The collective sigh of relief that rose from the assembled vanars and bears seemed to express Rama’s own inexpressible joy at this news. For the first time since he had known the mortal yodha, Hanuman saw a bright light spark in Rama’s deep brown eyes. ‘Is it true then, my friend? She is safe and well? Unharmed and unhurt? My love, my wife, my Sita?’
Hanuman felt greatly reassured to see the light of joy in his lord’s eyes. He hesitated, choosing his words carefully to avoid giving a falsely optimistic impression. ‘I would not say unharmed and unhurt, my lord. Nor safe and well. For she has suffered great mental torture and agony at the hands of the rakshasis set to guard her, and far more psychological battering by Ravana, his wife, and the antics of the Lankan court.’
‘The Lankan court?’ Lakshman asked. His eyes were as bright as Rama’s but with a feverish glint that was absent in his brother’s gaze.
‘Aye, my lord Lakshman. It seems that when Vibhisena, brother of Ravana, an apparently pious Brahmin rakshasa, attempted to defend her rights and see that the lady Sita was fed and better cared for, it created dissent and resulted in one of the more sympathetic rakshasis being murdered. But the lady Sita was falsely blamed for the murder.’
Cries of outrage rose from the assembled listeners.
‘Tell us all,’ Rama said. ‘Start at the beginning, from the time you departed this shore, and tell us everything that befell you during your time in Lanka.’
Hanuman did as Rama said. He recounted the whole story, from his flight across the ocean, the encounters with the flying mountain Mainika, how he outwitted the sea serpent Sarasa, his landing at Lanka, tunnelling up through the labyrinthine catacombs, his first view of the golden city, resplendent and breathtaking in its beauty, the appearance of the ethereal being whom he believed at first to be a benign spirit, her leading him on a tour of the city and its sights as he searched for Sita. He related how he entered the great tower palace, the wondrous sights he beheld within that sorcerously created edifice, the endless magical realms contained within, the wicked temptations and tricks that sought to deprive him of his self-control and break his brahmacharya vow of chastity, and the eventual exposure of the ethereal spirit as a solid flesh-and-blood asura, a shape-shifting cousin of Ravana himself, sent to lead him astray. At the mention of Supanakha’s name, Rama and Lakshman exchanged grim glances.
Hanuman went on to tell the rapt assemblage of his sighting of Ravana himself, surrounded by exquisitely beautiful people and things. Then of his sighting of the lady Sita, his conversation with her, her anguish at the lies that the Lankans had poured upon Rama’s good name, her determined resolve to have Rama come to Lanka in person and fight to redress the wrong done unto them both, to clear his name and prove his worth, Hanuman’s own impassioned pleas to her to come back with him and her proud refusal. He then described the battles he had fought with the rakshasas, the destruction he had wrought, the champions he had slaughtered. Cheers of exultation rose from his enraptured comrades, both vanars as well as bears, and when he described his capture by Ravana’s eldest son, Indrajit, a great sigh of disappointment rose from the beach. He described his trial in the Lankan court, the passionate defence put up by Vibhisena, the court’s glee at the announcement of Hanuman’s execution, and Ravana’s unexpected revision of the verdict and its transmutation to the deceptively simple punishment of the burning of his tail, actually intended to be no less than a death sentence in itself. He narrated how he turned the tables and wreaked havoc on Lanka, burning and destroying, ending with the destruction of the great tower, and his final appeal to the lady Sita. As he described his last sight of Sita, haggard from fasting and smirched by her imprisonment, yet proud and strong even in that time of ultimate crisis, the congregation was stonily silent. He saw tears glinting in the eyes of Angad, Nala and Sakra, and even the bears sniffled.
A silence descended on the shore, broken only by the sound of the ocean. The sun had risen to a good height, and the warm sunlight bathing them all brought a welcome respite from the chill autumn air. The gloom of the evening and night before had passed, and the brewing storm seemed to have dissipated. Except for a discolouration on the western horizon, like a bruise on an otherwise flawless body, the sky was a perfect cerulean blue.
Rama was the first to speak. He rose to his feet so he could be seen by as many as possible. ‘No one could have accomplished as much as Hanuman, not even in their wildest imaginations. Not only did he save the life of my beloved wife Sita and deflect the crisis she faced last night, but he wreaked more havoc in Lanka than an entire army! Let it always be known and remembered that his accomplishments on this mission went far above and beyond the call of his given task. As and when I return to my homeland, I will see to it that his exploits are enscribed and stored for posterity in the chronicles of our time. May his name be remembered even above my own, for by serving me, he made me, my brother, my wife, my entire dynasty proud. From now to time immemorial, let it be known that the name Hanuman stands for the most loyal of servants and friends, he who risks his own life and does impossible things to show his fealty.
‘Would that I had the wealth of a kingdom at my disposal, to reward him as I would wish to. Would that I possessed a whole nation’s treasure, to gift him as a sign of my gratitude. But for now, this affectionate embrace is all I have to give him. Hanuman, my friend, my loyal soldier, Sita’s brave champion, my brother in heart and mind and spirit, take this embrace as a token of my immeasurable gratitude and love.’
Hanuman was surprised to find that his legs trembled when he stood. He felt hot tears spill from his eyes as he accepted Rama’s tight embrace. ‘My lord,’ he said over and over again, ‘my lord, my lord, my lord, would that I had served you better.’
Rama shook his head and wiped Hanuman’s tears with his own fingers, gently, like an elder brother comforting a young sibling. ‘You served me best of all when you returned safely.’
Lakshman embraced Hanuman as well. ‘Truly, Maruti,’ he said in a heartfelt tone, referring to Hanuman’s paternal name, after the deva of wind, Marut, ‘no one could have done more. The deeds you accomplished in Lanka shall never be forgotten. Never.’
Loud cheers greeted these words, and hoarse cries of support showed how moved the soldiers were as well. Hanuman was not surprised to find glistening eyes in the vanar ranks, for he knew his people were sentimental, but he was astonished at the copious tears flowing down the faces of the bears, dampening their fur and leaving streaks on their dust-covered cheeks. He scanned the scores of faces staring up at him, extending the length of the beach and far beyond, to the point where thousands could see neither him nor Rama and Lakshman, and only knew what was transpiring because of their compatriots who passed on descriptions of what was said and done here. He sensed that they desired him to say a word or two in response to Rama and Lakshman’s effusive praises.
‘All I did was in the name of Rama,’ he said. ‘I would do ten times as much in a trice. For my lord is a just and true man and he has been wronged.’ He paused. ‘Woefully wronged! My brothers and sisters, when I heard the lies they spoke against Rama, it made my blood turn to fire. Everything they have done against him and his loved ones, every transgression they have visited upon Rama’s family, they blame him of doing against them! Imagine! They abduct his wife without cause or provocation and then they blame him for raising an army to get her back. Tell me, my comrades, are we wrong to go to Lanka and fight for our mortal friend’s honour?’
The reply came in a multitude of vanar and bear dialects and varieties of grunts, all of which added up to one deafening ‘Nay!’ that made crowds of gulls rise up shrieking in protest and wheel about the sky.
‘I tell you, rarely has such a righteous war been waged, against those deserving of the harshest penalties possible. I urge each and every one of you, do not be overly impressed by my accomplishments in Lanka. Yes, I slew a good many rakshasas, and will slay a good many more when the opportunity presents itself again. But wha
t I did, each one of you can do as well, in your own way, big or small, great or modest. For each of you is armed with the shield of righteousness and the sword of dharma, and our success is assured in the end. No matter what the cost, no matter how great the price, we will reach Lanka and battle the minions of Ravana until they yield or until they are all slain, the choice is theirs. Are you with me?’
‘Aye!’ came the response. The gulls kept flying and shrieking.
‘Then, my friends,’ Hanuman declared solemnly, the pauses between his words filled with the sounds of the ocean and the birds and the waves of whispers that carried his pronouncements to the rear ranks, miles away, ‘with my lord Rama’s blessings, I urge you return to the work of bridge-building without delay. For the sooner we complete Nala’s bridge, the sooner we shall reach Lankan shores. And the sooner will our just cause triumph. Let us raise our voices together and ask strength for our limbs and hearts by chanting the name of our mortal lord thrice … Say now, Jai Shri Rama!’
‘JAI SHRI RAMA!’ chorused the armies of Hanuman.
‘Jai Shri Rama,’ he repeated. And they echoed him. And once more.
Then, with a great inhalation of breath, Hanuman expanded himself. Still expanding, he leaped off the ridge, landing thirty feet below on the beach. He sprang forward at a run, racing onto the bridge, to the end of the promontory, growing even as he ran. In his wake, the vanars and bears followed, roaring like an ocean unto themselves.
SIX
Hanuman was the first to sight the coming calamity. Expanded to a hundred times his normal size, he was working with feverish speed. Gathering enormous handfuls of rocks from the debris of Mount Mahendra, leaping out into the ocean, depositing the load into the sea as carefully as possible to avoid splashing his comrades on the promontory, then leaping back to the shore to collect more rocks, he had extended the bridge by more than a mile in the time it had taken the sun to rise a finger’s width. The other vanars and the bears worked at filling the irregularities in the piles he dumped, smoothing the surface to make traversing easier. His example was a great source of inspiration to them all, and everyone worked as if their lives depended on it. Never before had he seen his people labour with such discipline and dedication, like ants more than vanars. And the bears? They toiled in perfect harmony with their vanar comrades as if the two species had always been accustomed to working thus together, shoulder to shoulder. It warmed his heart to see such cooperation and camaraderie.
At the rate they were working, Nala was confident they would reach Lanka within a day or two at the most. Already, from his superior vantage point, Hanuman estimated that they would approach the halfway point by noon today. Which would leave perhaps fifty yojanas more to go. If he could fill in another twenty or twenty-five yojanas before nightfall, they would surely be in Lanka tomorrow.
He was depositing a load of rocks into the sea at the outer extremity of the promontory, when he felt the disturbance. It came to him first as a kind of trembling. He felt the very ground beneath the ocean, some four hundred feet below the surface at that point, shudder as if in the grip of an earthquake. He was waist deep in the brine, and had dropped half his load. He frowned, wondering if perhaps he was mistaking the impact of the rocks he was unloading for something else, and paused, waiting. Half a mile towards shore, the vanars and bears working on the promontory continued singing cheerily, suspecting nothing. He felt a tickling by his right calf, in the swirling silt of the ocean floor, as one of the ocean’s many denizens brushed past him. The water at his waist waxed alternately warm and cold as currents intermingled. In the distance, a herd of sea giants spouted fountains of water.
Then it came again. This time the trembling was so intense he had to spread his feet wider to keep his balance. Some of the rocks he was holding trickled through his fingers, splashing into the water. On the promontory the singing faltered, then stopped, as his comrades sensed something amiss. He saw faces turning to look up at him, everyone assuming that he had done something to cause the phenomenon. But then came a shuddering so violent that even he was almost knocked off his feet. He flailed his arms to get back his balance, dropping the rocks. On the promontory, thousands of vanars and bears scurried like ants in confusion, trying to get back to the safety of solid land. He saw a few lose their footing and fall, splashing and gasping, into the sea. Their comrades stopped at once to help them.
He turned, sloshing water and sending a cluster of white-finned predators scuttling out of his way. Facing the western horizon, towards Lanka, he peered into the distance. He could see nothing alarming. Just the sunlit ocean, stretching endlessly. A faint tremor shook the earth underfoot again, the ocean sloshed against his waist, and he heard the startled cries from the promontory behind him. Several called out to him, asking what was happening. He had no answer to give them.
He continued to watch the western horizon, until finally, he saw something, a faint shadow, like a dusky ripple in a field of otherwise perfectly aligned kusa grass. On land that meant a predator lurking beneath the grass but he could not fathom what it might mean here in the brine desert. It curled softly at the very limit of vision, like a shadow of the horizon separating from its master. He watched it with growing bafflement, unable to relate it to anything in his store of knowledge. He felt something tickling his shoulder and looked around to see a cloud nudging past. He had inadvertently been expanding himself further while watching the horizon. He was now several hundreds of yards tall, and the ocean lapped around his thighs just above his knees.
He looked at the horizon again. The shadow-like curl had grown farther removed from the horizon, the distinction much clearer now. As he watched, it grew more pronounced, the separation between it and the horizon wider and wider, until it began to resemble something so familiar that he wondered how he had not recognised it at once. It was a wave, nothing more, nothing less. Simply a wave. But in order for it to be visible at this great distance, it must be a wave of some magnitude. A wave great enough to …
He turned and looked back at the bridge. His fellows were still scurrying back to land. Good. A few had stopped to look back and were gawking at the horizon—they were able to glimpse the curl of the wave too. He saw Sakra among those watching.
‘Get off the bridge,’ he said, hearing his own voice booming. ‘Everyone, go into the woods. Hurry!’
Still some fools remained, staring dumbly up at him. ‘Go!’ he shouted.
The stragglers leaped up and down, squawking more out of fear of their giant brother than the coming tidal wave, and loped back across the bridge. Hanuman sloshed through the ocean, disrupting the schools of fish that were swimming around madly in confusion. It occurred to him that the wave was no natural phenomenon. Had it been so, then surely the marine life would have sensed it. Even land creatures would have known there was something amiss well in advance and sought cover. There were warning signs when such things came, little changes in weather and air and in the patterns of insect and bird life. The fact that nobody had sensed its coming left no doubt in his mind that this was no natural thing; it was the product of sorcerous intervention. And he did not have to think twice to know who was responsible.
When he was within hailing distance of the shore, he discerned Rama and Lakshman standing on the ridge, attempting to bring some order to the chaos on the beach. Vanars and bears swarmed across the shore front in organised confusion.
‘Rama,’ Hanuman said, ‘you must seek cover quickly. Ravana has sent the ocean to attack us.’
Even at this distance, he could read incredulity in Rama’s response. He had to attune his hearing to catch Rama’s words above the cacophony of his comrades.
‘Sagara?’ Rama said. ‘But why would—’
‘Not Sagara, Varuna,’ Hanuman interjected. Sagara was the ancient one who dug up the cavities in the earth that were later filled by the great flood and became the oceans, making his name synonymous with the word ocean itself. While Varuna was the deva who ruled over the waters of t
he ocean world and all creatures residing within those waters. ‘Varuna-deva is beholden to Ravana and must do his bidding. He sends a great tide now to destroy our bridge and thwart our attempts to cross to Lanka. You must save yourself. Perhaps if you go into the forest you may outrun the wave.’
But Rama remained standing still, staring out at the sea. Hanuman looked back over his shoulder. The curling shadow was much taller now. It was impossible to tell height and size accurately at this distance, but he thought that the wave might well be a hundred yards high or greater. What shocked him more was the distance the wave had travelled in the few moments he had turned his back on it. That itself hinted at the great speed at which the body of water was travelling towards them.
He turned back to Rama. ‘My lord, there is no time to run now. Let me carry you to safety. Climb upon my hands and I will bear you away high in the sky where even the tallest wave cannot reach.’
He knelt down in the sea, ignoring the gritty rocks of the undersea floor digging into his knees, and held out his hands, palms upward, for Rama and Lakshman to climb onto. The chaos on the beach grew cacophonic as the vanars and bears began to succumb to naked panic. Lakshman’s stentorian voice cut through the noise, issuing stern, crisp orders to the generals, and the clan and tribe chiefs. Rama’s attention continued to remain on the melee even as Hanuman waited. The vanar stole a glance over his shoulder. The curl continued to rise higher as it approached at a relentless rate. The entire horizon was one thick undulating shadow now. Probing with his heightened senses, he could catch the sound now, a deep subsonic rumbling, like a great shuffling in the bowels of the earth. It made him feel sick to the stomach. What havoc would a wave of that size wreak once it struck the shore? How far inland would his vanar fellows and bear mates have to flee in order to reach even minimum safety?
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 50