“Please let me in. . .”
“You fool, the bier carrying the Prince’s body is on the way from Subela.” One of the ruffian-guards shoved me to one side. Helplessly, I stood panting. No one listened to me. My son had died and there was not even an iota of pity or sympathy from anyone. I was getting angrier by the minute and abused Ravana and everyone else I could think of. For some minutes people ignored me, but after a while, a guard walked towards me and slapped me hard across my face. My head spun and I fell into the drain. I lay there moaning, without the energy or will to get up. When I heard the distant rumbling of chariot wheels, I crawled up from the gutter. People moved away as I tried to push my way through to the front.
The chariots drew near and a huge crowd jostled, pushed and shouted slogans, thoroughly enjoying their sadness. Wails rose from the crowd as the biers carrying the dead bodies of the slain men slowly crawled towards the palace. People competed with each other to wail the loudest. Flowers were thrown onto the bodies. Everyone cried for Prince Meghanada. ‘My son was dead and these people were making this into a spectacle.’
At the head of the procession, Ravana sat, his head bowed. On his lap, lay Meghanada. Silent tears and sweat dripped from the King’s face onto the face of his beloved son. The Prince’s face was bloody and grotesque. Death had taken all his youth and beauty. As they neared me, my heart pounded in my chest. ‘Where was my son, my Athikaya?’ The crowd grew frantic as the procession neared. I pushed forward but the crowd pushed me back again. I saw there were many bullock carts following the royal chariot and many more dead bodies of lesser men had been heaped on them. Maybe Athikaya was lying in one of those.
Many people ran behind the carts, some with heart rendering wails, and I joined them. I was panting hard by the time I reached the last cart. Limp bodies of slain men were thrown like vegetable sacks into the carts. Blood dripped and made a trail in the street. Crows landed surreptitiously on the carts to get a peck of human flesh. Death was cheap. But my son was dead. ‘Where was his body? Had they forgotten to bring him?’ I desperately tried to get a glimpse of the faces, but all the dead men looked alike. My eyes blurred. ‘Why did the boy not listen to me?’ He was in bad company. I should have left Lanka long ago. I sholuruld have left for my little village on the banks of the Poorna. Why did I stay? What did I have to do with the Ravanas and Ramas of this world? They and their wars. Ravana had raped my wife and given me a son. Then he took him away when I had learnt to love him.
I cried out loud in impotent rage, at the loss of my son and everything I valued in my life. They were going too fast now. How could my old legs keep pace? They were taking my son away from me. By the time I reached the palace gate, they had started arranging the corpses in a straight line on the ground. Guards with huge sticks cordoned off the area from the shoving crowds trying to get a glimpse of the slain heroes. The chariot carrying the dead Prince had gone in, past the gate to the palace gardens. Somehow I pushed my way to the front. The dead were arranged in a line. The wood for cremation was dumped down from a cart and a few got busy arranging the pyre. I pleaded with the guards, saying that my son was there somewhere and I wanted to have a look. Finally a guard took pity on me and led me by the hand to the line of still figures. I scanned each of the faces of the unfortunate men who had been killed in this meaningless war. But he was not there. ‘Where was my Athikaya? Was he still alive?’ A flicker of hope ran through me. ‘Maybe the boy had lost courage and gone into hiding. Maybe he would come back chastened after a few days.’
Then I noticed the huge palace gates closing slowly, pushing away the crowd trying to force its way in. Inside, there were two pyres being prepared. On one lay the body of Prince Meghanada. On the other was the unmistakable bulk of my son. I ran towards the closing gates. I kicked, screamed and fought my way through the crowd and somehow managed to reach the gate. The guards were covered with sweat and looked irritated and exhausted after dealing with the unruly crowd. I tried sneaking in through the small gap but was pushed back rudely. I punched the face of the guard who had blocked my path, surprised at my own strength. The mighty guard lay flat in the mud, knocked out by an old man. Before the other guards could gather their wits, I ran past them. Other men behind me, who saw their chance, also tried to push their luck. This ensured that the other guards were kept engaged in fighting off the crowd. This helped me reach the funeral pyre.
I saw my son lying there peacefully on the sandal wood pyre the King had arranged for him. He had hundreds of wounds and his face had lost all that rustic charm. He looked like an ugly monster in death. Yet he was my son, my only purpose in life. No King was going to claim him. In life they had taken him away from me. In death, they were taking him beyond my reach. He had a mother waiting for him in our small hut. No Ravana could stop me taking my son to his mother.
The King stood, his face a mask of grief and misery. The Queen was lying on the ground, her hair undone, quivering with silent sobs. The palace sycophants wailed out loud, competing with each other to show off their grief, making a thorough nuisance of themselves. A few men arranged the sandalwood logs that would consume the Prince and my son. He had never had a place in this palace in the first place. When he had been alive, he had not listened to me. He was just a dog in the palace. In death at least, he could reclaim his manhood. I went to the King and stood there defiantly. I did not even bow to him. ‘Let him chop off my head.’
“I want my son.” I told him, but he gazed through me. He did not even seem to hear.
“I want my son back!” I shouted and got the attention of everyone. The King did not seem to register my presence. ‘Do I have to grab him by his hair and scream in his ears?’ I was in the mood to do so. Slowly the king looked at my face.
I sobbed uncontrollably. He put his hand on my shoulder but I shrugged it off and screamed. “Give back my son!”
The Queen, shaken from her world of grief, came to us. “Ravana,” she said slowly, as if the very act of speaking caused her pain, ”Give him his son. Let him take him.”
The kings face contorted in rage. “He is my son.” he whispered to the queen.
“Not at all. You should have claimed him when he was alive. Your son is Meghanada and no one else. Had you admitted your mistake and taken him into the palace in his infancy, I would have brought him up like Meghanada. But you forsook him. Now we do not have any claim. In fact, we never had.”
Ravana looked at me and at his wife, with anger blazing in his eyes. But the Queen met his eyes unflinchingly. I did not have the courage to face him so I hid myself in piteous sobs and turned away from him.
“Take him. Take him. Had he not been my Meghanada’s friend, not even a dog would have cared about his death.” the mighty King hissed into my ear.
‘Yes I know, my King, not even a dog cares for the death of young men like my son, who died for you. The round medals you give away, the petty jobs you offer to the kin of those who die for you, the paltry compensations which you throw from your brimming coffers, are nothing but bones, to entice more dogs to die for you. Let me take my little dog from you. He has served his purpose. You showed young men how glorious it was to die for such abstract causes such as the motherland and racial pride. You honoured him, and fooled the public, in arranging such a big procession for the dead. Everyone is happy that our country has not forgotten the young who laid down their lives for their motherland. Everyone who has been martyr will be remembered – until the next meal. Great show, my King. Now, more young men will come to die, enticed by your petty bones, two minutes of glory, and a stone memorial by the street corner which real dogs will piss on. My son has served your purpose, now let me take him to his mother.’
I did not say any of this. If I had had the courage, then many like me would have had the courage to echo it, and there would not have been any Ravanas or Ramas left. I went to the limp body of my dear son and hugged him. I tried lifting him up, but he had outgrown me long ago. Two soldiers helped me lift my son.
His body had gone rigid and he weighed much more than the shoulders of his poor father could carry. A hand cart was dragged to my side and I delicately put my son on it. With the nerves in my arms straining, I pulled the heavy burden towards my little hut. His mother was waiting to see him.
By the time, I crossed the palace gates, I heard the loud wail of the women as the funeral pyre of Meghanada was lit by his grieving father. As I turned from the royal highway onto the dirty back streets leading to my home, the Prince of the Asuras had vanished into thick, curly smoke. His friend, companion, servant and half-brother was forgotten the moment this poor Asura laid claim on him. I walked alone, dragging the cart with my dead son. The sun pounded relentlessly with a thousand fists and I sweated from every pore. I did not see any of my neighbours or friends. They had all gone to see the spectacle of a Prince being cremated.
As I neared home, I could see the hunched form of my once beautiful wife at the gate. She had waited eagerly for her son to return and came rushing towards us, but stopped at the cart. In a flash her joy was replaced by shock, then deniall w, then acceptance of the cruel blow of fate. She fell on Athikaya’s body and pounded and shook him. She tore at her hair in grief.
I left the wailing mother and the dead son to their world. I had practical things to attend to. I wanted to give my son a decent funeral. The sun was setting and I did not want any rituals. I just wanted it to be over before the sun set. I was sick of being in misery. My son was dead and it would remain a stone in my heart till I died. I desperately searched for some firewood to burn him. Nothing was available. It had been a long time since we had cooked. We survived on the odd rats I trapped or some unlucky squirrels or rabbits that had strayed onto my path. Far away I could hear the cry of the crowd. I could hear some enthusiast crying himself hoarse about the valour of Meghanada and the crowd taking it up and roaring in reply. Anger rose in me in waves as the slogan shouting rose in crescendo. I was sick of everything. I was sick of my race, of being dirt poor, of not even having firewood to cremate my son who had so foolishly died for his Prince.
When I struck my first blow with the axe on the main pillar that supported my poor palace, I had the face of Ravana in my mind. Then with each blow, I imagined I was chopping off the heads of the great men I had seen or heard about. My wife stopped her wailing and came running to me, screaming that I had gone mad. I kept chopping my palace to pieces. It had become a game now and I was thoroughly enjoying it. I gave a blow each for Vibhishana, Kumbakarna, Prahastha, Rama, Lakshmana, Sita, Mandodari, Jambumali, Vidyutjihva, Kubera, and Varuna. But before I could chop off their heads as I would have liked to, my hut came down with a crash.
I rushed towards the cart that carried my darling son and pushed the cart into the rubble. The cart toppled over an
d Athikaya’s huge body fell on the heap of wood fragments. I ran to my neighbour’s home. He always had a lamp burning in his puja room. I pushed the door open and rushed to the corner where the small lamp was. I took off my mundu and dipped it in the oil. The cloth caught fire quickly and with that burning torch, I ran outside.
My wife was trying to recover her petty possessions from the heap that we had called our home till a few minutes ago. I pushed her aside and threw the blazing cloth into the heap. For a moment I held my breath as the flame died down. Then, with a vengeance, the fire leapt up, licking clean everything I had ever owned. The flames voraciously ate away my son. Athikaya had followed his Prince. He had died an equally heroic death as his half-brother, but the poor boy had been born with the wrong skin colour, and had grown up on the wrong side of the city. So there was no one to call out slogans and no idiots to roar back and shake the sky and the earth with their voices. Yet the fire did not make any distinction. It had an equal appetite for my son and the King’s son. I watched with satisfaction as the fire licked its plate clean. Hot tears burned my sunken cheeks. As the last of the flames died and the ashes crumbled to the red earth of Lanka, the skies broke and rain fell in torrents. By the time the fury of the rain had ebbed, it had washed away the last remnants of my son and my home. My loss had become a dull pain somewhere in my mind. My wife had not moved from where she lay when I torched our son’s pyre. I felt hungry. Maybe they were serving food outside the palace gates, as they usually did for the poor and invalid, at such times. I stood up, shaking away the water that had clung to my body. Maybe if I hurried I could get something to eat and if I was lucky enough, I could carry a packet back for my wife. Maybe, someone would offer me a drink. I started to walk towards the palace.
58 Did I fail as King?
Ravana
The enemy was so near. I could see the end, though I did not want to accept it. Yesterday I lit the funeral pyre of my son. Now, there was nothing, other than to fight Rama to the end – either his or mine. ‘But what was I fighting for? My empire had collapsed, my son had died, my Queen’s honour had been dragged in the mud. What was left now?’ True, I had this beautiful city I had so meticulously planned and built; a fortune which I had plundered from the Devas long ago; and my daughter, who happened to be the wife of my enemy.
But as things were taken away from me, I clung more and more desperately to what was left. Yet, like a tidal wave hammering away at the solid rock on the seashore, I was getting battered. I was withering from within. The will to live was ebbing away. Things that I had cherished and taken for granted had become meaningless now. Rama was just an immature prince of an irrelevant kingdom of the north. The boy was barely a few years older than my Meghanada had been. I was an Emperor, the mightiest that India had ever seen. Ayodhya was just a vassal state, a backwater village kingdom. Yet, how did my empire crumble like this? Was it the death of Bali that turned the tide? Or was it Vibhishana’s betrayal? When did I lose my perspective? Asura empires had all gone down to the Devas, despite our economic, cultural, and technical superiority, because of the consistent in-fighting amongst ourselves. I knew our history and I knew my people. I had ruled my empire with an iron fist and ensured that I had only trustworthy people in powerful positions. I had kept an eye on people I suspected would turn against me – men and women who I thought were unscrupulous and were after my throne. What a fool I was.
I watched men like Prahastha; I ensured that Kumbakarna was always mired in his world of alcohol and bhang; I made sure that inherently cruel men like Rudraka did not accumulate too much power. I foolishly believed that I could buy a pirate like Varuna with impressive titles like ‘Commander of the Seven Seas’ and ‘Grand Admiral of the Asura Navies’. I had killed my brother-in-law, Vidyutjihva. But I had been betrayed by men and women like Vibhishana, who looked pious; like Jambumali, who looked like a bureaucrat mired in his own world of accounts; women like Lankini, who never tired of publicly proclaiming her love and affection for King and country. I had powerful friends, but when the need arose, I was all alone. I thought my empire was built on steel, but when the shove came, I found out it had been built on nothing but straw. Whoever I had trusted betrayed me. I was so proud of my intelligence, so how I did I commit such fundamental mistakes in judging people?
I want to begin again, but life is too short for second chances. I had been given one chance and I had grabbed it with both hands. I had built up something great, but now, times had changed and everything was crumbling around me. I had no regrets. I had lived a full life. Enough of this self-pity. The time had come to do my best. I knew I might fail, but I owed my people one last, grand failure. They were the only ones who had not betrayed me. What did I do for them, for the love they have given? I was proud that I had built a great empire for my Asuras, I thought I had given them dignity and freedom, but perhaps I erred. I was a tyrant, maybe a benevolent one, but I was no Mahabali. I had not kept my ears and eyes open. And I had become blind to the sufferings of the people. When I strove for bigger things – for bigger cities, magnificent temples, wider roads, better ported s, larger ships, increased trade, improved business, making a name among the nations of the world, making m
y country the richest in the world – I forgot something simple and basic. I forgot my people. I thought glittering cities marked progress. I forgot about the people who lived in gutters. When I gave lavish banquets, I forgot that most of my people had nothing to eat.
Prahastha had pointed this out to me but it was such a boring subject. I thought the wealth would trickle down. I imagined the freedom I gave my people to protest on the streets and the liberty to express their thoughts, would suffice and they would be content. I was proud that I was not like the other rulers who were mere tyrants and brutes who controlled their people through sheer force and terrorized them with military rule and brazen genocides. I was proud that the Asuras had evolved a system in which the King was powerful but nominal in the sense that the real power lay with the Panchayats, the elected people in the villages, and I had held this up as a model to the world. Yet, the poor and wretched whom I had ignored, stood by me. They knew they had the most to lose – the freedom that gave them the hope that they could do better in life. The rich and the middle class whom I had pampered, either blatantly crossed over to the other side or sat on the fence, waiting for a clear winner to emerge in the battle. Today would be that decisive day.
Was everything predetermined by some unknown power who was conspiring against me? My tragedy could be that I still don’t know what I did wrong. I made errors of judgment about men, but they were hardly reasons for such a large empire to collapse. It sounds absurd, but I am now mature enough to know that things happen randomly and we poor humans get caught like straws in the wind. The middle class was saying that I was a great sinner, that I had no right to keep another man’s wife in my palace. The rumour was that I had raped many women in the past and I still had many woman in my harem. They called my government corrupt and claimed the officials had amassed riches at the cost of the common people.
Asura- Tale of the Vanquished Page 44