The Sage's Secret

by Abhinav Menon

  Mohini started crying—the sadness tore through her heart. A mother could never let her child go … Anirudh was barely out of his teens—and to send him to Gujarat! She couldn’t bring herself to reconcile to the idea, even if he was a god, an avatar! He was still her only son.

  Krishna understood their apprehension. He stepped forward and enveloped them in his warm embrace.

  ‘He will return soon,’ Krishna reassured them.

  Stepping back, he saw that, though their faces showed hesitation, they were nodding. Krishna smiled.

  ‘Remember, I am always here for you. You need not worry about Anirudh. He will be safe, I promise you.’

  The parents smiled weakly but, encouraged by the god’s word, they nodded wholeheartedly. Krishna’s voice was like a soothing balm to the wound of letting their son go.

  ‘Thank you. I shall now take your leave. Tomorrow, you must allow Sage Dweepa to take Anirudh with him. He’s my ally. And you can identify him by the broken conch-shell locket he wears around his neck.’

  Krishna raised his palm and blessed the couple. His deep, sombre black eyes met their moist ones, and an understanding passed between them. With a sad smile, the dark-complexioned god vanished.

  Bhaskar and Mohini were jolted awake by what they had just experienced. In the darkness, they speechlessly turned to one another. When each saw that the other’s face wore the same bittersweet expression, they embraced between quiet sobs.

  ‘Was it truly Lord Krishna?’ Bhaskar asked.

  Mohini nodded fervently.

  Quietly they walked to Anirudh’s room and opened his door a crack. Moonlight was filtering into the room, illuminating his peaceful sleeping face. Knowing that he would be gone tomorrow, tears welled up in Mohini’s eyes again. Bhaskar squeezed her hand and shut the door.

  ‘The lord says he will be back soon. Don’t worry.’

  Mohini buried her face in his chest as he guided her back to their bedroom.

  Everyone in the living room was silent. Anirudh’s parents hadn’t told him about Lord Krishna visiting them in a dream the night before, lest it turned out to be just that—a reverie. Anirudh hadn’t told them about Dweepa either, for he wanted them to directly meet him.

  The sage was sitting on a chair, while Anirudh’s parents were on the sofa adjacent to him. Anirudh stood in a corner. In the uncomfortable silence, Dweepa scanned the neat house, brightly lit by the noonday sunlight streaming in through a large window.

  Finally, for lack of any questions, Dweepa turned to Anirudh’s parents. ‘I am Dweepa,’ he said anxiously.

  Bhaskar shook his hand, introducing himself, Mohini and Anirudh, unaware that the two had already met.

  Dweepa didn’t know what to say next. He decided to start with the truth. ‘Your son is not an ordinary person. He is Kalki, Lord Vishnu’s tenth avatar.’

  Anirudh’s parents had noticed the conch-shell locket as soon as the sage had entered their house. They looked at each other quietly and nodded.

  ‘We know … that he is the Kalki avatar,’ Bhaskar said.

  Anirudh and Dweepa exchanged astonished looks.

  ‘Forgive me for asking, but how did you know that your son is Kalki?’ Dweepa asked.

  Bhaskar smiled. ‘Lord Krishna came to us last night … He told us you would be coming for our son. He told us the truth about Anirudh.’

  Anirudh was stunned. Lord Krishna had found a way, just as the sage had said he would!

  Dweepa felt partly relieved, but his job wasn’t done yet. ‘Anirudh needs to be trained so that he can defeat his enemies. He needs to gain the necessary knowledge so that he can fulfil the purpose of his Kalki avatar,’ he explained kindly.

  Bhaskar nodded.

  ‘But to train him, I need to take him to Gujarat.’

  ‘Yes, we know that too,’ said Mohini in a low voice.

  Even though Lord Krishna had promised them that he would keep their son safe, they couldn’t help their parental instincts—they were anxious about his well-being and safety. They remained silent while Dweepa waited for their response, their permission.

  ‘It’s hard for us to let our son go so far away,’ Bhaskar finally said.

  Dweepa nodded, understanding their plight. ‘I know you are apprehensive about sending Anirudh with me. But I give you my word that I will take very good care of him. I will always keep him out of harm’s way.’

  Anirudh’s parents looked at Dweepa and then at each other. Both the sage and Lord Krishna had guaranteed their son’s safety. They understood that Anirudh had to fulfil his purpose, and that they could not stand as an obstacle in the path of the Kalki avatar. They trusted Lord Krishna, and now, Sage Dweepa. They knew they had to let Anirudh go. It was his destiny—they’d come to terms with it the previous night. Bhaskar nodded to Mohini and she nodded back, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘You are right, Sage Dweepa. We are apprehensive about sending our son away with a person we’ve just met today,’ Anirudh’s father started.

  Dweepa sat up straight. He didn’t like where the conversation was headed.

  Bhaskar continued. ‘But we understand that Anirudh has to fulfil his destiny. We understand the need for him to train. So we will let him go with you to Gujarat. We are placing our trust entirely in you, Sage Dweepa.’

  Anirudh exhaled with relief and Dweepa smiled gently, controlling his happiness. ‘I shall keep your son safe. He is my responsibility. I won’t break the trust you have placed in me.’

  Bhaskar nodded and instructed a stunned Anirudh to pack his bags. Once he was out of the room, Dweepa and Anirudh’s parents got talking. They discussed the previous night’s dream in detail. The sage was indeed happy that his lord had made things easy for him. He beamed broadly, admiring the mysterious ways in which his lord worked.

  By the time Anirudh returned, the three were chatting about his childhood. But now it was time to leave. Dweepa got up, his parents following suit.

  At the door, Mohini hugged her son, sobbing quietly.

  ‘I will back in two months, Mom,’ he consoled her. ‘Don’t worry.’

  She nodded through her tears. Then his father held him tight and tenderly patted his head.

  ‘Yes, we will be back before Anirudh’s college starts,’ the sage added.

  His parents nodded.

  Bowing respectfully to Bhaskar and Mohini, Dweepa stepped outside. Anirudh waved goodbye and followed. With hearts heavier than lead, Anirudh’s parents shut the door behind them.

  On the train, now hurtling towards Gujarat, Anirudh was already missing his parents. But he fought hard to ignore the sadness. As Kalki, he knew he had a great responsibility, and that it had been right for him to come with Sage Dweepa, his guru.

  It was a two-day trip, and during the journey, Dweepa paid for all the expenses. While Anirudh ate his meals from the train canteen, the sage only had fruit and milk. Anirudh was curious to know how he had so much money, but he refrained from asking for he did not want to upset his teacher.

  As they crossed station after station, Dweepa learnt about Anirudh’s life and asked him about his hobbies and what he knew of Indian mythology. He was impressed by the extent Anirudh already knew. Anirudh, too, was itching to ask the sage many questions, but he saved them for a later, more private, setting. When there wasn’t anything to say, Anirudh read a novel, while Dweepa studied a religious book.

  At night, they slept comfortably under their blankets as the train chugged along, taking them closer to their destination.

  EIGHTEEN

  After a short walk through the woods, Dweepa and Anirudh stood before the former’s house. Anirudh looked at the surroundings in awe. The hut, though secluded, somehow didn’t appear isolated. It was enveloped in life and light. The sun showered its rays abundantly. Birds chirped, deer gambolled, leaves swayed in the cool breeze and a rivulet flowed steadily nearby, its waves softly thrashing against the banks. Anirudh felt like he was right in the lap of Mother Nature, and she was playi
ng happily with all her creations.

  Dweepa noticed Anirudh’s awestruck face. ‘Not a frequent sight in the city, huh?’

  Anirudh shook his head. ‘This Dwarka isn’t the same as Lord Krishna’s, correct?’

  ‘The kingdom of Lord Krishna, his Dwarka, built by the chief architect of the gods, Vishwakarma, doesn’t stand today. It submerged undersea after his death. This city is the modern-day Dwarka.’

  Anirudh nodded.

  ‘Technically, we aren’t even in Dwarka city. We are on the outskirts, far from the city’s noise.’

  Anirudh smiled. He turned his attention to Dweepa’s hut. It was small and painted sky-blue, with a red clay-tiled roof. The house was surrounded by trees, except for the large area in front that was carpeted in green grass, still wet with the morning dew. Stunning, he thought.

  Dweepa unlocked the door and motioned Anirudh to enter. He observed that the house was charming on the inside too. The walls were painted in the soothing shade of sandalwood, and its faint scent lingered on the walls.

  ‘So, do you like your temporary home?’

  Anirudh smiled. ‘I love it! It’s beautiful.’

  He saw that the house was modestly furnished with a sofa, a chair, a table and a bed. To the right was a small room, empty. Dweepa followed Anirudh’s curious eyes to the room.

  ‘That’s the puja room. But all the contents of that room are in this bag.’ Dweepa patted the one hanging from his shoulder.

  ‘And that’s the bathroom, and here’s the kitchen. Make yourself at home, get comfortable. I’ll have a bath, unpack my things and ready the puja room while you freshen up,’ Dweepa said.

  Half an hour later, Anirudh stepped out of the house and breathed in the crisp forest air. Looking up at the cloudless sky, he figured it was past noon … and he was hungry. Still, the surrounding trees looked too inviting and he decided to take a short walk through the grove. Straying from the hut, he walked along a straight path in the shade, a smile fixed on his face. The breeze, whistling through the brown branches and lush green leaves, was soothing his mind. The woods were peaceful and quiet, except for the sounds of nature—the rustling of the leaves and the twittering of the birds. Anirudh strolled along, absorbing the beauty and bounty of nature, bathed in the golden hues of the sun.

  He was mesmerized, more so by the distinctive trunks of the trees. Some of them were very old. Some had pieces of bark stripped and hanging loose, forming weird, accidental shapes. The trunks of other trees had their bark scraped off so precisely that the shapes looked like they had been inscribed with purpose. Anirudh spotted figures like a leaf, a conch shell, a bird and a circle on a few of these trees.

  Anirudh was about to venture deeper into the woods, when he heard Dweepa call out his name. He turned and easily made his way back to the house for he’d been tracing his path. On his way, he heard Dweepa call his name a few more times, fervently. As he emerged from the foliage, he saw a tense-looking Dweepa searching for him. Spotting Anirudh come into view, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Don’t venture out alone again without informing me.’

  Anirudh was surprised at Dweepa’s stern reaction. ‘I just went for a short walk,’ he explained.

  ‘Even if it’s a short walk, I want you to inform me. Times are not good, Anirudh, especially for you and me.’

  Anirudh looked quizzical.

  ‘I will explain later,’ Dweepa told him. ‘Let’s have some food first.’

  After a simple meal of rice and dal that Dweepa had cooked, Anirudh rested on the sofa while the sage went to the puja room. He wanted to refresh his mind regarding the next course of action.

  The sage took his ancestor’s painting off the nail on the wall and opened the hidden compartment behind it. Flipping through the bundle of palm leaves, he thought about how Lord Krishna had indeed made things easy for him when he had gone to speak with Anirudh’s parents. His lord had done just as he’d said he would. Dweepa also remembered what Anirudh’s parents had said about Krishna visiting them in their dreams as well as the dreams the boy had been having, sometimes as the god himself. The sage recollected his lord’s words to his ancestor, those that all his forefathers knew by heart …

  ‘I will convey this fact to myself … in some way. Probably the same way by which I communicate with my devotees—when my words are just for their ears.’

  For dreams were private! They could not be spied upon. His lord had a unique way of addressing his devotees secretly, and himself too. Dweepa smiled thinking about his lord’s mysterious ways and started reading from where he had left off.

  Krishna was sitting on the cot when Dweepa asked him, ‘Why this place, Lord? Why should Kalki be brought back here?’

  Krishna smiled. ‘Because this is where I have been living my whole life. And this place will have a secret that I will need in my Kalki avatar.’

  Dweepa nodded and wrote down the instructions. ‘And what should be done after Kalki is brought to Dwarka, my lord?’

  Krishna pondered over that question. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the brick wall behind him. After a while, he turned to Sage Dweepa and answered, ‘Teach me Sanskrit, Sage Dweepa. And make me read the great epic of Mahabharata.’

  Dweepa was perplexed. ‘Teach you Sanskrit?’ He was utterly confused because Sanskrit was a language known to all Brahmins. All students in the gurukul had to learn it.

  Krishna explained, ‘Sage Dweepa, I can understand your confusion. I don’t need to learn Sanskrit. But Kalki will. During his era, Sanskrit will no longer be the language of communication, nor the language of learning. It won’t be important enough to be taught or considered a necessary education. So I won’t know Sanskrit. But as you know, to read the religious texts as they are, in their original form, one needs to know Sanskrit. So I want you to teach me the language after you bring me to Dwarka. Once I have mastered it, make me read the Mahabharata.’

  ‘And what’s the Mahabharata, my Lord?’ Dweepa asked, his brow furrowed.

  Krishna grinned. ‘That’s a poem that Sage Vyasa will write in the future. It will describe, in great detail, the Great War of Kurukshetra and all the events preceding and succeeding it. It will also describe the lives of the Kuru princes. It is important that Kalki reads this account, as there are some things to be learnt from it …’

  Dweepa nodded, shivering slightly at the reference to the Great War. He had witnessed the battlefield of Kurukshetra almost thirty years ago, yet it took him a few minutes to remove the images of the bloodbath from his mind. He composed himself and quietly wrote down the lord’s words.

  Dweepa looked up from the palm leaves and saw that outside the window, the sky was a luminous blue. White clouds floated dreamily. He sat considering what he had just read. His lord’s words were, once again, proven true. Sanskrit wasn’t important at all today. Schools didn’t focus on teaching it. Perhaps only one in ten taught the language.

  ‘Anirudh should be taught Sanskrit first,’ he muttered to himself.

  Dweepa bundled up the leaves and kept them safely in the compartment, shutting the secret door and hanging the portrait on the nail. He bowed to the idol of Lord Krishna and his ancestor, and left the room. Outside, Anirudh was still fast asleep, tired after the long trip. The sage saw that the sun was about to set. He freshened up and went out to collect flowers for the evening puja. Anirudh only awoke when the sage had completed the rituals.

  ‘Slept well?’

  Anirudh rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes … The fragrance of sandalwood woke me. I really do love it.’

  Dweepa smiled. ‘It has always been your favourite. In your Krishna avatar too, you liked it … In fact, you used to smell of sandalwood. And if I may say so, the same is true for the Kalki avatar as well!’

  Anirudh laughed, his eyes twinkling.

  Dweepa and Anirudh were just outside the house, sitting on the wet green grass after dinner. Night had fallen. It was a beautiful and quiet night. It was as if nature was sleepin
g too, except for the cool evening breeze and the sound of crickets. The stars sparkled in the night sky, while the moon illuminated the forest canopy.

  Just then, Anirudh remembered something. ‘You told me something about times not being good, especially for you and me … What did you mean?’

  ‘Anirudh, you do know that your enemies are stronger than you, don’t you? In your Krishna avatar, you foresaw the threat that your enemies may try to vanquish you early on in this avatar. I think you may have been right.’

  Anirudh waited for the sage to continue.

  ‘When I was in Tamil Nadu, I was attacked by a sorcerer.’

  Anirudh’s mouth fell open. ‘A what?’

  ‘Yes, Anirudh. A sorcerer. I did not recognize him. I do not know him. But he seemed to know me, very well. Well enough to be bent on killing me. He would have been successful too, but I was saved somehow … That sorcerer vanished quite suddenly.’

  ‘How did he know you “well enough”?’

  Dweepa touched the locket. In fact, he clutched it tightly. ‘This locket is my identity.’

  Anirudh smiled weakly. This was still all too new for him. ‘I’m glad you’re fine.’

  ‘Me too,’ Dweepa agreed, grinning.

  ‘Since you mentioned sorcerer, I take it you did not have an ordinary fight?’ Anirudh deduced.

  Dweepa nodded. ‘Yes, it wasn’t a common fight. Magic was the weapon and shield.’

  ‘Wow!’ Anirudh exclaimed, awestruck.

  ‘You will learn it too.’

  ‘Me? When? Tomorrow?’ Anirudh asked excitedly.

  ‘No, not tomorrow,’ Sage Dweepa replied, laughing, ‘There is still time for you to get to that lesson.’

  Anirudh sighed. ‘So what’s for tomorrow? What will I learn?’

  Sage Dweepa tried to conceal a smile, knowing full well the reaction he was going to get. ‘Sanskrit.’