Asura- Tale of the Vanquished

by Anand Neelakantan

  “Let him be, Meghanada. I think he is drunk,” I heard Maricha say. Slowly the pressure eased from the sword and Meghanada took it away and wiped my blood from its blade with his fingers and put the sword back into its sheath without taking his eyes off my face. I shivered and collapsed on the chair.

  “Bhadra, we’ll leave now. Take care of your health and do not drink so much. You might lose your head, literally.” Maricha said with a smile, but I saw that his eyes did not smile. I could see contempt in those eyes. Meghanada went and hugged the sobbing Athikaya. Then the Prince and the Minister walked out into the sunshine. I heard the horses being whipped and the chariot drove awa

  y through the narrow, uneven street. I lay there, my mind blank.

  Then I heard the noise of fighting men. It did not register at first. Then I realized they were fighting over the silver coins I had thrown outside. My coins. I tried to stand up, lost my balance and fell on my face. Then I crawled outside and jumped into the fray to get hold of my coins. Most of them had vanished. I clawed and fought my way through. I stamped two urchins and kicked an old beggar and received much the same back, but I was past pain. It was my money, my hard earned money. Finally, I managed to grab a fistful of soiled coins from the gutter. Though many tried to grab them, I held on tightly to my possessions through the kicks and blows. Finally, the beggars and my neighbours gave up and went away, cursing me and each other. I slowly got up from the gutter and counted the coins. There were twenty-one. Maybe a hundredth of what had originally been there. I stared at the coins for a long time. I had thrown away the chances that life had handed me many a time before too. Perhaps I deserved this. Anyhow, the tavern around the corner would be open now. There would be whores with breasts as big as pumpkins and plenty of country liquor. Ah, just what I needed. I stumbled towards it as the sun set, with the coins I had fought for. A good drink and some whoring – after all, that was what life was about.

  37 A daughter’s marriage

  Ravana

  I had been receiving disturbing news. I wished to concentrate on the mural I was painting but somehow, I could not focus. The colours and tones did not come through as I wanted. The news was disturbing and I wondered who I could share it with? But it was a closely guarded secret. Maricha? No, not even him. He was not at all sympathetic about that particular relationship and may not have ΀abeen willing to listen to my ramblings and self-pity.

  I felt old, both in spirit and body. I had seen her once, many years ago. She would have been sixteen or seventeen then. Only Maricha knew. It had been a dangerous mission and took place immediately after my son’s graduation. The way I had treated Athikaya tore at my heart and I wallowed in remorse, when Maricha came and jerked me out of it. He was cruel and candid and said I had no business to feel sad. After all, I was the one who had cruelly cast away my first born.

  I went mad and reminded him that it had been his wise Council of Ministers who had done that. He retorted that I hadn’t done anything after that. That stopped me dead in my tracks. I dismissed him haughtily and went back into my shell. I shouted at my wife and even threw Meghanada out of the room. In the middle of the night, I woke up in a cold sweat. I had seen a ghost. I would have laughed if anyone had said that there was a ghost inside the palace of the Emperor of the Asuras. Until then, ghosts were something that lurked with a silly leer in childhood stories. But that night I saw one clearly. It was a woman with a veil over her face. She looked familiar as she stood at the window peering at me intently. I couldn’t move a limb. I could smell my own fear. The face gradually became clear and I wanted to touch Mandodari and wake her. But my hands would not move. The face became clearer by minute and I waited with horror and anticipation for the final revelation. An owl hooted in the garden, piercing the thick silence. And in a wisp of breeze, the veil fell. It was Vedavathi!

  My throat went dry. All the emotions I had buried in my soul came rushing back and lodged in my throat. Vedavathi broke into hysterical laughter. Then slowly, she dissolved into the mist. I lay immersed in my fear. Images of my unreciprocated love and the tragedy that had followed, choked me. Slowly, painfully, I moved my limbs and got off the bed and searched for my sandals in the dark. I stood for a while without any thought or emotion, watching the still leaves of the coconut palms awash in the silvery moonlight. Then I knew what I had to do. It started as a small thought, but soon possessed me. I hurried out, leaving the door open. I ignored the snoring guards and ran through the corridors to Maricha’s chamber. I banged on his door, shocking the guard who had been dozing with his head resting on the door. Ignoring the scoundrel who mumbled something, I kept banging on the door till the old man opened it. A curse died on his lips as he saw my face.

  “We have to go now. . .I have to see her now.” I told him.

  “Who?”

  “Dress and come quickly. I want to see her now and you are coming with me.”

  “Who?”

  I pulled him out of the room. The guard bowed with alacrity. I pushed Maricha into the garden and said, “I saw her. . .Vedavathi. . .” I continued, ignoring the confusion and shock in Maricha’s face, “I wish to see my daughter now.”

  “Are you drunk?” Maricha struggled out of my grip.

  I stamped my foot impatiently and asked, “Who keeps the key to the large shed?”

  “Ravana, come to your senses. You want to go Mithila now? To Mithila, deep inside Deva country, and you want me to fly with you in your mad father-in-law’s contraption? When was the last time you flew that thing?”

  “Get me the key and wake Mayan up!” I was almost hysterical.

  Hearing the commotion, the guard came running and I shouted at him to fetch the key of the shed where the flying machine, Pushpaka Vimana, as my bumbling professor of a father-in-law called it, was kept. He ran tӀept. He o do my bidding while Maricha stared at me.

  “We are going now.” I said with finality. Maricha shook his head and walked away. “Where are you going?” I got angrier by the minute. How dared he walk away without an answer?

  “To change,” he shouted back and banged his chamber door shut. I smiled at the old man. I stood there thinking about what lay ahead. As Maricha said, it was a mission fraught with great danger. For one, I had not flown the Pushpaka in a long time. I did not like flying. Man was not supposed to fly, otherwise Shiva would have given him wings. So a flying machine was a challenge to God. I also questioned the emotion which made me want to see my daughter. I had kept a tab on her as she grew up but after my sons had been born, I rarely even read the reports sent to me by my spies. Mithila was too far away and too small to be of any consequence to my mighty and ever-growing empire. Since she was so far away, I rarely thought of her. Soon she was as good as dead to me. Or worse, as if she had never been born. So a dangerous intrusion into enemy territory without my army, was foolhardiness.

  “Ravana, son, I am so happy. . .so happy. . .” My father-in-law stood panting before me like a happy child. The old man had come running with the keys jingling at his waist. I had begun to like this absent-minded professor. Before he had undertaken the construction of the mighty temple at Gokarna, I had never taken him seriously. Since then he had built scores of similar structures on the banks of our sacred rivers. He was a master-craftsman and engineer.

  Sprightly old Mayan ran like a teenager to the shed where the Pushpaka was kept. He fumbled with the keys and then opened the door wide. I had always admired the smooth contours of this strange machine. It had huge wings that did not flap but whirled round dazzlingly fast. It looked like a bird, yet it also resembled a fish. It had some levers, the use of which I had mastered over the years. I was not a good flier, but nevertheless, I could handle the machine reasonably well. Mayan rambled on about the use of the various levers and the sail once the machine reached a certain height, so it would float in the air. But I was barely listening. ‘Should I tell Mandodari?’ It was a journey of over 2000 miles and could take three days. Eventually, I left her a note to say
I would return in a week. Then I hesitated for a moment and guilt made me add that I loved her.

  By this time Maricha had arrived and packed my clothes, some food and wine, as well as my weapons, along with his things. He threw the entire lot into the back of the flying ship and asked hopefully, “Ravana, do you really want to go?”

  I jumped in as he shook his head and followed suit. I was apprehensive at first, but then, with a silent prayer to Shiva, I pushed the lever and the machine rolled out slowly. I pushed another lever and the fans whirled faster and faster till, with a jerk, the Pushpaka lifted into the air. I could see Marciha clutching the metal rails in front of his seat. I was afraid as well but pushed the thoughts of the thing stalling in mid-air, out of my mind. It was frightening to think of us falling like bird droppings, to be splattered on the face of the rocks below

  Lanka faded away below us, a green teardrop island in an ocean that was silvery-black in the moonlight. There were thousands of stars splattered over an inky black sky, as if the Gods were peering through the holes of their blankets. Wispy clouds swirled beside us. My mane flew in the howling wind. I imagined how impressive I’d look to an onӀlook to looker and smiled to myself. Maricha had also relaxed a little. I howled with pleasure as we flew over the mainland and Maricha joined me. I tried to remember the raunchy songs of my teenage days. And we flew to the barbarian lands of the north with naughty Asura songs on our lips – an old man of nearly sixty and a middle-aged man of forty, like two teenagers with no worries in the world, on their first picnic without elders.

  I had unfurled the sails and we cruised at a steady speed. The fans would only be needed to land. Below, India lay sprawled with her riches and sorrows. There were towering mist-filled, steamy jungles, almost touching the sea to the west, and wide open plains, broken by small hills and hillocks, to the east. There were estuaries and backwaters with coconut palms standing tall like sentinels, broken only by the temples that stood even taller. Silvery rivers snaked through the land and a million moons reflected from the blades of swaying paddy leaves. It was immensely beautiful. My heart filled with pride when I saw the prosperity I had brought to the once-parched countryside. It was my India, my empire, the ancient land of the Asuras.

  I knew that by tomorrow night I would be flying over unclaimed territory, a no man’s land of shrubs and jungles and mazy sand dunes of central India, that separated my kingdom from the barbarian Deva principalities on the banks of the sacred Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswathi Rivers beyond. I felt sad that I had not extended my kingdom to the abode of Lord Shiva. The Himalayas too belonged to the Asuras, as did the Ganga, that flowed from the manes of an Asura God – Shiva, the supreme God of gods, Parameswara. Why did I stop the campaign? I should have extended my kingdom to the whole of our ancient land and thrown the Devas into the wilderness beyond the Saraswathi and the Sindhu. I had started with such an ambition, but somehow, over the years, I had lost my ambition and my dreams had shrunk. I was too happy making half of India prosperous and wealthy. Perhaps it was a wise decision.

  Maricha had grown silent and was dozing. I looked down again and wondered at the sheer size of mother earth. I felt humbled. All the dreams of glory, all the wars I had fought, all the kingdoms I had gained – it all seemed so small in comparison. The earth was eternal, everything else perished. How many men had dreamt ambitious dreams like me, and achieved them? How many had built their fortunes? How many kings had this earth seen and how many more were yet to come? Ultimately, did their toil matter to mother earth? She remained aloof from the petty travails of man.

  Men cheat, betray, love, strive, struggle, fail, fall, get up, and repeat the process to die and vanish forever or be reborn. But the earth remains aloof, distant and unchangeable. I was just a speck floating in the mighty universe. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next minute, I would be gone. Would it matter to anyone? A few perhaps would be sad and others happy for it, but it would only be relevant for a while. Over time, my achievements, my birth and death, would be irrelevant. So the size of my empire was irrelevant and there was no need for any more bloodshed. Life was too short for fighting wars and too sweet to throw away on silly things like ambition. I wanted to believe that I was not afraid to die. One day everyone died. That was the way of nature. You had to give way to the next set of living things. Mentally, I had never been afraid to die. But then, how could I ever leave this beautiful life? Wind whistled past my ears and I took a deep breath of the cool morning air. I breathed life.

  The east turned red as the clouds floated by like red-dyed cotton, on the eastern horizon. The west was still dark, with a pale, white, setting moon. Maricha stirred in his sleep. I looked at the man who had been more loyal to me than anyone else. I looked at his greying hair and balding heaӀd baldind, his still strong arms, and felt sad. Life was rushing past all of us. One day he would be gone and I would be alone.

  ‘What would she be doing now? Who did she look like? Perhaps like her mother?’ Something snapped in me when I thought of my long-lost love. Was the empire worth losing her? Perhaps it was. Mandodari was an ideal partner. Vedavathi had been too spirited to be a wife or a queen. I longed to see the face of my daughter more than anything else. I had not read the reports from the field for some time but I vaguely remembered reading about the marriage arrangements being made for her. These northern people had a strange custom. The father of the prospective bride would announce a contest among eligible suitors. I found it boorish. Was a bride a prize to be won in a contest? I had even heard of Deva men selling their wives as slaves, mortgaging them, or using them as wagers. It was terrible but what could one expect from a semi-civilized, nomadic tribe? Women were treated by the Deva men as nothing more than commodities. Perhaps I was prejudiced as I belonged to an entirely different culture. But I had always believed a society could be called civilized only when it treated its woman and downtrodden people, well. Caste was rigid. The condition of people belonging to the lower rungs was beyond imagination. By such standards, the people of the dusty, northern plains, were almost sub-human. Of course, the Asuras had problems of their own. The Asura men loved material things. Asura woman were aggressive and almost amoral, but then, our girls were brought up almost exactly like our boys. There were social differences like the caste system among the Asuras too, but it was not based on birth or skin colour. Anyone could reach a position of power through hard work and luck. I was the best example of that.

  I hoped to reach Mithila by the time the contest for my daughter began. I felt restless. ‘Which boorish Deva was going to marry her? How different would her life be?’ I had a premonition that her life would not be easy. I couldn’t explain it but the feeling kept nagging at me. I vividly remembered Vedavathi's hysterical laughter. Her curse haunted me. What if the astrological prediction that my daughter would bring death and destruction to the Asuras was true? What if

  Vedavathi's curse as she went up in flames, found life? This was utter nonsense. I was hallucinating. Perhaps the guilt I felt in abandoning my daughter and not doing anything to get her back, along with last night’s drinking, must have brought it on. What would happen if I claimed my daughter? What right did I have to bring her back to an alien culture? Would Janaka oblige? Or should I have attacked Mithila and brought her back? It would have been half a day’s job. Mithila was a small kingdom but I did not want any bloodshed. I had had enough of wars. I was also afraid of how Mandodari would react. She did not know of my yearning for Vedavathi, and I did not want to bring it up. My straying days were over and I had found peace and happiness in marriage. Athikaya was an embarrassment. I did not want to add another.

  I was getting close to the Narmada and thought wearily of another day’s journey still before us. The excitement of the flight had worn off and the plains below were dry and uninspiring. I dozed off many times. I had wanted to take a detour to Kishkindha to renew my friendship with Bali, but with my ego hanging round my neck like a millstone, I took a route that avoided Bali’s kingdom. We h
alted for a few hours on the banks of the Tungabhadra to relax and eat, but I hurried to be in time for my daughter’s swayamvara.

  38 The time has come

  Ravana

  We landed near Mithila early in the morning. I had selected a secluded and uninhabited place a few miles away from the city. We hid the Pushpaka with plants and shrubs, changed into Deva costumes, and walked towards the palace. Many people were going in the same direction. Hundreds of vendors, selling all sorts of things, jostled with the pedestrians and cows that roamed about freely. I observed that the streets were narrow and winding and that there was no drainage system to speak of. The houses looked rustic and the palace looked like the large house of a middle-class farmer in Lanka. I was not impressed but I had not expected much. These were backwaters, culturally and economically, and yet this was supposed to be one of the better cities in the north. Most of the people had brown hair and a sickly fair complexion, but many were dark skinned too. I found many dark-skinned men and woman at the palace. They had perhaps used some other road. These, I guessed, were the untouchables. The better dressed, fair ones, avoided these pathetic figures and the semi-human untouchables patiently waited for the great men and women to pass. What sort of culture was this? Would such a thing ever happen in my rule? Janaka was one of the few enlightened kings and yet, even he was not free from this malice. I was a far better king. Only Ravana had ensured a prosperous and just society.

  It was with a mixture of pride and contempt that I entered the assembly where a curious shaped bow lay at the centre. ‘It’s too heavy to be of any use.’ I thought. Many dignitaries were seated and on a raised pedestal, in what appeared to be a wooden throne, a man of my age sat with immense dignity. On a balcony above him, I could see veiled figures. My heart leapt. One of them could be my daughter. I frantically tried to catch a glimpse. ‘What would she look like?’ I cursed the blasted Deva custom of keeping woman under a veil. People conversed with each other. I was amazed. ‘How could they talk while their King was present?’