded. They gave me the freedom to decide what I wanted to do with my life. They encouraged my interest in films. That is how I enrolled in the London Film School. They had a realistic approach towards life. When I grew up, they told me who I was and didn’t conceal anything. My uncle didn’t agree with the ideology of the Iyakkam. It was his personal opinion. But when I decided to join the Iyakkam after being brainwashed by Adele, he did not stop me. He just said gently, ‘Your hands are not meant for carrying weapons.’ On the day I joined the Iyakkam, he said, ‘I knew you would join them one day. I won’t stop you.’ But his eyes were full of tears. It was the first time I saw him weep. ‘Call whenever you need me. Don’t do anything that goes against your conscience.’ Those were his last words to me. I never called him after joining the Iyakkam. What happened in my life wasn’t something I could share with him. I have never seen him since.
My aunt Neelambari was born in Chittagong into a family with communist leanings, and she had close associations with the British Communist Party. The party members would often come home and hold lengthy discussions with her. But my uncle stayed away from their debates. He was only interested in research in his chosen field – economics. Still, both of them closely followed freedom movements across the world. They used to subscribe to several magazines and journals connected with those movements. I was inspired by their awareness of the multiple dimensions of freedom, their courage and their ideological clarity. But in those days I didn’t know of Rosa Luxemburg’s stand on nationalism, and it was only much later that I realized the Eelam movement was not a class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. I was only led by a thirst for revenge against the Sinhalese nationalists who had massacred my family.
Like other leftist intellectuals in London, my uncle also had connections with the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS) established by V. Balakumaran and Arul Pragasam. It was he who put forward the idea that Sri Lankan Muslims should also be included in the Iyakkam. He was willing to use his connections with the economic wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to help EROS. It was his association with the PLO that gave several Tamil Liberation outfits an opportunity to train at PLO centres. But when the Iyakkam drifted away from Marxist philosophy and shrunk to Tamil Hindu nationalism, my uncle distanced himself from the movement. Even when ideological fissures sprung up in EROS and people like Balakumaran joined the Tigers, my uncle continued his friendship with them while still maintaining that they had not chosen the right path.
I was a high achiever in Holland Park School – in studies, sports and music. I was not bad looking. I was dusky and had inherited a regal grace from my mother who belonged to the Jaffna royal family. I was trying to drown my sorrow in a sea of friends, romances, petty squabbles, Britpop, martinis and film school, when Adele Balasingham came looking for me. She fanned the dying embers of revenge within me. And then everything was lost.
I didn’t understand most of Antony’s mail. It was a letter Sugandhi had sent four years ago. It made no mention of where she was now. The only solace came from the knowledge that she was still alive.
I realized that I couldn’t expect any help towards making my movie from these quarters. Reading the disappointment etched on my face, Christie poured me a drink.
‘Don’t worry, Peter … Sugandhi is still alive. Now we can make enquiries.’
‘But where will we look for her?
‘Everywhere possible. But we can’t prolong this project endlessly. We leave for Jaffna in the morning.’
‘I know meeting Sugandhi and this project are not connected, but if we do meet her, our movie will have a greater impact on the audience.’
‘How so?’
‘We are making this movie based on what we have read, seen or heard. To a certain extent, even I have no first-hand experience. But Sugandhi has been through it all. That is the difference.’
‘We will try. I will ask Samaraveera to find her, whether she is in England or in Sri Lanka.’
I did not believe that Samaraveera would find Sugandhi. She wouldn’t be anywhere Samaraveera’s military connection could reach. But we could try to find the source of Sivachidambaram’s email.
3
When I was scrolling through the Karupu website looking for Sugandhi’s writings, quite unexpectedly I came across The Story of Devanayaki by a Meenakshi Rajarathinam. It wasn’t clear whether it was a fictional or factual piece. But the picture that was posted along with the text seemed very familiar, and I suspected that it was a photograph of the painting in Sigiriya.
The Story of Devanayaki
By Meenakshi Rajarathinam
Let’s go back a millennium in time. It is AD 992 in Kanthalur Salai, located in the southern part of the Kulasekhara empire. It was established in the ninth century by Emperor Karunandadakkan, and during the period of Vikramaditya Varaguna, it grew to become an intellectual centre of world renown. When the Ay dynasty came to control the Kulasekhara empire, the repute of Kanthalur Salai soared. The main reason for this was that the Cheras converted it into a military camp, taking into consideration its strategic location at the southern tip of the empire. Soldiers were trained and weapons were manufactured here. But according to local legend, the place became famous for the liquor, called kantha, brewed from a plant which was found only in the Agasthyakoodam forest. In his Kanthalur songs, Vikramaditya Varaguna’s grandson, Poomani Pananaar, who was the court poet during Mahendravarman’s reign, sung about the magical properties of this plant which lured husbands away from their wives and pushed them into the arms of other women.
By the final decade of the tenth century, Kanthalur had become as famous as Nalanda. It had also become a centre for manufacturing weapons that were sold to neighbouring countries. Teachers of martial arts were recruited from Mahodayapuram and the northern territories. Soldiers from all over the world came to train in kalaripayattu. There was an unwritten rule in many countries that only a man who had trained in Kanthalur could become the ruler or the head of the army. That’s why the young princes of Kalinga, Sinhala, Srivijaya and Kambuja came to train themselves here. Those who could not come invited teachers from Kanthalur to their native lands. That’s how the fighting techniques used in Kanthalur came to be known by different names in different parts of the world. This influence can be discerned clearly in bokator which is practised in Kambuja and in pencak silat which is practised in Srivijaya. The swords, shields and fences made by the blacksmiths of Kanthalur too were exported on a large scale. The Nair warriors trained in Kanthalur offered their services to armies in different parts of the world. The training offered to soldiers and spies and the export of weapons made Kanthalur different from other princely states.
Kanthalur was a beautiful harbour town, located in the area that extends from the present-day harbour of Vizhinjam to Trivandrum in Kerala. It was the second most important trading centre of the Kulasekhara empire, where ships from Greece, China and Arabia dropped anchor. The streets were filled with Arab and Chinese merchants who came to sell silk, precious stones and gold and to buy pepper, spices, sandalwood and ivory. In Kanthalur were merchants who could bargain in six or seven languages, thousands of soldiers from foreign lands who had come for training, and beautiful women. Comfortable guest-houses were provided to foreign travellers, and maids whose skin was the colour of sandalwood would serve them venison and liquor. The king’s men maintained law and order assiduously and collected a meagre tax of 1 per cent. The royals rode in colourfully decorated ox carts with their entourage. For entertainment, there were taverns, theatres and dance halls. Kanthalur Salai was prosperous and boasted of comforts comparable to any other city in the world. Traders from foreign lands envied this place which offered wine and beautiful women.
The fort of Mahendravarman, a dependant chieftain of the Chera emperor Bhaskara Ravi Varman I, was situated on a small hill overlooking the sea not far from the harbour. To the left was a lighthouse with a 120-fo
ot tower from which one could see ships approaching. A white flag with a deer, the insignia of the Kanthalur rulers, fluttered aloft the flag post in front of the palace. The luxurious palace boasted of twenty-seven bedrooms spread across three storeys. A large family – that included Mahendravarman’s queen Parvathy Thampuratty, his other wives, several of his concubines and their children – lived here. Around it were buildings and outhouses for ministers, generals and servants. The fort also contained a lovely lotus pond and two temples dedicated to the goddesses Lakshmi and Durga, who presided over prosperity and war respectively. The royal court was decked with elephant tusks on either side and the king’s throne was made of gold. The court assembled every day. As the king gave great importance to overseas trade, the royal court had special seats for foreign traders. Though agriculture prospered, the main source of revenue was foreign trade. Mahendravarman paid obeisance and tax to the Chera emperor in Mahodayapuram but, for all purposes, he ruled like a king.
Four kilometres to the northeast of the fort, beyond the main streets, beyond the dense forests, was the largest military training centre in the Chera empire – Kanthalur Kalarikal. It was built in such a way that the traders and foreign nationals who alighted from the ships at the harbour could not tell that there was an important military camp in the vicinity. It had twenty-four kalaris equipped to train forty people each, and rooms where more than a hundred blacksmiths forged weapons. Stables for horses and elephants lay scattered around the area. In the centre, near the armoury, was the house of Periya Koyikkan – Kanthalur’s army general. A veteran of many wars, he had travelled all over the world to learn and teach martial arts and the use of weapons, and his knowledge was immense. His fourth daughter, Devanayaki, is the heroine of this story.
Beyond the kalaris was an open ground – Kanthalur Kalam – where novice soldiers practised. It was equipped to simulate battle scenes. There was no place anywhere that could compete with Kanthalur’s resources in this field.
A small river, the Thiruvaiga, cut across the Kalarikal. On the other side of the river lived acharyas who imparted Vedic and other knowledge to students. Periya Salai, as it was called, was the brain of Kanthalur. There were raised platforms on the streets where intellectuals and artists met. Students from all over the world came here to study the Vedas, medicine, astronomy, politics, economics, music, literature, dance and art. Beyond this were the holy Padmatheertham pond and the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple.
Every day, Mahendravarman would bathe in the lotus pond, offer prayers to Lakshmi and Durga, and cross the Thiruvaiga in the royal boat to pay obeisance to Lord Padmanabha before ascending the throne. There was a law that forbade anyone from being in the temple when Mahendravarman arrived. But the law was broken once.
Devanayaki stood rapt before Lord Padmanabha, singing Andal’s Thiruppavai, completely unaware of Mahendravarman’s presence. Though his guards went to push her away, he stopped them. He stood silently near her, his hands folded in prayer. As he was immersed in prayer, he did not notice her beauty, but her mellifluous voice remained with him. He had never seen her dance or sing in public. When he made enquiries, he came to know that she only sang before Lord Padmanabha. When he heard this, he felt a deep respect for her.
There was not a single person in Kanthalur who was not bewitched by Devanayaki’s beauty. It was as if her narrow waist, rounded breasts, beautiful wide eyes and long black hair were in a race towards perfection. Her figure was not like that of the Chera women. She resembled the tall, slim, wheat-complexioned damsels of Kambuja. But she was stronger and more elegant than them. She was the daughter of Periya Koyikkan’s third wife, Chamba, who hailed from Kambuja. It was when Periya Koyikkan had gone to train the young sons of Kambuja king Jayavarman V, that he married the court dancer Chamba. Unfortunately, she died within three months of arriving in Kanthalur, struck down by an unknown disease. Devanayaki was nurtured by Periya Koyikkan’s first wife, Madhavi, a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Periamma, as Madhavi was called, taught her Andal’s devotional songs and the traditional dance form of Dasiattam.
Devanayaki was quite unaware of how powerfully enticing her eyes and smile were. All the young men in Kanthalur wanted to marry her, while she remained unwed at the age of twenty. Paying scant heed to them, she – unlike her peers – did not confine her interests to dance and music, but busied herself in learning science and politics. The stories her father would tell her about the women who occupied exalted positions at the royal court in Kambuja had inspired her. She wanted to take an active part in court politics and did not wish to remain confined merely to song and dance. As well as studying the Arthashastra, a political treatise, she secretly received training from her father in the art of using weapons. Singing Andal’s songs and dancing before Lord Padmanabha’s idol were merely ways of expressing her devotion. That is why she never performed for the public.
Devanayaki first entered the royal court as an assistant to Srinivasa Shasthri after completing her studies in political science under his tutelage. However, Mahendravarman was completely enraptured by her beauty and adjourned the royal court after ordering her to present herself in the royal chamber. Shasthri, filled with pride and joy, placed both his hands over her head and blessed her. But she didn’t feel any happiness. She felt ashamed of herself as she realized that the king had not seen her knowledge or abilities but was merely attracted to her physical beauty. As if she was nothing more than her body. But what if the body was the only reality and everything else was a myth? She could have asked Lord Padmanabha who had, as usual, appeared in her dreams the previous night. Perhaps the Lord had known that it was the right time for her purple-hued nipples to turn black…
‘You cannot defy the wishes of the king. Consider him to be Lord Padmanabha and accept him. The king is like God for us. This is the first time he is giving such an order. Consider yourself blessed.’
‘But without asking for my consent?’
‘Don’t say that. I pray that you will realize it is God’s grace. He gives and takes away without asking for permission. The king is our earthly God. He can decide which field to sow and which one to harvest.’
Though Devanayaki appreciated Shasthri’s use of the field as a metaphor, she remained impassive. She remembered studying political treatises that advised one not to embark on a war in which failure was certain, and that the best ploy was diplomacy if it ensured a dignified result. He was the ruler. It was futile to resist him. Her intelligence persuaded her to utilize the opportunity, but she faced Shasthri like a question mark.
‘The king is disappointed because none of the seeds he planted has taken root. If you give birth to a boy, he will be the next ruler of Kanthalur.’
Before he could complete his words, Queen Parvathy and her maids arrived to escort Devanayaki to the palace. The queen arrived to the accompaniment of drums. She was carrying a lit lamp and the traditional eight auspicious objects in her hands. Her maids followed her with laden trays. The queen adorned Devanayaki’s forehead with sandalwood and vermilion, decorated her hair with jasmine and frangipani and led her to the inner chambers. Devanayaki hesitated.
‘Don’t worry, my child. All of us came here in much the same manner.’
‘But all this is happening without my parents’ knowledge.’
‘They were informed earlier. Now a messenger has gone to give them the details. Periya Koyikkan and Madhavi will be delighted. Don’t walk any further, get inside the palanquin. It is our responsibility to get you there without a scratch.’ Another queen, who looked as if she were next in command, said as she helped Devanayaki into the palanquin, ‘From now on, it is the king who will make the scratch marks.’
The queens and their entourage followed the palanquin. Devanayaki was astounded by the interior. It was like a moving palace. The seat was covered with satin-smooth deer skin. One could sit back or recline as desired. The fragrance of roses permeated the space. An exquisite mirror was placed in front of the seat. Maids walked on either side, fan
ning her. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror. What was the expression on her face, she wondered. Was it happiness, anxiety or an unknown fear? Was it a mixture of all three? The innocence and mischief in her dimples had not yet deserted her. Nobody could guess that she was twenty. The king had always seen her from a distance. It was only today that he saw her in relative proximity. Was the king forty years old or fifty? He must be twice her age at the very least, she thought. Is it for this that I sang devotional songs in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple? Clad in his royal robes, with a crown on his head, she could not picture him clearly. Now the time to see him at close quarters had arrived. He seems like an impatient man, she thought, or he would have called her after the assembly and issued his commands in private. But he had adjourned the assembly in haste and had summoned her to his chambers in public. Am I a celestial beauty that he was bewitched like the sage Vishwamitra the moment he set his eyes on me, she wondered.
After Devanayaki alighted from the palanquin, Queen Parvathy led her to a large chamber. Its walls were decorated with portraits of Karunandadakkan, Vikramaditya Varaguna and Bhaskara Ravi Varman. The queen spoke about each portrait at length and asked her to offer flowers as a sign of respect. Then she prayed to the Devi idol in the southern part of the palace, circumambulated around the tulsi plant and placed a tulsi leaf in her hair. She felt as if she too had become part of the royal family.
‘Devanayaki, you are beautiful. It is rare to find someone like you, who has learnt singing, dancing and martial arts along with other disciplines. Shasthri told us everything. Your mother Madhavi said that outspokenness is your only fault. She is worried that you might speak without thinking before the Royal Highness. She requested us to advise you as your elder sisters. We were worried whether the king would agree, because as one’s age increases, one’s desire usually decreases. Thankfully, just a glimpse of you set things right. When he stopped the assembly and ordered you to meet him, we were more surprised than you were. I hope that you will be blessed with a son who will continue the lineage. The king will come to his bedchamber half an hour after dinner. Bathe and bedeck yourself before you go to him.’
Sugandhi Alias Andal Devanayaki Page 2