Asura- Tale of the Vanquished

by Anand Neelakantan

  “Long ago, when I was barely seventeen, I made a promise to you. I promised you a world where all men and women would be treated as equals. I promised to give you back the golden age of Mahabali. We hoped to regain our glory. We had nothing except hope. You reposed your confidence in my leadership and I, in your loyalty. Together, we challenged the mighty Deva empire. With a handful of men, we started a campaign against inequality, Brahmanism, oppression, and meaningless rituals. With your sweat and blood, we built what we see around us today. From this pearl island to the foothills of the Vindhyas, we made the Asura flag fly high.

  Prosperity came to our people. We built magnificent cities and made leaps of progress in science, art and culture. Our great temples proclaimed the glory of Shiva. The granaries overflowed with the fruits of Asura labour. We built temples of knowledge and ensured each Asura was literate. Our hospitals took care of the sick and we built roads and canals. We can now confidently claim to be the richest empire in the world.” I paused for effect. Cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and ‘Ravana vijaya’ rose on all sides.

  “However, on the march towards progress, we made some mistakes. We strayed from the path of righteousness that our great leaders of yore had so painfully walked upo="-n. We lost purity of thought and the simplicity of life. Like the Devas, we began to think that some men were privileged. It would perhaps been justified if privilege was based on abilities and merit. But the Deva civilization, if one could call it that, though defeated by the mighty power of Asura-arms, slowly seeped in and poisoned our minds. Like them, we began to consider some human beings as divine; that some were pure and others not – not because of their deeds or their minds, but because of their birth. As your leader, I should have seen the evil thoughts of caste seeping into our society. Alas, I was busy glorifying myself.” The crowd groaned.

  “I forgot our values myself, so why should I blame society? The Brahmins, and I mean no evil to them as individuals, cornered all that was worthwhile, and the majority of you were left in the dumps. I, as your leader, failed you, for I allowed my brother, the traitor Vibhishana, to flirt with Brahmanism and Vishnu. I am ashamed to say I prided myself that I was superior to you because I am half-Brahmin myself. I was secretly proud of my fair complexion and considered black skin dirty and evil.”

  The crowd stood rapt in attention as the words came of their own volition. “Today, our civilization is at crossroads. I stand before you, not as an Emperor, not as the arrogant all-conquering Rakshasa that my detractors like to call me, but as a simple man, as a fellow Asura, with my heart bared. I have sinned, for I am not God, but a human being like you. I stand chastised for the wrongs I have committed. I stand humbled by the simple trust you have placed in my leadership. I pray to Shiva that he gives me strength to shoulder this heavy burden.

  This war, despite what many people think, is not about Sita, the beautiful wife of the Deva Prince Rama, and the lecherous lust of your old King for another man’s wife. Nor is this war about avenging the humiliation suffered by my sister Soorpanakha, at the hands of Lakshmana, the brother of Rama. This. . .” I paused. Suddenly the words had dried up. The crowd waited in anticipation.

  “My dear Asura friends. . .Sita. . .Is my daughter.” There was a huge roar from the crowd and I waited for it die down. The mid-noon sun beat down mercilessly, sucking my energy and dulling my brain. Rivers of perspiration ran down my face. Thousands of black, wet faces gleamed below. Angry, confused and excited, the crowd swayed. I did not want to look back and face my ministers, though I suspected they knew about Sita. I did not have the courage to face them now. A few minutes ago I had planned to sway the crowd with my speech about the future of the Asura civilization, now, those words had gone into hiding. I supported myself on the balustrade and waited. I knew the crowd could turn dangerous at this time. I felt exhausted and tired.

  ‘Victory to Sita Mata! Victory to Princess of Asuras!’ a forlorn cry went up from one corner. There was a deadly silence. Heads turned in surprise towards the sound. I squinted into the sun to see who had uttered the cry. Was it Bhadra, the old rascal? I could see a shriveled, old man, leaning on a staff, with a sprightly, black, muscular youth near him, but I was not sure about the face. Once more the old man cried out, ‘Victory to mother

  Sita!’ And as one, the crowd erupted with cries of victory for Sita and Ravana. The Chendas that had become silent, exploded into wild Asura rhythms and the crowd, swayed and pulsated like a monster snake as it crawled out of my palace, raising a hill of dust in its wake.

  As the war cry faded, I turned to my ministers and said, nisterssai and thSo it is settled. We will stay put and fight.” All except Prahastha bowed. As I left for my chambers with a flourish, I could see Prahastha had a glassy look in his eyes. I caught his eye and he imperceptibly shook his head. Later, in the dark, cool chambers, long after the fire lit in my body by my subjects had died down, I found myself praying to Shiva to soothe the rising panic. A premonition of doom hung in the thick, humid air over Lanka. I could smell it; I could feel it in my hair. Perhaps Prahastha was right as usual. However, I would rather have died and lost everything than abandoned my people to the horrendous monkey army of Rama. I knew it was logical to withdraw now, but I was too proud and too sentimental. I would stay here and fight with my half army. I owed my people that much at least.

  In those lonely hours, as I wriggled and fumbled with the logic of head and heart, the fate of India, the Asura empire, and millions of black people, was decided forever. Had I listened to my head, perhaps fate would have decreed differently. But then, I was always a creature of passion. I had lived as Ravana and I would die as Ravana. I did not intend to become Rama, the perfect man and God. There was no dearth of gods in my country. It only lacked men.

  47 War without ethics

  Bhadra

  I shouted with all my might for the Asura princess. I was happy that at least one ruler had been honest enough to admit the truth. The crowd’s mood changed after that. Who knows? I might have saved the day for Ravana. I followed the crowd back but was too tired to walk back to my hut. So I slept in front of a silk shop, on the footpath. Many more slept on the footpaths. Policing had become lax once the war fever had caught on.

  Suddenly, in the dead of night, flame-tipped arrows were shot towards the marketplace. The war had started with a bang. The marketplace was on fire. Varuna’s flamethrowers had shot the fiery arrows from the ships anchored a few hundred feet from shore. Arrows hissed and thrummed in the air; they hit things; pierced men; landed on hay roofs and gutted them. The inky black sky was lit with thousands of tongues of red flame that seemed to dance in macabre delight as death rained on Lanka like the monsoon rain. Had I not been running for dear life, I would have stopped to enjoy the spectacle that Varuna was providing for his erstwhile friends.

  People ran out. Screams rang through the sky. Flesh burned. Houses were gutted and thick, black smoke, swirled upwards. It was like being in hell. For the first time I faced war as a common man and not a warrior. I found that I needed more courage to survive like this than on the battlefield. There at least we knew who the enemy was. Here, death came in various forms: as falling beams, as marauding troops, as thick black smoke that choked you, as leaping flames, as arrowheads. Here we wait for death to find us.

  The Devas had no sense of fair play. They were firing at the civilians first. Their intention was to cause panic, weaken and demoralize us. With daylight, they would cross the bridge and launch the attack with their infantry and cavalry. ‘What was our King doing?’ For all his big words, he could have hidden himself in the Subela hill fort. You could not trust these kings. Where had Athikaya gone? A dull panic throbbed in my stomach. I ran against the fleeing crowds, stumbling, getting up, stamping and trampling on a tide of frightened men and women running like mice. ‘Where was Athikaya?’ I was on the verge of tears. I pressed myself against a lamp post and stood there pa palatnting. The sky was dark with black fumes. The smell of burning flesh made me retc
h. ‘Where has the Asura army gone? Why were they not doing anything to protect us from the monkey-men?’ A sense of helplessness and utter disgust for our rulers prevailed among the panicky crowd. I could sense their fear.

  As if to answer my questions, a cavalry unit suddenly appeared through the thick smoke. Some of the fleeing people paused to look back, but the cavalry pressed on through the crowd, trampling some, physically throwing out many, and hacking a way through the crowd with swords and whip lashes. ‘Oh God! Rama’s cavalry,’ I thought, but then caught a glimpse of Vajradhamstra in the lead. It was the Asura cavalry going to meet the monkey-men.

  People lay dead or injured on the road. I walked towards the palace, equally afraid of both Rama’s and Ravana’s arrows. Charred carcasses of men and animals lay scattered around. After a few hundred yards, the sky cleared a little and I paused to breathe in some fresh air. The palace stood in deathly silence. Varuna’s flaming arrows did not have the reach to touch the palace, so for now, the King was safe, unlike his poor subjects. I looked towards the sea. Varuna’s ships were rolling gently on the waves. I could see thousands of armed men shooting flame-tipped arrows towards the main market and residential areas. I clambered up a small hillock, a few yards from the main street, which jutted towards the sea and got a better view from there.

  Rama’s bridge was almost complete. Men, elephants and horses, had unloaded from the ships and a long, serpentine, infantry column snaked its way towards Lanka. I could see the fluttering Deva flags with the emblem of Vishnu’s conch, and feel the rising enthusiasm of the barbarian army as they saw the rich Asura capital for the first time.

  I saw Vajradhamstra’s cavalry clash with the rushing monkey-men, on the beautiful white sands of our beaches. Till a few days ago, lovers had strolled those white sands, hand in hand and mothers had watched with delight the tiny steps their toddlers made. On the same sands, where life had been so beautiful, now death danced in the steps of Kali. A huge boulder that the Asura army catapulted from a nearby hill, found its mark. Another found its mark, then another, until a ship swayed, and went down. A huge cheer rose from the Asura ranks.

  The fort gate opened and the rest of the Asura cavalry and infantry, thousands and thousands of armed men, with the battle cry Har Har Mahadev! on their lips, charged forth. I looked around. It was a glorious day. The sea lay like a sheet of glass, reflecting the deep, blue sky. Dragonflies buzzed and flowers bloomed all around me. If I could somehow shut out the smell of blood and death, I would have smelt the freshness of the earth and the dew. Then, in a surprising moment of clarity, I saw it all. The world was indifferent to the trivial pursuits of men. It was indifferent to whether Rama or Ravana won. It was as indifferent to the plight of the Asuras as it was to the plight of a deer in the death grip of a panther. The earth was wet with the blood of men, of beasts, of anything that breathed. Every moment, someone, something, was being killed somewhere – perhaps by the enemy on a battlefield or a killer who had broken into a house in search of victims or a hungry tiger; by an accident on the road; or as a sacrifice to quench the bloodlust of the Gods. Violence alone ruled the world. Everything else was a brief interlude, a pause before violence struck with more viciousness. Strangely, it did not matter. All that talk about honour and pride, of race and skin colour, of morals and traditions, of triumphs and failuriolence stes, it was irrelevant in the greater order of things.

  Yet something throbbed in me. Fear? Hope? Thirst for revenge? Weariness and the meaninglessness of these thoughts throbbed in my head. And somewhere, in this muddle of uncontrolled emotions, I desperately grasped for the meaning of this maddening phenomenon called life. Later, much later, I realized that the only meaning of life was that it did not have any meaning. By then, however, it was too late. Wearily I walked towards the palace. I heard the screams and shouts from the beach where a pitched battle was going on. Dust swirled in the sky. I stood on tiptoe to look for Athikaya. ‘Where was my son? I want to find him before he gets himself killed.’ I wanted to go home to my wife Mala, and somehow convince Athikaya, if I could find him, to leave this madness and escape from this mad world inhabited by Ramas and Ravanas. ‘Where was he? Or was he already lying dead on the beach?’ With leaden feet, I dragged myself towards the palace.

  The palace lay hidden behind the rising cloud of dust. The gates were closed and the guards tense and alert. I stopped, gasping for breath and cursed my foolish son and the stupid men who had started this war. I prayed it to be over. One way or the another. I would have liked the intruder, Rama

  , to be captured and hanged – not that I loved Ravana. But at least, his rule was tolerable. But was he a match for the sly Deva prince? The sun baked my back. With my knotty fingers over my eyes, to shield them from the blazing sun, I scanned the palace balconies to catch a glimpse of Athikaya. The palace seemed deserted. Then slowly, as my eyes adjusted from the blazing sunlight to the relatively dark palace, I saw the tall and fair Asura Emperor, standing alone on a balcony. He stood staring impassively towards the beach. Here was a man who was watching the glorious life he had built for himself and his people, collapsing around him. Yet, his face remained noble and impassive, his posture erect and proud. With his silvery mane flying in the breeze, he looked divine. In spite of myself, I bowed. He turned towards me and our eyes locked. He nodded and my heart leapt with joy. He had remembered this poor servant, the poor wretch, Bhadra, who had been at his side when he was the hurricane that blasted Deva bastions, long ago, in our youth.

  I saw a guard coming towards me. The Emperor had vanished from his balcony. The guard ordered me to enter the palace. As I stepped in through the golden gates of Ravana’s palace, and stood drinking in the beauty of the place, I was rudely pushed aside. Before I could protest, a chariot rushed past me at great speed. My curses died when I saw a limp figure with its head smashed beyond recognition. As the chariot turned, I saw the face. It was Vajradhamstra. “The monkey-men hit him from behind!” I heard one of the soldiers explaining in great animation to his fascinated listeners. This was a sick war, with no morals. I wanted to get out of this place and ran into the palace in search of Athikaya.

  48 Sons are sons

  Ravana

  The day ended triumphantly. Rudraka, who had been given command of the army after Vajra’s death, and Sumali and Prahastha’s brilliant moves in the canoes which cut off Rama’s army, saved the day. Rama’s monkey-men were butchered like pigs. Prahastha also managed to recapture three ships of Varuna’s fleet. This could tilt the balance greatly in our favour in the days to come.

  Many people paid homage to Vajra’s lifeless body, which had been kept at the palace gates. People who had bee fan terrified of him in life, now flocked to see the dead Asura commander. I had hated his high-handedness, his guts, and his devil-may-care attitude. The way in which he had quelled the Brahmin rebellion had been ignoble. The tyranny he had unleashed during those unstable times had marred the Asura claim of dharma and compassion, forever. But, I had built my empire on the shoulders of men such as Vajradhamstra. Without men like him, who did not bat an eyelid to take the life of another; who revelled in cruelty; the empire would have remained a twinkle in the eye of a poor half-caste, half- starved Asura boy.

  As I moved out with my ministers and relatives in my wake, the crowd that had thronged to see the dead commander, parted. I stood before the lifeless body of my chief soldier with my head bowed. The muffled cries of his wife and daughter could be heard in the uneasy silence. I could not control the shaking of my hands as I touched the cold feet of the corpse. I prayed to the all-forgiving Shiva. I prayed for the soul of the man who had committed the greatest crimes possible so that his people would regain their lost honour.

  A procession of dead bodies came through the streets. Lesser men who had been slain along with their commander were brought in. As the fiery, red sun immersed itself in the sea, thick black smoke rose from the funeral pyres of my men, who had laid down their lives defending the Asura homeland from
Rama’s army. Across the sea, on the other end of the half-broken ford, I could see the twinkling fires of the enemy’s funeral pyres. But the collective sadness of the kin of the slaughtered could scarcely subdue the general gaiety that filled our camp. We had withstood the superior Devas and given them a thrashing they would not forget. I hoped the barbarians would go away, leaving my daughter with me. I was too old to sacrifice good men in a meaningless war. The hatred I had felt for the Devas had long since lost its edge. I had matured beyond the adolescent pursuits of honour, revenge, war, campaigns and racial superiority. The world was large enough for both the Devas and the Asuras. It was broad enough to accommodate Rama and Ravana. Just let him leave my daughter alone. He had never treated her well and never would. It was in his veins. He was trained to treat women like worms. They made a strange pair, this Rama and Lakshmana – while one was willing to fight and kill thousands of men and women for the sake of a wife he had never wanted, the other left his wife to languish in his palace for fourteen, long years.

  As the funeral pyres slowly died out and the crowd of commoners thinned, I walked towards my chambers. The moon was three-fourths full and cast a magical, silvery light over Lanka. The sea was calm and a gentle breeze ruffled the coconut palms. The thin, silvery blades of the palm leaves caught the moonlight on their edges and made lovely patterns on the sand. It was a beautiful night, except for the recently widowed women and orphaned children. I did not wish to dwell on the horrors of the war. Ragas were forming in my head. As I entered my chambers, my eye caught the moon reflecting on the strings of my Rudra Veena. It was a long time since I had played the instrument. I had got this particular instrument from the foothills of the Himalayas. That was a trip when all of us had been buried under an avalanche. The majesty of the great mountains, the abode of my beloved God Shiva, had overawed me. The near death experience and subsequent recuperation in a peasant’s hut, taught me humility. It also taught me about the insignificance of human life. I learnt about the beauty of life and discovered the musician in me in that remote Himalayan, pastoral village. The twang of the Rudra Veena had initially irritated my ears. But slowly, it captured my imagination. By the time I boarded my Vimana to head back to my southern abode, I had become a virtuoso. Then music became my passion and I experimented with the Asura Chenda, Mrudangam, Milavu, Timila and Maddallam, with the haunting Gandharva tunes of the flute. Artists from all over the country and beyond came to me as I became known as a connoisseur of fine music. I spent many magical nights in the gardens of Lanka, where I forgot all the tensions and stress of running an empire and floated in the rhythms and tunes of my musicians, in the Ragas that flowed from my nimble fingers as they caressed the strings of the Rudra Veena.