But they always needed Kshatriyas to do their dirty work. What good were Brahmins without Kshatriyas? They could not protect themselves, could not have fought off rakshasas and other asuras back in the days when the mortal realm was still new and the eternal war between the devas and asuras raged as fiercely on earth as on the other two planes of existence. Brahmins always needed Kshatriyas, and Kshatriyas were the ones who fought, died, struggled, achieved, triumphed; yet Brahmins were the ones who wrote the itihasas, composed the epic poems, recorded the court histories, carried the knowledge of the sacred Vedic verses and rituals, and generally acted as if they were the be-all and end-all.
Well, it was time Brahmins pulled their share of the load. He had made them assemble here to make sure of that.
The growth and transformation to his rakshasa form resulted in its inevitable side-effect: growths and suppurations began at once. He began plucking the sticky and wet abominations off his body. Some squealed loudly as he tore them off. He strode down the long lines of expectant Brahmins, dropping a festering worm-like thing here, another oozing sore there, and so on, all the way down the line. There was ample food to feed every last guest.
The serving done, he turned and watched. The sabha hall had descended into mindless chaos. It pleased him to see the Brahmins finally jolted out of their smugness as they realized that this was a feast of a different kind altogether. He watched with glee as one monstrosity plucked from his body gobbled up half a Brahmin, and its oozing gummy shape merged with that of the human to form a new shape: a bizarre amalgam of man and wart, or whatever it was one called such extrusive growths. The result resembled some grotesque demon from the annals of the First Asura Wars, that age when the demoniac races had broken through from the hellish realms into the mortal plane and run amok before the first great Arya nations had taken up arms against them. A creature that was neither human nor anything else, yet was distinctly humanoid in shape and form, and, as he knew so well by now, nearly indestructible. For how do you kill a living wart? Let alone a wart of a higher varna!
He watched the vast hall filled with writhing gooey shapes settle into a semblance of quietude. Finally, when every last one had been fed, he sighed with satisfaction.
It was always nice to have guests over for lunch and to see them well fed.
Now for dessert ...
Six
The people of the city rejoiced. It had been over four days since the invaders had departed, taking every last piece of siege machinery, weaponry and possession; not a living being stirred outside the city walls. The siege was over, the threat had ended; they had triumphed! It was an incredible success. ‘We withstood the might of Magadha and survived,’ said the maatr of the kingdom. Like many Arya nations which still rigorously followed the old Vedic ways, this was a matriarchial society. No male had ever ruled, nor ever would. It was not an issue of which sex was better or superior, simply a practical matter. Women were better at governing, running things, administrating, keeping the peace, maintaining the cities well, and doing all the things that made up the daily business of ruling a kingdom. And if anyone dared to think that men might perhaps, possibly, just maybe, be better at warcraft, the person had certainly not faced the maatrs in battle.
The citizens emerged now, resplendent in their armour, which was specially polished and cleaned for the occasion. During weeks of hard siege and withstanding brutal intrusions and assaults, there had been little time for food or rest, let alone polishing armour. But with the enemy having retreated, and a celebration called for, the maatrs were proud to adorn themselves in their finest robes. And for a maatr, no garb was more resplendent than battle armour. Glimmering with gold, silver and flecks of coloured stone cleverly sown into the chain links of the mail, the metal garb clung becomingly to the Amazonian bodies of the hard-muscled warrior matrons who were the mainstay of the country’s army. Nor were they all young specimens; there were grandmothers among them, white-haired and noble in their ageing pride, as well as women scarred and maimed from combat. They were nonetheless resplendent in that moment of glory.
The environs of the city had been scoured thoroughly over the past four days. The moment the last wagons of the last grama-train had departed, fading into a faint trail of dust on the northern horizon, the spasas had been sent forth through underground tunnels to scour the countryside. They went yojanas in every direction, up to the tableland plateau and far beyond the river which was their primary source of life. They found nothing. The enemy had truly withdrawn. It was no ruse. Not a living enemy remained in sight. Except for a few wounded, rotting corpses left in a pile right in front of the city gates. These were the stray soldiers of Magadha who had fallen to the arrows or javelins tossed by the defenders, or been slain in the skirmishes and confrontations over the past weeks.
There were barely a hundred or two of these unfortunate carcasses. As a rule, besiegers rarely suffered even a tenth as many losses as the besieged. Within the city, the toll numbered in the thousands. Those who had not been killed outright by the deadly rain of arrows and boulders hurled by siege machines, and the random javelin showers flung by the powerful shoulders of the Mohini Fauj, had been killed in the direct skirmishes and encounters. Many had been murdered by the infiltrators who managed somehow to sneak into the city on suicide missions, slaying dozens by dint of the element of surprise before being brought down. Others had died of disease from the confinement, of ailments and old age, or were crushed under disintegrating structures felled by the hurtling boulders, or burnt alive in the fires.
Nobody paid heed to the rotting pile of corpses. The maatr gave a command for the corpses to be buried in a single unmarked mass grave – but she admitted it was not a high priority. There were many thousands of their own dead to deal with first, before more serious diseases broke out amongst the living, and these had to be cremated with all due ritual and ceremony, which would consume resources, energy and time, all of which were nearly exhausted by the siege.
The truth was, had the siege gone on, they would have been hard-pressed to last more than another fortnight. Oh, they could have held the city longer, but the cost would have been piteous. In any siege, after a certain point even the most stubborn and proud leader must weigh the cost of letting one’s people die or of giving them a chance to survive, however slim that may be, by sallying forth and attacking the enemy while they still had a measure of strength and numbers to do so.
So the celebrations began, and continued even as the inevitable chores were undertaken: rebuilding, cremating the dead, sending hunting parties out for fresh supplies of meat in the nearby forests which were over a day’s run away, salvaging what could be salvaged from the ruined, scorched and salted harvest fields on the lower plains beside the riverbank that had been the city’s primary source of nourishment, and a hundred other odd jobs and endeavours.
A further three days passed before they got to the pile of enemy corpses.
Due to the inclement weather and cloudy skies, the corpses had not putrefied as badly as they might have. The monsoons were late in coming this year, but they were en route, and the usual cloud build-up had shielded the land from the harsh sun. Still, the dead bodies were maggot-ridden and beginning to fall apart when the delegated team of maatrs came to dispose of them.
As they approached the pile, the volunteers made various sounds of disgust, mostly imitating retching.
‘Let’s just throw on as much oil as we have and burn the whole lot where it lies,’ said one woman warrior, her voice deeply nasal due to her pinching her nose to avoid the stench.
‘Can’t do that,’ said another woman apologetically, wincing as the wind changed, bringing the full richness of the aroma to her nasal glands.‘Maatr’s orders are to bury them. Oil supplies are short enough as it is.’
The women looked at the pile doubtfully.‘We could bring dry brush and wood and use that to burn them.’
The maatr-in-charge snorted. ‘Do you know how much it would take to burn this l
ot? A hundred wagonloads! Maybe more. And without oil ... Besides, the smoke and ash would carry across the whole city.’ She gestured at the city behind them and indicated the direction of the wind. ‘And the outer ones would burn but it would be a putrefying mess on the inside.’
They were all silent for a moment, considering the idea, then, one of her companions said in disgust, ‘Oh, thank you, Suverya, for that wonderful thought. Excuse me while I go relieve the contents of my belly.’
‘Get to it, then,’ the maatr-in-charge ordered. ‘Let’s start digging a pit. And remember, we have to make it large enough and deep enough to take the whole of this sorry bunch. Maatr intends to plant an orchard over it afterwards.’
‘An orchard?’ someone asked, incredulous.
‘Yes,’ said the woman-in-charge sourly. ‘To commemorate the siege. Besides, fresh corpses underground give good fruit. Come on, get to work, you lazy bunch!’
It was the afternoon of the next day when they came across the body.
‘Maatr!’ exclaimed one of the younger women, for all women commanders and rulers were called maatr in their society, ‘come take a look at this.’
The maatr-in-charge and several of the others within hearing range came out of curiosity. They looked down at the male body split perfectly into two halves from the centre of the bald crown of its head right down to the waist. The cut was blade-smooth, perfect, as if it was an apple that had been sliced into two halves rather than a grown man.
The maatr-in-charge frowned and wiped the sweat and grime from her brow before asking irritably, ‘And what great vision am I supposed to be looking at, Narayani?’
‘It’s as good as new,’ replied the young woman who had discovered the anomaly. ‘It hasn’t rotted at all. How is that possible?’
And it was true. Apart from the fact that the body was split into two halves, it was pristine. No decay had occurred as yet, nor were any maggots or putrefying flesh visible. The women examined the body curiously and all agreed that apart from the body being cut into two halves, its skin and flesh resembled that of a living man.
‘It’s almost as if ...’ one woman said, then stopped.
‘What?’ asked the one beside her.
‘Well, it’s almost as if you could put the two halves together and they would fit perfectly, with barely a seam visible.’
‘So speaks the expert seamstress!’ sang out another, drawing a burst of laughter. It was good to have something to laugh about after the miseries of the past months.
Out of sheer curiosity, three or four of the women actually picked up the two halves of the severed corpse and placed them together.
‘Look! They fit together like a whole body!’ said the one who had thought of it.
One of the women holding the halves together felt movement beneath her fingertips. She frowned, assuming she had only felt some reverberation or other movement, and looked down.
The eyes of the severed corpse opened.
The volunteer screamed and let go of the body, backing away, scrambling away. She tripped and fell over another body. ‘It’s alive!’ she cried out.
The erstwhile severed corpse got to its feet, causing the other women around it to back away as well. It looked around. The thin red line running down the centre of its bald head all the way down its naked chest and body glowed brightly for an instant, then faded away.
The severed body was now a whole man. A living man. With no trace of a seam, as the wit had remarked.
As they stared on in stunned incomprehension, the maatr-in- charge reached for her sword.‘Kill him!’ she cried.‘Kill—’
That was as far as she got. The severed man’s tongue shot out of his mouth and lashed out at her with whip-like ferocity, covering a distance of over two yards to strike her across the chest and waist at a diagonal. The maatr-in-charge felt a moment of scalding heat, as if she had been struck by a red-hot whip. Then the acid saliva from Jarasandha’s tongue ate through her armour, garb, flesh and bone with instant efficacy, and her body split into two at the diagonal cut. She fell open like a ripe fruit and perished. The two halves of her body hissed and sizzled as they parted, the exposed flesh and organs corroded by the acidic saliva.
Stunned, the other warriors attacked this unexpected enemy who had risen from the dead. But Jarasandha moved amongst them with lightning speed, swinging around in a half-circle to strike cobra-like at the more than half a dozen women in rapid succession. He would be here one instant, his whip-like tongue lashing out to sever one’s arm before she could slash out with her sword, then over there in the next, yards away, decapitating another woman’s head, and so forth. Many died screaming with agony and without lifting their weapons; others, shocked and stunned, died before they could react.
It was an astonishing display. Within moments, the entire burial crew lay butchered, the dissected bodies of its members steaming and hissing.
Then Jarasandha moved into the city. And then began the slaughter.
He met a great deal of resistance. Relaxed though they were, taken by surprise, caught off guard, and all of that, yet the maatrs were fierce fighters and strong-willed independent Aryas.
But it made absolutely no difference. Jarasandha passed through them all like a force of nature, like a hurricane through a sugarcane field, like a tiger through a flock of geese. He mowed down the entire city within a day and part of a night. By the time he was done, there were many, many more corpses to cremate and commemorate, but nobody left to do the needful.
He left the city that way, every last citizen a rotting corpse, a place fit only for worms, flies and maggots. He left just a single horse alive, mounted it and rode to join his forces. There were many more cities to ravage and kingdoms to subdue.
This was only a sideshow.
The real game was the one unfolding in the Yadava kingdom, under the surmise of his protégé, Kamsa.
seven
From the growing volume of sound outside, Yashoda judged that a great many people were assembling to be part of the naming ceremony of her newborn. It pleased her. She felt it was important that her son be seen by as many as possible. She did not know why she felt so; she simply felt it. As for herself, the sheer joy of having a child was beyond belief. That moment she had seen the newborn life that had issued forth from her womb, the instant she first set eyes on her beautiful tiny daughter, had been the happiest one of her life. The intensity of it had been indescribable, like nothing she had ever felt before.
She frowned.
My beautiful tiny daughter?
Yes, that was what she had just thought, hadn’t she? A fleeting
recollection of glancing down and seeing ... a girl. Still covered in birth fluids, naked as creation ... and that was one of the first things any mother would notice.
Yashoda looked down now at the dozing tyke nestled against her. She was on her side, lying facing the entrance of the sleeping chamber. The baby was sleeping facing her, snuggled into her warmth and the folds of her sari. She could only make out a tiny clenched fist and part of a minuscule ear. But this was a boy. She had no doubt about that. Then why had she thought she had seen a girl born to her the night before?
She smiled wryly at her own foolishness. Of course, it was a mistake; that was all. She had been so exhausted after the long labour – a full day and almost a whole night of straining and heaving – that seconds after her dear one’s birth, she had passed out as completely as if she had never slept a wink all her life. In her exhaustion, she must have taken this little fellow to be a filly. Or perhaps it was her mind, which had been wishing for a girl, that had made her see him as one, if only in her tired mind’s eye.
She knew that Nanda would have loved a daughter too, unlike so many other men – to be honest, unlike most men, who would much prefer a son. But she came from a line of maternalistic Yadavas, a family of strong women who stood their own against men and beside them, and never let their own daughters and granddaughters ever think, even for a moment, that
a man could do all that a woman could. A man couldn’t, of course. And he always knew it. But either because he couldn’t or despite it, he always tried harder. All a woman need do, then, was try equally hard, and she would always win in the end. That was simply nature’s way, the way of Prithvi Maa, Mother Earth, for all life on this mortal plane, and the way of Prajapati, the creator in human form. That was the reason why cruel men and despots resorted to violence – because only a sword and savagery could give a man an ephemeral sense of superiority over women, and over other men.
So perhaps she had wanted a daughter so much – had assumed, coming from a long and illustrious line of daughters of daughters of daughters, that her first-born would also surely be a daughter – that she had looked at her child already convinced that she had birthed a girl. A gopi rather than a gopa. Yes, that was surely it.
And then she had fallen dead asleep, waking only that morning. And come to think of it, when she had looked down at this little doll, there had been no surprise or consternation on seeing he was a boy. She had accepted it without question. Indeed, it was only now that, lost in her own thoughts, she had briefly thought she recalled birthing a girl. Just a mistake in memory, that was all.
She put it out of her head. This was no time to think of what- ifs and might-have-beens. This was the day of her newborn son’s birth. And, from the noise of the gathering outside, she deduced that the whole of Vrajbhoomi had turned up to view him. It was a day of celebration after many, many days of darkness and grief. The crowd would have been no less if she had had a daughter. If the Vrajvasis were ecstatic that she had a son, it was not because of the usual reasons but because many Yadava sons had died in Mathura at the hands of Kamsa and his marauders. The boy lying by her side was a symbol of freedom from the tyrant’s yoke, a sign that the Vrishnis of Vrajbhoomi continued to live free despite the despotic reign of the Childslayer.
KRISHNA CORIOLIS#2: Dance of Govinda Page 4