SUBHADRA SEN GUPTA
Girls of India A Mauryan Adventure
Illustrated by Hemant Kumar
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
By the Same Author
Map
1 An Angry Little Girl
2 A Queen and a Monk
3 Getting into Trouble
4 A Caravan to Vidisha
5 A Prince Rides Past
6 Fooling a Chamberlain
7 Looking for Kamalika
8 Singing for the King
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Copyright
PUFFIN BOOKS
A MAURYAN ADVENTURE
Subhadra Sen Gupta has written over thirty books for children including mysteries, historical adventures, ghost stories and comic books. Right now she is waiting for someone to build a time machine so that she can travel to the past and join Emperor Akbar for lunch.
She loves to travel, flirt with cats, chat with autorickshaw drivers, and sit and watch people. To start a conversation with her on any topic under the sun, you can email her at: [email protected]
Other Books in the Girls of India Series
Girls of India: A Mauryan Adventure by Sunila Gupte
Girls of India: A Chola Adventure by Anu Kumar
1
An Angry Little Girl
Madhura dipped the water pot into the river, then raised the filled pot to rest it on her hip, and began walking very carefully up the slippery stone steps. All around her, other girls and women were doing the same. That is how you began your day in Pataliputra.
People who lived in other towns or villages said to her, ‘You are so lucky Madhura! You live in King Ashoka’s famous city!’
And Madhura felt like snapping back, ‘What’s so special about that, hahn? I still have to cook and clean, carry heavy pots of water and wash clothes. When you are poor your life is the same everywhere.’
She was twelve and she knew that pretty soon she would be married. So the drudgery would go on—cook, clean, wash and cook again . . . ohhh—for the rest of her life! What was worse, she had to do the same chores in the palace too, where she worked for the princess: dust and polish, fetch and carry, ‘yes princess’, ‘no princess’ . . . Madhura sighed.
‘Ooof!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Why was I born the daughter of a soldier? Why couldn’t I be a princess? All they do is comb their hair, put on jewellery, don a silly smile, and sit and chat with friends.’
As her frown and glum face made it very clear to everyone, Madhura was not in a good mood.
She had been feeling unhappy for a long time now. It all began over a year ago when Ashoka Vardhan of the Mauryan dynasty, the ruler of their kingdom of Magadha, decided to go to war against the kingdom of Kalinga; Madhura’s father had to go off to fight. Madhura did not like it, but then he was a soldier, a rider and swordsman, and going to war was his job. Ashoka had conquered many other kingdoms, so he had gone to war before and come back with his body covered in wounds, but also with bags of silver coins. The generals were paid in the gold coins called karshapanas but her father was just an ordinary soldier.
Once they heard that the battle was over, Madhura, her mother Ganga, and her older brother Kartik waited anxiously for the news. When the other soldiers began to return, they heard that Magadha had won the battle and Kalinga was now a part of the Mauryan Empire. But it had been a fiercely fought battle and thousands had died. Their hearts sinking with dread, Madhura’s family waited and waited till one day the commander of her father’s battalion came to their house bearing her father’s sword and the news that he was dead.
‘Does the king even care that my father is dead? Or is he too busy celebrating his victory?’ she asked Kartik; her brother just shrugged. No one ever answered her questions and that made her even angrier.
Soon the money that the commander had given them began to run out and Kartik, Madhura and her mother had to go to work. She and her mother found work as maids in the palace, and Kartik became a trader; this meant that he was never home. Taking his bullock carts filled with cloth, pottery, rice or spices, he was always travelling to far-off places like Ujjaini, Varanasi or Taxila. He would be away for months leaving Madhura alone in the house with her mother. Hence, she not only missed her father but also her brother. What was even worse, she was stuck at home with her mother, who made her work all day.
Madhura was tall for her age and many people thought she was older, fourteen at least. What she loved to do was to play with her friends in the lane—run in the orchards, climb trees, play hide-and-seek. She could run faster and jump higher than all the others, and she was better than the boys at using the catapult. Her mother would often say she should have been born a boy and then she could have become a soldier like her father.
Madhura turned into her lane and stopped. There was an empty bullock cart parked outside their tiny home with the bull happily munching on some fresh grass. Oh joy! Kartik was home! She ran down the lane, slopping water everywhere. Then dumping the water pot in the courtyard, she ran in to find Kartik in the kitchen. He was watching their mother cook and both of them were talking away at full speed.
‘Bhaiii . . .’ screamed Madhura, ‘you’re baaack!!’ And she launched herself at him with a big jump.
‘Ooof! Hold on, mad girl!’ Kartik nearly fell over as she landed in his lap with a thump. ‘You are getting too big for this, you know.’
Then Kartik brought out the gifts—a sari for his mother and a piece of cloth to be stitched into a skirt for her, made by the weavers of Varanasi; also a necklace of blue beads and carved wooden bangles. Then there was a bag of long-grained rice from the hills, and packets of raisins and spices. The rest of the day went by in a whirl of happiness as Madhura strutted around wearing the bangles and beads. Later in the day, their mother made a delicious kheer for lunch, adding the rice and raisins to sweet thickened milk. Kartik said that after months of eating street food, it tasted like heaven.
In the evening they went wandering through the markets of Pataliputra, the capital of Magadha and the most famous city in the kingdom. The shops were full of such magical things—one sold the famous Magadhan pottery that included bowls, plates, glasses and jars with pretty designs painted in black, white and red. Kartik had some coins in his pocket, so they bought a set of bowls and pots for the kitchen. Another shop had metalware— spoons and knives, ladles and lamps. In the jewellery shop the craftsmen were busy setting pearls and precious stones on silver and gold. And in the cloth shop, lengths of cloth in the colours of the rainbow floated in the breeze. Madhura picked up a matching piece to make a blouse for her new skirt.
The air was fragrant from the flower shop where garlands of marigolds, jasmines and champa lay in piles. People had gathered around a brightly-lit shop where a woman was selling paan, folding the betel leaves with spices and betel nuts. The food shops were smoky with puris being fried and the aroma of vegetables being cooked, even as milk was being thickened in huge iron pans to be made into many kinds of sweets.
Kartik took a deep breath and said happily, ‘Ah, the smells of Pataliputra! How I miss it when I’m travelling.’
‘Then why do you go away all the time?’ Madhura asked. ‘Why don’t you open a shop in the bazaar then? I could help you run it.’
‘Maybe I will one day. But right now I want to be a trader because there is good money to be made.’
‘You will stay home when you get married,’ their mother smiled. ‘I think I’ll start looking for a girl for you.’
That night, tired and happy, Madhura fell asleep. Suddenly, around midnight, she woke to the sound of voices. Her bed was right next to a window that opened into the veranda by the
back garden. She could hear the low hum of Kartik and her mother talking outside, and then she was wide awake because she realized they were talking about her.
‘So how is she ? Does she still cry for Baba?’ Kartik asked.
‘Not so much,’ her mother replied. ‘But she is often very angry with her life. She sees her friends who have fathers earning for the family, and then when we have to go to the palace to work, she hates it.’
‘Is she still fighting with you?’
‘Oh all the time! Right now I’m her biggest enemy because I make her do the housework.’
‘Amma you know . . . sometimes . . . you can be very strict . . .’
‘Girls have to be disciplined. Soon she will be married and if she does not know how to run a house . . . and oh, you don’t know just how much she hates cooking!’ They both laughed.
‘Looks like I’ll have to talk to her.’
‘Yes, you do that. And Kartik, if you stayed home for a while it would really help. She is much happier when you are here.’
‘You know Amma, my trips are by the orders of the king and I can’t refuse him. If he has a job for me, I have to go.’
‘Yes, I know.’ There was a sigh in her mother’s voice.
Madhura was sitting up by now. ‘By the orders of the king’? What did Kartik mean by that? He was not a soldier or a royal official; he was a small trader. Then why would the king give him orders? And orders to do what? Then she heard them get up and head to their beds, so she quickly lay still with her eyes tightly shut. As she was falling asleep Madhura thought, ‘What does Kartik really do?’
Next morning Madhura did not want to go to work. ‘Amma tell them I’m ill. I have fever. Pleeeease!’
‘You don’t have fever and I won’t lie for you.’
‘I want to spend the day with Bhai.’
‘We took leave yesterday and you spent all day with him. Let’s go Madhu, we’re getting late,’ pleaded her mother.
A sleepy-eyed Kartik came out of his room, his hair standing on end, and asked with a yawn, ‘What’s up?’
‘She’s refusing to go to work.’
‘You’ll be back by the afternoon, no?’
Madhura gave an angry shrug and sat biting her nails, ‘I hate it at the palace—dust this, polish that, fetch and take that away, and Kani is always after me . . .’
‘Who is Kani?’
‘She is the senior maid,’ Madhura answered glumly. ‘She just sits and orders me about, and I have to do all the work because she says her knees ache. I don’t want to be a maid, Bhai!’
‘Then what do you want to do?’ her mother asked.
‘Ride horses, fight with a sword like Baba did . . .’ Kartik and her mother began to laugh.
‘Why not? The king has these women soldiers guarding him. Why can’t I be one of them?’ Madhura glared at them. ‘I can learn to ride a horse!’
‘Fine . . . fine . . . I’ll speak to the queen,’ her mother tried to soothe her, ‘but Madhu you are just twelve . . .’
‘I’m nearly thirteen!’
‘Agreed, you are all grown up,’ Kartik nodded. ‘I’ll check with the palace and find out how the women soldiers are trained; and once you’re old enough I’ll help you join the guards.’
‘How will you do that?’
‘I know people in the palace.’
‘Really?’ Madhura did not believe a word he said. ‘Promise?’
‘Yes,’ Kartik hauled her up to her feet. ‘Now please go with Amma.’
King Ashoka’s huge fortress stood at the heart of the city of Pataliputra. It was surrounded by a high wall and the gates were guarded by soldiers. Within the precincts were many palaces for the royal family, the offices of the ministers, stables for horses and elephants, kitchens, storerooms, soldiers’ quarters, gardens, orchards, fish ponds, lily pools and what not! Madhura had not seen much of the place, it was so enormous. There was a small back gate that led to the women’s quarters, the palaces where the royal women lived. Madhura and her mother entered the palace through this gate.
The palaces were made of wood and brick with carved pillars, and the walls were painted with murals of dancing peacocks and elephants with raised trunks. Among the royal women were queens, princesses and their children. And then there were the people who served them—maids, cooks, tailors, guards, singers, teachers and storytellers; and they were all women.
On her first day at work her mother had said to her, ‘I’m going to work in the chambers of Queen Mahadevi and you will help in her daughter Princess Sanghamitra’s rooms. You’re lucky you haven’t been sent to serve a concubine.’
‘A what?’ Madhura frowned, very puzzled.
‘A concubine is also married to a prince or the king but she does not have the title of a queen or a princess.’
‘Why not?’
‘They come from poor families and are not of royal birth, but have been brought into the harem because they are beautiful. The royal women do not like the concubines and often treat them badly.’
‘So if a prince chose me, I’ll be a concubine . . . hmmm?’
‘A prince will have to be mad to choose you!’
‘Very true,’ Madhura nodded her curly hair. ‘I’m no beauty.’ And they shared a quick smile.
It is such a strange world, she thought as she began to work. It was a world of women and ruled by a woman too—King Ashoka’s mother, Queen Subhadrangi. There were just so many rules they all had to obey. For example, if Princess Sanghamitra wanted to go out, she had to first take permission from her mother Queen Mahadevi, then her grandmother, and even then it did not mean she was free to roam about. They would leave in covered bullock carts, with soldiers on horses guarding them. The princess lived in great luxury, but she had no freedom.
Madhura first used a broom, then swabbed the floor and finally began to dust the room. The princess was still asleep, and as Kani the senior maid was not around, Madhura worked slowly and dreamed a little, thinking of the royal family. Madhura knew that the princess and her brother, Prince Mahendra, were the children of the king’s first wife Mahadevi. She wasn’t very sure but the king had at least three more queens, and other sons and daughters.
‘And the concubines must have children too,’ she thought. ‘Now would a concubine’s daughter also be called a princess?’ Madhura wondered as she splatted the duster across a window. ‘This is one confusing place.’ Then she looked around, ‘I don’t think I want to be a princess, but one day I would love to have a room like this.’
It really was an amazingly beautiful room. The floor was covered in soft rugs, woven in threads the colours of the rainbow, and one half of the room had thick mattresses laid on the floor wrapped with white sheets. There were big round bolsters and square cushions covered in silk on the mattress, for the women to lean on. The windows had gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze, and pretty paintings hung on the walls. Tall metal lamps stood in the corners and it was her job to clean them, wipe off the soot, and add fresh oil and cotton wicks. The princess liked music, and the many-stringed veena and a set of small drums lay on the mattress. A parrot sat in a cage by the window, watching Madhura with its beady black eyes and calling out to her.
The rest of the morning was spent helping Kani, who was the princess’ personal maid. Sanghamitra liked to dress up, and since she was soon to be married to Agnibrahma, the prince of a kingdom in the hills, she was always trying out new clothes and jewellery, and experimenting with her make-up and hairdo.
The princess came back after bathing in the pool and Kani laid out three sets of clothes for her to choose from. Sanghamitra chose a blue and silver ensemble that had a blouse, a belt, an uttariya and an antariya. The antariya was a length of cloth that she tied and pleated at the waist, and then tied a cloth belt called mekhala over it that was embroidered with pearls. The uttariya was like a scarf that she flung across her shoulders, letting it trail prettily behind her.
Madhura brought the round metal mirror poli
shed to a gleam so that the princess could see her face while she put on her make-up and jewellery. There were two necklaces, a long and a short one, earrings, bangles, rings and anklets that tinkled as she walked. She rubbed a touch of lac to turn her lips a pale pink, lined her eyes with black kohl and then Kani drew designs in sandalwood on her forehead.
Standing there holding the mirror, Madhura stifled a yawn, making Sanghamitra look up. ‘Sleepy? Didn’t you sleep last night?’
‘It got late, Princess, because my brother Kartik came home yesterday morning and we were out very late at the market.’
Sanghamitra, who was sixteen, looked interested. ‘What did you do at the market?’
‘Oh! We wandered around, shopped and ate our dinner at a food shop. Bhai had taken a cartload of pottery to Varanasi, so he had money to spend. He bought several things at the shops.’
Sanghamitra leaned forward, looking very interested. ‘What things?’
‘Amma needed pots and bowls, Kartik needed a pair of sandals and I got some cloth for a blouse to go with my Varanasi skirt . . . then we went to eat at a food shop.’
‘What fun! What did you eat?’
‘Nothing special really, Princess. Fried puris, fish fry, a dish of beans and pumpkins, and tamarind chutney.’
‘It sounds sooo delicious!’ And that made Madhura laugh because the princess ate meals with at least ten dishes of the most expensive vegetables, fish and meats.
‘I can get the cooks to make them all for you, my sweet Princess,’ Kani said with a disapproving glare at her because she thought Madhura talked too much. ‘It will be much better than something in the market.’
‘It won’t! I want to eat at the market!’
‘Why not?’ Madhura asked puzzled. ‘You are a princess!’
‘And that’s the problem! Do you think my grandmother will allow me to wander around a market alone? We’ll be surrounded by maids and guards; and you heard Kani— eating in a food shop, sitting among other people, never!’
A Mauryan Adventure Page 1