It was a dark time indeed. There seemed no hope of escape other than through death. We were lucky if we got one square meal a week. The only good thing was that I had built a small thatched house with the logs and furniture I had stolen during the disturbed times following Ravana’s death. I had buried the gold ornaments I had taken from Ravana’s corpse, inside my house. I was afraid to take them out. A man of the dhobi caste was not supposed to own valuable things. In the first week of his reign, Vibhishana had seized any personal wealth of the lower castes. But, like me, many had buried their wealth.
When all seemed lost, a flicker of hope came in the form of a rumour. Varuna had been transporting people illegally to the countries of the Far East. No scriptures could touch or Brahmins excommunicate men like Varuna. He made money whether Kubera, Ravana, or Rama ruled. He served only one god – money. I was initially sceptical, but when the pangs of hunger grew and the nagging of my woman became unbearable, I decided to give it a try. No sooner had I vaguely expressed my wish to migrate, than an agent came to arrange it for me.
The agent was a middle-aged man of probably my own age. But since he did not face poverty and hunger like me, I must have looked like an aged uncle to him. To my great irritation and the amusement of my wife, he insisted on calling me ‘Uncle’. He was a government officer, having started his career with Kubera, and was now a senior official in Vibhishana’s administration. He claimed he was a liberal and did not think too highly of the new caste rules. However, for his wife’s sake, he did not wish to enter my house as he was a few notches above me in the caste hierarchy. He also refused any refreshments as his wife would not have approved of his touching anything prepared by a dhobi. I fumed, but my wife appeared relaxed. We didn’t have anything to offer him anyway, so his insistence on caste purity saved us some embarrassment.
We met under an old tamarind tree near the river. He sat on a protruding root of the tree and then the haggling began. Twice he pretended to walk away from the deal and once I did the same. He kept telling me that he was an important government officer and did not care for the small commission the low castes could pay. But it was evident that he was desperate to fix the deal as he stood to gain an agent’s commission from both sides. Varuna did not pay his agents well, so they threatened, cajoled and coaxed the maximum money out of the wannabe emigrants. We nearly came to blows, but my wife took me aside and tried to bring some sense to my agitated mind.
Reluctantly, I returned home and after half an hour of digging and much heart burn, I walked back to meet the greedy public servant, with Ravana’s ornaments trembling in my hands. There was a gleam in the agent’s eyes as the gold glittered in the moonshine. The bureaucrat had been chatting to my wife about the general state of affairs and how difficult it now was for a middle class family to live, with spiralling prices, the rising cost of education and so on. He absentmindedly took the gold in his hands and weighed it. He was all smiles after that. It was all fixed. A canoe would take us to a ship anchored in the high seas, within two days. We just had to get in and would be assured a first class passage to the lands of the Far East. He sang the praises of the eastern lands, where there was plenty of work to be had and gold coins could be casually picked up from the streets that were paved with gold. He left us when the moon had risen directly overhead and the traffic had thinned on the street. Mala and I stood hand in hand under the old tamarind tree by the river like two love struck teenagers, listening to the sweet rippling of the river and smelling the faint fragrance of Jasmine that wafted on the breeze. Perhaps life was offering us another chance. Who knew?
The canoe did not come for two weeks and I was sick with worry. Twice I walked all the way to the office where the fat officer had told us he worked and was unable to meet him both times. Then, when I had almost given up, on a very dark night, there was a discreet tap on the door. I woke and hurriedly pushed aside the terrifying images of one such dark night, decades ago, when Deva marauders had come visiting my humble hut on the banks of the Poorna. I waited for another tap. When it came, I slowly opened the door and saw the ghostly face of the fat officer lit by a flickering lamp. He grinned and gestured to me to come out. I opened the door and he thrust a palm leaf at me. There were two or three dark figures hiding in the shadows.
I went back in and woke my wife. She became excited when she heard that our ticket to paradise had come. Quickly she picked up our meagre belongings, packed in a cloth bundle, and followed me out. We walked to the river where a canoe was waiting. There were three other couples and a holy man, in the canoe. Silently we got into the canoe and waited. After a delay of half an hour, another couple joined us and the fat man waved cheerfully to all of us. The canoe slowly drifted towards the river mouth, carried by the current. Lanka, the land I had adopted and spent the major part of my life in, slowly drifted away from us as I sat choked with conflicting emotions; lonely among so many people, all lost in their own thoughts and dreams.
A dark ship loomed large in the distance. Slowly the canoe approached the ship. A rope ladder dangled on its side. One by one, we were hauled up. We stood on the deck of the large ship, waiting for somebody to take us to our first class cabins. After some time, a clerk came in with a palm leaf. He checked the tickets and ordered the passengers to their respective cabins. I had struck up a conversation with a young couple and learnt that they had been recently married. The girl was coy, with lovely almond eyes, and the boy looked innocent and handsome. They had sold their coconut grove to a Brahmin and had taken passage. The girl’s name was Arasi and the boy, Shiva.
When the clerk approached us, we stopped our chatter and handed him our tickets respectfully. He frowned and asked, “Which caste you are?”
“Why does that matter to you?” Shiva was irritated.
“You people look so dark and uncouth, you might be of the untouchable pariah caste. I cannot take you on board. The other high caste passengers may object.”
“What do you mean you cannot take us on board. We paid the full amount for the passage.” I intervened before Shiva did something rash and foolish.
“I don’t know. There appears to be some mix up. The company will refund your money within six months, once you go to our office in the capital and apply for the refund. I am sorry but I cannot take you. You can get down now as the canoe has not left. Or else you may be forced to swim back.” The clerk turned to go down to his cabin.
“Give me your necklace,” my wife commanded the perplexed Arasi. Reluctantly the girl unclasped the only precious thing she had left and gave it to Mala, who thrust it into my hands and whispered, “Fall at his feet and somehow save the situation. We cannot go back.”
I almost dove to catch hold onto one of the clerk’s feet.
“Hey you!” He kicked me with his free leg. ‘How dare you touch and pollute me? Get out! Get out I say, you old rascal.”
But I did not let go. In my most pitiable voice I cried, “Swami, please do not send us off. We cannot go back. We shall scrub the deck and clean the toilets but please take us with you. Do not forsake us. You are our God. Here is a small offering for you. Have pity on us Swami.” I held the necklace up so he could have a good look at it. When he saw it, he forgot all about impurity and grasped the treasure with alacrity. I stood up, crossed my hands over my chest, tucked my palms under my armpits, and bowed my back in supplication. My companions took their cue from me and stood with all the humility they could muster.
He once again checked his leaf and after pocketing the necklace, told us with the air of granting us a great favour, “Go down to the lower deck. I don’t want to see your dark faces until we reach the city of the Lion. Make yourself useful by scrubbing the kitchen floors, washing the dirty linen, and cleaning the toilets. Hurry!”
With that, he prodded me down the stairway that led to the lower decks, being careful not to come into contact with any of us. The others followed me. It was dark and dirty on the lowermost deck and the odour of stale garlic and rotten onions came
from the kitchen.
We almost broke our backs working on Varuna’s ship, constantly cleaning utensils, scrubbing floors, washing linen, and emptying the toilet cans into the sea. We hardly saw sunlight and the constant rolling and heaving of the massive wooden ship made us sick. Eventually, after a journey of almost a month, we heard the joyous shout of men from the upper deck, celebrating the sighting of land. We crept to the upper deck and the bright sunshine almost blinded us. There was the mouth of a river and verdant forests running on its either side. Mangroves stretched as far as the eye could see and the tall, black spire of a temple came into view as the ship entered the wide river. We had never seen a river as wide and excitement flooded our veins. Soon the ship decked at a port where strange looking men wearing white turbans, ran around loading and unloading the goods from the ships.
The clerk smiled sheepishly at us and vanished down the ladder to mix with the crowds. After some confusion, we decided to leave for land and slowly got down. Already a queue had formed at the ticketing office of Varuna’s shipping service, and I decided to enquire whether this was the city of the Lion in the east. The first few people I asked, stared back at me with blank faces. But I finally found a man as dark skinned as us and picked up enough courage to approach him. He was talking to two tall and fair men and I waited for a chance to speak. Then I asked him in Tamil, whether this was the city of the Lion. He stared at me as if I was mad and then asked, “Have you idiots come in on Varuna’s ship?”
We looked at each other and a chill spread in our hearts. “Why, Swami, why are you asking. . .?”
The black man said something in Sanskrit to his fair companions and they all burst out laughing. Then he turned to me and said, “What caste are you?”
“Dhobi, Swami,” I answered, though I was not sure what caste Arasi and Shiva belonged to.
“No wonder you people are so stupid. This is the city of the Goddess Kali. Varuna has duped you as he has done to many others.”
Arasi let out a loud wail and sat on the ground, beating her head. Mala soon joined her. I seethed with impotent rage. Tears sprang from my eyes and I joined the women. An embarrassed Shiva begged the black man for a solution to our problem. He tried to shove us away, but Shiva was persistent. Finally, the black man bid good-bye to his fair friends. Then he turned towards us and shouted at us to shut up so that he could think. Finally he said, “See friends, this is a small town. You may get a job here, but there is another big city up north-west, called Ayodhya, where King Rama rules. That city is booming now and there are plenty of jobs for coolies like you. The wages are good, I have heard. Try your luck there. There is a rice barge sailing up to Ayodhya through the Sarayu river. The owner is a merchant who migrated from the south. I will put in a word and if you are lucky, you could get some space. For tonight, there is a place near the temple of Kali where they serve the poor free meals. Have food there and come at sunrise to the Rice Ghat. Now, do not cry for what has happened. Perhaps, it is all for your good.” Saying this, he pointed us in the direction of the Kali temple. “And do not take the front road. Outcastes are not allowed through that road, take the small path at the back.” he shouted as he jumped into a small boat and floated down the river.
The night we spent in the city of Kali, we did not go hungry. We got some food at the temple, late at night. I could not sleep as I could hear the roar of tigers from the mangrove jungles nearby and mosquitoes buzzed in my ears. I was also curious about Ayodhya. It was perhaps a year since Rama had flown away in the Pushpaka with his brother and wife, to Ayodhya. The Vanaras had carried off as much loot as they could physically haul, and left on foot and by ship, within a few months.
As day dawned we boarded the rice barge and sailed towards Ayodhya. After three days, we reached Rama’s capital. The city had grown from the small village it had been when I had seen it three decades earlier, with Ravana’s conquering army. Though it was no match for the glitter of Trikota or Muzuris in their heyday, there was now an air of prosperity. But certain things had not changed. Cows roamed the streets freely, blocking the traffic and lying down wherever they pleased but the lower caste and dark-skinned people were not allowed where even dogs, swine and cows could roam. There were open drains with swine and rats playing in them. A perpetual stink enveloped the city.
We roamed around, terrified that we could be breaking some caste taboo or the other by walking through streets where we were not allowed. All the signs were in Sanskrit and people spoke in that strange tongue, which we did not understand. We were pushed and shoved angrily and soon attracted the attention of the city police. We were taken to the local police station where they tried questioning us in various ways. Rama’s police were no different from Ravana’s police. They beat me with their lathis and kicked Shiva, while the woman screamed and cried.
Finally, they brought in a man who ran a shop across the street, who could speak Tamil. We told him how we had landed up in Ayodhya and he translated it to the police. The policemen laughed at our folly and after their merriment was over, asked the shop owner to enquire about our castes. When they heard that we belonged to the dhobi caste, they directed him to take us to where our caste brethren lived. The shop keeper protested. Perhaps he was reluctant to leave his shop unmanned. But after the policeman lashed him, he understood what was important.
The dhobi colony was by the river and stretched far to the north. The merchant showed us the colony and vanished before we could even thank him. The colony was a city unto itself. There were people belonging to all races – Asuras, Nagas, Kinnaras, Gandharvas, coal black barbarians, yellow skinned Chinese, yellow haired barbarian races from some cold countries, and people of mixed race. But they all belonged to one caste, dhobi. Here, in the north, the caste system was ancient and entrenched. One belonged to the lowest caste of one’s parents, though one may not have resembled either of them. Races had mixed for thousands of years but one’s caste remained the same. The system was established and a caste headman decided what was best for the whole caste and so ruled like a king.
We were taken to the headman, who interviewed us and allotted us a hut near the river. A tenth of our monthly earnings were to go to the caste treasury, which obviously the old head man controlled. We could not complain as we needed a roof over our heads and food. We took possession of our hut and began a new life.
There was no concept of plumbing or closed drains in the Deva countries and we had to relieve ourselves in the open, near the river. The river where everyone defecated and the buffalos bathed, was considered sacred, and drinking water for the city was supplied from the same place where we washed dirty linen. Slowly our life found its own rhythm. We picked up Sanskrit and were able to communicate better with our neighbours. As long as we kept to our place and did not aspire to be anything higher, the straight-laced caste system of the Devas worked well. The government collected tax through the headman, who then negotiated his own percentage. No policeman or any other government official, ever entered the dhobi village. It would have been the same with the potters or weavers villages.
Once a fortnight, we went to the market outside the city and bought whatever we needed. Life was simple and straightforward, with none of the complexities of the freewheeling, fiercely competitive, urban world of the Asuras. The caste system was brutal and the indignities heaped on the lower castes were inhuman, but inside one’s own caste village, there was a strange kind of equality, with the possible exception of the headman’s family. No upper caste members entered the village.
One of the greatest advantages of this Deva system was the lack of competition. Each task was assigned to a caste and all the members of the same caste were assured of a job and two square meals. Unlike Ravana’s cities, like Trikota or Muzuris or Gokarna or Mahabalipuram, where different cultures and races mingled; where people dared to dream about making it big; where trade, science, art and architecture flourished; where urbanity, planning, design and aesthetics all had their place; where fiercely competit
ive men and women fou
ght in different spears of life to create a mark in the world; where men of immeasurable talent and scientists like Mayan flourished; but which also forced a huge population that had fallen back in the rat race to live in inhuman slums, barely able to keep body and soul together; Rama’s cities like Ayodhya or Mithila, were different. These cities were an agglomeration of self-contained caste villages that interacted with each other for their minimum needs. Unlike the dynamic and brutally competitive, materialistic, yet magnificent cities of the Asuras, the cities of Rama presented a picture of a closed and static world, with the caste system forming its foundation. It put each one firmly in their place, depending on the accident of birth. In this system, dreams had no chance and aspirations were dangerous. We immigrants would soon discover this.
Life went on smoothly and as the years passed, Arasi gave birth to a son. We named him Shambuka, after Shiva. The boy grew fast and was intelligent beyond his years. Slowly I found happiness in my life. In playing with the boy, teaching him to swim, training him to hunt for small birds, I had rediscovered my youth. I had stopped doing hard work for several years and Shiva, who had become a son to me, took on the additional burden. He was such a hardworking man and enterprising too. He had begged and bribed his way to get the contract for washing the palace linen and it was our ticket to worldly success. That he was able to prosper, was perhaps due to the inherent competitive nature of his Asura heritage that was aroused when the opportunity presented itself. We expanded our home and added two cows to the donkeys we already had. We were slowly moving up in life. My days were spent gazing at the calmly flowing river; the serene, cloud-filled sky; the barges that floated lazily down the river; and the wild Herons and Kingfishers that dove into the water for fish. Many times Shambuka accompanied me on these excursions, calling me Grandpa and nagging me for something or the other. My heart filled with joy and pride whenever I heard his boyish prattle and once again I started to fall in love with this beautiful life and this wonderful world.
Asura- Tale of the Vanquished Page 49