“The fire test suits you.” His grin exposed stained teeth. “You look grander, and you walk straighter.” He released his wife’s hair, and whacked her shoulder. “Madhulika would survive no such test. God knows how many men she chased when we were away.”
That was lust in his eyes. Once, when fellow-drunks almost killed him, Vaidehi healed him, and this was how he gazed at her while she tended his wounds.
Disgusted, I turned to Madhulika. What a beautiful woman! Skin fair as the kunda flower, lips the red of hibiscus, eyes the shape of fish. Monsoon clouds of black hair spilled over her cheek. I brushed them aside and whispered, “Sister, take heart. I will help you.”
“He will be angrier if you sympathize,” she whispered back.
The brother-in-law pushed her out of the door. She stumbled out, the enormous swell of her child-heavy belly almost causing her to fall.
“Go cook payasam,” he yelled after her. “And add enough nuts or I’ll teach you.”
He turned to me. “Ignore her, beautiful Vaidehi. Her mango-shaped breasts do not smell as good as the golden pears behind your silk ut-tariya, or those juices I smelled when you cradled my head in your lap and brought me back to life.”
I thought of a cultural archetype to repel him with. “One who brings you to life is a mother. Respect me as one.”
“A child suckles at his mother’s breast.” He grinned. “O mother mine, drop your uttariya, and let me feast.”
“Brother?” The husband stood at the door. “I was looking for you.”
I slipped out of the room.
The women sat clustered in the courtyard.
“You survived,” the mother-in-law said to me, her lips pursed in disapproval. I squatted near her. The vat on the fire was smoking hot. She slipped balls of batter into the oil, and I watched them splutter and puff up. A distant aunt chopped green chillies. Another woman sliced onions. A small girl fed cowpats to the fire in the mud chulha.
“Do it properly.” The mother-in-law rapped her hand. She turned to me. “Too arrogant to help, are you?”
I hadn’t merged my muscle memories with the implant and such me dieval cooking tasks needed skill.
“I’m tired,” I murmured.
“Vaidehi Aunty,” piped the young girl. “Did Agni Devata talk to you?” She was a chubby-faced seven-year-old, her eyes wide, a tentative smile on her face.
How I wanted that smile to grow with admiration for me! I yearned that this innocent girl be spared the bitterness and resignation of the women around her.
“He spared me but said women should refuse such insulting tests,” I said. “Women number as many as the men. If we unite, no man can hurt us.”
“May God pull out your evil tongue,” snapped the mother-in- law. “You dare sow discontent in a child’s mind and spoil her future? Be sides,” she snorted. “Gods speak to priests, not to women. Uttering such falsehoods is a grievous sin.”
The girl’s smile wavered. She blinked like she’d been woken up. The soft wonder on her face morphed into disgust directed at me.
I should keep quiet, I scolded myself, remembering Seniormost’s caution, remembering Mother cautioning me against impatience. This is what those failed profile tests probably said: Candidate does not obey instructions. Is not cautious. Shoots off her mouth.
“I wish the fire had consumed you,” said a cousin sister, her eyes ringed with dark circles, a bruise ripening on her jaw. “My husband threatened me with agni pareeksha. He says, Vaidehi survived, so why be scared if you are chaste?”
Her hostility dismayed me. I couldn’t think of a reply.
“If Vaidehi had died, the men would declare her unchaste,” said some one. “Now that she’s survived, they’ll hold her up as an example. Either way, the moment Elder Brother-in-law agreed to the fire test, we were doomed.”
Shard-sharp words, and true, as history showed. I turned to face the woman who spoke: Madhulika.
She continued, “We should keep men so happy that no one can sway them. They have so much work to do; we women can support them.”
“Hear her well, Vaidehi,” said the mother-in-law. “You are swollen-headed because you accompanied my son on his trip and survived the fire, but it is women like Madhulika who truly inspire young girls.”
I pressed my lips tight so that I wasn’t tempted to retort.
“Vaidehi!” A voice from behind. I looked up-it was Shanta, the husband’s elder sister. She crooked a finger.
I stumbled slightly as I stood, and Madhulika stretched her arm to steady me. Her finger curled around my forearm, clutching me where the sync button was.
I winced.
She released me immediately, gaze fixed on the wart. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. What was so unusual about a wart, I thought.
But Madhulika was staring at me as if seeing a vision of sorts. An understanding came into her eyes, and dread filled me. She suspects, I told myself, but what can she suspect?
Shanta grabbed my shoulder. “Your husband wants you to visit me for a month. I will leave in an hour. Be ready by then.”
“But why?”
She glared at me. “Do you question your husband’s commands?”
Shut up, screamed the implant inside me. Just obey for once.
After Shanta strode off , Madhulika laid her hand on my arm and un obtrusively led me to an isolated corner. We reached a window opening to the yard where cows grazed.
“You are a replacement Vaidehi,” she said. “The earlier one had no wart on her arm.”
No, she had hers on her leg, I thought, remembering the injection I’d kicked away.
“You are an agent?” I asked. Seniormost had not mentioned having another agent here.
She nodded, and lowered her uttariya slightly to expose a wart on her breast. “My coordinator didn’t mention another agent. He should have—”
“He?” I cut in. “A man?” I gaped at her, the import of her words sinking in slowly.
She paled, too. “No,” she said softly. “You are too normal. Arrogant, maybe, but not…but you must be…an Ambapur abomination.”
I would have reacted, but my implant flashed a warning twinge of pain, and by the time I recovered my breath, Madhulika had rushed away.
Shanta did not speak as we sat side-by-side in her cart. I welcomed the silence; realizing that Madhulika was a Navabharata agent had shocked me. I had not expected to find agents from the “enemy camp”, much less a woman. Madhulika didn’t fit my stereotype of Navabharata’s docile, suppressed women. I had been taught those women were dumb, incapable of independent thought, insipid, exploited, their personalities molded to the Sati-and-Sita image. They were pitiable objects compared to us strong Ambapur women, free and independent and living in our own country.
Besides, why would Navabharata need agents? Seniormost had said, “Futurist agents change the past so that the future changes.” Why would Navabharata want to change anything? That country had no simmering discontent regarding gender roles. Men were the hunters, gatherers, doers. The scientists and rulers. They commanded. They demanded. Women accepted men as superiors. Women bred, supported, obeyed. They listened, they supplied. Genetic selections encouraged this. Society rewarded it. Political systems, economic systems, were based on it. Why change it?
Or had Ambapur exaggerated the docility and dumbness of Navabharata women? Madhulika seemed intelligent enough, even though she had a different value system.
And she had called me an Ambapur abomination. What lies had their government feed them about us?
The cart jerked to a halt. “Get off , Vaidehi.” Shanta’s voice was whiplash-sharp. “My brother told me to get rid of you.”
Stunned, I looked around. We were on a lonely road skirting a forest. No farms nearby, not a single hut, nothing. I looked at Shanta; she was frowning at me and gripping a thick stick as if ready to attack. I took a few mom
ents to gather my words. “I have been your brother’s wife for years,” I said. “I helped him when we traveled.”
“That was your duty, so what’s great about it?” she retorted. “Now you have resorted to evil ways.”
“But-”
“No one can survive fire without witchcraft.”
“Then why did he agree to the fire test?”
“A woman who dies to save her husband embarrassment dies a worthy death.” Shanta threw my bundle of clothes on the ground, then pushed me off the cart.
“What will he tell the villagers?” I asked.
Shanta shrugged. She made a sign of warding off evil, and instructed the cart driver to proceed.
The sun was low in the sky, barely visible behind the dense trees. I wanted to sink onto the ground and cry, but I couldn’t afford to. Then I thought of the implant, and queried it about the surroundings. Luckily, it turned out that Vaidehi had spent part of her childhood nearby, something neither Shanta nor her brothers had known. Her records showed a cave some distance away, hidden in the forest.
I started walking.
The forest grew thicker with mean clusters of trees. I wended my way, brushing the branches apart, depending on my predecessor’s memories. Once, I spotted eyes peering at me; I drew on the hope that Vaidehi often frequented the forest as a child, and so there would be no wild beasts here. I would be safe.
I reached the cave before dark, glad, almost, for the cold stone to sit on. The implant initiated the daily transmission. I added to it a request for an audience with Seniormost the next morning. I was exhausted. I stretched out on the hard floor. Sleep descended mercifully quickly.
“We reviewed your download,” Seniormost said as soon as she established contact. “You ignored the implant’s guidance several times.”
“I did my best,” I said, though I knew I could have tried harder if I’d set aside my ego.
“You don’t understand these dynamics. Using anti-pheromones on your husband and antagonizing him, really! You know story-tellers will twist your eviction to claim that Rama banished Sita because his subjects remained skeptical after the test.”
Frustration made me snap back. “If story-tellers decide what gets sung about, you should influence them. Get a wife to distract Tulsidas. Make him compose a Sitayana instead of Ramacharitramanas.”
Seniormost sighed. “Child, calm down.”
She did not understand the reality here, this bright woman running the tiny women-only country millennia away.
“Gender-imbalance is deeply ingrained already,” I said. “Both in men and women.”
“That’s why we need agents.”
“Then choose a different intervention fork. How about the Mahab-harata era? Kunti and Draupadi didn’t get bullied. Radha held her own.”
“We can’t identify representative Mahabharata time-streams,” Senior-most said. “From the candidate historically-correlated episodes, Ra-mayana offers the maximum gender ‘inflexion’ points.”
“Did you know about the Navabharata agent?”
“No,” she said. “But that is part of the challenge. Now here’s what I want you to do today. Study the implant’s data and complete your integration. Don’t get discouraged. We’ll talk tomorrow.” She disconnected before I could quiz her about how long she’d take to find a proper replacement.
Seniormost was right about my need to study, though. I had gazillions of questions, and the fastest way to proceed was exploiting my implant. Discarding my reluctance, I collapsed my boundary with the implant and integrated the old Vaidehi’s memories into my own.
Then I was Kalpana, and I was Kavita, and I was Vaidehi, and it was evening by the time I recovered my balance and sense of orientation.
I was almost asleep on the dry grass apology of a mattress when I heard steps. Someone was approaching. I opened my eyes a peep. A woman stood at the cave entrance, and a shaft of moonlight fell on her face. Madhulika.
I sprang up and assumed a defense stance. Crouched, ready to spring, I asked, “How did you find me?”
“I came to warn you,” she said, pulling her shawl tighter around her. “My coordinator knows your location. He may try to harm you.”
I had no reason to trust her. “Explain.”
“I asked him about you last evening. You see, we have been told things about Ambapur women.” Madhulika peered at me, as if deciding what to tell me. “You are supposed to be ugly and malformed, and incapable of womanly emotions like love because you women are genetic freaks and clones who pleasure each other instead of men, and oppose the natural order of humanity to the extent of using intelligence to compete with men instead of supporting and serving them. But you showed sympathy to me, as did the Vaidehi before you, so I began to have doubts.”
“You don’t look the way I expected a Navabharata woman to look, either,” I conceded, marveling that we were discussing the future while living a past supposed to change it. I stayed crouched as I spoke, though. Madhulika’s presence here could be a Navabharata trick.
She nodded. “My coordinator laughed and said your predecessor died because he sabotaged her fireproofing by jamming some signal. He’s the washerman who taunted your husband for the fire test. He claimed you were now hiding in a cave in the forest and he knew your location by tapping your sync signals. He downloads all data you transmit.”
My stomach felt heavy, like a weight had sunk in it.
“Till yesterday,” Madhulika continued, “I believed that I must be a role model-an ideal woman who complemented men in accordance with our basic nature, our true gender role. Last night, when I realized that what I’d learned about Ambapur women was exaggerated, I wondered whether I’d also been fooled about other things.”
Ditto here, I thought.
“So, I came here.”
“Well,” I said. “Right.” I lowered the stone.
She sat down. She looked very tired. The walk here must have been exhausting for her, given her advanced pregnancy.
“What’s your plan?” she asked.
Her mission was to nudge history in the opposite direction. I said nothing.
“Who is your coordinator?” she asked.
I kept my lips pressed tight. I wasn’t willing to expose myself yet.
“My coordinator may try to kill you,” she said. “He tried to kill me.”
“Kill you? Why?” I stared at her.
“When he realized I was rethinking this whole Ambapur-women- are-abominations business, he got very agitated. He threatened me. He even kicked me. But I shouted out, as if I had just spotted some thieves, and he slunk away.”
Even across the years, I remember Madhulika’s grimace at that memory, her closing her eyes for an instant.
She sighed then, a tired sigh. “That’s when I decided to leave home. I don’t want to live in fear of my coordinator. My husband means nothing to me; I lived with him only because of my mission. But I don’t want to bring up my child in a place like that. I am so confused.”
She tilted her neck back and looked at me. I didn’t know what to say-we were opposites, weren’t we?
I stuck to practicalities. “He’ll trace you using your sync button.”
“No.” She removed her shawl.
The wound was obvious despite the thick slathering of herbal paste. The right breast was tattered where the sync button was gouged out, and rags of torn skin hung from it.
I shuddered.
“I threw the button down the river. I also threw in blood-smeared clothes. They will drift back to the shore downriver, and people will assume I fell in the water.”
Night owls cried raucously, crickets chirped. I spread the grass thinner to make another place. Moonbeams lent silver highlights to her night-dark hair.
“Sleep,” I told her. “We can talk tomorrow.”
After a while, her gentle snores filled the night. But I could n
ot sleep.
The Navabharata coordinator could locate me. He was accessing my messages to Seniormost. Yet I needed to tell her about this development.
After much thought, I encrypted my message using a code based on the Ambapur literature not available outside our country. The agent would know where I was, but would not be able to decipher my message.
Seniormost’s encrypted message came back fast enough, but brought no cheer.
You cannot switch off the sync signals, I decoded. The device sends out signals every few hours, whether or not you transmit a message, but you cannot control that. You will have to mislead the Men’s agent.
I pondered over the information while staring at the culprit wart. It seemed to me that our country’s approach of Futurist agents changing past gender forks was doomed to fail. Navabharata, a country several hundred times larger, was flush with resources. If they wanted, they could send multiple agents to hunt down and sabotage every Ambapur agent. They could flush every gender fork with required role models. They could keep the past favorable, because a favorable past had made them rich enough to manipulate the past-historical inertia closed the loop.
They could kill me.
As soon as it was dawn, despite the risk of being traced, I initiated contact with Seniormost. She had probably expected it, because she was present in the control room.
Again, I used encryption. As I completed my explanation, my voice broke. “They will destroy me if I stay here.”
“Just hold on tight, Kalpana. The tech team is working to find a solution. Give them time.”
And live under such hostile conditions in this primitive world? “You are only thinking of the mission,” I said, my tension too sharp to hide. “So what if it fails? It’ll just be status quo, it’s not like you will die.”
“No, we will not die if the mission fails,” Seniormost said, her voice low. “It was our fault we sent you without training. We did not explain things.”
“Trained or not, at least credit me for finding out valuable information,” I snapped. “And send a trained agent for me.”
Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana Page 24