Akshay Kumar loosed a second onslaught. These sped directly at the vanar, twisting, turning, writhing, and sought to enter his upper orifices. They sped straight towards his nostrils, his ears, his eyes, seeking to enter through the natural channels. That was brilliant, she thought.
Hanuman only shook his head once, vigorously. The arrows struck his face and head and neck and fell off harmlessly, like a shower of pine needles.
There was no time for a third loosing. The chariot had reached the vanar’s feet by now.
Bending down, Hanuman opened his fist, the size of an elephant’s flank, and slapped the chariot’s horse team.
The chariot, horses and all, was suddenly diverted from its headlong charge, to fly sideways, tumbling over and over, until it came to rest a hundred yards away. Akshay Kumar, ever nimble and quick on his feet, leaped from it the moment the vanar struck, and rolled, rising to his feet even before the chariot stopped tumbling. Every last one of the horses was dead, struck lifeless with the vanar’s single blow. Akshay looked at them and turned his attention back to his opponent.
He drew his sword and charged towards Hanuman like a wild boar in the deep Southwoods. He didn’t waste his breath on any war cry.
Hanuman didn’t waste his breath either. Not bothering to roar or perform any of the preliminary shows of strength that he had used against the larger groups of foes, he raced forward to meet Akshay Kumar.
The difference in their sizes was so immense that to Supanakha they resembled a boar charging an elephant. Still, even a boar as skilful as Akshay Kumar with his sword could rip out the elephant’s intestines with one well-aimed slash.
Akshay Kumar sprang through the air, leaping up to aim himself at the vanar’s groin. Supanakha saw what he intended: he would launch himself at the vanar, and feint, twisting in one direction while slashing in the other. And then they would know whether the vanar’s groin and lower belly were as resistant to pointed blades as the rest of his body.
But Hanuman’s hand flashed out, quicker than the rakshasa, quicker than his sword as well, and the next thing Supanakha saw was Akshay Kumar clutched by his feet, in Hanuman’s fists. The vanar swung the rakshasa around in a circle, leaping to turn himself round. He swung and spun, leaped and turned, increasing speed until both he and his victim were but a blur, like a gigantic top spinning madly around on the field. Supanakha tried to count how many times he whirled around, but lost count at once. The vanar turned and turned, until she thought Akshay Kumar’s brain must be addled and turned to mush from the speed and the motion alone. A hundred times? No, much more. Five hundred? Six? Closer to a thousand, she thought. And there was something significant about the number one thousand and eight, wasn’t there? She had no way to know for certain, but that was as good a number as any to guess.
A thousand and eight times Hanuman swung Akshay Kumar around.
Supanakha expected him to release the rakshasa. She was looking forward to seeing how far Akshay Kumar flew. She guessed a yojana, but any multiple was possible.
Instead, Hanuman twisted the rakshasa’s body over his shoulder the last time, and smashed it into the ground.
She felt the impact all the way up on the tree. The branch on which she sat shuddered, and lost a few dried leaves. The Pushpak had been imitating late autumn in this level.
The place where Akshay Kumar was smashed down looked like the chopping block of an abattoir. The ground was flattened in a roughly rakshasa-shaped pattern. But there the resemblance to any form or structure ended. So forcefully was the rakshasa smashed down that his sinews, muscles, entrails, eyes, bones, head, limbs, and his blood were all commingled into one formless heap.
SEVENTEEN
No sooner had Hanuman killed Akshay Kumar than he heard a sound from nearby. It came from the place where the bodies of the kumbha-rakshasas lay. He frowned but could not see anything clearly, so crowded with bodies and debris was that part of the field. He leaped up and over Akshay Kumar’s fallen chariot, landing with a thump in the midst of the slaughtered kumbha bodies. Unlike in the real world, no flies or other flying or crawling insects had begun swarming over the corpses yet, nor were there any scavengers circling in the sky above. They lay much as they had when slain. He looked around, seeking the source of the sound.
He saw an arm move. A forearm, with the six fingers of a rakshasa hand at its end, wriggling fitfully.
It was buried beneath a pile of kumbha corpses and the torso of one of the misshapen-headed creatures that seemed as ubiquitous in Lanka as camels in the desert. He picked up the bodies and tossed them aside. Beneath the third one he found the source of the sound. It was a kumbha-rakshasa, still alive. From the looks of him, and the still-bleeding gash on his head, he had been knocked unconscious and then buried beneath a pile of his fellows. Hanuman looked closer, then saw that he was the kumbha who had spoken to him first, the leader who had called himself War Marshal Prahasta.
The kumbha retched, coughed violently, then opened his eyes, wiping them clear of blood with the back of his scaly hand. He stared up unseeingly at first, then focussed on Hanuman, and blanched.
Hanuman bunched his hand into a fist. A little tap on the head and the kumbha would be oatmeal like the rest of them. The kumbha, too weak and shaken to defend himself, closed his eyes, breathing fitfully.
After a moment, Hanuman lowered the fist, and allowed it to open. The kumbha sensed something and opened his eyes. Hanuman stretched out his hand, offering it to the kumbha. The rakshasa stared at it dumbly for a moment, and wheezed and turned over on his side, struggling to rise of his own accord. The effort was futile. His legs were trapped beneath the torso of his fallen mount, thrice his own weight. Hanuman let him thrash and twist futilely for a moment, then waited. Finally, the marshal turned back to look at him, purple eyes blazing with humiliation and fury, and reached up to take the vanar’s hand. Hanuman closed his own oversized hand around the kumbha’s like a father holding his child’s hand, and yanked him bodily out of the pile.
The marshal groaned loudly, then sighed with surprise as he found himself upon his feet again. He seemed unharmed in any other way except for the gash on the head, which was not fatal. He glared at Hanuman.
Before either of them could say a word, the rumbling of a chariot came to their ears.
Hanuman strode away from the kumbha, turning his back upon the rakshasa uncaringly. Behind him, he heard the marshal gasp and exclaim in horror as he saw the carnage and slaughter that had occurred after he had fallen unconscious. The kumbha cried out as he recognised each fallen compatriot. ‘Jambumali, my son! The five generals! And Akshay Kumar too!’
Hanuman ignored him and watched the approaching chariot. It was the complete antithesis of the one ridden by Akshay Kumar. No gaudy golden plates or fancy carvings. This chariot was jet black with a simple silver-embossed sigil on the front of its barely waist-high well. It was large enough to accommodate only a single rider, built for speed and manouevrability rather than to pound foot soldiers into the ground. It was drawn by a team of four splendid white horses who moved with a gait that was poetry to behold. A warrior’s chariot, not a poseur’s.
The charioteer proved himself as undesiring of artifice as his vehicle. He wasted no time on demonstrations or protocol. He was armed with a bow, Hanuman saw, and the moment he came within arrowshot, he slowed his chariot and aimed a single arrow at Hanuman. As he put the arrow to the bow, he whispered a mantra to the tip, then took careful aim. The air shimmered, the world shook, and a great rumbling erupted from deep within the ground. Hanuman frowned. He was inured to rakshasa sorcery by now; but something about the very simplicity and directness of this rakshasa’s method rang true.
‘Vanar,’ the charioteer called in a clear but grating rakshasa voice. ‘I will fire but one missile at you. But one is sufficient to accomplish that which a thousand have failed to do before it. This arrow I have strung to my bow is empowered with a mantra you must surely have heard tell of. It is the famed dev-astra of Lord Brahma. Th
e same which your master Rama unleashed upon my father’s armies at Mithila fourteen years ago. If you believe yourself capable of withstanding its celestial power, then face it by all means. But if you will, I have orders from my father to take you as my captive and bring you before him. Tell me, what is your will?’
Hanuman sensed that this warrior spoke the truth. Of all the rakshasas who had faced him thus far, he felt that this one was the mightiest. If he was indeed wielding the famed brahmastra, then there was only one response to his query. But he still had one doubt. ‘The brahm-astra once spoken and unleashed, cannot be recalled. If you have uttered the sacred mantra already, then why do you tarry? Unleash it and let what will be, be.’
The rakshasa answered in a steady voice, without anger or impatience. ‘I have spoken only one part of the mantra. The rest remains to be uttered. So tell me quickly, shall I unleash Brahma’s weapon or will you yield gracefully?’
Hanuman did not have to think very long. With a great sigh of relief, he let his hands fall by his sides, and allowed his specially enhanced strength to leave his body. At once, his size diminished and he became his normal vanar size once more. He held out his hands in the attitude of a supplicant, offering them to be bound.
‘I will not resist the weapon of Brahma. It has been ordained that I should be overcome by His celestial power, and His alone. Therefore, I am prepared to endure submission to your superior might. Take me as your captive. But first tell me only one thing, rakshasa. What is your name and calling? For no ordinary Kshatriya is usually given the right to wield the greatest weapon of all. Who are you and what is your claim to fame?’
The rakshasa leaped from his chariot, putting his bow and the arrow back in his rig. He approached Hanuman with a grim expression on his face. ‘I am known as Indrajit,’ he said shortly. ‘He Who Defeated Lord Indra in combat. That is one of my many claims to fame. I have overcome many devas by my prowess on the battlefield and in single combat, both unarmed as well as armed with a variety of weapons. Several of those devas have then been compelled to serve in my household as servants to me and my father and brother, for the victories belonged to all three of us jointly.’ He paused, then added as an afterthought. ‘I am also sometimes known as the eldest son of Ravana.’
Hanuman nodded. ‘I had no doubt that you were someone highly placed. The crown prince of Lanka no less. It is not dishonourable for a warrior to place himself in the custody of another warrior who has a superior reputation and wields a weapon so great.’
Indrajit looked at him with lowered brow, his lashes almost concealing his dark eyes. The rakshasa was not handsome, like his younger brother, but there was a powerful menace in his aspect that recalled his father’s terrifying visage. ‘You are arrogant, vanar. That will be your downfall. Just because you are empowered with your father’s gifts does not make you a great warrior. You have a long way to go and much, much more experience to gather before you become worthy of facing a Kshatriya of my stature. Although, under the present circumstances, I doubt you will have the opportunity to gain that experience.’
Hanuman shrugged. ‘I could take offence at your words, but I shall not. You speak mostly the truth. I am not arrogant, Prince Indrajit. Yes, I am complacent in my powers, but it is my faith in my lord Rama that gives me this complacency and supreme confidence. I possessed my father’s gifts for all my life but they were worthless to me until Rama put his faith and trust in me and awakened my hidden shakti. As for experience, no doubt I will gain much much more, just as you say. And I look forward to facing Kshatriyas not only of your stature, but even greater than yourself! For what good is experience without ambition?’
Indrajit’s heavy brow lowered further, until his eyes were visible only as slits through two smouldering black-red coals. ‘My orders were to take you captive, vanar, not kill you. And I always follow the orders of my superior. But you would be wise not to test my resolve. Especially when the body of my brother lies only yards away.’
Hanuman stared back at him levelly, neither challenging him nor submitting. He made it clear that he was submitting himself of his own accord, not out of fear or compromise.
Indrajit stared back, the embers of his eyes glowering more fierily the longer he stared.
War Marshal Prahasta coughed loudly, breaking the standoff. ‘My lord prince, it would be best if we move quickly.’ He did not need to add anything more; the implication was obvious: Before one of you loses control.
Indrajit stepped back, keeping his eyes still on the vanar. He did not waste time asking Prahasta how he had survived. He was a soldier, accustomed only to taking orders and giving orders. ‘Tie his hands,’ he said curtly.
Prahasta started to protest, then stopped. Without another word, he found a bloodied sash that had belonged to a kumbha and used it to bind Hanuman’s hands. The vanar gave him no trouble, but Prahasta finished the job without once looking at the vanar’s face, and when he was done, he moved backward stiffly but not slowly.
Indrajit stepped forward, raised his chainmailed fist and smashed it into Hanuman’s face. ‘Now we shall show you how we treat intruders in our kingdom.’
Hanuman felt a trickle of blood escape the cut on his lip inflicted by the rakshasa’s horned sixth finger but remained standing as he was. He said calmly to Indrajit, ‘Will you take me to Ravana now?’
Indrajit turned to look at him with smouldering eyes. ‘Aye, that I will. Those are my orders.’
He looked around and saw a mace lying beside the body of a slain general. He picked it up, hefting it easily. He was magnificently muscled, with evident power and familiarity with warfare. He raised the mace and swung it hard, striking Hanuman across the abdomen. This time, Hanuman could not help but bend over from the pain and impact of the blow. His stomach felt as if it had been pressed against his spine.
‘But first,’ Indrajit said, raising the mace again, ‘I have a few lessons to teach you about pain and endurance.’
He brought the mace down again on Hanuman’s body. And again. And again.
***
Supanakha sighed with disappointment as Indrajit continued to batter and pound Hanuman with the studied efficiency of one who had done the same thing hundreds of times before in his life and knew just how to inflict the maximum pain. Not because she cared about the vanar. But because she had enjoyed the battles. She always felt let down when the fighting ended. Despite all the victory marches of history and the grandiloquent claims of supremacy, the truth was that nobody ever really won a war or any conflict. It was only the bloody brutality of war itself that mattered in the end; the song of blood and pain. And that was what she loved most, the song.
She watched for a while longer. Indrajit was thorough in the beating he administered, as he was in everything he did, be it drinking, eating, statecraft, warmongering, or fornication. He was not as inventive or innovative a lover as Akshay Kumar had been; which reminded her, she would miss Akshay. Oh well, once this was over, and the palace of pleasures had been rebuilt, she would surely find some new lover to help her get over the ‘grief’ of her ‘loss’. More likely, she would find several hundred new lovers!
She slipped down the tree and called up a portal. This part of the show was over. It was time to go backstage and see what the dramatist had in store for the next act.
***
Mandodhari was beside herself. Yet she knew better than to unleash her grief before a hall full of Lanka’s top military and ministerial rakshasas. If she gave in to the black darkness that threatened to overwhelm her now, she would be branded a weakling and a ‘civilian’, the worst epithets any rakshasa could be given. For the rakshasa race, war was the natural way of life. Peace was abhorrent, undesirable. Even the pacifists, of whom there were a small but steadily growing number these days, tempered their talk with phrases like ‘preventive action’ and ‘positive force’. But the truth was her son was dead, and nothing would bring him back.
She uncovered her face and forced herself to sit up st
raighter. She had slumped back into her seat the instant Akshay was killed, and after witnessing his gruesome end, she didn’t have the heart to raise her eyes to that water-screen again. Her mind must have blanked out for several moments, because when she roused herself from her inward-looking reverie, the image showed the vanar bound and lying on the floor of a chariot at the feet of the charioteer, Indrajit. Her eldest son was driving his team fast but not too fast, with his customary efficiency. War Marshal Prahasta was standing on the running board of the chariot, clinging on with a fierceness that suggested it had been a very long time since Lanka’s chief warlord had travelled in such discomfort. She cared a hang for the marshal’s comfort. He had survived while her son had perished. Damn him. Damn all these warmongers. What did they ever achieve except death and destruction? What use were all their marble monuments and statues and speeches and medals in the face of the grieving mothers of the slain, or the orphaned children, or the desolate wives?
She fought back tears as Indrajit passed through a portal and rode towards two enormous wooden doors lined with gold. She recognised them belatedly as the doors to this very sabha hall, just as they crashed open across the chamber, and the chariot entered, the horses neighing and shying as Indrajit rode them without a pause through the crowded room. Several of Lanka’s seniormost military commanders and chief dignitaries were forced to make undignified leaps and jumps to escape being run over by the chariot but Indrajit drove all the way to the foot of the royal dais without any mishap. Marshal Prahasta stepped off the running board with a great sigh, all but collapsing on the spot.
Indrajit picked up the vanar, now bound and tied hand and foot with a variety of sashes, belts and even the partly severed chain of a chain-mace. He carried the being that had been the cause of so much devastation—and the death of her youngest son—up the steps of the dais and deposited him roughly at the feet of the blackwood throne.
‘As ordered, my lord, I bring you the vanar, bound and tied and incapable of further violence.’
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 41