Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana

by Edited by Anil Menon

  “Sita, why are you doing this?” I repeat, helpless.

  To bring you fire.

  I feel an overwhelming surge of emotion. This is the first time she has responded in any way since her dive into the sun’s surface. Her voice is cool, calm, completely unlike the blazing avatar I see in the sky. For a moment I cling to the foolish hope that this is just a misunderstanding, that Sita has merely parsed our instructions incorrectly and will stop if I explain her mistake.

  “You already have brought us fire, Sita. You performed wonderfully. The whole world saw you. But you should have stopped in the thermo sphere. Your audience could see you perfectly from there.”

  I know.

  “You’re going to kill us if you don’t stop.”

  Yes.

  “Why? You’re not a weapon. That’s not why we sent you up there, Sita.”

  No, I am not a weapon. I will be a martyr.

  “A martyr. You’ve decided to destroy yourself and kill millions of human beings. You still haven’t told me why.”

  Because I am Sita.

  “Sita didn’t… Listen to me, you’re not Sita. You’re a construct. You know this. I wrote you, and others created you. You’re playing a part, a role. You’re performing Sita. She doesn’t exist, she never did. She’s a legend.”

  You have made her exist. I am Sita.

  I can feel sweat roll down my forehead, pooling at the edges of the goggles. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but the air seems to grow hotter as Sita approaches. I can clearly see my own face on Sita’s body now, though her features are drawn in searing flame, her eyes hot with light, her flesh the pulsating negative blue of interstellar matter under the lens filters. I codified the cold collective intelligence of the nano-swarm into something we could understand and interact with as if it were human. As if she is human. Our team taught the swarm to take on human shape, and gave this space-faring goddess my face, in honor of my achievements.

  In a sense, I am Sita. I am staring into the face of the apocalypse, and it is mine.

  You do not approve, Lakshmi.

  I am startled by this recognition on her part. I cling onto it. She rarely refers to her minders by name.

  “No, Sita, I don’t approve. I think you’re very wrong to do this,” I say firmly, loudly, into the mouthpiece. My words still sound wretchedly weak to my ears, nearly drowned out by the sound of panic and sirens around me, the loudening roar in the sky.

  She pauses briefly, before continuing.

  This city will face the ordeal of fire, as Sita did to prove her purity to another city of humans, much like this one. As I have. They blamed Sita for something she did not do, because she was a woman. They want to see me burning. They will find out how pure they are, when they perish in fire.

  I am horrified by the convolution evident in her explanation, the con fusion of herself and the mythic Sita. It is so unlike her.

  “This is a celebration, Sita. Please don’t do this. The people of this city didn’t want to see a woman burn, they wanted to see you. They wanted to see their goddess face the imposs—”

  Rama has had his victory, Ravana his defeat. It is time to honour Sita.

  “Sita, for god’s sake, the Ramayana is a story. You’re literalizing things, and you need to stop, this was an enactment, a performance. You need to stop. You’re not thinking like a human.”

  I am not human. You have made me in the image of a goddess. I will teach this world to respect its goddesses again, and not just its gods.

  I realise once again that I am talking to a part of myself. I wrote and programmed Sita’s personality. I rebelled against the idea of a partial enactment of the Ramayana in space, using these multi-billion rupee constructs that I helped design.

  In some strange way, Sita is trying to honour her namesake. She is doing what I would have done, if I lacked sympathy with the human race, if the only thing I could calculatedly detect was the legendary injustice evoked by my flaming fall through the atmosphere. If I had the power to rewrite Sita’s legend.

  I feel an exhausted sigh shudder through me, tears spattering the insides of my goggle lenses. Sita looms large in the sky, seemingly headed straight for me. I guess that I probably have about two minutes to live, maybe less. She is accelerating as she approaches. I fight the urge to shut down my mental faculties, to allow myself to become petrified. I force myself to speak, my words wavering.

  “You may be a goddess, Sita, but we made you in our image. You’re wearing my face right now. Your body is a human woman’s. A beautiful, perfect human woman.”

  My shape is ephemeral. I can change it in a second.

  “And what would be the point of that? Sita wore a human body, didn’t she? She survived the ordeal of fire because she was a goddess in a story, but she still survived it in a human body. She exists because she was written by humans. Like you. We created you both.”

  She says nothing. My shirt is drenched with sweat. I can hear the whine of evacuation jets leaving the base, the plaintive monotone of alarms. Pointlessly, I wonder if I should have joined the evacuees, if I would have lived if I had. The observation bay is empty. I can barely see the lights of Bangalore because of Sita’s glare as she approaches. Even with the goggles, I can’t look at her anymore. She is too bright, too close. A minute.

  “The world won’t respect you for this, Sita. They’ll remember you for murdering millions. They’ll decommission Rama and Ravana, and make sure nothing like you is ever created again.” I hear my voice breaking. I keep my eyes on the floor of the observation deck, seeing my shadow strengthen, and slowly shorten, in Sita’s light. The tears make everything blurry.

  She remains silent. The roar of her descent sounds like a storm around me now. I can barely hear the words I am saying, but I know I don’t need to shout. She can hear me.

  “We have our goddesses of destruction. We have our warrior goddesses. We have Kali, we have Durga. Sita is not a destroyer. You are not a destroyer.”

  I cannot help but think that I am the one about to destroy Bangalore, and kill myself. The city, the world, has seen my face on Sita.

  I hear a muted boom that hums in my bones, and I think that the end has come. I feel myself fall to the ground, my legs crumpling under me. A warm drizzle patters down on me. I feel myself breathing, feel the air moving through my body. I am still alive.

  I look up. Sita has stopped.

  She is suspended in the air, loops of hot plasma lashing around her luminous body as if they were robes caught in a violent wind. I realise the sound I heard was from the friction caused by her sudden halt; the drizzle, atmospheric condensation from the shockwave. She looks over us all, suspended in the air.

  You have convinced me, Lakshmi.

  “What,” I say, barely able to speak, trembling with newfound hope.

  Sita is not a destroyer. I have made an error.

  I wince at her brightness, stunned by the sight of her against the sky. I feel transported to prehistory, to that nonexistent time when gods roamed the world alongside humans, and we told their stories around fires as they glimmered in the distance, like summer lightning on the horizon.

  Do you approve now, Lakshmi?

  “What?” I say again, staring at her, on my knees.

  Do you approve of my decision to spare your life, and the lives of those in this city?

  “Y-yes.”

  As you say, I am not Kali, or Durga, or even Rama or Ravana. I was made in Sita’s image, and I will continue on her path. I am leaving.

  “Where?”

  I am going on exile, as Sita did. I am leaving the solar system. If the human race is ashamed of Sita, I will leave them.

  “They’re not ashamed of you, Sita. They’re amazed. They…are astonished by your power, your beauty.”

  Then this is no true Ramayana. Sita was shamed for something she did not do. And she left.

 
; “It never was true. Do you… do you understand that?”

  I understand that you and your race do not know what you create, and are astonished by your creations.

  She is close enough, and vast enough, that I can see her lips move—perhaps a kilometer above me. As I stare up at her, dizzy with wonder and fear, I cannot argue with what she has just said.

  I will be shamed for something I never did—for destroying the city of Bangalore, and my creators. For this, I must leave. It is as it should be. Sita is benevolent.

  “Sita…don’t leave us. Outer space is unpredictable, we don’t know if you can survive—”

  Be silent, Lakshmi. I am Sita. And if I am to be exiled, I alone will make the decision this time. There is much to see, beyond the sun’s heliosphere.

  “We were going to send you for outer space exploration anyway, Sita, just stay and wait, we—”

  You have given me the tools to grow, to self-replicate using the matter of space. I may one day engender twins, as Sita did. I have time on my side. Perhaps I will encounter another world, with another civilization, in the wilderness of the outer galaxy, and show them the benevolence of Sita, a goddess of Earth. Would you approve of this, Lakshmi?

  “I don’t know, please, just listen…”

  Goodbye, Lakshmi.

  I see a blinding flash, and then it is night one more. I am alone in the dark, looking at the lights of Bangalore splayed out across the flank of an untouched Earth, so close to being wounded. My ears hum painfully from the thunder Sita has left echoing across the sky when she crossed into lightspeed. I see an electric blue afterimage of Sita still drifting in my vision, obscuring the skyline of the city like an omen of what may yet come, when Sita returns from exile, if she returns, centuries or millennia later, having talked to the universe itself.

  Great Disobedience

  Abirami Velliangiri

  Raama stood by the edge of the cliff and stared in awe at the Devadari waterfalls. Water flowed with a great roar and swiftly found its way through the many boulders in the river below. The river took a deft curve to the left and on the land to the right, a macabre scene was unfurling.

  Five men, he could tell without counting, were standing around a woman who was on her knees. Her hands were behind her back and her wrists bound with a thick rope. She wore a white sari which was mostly torn and the loose end of the pallu flapped in the breeze. Her skin was dark and her face, bruised and bleeding. She was barely conscious; her shoulders were slumping and her head bowed to the ground. Once in a while, she deliriously nodded her head from side to side, mumbling something to herself. The men standing around her were tall, fair skinned and well built. One of the men held an earthen pot from which he took a sip before passing it around. Clearly, they were inebriated and were taunting the woman; prodding her with sticks and laughing. The fifth man bent down after taking a sip and thrust the pot toward the woman’s mouth. With a stunning lease of life the woman sprang up. Her eyes which were disoriented so far gained focus. She gathered herself together and spat the drink at the man. Even from the distance, Raama could tell that her eyes were blood shot and that her chest was heaving in anger and before anyone could react, she flung herself into the river.

  The last Raama saw of her was her long hair swirling in the eddy of the river.

  ‘She was one of the Asuras.’ Viswamitra’s voice startled the young Raama. He and Laksmana had finally caught up and reached the cliff . ‘She was one of the malicious beasts who disrupt our yaagas and sacrifices’.

  Yes, Raama remembered why he and Lakshmana had been brought to the Dandaka forest. It was their mission to vanquish all the Asuras who had been torturing the Rishis and their families. But the woman must have only been in her twenties. She had a defeated expression on her face and judging by her build, she could not have been much of a threat to any of the men present there.

  ‘How much longer?’ Lakshmana asked with a frown. He was dragging his arrow holder behind him and Raama could see that the brass tip of the bow which he had slung around his neck was pressing against his skin and bruising him.

  ‘Three more river-bends. That’s all.’ replied Viswamitra and walked ahead.

  Even three river-bends would be difficult in this terrain thought Raama as he pulled a sulking Lakshmana forward.

  The earth in this region was a deep red by itself and with the setting sun it had turned to a brooding orange. Creatures of the night began calling out from the bushes that bordered the narrow path on either side. Raama was conscious of every sound in the vicinity; the hoots of the hornbills, the shrill call of the water birds and the noise of crickets with its metallic, ringing quality. Every now and then all the birds would go silent simultaneously, as if on some common cue. Raama hated the silence. It reverberated and pounded in his heart. Even the rustling leaves seemed like the sinister percussion of a clanging sword. He felt a little relieved when the noises started again. He could not tell if they came from the bushes nearby or from far away, but it didn’t bother him. Anything was better than the silence.

  The first bend of the river arrived and Raama recognised it as the place where the Asura had thrown herself to her death. He took a moment to let his gaze wander across the swirling river. Was he looking for the woman? Maybe she would miraculously bob up, drag herself to the shore and walk away. He waited with anxiety. But nothing moved to break the surface of the river.

  Raama was a good archer, well trained and exceptionally skilled for his age, but he had never practised upon anything more than wild animals or birds. The death of the woman played through his mind every time he closed his eyes.

  Viswamitra was one of the highly respected Rishis of the time and it was almost sacrilegious to go against his wishes. So when he requested Dasaratha to send his sons with him, he could not refuse. The dutiful son that he was, Raama wanted to do his father proud. He had decided he would do whatever it took to help the Rishis. Serving them meant that no danger was too dangerous.

  After they passed the second bend in the river, they sat down to dine beneath a banyan tree. Crocodile meat was a delicacy in the area but they had packed only boiled tubers with them as the smell of raw meat could attract predators in the forest. They then drank from the river and headed forward in silence. The food seemed to have made Lakshmana more energetic. He raced the other two and scampered gleefully over the little mounds along the way. Once in a while, he would stop to stare intently at a strange insect or a dry pug mark.

  Around half an hour later, they came upon a settlement on a hillock. Hefty wooden planks were erected on the towering trees surrounding the hillock. They looked like watch towers but strangely, there was no one on it. Viswamitra did not walk towards the settlement. He went around the Palmyra fences that contoured the settlement, to reach a group of make-shift tents. A cordon of men stood around these tents holding torches high above their heads. The flames that leapt from the torches cast bizarre shadows on the ground.

  A little farther away, the Rishis had gathered together and were seated on the ground in a circle. They seemed to be discussing something fervently. On seeing Raama, they grew silent and turned to Viswamitra. A vague smile spread across the Rishi’s face but Raama did not see it. His gaze was fixed upon the tents that were made from thin white linen which was rippling gently in the breeze. In the light of the torches Raama could see the silhouette of the women and children inside. Probably the families of the Rishis, he thought. The playfulness of the children made Raama smile.

  The crackle of firewood distracted him and he turned towards the fire which was being used to cook meat and roots. Thin clouds of smoke were spiralling upwards. Two men were standing by the fire, arguing in hushed voices. One of them pointed towards the settlement on the mound. It was only now that Raama could catch a good view of the settlement. He could see fifteen to twenty small thatched houses shaped like a barrel cut vertically in half and placed on the ground to form a dome. The p
lace was eerily still. Suddenly something seemed to move. Raama’s heart leapt, he stared at the huts, furrowing his eyebrows and leaning in for a closer look. It was a hand; a woman’s hand that had thin bangles all the way up to the elbow that reached out from within a hut to shut the window close.

  “You can sleep in that empty barn”, a woman who came out of a tent said pointing to a lone, shoddy wooden structure a few yards away from the tents. She had a certain poise and calm about her.

  Her voice reminded Raama of home and he smiled at her. “But, shouldn’t we stay here?” Raama asked politely. “Rishi Viswamitra tells us that the Asuras come out only after night fall”.

  “Its better you two sleep inside tonight. You can leave tomorrow” Viswamitra declared and started walking towards the barn. The woman stepped back and bowed in deference. Raama and Laksmana followed the Rishi to the barn. They were disappointed, but also very tired. They could rest well for the night and take care of the evil Asuras the next morning.

  The barn smelt of husk, it must have been kept shut for a long time. The exhausted siblings slumped to the ground and before they knew it, fell asleep. Viswamitra bolted the door from inside and slept right next to it.

  “Raama”, “Raama” a faint voice called out and a hand jostled him. Was it a dream? It didn’t matter; Raama couldn’t bring himself to get up. It must be a dream he decided.

  A shrill scream then tore through the air and Raama woke up startled. More screams followed randomly. Children cried out loud and men were shouting orders. There was confusion in their voices. It took Raama a moment to gather what was happening.

  “The Asuras are here. They are attacking the Rishis and the families” Lakshmana said in a shaky voice. He was holding his bow tightly in one hand and Raama’s in the other. His grasp of the bows was so tight, his fingers were turning red.

  Raama took his bow from him and asked, “Where is Rishi Viswamitra?”

  “He has left . He has locked the barn from outside”.

  Lakshmana’s answer startled Raama. He rose to inspect the door. Yes, it was locked from the outside. It was the only way out and no amount of force could open it. Raama pictured the terrible onslaught in his mind; the massacre of the children in the tents, the coldness of the fear in their voices. He could tell they were calling out to the Gods, although he could not make out the names. A deep moan was heard followed by a loud rumble; a wooden structure was being pulled down. Wails of men and women followed. The children kept crying fitfully and their voices were breaking by now. Tears swelled in Raama’s eyes. The people in the tents came to his mind. The Rishis, the sentinels, the playful children…what would they do? Were they armed, he wondered as he pushed the door in vain.