TWO
He was within sight of Lanka when the second obstacle arose. He had been scouring the horizon anxiously for a glimpse of the emerald island, and starting to wonder if he had somehow been travelling in the wrong direction, when he glimpsed the first flash of green in the distance. It was only a speck, like a tiny pinpoint, a fleck upon the glimmering, silvery expanse of the sea. But it remained still, and grew slowly as he flew on, and he knew that it was his destination.
He roared with exultation and increased speed, flying faster. He had lost a great deal of height in the encounter with Mainika, because although he was able to keep himself aloft by sheer force of will, each time he used his mind to do something else—such as speak to the mountain—he slipped down lower and lower. And when he increased speed too, he fell correspondingly lower. He was only a few miles above the ocean now. But it hardly mattered. Lanka was there. He would be on its shores before the sun had travelled a finger’s length further west.
He pushed his chest out and raced through the air, the wind buffeting his sunburned body and feeling as searing as fire.
Lanka was the size of his fist and growing fast when he saw the serpent.
She rose from the ocean, water dripping from her golden scales. Her head was flattened and protruded in a
v-shaped wedge. Fibrillations streamed from either side of her head, flowing down in multicoloured strands. Her body beneath opened in thick, undulating coils, lashing the sea and stiffening to hold her aloft. He had not known what or who Mainika was, for, as the mountain had explained, he was from a different age altogether. But he knew the serpent at once. She was a legend among vanars and had been for millennia. She was one of the reasons why vanars feared the ocean. She was Sarasa, mother of all serpents of the sea and sister of Takshak, the celestial serpent who lay coiled around the neck of Shiva himself.
She rose up to meet Hanuman, her coiled body gleaming like a pillar of gold in the sunlight. He knew better than to try to dodge her in mid-air. He was still unaccustomed to the art of flight. She was in her element here. And, unlike Mainika, she was no mountain of mud and sludge that he could break through with brute force. If the legends were true, then she possessed enough poison to kill him with a single jab of her fangs.
She bared those fangs now, as he slowed and came to a floating halt. Her hood danced, showing him how swiftly she could move and strike if she pleased. The fibrillations around her neck changed colour constantly, traversing every imaginable shade in a dazzling display. He made sure not to stare at them too long, knowing they would hypnotise him into helpless immobility. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on her ruby-bright eyes. Even so, he could see her fangs, each a hundred yards high and tapered to a razor point. A drop of milky, viscous venom dribbled slowly down one gleaming bone-white fang as he watched, and when it splashed into the ocean, the water boiled and sizzled and seethed. He saw fish turn belly up for a mile around the spilt drop, dead upon contact with the lethal venom.
‘Vanar,’ she said. And hissed at him. ‘It is forbidden for your kind to pass through this ocean. This is my domain.’
Hanuman folded his arms across his chest and stared at her calmly. ‘This ocean, and all others upon the earth, are the domain of Lord Varuna, not yours. But I do not pass through the ocean. I pass above it.’
She hissed at his impudence. ‘Even so. You annoy me by flying over my home.’
‘Then you must get accustomed to being annoyed. I intend to pass this way at least once more, when I return the way I came.’
She opened her mouth and made a horrible throaty sound that nauseated him. For all his bravado, he was still a vanar by upbringing. And to vanarkind, nothing was more frightful than a snake. He thanked the devas that Sakra did not have to see this. The poor fellow would leap off a mountain and drown himself at the very thought that such a being existed. Sarasa herself. Queen of serpentkind! And here he was, speaking to her as if she was naught more than a vexatious impediment in his path.
‘You do not scare me,’ he said sternly. ‘Now return to your seabed and let me pass. I have business in Lanka and it will not wait while I tarry here with you.’
‘Businessss,’ she hissed, stretching the word into a sibilant nightmare. ‘What business would a vanar have in the land of asuras?’
‘That,’ he said curtly, ‘is none of your businesssss.’ He stressed the last syllable deliberately, taunting her. Careful now, he warned himself. There might still be a way to handle this diplomatically.
Her eyes blazed, glittering like hot coals in a fire. ‘You dare mock me? Do you know who I am?’
He feigned a yawn, then feigned stifling it. He couldn’t resist it. She was so pompous and arrogant, so full of her own importance. ‘Probably. But what does it matter? I am not here to pay you a visit and exchange pleasantries. Move aside and let me pass. Go on now, slither home.’
‘Fool vanar,’ she said. ‘You do not know whom you insult. I have been given a boon by the devas. Anything I desire must enter my mouth. I will eat you and spend a century digesting your flesh. No creature can escape my maw.’
Hanuman glanced up. The sun was well past noon, moving on towards late afternoon. He glanced over Sarasa’s quivering head. Lanka was right there, within easy reach. He had only to get past this wretched sea snake and he would be there.
She grinned. ‘Do you still think you will reach Lanka in time to save your beloved Sita devi? You are more stupid than I thought. The only place you will travel to today is the bottom of my belly. And let me tell you, that is a long, long journey. My coils are so long, even I have no idea where they end. I have not seen my tail for many centuries. It could be in another world for all I know.’
‘You speak too much,’ he broke in. ‘If you wish to eat me, then go ahead and do it now.’
She hissed angrily. ‘Insolent vanar. I told you, the devas have gifted me a boon. If I desire you, you will not escape my mouth. Even your father the wind god cannot save you now.’
‘Is that what you wish?’ he asked. ‘That I should enter your mouth?’
She grinned at him. ‘That is all.’
He nodded, as if thinking it over. ‘And if I do this, if I enter your mouth, then you will let me pass?’
Her grin widened. ‘Pass, yes. Pass into my stomach!’
‘So you presume,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘But let us assume for the moment that I only pass through your mouth and not enter your undoubtedly fascinating digestive system, will you then let me pass this way and go towards Lanka?’
She laughed a sibilant serpent laugh. ‘It is impossible. But yes, if you could do that, then I would happily let you go anywhere you pleased!’
‘So be it,’ Hanuman said grimly. ‘Now, if you’re going to eat me, eat me. Don’t bore me to death with your mindless patter.’
Her grin vanished. She emitted a sibilant cry, producing a sizzle as loud as a volcano’s lava flow meeting the ocean. And then she lunged wordlessly at him.
Hanuman danced out of the way of her first lunge, darting backwards. She hissed in frustration and lunged again. Again, he dodged her easily and she missed. She screamed a serpent cry, making fish flop madly and swim away in terror around them both. She lunged yet again, and again he was able to dance out of the way just in time.
She paused, eyes glinting, and twisted her head to look back quickly. He looked as well, and his heart fell when he saw that the three leaps backward had taken him three full miles back the way he had come.
‘How will you avoid my mouth?’ she said. Now it was her turn to taunt him. ‘Will you have me chase you all the way back to your friend Rama? Will you cower by his feet and beg him to save you from me? Come here, you craven vanar!’
He tried to think quickly. He kept moving as he thought, flying this way, then that. He tried a feint in one direction, then flew in another, hoping to get past her. But she was too quick and blocked him each time. He knew that this game was wasting his precious time. While she could da
nce all day—or for the next hundred days if she pleased. That would suit her as well.
Nor could he simply stand still. That was the mistake almost every vanar made when confronted with a serpent. First, they froze, stunned by the sight of those lethal fangs, those hypnotic fevered eyes, that flattened hood swaying slowly to the rhythm of unheard music, those glistening, scaly coils. Then, they ran. Leaping this way. Or that. Or worse, turning and fleeing back the opposite way. This last was the worst of all, for the turning-around itself slowed them, and gave the snake ample time to lunge and strike. Even leaping to either side was useless: no vanar could leap as fast as a snake could lunge.
There was only one way a vanar could defeat a snake. And that was to leap towards it, grasping its neck in both hands as tightly as possible and then pounding it senseless or dead on the ground or against a tree trunk. He had known vanars who had done this, had seen it done on one occasion, years ago, though he had been high on a branch looking down, and the vanar in question had nevertheless sustained a glancing nick from a single fang when his hold on the snake’s throat slipped a little. The vanar had not died, but he might as well have. He took severely ill as a result of that single nick, and was unable to leap or run the rest of his days.
But this was not the forest, nor was this an ordinary snake. It was Sarasa. And she was empowered with a boon that made it impossible for any creature she desired to escape her mouth.
So he knew that he must enter her mouth. Unless … well, unless her mouth wasn’t big enough.
An idea blossomed in his mind. Without wasting more time thinking, he expanded his body. Putting all his energy into the act. He had reduced himself after the encounter with Mainika, diminishing back to the yojana-tall form in which he had left the mainland. Now, he expanded himself in the wink of an eye to five times that size, then ten times. Ten yojanas tall.
Sarasa laughed and before the sound of her laughter reached his ears, she was twenty yojanas tall.
He doubled his size. Now he was twenty yojanas tall.
She doubled her size. She was forty yojanas now.
‘Grow, grow, foolish vanar. The more you grow, the more meat I shall get to feed on!’
As she spoke, he became forty, then eighty, then a hundred yojanas tall. She followed suit a blink of an eye later. But each time, he observed, she took a breath before each expansion. Just a tiny intake, barely a fraction of a moment, but it was there. An inward puff of breath, and then she expanded, another small puff, another expansion.
He knew what he had to do.
She loomed two hundred yojanas tall, twice as tall as he was.
He shot up like an arrow from Rama’s bow, up to where her hood swayed high in the sky. Stars glimmered faintly behind her hood. She gaped down at him, ready for his next move, whatever it might be.
He reached her mouth’s height and shouted, ‘Is this the tallest you can become? Have you reached the end of your strength? I thought you were the queen of snakes, Sarasa. Even an ordinary grass snake with a boon can do better than this!’
She shrieked, the sound echoing off the moon’s surface. And expanded herself to twice her size again. And yet again. And again. Each time, she took a tiny breath, each time she wasted a fraction of a moment.
When she was taller than he would ever have believed possible, he flew straight at her mouth. In a blink of an eye, he reduced himself to a hundredth, then a thousandth, then a millionth of his size.
The size of a vanar’s thumb, he flew into her gaping maw, straight into those jaws of certain death. Between those poised fangs, dripping venom. She was so huge, he so tiny, it was like a gnat flying into a cave.
He flew out again.
As he emerged, he expanded himself.
At the same time, she realised his trick and reduced her size. She shrank at the speed of thought, and in a blink she was a yojana high, as when she had risen out of the ocean to confront him. Too late.
By then, he was a yojana tall as well.
He stopped and turned to face her again. ‘So,’ he said. ‘I have entered your mouth and fulfilled your boon. Now your power over me is gone. Slither back into your watery home and let me pass.’
She cried out in sibilant rage. But he was right. She had agreed to his condition and he had fulfilled his part of the deal. Had flown into her mouth and out again.
For a moment, he thought she would not honour the bargain, that this dance would resume, and that he would have to fight her to the death, which he was not sure he could do without wasting a great deal of time or injuring himself gravely in the process.
But then she scowled. And dipped her hood once. Like a duck dipping its head for a drink of water.
‘It is true,’ she said. ‘You have done what no being before you has been able to do until today. You have entered my mouth and lived to tell the tale.’ Her ruby eyes flashed dangerously at him. ‘Clever vanar.’
He shrugged, trying to appear unaffected. ‘All the cleverness I possess would not fill a thimble on my lord Rama’s little finger.’
She inclined her hood. ‘I would like to meet your lord Rama, then. If his servant is so powerful and shrewd, how great a warrior might he be?’
‘And perhaps you shall meet him,’ Hanuman said. ‘But now, I must be on my way.’
‘Goodbye, then, clever vanar. I do not know if you will accomplish your goal. For Ravana has many, many allies like me waiting to defend his kingdom. But I think I will watch with great interest how you fare in the fight. And perhaps it would please me to see you succeed. After all, if you vanquished me but stay unvanquished yourself, then that would mean I was bested by the very best of all.’
‘In point of fact, Sarasa, I only outwitted you. To vanquish you I would have to kill you.’ He added playfully: ‘Which I have no doubt I could easily do, if I had a few more minutes to spare!’
She hissed at him. ‘Silence! Insolent two-legged creature! Now go your way and unite your lady Sita with her husband. I have better things to do than to stand around here bickering with vanars all day! Go before I change my mind and swallow you again!’
He smiled and flew past her. But he kept his eyes on her until he was well out of lunging distance. She remained where she was, watching him. But she made no move to come after him. Like all ancient ones, she was true to her word.
Finally, he turned his back upon her, and flew the last few miles to Lanka.
THREE
In the leafy shade of the Ashoka grove, Sita stood on one leg, performing a pranayam exercise to help clear her mind of fear
and anxiety. It was the first free spell she had had since regaining consciousness in Lanka. The rakshasis were within sight of her, but kept their distance. They had been instructed to do so. After the chain-lashing she had given them in the sabha hall, they would gladly have torn her to pieces the instant she was back in this place. Vikata, in particular, seethed visibly with blood-lust, eager to do to Sita as she had done to her own companion, the unfortunate Trijata. The memory of the savagery with which Vikata, and then the other rakshasis, had fallen upon their own fellow sakhi had haunted Sita. If these beasts could do that to their friend, what might they not do to her?
But the lord of Lanka’s orders had been explicit, and she had a feeling that Ravana brooked no disobedience. So ever since leaving the sabha hall, they had not dared to lay a finger upon her. The endless litany of taunts and abuse, as well as the relentless prodding and scratching, had not resumed as well, and that was a relief.
But she knew they were only biding their time. The rakshasis knew their moment would come soon enough. She had no way to tell time in this unnatural place, but from the references to ‘after nightfall’ and ‘tonight at midnight’ made in the sabha hall, she had guessed it was still day at the time. Now, several hours had passed, and it was probably closer to evening. Not long now. Not long before they came for her and put an end to this farcical travesty.
If not for the unborn life within her womb, she might a
lmost welcome it.
No. I will not think that. Death will come when it will. But I must fight it to the very end. If not for my own sake, then for the sake of my child. Our child. Mine and Rama’s.
That was her reason for living, for fighting on, for waging this unequal battle as best as she could. It was her sole motivation for her defiant display in the sabha hall. She had felt a burning need to speak out against the injustice being done to her, yes, to lash out at those despicable beings for pretending to dispense justice, in the name of dharma, of all things. Dharma! Even Vibhisena, that Brahmin brother of Ravana, had not raised his voice at the end, either because he dared not, or because he had no further argument to offer. The judgement had been made, sentence passed, and the time for execution approached.
But still she might have held her peace and allowed herself to be led from the hall in stony silence. Only the thought of her unborn child had driven her, compelled her to speak out and make an effort to appeal to any shred of decency that might exist in this godless land.
And what had she achieved by that? Nothing, it seemed. The execution was to go ahead as planned. The hours were wasting away. She did not doubt that Rama would come for her, that he would find a way to come to Lanka and fight for her release. But it did not seem likely he would reach in time. It was too much to expect of him, that he would arrive in the very nick of time, literally at the eleventh hour, and carry her away in a golden flying chariot.
What was it that one of the rakshasis had said—was it Vikata? ‘She has no champions here.’ It was true. And yet, she was a Kshatriya princess, a swordmistress of Arya. She could champion her own cause. If she could but lay her hands on a weapon, she would show them how Arya women fought—and died, if need be. She was willing to risk all to protect her honour and dignity. If nothing else, she would slay as many as she could before she fell, and she would fall praising Rama’s name with her last breath.
But she had more than herself to think of now.
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 29