I am the greatest fool in the world. I had pampered these people by building great roads so that their gold-plated chariots could rush past the ruins of the demolished hutments where the poor had eked out a living. I had driven away the peasant from their fertile lands so that these gossiping fools could build their bungalows and pleasure gardens. I set my police onto the pavement dwellers because they were such an eyesore for the middle class. I chased away the poor who had flocked to my cities for their livelihood and had cornered patches of land that were smaller than the space occupied by a rich man’s chariot, for their entire families. I had diverted water from the fields to my cities, so that these gluttons would have their fountains. I had damned rivers that had irrigated the countryside and diverted the water to the cities so that these people could have their beauty baths. The poor had to go thirsty, die or else flock to the city to be the servants, gardeners, cooks and hewers, to the privileged.
My elephants had pulled down little huts to build huge shopping spaces, where silk, ornaments of gold and precious stones, were sold to this crass class. My coffers were full as I collected taxes on all this trade. And because I taxed them, they demanded that I build more roads. They complained that the ports did not have enough berths for their luxury boats; they were frustrated that they did not have enough entertainment options. They shouted that nothing worked in this country; complained that the entire establishment was corrupt and urged me to do something for them to justify my rule. So I demolished more huts, built more dams, displaced more poor farmers, and clogged my cities in the process. I built bigger temples whethire god-men fleeced the public, and wider streets; I planted flowers so that the people who did not have a meal could enjoy the beauty of the flowers; I allowed temples of debauchery where wine and women were tacky and spicy, and I became the darling of the middle class. I became intoxicated with their praise. They praised me for development and I, stupid fool that I was, thought I was taking my country forward. I saw the glitter of my cities and closed my eyes to the darkness of the shadows where misery clung, smelly and putrid. I believed the glitter was all that mattered.
Then Rama stood at our gates and everything changed. When the enemy came calling, the middle class vanished without a trace. They buried themselves in their drawing rooms and hid their able bodied sons from the State. The country had paid to have their children educated, in the hope that when the country needed them, they would render their bodies and minds to her cause. But alas, none came to her aid. It was the peasants and pavement dwellers who sacrificed their sons at the altar of patriotism. The foreign-educated, Sanskrit-speaking, betel-chewing wealthy, gave me advise from their hiding holes, but nothing else. The poor repaid the crumbs I had thrown their way with their life-blood. When my capital city burnt, the peasants flocked from the surrounding countryside to rebuild it. Some of them were looters who took whatever they could lay their hands on, but for once I ordered my police to look the other way.
If I got a second chance, I would teach the rich a lesson. I would make military service compulsory, irrespective of whether the person was the son of a rich merchant, ugly priest, or poor beggar. I would make it mandatory for everyone who passed out of the technical and medical schools, to serve for at least five years in the countryside. I would. . .what did it matter?
That I was thinking these thoughts showed I was never to be given a second chance. They were utopian dreams – vestiges of my own lower middle class wishes, long-forgotten titbits of the shattered fantasies of my youth. Power would corrupt me again as it had done before. Ideals would die and be buried like they always had been. True wisdom lay in understanding that idealism was just a tool of power. I could die tomorrow or Rama could, but the world would go on. The wretched would remain wretched, the poor would remain poor. New revolutions could happen; new ideologies flourish; new codes of ethics and morality replace the old; new prophets be born; new kings rule the earth; new religions sprout and fight each other and new discoveries be made, but everything would remain the same. What was the point of feeling guilty? I did what I could. I c
ould have done better, but then, who could not have?
The winner of the battle would take everything – fame, money, power. He would be the truth, for whosoever wins, would be called the truth. Bards would sing paeans about the victor. As time passed, legends would grow. The victor would become the paragon of virtue, the best among men. Like every man, he too would commit good or bad deeds in life. But as is the nature of the world, the good deeds of the victor would be exaggerated and the bad deeds obliterated from memory. And if the doings of the victor could not be justified by the prevailing moral codes of society, he would be elevated to godhood, for who could question a God? In this way, my country produced many Gods. Every person who had won by whatever means, had become a God or avatar. For the vanquished, it would always be the other way round.
Yet, strangely enough, I felt that none of this concerned me. I could feel my own insignificance within the higher order of things and that made me curiously self-centered. If I did not matter in the larger order of life and was just an insignificant dot, then the only thing thae witht mattered to me was me. With my death, everything would end for me. What happened to my people after my death was not my problem. I knew that death would be the final halting point and there was nothing beyond. No atma, no heaven, no moksha, no hell, no God, no afterlife awaited me. I would vanish, earth to earth, water to water, air to air, fire to fire, and everything would stop. Yet, given a choice, I would have loved to come back again. Who would not?
I walked towards my garden where my obstinate daughter Sita was still sulking. I wanted to see my daughter. Then if time permitted, perhaps I could spend a few minutes with Mandodari. Then I would meet Rama in the battlefield, face to face.
59 I wish you death
Bhadra
Last night, by the time I had reached the palace gates, the food distribution was over. Everyone knew that less than half the designated quantity reached the poor. From the purchase of food grains from the farmers to final distribution, there was a chain of swindling and racketeering. The farmer in turn cheated the public purchase official in both quantity and quality. He bribed the petty clerks who wrote the accounts to show larger quantities than the State actually received. Then the official stole some of the grain and sold it in the black market. By the time the grain reached the palace warehouses, there were such glaring gaps between book stock and physical stock, that the supervisors were forced to buy grain from the black market at double the price. The supervisors then fudged the accounts to show some loss due to pestilence and used the state treasury to buy back grain from the black market. Since the supervisors could not be expected to pay for the shortfall, they fudged the number of the poor, bloated the numbers of benefactors and swindled more grain in the process. Bribes flowed thick and fast in all stages. Everyone who touched the grain made a profit.
Idealistic ministers like Prahastha had been fooled by these crooks. He had been happy about the welfare schemes he had initiated. Some others like Jambumali, used the system to their advantage, to grow immensely rich. And wheeler dealers like the Varunas, transported huge stashes of illegal gold and cash from the officials of the empire to northern countries. It was a vicious but meaningless cycle, where the only losers were those who were honest and straight forward. Everybody cheated to their own capacity. And everyone was aware what was happening. But, since everyone from the poor farmer who cheated the government by under-reporting his yield; his farm worker, who cheated the farmer himself whenever possible; to the clerks, merchants, government officers, and ministers were all crooks of varying capacity, there was no anger among the people. They joked about the corruption in the system and raved against the politicians. Baiting politicians became a major amusement for the Asuras.
So, though I was disappointed at not getting anything to eat, I was not really surprised. In fact, I was relieved that the distributing clerk had not been overtly rude to me.
He just told me to get lost and closed the shutters. It hurt my pride every time I had to beg for their munificence, but I had learnt long ago that I could not eat my pride. I decided to wait under my favourite Banyan tree. Maybe tomorrow I could be first in the queue and get some food.
The war not far from ending but one way or the other, it had to end. I had lost many my acquaintances and friends in the war. I had cheered for our side. The loss of life was sad but necessary. Were we not fighting forway or a cause? When others’ sons were dying, I was there in the crowd to cheer the martyrs. When death visited my neighbours’ homes, I was secretly happy that my family was intact and my son hale and healthy. The fear remained that I too would lose my precious son one day. Yet, I foolishly hoped that God would spare me the horrible death of my child. Had I not suffered enough? Had I not shared whatever little I earned with the Gods and their men? I had helped to fill the coffers of the temples with my humble offerings. In short, I had bribed the gods. But they were our Gods and they were like us. They would accept our bribes and offerings but there was no guarantee they would do us any good. Life was a series of bribes – bribes paid to the Gods; to Godmen; to petty officials; to government servants; to the King; to family; to friends. From birth to death, our culture had trained us to bribe and to take bribes and endorse bribes.
Athikaya’s face haunted me. However hard I tried, I could not remember him as a baby. But I remembered little incidents that had made life liveable. I remembered how we sang songs as old as the human race; how I carried him deep into the dark forests; how I told him stories in which Gods, animals and white demons flitted in and out. How he would cling to my tattered mundu, scared of the demons; how he would laugh at the pranks of the animals that talked with Gods and men. I recalled the joy and feeling of contentment that had not depended on a fat purse and a mansion, but on little things that wove their magic. Yet I could not recall his little face. The face I saw was the one I had seen on his funeral pyre, mauled by the claws of fate, smashed on the hard rock of racial hatred and crushed under the weight of prejudice. I wanted a drink. The pain was too great to bear.
I lay there under the tree with raindrops still dripping down even though it had stopped raining. Mosquitoes buzzed around and tried to squeeze out whatever blood was left in my veins. I did not even bother to swat them. There were a few lights in the street and the palace itself looked gloomy and ill lit. Somewhere an owl hooted and then after a few moments, another answered. The frogs had woken after the rain and were croaking to their hearts’ content. Crickets buzzed in the bushes, adding their own bizarre notes to the strange symphony that was being played around me. I lay there imagining that sky was my blanket and the wet earth my bed. There were a million stars. Were they the gods? They seemed so far away, cold, indifferent and irrelevant – silent witnesses to the drama unfolding on a tiny rock called earth.
There was the frantic cry of a frog in its death throes. Moments before, it had been crying for its mate, hot with sex, trying to fulfill its only dharma in life – propagation. And then fate interfered as a slithering snake, dark and silent, struck with its poison. But the strange drama of birth, propagation and death, repeated itself a million times all over the earth. In what way was the death of my son or a king any more significant than the death of that unknown frog? The earth had its claim on every living body. Our life was loaned from the earth. A borrowed life. And at any time, earth could call back its loan.
The grief for my lost son kept coming back into my mind, crushing my speculations on the philosophy of life. I clawed the wet, red earth with my crooked nails. I must have moaned loudly because someone came near me. My rheumatic eyes could barely discern the dark figure. I was terrified. ‘Was it Yama, the God of death?’ It was inauspicious to even think about death. It might just come your way. I had been speculating about the irrelevance of death, seeing no difference between the life of my son and a frog, just a few seconds ago. So when the dark figure loomed over me, I was terrified to my bones. The figure stooped and put its dark, crooked fingers under my nostrils. I held my breath. A wet palm felt the skin of my brow. Then the figure stood up and called out. Two soldiers ran towards us. ‘Was I getting arrested?’ My feverish brain frantically searched for the crime I might have committed.
“He is dying. He is running a very high fever.” A craggy face, with a long flowing white beard, loomed near my face. I was relieved. It was that mad scientist, Mayan. The guy was eccentric but totally harmless. “Carry him inside the fort.” I heard him say.
“But sir, he is a drunkard. Should we. . .” There was annoyance and a jeer in the soldier’s voice.
“He is dying and needs medical help. Take him inside. The poor man could be starving. This bloody war. . .why do people kill each other? Saturn is on the ascendant. Mars is very powerful now. If I could develop a machine eye that would enable me to see the planets more clearly. . . Is there any relationship between the millions of planets and human fate? There are lakhs of planets and stars. . .we are just specks sitting in this vast ocean of planets. . .”
I could hear his voice getting fainter as the mad scientist walked away into his own world. I could not make head or tail of what he had been blabbering about. The soldiers stood there hesitating. They clearly did not want to touch me. I reeked like a pig. But they could not afford to defy the orders of a senior minister. Probably Mayan had forgotten all about me by then, but it was a risk for the poor soldiers to take. I could see them faintly as I swam in and out of consciousness. I found myself half-dragged and half-lifted by the soldiers towards the fort. They dumped me near the gate and there was an angry consultation with the watch captain, who did not want anything to do with me and denied us entry. So I was dumped in a corner near the moat and lay there without the strength to even lift my head. It was much later, after mosquitoes had grown fat with my blood and worms and insects had burrowed their way into my skin, that Mayan returned from his wanderings.
“Ah good, good! You have brought him eh? Take him to the verandah of my quarters. I will try to save him.” Maya ordered the hapless captain and went away.
The captain cursed me, his job, the minister, and life, for ten full minutes after the scientist had left. Then he gave orders that I be taken to Mayan’s verandah. I was so weak that they had to carry me the whole way. Like a sack of coconuts, they dumped me on the cool, polished and clean verandah. After a while the scientist came out with an assistant and some evil smelling liquid. The assistant closed my nostrils with his fingers and when I gasped for breath, the bitter liquid was emptied into my open mouth. Mayan shut my mouth before I could gag and the fiery liquid burned a fiery path into my stomach. I writhed with pain and convulsed, terrified that I was dying. The two men held my twisting body till I lost all my strength and slipped into unconsciousness.
When I opened my eyes I had a splitting headache and felt drowsy and tired but much better than the previous day. Maybe the old man Mayan, knew a thing or two about medicine. I stood up slowly and found that some food and a tumbler of buttermilk had been placed nearby. I grabbed the food and gobbled it up as fast as I could. Strength returned to my limbs. I wanted to thank the old man and go home as early as possible but he was nowhere to be seen. I did not have the courage knock on the imposing, tall door. These were important men and I was too insignificant to go knocking at the doors of the mighty and powerful. Forget the old man, I just wanted to get out of the place.
As I was about to leave, I saw the King, Ravana, walking towards the Ashoka tree where Sita had camping adamantly. Strange, he was alone and walking fast. I wondered what the King was up to and followed him, careful to move stealthily. By the time I had hidden behind a bush of Jasmine, the King stood mutely before his daughter. I shivered at the thought of the terrifying past that connected me with Ravana, Sita and Vedavathi. Here, in front of me, was that little bundle I had been entrusted to kill years ago. The memories were vivid. Father and daughter glared at each other with unmitigated animosity and
hatred. She had ruined his dream. And he had dragged the future of an entire empire into the mud because of her. I should have killed her when she lay throbbing in my dark hands three decades ago. It would have been so easy to close her nostrils and choke her to death. Instead, I felt pity for the little one. Fool that I was. I should have stayed away from their business or gone the full measure and committed murder like Rudraka or Dhumraksha.
“I love my husband and whatever you say will not sway me from my love for him.” She glowered with indignation.
“To hell with your Rama. I do not want to kill the fool. I do not want his blood on my hands. Already people are accusing me of murdering Soorpanakha’s husband. I do not want any more blood on my hands. But your husband is stupid and evil. Why do you want to lead a slave’s life with him? Deva men treat their women like beasts of burden.”
“What do you know about Deva culture? Women are worshipped as Goddesses. Our world is a far cry from yours. Here women have no morals. They move around unveiled. Men and women mix freely and there is no sanctity to marriage in your kingdom. Your women are loud. They drink and dance with men. Your world is uncouth, with women marrying men of their choice, instead of being obedient daughters to their fathers. Your women are pretentious and think they are the most intelligent creatures in the world. You are just creatures of pleasure. Your men are like women. A monkey-man burnt down this hateful city of sin. And what did your mighty army do? Look at the kind of women you people have produced. Look at your sister, how promiscuous she is. Look at this dirty, dark, fat and ugly Trijata, your niece. . .and you want me to live here, leaving my Rama. . .”
Asura- Tale of the Vanquished Page 45