Sita's Ascent Read online

  ‘A storm of mutterings, gasps and grunts filled the Assembly Hall. Those who were horrified gasped and grunted at these accusations; they were mostly the courtiers of Mithila and its neighbouring allies. But there were mutterings of agreement from some of the demoralized princes and their entourages who were relieved that someone had the courage to say what they were too cowardly to express. The word “cheated” was a great release of frustration and there was a chorus of approval. The wiry prince gained confidence. He had supporters. He realized it was only a matter of language that would turn the tide of popularity in his favour. So he cried, “How do we know, my brothers and friends, those of you who believe what I say and those of you who cannot peel the scales from your eyes, how do you know that at this very moment the gateways to your kingdoms are safe from the rampaging armies of Mithila? Can we guarantee that our mothers, sisters, daughters and the women of our subjects are not being raped and slaughtered in their sleep while we are being held hostage with this hospitality?”

  ‘Janaka stood up with a start—which I could tell was because of a twinge in the right calf muscle caused by an old injury—and this of course signalled a contradictory message. The wiry prince was quick and with clenched fists he raised his arm and cried “WAR!” There were hundreds of fists rising in the Assembly Hall, the rings on their fingers glinting like torches that would spread a forest fire, and the cry was unanimous: “WARRRRRRRRRRRR!” In one nanosecond, the tide of celebration and festivity had turned into hostility that could lead to destruction.

  ‘I was delighted at the effect Ravana’s presence had on this assembly. How dull and boring it would have been if everything had gone the way everyone hoped it would. Hope! So sentimental and human. But, amidst all this, I could hear the thoughts stirring within Vishwamitra. “That’s all an atom of thought takes to explode—a nanosecond,” thought Vishwamitra as he witnessed the scene. “How human reaction can swing from one mode of behaviour to another, and how one dominant person can seize the moment and change the tide of human history for better or for worse. I must do something now.”

  ‘Vishwamitra was tall and, even though he stood on the sidelines, he was visible from all corners of the Assembly Hall. He was quick as a flash. In that one split second, when all eyes and voices were focusing on “war” in the direction in which Janaka stood, Vishwamitra too raised his arm, but his palm was open, facing the angry crowds.

  ‘It was customary that when the archbishop of sages such as Vishwamitra made a gesture, everyone took notice and the sheer authority of his presence reduced the shouting to mumbling. There was a hush. Rama was summoned. Vishwamitra signalled all this by his eyes. No words were spoken. Rama was very young, with hardly any hair on his chest. He had no entourage of court singers or masseurs to give him moral or physical support. He had little idea that this contest led to a prize that entailed a lifelong commitment. He looked upon it more as a specific mission his guru had entrusted him with, and knew that he must focus on the task at hand. Everyone was mesmerized by his litheness. But they were convinced that they were going to witness an act of gross misjudgement and decided to hold Vishwamitra responsible for a brave and beautiful warrior ending up dead as a dung beetle.

  ‘Rama bent down and touched the base of the bow with his head. Silence. He lifted it with both hands. Deeper silence. Then, standing the bow on its side, his fingertips slid down the length of the bowstring and up again. The incredible and subtle power of his fingertips made the bow of Shiva crack in two! It was unbelievable. The musicians instantly expressed joy: their instruments began to play of their own accord. The dancers spun. The courtiers forgot their puffy manners and began a rhythmic clapping that crescendoed into an ovation.

  ‘At that moment Sita came spiralling down a jasmine-and-marigold-bedecked sandalwood stairway in short and quick steps accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting. She had heard the snap of the bow like a thunderbolt and was curious, so she lifted her head and looked over at Rama. “That’s him! He’s the one who threw the ball that had fallen from my balcony back to me from the street below. The man who stole my heart!” she exclaimed to herself. She was now trembling with relief that he was the bridegroom. This man whose name was on everyone’s lips—“Rama!” She willingly inscribed it in her heart, that very name—Rama, whispered with every breath, whether waking or asleep. It shook the very earth beneath her feet. Or was it just thunder rumbling to bring a burst of rain to shower blessings on this marriage?

  ‘I caught up with Ravana later that evening. He sat in his royal apartments on the outskirts of Mithila. I could see the flames from the torchlit streets and the liveried elephants glistening in the distance. Ravana was drinking and for the first time I saw my brother feeling defeated. I was disgusted. How could he bring himself to this lowly human condition? I prodded him.

  ‘“Anna! What an amazing effect you had on that assembly! They are all such complacent brats thinking the world will go on with everyone falling in line! But there you were, letting them know war was close at hand. A timely trick—creating suspicion. It really turned the tide.”

  ‘“Yes, and Vishwamitra turned the tide too, didn’t he?” replied my brother sarcastically.

  ‘“Don’t you think it was all staged? Calling that young chap, Rama?” I had to switch to double deceit as I really thought Rama was yes, inexperienced, but had a spark, a gorgeousness I so desired to possess, or at least to corrupt. He was strong, silent and charming. I dared not show Ravana that this man was worth my attention. Who knows what he would have done. “Hardly any hair on his chest and he is led to the bow. I think Vishwamitra set him up and said a few mantras and those vibrations lifted the bow. Anna, you have met Shiva, you know that bow like your favourite catapult that we used to play with as children to bring vultures down like mere sparrows!”

  ‘Ravana threw his goblet of wine at the servant rakshasa; it struck him on his head and he started to bleed. Ravana roared. He stood and screamed, kicking the table that landed in a great crash that made everything shake. Even my toes grew talons to dig into the floor to steady myself. Then he sat and, his voice going all soft, said,

  ‘“I looked at her. She was the prize, that Sita. Worst of all, did you see the way she looked at him? That fellow with hardly any hair on his chest whom they call a man? Her every breath held tight in her breast so that he would breathe life into her. That was love. How dare he steal her heart? Her heart that would have been mine. I cannot bear it!”

  ‘For the first time I saw how desire was the single thread that held human and rakshasa together. How great its fire was, how the breath of life fanned it, how the rains could never drench it and the desert sun could not scorch it. I saw how like dry wood it was kindled with just one look, and here, for my brother, it was taking an unfathomable direction. He wanted to drink her in and, more importantly, be drunk by her. He was on dangerous territory. He wanted the one thing all of us rakshasas found unspeakable—love. Love in the human heart turns divine. Total surrender! Unspeakable treachery!

  ‘For the first time in all my lives I saw how crushed Ravana was by a woman, named Sita.’

  Lakshmana

  The minty smell combined with a citrus oil and its tingling sensation made his skin crawl back to life. Then he felt the gentle warmth of a soft, furrowed palm whisking around his face, yet barely touching his fragile skin. Lakshmana lay limp as his legs were crushed under the weight of the chariot’s axle. That is all he saw in his mind’s eye. Tumbling. Horses, manes, reins. Tumbling in an eternal waterfall. His breath falling after them as he fell in slow motion; like a trapeze artist defying gravity he gave a martial leap in the air before the earth drew him. He did not try to break his fall. The chariot did, as it dismantled when he rode off the track in furious speed, fighting the heart in his throat and the blood and tears blinding his eyes.

  That was some years ago. But to him it was a minute ago. After years of a death-sleep, his skin now began to awaken. His eyes did not open. But the palm tha
t stroked the air around his skin brought back an unforgettable memory.

  The sound of Om Namo hovering around him like a bee single-mindedly approaching a flower also reminded Lakshmana of another time. He could hear the clashing and bashing of clubs and thighs as he recalled that time. It came back vividly with the sound of splitting skulls and screeching monkeys while vultures and other birds of prey picked the long braids of intestines oozing like sticky red thread out of the wounded. He could see all this now with his eyes closed. But he had once seen it with his eyes open. He was on a battlefield. It was difficult to see and he was losing blood and breath. In that fetid air he came under an enormous shadow that blocked the sun. It wasn’t a cloud. All the monkeys were gnashing their teeth in terror, until they were engulfed by the shadow of a tail whisking in the air. A few minutes after the shadow passed over the battlefield, there was a giant thud followed by what felt like an earthquake. Once more, the hooting and hollering from the armies of the bears and the monkeys started. Lakshmana was paralysed and could only hear: HAN-U-MAN, HAN-U-MAN, HAN-U-MAN. He could feel the heavy footsteps and the thumping tail. Hanuman had brought the mountain with the sanjeevini herb. The minty smell mixed with the citrus oil on the gently furrowed palm of the hand wafted into his nostrils and he felt the occasional brush of fur. Was this from a memory or was it in the present?

  Lakshmana opened his battered eyes. It wasn’t the past, it wasn’t a dream. ‘It was, it is, Hanuman,’ he heard in his head. He could only let out a grunt that was stifled by the pain radiating from his bruised and blistered skin. Hanuman looked back at him the way gorillas gaze into the near distance—understanding human reactions, but not necessarily giving the expected responses. His eyes were red and his breathing was almost still as he gently placed his hairy ear close to Lakshmana’s chest. Hanuman could hear the broken ribs, sounding like pebbles grating when they are dragged from the shore into the sea. Lakshmana’s moans indicated a new language. Hanuman listened to the story bubbling and bursting through Lakshmana, who had words flowing within him that could only come out as crushed sounds.

  ‘I can see now how I arrived here. No, not the way my body is crushed. That was only an accident. But what led to it. It is also the way we first met you, Hanuman.

  ‘In Panchavati, in that last stage of our exile. I was busy sharpening my arrows up on the tree watchtower when I heard a commotion down below. I was wondering how I could have let this happen. I had actually fallen off to sleep and was dreaming I was sharpening my arrows! I prayed to Nidra, the goddess of sleep, and begged her not to visit me so often. I was on a mission; at any time of day we could be attacked so I needed to be fresh and alert. Just at that moment I heard Rama say: “But, dear lady, my brother Lakshmana has been alone all these years. Why not ask him?” And so, Soorpanakka, in a bewitching form with plaited hair down to her waist, threaded with jasmines and gems, swayed seductively towards me. I knew something was afoot, so grabbing my sword I leapt down. She looked at me and said, “Look I can offer you anything: armies, navies, elephants, gold beyond your dreams and desire. It’s not really you I have come after. But at least if I am married to you, I will make it a family affair!” She winked. “That’s enough. I know you are a rakshasa and I command you to leave this place at once,” I said, “or else.”

  ‘“Or else what?” was her taunting reply, and she came closer. Her body swayed, she was nearly pressed against me. I remember the touch. I could smell the perfume of the jasmines, and the next instant when she opened her mouth it was the stench of stale fish. She taunted me with the fact that I knew she was a rakshasa but was being chivalrous to her in her acquired shape as a woman. When I looked at Rama, he was smiling mischievously at Sita and they seemed unaware of what Soorpanakka was saying to me. She had cast her spell. Desire was welling up in her eyes; I was just another conquest. She knew I knew so she shifted strategy.

  ‘“Even if you did not notice me, I was there at the swayamvara. I longed for you. You, who are so strong and silent, and yet always put yourself down for your brother. That chit of a girl you were forced to marry …”

  ‘“That’s enough! Urmilla is my wife. Be grateful to her that I’ve put up with you for so long—I could never strike a woman, thanks to her!” I was being drawn into a web of useless words. She had clamped me with an unseen power that felt like a crocodile’s grip.

  ‘“Well, if you love your brother and that wife of his so much then steel yourself and listen to some truths. Kaikeyi is not to blame for this exile. It is your father who seems to have forgotten his word of honour.”

  ‘I was enraged that she brought my father into this taunt. She could measure my temper when I snapped “How dare you!”

  ‘“Oh! Your ridiculous threats. Dare? Dare? Has your wife ever dared anything? Well, I dare your honour to hear a few unsavoury facts. Kaikeyi was beautiful and young. Your father, after having married Kausalya, went on one of his campaigns to prove how powerful he still was even if he could not have a child. Of course, when he saw Kaikeyi, the daughter of King Keykeya, Dasaratha was constantly aroused by her bewitching beauty. Keykeya’s neighbouring kingdom was becoming a threat to Kaikeyi’s father, so Dasaratha decided to wage war to show his loyalty in the hope of winning Kaikeyi for himself. Kaikeyi, so desperately in love, in spite of herself, drove your father’s chariot into battle against Keykeya’s enemy. No one wishes to reveal the story of the time when one of the wheels of Dasaratha’s chariot got stuck in the mud. Kaikeyi, his charioteer, held the chariot with her back and by propping it up against a rock. Your father, Dasaratha, then in face-to-face combat, slit his enemy’s throat. When the battle ended and he was victorious, Dasaratha swept Kaikeyi off her feet and held her face with his bloodied hands, drew her into his arms and kissed her until she agreed to marry him. King Keykeya got your father to sign and seal a scroll where he agreed to make Kaikeyi’s child the heir to the throne.”

  ‘It was all so surreal. Rama and Sita, though within earshot, couldn’t hear any of this, and there was I, being fed a story that turned the soil of all the relationships by which I felt rooted. Yet, there was something compelling about Soorpanakka and what she told me. I wondered what was the moral ground on which Rama and all of us stood? It was subject to the story that we had been told by our father. And here we were, giving our youth, our lives, to honour his word. And from what I was being told, the word was false. So what was different between us and the rakshasas? They believed in their untruths; there was a kind of honesty about it. And here we had been fed myths about righteousness; I felt so much for Bharata. How I had doubted him. And there was my Urmilla caught up in this churning ocean of life because of my belief in honour. Sita too. But at least Sita’s choice to accompany him was accepted by Rama. I had rebuked Urmilla for even suggesting that she wanted to be beside me in exile, telling her she would be a liability in the forest. I felt nauseous. I don’t know what possessed me. I felt the blood rising and throbbing in my temples. All I heard Soorpanakka say was: “Or else?”

  ‘That was like the sound of the conch for commencing battle. I flew into such a rage that I raised the sword and chopped off her nose and ears. The hideous attack made her flee. She had not imagined I would do it. Neither had I. I had been provoked. I wonder whether it was to avenge my feeling of betrayal. I felt betrayed by my father who had made me doubt my brother Bharata and everything I had been certain about till that moment. Sensing the danger of the effect it could have on Rama, on Sita, as we had sacrificed our youth to honour our father’s word, I panicked and lashed out. It was only then that Rama and Sita looked. They looked with horror. What they saw was so different from how I saw it because they did not hear what I did. Did I have the additional responsibility of keeping quiet about it? And now, the final sting—Rama’s remark about me being lonely all these years without Urmilla in the forest! Sita was shocked and sick at the sight of the fleeing Soorpanakka. Rama knelt, holding Sita’s head as she crouched on the ground.

  ‘That
was when I saw the goddess of sleep, Nidra, approaching. My lids were heavy, and she looked so comforting with her wide lap. I commanded her to stop in her tracks. I had to be more alert from now on. I knew Soorpanakka’s encounter with me would be followed by more skirmishes in the Panchavati forest. Nidra was, after all, fulfilling her role. What would we be if we did not sleep? I then begged her to put Urmilla to sleep until my return. But Nidra would charge a fee for granting my wish. So she made me accept she would return to me when she thought it fit. I bargained. She could not visit me while we were in the final stage of exile. She protested that it would be so unnatural. All the goddesses of health would blame her. Finally, she gave in to my request of visiting me after Rama had returned to Ayodhya and been crowned king.

  ‘When you have a stomach ache you try to remember what you have eaten; every problem has an origin. I kept telling myself to be alert and not let Soorpanakka slip past me again.

  ‘Then came the golden deer and Sita was transfixed and insistent on Rama going after it. I have thought many times of that crocodile-like grip of Soorpanakka when she had taunted me. Was it the same kind of spell under which Sita had fallen? But when she heard the cry that she believed was Rama’s, she became her former self. For one moment I saw her so vulnerable and completely subsumed by her concern for Rama. She had forgotten the dangers of the forest and cared nothing for herself. She begged me to go, and, just as I came towards her, visibly moved by her love for my brother, she launched an attack: “My beloved is dying and all you can do is stand here with your arms folded in resignation while you sweet-talk me about the great exploits of your brother Rama? Yes, he may have killed Tataka and lifted Shiva’s bow, but now his life is in danger and you are delaying rescuing him? What’s the matter with you? Is this the time you have been waiting for to show your real intention towards me?” Her words struck me worse than poisoned darts. I had never seen her eyes flash fire and her mouth utter such filth. Did she say that to provoke me? I drew the lakshman rekha around her to protect her and ran in the direction Rama had taken in pursuit of that fateful golden deer.