Sita's Ascent Page 4

  He swept through tangled thoughts, ideas, dilemmas, predicaments, half-heard stories in his head. He brushed patterns on the earth that swirled in concentric circles, looking like giant fingerprints. He whispered in musical sounds and fragments of poems, muttered eulogies, coined aphorisms, composed mantras, tapped percussive variations on the broomstick and swept his mind free of alien thoughts. What kept seeping through the cracks of his mind, through the creative fissures, were the ideas for characters who would be written into his stories.

  As Valmiki swept, he populated his imagination with people. Characters who were real, historical, legendary and imagined. He tugged through the tangled, hair-splitting dilemma of what was more important in telling a story—character or plot? He was now dealing with real emotions, lives, people whose stories, even if it was not their intention, inspired other lives, generations, histories—over centuries, across continents. He placed them in struggles that were domestic, personal and spiritual, as well as political, because he felt it was his characters’ due. But it wasn’t just right action that his characters had to think about. It was also the tangled web of emotions they had to comb through. Valmiki discovered that the adventure of life was not about unravelling destiny; it was about unravelling the constellation of thoughts, emotions and will.

  Then there was the one unaccounted thing—grace. Whether or not one believed in what was commonly known as god, there was still grace. A consciousness that was memory and beyond, primeval and eternal, computed and random, accidental but structured. On the sides of a human forehead sat its temples. Concealed from the outside, these temples were portals to that intense experience which connected daily impressions and information from the sense organs to knowledge. These connections flowed in a current that danced in light from an eternal source, refracted like the rainbow from a prism and flowed into other sources. The sensation was not of repetition. It was a swirling, shimmering pool for the inner eye that buoyed in the centre of the chest. At the core of the human, this consciousness, or grace, was a luminous flower. To see it, touch it, be it, was to be immortal. When the nanosecond of total connectivity had passed, a wave of longing to once again belong to ‘that’ would surge.

  Valmiki often asked himself what this feeling of great beauty and the longing to belong was about. During his wanderings between cities and forests, he would see temples. Who are they for? The answer was a name, a god. Had anyone seen god? No; god in the form of a woman or man or child or animal appeared in a dream and told people what to seek or do.

  In cities and towns the stones were in the shape of a human, worshipped as god. And, as he wandered on, there were hunters, travellers, villagers, tribals who would, on seeing stone lingams sprouting from the earth, wash them, adorn them with flowers, leaves, vermilion and offer them love. Among forest people, there were no great incantations, but a cry that ululated from the heart. Words were passed on, each becoming a sign to unlock the door to the portal going deeper within where everything was connected. Darkness could be seen being forced away, and a chink of light would emerge from it like a sabre. It was a sure sign, like a number, a symbol of pure mathematics that connected the gross with the subtle within a second. Valmiki had gone through the experience of inhabiting that nanosecond of allness. Coming out of it meant encountering the world with its variety, its gods, with or without gender, multiplicity, words, languages, caste, divisions, subdivisions, categories, qualities, difference. Many hermits and ascetics, who had experienced this allness, chose not to return. They wanted more and more of that immersion.

  Valmiki remembered, all too clearly, his past as a highwayman before he became a poet. The test that Narada had put him through about the fragility of human relationships was severe but revealing. It was the first thing he could recall to offer Sita some comfort from that first shock of abandonment she felt when Lakshmana rode away with Rama’s order for her exile. Valmiki was merely an ascetic; he knew the labyrinth of human love and bitterness, the tactile bonds that gently enmesh the individual and the nagging hangover of a belief that there was freedom on the horizon. He had turned inward in the quest for that freedom.

  How much of this Valmiki had touched and tasted, struggled and danced with, cried and shouted about with song. Now he was at a loss. He was the one who had chosen to traverse both worlds—of human longing and the longing for cosmic allness. He wanted to write that story of infinite possibilities within a lifetime.

  His characters had taken over. They had been born. They were flesh and blood. They travelled with the speed of light. Valmiki gave them situations, but they took on actions driven by their impulses. Did he want to portray them or did he want to get under their skin and tell the story from their point of view? He was in a dilemma.

  Suddenly, he saw a woman approaching. Although her hair was shorn and she was wrapped in white, like a disciple out on a mission to seek a guru, her body, as it moved, still had impressions of a woman who was beautiful and knew a courtly life. She carried a staff and an earthen pot for collecting alms. Her skin still shone; there was nothing of the withered ascetic about her, but she had the look of desperation that gave her the intensity of a ritual performer. She had not yet caught sight of Valmiki. And he wasn’t aware he was staring at her. She was the prey not of a man but an artist. He was taking in everything about her and trying to piece together a life story, reflecting on the gulf between her appearance and its reality.

  What the woman saw was a large shadow, loose hair, with an extension from its body which, in her fright, she could not recognize as a broomstick. She could not see Valmiki’s face clearly but his gaze pierced like a laser through her veil of inattentiveness and she became suddenly aware of his presence. She screamed and fell face down. Sita rushed out of her dwelling, with another female hermit and when they turned the intruder’s body, limp but breathing, Sita too screamed.

  Sita wept, kissed the eyebrows of the woman on the ground, laughed, wept again, wiped her nose and the saliva from her lips as she cried open-mouthed. ‘Urmi, Urmi, Urmi …’ she repeated like a child with a rag doll, rocking the intruder’s body and then breaking into an incantatory chant, which flowed into a lament and then burst into a celebratory song. Valmiki was stunned, as was the attendant. For a moment he wondered whether after all this time, Sita could endure no more and was giving way to hallucinations. Sita looked up. ‘This is my Urmi, my sister, friend, Lakshmana’s wife, my sister-in-law!’ As she uttered the words, so many reels of memories flickered before her eyes, as if she were seeing their lives flash past.

  ‘Urmi, wake up ma, please … don’t leave me! You are my home, my hope … please open your eyes. You found us, how can you not see us now … please,’ Sita pleaded. The attendant brought some water and Sita sprinkled it on the woman. It was Urmilla. But what had happened to her hair, her jewellery, her way of dressing like a younger queen? Valmiki brought a paste of pungent-smelling leaves and, rubbing it in his palms, cupped it over Urmilla’s nose. Muscles twitched around her eyebrows, her eyes watered and, sneezing, she catapulted into consciousness. The first face she saw was Valmiki’s and before she could convulse in horror again, she heard Sita: ‘Oh! Urmi, my darling Urmi! My Urmi!’ Valmiki and the attendant withdrew with a feeling of immense satisfaction that a life had been saved and that two sisters were reunited.

  It was good to see Sita so happy. After she got over the shock of being banished—that was the formal court order, but she really had been abandoned—each hour Valmiki watched her chipping away at her grief for the sake of the life not yet born. Sometimes she would give in to the burden of grief. There was no death, so there was no body, no tangible object that had been lost. In her heart and head swirled an ocean of remembrances strung on love, struggle, endeavour and faith, but now it was doubt that dismembered so many images from the past. Like the time when Rama would gaze at the full moon he would always hold her and say: ‘This is our wishing point. How many lives and loves the moon has seen; we will see a thousand and one full
moons together—our love as radiant and timeless.’ That would have accounted for sixty years of married life. But they had barely seen fifteen years together; and while the moon continued its radiance in its orbit, a ring of coldness and silence encircled her heart.

  She wanted to pour in thoughts about Rama into her empty heart. She wanted to create a fingerprint that stretched like a mural of parenthood across the blank canvas of the newborn’s consciousness. When she tried and made some headway, she would immediately start to question herself if it were a lie. She wanted this child to be alerted to truth, the rawness of nature; not the forest but the vicious coldness of the human mind. With the sudden appearance of Urmilla, that cold orbit of silence within Sita broke open.

  Even though it had been a few weeks, Urmi and Sita felt they had been apart for years. There was so much catching up to do. Valmiki was relieved as the time for the childbirth was approaching. He had known of childbirths when he had a home, as a highwayman in the forest. But it seemed as if women did this naturally. He wavered at what kind of assistance he could provide, but now that Urmilla was here all those apprehensions lifted and he decided to make lodgings for both women.

  Sita waited till Urmilla had recovered from her journey. She kept stroking her shaven head and wondered why Urmilla had cut off her long, long hair.

  ‘I waited for Lakshmana to return,’ began Urmilla, ‘and on the day he was to return, Rama sent me a message saying he was delayed. Seemed strange to send me a message, but some delegation had come, so I thought Rama was caught up in that and without you there, he would be looking into the arrangements in greater detail.

  ‘The next day passed and the same thing happened. I was worried because I wanted to know if something had happened to you and Lakshmana on the journey. When I tried to see Rama, it was impossible. He surrounded himself with his guards, and soon I noticed there were more guards around our house. I was constantly questioned about where I was going and when I would return. It was for my safety, they said, without any further explanations. By the fourth day there were armed guards. If I mentioned Lakshmana’s name, it was as if he were a legend. Revered but never spoken of. I tried to question the servants, and they were soon put on different shifts or dismissed. There was no way out for me. I had to leave because I thought I would go mad. What had happened to Lakshmana? To you and, indeed, to Rama? I thought if I left from the front of the house, I would be followed. I didn’t know where to go any more. At first I thought I would go and seek Rama out. But it seemed as if the guards had been ordered to protect him from me!

  ‘There was just one of my trusted servants left. I feigned sickness and a sprained back. So the servant brought the old gnarled masseuse. We began evening massage treatments and broths steamed and stank up the house through every room. To get to that condition, since I was being inspected each day, I had to do several things: starve, get diarrhoea, be convincingly weak, conserve enough energy so I could be alert to any chance of escape. I had prepared myself that any evening could be the one. But the shift of the guards was never regular or timed. One night, three weeks ago, I cut my hair and exchanged clothes with the old woman; I carried her in a bundle on my back past the guards and out of the house. That whole night I walked dressed as a bhikshu, begging alms and travelling, meandering, mingling among pilgrims, sleeping anywhere and not daring to ask directions to Valmiki’s hermitage. I edged my way out.’

  ‘But you’ve tricked them successfully, Urmi. Now you’re safe. They will not be looking for you here.’

  Valmiki was immersed in his thoughts. ‘Just when I thought I had swept aside all possibilities of adding more characters. Here’s a seed that has sprouted with infinite branches creating infinite probabilities!’ But he was also aware that now he was the only man in the hermitage with three women, and not all of them on a mission of spiritual learning. In fact, now he was the disciple of women, learning how they lived life.

  The most important thing was that Sita and Urmilla needed to be together. So, after Urmilla regained her strength, she, along with the attendant and Valmiki, began to build a hut.

  A couple of months later, at two in the morning, Sita woke uneasily and tugged at the rope next to her that had been tied to the beam. Urmilla leapt up and got the attendant to bring a wreath of leaves and soft grass. Water was always on the boil. Urmilla felt around Sita’s belly to determine where the foetus’s head was, as Sita convulsed in pain. Both women lifted Sita’s torso and guided her leg by leg to step on to the wooden frames on either side. Within the outer wooden frames were wooden stirrups and the wreath of leaves and soft grass was placed on the floor. This was swathed in several pieces of cloth. Sita was given ropes in both her hands that were suspended from the beams. As she stood on the wooden stirrups and pulled the ropes, she heaved, and with a gush her water burst with an explosion of blood and mucus. Urmilla’s midwifery included soothing Sita and calming the terrified ascetic attendant who was witnessing how life comes ripping and tearing through flesh into the predawn darkness of a busy morning in the forest. Amidst Sita’s intermittent earsplitting screams and howls, the women cheered her on:

  O lovely Sitamma! Tie your hair in one breath

  In the next let it down

  This way we can count

  How many breaths it takes to bring our long-awaited guest’s arrival.

  You are a queen, a mother who brings this one in

  Sure as night brings the day.

  From the ocean of warm darkness where you held this one

  Now from those swirling waters this one has come to play.

  Sitamma, Sitamma, you can endure a while longer;

  Tie your hair in one breath

  In the next let it down

  This way we can count …

  Valmiki was sitting outside, as he did when he had to think of words shaping an idea. But his heart was racing. Birth for a man is so different. It is the soft footfall of an idea that can easily go missing. No surface, texture, smell or volume. But from the women’s hut he could hear screams, laughter and songs and what would emerge would be a full body—hopefully with breath as with blood. With the birth of an idea he had to build its muscle with words, find phrases that made for blood, sentences that gave skin, grammar that gave guts, vocabulary that gave weight, sound that gave breath and voice, irony that afforded insight; but he wondered how did one create the testicles, penis, vulva and vagina to make for the sex of an idea? A woman holds an entire epic in her womb, brings it out and it speaks for itself! When this realization dawned, Sita had been in labour for nearly two hours.

  By four the singing had escalated into a frenzied game cheering. Valmiki began seeing things through the dark. The owl had been hooting and he had heard it between the screams, almost reassuring him that his nightscape would return to normal. Women had entered his life and things had been turned upside down. A part of him enjoyed the challenge. Suddenly, he saw a luminous figure in the clearing, about to enter the women’s hut. He wore a silk dhoti, his forehead beamed and the sandal-paste mark was prominent. His feet barely touched the ground. In one hand he held a string of pearls and in the other, a stylus.

  ‘Brahma!’ Valmiki uttered, hardly able to say the name. He bowed low at the figure’s feet. ‘I am impressed that you should be able to see me, Valmiki. So much is happening now, eh? What with births and exiles … hmm?’ said Brahma.

  ‘But, O Great One, this is your hour between sleeping and waking, the profound moment of creation. I am so honoured you have graced this hermitage.’

  ‘Well, I’m on my way to see the child. He is born.’

  Valmiki blinked. ‘Of course, Great One. Could you grant me one favour?’

  ‘Depends on what it is. I’m economical with boons.’

  ‘Would you tell me what is the karma of this child who has such a great ancestry?’ asked Valmiki.

  ‘It is difficult.’

  ‘But you are the one who writes everyone’s karma! How can you …’ Valmiki was indignant
.

  ‘Don’t hold me responsible. Ancestry is merely social and material reality. I take account of what thoughts rippled through one’s last moments in the previous life. That’s what makes them choose the location of their next life. What have I got to do with this child’s difficulty?’

  Valmiki only said, ‘Narayana, Narayana!’

  Brahma reasoned: ‘Why call on Narayana? Ask yourself—whenever you have conceived a character, have you ever been able to control their karma? Is creation about structure or control from your point of view?’

  The luminous figure glided on the owl’s wings as it flew across the clearing to its favourite tree.

  Lava

  The first memory was never about words. It was sensation. Sleep in a warm fluid. Swimming. Kick-dancing, ever buoyant. It was perhaps dark, but then it was a great and deep sleep with some fleeting impressions on a mind not yet conscious. Sound? Yes. The first consciousness of not being alone. Or a sense of a presence around and out there. It was the sound of ticking. Ti-dhik, ti-dhik, ti-dhik, and on and on it went through the timeless swimming, with each instant, as the tiny body grew cell by cell with sap from Sita’s body. Then there was a voice that was familiar and constant. Sita’s humming. Resonant and rising from the depths with a musical air. The familiarity with the sound started a chord of communication for the tiny body when it heard the hum, and, like a snake charmed by a piper’s melody, it would pause from the great float and kick-dance. Sita would place her hand on her belly sometimes with laughter or would say, ‘Did you enjoy that? Want to hear some more? What would you like for dinner tonight?’ and the call-response of words from the outside in and kick-dancing from within to the outside would start again. It was the primal choreography of sound rhythms and foot flexes as dance, and an eternal dialogue of heartbeats and the motion of life.