Asura- Tale of the Vanquished

by Anand Neelakantan

  The palace gossip was always juicy and we all revelled in the scandals involving the high and the mighty. The juiciest one involved a sweeper. She had given birth to an ugly and black baby whose features resembled King Ravana. It was rumoured that initially the king had raped her, but then she had become his misecome hitress. These stories were told by traders and vendors and whenever this topic came up, I maintained a judicious silence. The rumour even went to the extent that whenever the pious and saintly queen was dispossessed for sex, either physically or spiritually, the king called for this sweeper. Soon many knew it was Mala and they flirted with her even more.

  I tried to physically stop her from visiting the palace many times, but she somehow sneaked out. When she came back, I made her life hell, but she took my thrashing and kicking with remarkable forbearance. She finally confessed that Ravana had indeed raped her and that Athikaya was his child. But she claimed that after that incident, the King had never bothered her and had always treated her with supreme contempt. It was Queen Mandodari who summoned her to the palace often. It was only the queen’s love for Athikaya that took Mala to the palace. My thrashing her after her routine palace visits became a sort of ritual. And our marriage, if we could call it that, survived.

  Almost a month after the birth of this illicit child of Ravana, the queen gave birth to a beautiful boy. As the boy was born on a dark and thunderous monsoon night, he was named Meghanada, ‘the one with a thunderous voice’.

  Soon, Prince Kumbakarna fathered a beautiful girl baby and Vibhishana also became the father of a healthy and robust girl baby. All these events were important for us, not because we were concerned about royal fecundity, but because they attracted people from the countryside of both the island and the mainland, and that was good for business. Slowly and steadily, the King earned the goodwill of the people. Perhaps, he had curbed his natural ambition or the birth of a son had quenched his thirst for war and acquisition of new territory.

  Slowly the territories of India, including the island, started to regain the prosperity it had once enjoyed. Trade began to flourish again. The surprising thing was that people who I had thought were impossibly cruel, proved to be excellent administrators. Rudraka’s move to post policemen and mounted guards on the highways and at ports, was initially resented by the people, for they thought these guards would turn oppressors and thieves. But Rudraka instilled such fear into his subordinates, and underlined that fear by publicly executing corrupt guards, that extortion came to virtual standstill, at least in the vicinity of the capital. Prahastha, as a Prime Minister, kept the entire crew of ministers under tight control and his personal integrity was respected by the people, though as a person he was never well liked. Jambumali, the bumbling clerk, matured into a mature minister of finance. Though we did not understand a thing about his taxation policies, the rich merchants who frequented my laundry, always sang paeans to him. He must have been really good as these Chettis were usually as stingy with their praise as with their money.

  Maricha was the minister in charge of hospitals, educational and charitable institutions, and was well liked by the populace. The kindheartedness of the man even during turbulent times had been notable, so in peaceful times, he excelled. He personally visited orphanages and hospitals and was firm and kind at the same time. He started a school-cum-orphanage for the children of soldiers who had laid down their lives for Ravana’s greater glory. Though it was a small thing, the very thought that a minister cared for the poor and downtrodden and that the government was grateful to those who had died, was refreshing and almost made the State seem humane.

  The King’s father-in-law was the minister of civil planning and administration and the subject of much ridicule. He drew plans of grand cities and majestic roads such as no one had ever seen or thought could be built. No one took him seriously. No one believed him but he was tolet he wasrated despite, or perhaps because of, his good-natured blundering and absent-minded ways. He could be seen walking through the highways and streets, mumbling to himself, followed by two or three reverent students from his institute on the mainland, occasionally stopping to draw complicated diagrams in the mud.

  Often, street urchins collected around this curious group. But the good natured professor was too involved in his own world of complicated mathematical calculations to even know these urchins existed. Sometimes, he would just ruffle the dirty hair of some foul-smelling urchin and continue mumbling to himself and drawing imaginary pictures in the air, ignoring the hoots of the crowd. He was tolerated by the people as a welcome and comic diversion. That was until the King gave him the commission to build the majestic temple at Gokarna, at the northernmost tip on the west coast of his empire. Anyone who saw the temple, ceased forever to ridicule the bumbling professor. It was a wonderful piece of art. It stood on the shore where the sea breathed, as if a jewel had fallen from heaven, exquisite and majestic. But that, of course was much later.

  Initially, Vibhishana was well liked. His attempts to revamp the forgotten street Shiva temples or those of other lesser gods, and his streamlining of temple administration, drew many admirers. But soon he began to commission small Vishnu temples and introduce strange Deva customs. He even brought some Brahmins and slowly, these people began to introduce the wretched Deva tradition of the caste system. Of course, there were idiots who admired Vibhishana and these people quickly adopted Brahminical customs. The elite began to convert in droves and wore the sacred thread which a Brahmin was supposed to wear always. They began to look down on anyone who did a useful job.

  Initially it was funny, as these new converts to Brahmanism went to ridiculous lengths to avoid bodily contact with all others. Rowdy elements among us would rush and embrace, or at least touch, the pure Brahmins returning from their purifying baths. No sooner did one of us touch one of the super-pure Brahmins, the entire bunch would curse us and amidst our laughter and fun, would return to the Ghat to wash us off their bodies. Many a day we had lots of fun making them bathe more than a dozen times.

  But then, the dimwitted idiots that we were, it was much too late when we found ourselves excluded from the mainstream. There was a secret campaign led by prince Vibhishna, to reserve all important government jobs for Brahmins. Within three years, almost all important trade jobs were in the hands of either the neo-converts or the Brahmins who had migrated from the north. Resentment built up. Fat and fair Deva Brahmins started arriving in hoards from northern India and soon Brahmin colonies sprang up in important towns and villages.

  Merchants who did not accept the Deva ways were slowly excluded from the palace. Roads and other public contracts for temples, got allotted only to the neo-converts. Then the roads were closed to people like us. My shop witnessed angry and impotent resentment against the way things were being done in our own land. The grand, new temples which had been constructed, were barred to us. The old priests were thrown out of temples and filled hastily by Brahmins. People spoke longingly of the rule of Mahabali, when everyone was treated as equal. Dust accumulated over past glory.

  The suppressed resentment finally exploded. It happened when a butcher was negotiating the price of an old cow with a farmer in the market. Maha Shivaratri was two days away and the market was crowded with people jostling for their holiday purchases. People were purchasing cows, chickens and goats to sacrifice and feaifice anst on. There were fat Brahmin missionaries exhorting people to desist from eating cows. When the butcher purchased the cow from the farmer, a group of Brahmin priests came up to him and exhorted him to leave the cow alone. One suggested that the butcher would rid himself of all his sins by simply gifting the cow to a Brahmin. Initially, the butcher was amused and argued with the Brahmins about their love for a lowly, stupid animal. The butcher, already drunk, hugged the leader of the Brahmins. The group of Brahmins fell on the butcher and began to kick and hit him.

  Meanwhile, the butcher had taken out his knife and started to slash indiscriminately. Soon many people had joined the fight and ended only w
hen the Brahmins took flight. Three Brahmins and the farmer lay dead in the middle of the market. The butcher, in his new found heroism, wielded his knife like a sword and shouted, “Death to all Brahmins”. The crowd roared approval. Soon, people came out with anything they could lay their hands on – swords, kitchen knives, tills, axe, pieces of furniture, stones – and the group had swelled to hundreds by the time they reached my shop. I also rushed to join in. I wanted blood. I wanted to spit on the fat Brahmin faces. This was my country, my race, my King, and how dare they come and spoil our culture?

  The crowd snaked towards the streets where the Brahmins lived in their fine houses. Somebody found a torch and soon, one by one, the houses went up in flames. Women and children ran out. The crowd butchered the children and took the women. The fat Brahmins escaped, leaving the women and children to our mercy. And mercy was a word the Deva raids had taught us to discard. When we were finished, somebody shouted for Prince Vibhishana’s blood. The mob turned towards the palace. Many Brahmins had hidden there. We wanted to punish them for their arrogance, pride, the insults they heaped on us, for treating us as untouchables and destroying the little dignity we possessed. The mob swelled to thousands and we destroyed indiscriminately, torching six Vishnu temples, the public bathing Ghat, shops belonging to both Asuras and Brahmins, and kept marching to the palace. A group of mounted police tried to stop us, but the mob devoured them in seconds. An inspector was hung from the nearest tree. Three police outposts were torched. We were on a high. But something troubled me. ‘Why was Ravana’s army succumbing so easily? Why was there was no resistance? Were they so cowardly?’

  Then my neighbour fell. An arrow had pierced his throat and blood spurted on the row of people behind him. Soon it started raining arrows and I watched in horror. Thousands of mounted archers galloped towards us. The palace gates opened and the soldiers swarmed on us like bees. I could see Rudraka leading the charge, his sword swinging in all directions, severing heads. The mob panicked. I was pushed and shoved and nearly fell down to be trampled by thousands of hooves and feet. It was the hand of fate that protected me. I jumped into a drain on the side of the road and crawled under a stone bridge. I remained under the stone bridge for more than seven hours. When it was dark, I crawled out of my hole. The whole place was a mess. Would-have-been heroes of the revolution lay splattered all around in their own filth of severed limbs and flesh. The stench

  was unbearable. There was an eerie and oppressive silence. The scuffing sounds of rats nibbling the dead made it more frightening.

  I walked towards my home. All along the road I could see houses torched, bodies hanging from trees, and severed limbs and heads lying around like ripe mangoes in the groves during summer. Many of the areas where the poor Asuras lived, had already been flattened by elephants. That so much destruction had taken place in seven hce in seours was hard to believe. At the turn towards the river, I saw the dead butcher hanging from a lamp post. He had led us into this. In impotent rage I rushed towards his limp body, my knife in my hand. I clambered up the tree branch from where he was hung to reach for his face. I slashed across his face again and again till I lost some of my boiled up rage. I jumped down. Then, with a howl, I wiped my hands on my dhothi, and then in the earth, again and again. Wearily, I stood up and walked towards my home. When I reached, I saw Mala under the tree. She lay battered and beaten, naked and gang-raped, breathing heavily. Where my house and shop had stood, there was a gaping hole in the ground. Thin spirals of smoke lazily rose towards the heavens.

  35 The Duel

  Ravana

  Sleep eluded me. Bhadra’s dark, ugly face took on grotesque shapes in my mind, sometimes leering, sometimes piteously pleading. I lay twitching on my sheet. Tomorrow I would send Maricha to him. Perhaps a few gold coins would assuage my guilt. But I was also angry and embarrassed by the man. It had all started in a moment of weakness. How could I have stooped so low? My conduct had been inexcusable. But I could have forgotten about it and got on with my life, but for this gift from Shiva. It was beyond me how a single act of passion could produce a child, while my queen and I struggled for twelve years to give my son, Meghanada, a sibling. Akshaya Kumara was born after many years, but Meghanada already had a half-brother – Athikaya. Mandodari knew and hated him so much, that she showed the maid and her son extreme kindness. A few minutes in the darkness, anger at my wife, my race, and my life – that is all that it had taken to make this creature of darkness – Athikaya.

  I could have made both mother and son vanish at my royal command. But something held me back – perhaps some humanity remained within me. Or maybe it was the memory of a long lost love and a small baby floating in a reed basket over a swiftly flowing river – or maybe it was the memory of a long lost love and a small baby girl fished out of a ditch by a Deva King. After all, Athikaya, black and ugly, with buck teeth, was also my son, and I had become older and wiser, or was too foolish, to commit such heinous acts. Like my daughter in the northern Deva lands, the son of my sin too, grew up quickly.

  It was true that I had not been paying attention to day-to-day governance. My ministers were efficient and I was immersed in family life. My coffers overflowed and I had no ambition left for any conquests. I was in my fifties and content. I knew I was a good King and that people would talk about my regime long after I was dead. Like most rulers in their middle age, I was more interested in leaving behind a legacy. Death did not seem so distant now. I could feel its breath on my neck. I was no longer invincible or immortal. Strangely, I had begun to value life. I relished every moment and the little things like the pealing of a distant temple bell; the clang of swords as my beloved son, Meghanada, practiced his swordplay; my wife cooing to my younger son, Akshaya Kumara; the tinkle of bangles as my teenaged niece, Trijata, fluttered around the sweeping verandahs of the palace. . .the small pleasures of life gave me so much joy.

  In the centre of controversy was Athikaya, my son from the maid Mala. I loved Meghanada more than anything else in the world, even more than myself. Whatever Meghanada was, Athikaya was not. Meghanada was so handsome that it hurt my eyes. Athikaya was a huge hulk of black flesh, so ugly that people gaped at him open-mouthed. Where Meghanada was as graceful as a pure bred horse, Mala’s son was clumsy and bow-legged. Meghanada exuded intelligence and charm, while Athikaya surpassed himself day by day with his own stupidity. It was as if nature had blessed Meghanada with everything and had nothing left to offer Athikaya. It puzzled me that the same father could sire sons who were so different.

  I hated Athikaya as much as I loved Meghanada. But the cursed son followed me like a puppy. However I tried to avoid him, he somehow attached himself to me. Often I was cruel to him, kicking him or slapping him in public, or shouting at him, yet he would grin stupidly, showing off his ugly yellow buck teeth. Meghanada, if he was around, would laugh aloud. Athikaya amused him. It had not occurred to me when I was younger, but I had come to recognize that I loved this stupid son of mine in a different way. It wasn’t like the love I had for Meghanada, or Mandodari, or my brothers, or my scores of nieces and nephews. It was more like how one loved a street dog you fed once in a while but would never keep as a pet because of its ugliness and smell.

  Had it not been for Bhadra, I would perhaps have got rid of the boy long before. Bhadra came back to me when I had grown too important to think of people like him. It happened after that pogrom, when Vibhishana crushed the Asura rebellion against the fat Brahmins. I was no fan of the Brahmins and was secretly happy about the riot. When Vibhishana came back to court with scores of bleeding and battered Brahmins, my first instinct was to laugh. But as usual, it was Prahastha who showed me the way. He was in his late fifties then. But he continued to irritate me with his discourses. We had our arguments but I had begun to depend on him. I let him handle the mundane affairs of day-to-day governance, but on important occasions, I used my veto power. We were not exactly friends, but I respected the old man. He was one of the few men who were not afraid of
me and certainly no sycophant. True to form, instead of arguing with me in front of the other ministers on the day of the rebellion, he requested a recess and came to me quietly and told me that this was the chance we had been waiting for. We had to crush the rebellion with full force so that no Asura got any ideas about taking the law into his own hands. The King-Emperor was supreme and only his writ should run, Prahastha argued.

  Since I was the King-Emperor, I had no problems accepting what he said. But I was uneasy about supporting the Brahmins. Then it struck me that I could kill two birds with one stone. So we let the city burn for a few hours and allowed the hooligans to do their job with the Brahmin ladies. Then we struck back. My soldiers, with perfect impartiality, hacked off the heads of Brahmins and Asuras alike. I let my soldiers loot the Vishnu temples. They did so with gusto and converted them into Shiva temples. The Brahmins fled in hoards towards the mainland and Varuna ferried them across, always charging a hefty fee. Varuna could make a profit whatever the circumstances. Rudraka did such a thorough job that I never faced another rebellion. It was true that Vibhishana sulked for a while, but that mattered little to anyone. However, I felt sorry for my brother and pacified him saying that I would not harass the Brahmins who had managed to remain. Slowly he came around and I thought I had contained my little brother’s idiosyncrasies. Or that was what I thought then.

  When Bhadra came to me, I sensed he was seething. I could also sense his helplessness. Suppressed frustration lay coiled inside him. But then, Bhadra was always that way. He stood and stared at me. I was amused. He appeared when I least expected him, when I was looking at my garden from the balcony, drinking in the smell of jasmine, listening to the cooing of the pigeons, unmindful of the bloodbath taking place outside my secluded palace unconsciously, my hands went to my sword. Like a small child I had named it ChandraÀed it Chhasa and was extremely possessive about it. It was a masterpiece created by a famed blacksmith and never left my side.