Profiles of the Parayil Tharakans

Profiles of the Parayil Tharakans, Glimpses of the History of a Family, a Region and a Church. P.K.M Tharakan, Bloomsbury, India 2014 This is an interesting book for practitioners of Anthropology, since it delves into family history and uses of biography in social science, with a framework which is deeply entrenched in kinship history. Lay St Thomas Christians, and Keralites in general will find a very important slice of history, which is osmotic with statecraft, the rules of kings and local community leaders. We do know that in the 18th century the St Thomas Christians were still recovering from the ecclesiastical fissioning of 1664, so it’s not surprising that a hundred years later they were still dealing with the problem of pazhecoor and puthencoor, since the old liturgies and the new liturgies were still operational. The Romo Syrians who had accepted the allegiance to the Pope, to use the Roman liturgy in the language they were used to, which was Chaldean. However, the Jacobites received the liturgy from the West Syrian church in 1664, and were in a distinctly different location from the Romo Syrians. Tharakan’s books shows us that the Romo Syrians longed to return to a composite fold, which in the present day Ecumenical movement is still a strong predisposition. Since the Tharakans were the keepers of the original Varthamannam Pustukam for two hundred years, until it was lodged in the Kakanad Ernakulam museum, the history of the Tharakans is not of personal interest to the family alone. It is presented here as a case of how family histories are in Kerala, occasionally cosmopolitan in nature, and involves an old history of trading, ecclesiastical manoeuvres and neighbourhood relations and emblems of community concerns. The Tharakans were powerful traders, and as a result, close to the Kings of Thrivathamcoor and Kochi Rajas. However, their personal relations express the way in which inter lineage rivalries would be subsumed within the larger interests of the family, as mentors to priests and high placed ecclesiasts, providing the financial resources for the church quarrels that would intermittently surface among sections of the Romo Syrians, with reference to the claims to loyalty or disloyalty to the mother Church, the Papacy. The two lineages of powerful family heads clashed over property and allegiances, and were engrossed in court cases for decades. However, family lore about mutual courtesies were legion. Max Gluckman has written about the ‘peace in the feud’. In the Tharakan case, it would be the community feasting and hospitality at marriages and wonderful meals in their grand mansions fraternal tensions where sometimes, joking or great generosity would underlie the subterranean animosity of fraternal relations. The women were active players, as they supported the men in their landlordship and dealings with both local chieftains, and later, the colonial government. Their lives were often tragic, and the travails of disease and childbirth, and early deaths too frequent to be ignored. Not surprisingly, the institution of a hospital and school, as well as a newspaper (Nazrani Deepika) during the 19th century is well documented by the author as the contributions of individual Tharakans, looking after their estates. Policy matters dealing with canal construction and the measures provided to alleviate famine are also described. The section on the Varthamanam Pustukam is interesting, because it describes the journey of Thomas Paremakkal, whose sister might have married a Parayil ancestor Variath Avira, but more importantly, describes the journey to Rome by Indian priests who were looking to revolt against Portuguese ecclessiastical control. They began the journey on October 14th 1778, via Africa and Brazil to Europe. This alarming route was the result of sailors falling ill, and Portuguese sailors could next be commissioned only in Bahia, called Salvador today. The contribution of the Parayils to local community and church was so immense, that the Pope sent three members of the family Titles, with injunctions on how the paraphernalia should be worn in a ceremonial manner! The matter of their financial propriety was given the seal of authority, and both Ezhupunna Puthenveetil Parayl Avira Varkey Tharakan and his brother Ezhupunna Mangalamuttathu Parayil Hormis Tharakan received Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Sylvester and Grand Cross Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great, while Ayanattu Parayil Kunjuvira Tharakan received Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great. Parayil Avira Varkey Tharakan, the hero of this book was referred to as the Marquis. Working along with Nidhirickel Mani Kathanar of Kuruvillangad, substantial contributions were made by the Parayils to the establishment of a Seminary at Mangalapuzha and to the Bishop’s Residence in Ernakulam. The formation of the Catholica Mahajana Sabha (1904) in Mangadapally in Alapuzha also had their powerful backing. We must also remember that they dealt with the British with equanimity, and were able to appropriate all the privileges of a trading family, when Alapuzha became the baseline entreport for pepper contracts and trade in timber. The Parayils had a sense of worth, which was foremostly “Indian”, as the Varthamanam Pustukam proffered as its argument for staying with the ancient Chaldean liturgies. This book gives us a sense of cosmopolitanism and the wonderful energy of a family, who depended on local Rajas to support their vision. Their personal tragedies and family rivalries were bypassed to offer local communities, of which they were undisguised lords, their sense of a larger wisdom, which was fearless and erudite.

Estates: Colonial and Modern

Plantations In Colonial and Contemporary Manifestations The Opium War with China precipitated the need for establishing plantations in India. The British depended on opium sales to pay for their Chinese tea, and in providing opium, for sale in exchange for valuable and expensive Chinese tea, they had to first grow it(Lovell 2011).Plantation economies depended on indentured labour, as Amitav Ghosh (2008) has shown in his The Sea of Poppies and the traffic was an international one, till slavery was abolished. In Assam, an indigenous variety of wild tea was found which was subsequently propagated as has been described in Alastair and Iris Macfarlane’s “Green Gold: The Empire of Tea.” The use of Chinese convicts to plant tea in South India and in Assam was too obscure and difficult, so the labour from Chotta Nagpur became a safety valve for providing for the immense labour requirements in planting tea in nurseries, transplanting and nurturing them, and keeping them free from pests and fungus. The colonial system depended on the early founding of railways to the ports. (Ghosh, Amalendu 2016: 28) A matrix of lines were established to take away first the felled timber in the clearing of forests, and then the dried tea from the factories. The preoccupation from 1836 onwards was to be able to provide England with its brew, and cease the sulphurous dependence on China. The politics of labour was defined in terms of availability from given sources of workers (Amalendu Ghosh (2016), Rana Behal 2014, Prabhu Mahapatra (1992), Alan Macfarlane and Iris Macfarlane (2003) Jayeeta Sharma (2012), Virginius Xaxa, Sharat K Bhowmick and M. A Kalam (1996), Abraham Verghese (2023), Arupjyothi Saikia (2011) Shyni Danial (2014)) So political circumstances were varied. In South India IPKF presence in Sri Lanka drove many tamil labourers during the 30 years war to estates in Coonoor and its hinterlands as they were able to provide refuge to their families. In Assam, Chota Nagpur labourers were replaced by the terrible wars of self proclaimed autonomy and tea planter families had to prove their stability by holding their links with the Army, Police and Forest officers together. While there was a symbiotic relationship between these bureaucratic echelons and the multinational communities of shareholders in tea plantation estates, the choice between life and death was never clearly explained to either labourers or the managerial incumbents of the plantations. “Tea is a way of life” the young elite personnel going into the plantations was informed. They already came from families with a military or executive background, where class, status and hierarchy was a form of incipient socialization. On arrival the newly employed initiates were welcomed by the manager and his wife, who right upto the 1970s were often British with a long history of administrative duties for their company in the colonies. The novitiates were taught their duties through conversation and social intermingling. House and garden were the responsibility of the chotta membsahib, as the assistant’s wife was known. As a partner, she was an essential member of the community, and at all times had to accept the formal hierarchical system of the estate. She was in charge of the domestic staff, and learned to cook the bada khana or big feasts that was so much part of their life. Food, interaction and business dealing all went together. In this sense much work went into learning or preparing the food, as supervising cooks and asserting authority was a necessary part of ruling the kitchen and being responsible for household keys and the home economy of management of resources. In the same way, the gardens were an essential prerequisite for representing the bungalow and gardens as essentially paired. Quite often the garden would be in disrepair and the house would be liveable or it would be the other way around as gardens could turn decrepit in the absence of a managerial class tenant. So given that transfers between estates was part of the promotional attributes of climbing the occupational ladder, the wife of the manager would have to be in charge of the transfer of material goods and the the relocation to a new place. Getting to know the cook and gardeners and the household help required self confidence and emotional dexterity, gaining which was a very laborious process. The master of the house was out of the house at 5 a.m with his dogs, to supervise the plucking. He returned for a brief while to have breakfast with his wife, and then returned to office affairs and management of financial aspects. He returned home for lunch and a short nap before returning to the gardens to supervise the weighing of the leaves, and at midnight he returned to over see the drying and curing process in the factory. Returning in the early hours of morning, the assistant manager would sleep on the ground floor, instead of the master bedroom as he had to be up early to supervise the pluckers once more. Chotta memsahibs and wives of the managers had a hierarchy among themselves and were not permitted to mix with the workers in the lines. These strict rules allowed the managers to carry out their work in a way which made supervisory capacities efficient. However, the wives of the managers had a very important role in managing the estate hospital and consulting with the doctors over the condition of the patients. They also had a free run over the corporate social responsibilities enjoined in the conjugal responsibilities of the couple to the estate. Women showed rare abilities in organizing , teaching and weaving, jam making, baking, dyeing and tailoring, art and boutique extensions of the Estate. They were truly committed to these parallel structures, as it was a necessary survival strategy to their basic responsibility to managing home and garden. On having to learn these new skills, as they may have arrived with none of them, they saw it as a necessary way of providing their husbands with the wherewithal of presenting themselves as an efficient managerial couple. As Claude Levi Strauss argued for the Amazonians in South America, a bachelor was an embarrassment, and it was only through coupledom that legitimacy of work and survival could be strategized. So too, the couple here represented the powerful aspect of conjugal complementarity. The woman had to communicate that she was strong and healthy as the master of the house, and run alongside. It was this physical and mental ability to understand the significance of her husband’s work and contribute to the stability of its presentation through the symbols of a perfectly managed home and garden which was her lot. The cry that usually accompanied this call to occupational perfectionism was, “We had to send our children away. We were not permitted to have them with us. They had to go to boarding school at the age of five, and were allowed to come home for the holidays”, is a very important aspect of understanding the emotional costs of bourgeoisie lives. The normalcy of this did not lead necessarily to the alienation of children from their parents, as life on the estate was extremely hard, and given the isolation, surrounding forests, and the prevalence of raging rivers and nocturnal animals it was a fact of nature that childhood and adolescence and young adult hood was better managed in an institutional framework. The fact that tea estates were often adjacent to Reserves brings forward the juxtaposition of certain aspects of tourism which includes hunting, tourism and animal protectionism. Every estate would have dogs, cats, poultry, donkeys, horses, goats and cattle. The presence of these animals were the responsibility of the chotta memsahib who had to protect her domestic staff from snakes, wolfs, elephants and wild boars. Clearly the household staff were alert to these dangers, as the master was often away from the house. Animals like the pet dogs, were trained to provide an antenna of warning protecting the life of all those who lived in the bungalow. As the sports and athletic aspect of their conjoined life was a given, the chotta memsahib had to turn up very well dressed to the club. She was expected to play tennis or badminton, dance, provide or contribute to excellent dinners, and be hostess in whatever capacity that the Senior Managers’ wives expected. To be asked to cook 25 chickens at short notice meant that no questions were asked, chicken curry that the guests would eat would just have to be perfect. Baking was an additional skill. The head cook would usually be elderly and well versed in the art. Often the Manager’s wife would leave behind some paper trail of recipes and accurate oven heating parametres to the novice Chotta Memsahib. Bird watching, embroidery, crochet, painting, reading novels, decorating and re-decorating the house were some of the attainments expected of her. Setting the table perfectly could not be left to the domestic staff, flower arrangements for the table, and setting out the cutlery in the exact grammar of use were her responsibilities. Official guests were those who were buyers, tea tasters, or executives of the multinational company who had numerous estates in India and abroad, where parity had to be maintained. As the standardization principle was paramount, neither climate change not unseasonal rain or defective factory machine could ever be an excuse. The work was hard, and international trade being what it was limits of pesticide use had to be monitored. As one tea estate manager said “ We pay the labourers little so that tea is affordable. If we raised the labour costs we cannot keep tea prices low, and consumers get angry if they have to pay more. As for organic tea, it does not exist, since tea pestilence and fungus are common.” Labourers in tea plantations contribute to the tourism industry as much as to their allocated tasks in plucking and gathering leaves together and weighing their morning productivity according to a time schedule. Quite often, spice gardens which grow pepper, cinnamon, star anise, cloves and cardamom are in contiguity. The agent visits from the nearby town and collects the produce against a given and mutually acceptable rate. Where tea plantations are individually owned against a small acreage, new innovations in Munnar estates include an airconditioned, or fan operated van which brings the tea in a cool atmosphere, thus avoiding damage. The collation of small estates together and the rights of workers have been an interesting aspect of the Tata estate which is owned co-operatively and by the workers. It means that they have union rights, can voice their discontent, and hope for better circumstances of work. The foreman is their leader, and he gets to boss over them over the speed of plucking leaves and the quantity which is accumulated over the morning. Ofcourse, there are bonuses for increased productivity, but clearly this comes at a cost. Muscles can become stiff, neck and hands can be affected from concentrated and aggressive plucking. The mechanical scissors used to trim the three leaves required for drying, roasting and curling are a great boon, but they still require hours of labour in the early morning sun right up to mid day. Each worker is under the gaze of the foreman, who also promises commissions to the super successful and eggs them on. Other workers look at this with caution as it is understood that super efficiency can affect the body. As one worker whose responsibility is taking tourists around the plantation said, “Who will look after us in our old age?”. Since he had mobility, drove a jeep around the plantation and could speak English, Tamil and Malayalam he felt privileged to share the real conditions of work and life on the Estate. He wanted to bring his son home from boarding school, but the supervisor was not giving him any guarantee that he would be relieved from his duties to bring back the boy. “I’ll let you know what the situation is, I cannot just give you leave without looking at the roster”. The aggrieved father said that he faced the same problem when he had to get married, and till the last moment did not know whether he would be allowed to go and stand next to his wife in the village where the marriage was to be held. For three generations, as Tamil workers in Munnar, Kerala, they had consistently worked in the Estate, but for his sons he wanted a different life, and was intent on educating them. His wife was a tea plucker on the Estate, his mother was a cook in the residence that was kept as a relic of colonial days. He was guard and driver to tourists at the bungalow which was rented out to different people on a daily bases, and always booked. Friendly by nature, he takes visitors to the Lines, and shows them the variety of temples, churches, mosques which dot the landscape, as the different cults have their places of worship. He also drives them to the Boutiques and the associated workshops for dyeing and tailoring, and the bakery with its allied gardens where strawberries are grown for jam. All the workers here are children of tea pluckers, who wanted to learn different skills. The bakery in fact is well known all over the town with its residents and constant stream of visitors as the personnel were trained in Mumbai by the Taj Hotel. The children of the pluckers who were sent for training were spastics or had Down Syndrome, and after training they came back very able as astute bakers making cakes, pastries and breads of various kinds. Outside each line tenement are small manageable kitchen gardens where workers can grow their yams and papayas. While wages are low, the workers are represented through the advertising and media efforts as ever friendly and smiling, as tourists visit in a parallel economic venture to keep the tea gardens afloat. Shobhita Jain’s essay Plantation Labour in South and South East Asia (2001) is an alarming essay on the hardships of workers’ lives, and the exact description of what they own is a description of poverty and hardship. On the other hand, managers try to keep workers happy by being involved in their personal lives, and giving them a sense of belonging. One of the indexes of these is how workers may indeed save the master’s life. In one particular instance in Assam when Bodo agitation was at its highest and plantation managers were being killed by terrorists, one of the women weavers in the Corporate Social Responsibility project run by the Memsahib whispered to her to tell her husband not to take certain routes, as there was rumour that he would be murdered by hidden assailants. Not just climate change, but the daily terror of being stalked and killed was ever present. Yet, as the Manager of an estate in Assam said, not one work day was lost. So dangerous was life in those years, there was one occasion when he had to herd all the women and children in a room and guard them with the Assistant Manager’s help as the assailants had turned up on the estate and were threatening the families of the Managers. Abraham Verghese’s novel The Covenant of Water looks at the juxtaposition of a family run estate (500 acres of gravelly, near-barren land) which has to be brought to life with the help of traditionally enslaved artisanal labour. The author’s mother left a hundred page account of their family history. Verghese then fictionalizes it, but in doing so he gives us archetypical figures who over a hundred years replay the great catastrophes which beset Kerala, or rather Travancore from 1930s. Tragedy upon tragedy beset the protagonists as they deal with flood, famine and the prevalent diseases of that time. The central figure is a 12 year old girl who is given in marriage to a 40 year old man, who is left widowed with a young son, at the start of the story. He is aghast on sighting her at the church, and tries to run away, but his sister who has arranged the match brings him back and persuades him that it is for the family’s good. To the credit of this widower, he consummates the marriage only when the child is 17 years old. Accompanying them in this period of slow familiarizing with the house and environment is the presence of the ghost of the 1st wife who occupies the cellar and is also a poltergeist dropping and breaking things. The estate owner is a rugged man, silent and preoccupied, who is intent on domesticating his property, and eating his food silently when served by his child bride. The son from the first marriage who is an infant, when his step mother is 12 years old, adores his new mother, and sleeps close to her and is her constant companion. Alas the family has a history of accidental drowning, and the young bride discovers this through a short hand insignia of names with a symbol of a cross which opens up at the top like a palm leaf frond. These deaths are so frequent that her husband refuses to travel by boat walking miles to a destination rather than cross by bridge or boat. What is the cause of these frequent accidental drownings? She discovers that those who are afflicted with the curse cannot bear water falling on them, even baths frighten them. In her darkest fears she never imagines that her step son will die of drowning in a puddle, but that happens and her husband can not recover from this second loss, so his silence becomes even more deafening, and the ghost in the cellar becomes even more demanding. So given her belief in Christ (they are all biographically as a family close to a Christian Saint in Mannar) she edges past year after year, and calamity after calamity. Given the monsoon, floods, and the proximity of rivers these drownings are endemic, but the physican Abraham Verghese locates a genetic connection, a family blip in the nerves which leads to both deafness and lack of co ordination in water, as the ears are affected and motor neuron functions are blurred regarding concepts of space and boundaries. In contrast to this simple family with its 500 acres which are also parceled out to relatives to help work the land, are the fictionalized tea estate owners who come into proximity. The Estate owners are enormously wealthy and own large cars, bungalows and they too are marked by death and tragedy. As Verghese is handling questions of three generations, and the stolidity of tradition, in the face of what are endemic, the question of how children who are ‘special’ or ‘challenged’ are treated, becomes central to the analyses. The child born to the protagonists is a girl who is spastic but loved and cheerful, able to speak and laugh and dance, but never grows beyond 4 years of age mentally. Her brother is intelligent but he must die of the family illness. His wife is the survivor of a great family tragedy, which is the death of her mother at an early age. She is a gifted artist, but alas, contracts leprosy, unknown to her family. Her husband dies after impregnating her and life does go on parallel tracks but not as any of us can imagine it. These stories of such great and intense sorrow, presented as fictionalized family history is a testament to the way in which the St Thomas Christians in Kerala present themselves in terms of an ethos of survival, philanthrophy, and subject to the tropics, and all the illness associated with it which affect the body including drownings, snake bite, diphtheria, tuberculosis, cereberal stroke, cancer… the list is endless. Philanthrophy leads to the ultimate infection of leprosy, and Abraham Verghese must give the occupational details of doctors’ lives from descriptions of diphtheria, hydrocele, leprosy and stroke. People care, they deal with disease and death, they don’t push it away, they accept their fate. The Estates are remote places, and the people who live in them must eke out their life emotionally. Death is a frequent and haunting presence, the loss of children the hardest to experience and describe vicariously. How to reach the Doctor remains the perennial trouble. As a planter from Attapadi who was looking after the family legacy said to me, “My father would say that he was Doctor, Tea Planter, Police Man, Lawyer, Forest Officer, Post Man all in one, and yet, he would drive down to Kottayam to meet us at our boarding school every week end.” Babies who were sick were driven down at night through forests with elephants and leopards and monkeys and snakes. Life was always dangerous, and there was also the problem of alcoholism. When the son of the protagonists, who was slated to be a Medial Doctor, meets his wife to be, a gifted artist, he explains that he wants to be a reader of classical literature and there is a death mask which appears in their family because of frequent drownings, she says casually, words to the affect that in plantation families, it is alcoholism, her father drinks, and now her brother drinks too. Abraham Verghese takes individual lives, with individual attributes, separate contexts and life chances then weaves them in a historical skein which gives us a history of plantations which is simultaneously stereotypical and exaggerated, filling even Oprah with dread, as the tv interview with her communicates. The solution to the possibility of famine, flood and contiguity to raging rivers is migration to foreign lands. Diaspora Malayalis are haunted by the fact that they could not keep their ancestral lands, and their tiled bungalows, with their artisanal slaves. The latter, with a practiced etiquette communicate the significance of childhood friendships with the Master and their consent to bondage. This intimacy and its corresponding social distance is the stuff of everyday relations of hierarchy which continue even today. For those who could not get away from their flooded homes, or from the impact of all that Verghese describes, the tropics remains their home as statistics of death from chicanguniya, dengue, batfever, and affliction from filarisis and cereberal malaria show. The floods leave a trail of death and loss, as has been shown in the disaster footage for Kerala in 2018, 2019 and 2024. Tea stations are particularly vulnerable as their altitude and proximity to water sources makes them prey to flash floods and crumbling mountains. Seasonal variation, where there is no fixed months when monsoon appears makes growing tea. Baldeep Singh, President of the Tea Association in India, and also later in Uganda, where he managed Khaitan tea plantations, said that the problem is so acute, that he had asked for researchers’ help in the Geography department to find new areas for establishing plantations where geology and climate could coincide for growing tea. The thing about climate change is that there are no rules, the el nina and el nona effect influences climate in terms of extreme heat and drought, or extreme rain fall. In the 1960s, Loren Eiseley communicated that all events were, in Nature, arbitrary. There had to be a promise of stability, but the entrance of human beings changed everything( Eiseley 1999:123). He argues on behalf of James Hutton in the 18th century who believed that whatever erosion or change happened through geological events gathered itself elsewhere. The memory of these events are inscribed in rock (ibid 26). In his observation that land was being created while land was being worn away, that there was continental elevation as well as erosion, Hutton shows a great grasp of the earth’s interior powers. Eiseley writes, “Time and accompanying geological change are two of the necessary properties without which evolution would be unable to operate. And those two properties bring death as a third factor in their wake.” (ibid 35). Climate change as a result of human activity results in the rising of the seas from the melting of glaciers, but the earth independently has a body of its own, where changes occur, revitalize while destroying. Acknowledgements: Alka and Baldeep Singh, Susan and Anish Mathai, Zubin and Rachel Varghese, Jiju and Jeanette James, Susan and George K John, Ben and Rana P Behal, Anita Varghese, Sunetra Amarasuriya, Radhika Singha and Sucheta Mahajan and extended families and friends for conversations. References Eiseley. Loren: 1957 The Immense Journey, New York, Random House. 1999 The Firmament of Time Nebraska: Bison Books Rana P Behal and Prabhu P. Mohapatra: 2007 Tea and Money vs Human Life: The Rise and Fall of the Indenture System in the Assam Tea Plantations 1840-1908 in E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein and Tom Brass (eds) Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia, London: Frank Cass pp. 142-143 Behal, Rana P: 2014 One Hundred Years of Servitude, New Delhi: Tulika Books Berger, John: 1992 Pig Earth. New York: Vintage Bhowmik, Sharit, Virginius Xaxa and M. A Kalam: 1996 Tea Plantation Labour in India. New Delhi: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung , Ghosh, Amitav: Sea of Poppies New Delhi Penguin. . Guha, Amalendu: 2016 Planter Raj to Swaraj, Guwahati: Anwesha Publications Jain, Shobhita: 2001 Plantation Labour in South and South East Asia, in Susan Visvanathan ed. Structure and Transformation. Delhi: Oxford University Press Lovell, Julia: 2011 The Opium War, London: Picador Saberwal, Vasant and Mahesh Rangarajan Ed: 2003 Battles Over Nature, Ranikhet: Permanent Black Saikia, Arupjyoti: 2011 Forests and Ecological History of Assam, New Delhi: Oxford University Press Sharma, Jayeeta: 2012 Empire’s Garden, Ranikhet: Permanent Black Verghese, Abraham: 2023 The Covenant of Water, London: Grove Press Unpublished Phd Thesis submitted (2012) to JNU, New Delhi, Shyni Danial Chapter 3 Rehabilitation as Nation Building in State and Statelessnes: The Politics of Repatriation in India and Sri Lanka 1920s to 1970s.

Mukund Padmanabhan:The Great Flap of 1942

The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked Over a Japanese Non-Invasion. Mukund Padmanabhan Vintage/ Penguin/Random House New Delhi 2024 Mukund Padmanabhan has written a nail – biting, gripping story about the 2nd World War about episodes which have been quite forgotten. Did the 2nd World War start in 1939, or is it to be placed historically with the Japanese invasion of China, Malaysia, Burma, Singapore, Andaman Islands, Ceylon? For anyone interested in island historiographies and topographies and the historical impact of colonialism and imperialism, this is a fascinating study. Japan offers Indians liberation from British colonialism, and there are takers for it, as the part played by Jagadish Chandra Bose and the INA show. The map of the ‘axis’, and the manipulation of fascist countries during World War 11, are displayed as alternatives to colonial rule. The mission of the Second World War as uniting countries against Hitler, connects Europe and its colonies and the Americans. To anyone who has visited the Andaman Islands, the prison fortress and the museumisation of the bunkers and bombing troughs and trenches used by Japanese soldiers are suddenly animated by this close and detailed history of how close the Japanese were to bombing the subcontinent of India. Ofcourse, Pablo Bartholomew’s photographic exhibition showing the villages and the Naga communities who helped his father escape from Burma is a tangible record that people did leave their homes out of fear of Japanese invasion (see A Photographer’s Journey with his Trusted ‘Aides’ To Trace His Roots www TOI February 29th 2016). What Mukund Padmanabhan offers is an understanding of the 1940s as a crucial period for reinterpreting the National Movement. His understanding of Gandhi as constantly offering ahimsa as the true response in all situations, shows us how satyagraha was viewed by the Congress leaders who were quite perplexed when Gandhi appeared dialogic with Hitler, Mussolini and the potential threat of Japanese invasion, always saying that the said enemy was human, and had to be treated as such. Gandhi strongly maintained that exploitation, whether by the British or the Japanese or the Germans remained exploitation and therefore the system had to be distinguished from the individual. In extremely interesting narratives about the threat of Japanese invasion on India in 1941 and 1942, which were accompanied by rumours, Padmanabhan looks at the effect it had on innumerable lives. The Presidency towns and the port towns emptied out, people left for the countryside as everything shut down, in the face of immediate bombardment. Bombs had fallen, true, but the argument he makes is that fear was the greater danger, and economic loss of property and occupations in these cities far exceeded the actual threat of impending danger. The statistics for the emptying out of these commercial venues was matched by the injunction that necessary services needed to continue, and the war effort and manufacture of weapons must continue without distraction. Women and children of colonial administrators and the Indian upper classes were hurried out to safety, then colonial bureaucracy, and last, the ‘useless eaters’. The colonial representation of working class self sufficiency meant that the very nature of factory production of weapons was prioritized as were sanitation, water and medical services. Local communities in the presidency towns fled because they feared the garrisons of multinational troops that began to occupy and take over the Indian cities in preparation of setting up bases for World War 11. There was in fact popular and real terror of the soldiers, for whom prostitutes had to be garnered and facilitated by the British administration. People from local communities were evacuated from their homes so that brothels could be set up in their vacated residences by the British. Rape was the word used to intimidate local residents, and prostitution considered a rehabilitation device. Even civilian English residents responded to this by asking whether people were thrown out of their homes in local towns in England to administratively pimp for soldiers in the home country. After many months, often a year later, when the danger of imminent Japanese invasion was thought to be over, people returned to their homes and streets to see that everything they owned was gone, thieves had stripped their homes not just of the furniture and objects, but had stolen every nail and plank of wood. There had not even been a war, but the damage to homes was so total that many people were reduced to circumstances of being literally homeless. Usually, studies of the National Movement concentrate on Quit India and Khilafat Movement, but what Padmanabhan has given us is an act of genius. He locates the subtle differences between Gandhi, Nehru, Azad and Rajagopalchari. He allows us glimpses into the way in which these crucial years of confrontation with British Raj is mediated by the elephant in the room, the presence of Hitler and the warriors of Japanese imperialism. They were very much present, and the role of the parallel radio, which was set up to contest British broadcasts, brings this to the fore. Totalitarianism was inviting to Indians in the 1940s as a response to Macaulayism, and its effect felt very much even today, though so many decades have past. The euphoria that the generation born in the 1950s, which carried on to their growing years in the 1960s, is captured in the effervescence of the text. Part of it is consumed by the interest in the silences in the text, as nothing was available in easy conversation over the dining table, about the 1940s. Padmanabhan gives us a multilayered account, excluding the Communist interface, of how the National Movement or Freedom Movement wove a tapestry around the presence of the impending 2nd World War and its mammoth players. The Epilogue is a fascinating account of how the fear of Japanese bombardment affected the lives of the animals in Madras Zoo who were arbitrarily shot if considered dangerous. Yet, since I recently visited Andaman Islands in February 2024, and Colombo in Sri Lanka in July 2024, (to follow up interests in island ecologies in the time of climate change and sea erosion,) I can only note that both having been bombed by the Japanese, logically, the subcontinental sea ports would have faced immense panic at the nautical closeness of the harbours of Madras, Kochi, Visakapatnam, Calcutta. Is risk measurable, can panic be post- poned? Whether its evacuation of sea side towns or riverine villages, any decision made may be regretted in hindsight. At the time, however, there is response to warning by authorities, and there is the instinctive ability to flee if there is an alternative safe place.

Near Fatal Fieldwork Flaws An Excavated Essay, Current Designation Former Professor, JNU

Fatal fieldwork flaws To be a good social anthropologist, one must be ready to live life to the extreme. I would often tell my students at Jawaharlal Nehru University, of the time that Michelle Rosaldo fell off into a ravine, and died while studying the Illongot tribes in the Phillipines. It used to distress them and me, but we understood the nature of the craft, the exacting definitions of being objective social scientists, inspite of the dangers and the risks. My own experiences in the “field” have been marked by placidity except for occasional turbulence. Physical discomfort is ofcourse a byword for the sociologist at work. Insect bites have been frequent, though I must admit it was surreal when a scorpion climbed up my leg in the vice-regal lodge, IIAS, Shimla while I was researching on Lord Dufferin. Then there were also handbells that rung all through the night without reason and I could make no sense of it, since I was the only person occupying that particular wing of the mansion that night, and pages need not be written on the matter, so long as the technical data collected in the fields or the archives is relevant. The first time I went to the “Field” I was 23 years old, and while I was quite despondent at traveling alone for the first time in my life, my uncle met me at the station. It was four a.m in the morning, it was pouring rain and my compartment was so far out from the main station hall, that all my books and my typewriter ( my father’s Remington) got soaked. The next day, I swore independence, and set out with my luggage to catch a bus by myself. The porter put my luggage in the bus, and it took off without me, while I was paying the auto driver. We chased the bus, with me yelling myself hoarse, and luckily, a police van passing by, with fiercely mustached officers, stopped the bus, and I got in. The conductor sternly castigated me for being slow. Recently while traveling in Kerala over potholes which delayed our journey by three hours, a similar conductor asked my sister and me, paternally whether we were not in the habit of reading newspapers. There were only four passenger in the Pallakad Trichur section, others not daring to go by road after the monsoon had destroyed the metalled roads!(“Paper Vayakathillae?”) We also climbed one hour up a mountain in the night and then came down for the plain reason that no passenger was waiting for the bus at the top. A huge plaster of paris imitation of Michael Angelo’s Pieta was visible from various sides of that hill. The driver was efficient and taciturn and drove at break neck speed, refusing to answer our diffident query, “How much longer?” The most startling of travel episodes was when my uncle dropped me to the station to catch a train to Katpadi in 2005. He was now twenty seven years older and so was I, since my first field trip in 1980. At that time, he had said laughingly, “You must have committed some grave sin to be caught in such a down pour at 4 o’clock in the morning!” He had, since then, spent many years in the Gulf, and was accustomed to fast cars eating up the distance, so he told my aunt and me, that we needed just six minutes to get from their home to the station. Since all my life, he had always turned up to meet the trains I was on, and had waited hours at stations for my children and me to disembark, I believed him, though I was a little anxious. However out of courtesy to my father’s brother, I waited for him to finish his phone calls. My train was at 5.40 p.m. He started the car at 5.30 p.m, and we reached the station at 5.36 p.m. He said “ I’m 70 now, so I’ll walk with your suitcase a little slowly, you climb the bridge and wait for me on the platform.” Since he is grand- patriarch to all of us since my father died, and I’ve always obeyed him, I shot up the bridge and came down in nervous haste, idly wondering how he would come. Platform ticket and a suitcase...maybe he knew some short cut. Just then a train came in, and I thought it was mine. I was carrying my handbag which had everything significant in it like tickets and money. I got into the train. The whistle blew. My uncle appeared with my suitcase. It was now 5.37 p.m. The train began to move, my uncle said, “But that’s not your train!” I can still remember the expression on his face, puzzled and annoyed just like it used to be when I was five and did not count in sequence...Ofcourse being a local resident of Alwaye, he knew that trains are usually late, and had never imagined I would jump into the first one that chugged in. The train picked up speed and kind Malayali men going to Bangalore (which was where the train was headed, not to Katpadi where I was going!) begged me not to jump off. Any way there was no point, since it was a Superfast. In minutes we had crossed the Periyar river.We could not find the chain to pull either, so I gave up, and rang my aunt,on my mobile for advice. My uncle had already told her on his mobile what to tell me if I called, which was to get off at Trichur and catch the right train this time. On my next field work trip I collected my suitcase from my aunt and uncle, remembering gratefully that the previous time, when my uncle had met me at the busstop on the road outside his house and taken my suitcase from me he had laughed and said, “Travelling Light?” That’s what I do. The sequence of events which terrify me when I think about it,( which is not often,) is the time, when I had with many professional commitments behind me, gone to a book launch and then caught the 10 o’clock train to the South. It was on Sufi Inayat Khan’s daughter, a resistance warrior in France during the second world war. I bought a copy of the book, and was looking forward to reading it on the 36 hour journey. My taxi dropped me at the station, and I sat down to wait two hours for the train, which can be so boring unless one is truly tired, like I often am, and then it is quite therapeutic.. Atlast the train trundled in. I waited for the lights to come on in the cabin. They did not. Everyone was busy putting their luggage in. So I did too, in the pitch dark, with only the station lights for illumination. My bag was next to me on the seat. I was shifting my luggage under the seat, when I felt a slight presence behind me but I thought it was someone putting his luggage on the berth above. Then suddenly I looked, and my hand bag was no longer next to me. So I leapt out of the train, and looked, sure enough there was a man running. I ran after him, and he jumped into the next compartment. There were two army jawans who barred his way as he tried to disappear into the aisle. He was holding my hand bag clutched against his chest. I took it from him, saying “Why did you steal my bag?” and he replied “I did not!” and kept repeating it in a staccato tone. I felt sorry for him, he was such a weevil, a drug addict with runny eyes and very small (generations of starvation there) and hungry and mean. Immediately people appeared from nowhere and started beating the man. I said, “Don’t beat him, call the police!” but the citizens wanted to teach New Delhi Station train- robbers a lesson, and just kept on beating him. The train attendants and the police guards and the ticket checker stood there with odd expressions on their faces. Why were the cabin lights not turned on? Why did the Railway police not act? Why did the attendants look bemused? I went back to my compartment, none of the other passengers seemed to have noticed that I had been gone ten minutes. The only time that I went by bus to Tiruvannamalai from Kerala was also very traumatic. I had longed to miss that three a.m disembarkation which is one’s lot if one goes by train from Kerala, and which is so exhausting, though I must admit that as a station Katpadi is very safe. I had presumed that the lovely tarred roads from Chennai to Thiruvannamalai would be found everywhere else. Alas the truth is that the peasantry is served awfully by the most demented pothole roads. In the next installment I will describe that journey. 11 I caught a bus from Pallakad, a lovely town on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I got to Coimbatore in comfort, in an express bus. I presumed that it would be connected to Thiruvannamalai, but I am disappointed. I must travel to Salem. In Salem the bus was rolling along well enough through the congested city, where suddenly the bus stopped. Tyre puncture. Fortuitously, or was it intentional? The bus stopped directly near a tyre puncture repair shop. The driver and conductor had been setting off on a five hour journey, without a stepney or a spare tyre apparently. So we all got off. And there we stood helplessly in the sun. Finally it was fixed and we took off again. We passed the most marvelous forests, mainly bamboo, which were dark and sullen and in some odd way, pristine and prickly. I’d never seen forests like that before and the Annamalais rolled into view with the lovely agricultural land around it. Tamil villages are verdant in winter with rice and fruit and flowers and vegetables riotous in the fields, amassed in the markets. Half the population goes to build roads in metropolitan towns, and the other half grows food. At Harur, some three hours from Tiruvannamalai, and 50 kms from Salem, the road was piled with granite, rubble and full of potholes, and the tyre which had been patched up with water and glue and spit and hope, gave up again. Once more we were close to a tyre repair shop. Clearly, punctured tyres are great business in small hamlets. Immediately a mechanic came, efficiently unplugged the huge tyre and rolled it off. We sat in front of a locked- up temple, dedicated to Durga and ate our lunches. The bus- driver put us in a country bus and with difficulty we all got into an already packed bus. I put my carry- all bag on top of a sack of rice blocking the alleyway. Two hours down the road, the rice merchant picked up his sacks, roaring at every one in the way, and in the melee, threw out my bag as well. I clambered off the bus and got it back. Frightened to death I sat quietly next to the sweet faced swami, ancient and creased in his new white clothes, going to Arunachala temple for the first time. The bus went on for hours, since country buses have no fixed route. And atlast at 6 p.m when it was night, and all the lights of the temple town were lit, we got off at Arunachala temple. All the people struggling in these over packed buses, what do they hope to achieve? The theorists of pilgrimage have always argued that the journeying is the most important ritual. To me it seemed that losing my bag was a moment of sheer fear, (loss of identity). I love carnival and market, and much of my work in the last twenty seven years has been marking these in descriptive terms, first for a Christian hamlet, and now for Hindu ones in Tiruvannamalai and Pallakad. However there are elements of this carnival space in ritual towns which can be quite disquieting. I will close this reminiscence with one such encounter. When I first visited ‘Thiru’, as it is called by frequent visitors to the town, it was a “small” town. Now it has burgeoned by the influx of pilgrims (5000 visit the temple every day, according to the local chemist who has a shop next to the Arunachala Temple ) and the numbers multiply geometrically as the years pass. It seems to have become the hub of priestly and commercial activities. Television has contributed much to the missionising appeal of Saivism. The descriptions of market, temple and pilgrims remain fairly constant in the anthropological literature whether it be Christian, Muslim or Hindu. Religion and Commerce, with the possible yeast of politics, makes a town what it is. In Tiruvannamalai, there is faith, but fortunately no communalism. To me as a theoretician of dialogue between religions, non-dualism is the answer to varieties of discord which we see as everyday occurrences in a globalised world. Non- dualism is the space in which everyday pluralism surfaces. It is an existential quality, which allows the myriad nature of the world to be ever present. As individuals we enter a space of communitas, as Victor Turner argues, and this involves both respect and sharing. On the other hand, technological imperatives (such as the megaphone) can be very rude interruptions in the quiet and sacred spaces that Nature allots us, and which is confirmed by cultural or theological formulae. Tiruvannamalai, eleven years after my first visit in 1996, provides such a sense of shock and rupture. Trucks bringing agricultural produce and other merchandise, buses bringing pilgrims by the hundreds veer through a traditional street with enormous noise in its wake. The Gods during carnival time are taken around in tractors which spew the most horrible smoke. The pollution levels, because of diesel and firecrackers during festival occasions has to be seen to be believed. In December 2006, the sound of firecrackers and megaphones disturbed ashramites so much that being present in that hallowed spot seemed to be a mistake which only says something about one’s nerves and not one’s ability to transcend or record. The woman in the room next to mine was a publisher’s wife from Germany, who had come to visit Ramanasramam in memory of her husband who had been a devotee of Ramana and whose works on Ramana were well known to the Librarian. Yet within three days, inspite of commitment to theology and her nostalgia for her first visit decades before, she left looking for a quieter room. The previous nights neither of us had slept, having been kept awake by a megaphone, where a piping child’s voice yelled continuously for hours and hours “Pathu rua Pathu rua pathu rua!!” a cry which never stopped. “What are they saying?” she asked me the next morning, looking haggard. She wanted to know if it was a political speech. “Ten rupees.” I said. It’s the cost of a packet of puffed rice and dates which the merchant wanted pilgrims to buy before setting off on the circumambulation around the Holy Hill. On the third night, my patience having worn thin, and fearing a nervous breakdown, I went downstairs at eleven O’clock. The ashram’s inner compound was dark and silent, only one pilgrim was returning from the circling of the hill. “That noise! Can’t anyone do anything?” “What to do?” I went and accosted the merchant. ”Put that off!” He nodded smilingly. He had not heard a word of what I had said. His ear was next to the megaphone. “Is money the only mantra you have?” I yelled. He still could not hear, and smilingly, serenely pointed me to his assistant who was packing the dates and puffed rice. “It’s illegal to have a megaphone in a residential street. I’ll call the police tomorrow.” The word ‘police’ seemed to penetrate, and he lowered the volume, so that he could hear me. “I’m from Delhi, and megaphones are illegal, and you must switch it off!” He smiled and nodded and agreed. It went off that night, and Beatrice was relieved, “I was praying and praying that you would go, since you know the language, and could speak to him!” she said in the morning. For her it was a miracle of Ramana Maharshi, that I had gone off, coincidentally, just then to bellow at the merchant. Next day however the megaphone was on again, and consequently Beatrice found a room far away from the main commercial road on which Ramansramam is now located. From being part of a jungle to being now in a road lined with gemshops, hippy clothes, junk and fastfood, foreign currency-changing shops, ticket offices, inter- net offices; it’s a very great change. The rustic road with its local shops of bananas and tea and newspapers has now been replaced by the kitsch and mélange of the post modern and the traditional. And every day is a festival in this ancient town, because every day is a holy day. Every day brings to pilgrims, honours and rewards, both material and spiritual. And who can be exluded? The numbers only increase. As a result there are problems of discipline and order. Residents of the Ramana asramam are forced to become aggressive bouncers who keep the crowds at bay, using only their eyes, linked arms or speech to keep the crowds from hurting each other or damaging the shrines. But I’ve resolved the dilemma about crowds by telling myself that each person in the crowd thinks the “other” makes up the crowd, but indeed, I too am part of the crowd. Susan Visvanathan Professor of Sociology, JNU

Rachel Carson The Sea and Homology with Robert Park on The City

Rachel Carson’s The Sea sets up a vast canvas where she looks at evolutionary theory in terms of geological time capsules. This is useful for us as categorization of sea creatures, birds of the air and mammals (bats can fly, so the categories are malleable in nature) provide us with a time dimension. Space and time interlock to give us geological epochs where disruption is key, but so also is abstraction and variation. Much of how we deal with the past, in Sociology, negates this huge quantam of time, and geological disruption as beyond our interest. We remain with the key categories of tribal, peasant and industrial time which are occupationally specific, but also symbiotic. By looking at cataclysm as event, Carson shows us that the very nature of geological time is beyond our immediate comprehension and left to speculation. As the ocean is dredged it provides us a glimpse of its depths, and the cycle of being rests on being ‘eaten’ or ‘escaping’ or in turn eating lesser beings, whether plankton or mammal. In this sense Carson creates a homology between the biography of fish, stories of birth, survival and death, and that of humans. Here, the school of fish provides a matrix of sociability and received practices but on their own, they must escape the angler or the octopus. There is a certain nonchalant acceptance of time as neutral to the existence of humans. Events such as geological and geomorphological structures can be read, but there is also arbitrariness to the existence of the universe. This reading of the symbolism of geomorphology is true for Octavio Paz who suggests to us that the earth appears to us in terms of images. He writes, “Geographies, too, are symbolic: physical spaces turn into geometric archetypes that are emissive forms of symbols. Plains, valleys, mountains: the accidents of terrain become meaningful as soon as they enter history. Landscape is historical, and thus becomes a document in cipher, a hieroglyphic text. The oppositions between sea and land, plain and mountain, island and continent, symbolize historical oppositions: societies, cultures, civilizations. Each land is a society: and a vision of the world and the otherworld. Each history is a geography and each geography is a geometry of symbols.” (Paz 1985:293) While Carson is concerned with the boundaries of the sea held in check by the moon tides, Paz looks at how territorial boundaries defines the existence of humans. We know that boundaries collapse with war and colonialism, so what happens to the people who flee. Who are the conquered people and where do they go? American anthropology, thanks to Robert Redfield was invested in understanding the Yukatan as a syncretistic world of adaptation, where Spanish and indigenous cultures wove their tapestry as masters and slaves. For Paz. the resilience of Mexico, to the colonial domination of Spanish and/ or American civilization. was the return to ritual, the ability to absorb victimhood through a process of translation. Interpretation and translation which are inextricably tied together. We do not understand our actions, but the past is recurrent as it surfaces in our thoughts, memories and cultural legacies (ibid 292). It is this familiarity with the past that helps us to understand the present, incomprehensible at present though it may seem.. He writes, “The masks of Hitler and Stalin are now succeeded by an incorporEal reality we cannot even name and execrate. To name it, we have to know it – and only thus can we defeat it” (ibid 281). Paz describes the usefulness of the moebius strip, where otherness is internalized. “Duality is not something which is added, artificial or exterior: it is our constituent reality. Without otherness, there is no oneness. And what is more, otherness is oneness made manifest, the way in which it reveals itself. Otherness is a projection of oneness; the shadow which we battle in our nightmares. And conversely, oneness is a moment of otherness, that moment in which we know ourselves as a body without a shadow – or as a shadow without a body. Neither within or without, neither before nor after: the past reappears” (ibid 289 To this end, he describes history writing as a combination of elements, a montage. It is similar to biological processes, and forms of representation such as family lineages, the writing of poetry, cinematic emblems and juxtaposition (ibid). Pliny the Elder (historian, naturalist and militart commander) had left evidence of the harrowing days after the eruption of Mount Vesuvious. As Rome’s naval commander he was stationed at Micenum 50 kms from Pompei. When his sister Marcella pointed out the cloud of smoke spiraling in the shape of the top of a pine tree (a mushroom cloud) into the sky, he wished to sail closer to the site for scientific purposes of validation and description. He had before being summoned by his sister, enjoyed the sun in the garden, had a cold bath and a light lunch and had gone back to his books. Marcella’s son, Pliny the Younger who was about 17 years old, was absorbed in a book, so he did not accompany his mother’s brother who was around 56 years old and a very powerful representative of the Roman Empire. The volcanic eruption took place in 79 A.D. Twenty five years later, Tacitus asked Pliny the Younger to send him an account of his uncle’s voyaging out to rescue his friends in the last days of Pompei. (These letters are reproduced in the website Pompeii,org,uk which has an archaeologist and tourist guide as administrator.) The enormous detail that Pliny the Younger brings to these two letters is evidence of the relation between the oral and literate. The relation between volcanic eruption and the tsunami that followed are graphically described. Stones, ash, smoke, pumice rubble and terror all bestow themselves on the survivors and the dead. In the case of Pliny the Elder, he had rescued his friend Rectina and her family who had asked for his help, but at Stabiae, where he went to rescue his friend Pomponianus, they were besieged by misfortune. Pliny himself had behaved very normally to comfort his friend, all his actions were without panic or anxiety, and his nephew reports that being a corpulent man with difficulty in breathing, his soldiers could hear his “heavy and sonorous breathing” when he slept at night. However, they had to wake him up, and they left with pillows tied to their heads, their only protection against the falling rocks which were being hurled from the top of the mountain. When they reached the sea, they saw that the sea was very violent and that they could not getaway by boat. Then, Pliny died because he was suffocated by the toxic fumes that surrounded them, and in death he looked like he was asleep, and he had no injuries on him. In a second letter written 25 years after the cataclysmic event, Pliny the younger describes the sea, “The sea seemed to rollback upon itself, and to be driven from the banks by the convulsive motion of the earth, it is certain atleast the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it.” This act of witnessing and the ability to reflect upon the moment of gravest danger in such a way that Pliny the younger communicates the presence of mind of his uncle, and reflects his own ability to record what he had heard in the intensity of voice, that travels through the centuries. This is what witnessing is about: the self awareness that makes the litterateur experience the moment in an inter related way, so that autobiographically speaking he/she cannot separate himself or herself from the environment that he writes about. As the keeper of Pliny the Elder’s monumental work Historia Naturalis which survived till the 16th century and beyond, though the rest of his other work did not, we see that the ordinary task of documentation and dissemination are a legacy which Pliny the Younger saw as his primary obligation to a much loved uncle. Ofcourse, in this history writing and record keeping, the distinctions between myth, legend and history were hard to distinguish. Pliny the Elder had been to India in 77 C.E and this formalizes our understanding of the monsoon winds which brought ships to India from Rome in search of spices, ivory, nard (perfumed ointment) linen, and corals and pearls. Pliny the Elder prefaces his Naturalis Historiae with a plea to his patron the Emperor Tacitus to endorse his work. Yet, he knows that he must put his case before his patron in a way by which the latter will be intrigued. “…Emperor! Why do you read these things? They are written only for the common people, for farmers or mechanics, or for those who have nothing else to do; why do you trouble yourself with them? Indeed, when I undertook this work, I did not expect that you would sit in judgement upon me. (9)”(www. Perseus Tufts Digital Library/edi Historia Naturalis.’ Further he exhorts his readers, “Most of us seek for nothing but amusement in our studies, while others are fond of subjects that are of excessive subtlety, and completely involved in obscurity. My object is to treat of all those things which the Greeks include in Encyclopedia (17) which however, are either not generally known or are rendered dubious from our ingenious conceits. And there are other matters which many writers have given so much in detail that we quite loathe them. It is indeed, no easy task to give novelty to what is old, and authority to what is new, brightness to what is tarnished, and light to what is obscure, to render what is slighted acceptable, and what is doubtful worthy of our confidences, to give to all a natural manner, to each its peculiar nature. It is sufficiently honourable and glorious to have been willing even to make the attempt, although it should prove unsuccessful.. And indeed, I am of the opinion that the strides of those are more specially worthy of our regard, who, after having overcome difficulties, prefer the useful office of assisting others to the mere gratification of giving pleasure, and this is what I have already done in some of my former works.” The pleasure of knowledge and its dissemination kept this commander of the Roman navy busy at night, and during the day, he carried out his official duties to the empire, delegating and taking decisions. 36 books with 20,000 entries and one book which forms the introduction, preface and contents have been passed on to us by the familiar routes of the “love for learning”. Detachment was one of the principles. He had been master of many occupations, and staying awake to write the Encyclopedia was subsumed in the aphorism “”for life properly consists in being awake…” This theme of curiosity about the earth, voyages made by sea, and the classification of knowledge in terms of collation, according to subject, had as its its two poles, the subjective and the objective. Methodologically these are placed in well known biographies as central to the task of collation itself. In Quest for an American Sociology: Robert E.Park and The Chicago School, Fred H Matthews says that, for Robert Park, facts and it collection were the tasks of the historian, statistics was the work of the statistican, and the search for meaning is what made the sociologists carve out a dialectic of empathy and detachment. “To Park himself, the self understanding of the individual or milieu was the first step in a two stage process of research: the student must combine empathy with ecology, and trace the evolution and significance of attitudes and values within a broader context of instititutional position and social authority”(Matthews 1978:115). As Pliny defined the purpose of conquest of peoples for the Roman Empire was for reasons of loot and trade in which knowledge production was necessary, so also Park himself saw this detachment as a methodological link between the trader and the sociologist. He felt that anonymity was integral to this transaction, essential to avoid emotional attachment, easier to be objective if one kept a distance, and the reason why being an outsider helped. He genuinely felt that objectivity was the secret of academic success, and detachment its secret (ibid 116) Any ‘compulsive’ ideology would remove the ability to view social relations or actions in a detached and empathetic view, just as ‘sympathy’ could be an obstacle to understanding reality. He did not believe that sociology was a call for crusaders, and their role as scholars was to be “the calm detached scientist who investigates race relations with the same objectivity and detachment with which the zoologist dissects the potato bug” (ibid). The passion for observation and description made litterateurs like Pliny (uncle and nephew) and Rachel Carson stand out in their preoccupation to document. In doing so they were interdisciplinary, using their skill as polyphonic interrogators to create fantastical worlds, where the preoccupation for detail was primary. Robert Park believed that in the city, the terrifying aspects of nature had recreated itself, ‘the urban jungle’ being what it is, while outside the city, nature had become domesticated. The city represented the terrifying aspects of both threat and decay, while outside the city, it became gentle, nurturing and inspiring (ibid 122). He believed that city people could organize and represent themselves, that the great crowds had an ability for mass movements and action. The human personality deftly represented itself in this mass aggregation. Here there was “ethnic diversity” and “clustering” (ibid 126). Using the detailed ethnographic work of their students, Park and Burgess wanted to explore the dynamic between the individual personality and the State, mediated by ethnicity and race (ibid 127). They used maps to show co relations between a variety of indices, attempting to bring a correspondence between time, space and human mores and values (ibid 128). Erle W Young drew huge maps to show that railways and roads criss crossed the city, connecting ware houses and industrial establishments, while residences were located around parks, fountains and boulevards, showing their elevated class and status locations (ibid 128). The ecological aspect depended on certain determined aspects, while the cultural aspects were dependent on choice and variation. The ecological aspect would highlight population segregation, and therefore occupational variation. Here lay many of the corresponding dilemmas of the relation between race, ethnicity and occupation which brought the Chicago School into tension with the later statisticians who dominated Sociology. Yet the insights of the Ecological School were varied, and centred around the place of the individual and the cultural stereotype, both being fragmented by the methods of generalization in philosophy and archetypicalisation in social psychology ( ibid 129). Film culture between 1938 and 1958 represented the many ways in which the Chicago School’s preoccupation with the Hobo, the Boss, Gambling and Saloon Culture, Workers, Police and Politicians became a type of given/ or ascribed roles to be analysed. Women were either socialites or domestic servants, or singers in cafes, or dependent on capitalists as wives or whores. The central question that Park’s students asked was, is mobility possible for these marginalized or ascending groups? As someone who had been an acolyte and collaborator of the great educationist Booker Washington, Park was able to effect potential symbiosis between the marginalized black community with its history of slavery, and the aspirations of poor whites. For him, The City, in a Simmelian methodological format became the way that the human heart could be deciphered ( ibid 30). Rachel Carson attempts to study the geomorphological structure of crustacean evolution and its remnants in the sea-bed as symbols of the long history of the microcosmic development of sea creatures and plants. The history of corals and co equivalently their death by climate change and pollution is another way of telling time. Coral reefs are resplendent in their colours when alive, they seethe with an amazing vitality. When they die their intricate structure are finger like skeletons which then have ossified and demean us with their troglodyte presence. As humans the wonder of the visuality of natural splendor becomes part of the ancient world, we are frightened by its death and the skeletal remains. Human beings then decide that they must leave the planet. Carson’s words describing the intricate relationship between infinitely tiny sea creatures and their continuously transforming environment (the sea washes them into inlets and then drives them back with the tides, and their notion of time, sustenance, neighbourhood and procreation are all instinctively defined in terms of what they must do. Describing the serpulid tube wor, she says. “The fact that the tube worms have managed to live in the intertidal zone for millions of years is evidence of a sensitive adjustment of their way of life, on the one hand to conditions with in the surrounding world of the rockweeds, on the other to vast tidal rhythms linked with the movements of earth, moon and sun (Carson:1991:458). This idea of adjustment is central to evolutionary expansion and devolution. It is this perhaps that makes us understand her work in terms of implicit homologies between fish and humans, though we might as well consider the homo;pgy between fruitflies and us. By presuming that the code of similarity is not the same as identification, or static notions of totemic identity, we can move to learning from the animal or plant world. This abstract notion of the one ness of the life force always reduced to symmetry and the concept of the One, is useful only for advancing our experience of the design of the universe. Experientially we only see multiplicity and endless grandeur and mutation, and that too is significant. We cannot count on “Fate” or Moira as the Greeks called it, when in the Anthropocene we name our culpability and delineate our future responsibility. The meteors still glance past planet earth and our destiny is writ in this ‘firmament of time’ as Loren Eiseley called it. There were so many disasters in the 19th century, including the eruption of Krakatoa, that the Comteian immutable laws of Physics became an anomaly. Yet, since ideological fetters are hard to drop, the organic metaphor for Sociologists still remained within the frame of slow evolutionary principles. How long, for instance, did it take to ‘drop the tail’ to building cities? Homologies are satisfying because we see in the instinctive response of termites, bees and ants very similar responses to calamity: they must run and hide, or they must die. So the myth of Antaeus who loses his power when he is removed from the power of Mother Earth is a very telling myth. How will we behave if we are separated from Earth, when gravity is all that we have known? The coexistence of time in the relational sense is about memory and instinct. The past conveys itself to us in our extraordinary dream life, our archetypes, and our involuntary behavior in crises. It is then we recognize our kinship with the ecological dilemma that knits the sea and shore. Like the fish who are suddenly uplifted by the tides, floating in extended marshes and then without their volition the tides throw them into the sea. They are dazzled by their fate not knowing of the presence of the sea birds that waited for them at the edge of the shore, so many thousands of these migrants never made it “past the portals of the sea” (Carson 1991:255). She describes their habitations with reference not just to time and seasons, but in relationship to levels of access to light. Predators lurk at every turn, and whether she gives them names, species identity markers. or refers to them as schools, she is engaging us to see how life in the sea, however tiny or massive is characteristically unique. With her, through dramatic prose compositions we begin to see the translucent nature of eels, their coming of age and their demise, both consequentially as life cycle moments but also of interlocked moments of concomitant variations as with old eels and newly spawned ones. “As the time approached for them to lose the leaflike form of the larva and become rounded and sinuous like their parents, the impulse to seek fresher shallowing waters grew. Now they found the latent power of unused muscles, and against the urging of the wind and current they moved shoreward. Under the blind but powerful drive of instinct, every activity of their small and glassy bodies was directed unconsciously towards the attainment of a goal unknown in their own experience – something stamped so deeply upon the memory of their race that each of them turned without hesitation towards the coast from which their parents had come” (Carson 1991 361-362). The old eels ofcourse die and become part of the sea, but more complex is her representation of the relation between river and sea in this continuous dialectic. “And as the eels lay offshore in the March sea, waiting for the time when they should enter the waters of the land, the sea, too, lay restless awaiting the time when once more it should encroach upon the coastal plain, and creep up the sides of the foothills, and lap at the bases of the mountain ranges. As the waiting of the eels off the mouth of the bay was only an interlude in a long life filled wih constant change, so the relation of sea and coast and mountain ranges was that of a moment in geologic time. For once more the mountains would be worn away by the endless erosion of water and carried in silt to the sea, and once more all the coast would be water again, and the places of the cities and towns would belong to the sea” (ibid 364). How does one study the changing landscape that comes about with floods and the calamities of war? Robert Park had a hard time decoding the pleasures of philosophy to his post war students, who didn’t want to deal with words, but preferred maps and indexes, ushering the next phase of hyper objective sociological analyses (Matthews 1977:128). Why do people live in areas which are known to be dangerous? The stockyards and factories had been replaced with the face of the gangster, the friendly shark who opened his mouth and let the fish enter his belly. Chicago was dangerous, and films and ethnographers tried to bring it into the view of the hapless resident. Born on the wrongside of the tracks meant that one could not enter the elite institutions or be part of the upper echelons of the hierarchy. Yet, Chicago had energy. Floyd Dell writing of Robert Herrick’s fiction wrote that Chicago was a ‘condition’ not a city ( 127). By looking at migrants and their life styles the Chicago school in the 1930s was preoccupied with the culture of African origin migrants, pr the Polish. the hobo and the dance hall, the ghettos and the bohemias (ibid). The visual aspect of writing and describing was typical of Park and his students, there had to be a tactile quality which was superimposed upon the writing of sociology and depended on memory and history. Park and Burgess quote from Wendelband who gave a lecture in the University of Strassburg in 1894, that the historian tires to ‘revive and call up into the present, in all its particularities an event in the past. His aim is to do for an actual event precisely what the artist seeks to do for the object of his/her imagination. It is just here that we discern the kinship between the historian and the writer of literature” ( Park and Burgess 1969:8). It seemed crucial to emphasize the abstract nature of science, and the concrete method of representation in history, literature and narrative production in social science. This is why Rachel Carson’s determination to reach out to a lay or common reader become texts of long lasting beauty. It would be centrally as texts published in newspapers and journals encouraging readers to look at the riveting beauty of the ocean. Park describes this concern with the unique, and the preoccupation with mobility, as central to the methodologies of the 1930s of which both were so much a part. “Consider how quickly our appreciation is deadened as some object is multiplied or is regarded as one case in a thousand. “She is not the first” is one of the cruel passages in Faust. It is the individuality and the uniqueness of an object that all our sense of value has its roots. It is upon this fact that Spinoza’s doctrine of the conquest of the passions by knowledge rests, since for him knowledge is the submergence of the individual in the universal, the “once for all” into the eternal”(ibid 10). The concern is for Park, the relation between criminal/civil/moral law which is an old Durkheimian preoccupation of The Division of Labour. This brings us to the rights of groups and individuals in the time of the Anthropocene. Tracey Skillington argues that rising seas, green house gases and climate change are questions of everyday concerns, and policy makers must take into account the intergenerational responsibilities of planning for the future. By focusing on questions of the youth and their right to livelihood, it is possible to think about what we leave on planet earth for generations not yet born (Skillington in Wallenhorst and Wulf 2022 :819) Hajo Eichoff, a cultural historian from Berlin argues that in the 12000 years of settlement in food gathering and growing, the word culture emerged from culturare or care of the earth. It is this earth which is now languishing as war and technology deplete resources faster than they can be rejuvenated. He takes the example of the mobile phone which combines camera, word processor and recorder and leaves behind not just images, but a trail of destruction of waste dumps which cannot be recycled, and are poison fields for later generations to handle. As there is no balance between biomass and the waste that humans leave the future is increasingly bleak (Eichoff in Wallenhorst and Wulf 2022:1133). However, human preoccupation remains with the idea of security, which word has its origins in ‘no worry’. Alejandro Cerreata in Sea Level Change shows us that 7000 years ago a certain stability allowed for humans to occupy coastal belts. Now that global warming has entered a phase which may go on for hundreds of years, leading to oceans rising and heating, the earth would not be much affected by any manoeuvre to bring down temperatures. This statistical and chronological analyses of geological phases such as ice ages due to cooling, and entropy due to heating, are understood over huge swathes of time. There are two options, one is to move from coastal areas, the other is to build architecturally adaptive structures which keep out the sea. Given the population density of coastal towns and villages, reviving the marshlands or associated rivers and canals, is one temporary solution, but finally as humans we have to accept what Eiseley showed us so magnificently that the ‘firmament of time’ is not a geological concept merely, it is how humans deal with their fate, and the aesthetics of it. References Carson, Rachel: The Sea (A Trilogy;Under The Seawind; The Sea Around Us; The Edge of the Sea.) Paladin, London, 1991 Cearetta, Alejandro: 2022 Sea Level Change in in Nathanell Wallenhorst and Christoph Wulf 2022: Handbook of the Anthropocene: Humans Between Heritage and the Future Springer Nature (1124-1127) Eichof, Hajo: 2022 Security in Nathanael Wallenhorst and Christoph Wulf 2022: Handbook of the Anthropocene: Humans Between Heritage and the Future Springer Nature (1128-1134) Eiseley, Loren: 1960 The Firmament of Time, Nebraska, Bison Books. Matthews, Fred H. 1977: Quest for an American Sociology:Robert E.Park and The Chicago School McGill Queen’s University Press, Montreal and London Park, Robert E and Earnest W, Burgess 1969: The Science of Sociology Chicago: Chicago University Press. Paz, Octavio: 1985, The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings, New York: Grove Weidenfeld Skillington, Tracey: 2022 Intergenerational Justice in Nathanael Wallenhorst and Christoph Wulf 2022: Handbook of the Anthropocene: Humans Between Heritage and the Future Springer Nature pgs 819-822 Wallenhorst, Nathanel and Christoph Wulf 2022: Handbook of the Anthropocene: Humans Between Heritage and the Future Springer Nature Susan Visvanathan, Formerly Professor, CSSS/ JNU

The Alignment of the Stars Today or Pluto's Earth, Three Novellas 2018, 2019, 2022 copyright Susan Visvanathan

The Metro 

The crowds spilling out are successful people with jobs, the men wearing ironed clothes, the women in synthetics. The young people are rushing to some exam or the other, they feel that if they pass this exam, then the world will open out in its myriad hues. They don’t look up because they don’t imagine that the scenery will change, for outside the sky is always red, and the winds hot. The moon turned black many decades ago, and the sunlight dimmed just yesterday. Today, they are in the underworld, and the sky seems far away, the neon lights are also dim. There is no tomorrow, the sirens wail. There has been another incident, another life lost. The stations are dense, the tunnels will take them out into radial roads, and all life is lived underground. The storm begins to rise, the dust particles falling into the eyes, the clean ironed lines of trousers, the shine of nylon disappearing as the fine dust flies about. I live in a small house in one of the outer streets, where a single cactus still survives. Birds have died, and the caterpillars have become so outsize, that all remaining foliage becomes shredded even before they sprout. It was the year that we had acid rain. It fell on all of us, creating a specific pattern on our skins as it fell. We knew that if we opened our eyes, we would be blinded, and we knew that our tongues would be serrated, as if we had consumed hot pepper corns fried in oil. The world seemed no longer home, so we covered our faces and limped home, applying balm on our skins wherever they had been burnt. In the mines the old lords still extracted every ounce of metal, and the slaves lived on saliva and the wandering microbes that still inhabited the earth. We knew that our days were numbered, but no one counted them anywhere. Children were born scarred in the womb, and mothers died as they gave birth to disfigured beings. Dragon seeds of war had been planted everywhere, and the perfect ones, born without blemish, ran in and out of the ghoulish metro trains, which dispelled the crowds with a clang of doors. In my own house, of course, the moon still visited, quite dreary, an image of someone who had once lived, and was now extinct. I knew its coming was a sign of my own madness, my nostalgia, my foreknowledge of things which had once existed and now had died. Why did I look out for the moon? Why, for no reason. All humans remembered the moon, because their mother’s bodies had catapulted to its call, along with the cries of the gulls as the sea waves receded. None of us had seen the silver sea for decades, it had gone under a billion volts of dead rivers, its own saltiness now defined only with the brackishness of radioactive river water. I got out, off the metro at just the right moment, where the tunnels had become like a capillary of veins. I jumped into the crowd, and was wafted by them, and leaving my fears, I allowed myself to be sifted by the armed guards into the right avenues. I didn’t need to show my card anymore, because the wiring on my wrist activated the routes which I had to take, and the scanners immediately swung into action, creating the right kind of leverage. I no longer felt that I was a prisoner of the system. I had even begun to enjoy the rush of electricity that charged into my veins. It was the right amount. A little more, and I could be electrocuted. I knew that, the interrogators knew it. Should I be marked by some casual officer, who did not share my physiognomy, racism it was called in the old days, there was every chance that I would be catapulted into the beyond. I thought of the beyond almost every day, the still heart, the flat line of brain on machines, where picture book nurses would then call the family doctor, who would sign on the dotted line, saying that I could be sent into auto mode. That meant flying off without a body, and hoping that the bright light would encompass one into the petals of new flowers. Those bright lights were indeed hard to face, one went off into the first gloom and then the next. Goodbye, world, family, humans, machines, red dust, black and empty moon. Where could one go without a body? It was too hard a question to ask. I would leave it for another day. The small yellow flowers in the red sky were actually stars. I looked at them everyday. When my twisted mind looked at the red sky, I actually saw blue. I lived in the past, it was not permitted. I had to be moving forward like everyone else. Sometimes in the crevices of the tracks small plants grew, not dependent on the light of the sun, but able to grow, synthesize, sprout leaves without buds in the harsh electric lights which sprung up every few metres. They attracted no insects, not even the large caterpillars which were the most commonly known relic of the past. We were shattered by every jolt of the passing trains in our tiny flats, which like the plants that grew anonymously were in the trusteeship of the electric lights, which took on a strobe like quality whenever there were electricity fluctuations. Quite often, I found myself living in swathes of time, which were unknown to my neighbours for most of them were decades younger than me. Old age is that ephemeral thing, allowed to persist like a common disease if the state permitted it. The real truth was that none of us were able to live in the tempo of the present. We rocked back into the colourful days of our own youth, and that was seen to be an immensely destructive emotion. The vigilantes knew by the glazed look of the old, that they were not keeping time with the galaxies of the present, and that we were again captives of clear blue skies and opaque water in rushing streams. They would jostle us whenever we reached that state, because surely, surely, with our head in the air, we would miss our stations and reach avenues of time and space beyond our comprehension. Everything faltered in us, every time we made a mistake, our watches become disoriented, our tags failed us. If we went into a time zone too distant from our own, we could become electrocuted by our own emotions. It is not that we had nannies, it is just that people followed us all the time, wishing us to return to our rightful places. Move on, Move on! I am not sure, am I at the right station? Please can you look at my identity card? Move on! Sir, is there an enquiry booth? Somewhere in the babble of similar disjointed speech and aching limbs, a hand would suddenly reach over the milling heads, and someone I knew, would point me to the returning train, and yes, I had got off at the wrong stop and would be lost for ever if I did not move fast. The lights always blinded, the dark was always corrosive, the air was hot, since the air conditioners were pitched not to cool and calm us down but to actually relive the heat outside, so that we could acclimatise to the environment. Everything was done to make us accept our world. We were not expected to control nature, we were not expected to make our lives comfortable or even livable. We were here to prove that we could inhabit that dusty planet with the veneer of water, a thin fragile coating on which, one day, we would be as inhabitants returned to our original home. My house was always dark, with the vague roseate glow which came from the streetlight as it strew the cobbled streets with pretty scraps of yellow light. I looked out, and dreamed of the slice of moon that was our due, but no longer shone on us. As night came on, the dusty air would part, and the motes would circle like planets in ether in the streaming electric light. Strangers passed by my window, wearing their gas masks or their visors. Curiosity had died a tired death many decades previously, and we no longer cared what the other thought. My companion was a young woman who had been deputized to me by the State. She had her own thoughts, and did not intervene unless there was a crisis. She called me Mom, and lived as if she was an independent tenant. Her silence pleased me, for nothing was expected of me. I was grateful for her kindness, a technician of time, who tied my tags just so, wired me up for travel, took off my boots when I came in from the cold. Her name was Anjali but I called her Angel. She did not mind, her smile was effervescent. She was just thrilled with life, with the cold comfort of our cerebral days on planet earth. I found her yearningly looking toward the sky just as I did, but all we got was cement hanging over our heads. She did not feel lost, stranded, hopeless as I did. She had no longings other than to leave the metro station - housing that we were all forced into, by the eye-ball signatures we entered as we left the transport stand. But where could she go, the officials had placed her with me, saying that our charts showed that she would be a compatible care giver. She smiled brightly at me and asked if she knew the man who had shown some interest in marrying her, and would I have place for both of them? “Show me his picture, and I will tell you immediately. My memory is good, I can tell with one glance, if I know your suitor or not. “ He was a small man, rather sweet looking, with a saturnine gaze. “Of course, I knew him,” I said, smiling. We had been colleagues at an art gallery. He looked after the guests, and I kept accounts for the owners of the place. We also ran a café together, which we managed with our other duties. He is a nice man, I said. “So can he live with us?” “If you have no objection to sharing a room, certainly, he can live here.” “We would have no objections, at all, Ma’am!” I looked at her with amusement. The delight was so huge, it wrapped itself around her like a warm glow. “And what will you live on?” was my unspoken thought. The girl was like ebony, her skin so dark, it gleamed in the shadowed light of the ever luminescent tube lights that lit the narrow circular pathways of our hooded city. She was tall, thin, and completely at ease. I enjoyed her company, though I often felt that she was looking at me carefully, a little too carefully. When I asked her the reason for her protracted stare, she would laugh and deny it completely. I knew that she lied easily, because there were times, that her eyes became catatonic, glazed, empty of expression. That was the way she blocked off her thoughts and became impenetrable. I was keen to meet her boyfriend, but she said, she would bring him home closer to the day of their union. Was she thinking of my place as her home? I was startled by that. But of course home is where we live, where we keep our things, where our footsteps lead us. When she was around, this companion, social worker, nurse, official…. I could no longer remember her true status, the atmosphere was always bright, even chatty, one might call it. It was never forced, except of course when she disappeared into her lonely tunnel of thoughts. I would sometimes shake her gently when it happened, and she would reappear from her trance, looking as if her view was fragmented. There was nothing cruel about her, ever, she was absent for a moment or two, that was all. “I will put up bright curtains, and buy some flowers. Let me tidy your book case today!” “Not a bad idea at all. What would you like to eat? We have some roots, sweet potatoes I think they called them in the old days. And of course mushrooms.” “I like potatoes. Is there any fruit?” “Yes, we have some dates and figs, which I bought when the sun still shone on the planet. They have kept well. It’s hard to imagine that once they are over, we will have forgotten what fruit was.” “I am sure they will be able to have orchards on electric light in another couple of decades, then we will be able to eat again. These are only the transition years.” We stared at each other for a moment, then I went back to putting photographs in chronological order. There were thousands of them, all collected in shoe boxes. The state had given me the extraordinary privilege of working with these when I was most in need of money, and had written many letters to the powers that be, asking for work. Each of them was of postcard size, and had been taken by different people. The idea was to provide a certain classification by country, where the colour coding would provide an idea of the time of day when it was taken. It was of archival interest only, since the general public would not have access to them, but after filling many forms, and waiting in many queues it would be possible for an occasional researcher to find an answer for something he or she was looking for. Suppose for instance, they wanted to know how many times the colour red was found in the old world, and in what objects, or why the colour yellow was associated with cheerfulness, and summer sunshine, whether in flowers, clothes, or shoes, the photographs would provide the answer. The question had to be specific, the answer general. Once I had come across a couple, the man was gentle looking, and the woman equally so, both lived in the tropics, and they kept reappearing in photograph after photograph. Who was their vigilante? It was very clear that they were being followed. It seemed as if the one who wished to impress their image on carbon was someone who was near and dear. It was not clear whom he desired more, the photos had a clarity and an intimacy about them. I was interrupted in my thoughts by my young companion who asked me if I would like to go out for a while. I had no desire to see the artificial moon that the authorities hung out with its painted smile. It shocked me that people actually thought that it made up for destruction by bombing which took away everything that made us human. Why would they want us to go out at all? The girl however looked happy. “You go, I am busy today.” “But it is compulsory for us to be seen enjoying the evening.” “Oh, that’s for young people like you. We don’t have those pressures.” “Come, Auntie! It’s something which we need to do together. I only get paid every month if I tow you out, willingly or unwillingly. I can get the wheel chair if you like, we only need to pay a small amount by token.” “The wheel chair!” “Yes, it is comfortable. If only you would try it out. I think we should today.” There was something menacing about her. I thought it’s so hard for young people to keep their jobs, and something which looks like charity, or state endorsed social work, is actually a “job”. I smiled at her, and she was suddenly comforted, and it was as if she was the dependent. The care giver had become the dependent. Elation coursed through me. I was the reason she got food to eat, had a home to live in, had the possibility to marry. My immense powerfulness was as if it was the reason that the earth still careened around a non-existent sun. She began to escort me outside, and I knew that her sense of assurance came from being registered once more in the official log book of duties daily carried out by young adults pursuing a career in Life Insurance. Every time that Stella, (I often thought of myself in the third person, allowing for a certain detachment in telling my story) went out with Anjali, she was startled by the beauty of their world. Though they lived in fear, yet, in the underground caverns of the earth, there was still a memory of galactic time, the sonorous nature of the dark, punctuated by the eerie whistle of the metro trains, as they shunted hour after hour, without break. They were with out drivers, decades ago the administrators had taken away the soulless concentration of driving the underground trains, and replaced humans with automation, which worked well. No one thought much about it, even when Stella was young, she remembered that a woman had pointed it out to her, and she had shrugged, merely shrugged. Man or Machine, it was emotions that made us human, she had thought, and those without machines, they belong to the world of the damned and the becalmed. They, the humans, would be pounded out, left to die, no one would have anything in common with them. It was in essence, the oligarchy of the meek and the composite, those who spoke one language, and lived one dream which was bleakly posed. “How to make the Habitable Uninhabitable, and the Uninhabitable Habitable”. The Greeks had a word for it, Midas, but here we just lived as we did, by the monosyllable of time, where nothing existed but our need for thought. We walked silently back, or rather Anjali did, her heels clicking with a simple staccato beat rather like a heart. I was contented imagining the stars, the planets, the whirr of moths by the old street lights. We never allowed the State to interfere with our thoughts, and though they had digital archives of our feelings, emotions and dreams, they never quite admitted that they could manipulate us with those. We were wired up to the hilt, internally and externally, but other than the name tags, which allowed us to move in and out of determined zones, we were not really visible as automatons. Of course, it’s clear, we had emotions, we were not automats, robots as they called them in the old days. Tactility was one of the last instincts to go, and we watched each other for the flutter of eyelashes, the tensing of muscles or the clenching of fists. When we reached back to the square where I lived, the metro lines curving to accommodate the street lights and the odd bench, I found I was out of breath. It was fear. I thought of the young man who would be making his home with us, an artist by temperament, and very good looking too. I remembered from our companionate working days that he was rather loud in his laugh, a forced laugh. It made everyone understand that he felt it would be a wall against his introverted self to project what he was not. Laughter is like a veil, it hides our torment, our sense of worthlessness, it can come bellowing out of us, or snicker quietly behind the hand. I dreaded that part of his personality. For the rest, I had no problem that he would be sleeping with my aid, and together, the house would burst with a certain sunny quality that both had. We had no sun, but we remembered sunshine, and still warmed to the digital reconstructions which so often came our way. Somewhere, there was a silvery light which echoed the moon, returned to us when we least expected it. It was there, when we woke up at night, thirsty, hot, baffled, a bit like a lizard’s tail that slaps the ground as it lies severed. The moonlight was eerie, full of stops and starts, and then one realised, it was the light from the metro windows. The trains were silent, no long drawn out whistling, no sense of going anywhere, for after all, they only went round and round the desolate tracks. There were no buildings, no monuments, no histories. Information was carried in us, when we died, and were electrocuted to ashes, our memories en bloc were fed into another human. There was nothing frightening about it, because we ourselves knew that childbirth had become another fiction, another way of thinking about something that would never regenerate biologically. Decades had passed since in vitro had become the only way to give birth. It was not test tubes, it was cloning that won the day. I had insisted that I be buried, so trees would grow on me, and everyone looked away shiftily, knowing that the warp lay in my recurring memory codes that placed me in an old weft of time. I often referred to myself in the third person, Stella, as if that would cover up for my lapses, as if I need not be responsible for them. “That Stella!” I would croon to myself, as I went to sleep, remembering every event that happened. It was so important to do that, with words, and with images. The memory was replenished by the retelling. My laugh often rang out into the night, and sometimes, I talked. Anjali, with her youth and the huge work load that she carried every day, did not puzzle about this, because she normally had her earphones on. Even when she tended to me, as she did now, edging the chair carefully over the curb, she was singing softly to herself. Sometimes the earplugs fell out, and in the static I could hear the music of the 70s, the 1970s, as they called it so long ago! How pleasurable, Bob Marley, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, I could go on and on……She would plug them back, and the moment was gone, we were back in 2022. Look at it this way, they had told us, when they shifted us down into the metros, that we were the survivors, and we would live in the stations and basements and yes, even inside the underground trains. They told us that while the new subterranean city was being built, the plan was to lift the earth or what remained of it, on to a giant cable and we would be flung further away from the black hole of the sun, and the diminished, no, the eclipse of the moon. It didn’t happen that way. We all lived underground, and that became our home. Occasionally, we would hear that Gaia had appeared, and flung some stable station half way across the world into the sea. Sizzling and steaming that section of earth ran into the sea, the people with it. I was never very worried, since for more than a decade, the question of the world to come had been settled through our continuity, by cloning, and the mesmerising space of our memories, congealed in wiring that matched our nerves, pulsated with them, mimicked them. What was there to fear? Fear was for those who had an imagination, who could think about the future, who had hopes, aspirations, lived in a bubble of time. I presumed that our generation, old, yet full of the memories of a century or more, were bedecked with our sense of laughter, pride, vulnerability. We were indeed human, not yet cloned, still present with our being as God given, rather than Science given. We were the first generation survivors of the world which was raped, harvested, devastated, reborn, reinvested. We knew the past, not as refurbished by tech, but by our bodies’ experience of it. We were inside the cavern of the buildings that housed my two room flat. There was no kitchen, all food appeared through the machine that was placed in each room, with an incinerator by its side. It would be appropriate for the age and status of each person who thumbed their identity into the technology. It would be translated to chefs who believed that it was their destiny to turn the home fires of their clients into edible matter, a computer program which could be reproduced in the working routines of the next day. The fire would burn an electric orange, the dishes would be placed, the food would be piped into the plates, hot, bubbling, nutritious, even colourful. Industrial piping was successful, rust free, and if clients were not pleased with the dreadful regularity of the menu, they had no one to complain to. Anjali pushed my wheel chair with a little venom over the ridge and it was her ribs which were jolted, mine had been replaced with a viscous plastic, many decades ago. Unlike the artificial or cadaver replacements, the plastic which was generated from flat broad computers to be found in every house were ever so convenient. Along with limbs, one could print them out according to need. I never even had to strain, I knew the zones by their colour, not by their number, and so had become efficient at replacing those of my body parts which had taken too much strain. The blood swirling was still my own. The bioplastic anatomical recreations were as eternal as the soul. Chapter 2 The waterlilies spun out in incandescent pink. In the middle of the water, was a tree, grown by the gift of winds and winged seeds. Somewhere, bees buzzed, tiny, brown, ephemeral. The honey from Neem trees was mildly tinged with bitterness, too subtle for the ordinary palate, which preferred the adulteration by cane sugar, the honey clotting at the dregs. People came from all over the state to buy sarees, gold, and to eat in restaurants. No one knew the price of things, they just paid whatever was asked. When it got too hot in that seaside town they pushed off to the hills, faster than the traffic could carry them, taking lesser known routes, past exquisite churches all dressed up like white icing cakes. There was only the semblance of normalcy, for hunger ruled the land. The world was diminished by war, and more so by fear, for even where there was no disaster, people feared for their lives. Every morning was spent reading newspapers where obituaries ruled the moment. The stories of past lives were more interesting than the stories of every day rapes and death. Obituaries told the story of people who lived normal lives, where there was no terrible occurrence of violence. These were people one probably knew, who lived in the next village, or a nearby town. Marriages and deaths had a statistical regularity to them, for people lived in anticipation of one, and fear of the other. Young people found one another through the investigations of their elders. Beauty was not a criterion, it was whether one could cook or take care of old people that decided the day for the shy bride. It was the old world, caught between the eyelids. Stella turned around in the wheel chair. It was another red hued day, with lightening flashes coming through the cardboard sky. The cracks which had formed were simply frightening, the thunder seemed ever louder. She knew that she would be here when the sky rent open, and they were vaulted into an open realm of stars, sun and nowhere to go. She shut her eyes and returned to the safe world of the past, which was indecipherable to those who had not lived in that familiar world. The past, so irredeemable, so ever present, so filled with latent desires before aluminium took over the world, and iron was constantly distilled for newer varieties of steel. No plants could grow in such an environment, and the desert approached ever closer, as did the captive hills, pushed by the energy of it’s galactic past to crush the present in its imminent lava flows and gravitational pull to the surface. The sky always red and dusty, was shut out by the blue painted canvas, which mimicked the skies in digital reconstructions of how the sky should be, with its fleeting clouds which when counted, could tell that time was passing, for the wind blew them here and there. The artist knew how to manoevre the clouds, create shapes, filter light. It was like being eternally in a planetarium, where the cloth sky absorbed the infinite beauty of the night, and when the lights came on, why, we were back in the auditorium of our very own earth. The waters spilled around the outskirts of our city. They had become dank and very dreary. Every year, men and women in masks went out, and cleared the sewage with machines that droned for at least a week. The water was distilled in larger tanks, and piped out. We never knew if there would be enough retrieved to last us for a year. But magically, the machines pumped out that clear fluid so essential for us even though we were now in the last phase of survival before leaving planet earth. How many of us would leave, no one knew. Stella thought of the time when she had first come to the city, full of hope. The earth had crashed around them, and each of them believed that death was better than living in the ruins of what was once their great city. Yet, day by day, they found that the will to live was greater than their sorrow. They had picked themselves up from the rubble, and moved toward what the politicians said were their new homes, prefabricated aluminium sheds which had been put up overnight. Here, there was no sound other than that of people weeping, reciting litanies of their lost loves, and then the sudden sterotorus sound of someone breathing heavily in their sodden sleep. Where was Anjali? The girl had become lazy, and was never to be found. The wheel chair had a back, hard and resolute, which jabbed her spine. So, she sat a little away from it, leaning forward. The loneliness of being old was not the problem, that she had managed several decades ago. The music that played in her ears constantly from the little box in her pocket was the best invention of the previous century. Time was ephemeral, it fleeted past. But the seconds pounded in her ears, as she thought about space travel, which the morning circulars had stated to be the next step in their sojourn on planet earth. They would have to leave soon. The question was who would be chosen, and who left out? Stella asked this question of Anjali very often, who would desultorily turn her head away, not getting involved in the very real fear that Stella always communicated. How did it matter to her, whether the old woman went to Mars or not? Such a stupid question! She noticed as she looked out of the sparkling glass windows that the Administrators had simulated rain again. Clearly the sparkling bejeweled window glass was a gift from the lewd microbe - replete troughs running outside the metro. The used condoms, the disgusting trophies of late night copulation, and along with them, the indestructible plastic that was thrown by young mothers who had not found a way to potty train their children, had been digested by the incinerators. The water returned to them, clean, flawless, with a lucidity that was no longer grey and worn out, but fresh, smelling of lavender. Everything was ofcourse chemically produced, but the effect was the same as if it was natural. As for drinking water, they had stopped accessing it from taps, or asking for it. It came to them piped every day, just as the food did. Stella thought again of the days in Paris, when she had lost her memory, and was frightened that the State would notice. She had become frail, wind wafted, perfumed, bejeweled, not knowing where she was going, or how she would return. The days had been listless, watching the skies turn their incredible colours, as if congealed in the palette of the sky. She would lower the blinds, sleep till late in the morning, and then start again to wander the streets that her feet knew so well, for she did not need memory, names, landscape, maps. Three years later, in another continent, with the tarpaulin sheds painted over the crumbling surface they knew to be ruined buildings of another century, long gone, she realized that life was only breath, breathing. It was as if memory was a shard, sharp and double ended. At one level, she responded to the impulse to remember, and in remembering, live again in an opulence of a world which once she had known so well. The earth was tender and brought to her more gifts than she could have wanted. It gave her fruit and flowers, and the gentle gaze of animals, almost doe like in their captivity. Here, too, had been their protected canvas of the familiar, no one stepping out of their bourgeoisie tableaus. When the earth had rent apart, first by war, and then by convulsions unbeknown to them, they had realized that they were human, subject to geological change, galactic time. The newspapers reported the finding of new universe of stars and planets. With that, hearts calmed down, they returned to the chores so familiar to them, waiting for the seasons to change, and the fruits and flowers that beckoned them from the gaily blazoning shops with their lights and perfumes. They were happy to have more days at hand, and then when the darkness fell on them, their own sense of belonging was quite gone. Everything that was theirs, fell to another. In a commonality of loss, the powers - that- be became profoundly tyrannical, creating an artifice of light, sound, life. And things began to move again, simply at first, but with a growing complexity as the years went by. Fear was camaflouged, and civility reigned again. Stella had chosen to leave Paris when the first tarpaulins came up above the great cities, and the sky had become punctured by aircraft, which had to leave from outside the known radius of the world, as people understood it. They had to choose their destination, tunnel to the airports, which looked like filigree jewelry, and had appeared outside the metropolis. And then in a matter of days, they would have assimilated to another part of the globe, a little frightened, but somehow sure that they had done the right thing, yes, moved towards their own survival. If she had chosen New Delhi as the site of transitioning to outer space it was because she had been familiar with it in her youth. The intellectual world of writers always served to protect the narcissus, and she had thought she would walk through familiar streets in the new world, where the sign boards had changed, and the old painted signs became abused by neglect. She had no fear in the beginning, since her memories of her work world were somehow quite intact. And people had taken to her immediately, providing her with facilities and home, papers and Internet. She had served them well once, and the records of her brilliance were sufficient for the new municipalities, charged with electronic devices, not to repel her, or exclude her. Or so she thought, but then her foreignness was so palpable, her accent so pronounced, that she fell out of the web of belonging again, retreating into silence. The young girl, Anjali, whom she had adopted, was the only one she now could turn to, but over the years, the sense of familiarity had reduced them to non presence, each busy with their thoughts, living life by the day. How completely hopeful the girl had been when she had come to the house, and offered her services, in exchange for learning new languages, and the scientific aura which surrounded the old woman who expressed her innate ability to keep up with the alarming technological changes that most people found difficult to handle. Yet, unfortunately, the problem of memory loss had surfaced as the greatest deficit, and both Stella and Anjali started to feel they were sliding into a place of great danger. Stella managed to keep composed, putting her blue eyeshadow every morning on her heavy lids with a trembling hand. She felt that if she could communicate that dressing up was important, then the girl would make greater effort to dispense with the casualness of her own attire. Anjali was often dressed in crumpled pyjamas and her blouses though clean, were never distinguishable. She had none of the sophistication of the women Stella had been associated with, the pallor of her face showed that she had never had food which was nutritious. She was born in the days of piped food, and if she survived at all, it would be due to her will power and that of her boyfriend, who stayed listlessly with them, always poring over his work without looking up, or else, was to be found gazing out at the cardboard sky. He had over the years, grown a little dense, his short frame picking up the carbohydrates in the food with ease, as he never stirred from his chair. However, the couple were happy, smiling at each other peacefully over their many chores. The government was now keen that people should inhabit the houses they stayed in as if indeed they were in outer space. The simulation of the circumstances of floating in a vacuum were being increasingly made available. For Stella, who was from an older generation, the act of looking out of the window was still replete with images she was comfortable with, familiar with. For Anjali and her partner, Ishtar, the inner spaces of their minds, without the vinyl of reproduced images was quite enough. Stella could hear the drone of their conversations, sometimes there was muted laughing. They were always aware of her presence, and sometimes they would appear, looking innocent and yet guarded. Had she called, did she need something? Then, when she shook her head, a veiled look of relief crossed their faces, and they disappeared again, into that world of which she knew nothing. The warmth of their personas was sufficient for her, they were alive, they were human, they lived in the adjacent room, making the house accessible to her wheel chair by their quick inventions, all plastic, but unimaginably brilliant. It had been a long time since she actually got out of it, her limbs had atrophied, but in a second, they were able to roll her out painlessly on to her bed every evening, and slide her into the chair in the morning. She had stopped thanking them, for they shrugged their shoulders placatingly, placing an affectionate hand on her shoulder when she did. The world was not spinning anymore, gravity was congealed in the last echo of the wall that separated them from the universe. It was not clear when they had lost their axis, but just as they never enquired, so too, they never doubted. The radio told them that they were lost people, and that the will to survive must be their own. They listened, placating one another, as the days shredded into countless anonymity, each moment going unrecorded except for the cries of the cicadas, which had survived the catastrophe. It was not cockroaches that had survived, for they got eaten up during the last days of the war, when all else had been cooked. Stella shuddered. She called out again for Angel and her companion. They seemed to be rising, she could hear the house come awake, with it’s several sounds. There was the beep of the alarm clock, the radio playing music, the buzzing of their conversation. She could hear the water being filled carefully, half a bucket each, of lavender fragrant distilled water. Yes, she knew the sound so well, that she was comforted. She heard these every day. They would come soon, she knew that. She waited. The old world, the memories drew her back. Chapter 3 Everyday, Ishtar and Angela worked hard to see that Stella was comfortable and happy. ‘Happy’ was too strong a word, for they themselves, while they delighted in each other’s company, did not dare to use the word for themselves. Their basic needs were met by the job they did, as they accepted the conditions of their occupation, as domestic workers. Stella never let them feel their life of servitude to be anything other than that of graciousness, hospitality and kindness. However, much as they persisted in trying to free her from a sense of her indebtedness, she always thanked them profusely for everything they did for her. “May I have some soup, please?” she would ask querulously. “In a minute, Madame!” Ishtar would say. Yet, he had no way of telling her that soup no longer came in the form of vegetables boiled or desiccated, that was in the last century, much before he was born. Since her short term memory was bad, he hoped that by the time he came back from the kitchen, she would have forgotten. He had just spoon fed her some of the thick stolid stuff which came out of the community food tap. It had been some gruel made of a variety of cereals, quite edible. He and Anjali had eaten some themselves, before serving their ward. Stella waited for a while, then she lost interest in the idea of soup, which she remembered from her days in Paris, then a young woman, witness to the years of the second world war. She shrugged off the pain of those grey days, when the Jews had been marched off to concentration camps, and they as young students had been embarrassed and lost. Sometimes, she had been afraid that she would be charged with assisting them, or hiding them. Anything could be a reason to be executed. Collaboration was much worse, and the stigma that came from liaison with the German soldiers or clerks would not be tolerated by kith and kin. Some people took on that burden on themselves, primarily because they felt that the Vichy government was doing what it could to keep destruction at bay. Compromise did not come easily to them, but camouflage did. Sometimes, they went for a walk with members of the Resistance, unknown to their families, and then in the shadows of the early Paris evening, with the sky coloured grey and pink, they would hurry home, hoping that no one had given their identities away. Her lover had told her that what they did as individuals was no business of the state, and that they had a right to their thoughts. They went about with a silence that was so deafening, that sometimes it gutted their ears. They longed for music, and the sounds of laughter. The continuous subdued whispering that went for conversation in various alcoves was none of their business. They had to survive, they had to live in the halo of each other’s love. As artists, they could not possibly submit to the daily violence which they witnessed. Fear was the greatest enemy. He had told her that it would separate them, confound them. Holding her hand, he whispered to her that he loved her, that he would always be there, for his life was the only thing that he held as precious, and that was his gift to her. Stella yawned. The things that man would say to her! He had big hands, and a bigger heart, and he always gave everything he had to people who had less. Sometimes she thought she should chastise him, since he was always without money, and let her pick up all the costs. “Rudo! I cannot bake more loafs for you to take to friends. You did not pay for the last batch you took.” “Stella, they are hungry. They are children who gather to play every evening in the garden outside my house. They love what you send them every evening.” “We have no food ourselves, how can we feed others?” “They are not ‘others’, they are our own children. The Nazis have given them a week to leave for the countryside.” “We should also leave.” “We have our home here. We have to continue as best as we can. Those children, they need food.” “I am not baking today.” She heard the sound of the door closing softly. Ishtar came back with a pillow for her, but seeing her asleep, he put it down, near her chair without waking her. He rarely felt tenderness for her, as her strong will was something that he resented. He thought she ate up his day, and though he was grateful to her, and earned a good living, his thoughts were always on how to escape his fate. It often occurred to him, young though he was, that there was no fate, as in the old days. There was only the cavern of time, where they lived, ekeing out their everyday dreams. They thought of themselves as humans, but there was very little that differentiated them from automatons. Every morning they woke, viewed the alabaster or grey sky, depending on the mood of the powers that be, and then proceeded to the day’s duties, which was the care of the relic humans who had lived beyond a century or more. He was amused by Stella, how perfect her mask like face had become. They felt that the time she put into her pancake makeup, her blue iridescent eyelids, the deep red hue of her lips, the curl of her eyelashes, all seemed, somehow, quite foreign. There was the smell of age, too strong to hide, and yet, she used perfumes, asked to bathe regularly, though her bones were so brittle, they could break. Was she French or Dutch? They had lost the boundaries of countries so long ago, that no one used linguistic or territorial boundaries anymore. To be human was attribute enough, in order to be classified as a relic. Ishtar thought there was something carnal and cerebral about the way she understood the world, something in her expression, in the way she looked, and even the way her eyes darted, were very contemporary, nothing ancient there. He thought she had been French, before the great migrations took place. Her arms were still muscular, and he presumed that the paralysis had allowed her to develop her upper torso. He felt spasms of grief when he thought how Anjali tried so hard to be good, caring, virtuous. It did not come easily to her, she had to practise very hard every day to carry out her duties with finesse. Gone were the days when the young did not bother to be attentive to old people. He had no idea where his own parents were, probably they were being looked after by some other young people, similar in type to himself and Anjali. He had no real memory of them either. Ishtar looked at himself in the large mirror with dull brown wood frames, that the State provided to every house, uniformly. Yes, he imagined that he had eyes like his father, lips like his mother, a nose like a grandparent who was living in some other country. He was broad shouldered too, and his brown hair was always combed. Stella grumbled if he appeared untidy and disheveled while serving her. He could see from the twist of her mouth that she was hurt and angry. He bowed a little on days like that, and disappeared into his room to change his shirt, and wash his face. Angela, as the old woman often called her, who was due later in the day to continue the round - the - clock routine of looking after Stella, would lie in bed, laughing a little. He would evade her glance. It was only too, too dangerous to get caught in Angela’s coquette ways. The last thing he had expected when he had answered the ‘job opportunities’ advertisement was to run into his previous employer, and simultaneously his childhood friend, who had also been a student accomplice in the days they got an education by sharing their knowledge. It was a rote exam, when they were seventeen, and Angela’s careful note taking in class had helped him clear the exams. He had no idea that for the rest of his life, he would be paying back for that favour. Not that it was uncomfortable or uneasy. It was a job. It allowed them both to do what they liked best to do, which was watch films on their computer. They could spend the whole day doing that, as food appeared on time, without their instigation. The state had well trained jobbers who cooked and served, apparently. Well, then, obsessions were exercised only through the acceptance of other compulsory duties, such as the one they shared. Stella rarely called them, she seemed to believe that being old and handicapped was a very small tax to pay for the exciting life she had had. They refused to believe that she had been born in 1925. “She could not possibly be that old!” “She could be, why not?” “There are pictures of women in China and Europe who lived that long in the old world. They ate some unusual diet, mainly raw things and red wine. Maybe Stella is one of the last surviving embodiments of natural diet and Shaw’s Methuselah! Fabian Socialism had it’s takers as you know!” “No, No nothing like that. It’s just that she seems so frail, and we have never really seen her close, as her odd makeup hides her from our view.” “Well, then, we will wait, when next we bathe her, so that without permission we can scrub her face, and see her creases.” “That would be cruel, Anjali. Everyone has their secrets. Inspite of being disabled, she is still able to use her face as a canvas. It’s not for us to ask what she hides. As an actress she holds her own, for we really don’t know what her feelings are, except by those involuntary grimaces or smiles which give us clues.” “No one should be that vain!” “She is not vain. It is her habit. That’s how women in Europe dressed their faces. They felt they were naked without foundation and eyeshadow.” They got tired of the subject of discussing face paint. It seemed odd to them, when their faces were yet unlined, that anyone would want to apply grease and paint, if they were not posing for photographs or working in the theatre. Their own faces, young, smooth and unlined, did not depend on any artifice. They were hardworking people, still very much in love with one another. They often smiled at each other, while going about their various duties. Leaving Stella unattended was a crime, and being under surveillance continually, they had permitted no moment to be tracked by their employers as “irresponsible”. Old age had it’s virtue. They were told this over and over again, and since it was something they had grown up with, they took it to be gospel truth. There was no God, there was only Time. Time was the great begetter, and Time was also the great Destroyer. When he had first met Stella, Ishtar was surprised by her beauty and her flamboyance. She was friendly, cheerful, a little boyish, but that added to her genuine charm. There was nothing affected about her, never any lies or cunning. She took the world head on, and gave her job everything she had. In the beginning, Stella’s spare bones, her angular good looks, her austerely painted, mask like face was very attractive. She had been quite mobile too, never needing the wheel chair or the commode brought to her. In fact, she made journeys by herself to the outer limits of the Metro quite often. But the State insisted Anjali come into work once a week, and as the years passed, she became the regular care giver. In the beginning, it was just a way to make money to pay for her tuition, but after a year, it became a full time job in itself. She did not mind. Once Ishtar had shifted in with her, she found the business of getting an education cumbersome. It seemed enough that they had so much to do, their earlier skills had become defunct. They were no longer needed to cook delicious food, or wait on people, or know how to write essays about a world which no longer existed. Their needs were few, and they had no friends. It was true for most people. The rigour of the day’s work was sufficient to close them in, close them into a hub of work related activities, and to end all ambition. The artificial air made them drowsy, but they had not known any other, and they managed their affairs neatly. Stella was always busy with her own thoughts, and they had no idea what sort of people filled her dreams. It was enough for her that they were around, visibly employed in her betterment. There was no furniture to dust, no food to cook, and yet, the music played in their rooms, and the soft buzz of conversation was sufficient to calm her. Their presence was like a balm, and by the flutter of her eyelashes she would communicate that she was happy by their nearness. She knew that they kept busy the whole day living in an alternate world in which she had no access. They did not fear the new world into which they were being obdurately pushed, day by day. In the beginning, the State closed down the rivers and waterways. It next closed down the borders. Then it stopped receiving people from mangled harbours and overcrowded airports. With the closure of its railways, the State became a whirr of electronic lines, and people disappeared from the streets. The metros became the only known mode of travel, burrowing deep into the earth and the sea. The borders were constantly watched, and papers neither false nor genuine could any longer be had. That was when digital maneuvering became the norm, and where every one could be docketed and brought back to starting point. There was no reason then, to leave home. Travel was neither necessity nor luxury, since all efforts were on, to leave planet Earth. Ofcourse, no one expected it for six hundred or seven hundred years, but ‘mental readiness’, that, indeed, was carefully nurtured, woven into the values of the domestication of the mind, so that all came to believe that was the only path. Being watched continually by Ishtar and Angela was curious. What did they want, what did they hope for? Should she speak, when not spoken to? They seemed busy and happy in the adjoining room, divided from her only by a bead curtain. They were sometimes raucous in their conversations to another, sounding like birds calling from different trees, or like geckos on different walls. They seemed like strangers to her on the days they had quarreled since they went about with blank faces showing no emotion. They turned her about gently, watched out for bed sores, cranked her stiff limbs into various positions, and sometimes, when bathing her, they would suddenly look into her eyes, to gauge her mood. She had no way of telling them that she found pleasure in their attentions, and that she was sorry they had had a disagreement. She did not know what they had quarreled about. Their raised voices had woken her up in the morning, and she had not yet asked them the reason for their rancour. “It’s your turn to wash her bottom today, Ishtar!” “You do it, I did it twice yesterday.” “What’s that got to do with it? We don’t count by number of craps, we count by the hour!” “Okay, I will do it.” Ishtar was cross. He was half way through watching his favourite digital programme, mass wound into the computer, non stop watching for the favoured few who had pleased the state by their dexterity in manual tasks given to them. Ishtar was addicted to his hobby. It seemed to him that the space race, between countries which no longer existed, was the most exciting formatted game. All these people lived here and there, and since reproduction was no longer possible except by in vitrio, no one looked unique, or could be mapped by their place of origin or their race. In the old days people were curious, and talked about dynasties, and mix and matching genes, and looked down upon some, and flattered others. Now, with three generations of in vitrio birth, the composition genetically was so complex, that siblinghood was ill defined, and as for marriage, that too was State decreed. Angela and he had never bothered. They lived together, quite comfortable in their daily routines, and as lovers they remained totally loyal to each other. He did get a little anxious when the five days of menstruation came by, because she was hot and demanding, and he too busy with his chores to comfort her, or cosset her. The room was too small, the lack of ventilation made him irritable. He tried to get out of his part of the deal at work, but she was strict as a school mistress. He found her immensely annoying, why could she not give in a little, and breathe easy. But no, it was always a careful calculation of hours put at work, and energy spent. When they faced each other as antagonists, Stella got disturbed. She would smile placatingly at them, and start singing something sweet and lovely in an ancient cracked voice. She would touch them with her fingers, broodingly, staring at them with her sharp crone’s eyes. And they would calm down, and handle her more tenderly, and peace was restored. What they enjoyed best about her was her peacefulness. It was clear that she had a mind of her own, which the State could not disrupt or own. ‘All thought is free’, they had heard her say to herself. Sometimes, she would smile, on other occasions weep quietly to herself. On those occasions, they did not disturb her reverie. Being immobile most of the day, lifted, washed, changed and fed in the afternoons, which were otherwise long and uneventful, they felt that she had a right to her emotions. Once she told them about her lover Rudo. That story was older than them by about sixty years, so they enjoyed listening to it. A bearded man, a lover, as strange to them as the food that she described or the seasons, or the calling of birds in the garden. However, telling that story always calmed the lady, and then she would sleep deeply, like a child. So they let her tell it, whenever she did, though in the end, they too came to know it by heart. How odd was the heart’s desire. How meaningless it’s repetition! If they interrupted her while she told it, she would stop speaking to them, and her monosyllables and hardened heart would give them no encouragement in the difficult work they did. Angela had been trained to talk continuously, and to make soothing noises. On such days, her dexterity with language was quite confounded by the centenarian’s silence. She would be quelled by a glance, she would find in the paralytic’s body, a corpse like coldness. It was almost physically repelling to handle her in those days. Her hands, with her customary warmth would somehow be cold to the touch, and her syllables rasping. It was as if she was saying to the young people, “You have no idea what goes on in my head, but you think you have authority over my body?” Stella still called her care giver Angel, or Angela and sometimes Anjali. But as the years passed, a certain boredom entered their relationship, a kind of torpor. There was nothing wrong with the old lady’s hearing, or her sight. She also had excellent lungs, which had been artificially replaced whenever needed, and she breathed deeply, singing to herself on the odd occasion, or when she thought her attendants needed some encouragement. Mostly, though, she was contented, and her display of an excellent long-term memory really confounded ishtar and Angela. They had no idea if she was speaking the truth, or whether it was fiction. The corpus of memory was so huge, so varied, so full of discrepancies and flights of fancy that they realized that they were being subject to a type of biological archivalization. They had no way of recording it, that was against the law, for the State wanted no remnants of relic civilisations to hamper the progress of the Scientific law to keep evolving till final departure to the seven habitable planets. Memories drew one back, made one hesitant. The dictatorship of the new, the emergent, meant that each generation had to accept it’s fate, it’s destiny, and not look back into the world which had become naturally extinct. Stella remembered that the crumbling of the known world happened with endless rain. It was frightening at first, but then they got used to it. It was as if they had gone back a couple of aeons in geological time, and while the earth got hotter, and the arctic melted, leading to floods and rise in sea level, people just imagined that it would all blow over. It did not. It just kept getting worse, and the migrations happened, firstly because belief in God, and competition between people whose idea of God did not match became the ground for wars. And once the destruction of the earth happened through rivalry and bombing it was as if the tectonic centre of the earth had become disturbed. The earthquakes followed one another, and whether it was on land or sea, not to speak of quiet volcanoes suddenly heaving molten lava, people had to run. They ran without any grammar, picking what they could from their loved objects, sometimes losing family members as they did so. There was no justice, no discord….just the need to run and hide where the floods could not get them. Food got rotten, animals died, children were lost and sometimes found, mostly adopted by strangers. It really did not matter what the cause was, it was only a matter of reasoning by the Administrators that since they were not responsible, there was no need for hand outs or dole. They felt essentially that they should make sense of what there was, and turned naturally towards space for their answers. The clouds in the sky floated about nonchalantly promising nothing. Stella remembered that when she was young, the wars were so many, that they were mainly hungry. Food was rationed, and peace talks brought some decades of normalcy. The air was clean, and people went to the countryside for holidays. Paris was hot, and people went about dressed in fine clothes, or in American ‘hand me downs’ from tourists. Those soldiers who had married French women trained as lawyers, school teachers and clerks to keep their marriage going. Many had migrated to America which had become the new mecca for artists and art dealers. Stella laughed, remembering a lithograph in a shop window, the three kings crossing a desert, by Dali. Now, where could one find a print like that, for love or money? The two room apartment was empty of all ornaments, books, canvases, and even calendars were forbidden. She was glad in a way, because who would dust and clean them in this thin air, where canvas made their roof? There was no place for sorrow in this world, made real by protestations and arguments by the state, that this was the present, this was their lot. How odd that for those who had been born in an earlier time, the mendicancy of their thoughts came from their longing to return to a past in which the actors had no recall. The past flourished in their minds, and with the help of photographs and videos they refurbished their conversations, calling others to remember with them. But, that too, was artifice. The loathing that the young felt was immense and palpable, for what they thought was a waste of time, a sense of squalor, emotional as well as corporeal, for the rumbling of decades long gone. They did not bother to hide their disgust of these pale faces, the over ornamented people, the languages and dialects with which they had nothing in common. They felt it was best to move on, for their own past was singularly eventless, composed merely by the specialized duties of which they had been put in charge and the longing for music and voices recomposed digitally, so that their needs were met, and anything extraneous would then redefine their own images. The familiar and the unfamiliar were somehow inextricably wound already in conversation and the practicalities of their jobs as caregivers. To engage in a superficial exercise of recomposing the past for their patient was quite beyond them. One of the things Stella remembered of Paris were the locks on the bridges. It seemed to her immensely ugly, this show of affection, of “locking hearts” onto a bridge, which could possibly collapse with the weight of the symbols whose keys had been thrown away. She herself had lived with Rudo for many decades. He was a kind man, full of passion, erupting to the holocaust of emotion with a temper others found fearful….and yet capable of immense concern for the weak and the sorrowful. He never seemed to lack understanding for their cares and woes, and spent all the money he had on them, particularly the children. Stella wondered if it was because they had no children of their own. She was given to ideas, and set herself every day to compose the materials necessary to mail off to the journal for whom she worked. They demanded that she polish a certain set of pages by the day, and she found that easy to do, simple, non taxing but it left her with no time. Everyday, she looked at the sentences she had to work with, simplify, taking out the idiosyncracies of dialect and personal style, and then, when they achieved a certain staccato simplicity, her work was completed. It was necessary for the reader who wanted only information…taking out the soul of language, the lyricism of prose, for that was what she was paid to do. She used the thesaurus often, and then compiled the sentences so that fisherpeople, shop keepers, sweepers and cleaners, cooks and au pair girls could read the news that made their world such a significant place. War was a commonplace word, everyone knew it…the real story was that there was nothing to eat during the time of rationing and what appeared most often on the table was a punishment, a turnip soup, with its harshness diluted by wartime powdered wheat flour, looking a little like semen and smelling of the sulphur of defeat and loss. Stella refused it, pouring it down the sink, and getting more dehydrated as the days passed. Rudo was less disrespectful of the right to live, and would drink his, holding his nose. It was necessary for them to accept these handouts, because the idea that they were part of the Resistance often rose in the mind of their neighbours and ofcourse, once denounced, they could only board the train to the gas chambers. Stella had a sharp nose, and the black hair of the people who came beyond the Gulf of Arabia. It was possible that there was Indian blood in her, why else would she choose to come to India, when the boundaries dissolved with nuclear war? However, she had always dyed her hair auburn, and the edges of white which showed beyond the line of dye was truly the lot of all women regardless of the hair colour they were born with. Auburn was perfect, it matched most of her clothes, and since she was very thin with bones which jutted out, she dressed in colours which were earthy and splendid. They took away the sense of extreme austerity that always accompanied her. Baking bread was her way of telling the world in the time of greatest turmoil, that she had a skill, and that it was essence of vanilla that made it seem so rich, when egg powder and margarine made the bread heavier than it ought. Rudo had met her at the metro station when she was twenty years old. Stella remembered that day, and through the time of the dream, the time of theatre, she pushed her mind back to when the metro provided for them the sense of being back in the underground, the world of Lethe, the world of illusions. The air blew like a draft, it was cold, and the seats in the waiting area were filigreed. She felt acutely happy, just waiting to move rapidly in the underground, reach her destination without fear of bombs. She had heard that London had been almost destroyed. Rudo came in one morning, disheveled, with bruises on his face. He had been attacked with stones because the black shirts thought he was hiding people. He had got away by referring to his uncle, who was a doctor in the army. There was still respect for the professions. While he changed his shirt and applied ointment on his many bruises, he spoke about leaving Paris. However, since they did not have the money they stayed right through till the war was over. It was a relief when the Americans came, they felt delighted by the cold, the people in the streets, the waving of mutual flags, and Stella felt she could breathe again. She looked up, it was evening, she knew that, because the pipes in the kitchen were buzzing and vibrating, and the young people were running about shutting windows. Not that there was air or light, but it still gave them something to do, something which made them feel busy and involved. In Paris, the clouds floated on lurid coloured skies, and people sat on benches with their arms around each other, but that was another century. Chapter 4 Somewhere outside the metro, where the sky burned a sulphur yellow, and the smog laid down its grotesque vocabulary of compounds and chemicals, all those who lived under the tarpaulin sky, knew that it was a ghost, the amputated limb of their memories. They did not seek to confound it with their present, which was a still world of dreams and fast trains, taking them here and there, to do what they had been deputized to do. No one thought anything of it. The sky could be purple or yellow or red depending on what specific combination of lead or phosphorus or carbon it was. Never seeing it, since they did not stray from their painted sky, their thoughts did not dwell on it. They had nothing to do with it. Soon, there would be generations of new borns who were not oxygen dependent. Each would learn how to survive in these new environments, where the souls of the old would transpire to be artificially reborn through a variety of techtonic forms, which then would speak the polished speech of the dead and gone, through digital means. An occasional garbling of the specimens, thus resurrected, caused no anguish. They would just pull out the innards of that disk and search for another. The new bright babies, orphaned at the moment of gestation by the loss of womb, would know how to eat and breathe and push buttons as soon as they were born. Their skin would have the transluscence of their type, race being a distillation of so many varieties of genomes, that skin colour and phenotype had no meaning to this crop of children. They loved as they willed, bearing no children, and untaxed by the State. Stella looked at her children, the two who had been sent to her by the State, and who had become so attached to her, against their will, that they had requested self wiring which facilitated their interactions with her, even when they were sleeping. This meant that should her blood pressure go down, or her eyes open and she lie awake, alarms would ring in their heads. Stella had no objection, in fact, she found it amusing that they had consented to turn into automatons. They would appear disheveled at the crack of dawn, and ask her in hushed voices whether she needed anything. She then thought of Rudo, who was always hurrying away to something, to the depths of the fire, to the intensity of work and responsibilities, and to whom, the world was always an intractable forest of desires which had to be kept at bay. She herself had a much lighter relation to her routines and obligations. Stella felt that while there was rotation and revolution, something they took so much for granted in the previous century, she would be assured of all that needed to be done. Time was an accordion, which folded and clammed shut, rather than a distillation of sand, percolating by the second. Whereas, earlier, the earth had in its jeweled radius of sea and gravity, locked them in, now, with the promise of imminent departure, the lockdown of memory had become less pervasive. An array of events had led them in their war torn world, during the Second World War to be distanced from the real. She had gone through the motions of work required of her from day to day, whether it was proofing manuscripts, or baking bread, as if it were the most important of things. The real truth was that war had, over the consecutive years, crunched their heads under a giant praying mantis of technology. Time was of the essence, for either the chores were completed or they were not. She had for a time joined a monastery, when Rudo had disappeared into his shell, his universe of secret discord, which he did quite often. In the still vaults of an abandoned cloister, they had made jam, and painted icons for sale, and when the summer was over, she trudged back to Paris, hoping that her friends would recognize her, for she had fattened on fresh bread and locally grown fruit and cream from the local dairies which whipped the cream before drying the milk for distribution as war time rations in small local factories. She was shocked, by their friends’ absence for they had left for England, and no one seemed to know when they would be back. The universities were emptied, and people looked through each other in pale recognition. There was only Rudo who promised to return, as he had left her a note under the pillow, which was how he normally communicated with her. The Resistance was a network of people who ignored one another, when in public, who asserted their identity only in the most secure of situations. The fear that each one felt, had numbed them, so that they had become experts at hiding their feelings, and at passing on information. Each had a code, and when asked for it, would dissemble unless they thought their interrogator or partner was indeed true. Rudo was gone days at a time, and when he returned, he never told her where he had been. She often tried to seduce him with good food and wine, which she had hidden away from the eyes of people she had once been close to. The sources were dwindling, cheese, wine, dried grapes…things they had been used to were now never to be seen. How tragic that they still longed for the food they had been accustomed to, and would discuss it sometimes in whispers. Stella let him unfold his stories at his own pace when he returned. He was always loath to talk, as if the circles of time and the ripples of sound were coincident. He needed to see her, and so he returned. The truth was, both of them were content in each other’s company, not asking for more. The silences were confounding to those who were strangers but to them, there was a world of forgiveness and silence. Where had he gone, what had he done, whom had he met? She could imagine it, men and women who met in the woods at dawn, and dispersed before the potato and beetroot farmers arrived. He would not mention their names, since any knowledge shared between them was dangerous for him and her. Their chances of being discovered were very high, and what she most feared was being packed into a truck like cows to the slaughter. She thought that nothing was worse than being packed tightly into a truck, for they had become used to the stampede of hungry people being taken away, for between forced work or death…what was the difference? Sometimes, she went to the station, and stood quietly behind the massive blocks of instrumentation that sometimes went in the trains along with hooded passengers who had been wrested from their families. The flowers were out, spring could not be distanced from history. She could smell the early fragrance, hear the buzz of the bees, sense the labour of delight. And then the rows of well dressed Jews would arrive, carrying their hand bags and their children, some with spouses, some without. In a moment, pretence was gone, and they were crammed into windowless trains which shunted them to labour camps. Stella would go home when the bayonets started to release untimely death on those who had in some way broken a queue, or despaired of losing a loved one in the series of staccato numbers. that were called out and had shouted in vain, breaking the eerie silence. Many decades later, in Afghanistan, she saw the women with their children being herded and shot, for no reason other than war had no vocabulary other than death and despair. Stella turned sharply in her chair. Her spine had ossified, but some movement was still possible. The man was at the door, looking at her, with his eyes concerned and alert, ready to help. He had been reading a book, because it was still in his hand. Usually, he carried a white plaque, electronic, the letters running neatly across its pale blue sky of electronic colour. This time, though, it was a book. She longed to hold it in her hand. It had been a long while since she had felt the coarse, opaque paper, mottled by time. She stared at Ishtar, without blinking. He went away. Nothing was said. It was time for the morning routines to begin. He would send Anjali, who was much gentler than he could be. However much he loved her, it never changed their dispositions, their mutual animosities, their recurring conflagrations. Anjali was in touch with the world more than he was, he always retreated into his book. It was as if in this world, where speech had atrophied as it did during war, Anjali held on to the politeness and decorum of both speech and the tenderness of touching. When he moved Stella about, it was primarily because she had to be shifted from one position to another. His mind would be on the next chore to be accomplished. “Mom, it’s time to go for a walk.” “I don’t want to go.” “Time to read to you.” “No.” “Time to play cards?” “Time to sing?” She was bathed and fresh, gleaming, soft skinned, her toothless smile, communicating both joy and hope. Every morning they had to go through the same routines, never very strenuous, and once having found what she wanted to do, the day would swing past with its usual calm. As soon as she had said, “Time to Sing?” in her lilting old person’s voice, he knew that she was in accord with her world. For Stella the world only came into existence when her wishes were fulfilled. The rest remained a battleground of conflicting interests, and the more he moved away from the path of her will, the more venomous she would become. He was sometimes overawed by her sweetness, her will to power, and resented that he had to do what she wanted. Yet, his training had made him complacent, and at the end of the day, there was his companion and friend, Anjali, whose avarice for reading and writing was the only real crime against the State that she admitted to. The surveillance wires started buzzing when the old woman fantasized too much about the past, the veins in her wrist becoming purple with the effort of remembering and reliving, or when Anjali laughed too much over the book she was reading. There was a clocking in of how many pages she turned on her electronic tablet, and once forty pages were completed, the system crashed, turning on only the next day when a new ration was imposed. There were days when the book Anjali was reading the previous day would not turn up, and then her sense of forfeiture was so huge, that she would become extremely Ishtar dependent. “Get off my back!” “Why can’t I watch the movie with you?” “You don’t have a license for digital watching, only for reading. Find your book.” “Please, Ishtar, don’t be so harsh. You know that my book shuts when I finish 40 pages.” “That seriously is not my problem, my dear!” She would go and lie down in her bunk. The hours lay long before her, and she devised a way of writing, which was unusual to say the least. She would begin to plot stories on the tablet provided to caregivers for accounts of their day’s activities. Here, there was an abstraction of space quite unusual to their vocation. Apparently, one could type more than forty pages a day, and there was no accounting by the somnambulant state, which was not too interested in the lives of centenarians. Why should it? How were they contributing? Stella was amused by the fact that Anjali typed in long reports in her room on the days that her reading tablet shut down. What could she be saying to the authorities? One day she pushed her wheel chair, in which she had been seated by the couple, who had then gone to submit their cards for further extension of employment, leaving her in the care of a robot that they had forgotten to wire to her, and was actually running around the room haphazardly and silently. Stella chose the moment to go and see what Anjali was writing in the reports to be filed daily, but not sent anywhere, and chanced upon a cornucopia of stories. She read them rapidly, and was surprised by the velocity of the young woman’s passion. There was nothing scurrilous about the text, and yet, and yet, the sensuality was so marked that she withdrew from it. Having no experience of gestation in a mother’s womb, the product of scientific precision, no memory or recall of childhood, Anjali had typed a document of lust and love based on her relationship with Ishtar. Since copulation was denied to them, neither having erogenous zones, or reproductive capabilities, Anjali’s stories were about the shock and horror of finding herself in the old world, where people had feeling, and attended to each other with sentiments which were once called human. Stella recognized Rudo and herself in some of them, and empathy was discernible in these accounts, because Stella had told these stories with some verve, and the young girl did not have to imagine them. The concentric circles of narrative were quite imposing…there were some accounts she recognized, and yes, they had been put as conversations in quotes by Anjali, and there were some which had been invented. There was no authorial recognition, of self and other. There was sometimes a glibness, and sometimes fiction took on the form of revenge. Why was there such an awe-ful description of daily tedium, of occasions when nothing happened, when not even the painted skies had been changed for a week, and there was the incessant sound of rain in their ears? To have perpetually constant skies, and continuous lighting in their artificial planetarium, which they called “Metro” was immensely tiring. They longed for the dark, for real sky, for cloudless nights. More than anything, they searched for blazoning lights, and the muting of it, at dusk. They had news of it from friends in other parts of the world, where the ozone layer had not been perforated and there was some semblance to the world they had once known. There was talk now of simulating planetary experience here and now. Since the earth had been reduced to rubble, then, humans would have to learn to live days consonant with planetary axis of where they were headed in six centuries. The experiments had to begin now. A day which was thirty years in length, and a night which followed being of equivalence. Stella shuddered and wheeled herself back, carefully staying out of the way of the robot which was making placatory whirry noises as if putting a patient to sleep, and imagining in its fertile chip ridden mind that it’s mechanical remonstrations and benedictions had a willing recipient. In Afghanistan the Taliban years had been grotesque to say the least. The daily killings in the name of jehad had only one motive, which was the return to feudal relationships of land and war, where the demons of modernity were contemporaneously well anchored in guns and digital knowledge. It did not cause a sense of contradiction or miss match, ideologically speaking. Stella as an aid worker had been content eating the dusty bread of local ghettoized clusters of women and children. She had taught them new ways of quilting which involved cutting pieces of fabric into hexagonals, attaching paper and cloth together, and stitching it, piece by piece, so that fearsome energetic reds were coupled with blues and greens. These large emblematic cloths were then sold to tourists for the price of bread. The women, ragged, dust laden, hungry, worked for eight to twelve hours a day, receiving exactly the sum required to keep their children from begging in the streets. Stella did not think too much about the negative aspects of work and wage. She was just grateful to hear the women talk, telling each other such long litanies of suffering that her heart froze. Those years had given her the sense of rapture of survival, not of the fittest, but of those who had been chosen by the state and aid agencies, social workers and philanthrophical bodies. She had spent long summers in the camps working with young children, teaching them to read and write, to sing songs and to work the queues for food and medicines. No one thought much of an elderly woman who had left her native land, and was ensconced in the bitter conditions of war torn mountains. When winter came, she flew back to Paris, and Rudo and she were symbiotic, knowing that their hardwork and their love for people united them, in silences, and their genuflections to the beauty of a fog shrouded winter, which made them return every night to their home and the bliss of being together. Rudo had been in Africa, an international aid worker like herself. He had grown bigger than she had remembered, and ageing was something they accepted with some glee. It took away their drive to touch and feel, to enter, to emblazon their love with the customary tactility Parisians took so much for granted. Rudo’s sweetness was legendary, but her own sense of satire so marked, she knew that beneath the quality of tenderness so evident to the people he worked with was an awe of death, a fear of pain. She never denied him this vulnerability, her own caustic nature honed by time and loss to understand that a man had to have his privacy, his sense of gallantry, his love of the future. Sometimes she was embarrassed by his need for others, for the way he put himself out helping others, always available to them. He never rested, even at night, he taxed himself learning new languages and using his wits to solve puzzles and riddles which during the day were hard to fathom. If one was crossing Africa, in Italian colonized country, would the maps be decipherable to British bombers? He had no idea where his answers would lead him. It was another way of organizing memories, to ask questions and leave them unanswered till someone who knew gave an accurate description. When they had migrated to Afghanistan in the communist years, they felt at home, and the orchards outside their homes were lush with oranges. It was as if the dream time of their middle age was compounded by the fragrance of the flowers and fruit that they were surrounded by. The skies were clear, and the mountain air a blessing. When summer wove its way in, the apricots would ripen, and they were delicious on toast, heated in butter and crisp to the tongue. Then began the years of torment, when the rolling of tanks became their morning call, and all the birds died. They were there when the Taliban rose, and the streets were shredded with the blood of soldiers, foreigners, loyalists to the King. Yet, they stayed, beginning their serious sojourn in a country which looked to Islam as its fortress. They were still loved and feted, though the embassies were no longer accessible as many closed down. Women were no longer in the streets, and were huddling in their bombed homes with their children. They still managed a daily diet of goat’s meat and rice cooked with raisins, but they feared once again, the loss of their lives and that of their friends. It meant that their life of freedom and joy was enclosed in a parenthesis of days and now that they were elderly they were numbed by daily events. Aid agencies came by in hundreds, photographers, volunteers of various humanitarian communities and ofcourse sociologists and economists and planners. Rudo and Stella were always being interviewed by people, as they were familiar with the terrain. When Osama arrived in the 90s they were the first to know. They never met him, but from the reports that they got from passersby and their household retinue of servers who remained loyal to them regardless of governments, they knew that the war with America would be served to them everyday with their newspapers and green tea every morning. Rudo shrugged his shoulders. Nothing changed him really…war was a business, but so were aid agencies…jobs, heartbreak, omelets without eggs..nothing bothered him. He stuck his tongue into her gullet every morning on leaving, with his rucksack on his back…there was nothing perfunctory about his passion, it was a habit, and she was accepting of it. Stella laughed, her hair would never grow back, now that the faithful and loyal attendants had decided that it would be easier to comb if it was cropped. She herself had become used to their constant attentions, while at first she had hated it. But her bad temper caused them amusement, and when her muscles started atrophying, she was sensible enough to know that her life was at risk. Ishtar was more honest with her, she found Anjali’s sweetness cloying, and besides when she really needed her, Anjali would be formal, while Ishtar was tender. Anjali was better trained, she carried her certificates rather like a shield, and what had once been a vocation, had now become a profession. Ishtar, whom she had known as a young man, was truly like a boss to a client. That’s how he would have treated the guests at this hotel where he had served for almost a decade before they closed down the cafes as incendiary places where young people could plan a revolution. Stella herself had managed one, when she migrated to India from Kabul, after the UN had sent its armies, and reconstruction under a democratically chosen President had begun. She was still wanted there, but after she left for Paris, she did not get a work visa for the country of her adoption, and was flown to India instead. Here the work on the metro had started much earlier as stakes on Mars had been placed very early. Without Rudo, and the happy memories which now returned only in surreptitous flashes, monitored by the State, she had fallen into a passivity quite foreign to her nature. Quite often, they got summons from Planet 7Xy, which was the code name for the space station which they were expected to travel to, the one which had a climate most like earth, a sun not too distant, and most wonderful, 366 days! They had been awed when they heard about it, and the whispers on the stellar network which connected all the planets was that it was inhabited with earthlings who had colonized space aeons ago. Stella was charmed by the idea of going, and hoped that it would be soon. While she liked her life on planet earth, with it’s routines and automatized rigour, she did regret that the view was so limited. A tarpaulin sky was no fun at all…and worse, underneath her pancake make up, she knew that the skin was beginning to corrode. The pollution was so huge, that nothing could stop it. They breathed it, and it sat on their lungs like tar. Replacing it often, they had got used to their own rasping breath, as the malleable plastic was similar but not the same as the fine tapestry of veins and sponge they had been born with. The early morning announcements of their imminent departure were always specific. Pretty women in white garments came on to their individual screens, and looking like the sybils of ancient Greece, gave them the specific and detailed measurements of their space ships. They were expected to board them in the whisper of a moment, as the wind that rustled in the bare bones of trees, and the lights that glimmered in the opaque sky mirroring the stars they were to travel to. Ishtar always said that growing old was not an option, they would become ancients in another world, where there was no gravity, no air, no dust. Stella laughed, and said she had grown old in just such circumstances, for Afghanistan denuded by the bombs of mutually conflagrating nations had reduced itself to dust and rubble. The greatest losses had been of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and each time they lost another ancient site, her husband and she had sworn detachment. They felt agony however, as the destruction of religious sites were accompanied by deaths. They wanted to return home, but there was no home. They crossed over to Pakistan, and lived for a while, embellished lives with the elite, who were much like oligarchies in any part of the world. Elegant women dressed in sequins and silk, their svarkovski glittering in their clothes and ornaments in a riddled light. Stella particularly liked their shoes, which were of malleable cloth and lightest of leather, studded with rhinestones, and the smallest of crystals. The night sky was clear, and while there were snow storms, they felt that each day was precious, that human life was amazingly cheap, and that India had an osmotic border calling them to the Arts and Literature. The real truth was there were congenialities only recovered through ambassadorial gifts on both sides, while most of the time, there were skirmishes and shootings, and conspiracies of espionage. As civil servants of the doctors without borders, Stella and Rudo had a subtle relationship with Amnesty International, and were pleased to deal with both refugees and citizens, carrying their own national identity cards with equanimity. Rudo played cards every afternoon with Afghan musicians and bakers of bread, and she discussed the latest inventions in the global market, quick to learn on the computer, as that was, in the 1990s, the passport to everything. Rudo had none of her verve, he made do with post cards which he had made with the help of a small printing press near their home. He wrote with a small cramped hand, to all his friends in Paris, telling them of the daily anxieties of coping with a small income, with which the couple had to survive. Sometimes they received useless gifts from friends back home, such as chocolates and butter biscuits, which they quickly distributed to the children.. neither of them liked sweets very much, and it was a relief to have a throng of eager young children putting out their hands for a share of expensive fare from the Rue de Boulangers and Paris Marche. When it got cold in Murray, they looked towards the mountains with a sense of shock. The fringes of earth could barely be seen, and there were no tourists. They would then plan to return as early as they could to Paris, but visas not being available, they were only too ready to travel to India. And yes, the fates smiled on them, they were most welcome. It would only be a signaling system from those two sibling countries that peace workers were available anywhere, that warring nations had time for the comfort of decorative marches, where the border was reiterated by the mimicking of the frolic and foreplay of war. “Oh yes”, Rudo would say, laughing loudly, “there should be no borders between countries.” Chapter 5 In the summer, early summer, the bird cries were continuous, the mango trees abloom with ivory coloured flowers. Stella brushed her hair slowly, her white skin blanched by a 20th century sun, mottled in places. She knew that her memories were being siphoned by the State. Like a snake’s body that absorbed sound as rhythm, so, too, the coiled wires went from the head boards of her wheel chair and her bed into the painted yellow box which collected memories for a generation that had not lived as she had. Plants, insects, bird calls – all of them were now extinct. Yet, the bright illumination which numbered their days, as the sun would have, in an earlier time, was doomed to die. Rivers had been tarmacked, mountains punctured, streams no more than thin trickles. Electricity too was now diminished. During the day, the smog covered the sky, and on the odd days, when the tarpaulin frayed they glimpsed the stars and sometimes a chipped moon, or imagined they did. Stella yawned, and waited, counting frangipani outside her window in war torn Kabul, a tree with myriad clusters, white ringed by yellow and red, fringing into pink, pushing upwards. It was as aid workers that Rudo and she had made sense of their diplomatic assignments. When the bombs had begun to fall, they were the first to arrive, with the Doctors without borders. So long as they were together, she had known only surcease, a gently wafting sense of equilibrium and order. There was never sorrow, or guilt. They found in each other the joy that comes from companionship, an overwhelming silence that would not be disrupted by the continuous drone of bomber planes and the sorrow of the inhabitants. Just as the Americans in Paris had been given the mundane pleasures of bitter coffee and walks by the Seine, in the same manner, Rudo and Stella had lived blameless lives carrying out their duties with ease. Writers, artists, beauraucrats all passed through their door with a practiced ease. When in Kabul, the obvious place to be was with the couple who were entrusted with doing the paperwork for those who wished to leave the country. Then it happened, what they had always feared. Rudo disappeared. After many days of waiting, reminiscent of that time, those long and terrifying years in Paris, she heard that he had been found in New Delhi. His memory was gone, he stuttered, his large and burly body was covered in bruises and he did not want to return to Kabul. Stella had arrived at the hospital in Delhi, where he was being treated. His eyes looked blankly at her, but when she said, “Rudo!” he smiled and said, “Fine! And you?” She held his hands and wept, kissing him feverishly, but he shook her off and would not say a word. “Rudo, what happened?” “He got hit by a moving vehicles as he was descending from a hill at night,” the nurse said, bleakly “What hill?” “Do you know his name, Madame?” “Rudo Sulan” “What is his occupation?” “Writer, publisher, Refugee Rehabilitation Consultant to the Afghan Government.” “A Social Worker?” “An activist.” “How long has he been gone from home?” “Two weeks.” “Two weeks! You did not inform the police?” “We live in Kabul. People do disappear.” “Well, he was found in the hills . The people who brought him were devotees of the Dalai Lama.” “Dalai Lama! Were the people he was working with Tibetan refugees?” “The people who brought him said he was wandering in the hills. He seems in good health, and his disposition is peaceful.” “I would like to take him home with me.” “That won’t be possible, Madame. The police will not release him until we discover who he is, and how he came to Dharamshala.” “My dear. We are old people. I have brought his passport. I insist that we meet the Director of the Nursing Home, and take my husband back with me.” The nurse, her name was Elisa John, started to take Rudo’s pulse. She looked about 20 years old, but was probably 30, and projected immense authority. She was from Kerala, efficient, pretty, tidy, religious. Her father was an engineer, her mother a home maker. She was full of confidence, and an airy manner, with tiny diamonds in her ear. When Stella persistesd, Lisa said, in perfect English while filling up the patient’s form in a cursive hand, “What did you not understand of what I told you?” Then she whisked herself out. With the number of patients they had to take care of, a bedside manner became improbable. “If we had a daughter, Rudo, she would have been like her.” He stared uncomprehendingly at her. There was something gentle about his eyes, a little sad. He had seen her before, but he could not say where. Curiosity got the better of him. “And what is your name?” he said. “Stella!” “Like a star.” It was a statement, not a fact. She had come to terms with this new reality. She knew everything about him, from the size of his underwear, to the existence of secret moles. And yet, he was a stranger to her. She noticed his beard, white, sharp, camouflaging the chin without being fuzzy and untidy. “Shall we go home?” He looked around. “Isn’t this home? I like it here. I’m home in my body”. He spoke English, with the customary French accent. Stella shrugged her shoulders. All to the good, he had lost his memory, he didn’t recognize her, he was bearded and wounded. Yesterday had been spent travelling continuously. She was an old woman too, and her bones ached. “Well, then, this is home!” She put her bag on the table, her large coat on the chair and lay down in the adjacent “attendant’s bed”. There was nothing to be said. The hospital had forbidden flowers as gifts to patients, and there was nothing cheery about the room. Outside the window, an early Spring announced itself. Stella could see birds, flowers, and patients being walked around slowly, and a clear fountain, the water she could see hurling onto river stones and being spiraled up again. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep, and woke up to the sound of the dinner trolley. Lisa had sent food for her too, and after Stella helped Rudo eat, which he did not fend off, she gulped down the rice, boiled vegetables and custard. Night had fallen, and the corridors were silent. Rudo was staring into space. If he was in pain, they did not know it, for the nurse came and checked him, prodding him gently in the ribs. Stella watched anxiously. “Nothing to worry about, Madame. He is old, concussed, but he will come through!” Stella smiled back for the first time. Her idea of travelling back to Kabul seemed utterly inappropriate. They would wait for the discharge slip and meanwhile rent a house. As the weeks progressed, and the police dropped by less and less, not looking for links to terrorism, Rudo seemed to get better. He looked at her, as she changed her clothes, and brushed her hair every morning, not bothering to draw the curtain around his bed. It was an avuncular gaze. Yes, he was older than her, he saw her as someone very familiar but could not remember a single thing about her. “Rudo, don’t your rember how we would would go shopping every evening, taking a baby stroller with us?” “Did we have a baby?” “No, a baby stroller. Our neighbours gave us one.” “If we didn’t have a baby, why the stroller?” “For shopping. Bread. Cherries, Cheese.” He smiled back attentively. He had started to read again. That was a stroke of luck. In the beginning he had some difficulty, but the physicians helped him out with glasses and books with large print. Then newspapers and a magnifying glass came from the Delhi branch of their office. That made all the difference. He held the newspaper high up at a distance. His eyes were clear and his expression noncommittal. Stella watched as he read slowly, his lips moving. When the story continued on another page, he looked disappointed but did not pursue the matter. Then there were occasions when he said he did not recognize the alphabets, and they had to start again from scratch. In the depths of her heart, Stella was contented that they were together again. That he had forgotten her was obvious, but he enjoyed her company, smiled and nodded when she embarked on some long story about their shared past. He really had no interest in recovering it. She stopped testing his memory. “Rudo, don’t you remember?” had been a recurring chant, and he would evade her gaze, staring blankly into space, or at the empty blue sky outside their window. All her life, she had been careful, frugal, fastidious. If she had not married, she would certainly have been found as a spiritual tourist in some Asian countryside. Stella was able to communicate with the stars, animals and small children. Her work had increasingly involved young women who had survived bloodshed and war, displacement, migration, brand new identities in countries loath to take in refugees. Her calmness coupled with a vitriolic temper and much gesticulation when necessary, got her the results she wanted in refugee rehabilitation countries. “How many countries have you visited?” Ms John asked her, looking at their passports one morning as the documents casually lay side by side, on the attendant’s bedside table. “Forty six in his case, twenty in mine.” “On work?” “Yes.” “Never on holiday?” “We always went home.” “Home?” “Yes.” “Where’s home?” “Paris. The flats near Paris 8.” “Is that a metro station? Or a zone?” “It’s a University.” “Ah, I see.” The Doctor came in, and their conversation stopped. He was a dark burly man, with a short mustache and glasses. His white trousers were tropical cotton, loose and baggy, as if he were from the 1950s. His white shirt was crisply starched, hand woven with translucent pearl buttons. He looked clear eyed and oddly benevolent. Everything about him communicated his sense of worth, from his polished black shoes to his expensive rimless glasses. “How are you Monsieur Sulan?” “Very well.” “Ready to go home?” Rudo smiled. The nurse yawned and left the room hastily knowing that the Doctor’s optimism did not match her opinion. It was she who measured the patient’s pulse, and called in the male nurses when he had to be sponged and cleaned. She knew that his mind was as empty as a clean slate. He observed everything carefully, he nodded at appropriate moments, and he understood he had to re-learn everything. “Stop all medication.” The Doctor wrote neatly at the bottom of the page. Then he smiled sweetly, shook Rudo’s hand with a perfunctory nod at the woman who said he was his wife and left the room. Stella ran across and helped Rudo down from the bed, the three steps being just that little dangerous to negotiate for an old man. His breathing was more stertorous, and he had lost weight as well. Something about him was essentially calm, and his eyes were gentle as he saw her approaching him. She held his hands, knowing that he would be too heavy for her to manage to help and the fear of falling for both was very present. Stella smiled comfortingly at him, disengaged her hand, and went to the attendant’s table and rung the bell. Sister John appeared immediately and looked concerned. She admonished the old man, for having moved to a sitting position. She tied the knots of his patient’s overall, straightened his feet so that the edges of the arches touched one another. “I will be back.” “When?” Stella asked nervously, afraid her husband would topple over. “ Just now. Give him his lemon juice now. Don’t worry, he won’t fall.” She ran out, and was back almost immediately with the two male nurses who were wearing white overalls and looked cheerful. They were solid men, and one of them had a ball point which leaked into his shirt. He looked at it, and said to Stella, “Looks bad, huh? I will just change my shirt after I attend to Mr Rudo.” There was something comforting about the three of them bustling around Rudo as he gulped down his lemon juice. The nurse took away his glass and wiped his chin dexterously. She was a voracious mumbler, and Stella watched astonished as she heard her softly speaking. “Oh my dear! Being old is not a curse. You are an ornament to society. You have people who love you. Your wife calls your name, even at night. She feels your presence even in her dreams.” “Certainly not!” Stella said acerbically. Rudo looked at her with some laughter in his eyes. He was used to people chattering away, even though he was by nature a silent man. Wherever he had gone, people had always assured him of their loyalty, their assistance, their particular obligation to serve him. He took it quietly, almost as his right, and they rested in the tranquility that he wore as a cloak. Stella had found his silences completely enervating and had never got used to them. Enough that she felt responsible for him, and asserted her authority over those who crowded her out. He was passive in the hands of the two men, both of whom were professional weight lifters and handled his bulk easily as if he were a mere child. They had the thin faces, sharp nose and narrow eyes - members of the same clan as Sister John, whom they addressed as Lisamma. Childhood friends growing up in the same village, children born to farmers who had migrated four thousand kilometres in search of work. It was intriguing that inspite of their proximity to disease, their skin was clear, almost translucent. The woman too had glossy black hair, which was combed carefully behind her ears. Stella noted everything about her, her petiteness, her sense of propriety, they were essentially rural people. In the city they asserted this more flamboyantly, talking to one another with the ease that childhood friends have. Stella could hear them talking softly, behind partially closed doors, as they bathed the old man. They had light adolescent voices, and occasionally the men sang. In a while the old man was wheeled out. His chin was smooth, he looked like an old Roman general, his eyes vacuous in marble, stone faced, assured. Stella thought to herself, this is my husband, the man with whom I have lived for decades, whose virtues were devoted to his work. Her sadness became the reason for the nurses to turn their faces away. They worked with helpless people, they talked to them, scolded them, treated them like they were infants, absorbed their suffering, but they really had no way of assuring the caregivers that all would be well. That was not their job. So they waved good bye, and were off to a new job, a new responsibility, yelling out to each other as they went down different corridors until summoned to some new team work responsibilities. Chapter 6 The two adversaries looked at one another. In the years that had passed between the diagnoses of Rudo’s loss of memory by injury, and Stella’s acute rejection of his condition, both had aged. Rudo was extremely well looked after. His contributions toward the understanding of ghettoization and rehabilitation had been recognized. He was for the French government, a chevalier, a man of honour. However, Rudo was immersed in his dream world. To Stella, it seemed he had never really returned to her, though he was friendly, kind, compassionate, whenever she spoke to him. He had learned to read and write, and so kept fitfully occupied. However, every morning she had to reintroduce herself to him. He would smile, sometimes, bleakly and formally, then extend his hand, the palms cool, the wrist limp. It was as much a rejection as the cold cheek he turned to her when occasionally she leaned over to kiss him. It was ultimately, not just amnesia, it was rejection of who she was: ever present, her hopeful face swimming in his line of vision, her voice receding into a tunnel of time, which he tried to recognize but could not. Somewhere along the way, as the years passed in hospital, rather as if it were a low quality motel, Rudo got better. He still remained mute, and somewhat vacuous, but with some difficulty, with careful coaching from the attendants, he had learned to do things for himself, to walk, to greet strangers. He read voraciously, and though he could not remember what he had read, later, he still got a lot of pleasure from following his finger on the page and mouthing the words. His voice when he was motivated to speak was full of odd burrs, half prounounced consonants, a long and stuttering slightly desperate shove of a vowel, with the tongue clamping shut on the palate, before the word was expelled. He sweated sometimes, the beads of body salt sticking on his forehead. Stella never tried to stop him, or to cajole him. It was enough that he was back in her company. She was achingly aware of his lost persona – it reiterated itself through her conversation, most of which began with a sigh, a conversational reminisce of something they had eaten, or said or thought about. To each of these he would stammer, “No,” because he really was not interested. When they left the Hospital annexe, where they had spent three years, the staff gave them a nice farewell dinner. Sister John had shredded coconut in cabbage which gave it a wonderful flavour. The men had fried chicken in large quantities which they all enjoyed, Rudo eating his portion delicately, his eyebrows folding in together in a frown, his eyes locked in concentration. They had only their clothes in two suitcases, owning no other possessions. The old man was able to get up carefully from his chair and walk to the taxi. Their achievements as a couple were extolled in the newspapers and the hospital had helped them rent an apartment close by. Nurse John came to settle them in. The furniture was austere and the cupboards were filled with fresh bed linen. It was understood that they would require a full time nurse. They couldn’t afford Ms John ofcourse, but with the help of the Embassy they found a young girl who took over the household, curly haired, tall, strapping. She was alarmingly young but she knew her job well, excruciatingly efficient. She excluded Stella completely, from her conversations and actions, focusing her attention on Rudo. He enjoyed it immensely, occasionally winking at Stella when he saw her grave eyed and serious. The days went by very very slowly. Every morning, in their separate bedrooms, they woke up to the chatter of squirrels. A cuckoo called and called all summer, shrieking it’s solitude. And then, finally, weeks later there was an answering call. After that, Stella noticed the low, morse code like drubbing in the air, as the black birds answered each other. “Can you get me some hot water for my shave, dear?” Stella looked up from her book. Before she could answer the whisper, Bella the attendant was there. She was dark, swarthy, pretty. Her hair curled luxuriously down her back, and she spoke with vehemence. “Breakfast first, old man!” “I think he likes to be clean before he eats.” “He doesn’t think. His brain is a straight line with a few dips and a few ascents. Don’t you worry, ma’am. I’ll handle it. He gets really dirty after he finishes his food. Off you go, Madame.” “Porridge?” Rudo asked querulously, deeply hurt that he had been referred to as “old man” by Bella. “Yes. Open up.” His mouth opened obediently and the girl put in a spoon of milky oats. He liked her. She was sweet and gentle with him, all the while chatting cheerfully and swabbing his face with a damp cloth. She clucked around him like a baby, and on occasion protectively hugged him with her muscular arms wrapped around his shoulders. Just as he was losing interest in his food, he found himself energetically motioning to her to continue feeding him. The oats was over, the boiled eggs neatly folded in with salt and pepper, and after that, the old man agreed to have fruit neatly sliced, in a bowl. It was all over in half an hour, and he was fast asleep in his chair. Stella got her own breakfast, cheese, toast, coffee and an orange and went back to work. Everything about the day seemed to roll forward, time empty of events. She had a fearful moment when she thought that only meal times ordered their days. Rudo woke up and looked around. “Which day is it?” “Wednesday.” “Ah!” He went back to sleep. There was no striving, there was no doubt, or affection, or longing - everything was calm in his world. His male nurses from the hospital came on the dot of 9 a.m and shaved, bathed and dressed him. He was in his wheel chair, looking a little like Charles de Gaulle in his dressing gown. Stella laughed delightedly. It was difficult for her to believe that he was only a shell. “Do you remember…” “No!” “Palestine. We were in Palestine and the Arab children were in our care. They would come to the Refugee settlement camp.” “Afghanistan, I remember Afghanistan. That was our last posting, was it not?” “Yes, yes, it was. Rudo, do you remember when the Archaeological society met us after the desert reclaimed the past, and there were no mnemonics.” “What?” “The Taliban had bombed historic monuments, and we were there when the rebuilding happened. “ “Yes, I encouraged them to read the myths and legends and to see the mountains as continuous.” “We must go back, at the earliest, oh my darling, we have been away from home so long….” “How? I remember things only in fragments, like a light coming on in a dark room. I cannot even find my way from the bathroom to my bed.” “You are just joking, Rudo! I’m always with you, I never leave you alone even for a moment, when Bella is here then I finish my chores. We only have to go back to the mountains, and life will take it’s own course.” “You go, I am staying. Bella knows what I need.” Rudo took off his hearing aid, shaped like an exquisite shell and very costly. He put it carefully on a side table in its felt box, snapping the lid shut. He had the expression which she most associated with him now, a melancholy, a fading out. He took out a magazine which reported the war. The Taliban was still active, though it had been seemingly eradicated. He smiled as he read. The world he knew so well, and the patter of continuous well informed journalese coalesced in his head. The only thing that mattered to him were his feelings for his work. Afghanistan had been so green, the water running freely, time when the people felt that they were the keepers of the land. Not owners. The monarchy was resolute, and even in exile they were not forgotten. But there was food, and families had one another. In the terrible decades that followed dictatorship by armies, first the Russian, and then the overlordship by Taliban time went slowly. They had hoped to be rescued. The aid givers returned slowly. For many, there had only been the cosmos of war and the thousands whom they tended, day after day. They had, Rudo noticed, while being one among them, two sides to their personality. One, they were totally committed, crossing occupational borders and political ones with ease, chosen for their singular proficiency. Second, he couldn’t remember. He frowned a bit, started coughing. He lay back in his chair. Then suddenly, he shot upright. Yes, the second was that they were as a community, along with the journalists and photographers, extremely sociable, and enjoyed the company of their friends. It could be card play, simple games of scrabble, or it could be dancing. He remembered the carpets being rolled up, someone at the piano, or strumming a guitar, and then couples would come onto the floor. Stella was a great dancer. He shut one eye, it always helped his vision if he looked through his left eye. The doctor had warned him that it was an automatic response to developing a lazy eye, but Rudo thought to himself, that now he was so old it was a normal part of ageing. He remembered the fall quite clearly. Rudo was walking home from the talk. It was a sonorous one about knowing the Self. He vaguely remembered, right then, that he had written a letter to Stella explaining his urgent departure. He had always meant to return. From early childhood he had fits of vanishing, no one knew where he went, he always had an excuse when he returned. Usually, no one was particularly interested. “Oh, you’re back.” That was the usual cry, whether friends or family. Stella never asked him any questions. As he was usually taciturn, asking him questions did not provide her with any answers. Whatever excuse he gave her, she would accept, clutching him feverishly at night. The last time he had disappeared, his feet had carried him to the bus stop. He had reached Rawalpindi, sleeping fitfully. Another bus took him to Pathankot, and then two days later to McLeodganj. He was in the company of men and women, seasonal labour, who worked as porters in hill side towns. Rudo woke up with a jolt. Bella was being rude to Stella, and the tension in the air was like electricity, or being caught in a lightening strike. He knew those so well, that the analogy was appropriate. One took cover till the storm moved on. He put his head out, a little like a turtle, and then retreated into his world of observation of people and events, without any emotional investment. The words were not clear, it seemed to come from another room. He wanted to put on his hearing aid, but was afraid of dropping it. He knew that whatever he said, would not carry above the women’s voices. “I said he was not to be moved after his bath. I told Paul and Alexander. I told them. They think because they are B.Sc. nurses they have a better idea about how to handle the old man. I will kill them when I see them. He is not supposed to lie in the sun. It’s not about being in the cool dark morbid interiors of a nursing home. His temperature has to be constant.” He could see Stella open and shut her mouth rather like a goldfish whose companions have died, and it floats about, alone, and without any goal. She was shuffling out of the room, leaving him in the care of his possessive attendant. She got on much better with the night nurses, who were muscular men, in charge of pushing the oxygen cylinders and the patient into the mosquito netted room, where he lay gently snoring all night. Sometimes they came into her room to chat, and they would make her some cinnamon tea, and play an innocuous game of cards. Stella was afraid of the dark, not of ghosts, or blasphemous spirits from the past. She just found it impossible to bungle around, without seeing clearly. The moon light was a generous companion on some nights, and the street lights blazed in an aura of gold, and yet, there were occasions, when it rained, and the electricity burned down, and it was impossible to see even her nose. She always had a torch at hand, and with this she would flash on and off those perfect circles of light onto the sky. She thought that evening, that only if she had treated the girl better, if only she had not been such a snob, if only she had learned her name the first week itself, instead of beckoning her with her finger. How rude she had been. No one treated people as inferiors anymore. This woman had as elaborate a lineage as she herself did, going all the way back to the same zygotes floating in water. Stella shrugged, accepting that she was essentially mean by nature. She hated her own inefficiency, and there was not a day when she did not spill milk, or break something in the kitchen. Ceramics were not so expensive in this city, she just went out and quietly replaced whatever was broken when she could go out to the market for just half an hour. Rudo was always calm, polite…what was endearing about him was his essential ease and courtesy. He was a delightful companion to these young people who looked after him. He had started recovering his memory, slowly but surely, and the vignettes of information that he gave them were both useful and entertaining. No wonder then that the young girl, Bella, had become possessive. She looked at Stella as if she did not exist, as if she were a passing shadow. Sometimes she was outright rude, and there was the awful occasion one cold winter day, when Stella came back from the shops, and the girl, whatever her name, did not open the door. Chapter 7 Stella looked slowly around her. The world had changed somehow, and she had found it displeasing. The mountains had been their haven – the austerity of the landscape, the bright white light. It was surely a world which had been given to them, to nurture. The earth had not been tilled for a long time. War camps dotted the world, and they were never without work, simply because farmers who went out, often came back without a limb. It was hard, to have to be exposed to so much suffering, endlessly. Their own needs had been limited to each other’s company and that of their friends. Every day passed by in a combination of fear and compassion. They discovered skills they did not have earlier, and received acclaim for it. They were surprised when they met people who knew everything about them, including the fact they ate broken wheat porridge for dinner every night when alone at home. If they had guests, Stella cooked ofcourse. Sometimes they were shy, and unable to speak to their guests except in monosyllables. But, that too, did not deter the endless stream of people, of all ages, in whichever city they were, from visiting them. The archaeologists ofcourse were the most interesting to them. In every war torn country that they were in, these roaming brood of scholars arrived. Well dressed, with the latest equipment, the Professors hobnobbing with students in easy amity. They carried their heavy equipment with ease, and for the finds that they made, an entire new machinery arrived with built in airconditioners. What was truly interesting was how like a colony of bees they were. They were not parts interdependent, they were a single unit, a whole. Ofcourse, they knew about Rudolf Steiner’s work with bee keeping and educating workers on the beneficence of honey. But the parallel between the archaeologists and the hive stunned them. They were wonderstruck by what the land released to them, and sorrowful about the layers of destruction. Each level displayed, to them both, human ingenuity. Here were the Persians, Scythians, Huns, Greeks, Romans…right up to the Taliban who had no respect for images. Stella shrugged, everyone had their beliefs, and their job was the exercising of human rights. The people who visited them, and asked about their past and their hopes for their future, often became friends of long lasting status. It was Rudo, who always answered on their behalf, a little cursorily. “We became inhabitants of a world that was fanned by enmity. So we became well known …maybe!...as peace makers. We have no objection. Maybe those reading your stories about us will feel that it’s important to serve others.” The cold deserts of the mountains began to bloom, and slowly fruit trees and wild flowers began to dot the horizons. Medieval mosques and Buddhist sites, alarming in their sudden vacuity in a war zone, became the places of sanctuary, for the wounded and survivors alike. The enormity of war hit them, and they were already old. Their world had been dismembered by hate, but now it was so potent that the dragon teeth of destruction had been sowed indiscriminatey. They met young men and women, whose eyes carried a flicker of hope, but mainly, it was the dead, half gaze of defeat. It was as if even their lids were hard to lift. They did not stutter – rather they spoke in a forced clear fashion, and either with the help of translators or in a pidgin of mixed tongues, they made their case heard. Only a few out of the hundred they met every day, would ask, “How can I help you, sir?” The rest were too wounded and bereft. Rudo sometimes looked at Stella, through the corner of his eye. He saw that the thick foundation cream she used, which set her face apart from the rest of her body was beginning to crack. Her hair had become completely white, and she now looked her age. He liked that about her, the sense of vanquishment, of vainglory, of a sullen acceptance. They lived opposite a cemetery, and the sense of pervading doom was further exaggerated till they sighted an 11th century wall, still intact, and the wild rabbits and the deer roamed quite fearlessly. Rudo never bothered to think about what he had lost. There was a certain equanimity, about possessing the present. He had perfected the art of living here and now, looking busy, if not content. The radius of space and time included only himself, but occasionally he looked out of it at Stella. She always smiled back at him, as if he were a stranger. There was no guile in him, that he was aware. Rudo realized that his absences had confounded her, worn her out. “Are we going to stay here forever?” he asked. “Yes, darling. We have no home now. After Osama was captured in Pakistan, they cleared the entire area for hundreds of miles.” He was pleased by that answer. Here, there was food, there was water. The summer was harsh, it was true, but they were alive. The girl Bella was a find. She had the ability to make him feel that age was not an obstacle to love. He cherished her and flattered her, and made her believe that she was a genius. Stella and he fought over her occasionally as if she was the Indian boy whom Titania and Oberon wrestled over. He treasured Bella. She brought him his food on time, answered door bells, was intelligent, and she had taught him to read again, as with every lurking ischemic stroke, his brain would become a blank slate. She had finished college only recently, and as she came from the slums, the ability to read, write, go to college meant that she had a host family, wealthy patrons. They lived down the road from them, in a large house, a family of service providers who had worked for the family for a hundred years. As a third generation member in a family of about twenty people, ranging from ages eighty years to five months, her parents were glad that she had got a good job with the old foreign couple. She still went back to sleep in her house, squeezing a mat in one of the two rooms and a verandah allotted to her family. Her grandfather tended the cows, who ate cud peacefully in the lawns at the back of the house, her mother cooked, her father was the chauffer. They also had an extended family member who ironed clothes and dusted and cleaned the house. The rest of the members of the clan were kept busy with their own affairs, as they had their own kitchen, and did not eat with the family for whom they worked. Bella bought all the vegetables for Stella and Rudo early in the morning. She took them with her, though the bag was heavy, and her brother, a night watchman in the neighbouring house, always offered to accompany her. “I don’t need your help.” ”You’ll break you back.” “No NEED.” “Fuck you!” She found her brother threatening. He was a tall good looking man, and his hand often rested on her back in a heavy lifeless way. She found him immensely attractive and was repelled by his nearness to her. Incest was not unknown in the family, and once the police had come to separate two brothers who wanted to kill each other over their children’s amorousness. The oddest thing that Bella found between the two foreigners who were in her charge, was their distance from each other. They hardly spoke. Though they were husband and wife, the distance between them was alarming. It was as if they were strangers, occupying the same house. The woman used endearments, but she never really wanted to get involved with her husband’s needs. The man was equally ambiguous. Bella liked him, though, and having retaught him the alphabets, and sat with him while he relearned a language, he was immenslely grateful. Difficult to believe that once he had trained hundreds of people and negotiated between Heads of State. There was no knowing where fate would take one. She sighed and rang the bell. Stella opened the door, her elegant silk gown a little askew. “Will you make some tea?” “Yes.” “Papa doesn’t want sugar.” “I know that.” “Papa said to wake him up as soon as you come, with tea.” “I’ll do that.” The door closed behind Stella, and Bella heaved a sigh or relief. She would not need to interact with that proprietal old bat till lunch time. She didn’t have anything against Stella. Hard that they had to give up everything that they had, constantly moving, at every level preoccupied by their mutual survival on whatever the State gave them as income. As activists they received privileges – house, servants, cars, embassy invitations. But as refugees, they were living on their savings. Anyway, Bella thought, how can they be employed at their age, with their handicaps. Bella dressed everyday in white embroidered kurta with blue jeans, clean, pressed, fragrant with strong sandalwood attar. It gave Rudo the sense that she was in uniform. She pushed open the door, with her shoulder, the tray heavy laden with teapot and cup, sugar, milk, in a white jug. He was already up, bright eyed, happy. “I was waiting for you!” “Yes, Madam told me.” The rituals of the day had begun. He told her about how the Americans always thought the Afghans were gun toting drug lords. All history would look at the period between the 70s and the early 21st century as a requiem to war. He closed his eyes in the middle of a sentence and fell fast asleep. Stella came by at 11 a.m, looking for company. She said nothing to the old man, and fanned herself near the window on a long sofa, the landlord had provided them with. She looked at Rudo placatingly. He looked back, and then turned his face away. “What did I do wrong, Rudo?” “Nothing. It’s not your fault” “You would run away again, if you could.” “Yes, it’s a habit. But unfortunately there is nowhere to go.” “See! For all the years I have served you, this is the answer!” “Madam! Do not disturb him.” “I am not disturbing him. He is disturbing me.” Stella showed Bella the way her pulse was leaping about in her thin wrist. She was wiping the foundation off her face, as she was sweating, and the creases on her skin showed up fine and clear. Rudo watched without stirring. Why could she not understand that when something was over, it cannot be changed? Ever since they had married, he hid his Achilles heel from her, but the disappearances were so chronic, that no one could cover up for him. And yet, and yet…there were no pathologies, no alcohol, no womanizing, no odd behavior. When his friends asked him why he left home without explanation, he said he had no foreknowledge. He told Bella, “It’s no Dr Jekyll or Hyde business. A boredom of the kind you can never imagine strikes me, like the low sea tide that changes the shore. It floats over my body, the senses become still, and as a consequence, I find myself putting on my shoes, and walking till I cannot ever stop. I enjoy it in a way, the anonymity and the continual movement. I feel it’s beyond my control, so I don’t resist it.” “Lucky you were found in time. You could have died, this time, from what Ma’am tells one,” “Yes.” He had lost interest in her and settled in his usual torpor. His eyelids batted, he forced them open. Bella laughed, “Sleep, Papa!” but he shook his head and took out a magazine, and began poring over it. He had never been a great reader, even in his youth. He found words difficult to fathom, and with a foreign language, it was even harder. As the day progressed, the hot wind blew through the open window, but no one got up to shut it. It kept banging occasionally, and the old couple would jerk as if to get it. The househelp had gone home for the day, as the family was expecting guests, and they needed their cook Bellai, Bella’s mother, to serve them. Finally, the heat got to them, and Rudo said, “Stella, shut the window!” She nodded, and got up from her chair where she had been absorbed in reading a novel. She leaned and shut it with a bang, and went back to her book. The print danced before her eyes. The exertion had been too much. She counted her pulse. It was 52 beats a minute. That was fine. Then she looked at Rudo, who was motionless with his eyes closed. The barber had not visited them in a month, and his hair had grown quite long, and his beard was an unruly white bush. He looked as if he needed a bath. She called a local service that provided for old people like them, and in an hour, the team arrived. No payment was needed, as it was a charity organization. “You should have called them earlier.” “Yes.” “I’ll keep their number with me. It’s been a long wait, since the hospital thinks we are now well looked after and independent, and after the last altercation they don’t want to send their people. I really should have asked you. Reminded you.” Stella yawned. It was as if they had been trapped in a space they could not negotiate out from. They were still polite to one another, but it was as if the last disappearance had completely enervated them. If he had not fallen off the precipice, he would still be in Dharamshalla, attending religious talks, and she would have been in Kabul, teaching quilting to the villagers in outlying districts. She felt as if he had taken her life away, and now bereft of emotion, they had to continue with these banalities. Rudo was looking at her quizzically, “Why do you wear pancake make up, Stella?” “Because it protects my skin.” “But the chemical damages it further.” “I feel better with it on, in the tropics.” “Himalayas were not the tropics.” “All women of my generation wore it. During the war years, we prepared face creams from thick dairy cream and lemons. It was like contraband.” He subsided into his magazine. It was about rainwater harvesting, and then the pages ran into each other into a story on the degradation of mountains and new age farming. He found it extremely interesting. The problem with head injuries was that it blotted out a lot of grey matter. And yet, a calm mind led one to believe that other cells could take on new roles, that relearning could help one recover. He worked hard all morning, copying out alphabets. He had not yet started writing words yet, and cursive writing made his head ache so much, that, to even attempt to read was now impossible. Rudo saw that Stella turned the pages loudly, and occasionally, she put her book down halfway, to start another. Though his reading skills had improved vastly, writing was a chore….magazines were simple to read, novels not. He thought she was profligate to buy so many books and leave them lying around. The girl came back in the evening, and found the dishes all washed, and the left-overs put away neatly, in the kitchen. Rudo was busy on the phone talking to an acquaintance who had offered to take them to a play. The auditorium had steps, though, and was not wheel chaired enabled. So it was really the polite conversation that people in Delhi enjoyed without mutual benefit. “We can go to the Zoo, in winter.” “Yes, I love to do that.” Stella said, “Just a visit to the park would be nice, if he could manage that.” “He has already put down the phone.” “Maybe he will call in November. It’s only June, we can ask him then.” They looked at each other, and started to laugh. It had been a week since they had had a conversation. Stella noticed that Rudo had lost his perpetual twitch near his right eye. Four years after the fall, he was beginning to heal. She hoped that in time, he would be able to move out of his wheel chair, but he, seeing her anxious hopeful look, became stony faced and impassive. At 4 pm Bella had rung the bell. She was furious that Stella had washed the dishes and put them away. It was almost as if her job was being taken away. She took out all the washed dishes, wiped them and restacked them. That took a good half hour. Then she beat up omelets for their dinner and force- fed Rudo, who was passive and benign. Stella ate hers carefully, cutting it up briskly, grateful that it was cooked properly and didn’t ooze through the centre. She had hoped Bella would make some soup for them, but realized that she had been hired to look after Rudo, and that’s where her energies would be focused. Bella was humming a song, sitting very very close to Rudo. She had combed his beard, after washing it in a basin, with shampoo. He had subjected to it meekly, as the barber had already trimmed it. “You look nice.” “It feels cool now!” “You look so nice that I wish I could take you home with me.” “From what I hear you are already out of space at home.” “We can always make space for another old man like you!” Rudo lost interest in the conversation, and looked out at the uniform blue sky. He could see deer coming out, and the birds had started cheeping before going to sleep. They were certainly noisy like children at play in a flatted complex, the Ashoka trees housing several hundred species of winged creatures. He remembered in a partial vignette that summer in Kabul before he had abruptly gone on a a dream walk. “We used to organize dance and music performances for the children,” he said abruptly. “What?? What did you say?” Bella said aggressively, as she folded sheets that she had washed in the machine, in the morning. “Nothing.” “Alright. I heard you. I can’t imagine though, with bombs exploding like fire crackers in your ears.” “The real reason was just that…so that the children could cope in the underground shelters. Stella used to stitch their costumes from old clothes. We got a lot from all over the world, specially from thrift stores.” “Ma’am, Sir has flashes of memory. And he is speaking very clearly.” “That’s good. War hurts one’s soul and the children suffer. It was our job to comfort them.” Bella had decided to spend the night and rolled out mats she kept in the cupboard. Though they were old, they were well maintained. Her pillow was a roll of sheets placed under the mats. The mosaic floor was clean and well swept. With the lights off, and the door between the two rooms closed, Stella could not make out was happening. There was some conversation, and then, a loud cry as the old man was straightened out on his bed. She never went to look. It was too tortuous, and usually Bella sweated a lot while doing it. It was when the door banged shut and automatically locked itself that they knew Bella had left for home. On days she stayed in, they heard her making her bed, singing to herself, and then the soft burr of her snores. Rudo was always happy when she decided to stay. It was as if his blood flowed easier. It was true that they had paid her well at the beginning of every month, but what she gave him in return was a deep sense of security. If he sat up in the middle of the night, she would immediately be by his side. Then, anxiously, knowing that he needed a basin, she would fetch it. No job was too demeaning, she knew that his own poise came from his loss of memory. His brain was only just beginning to light up after a long fuse out. Chapter 8 Bella was fed up. All the hardwork that she had put into re-educating the old man was quite wasted. He had fallen off his bed, and the fresh contusion made him stutter and one eye seemed to have shut for good. She had asked them to employ a male attendant for the night, but they had said they could not afford it. Rudo was upto his neck in pain killers and other medicines. The doctor visited every day, saying cheerfully that the end was always a painful business. Life goes on, its we who fall out like stars, dying and becoming black holes, energy spirals, meteors that crashland and are then either buried or cremated. Sarva Dukha as the Buddha said. Poverty, Old Age, Diseases, Renunciation, Death – it’s all the same to me. “Our medical degrees never provide us with a bed side manner”, he said, with a laugh. “Where did you get yours?” Stella asked acerbically. “I don’t have one. Now I am halting the fees for you, dear Lady!” Stella blew her nose into the tissue paper. Everything had been going so well- they were free of the hospital for more than a year. Even Sister John and the other nurses had stopped visiting them, being busy in other tasks. Now with Rudo quite disabled they would have to think again, about what their options were. She phoned the hospital and the Director said that they had a hospice and Rudo could go there. The bills would be picked up by the Embassy, as he was their most valued guest of the State, whose contributions in the Resistance could never be forgotten. It was all done so quickly that Stella was shocked. She asked Dr Mathias if he had known of the accident. “You were all expecting it.” “I am so sad.” “Yes, Madame. We understand. He must be in pain too.” “It’s the loss of his faculties that we are most distressed by.” “Send him to us immediately. We will make him comfortable.” “Thank you.” Rudo was looking blankly at her with one eye. His large body had bent over, and when the ambulance came, he was weeping. He mumbled that his rib was poking his heart. “Rudo, darling. There is no solution to this. We are going to be separated. Bella and I can’t come with you to the hospice.” He inclined his head a little to her, and then gave her his hand limply. It was goodbye to a life time. Time had already gone by so slowly, and her voice seemed to come from far away. “I shall dream a lot! Goodbye.” Bella said she would serve Stella, and broke the news with a happy laugh, that Rudo had signed all his savings to her. As the ambulance drove away with Rudo surrounded by attendants, Stella looked at Bella, “Signed away his savings? What will you do with them?” “It will see me through medical school. I had cleared the exams this summer but I had no idea how I could use the opportunity. Papa gave me all his money when he heard. He made me promise that I would pay half the rent for these rooms.” “No need, my dear. I am really so happy for you. I think you deserve it. Where will you go to train?” “Right here. I don’t want to leave my home. And you?” “I’ll go back to Paris. I have a flat in the Rue de Algiers. I do let out some rooms to tenants, but I never meet them. They lead such untidy lives, with their unpacked bags and their children, sleeping where they will and then leaving in haste. Not that I mind, it’s their life. Rudo left me so often, that this departure seems only like a segment of a series.” “I promised to meet him every weekend, and the Hospice has agreed. He’s not terminally ill, after all – just a series of deficits that’s normal at his age.” “ I’ll pack his things. He will need all his clothes and books.” “Give them to me, Ma’am. I’ll ask my brother to drive me to the hospice.” Stella said, “Bella, you are so helpful. I can’t thank you enough. It looks like I’ll have to fly out at the end of the month. He’s said “Goodbye” to me. He never does that. It’s hard for me to bear. When people become old they become selfish. Their needs are few but their desire to live is huge. And they manipulate others. A bit like little children. He would have thought that living longer in this house would have been accompanied by great discomfort. So the death cleaning gives you a personal allowance and he will have the pleasure of your company once a week. So be it. These are the grand friendships of the Ancients. “ “Yes, Ma’am.” Bella was instantly placatory. She knew that fate had played a card she had never anticipated. What need to worry now? “Goodbye, Madam. I will come early tomorrow and help you pack.” Stella looked at her with undisguised dislike. She hated the girl, but her innate courtesy made her cover it up. No distance would warp her feelings for Rudo who had always protected her from calamity, taught her skills, understood that she hated sharing, and left her to follow her path. “Look, you are going to see Papa on the weekend. Give him my love.” “If he remembers you, Madam, ofcourse I will.” Stella stared at her in horror. That’s true. Don’t bother coming in. I’m glad he could help you with your studies. He was always very generous with his money. He never kept any for himself. That’s why, dear, we had separate accounts. It is so necessary to protect one’s own interests. Ofcourse, you can keep the share that he asked as contribution to our house rent.” “Thank you, Madam.” “Goodbye, then. Don’t forget to drop me a line, now and then. I would be very interested in your career.” The girl smiled and was out of the door in seconds. Later that afternoon, she phoned Rudo. Rudo was rambling, “Stella, Stella, take me home. I don’t know anyone here. I know what you think. I gave all my money away. It’s true. I’ve left everything to the girl. It happened the week before my fall. She asked me several times. Stella, I’m sorry, please come and get me.” “Rudo, I can’t. I wish I could. But you always turn your face away from me. And it’s nice the Embassy has taken over. What can I say, my dear. I have no jurisdiction. The girl says she will meet you tomorrow.” “Yes, yes! I signed adoption papers and made her nominee to my account with withdrawal rights, and power of attorney. She is young, but I wanted her to have a good future. She knows a lot of things I don’t. Infact, she taught me to read and write, when I had become tabula rasa. Now, again, I can’t read and write, or tie my shoelaces, or button my shirt and trousers, but that’s another story. Stella, she pushed me over. That’s how I fell. I was sitting up on my bed and she toppled me.” “Papa!” “Why are you crying?” “You just told me something I did not know. The night nurse has come. I can hear her.” “God knows that I loved you Stella. I still do. But my fate wrenches you away from me. Bella says that you are returning to Paris.” “Rudo! Bella has already spoken to you?” “Yes, she is a very lovely child. She phones every fifteen minutes to find out how I am. I have a room to myself. Quite comfortable and meals come on trays. And it’s airconditioned. Well, my dear, good night, and remember me when you are gone.” “Gone? Gone where?” “To Paris. Good you didn’t sell your father’s flat.” “Rudo, you remember?” “Didn’t lovely Bella tell you my memory has started returning in fragments?” “And after the fall this morning?’ “Yes, yes, my brains in shards but some things I do recall. Our travels together and my last escapade.” She could hear him laughing, but the nurses were pushing him away, as his eye bandages had to be changed. She could stay on, she supposed, but it was all so chaotic. She could not for a moment believe what she had been hearing. Rudo’s world oscillated between fantasy and dread. The two were not separate but they fed into one another. Each was the reflection of the other. There were times he seemed completely normal. For instance, when Bella would arrive at the Hospice, the next day he would be completely benevolent. It was as if all that he had said to Stella was nothing. She couldn’t even believe him. Which young attendant would push an old man off his bed. Stella though he was gas lighting her, something that was an aspect of his advanced senility. Charming though he was, whenever she called, there was something menacing about him. He acted as if only the present mattered, and the past was of no consequence as he had no memory of it. Stella decided to let Bella come and wind up the house. The material things they owned were so few, their departures so frequent, that they had perfected the art of economy. It was as if their virtues were captured in their adaptability. Two boxes – that was all they owned. Stella divided up their clothes and books, walking slowly carrying a few things at a time, making many short journey from cupboard to bed in each room. It was as if Rudo had even less than ever, as if his identity was singularly burnished by the few things at a time he had chosen to keep. There were his six white shirts with matching drill trousers. A pair of turtle shell glasses. Vests and shorts. Six books of which the most dog eared was Cioran’s “The Trouble With Being Born.” Stella shut the box closed. It was she who was running away, though she was taking her time about it. She smiled to herself that the finality of goodbye was never possible. He was bound to recover, the question of their fractured lives was always left open to fate. She closed the door between their rented furnished flat which later they had occupied for all of one year, and got into the car to go the Embassy to negotiate her return home. The Councilor was a tall thin bearded man with glasses. He was a follower of the great Nicholas Roerich, and equally fascinated by mountains. His study, where he welcomed petitioners by appointment, was filled with large oil paintings on cardboard, and he had started work on some obscure aspect of studying the aspects of renunciation in trans Himalaya regions. “Madame, you have done much for us, and I am pleased to meet you. It’s been a decade since we met.” “Yes, the last visit was in…..” Stella tried to remember, gripping the sofa edge, so that the veins in her wrist stood out. “In Istanbul, over the question of minority rights to Armenians,” he hastily said, seeing her discomfort. “I came about a ticket to return home. Rudolph has lost his memory. He was in a lot of pain these many years. I am grateful that you have supported his treatment.” “Who can forget his closeness to Gaulle and how much he did for our country. What can I do for you?” “ Out of the circumstances, I have to leave as early as possible.” “When?” he was instantly alert. “I’d like to leave tomorrow. I have very little money, and no place to stay. Rudo has no reason to regret my departure.” She started laughing, and her white hair created a halo under the dim light above her. The aluminium stand was simple and unaffected and the large globe was porcelain. She looked at it, thinking, in the old days we would never have had this in our rooms. “It is 2009,” she said abjectly. “Yes, yes. What of it?” “We are old people.” “No madam. Not old, quite ancient.” “Send us where you like, after this.” “Of that, there is no question.” He started laughing, the tears flowing down his face. “Think of it, Madam, the road to the grave is linear. After all, there is only the hospice in his case, and for you the Senior Citizen Home.” She liked his simplicity, the odor of books, and a spice scented fragrance that he carried with him. It was not musty, rather it was like a heavy cloak. Books, they were everywhere, and a strong smell of margosa emanated from them. “I have a small flat in the Rue de Algiers.” “Ah.” “And a pension. Rudo and I maintained separate bank accounts. He has gifted his savings to a young woman, who was his day nurse, to further his education. I had no objection.” Julien Lebleu nodded his head. He understood perfectly. Home economics was his forte when he dealt with diplaced professionals. The husbands he had met, many of them very highly placed like Sulen, were gentle aristocrats having no care for themselves or their dependents, if at all they had any. They quickly gave away their money to someone who asked for it. He could picture the young woman. She would be tall, hefty, a sports woman with a sense of humour and some specialized skill, such as weight lifting, boxing, shooting, horse riding. “What was the young lady’s skill?’ “Conversation. She could talk to him. She was also physically very strong.” “After his fall, what were his deficiencies?” “You have his reports.” “Madame, I see ten persons every day, before lunch, with cases more complicated than yours.” “Pardon. He has hurt an eye, but although it sealed shut, he was not disturbed.” “And you are?” “We have been married sixty years.” “Then why leave?” “It is painful for me. I cannot help him. The girl who he treats as a daughter says she will visit.” The Councillor didn’t look at her directly again. That she was coherent was a miracle. He wrote out some letters by hand, watched her sip her tea through the corner of his eye. She looked composed. In a few minutes his secretary appeared, and she had air tickets. Stella sighed with relief, took them and tried to thank the Councillor, but he was busy at his desk, and nonchalantly waved her on. She was hurt by this officialese, these were after all people who had been intimates ten years ago, when they were risking their lives in some danger zone. He had accompanied them to Cappadocia and had held her hand gallantly, while Rudo strode ahead. She could suddenly smell the sea and the palimpsest of time where 20th century tourists merged with the aura of ancient Christianity. It was as if he too had become part of the mountains in the cavern of his study, beyond her reach. She thought joyfully of Paris, the dense coldness of the vaults where medieval kings and queens lay in Saint Denis, the sepulchral grandeur which tourists paid to see, while Parisians themselves were not enamoured. She laughed to herself, it would be getting cold, there would be no one there whom she knew whom she could tell this terrible story to. It was after all a world which was no longer familiar, and even the streets though cobbled were part of the new, the extra terrestrial. She herself was frail, her bones sticking through her white skin mottled by age, and her hair coloured an auburn at the hair dressers. She did not recognize herself in the mirror, and she had to say to herself, “I am Celestine” but her image did not smile back. She trailed her suitcase and her last fine linen coat to the airport. Her lipstick was a little askew from the stress of looking in the mirror in the taxi, but for the rest, she looked calm and collected. Her glasses were on a string of fine pearls, her last investment in the city where she had lived for five years. People helped her with everything, and she felt gratified that she did not have to use the wheel chair, though she assented to sitting in the carrier van which took passengers and luggage to their prescribed gate on request. There was a flurry, when she could not find her tickets, but then an attendant was summoned. He gently enquired where she had been while waiting for the announcement to board, and then after ten minutes, he appeared triumphantly flourishing her ticket with its many luggage stickers for identification on arrival. She had left it under the flower vase, at a restaurant, while having coffee and a sandwich. No one said anything, neither smiled nor was judgemental. She got back into the queue and having boarded, slept most of the way, suppressing the sense of squalor that the girl and Rudo had put her in. Old age had its tremendous skills, and people became Lear like, in their disposition. She knew how to handle her life, she couldn’t look after anyone else, though. When she moved to an even more extreme situation, as Rudo had done, she too, would become dependent on anyone at all. She would look for a comfort zone, closing herself in on those minimalist needs - air, food, water - beyond that appearances would belie her actual abilities. She looked down at her suit, it was a little creased. She shrugged, and asked her fellow passenger, a young man from Michigan who had a yoga teacher in Rishikesh, and was enroute to America, via Paris, whether he could call the air hostess. “Yes, Madame. The button is here.” He pointed up to the round switch. “I cannot reach it, my boy.” She had met many like him during the long years of her service. They were sweet, confident, empty headed. She smiled at him, and he immediately, pressed the switch for the airhostess. The girl who turned up was only twenty, and she was invested in a bright smile, her blue uniform tightly packing her lovely body into regulation size. With alertness and concern she escorted Stella to the small cupboard of a toilet, stood against the door jamb as the old woman was afraid to shut the door, and then after gently drawing her out of the cubicle, pulled the flush with a triumphant smile. Chapter 8 Since the world was once round, and gravity tied us to it, the seas sloshing peacefully and keeping to their edges, no one worried. Then the angle of the axis tilted, just that bit, mountains moved, deserts flew past their borders in storms, and bombs left a trail of devastation. Out of the soil and deep seas emerged creatures never imagined, and people started fleeing for they imagined the world was ending. The Greeks had a word for it, “dragon seed” and each monster slayed bequeathed another hundred. Since there was no mystery about war and death, the game of chance reduplicated itself and people trampled one another. There was after all, only the absence of the self, for the one who challenged, stood apart, cried with the wounded. The machinery of war imposed itself equally on all people at all time. Things had reached a certain impasse, Stella realized. There was no reason to leave planet earth. The first speeding of the metro and the promises of reaching outer space had yielded a plethora of hope, or every day optimism, a sense of never ending dynamism. All those who had lost hope of leaving had been told it was only a matter of days, months, and even hours. Without any impatience, they had believed it would be so. The grey skies, so eternal, had represented an endless sense of doom. People swore it was endless rain, which was foretold, where the single celled protozoa would appear again, and new life emerge from them. It was not known what was the nature of devolution, but certainly evolution had its grammar. The painted tarpaulin was replaced by computer scenes, and these were infinitely easier to manage. It was as if the colours could beguile sufficiently, and the sense of subdued and flamboyant sky no longer seemed necessary. There was however, fear, which accompanied the waiting. In the end, the stocks of fuel ran out, and those who were left behind, were resigned. They had to make sure of their everyday reality. It was given to them, now as immutable. Stella had cropped her hair so that now there was no longer any fear of dyeing it. It had once been so white and grand, and later a variety of blondes, and browns and auburns. That phase had allowed her to mingle easily with strangers and others. That she had Indian blood was not known to many, her white skin concealed under thick pancake make up had a thousand wrinkles, but only she had seen them, even the care givers were wary of scrubbing it with cold cream and cotton. It was as if hiding them had made her feel omnipotent and ageless. Her foreignness in Paris, after Rudo had been interred in a Sanatorium had been both like a bane and a boon. No one knew anything about her. A woman came in every day to cook and clean, and since Stella had very little French after decades of living in South East Asia and Africa, they hardly spoke to one another. It was as if hiding the ageing, atrophying, lifeless skin, she could pretend extinction and loss were not near. It was as if her identity had forged itself in new ways, and she had become a universe unto herself, having skills that had been useful, but now unintelligible. The very nature of the years, before the sky stations had been constructed, were in themselves immensely diverse. People knew that with the water resources running out, life would be in question, but while they thought it would take hundreds of years, it was actually a few years. In those years, the world compressed itself, the architecture formatted itself into a similarity based on convenience. Everything became, in a rush, optimally accessible to everything, and everyone equally. There were no distinctions, and people rushed to fit in, to belong. This mass extinction of people’s occupations, varieties of flora and fauna, and in time of everything that made the world observable and uniquely experiential, led to the survival of those who could handle monotony. The first step of learning to adapt to monotony was ofcourse to appear expressionless and emotionally indifferent. This required hard work. It came best to people who had travelled by airplane, and had become accustomed to sitting for long hours in waiting halls, designed to a perfect similarity. The aerodromes were the first symbols of shared universal conditions. People could sit for hours together without conversation or shared experiences, not talking or hearing one another. Even cell phones had closed them into a space of immobility. Piped music shut all thought out, and each individual was absorbed in the minutae of their experiences. Like being in a dentist’s clinic, they absorbed their own pain, their indifference to one another’s condition. It became the signature of their being. Stella was sorry when buildings she had loved and known were hidden away behind large screens. It was believed that people who inhabited them, or had left behind the iconic signals of the past were a predominant influence stopping progress. Rather than employing war as the bases of a mutual destruction, the emphases on concealment was total. Since nothing was damaged or brought down, individuals learned to walk through the maze of streets which cordoned off their past from them. Their mobile phones signalled to them as they tried to maneuver the maze every day. Workers came to assemble them every morning, and dismantle them every night. There were scores of advertisers, who offered iconic goods cheaply to pedestrians: clothes, jewellery, electronic goods. However, since currency had died out, banks closed and the carbon had entered people’s lungs, their desires were spent, and people never left home if they could help it. In this seething cauldron of wrested desire, young people learned to love each other. They had hope and vanity, a sense of everyday quietitude, and no resistance to the state. They heard the news, they frowned or laughed as given by custom, and they made as if there certainly would be a tomorrow. Nothing perturbed them, extinction itself was a known idiom, it had happened before, it would happen again. The lemmings and the microcosm of hidden dna were compatible…for every creature that jumped off, there would be hidden away some similar evolutionary substitute. When had tails dropped off, when had memory spiraled into a vacuum? Stella looked out of the window. The sky had turned an abundant pink, and the morning was just beginning. She knew that the sun would leap out of the sky, and then, in a while, as the grey clouds swam into view, it would hide, it would drizzle, grow cold, yet the Parisians would saunter past, mingling with the tourists who had taken over the town. There was nowhere she could go, except walk up and down the bridges, with the grey water rushing past, and the boats sailing languidly with their crystal glasses on well set tables. It meant nothing to her, the world was real only in her imagination. All else had failed, and they would begin the day again, in a dream time, where everything was recorded, heart beat, and eyelid flickering in somnambulant dreaming. Chapter 9 When the space ship, the Metro, took off, the inhabitants did not know. There was no roar, no fire, no sparks, just the sudden realization that they were now in the void. They woke up when the alarms rang on their bedside clocks, when the shower sputtered without water in the bathroom, and when their food pipes did not produce the customary custard. The entire city, so long landlocked on earth, was now a roving planet, carrying its paperless inhabitants into outer space. Stella looked out of the window, and saw the night sky. She thought, “Its Perpetual Night, so we are on the move. About time too. Light years away, from earth, no possibility of return.” She sighed, and rang the bell for her attendants, but they seemed to be in coma. Well, then, she would wait for them to land. She started to imagine, what it would be like. There was once a kingdom, she thought. There were castles on the hills, fortresses barricaded by many walls, each concentric and guarded. The walls led people to different caves and entry points to the castles. Once they had passed each circle of impediments, they were led closer to their goal. Their bodies were the only indicators of time, of everything else they had no inkling, no wisdom. So there they were, on the planet Mars. Its surface corroded by billions of years, pock marked by fallen meteors. Water lay just below the surface, and once they landed, they would be led to their own underground lake. For many decades now, people without country, without homes had been arriving from planet Earth. They brought with them their seeds and inventions. Each one thought of home, and propelled their nostalgia in known ways. They had been waiting to land, waiting to arrive. The populated portions had started blinking their lights to the rest of the universe. Unwilling to call themselves Martians, they referred to themselves by their Metro names, and led simple lives. Food was plenty, they had cartons of capsules, as agriculture was not a possibility for a millennia atleast. And that too, would be possible only if the future generations willed it. And the sun, constant, appeared only in the way in which it could, as a memory. Without light, there could be no re generation. There was talk of migrating to the six planets, which were closer in time scale to earth, having a sun and a 24 hour circle of night and day. Alas, the maps did not permit them to voyage forward. Six hundred years in preparation, and a thousand in transit. After that, maybe. Stella yawned. There were no risks involved. Once the earth dismembered, what else was there? They had dispensed with their Gods long ago, and a few priests remained on earth to safeguard the shrines. They needed little but their own sense of valour to concentrate their energies, or to remember the names of the Gods and Goddesses. Artifacts of ivory and stone had long ago disintegrated when they had re entered The Empire of Stone, a backward track in time, which all recognized. It went parallel to their entry into The Empire of Space. The first years of the latter were marked with surprise, delight, and the warmth of technological light. Then, in a couple of decades, it deteriorated into disappointment. Everything was composed in formulae, everything disappeared when the electricity fluctuated. So they lived and lost, lived and turned the page to a more monotonous year. Stella was unaffected, because memory had become sufficient to tell the tallest tales to those who had sought to confine her imagination to the present. She believed that, Schezerade like, her existence depended on this act of constant retelling. For a while, there was interest, as she described events, activities and institutions which were quite extraordinary, atleast to the listeners. But then, she could not find a listener, for they were all bent on going to the Moon. Earth was now incomprehensible to them, as magma sprouted at every turn. Hot winds blew, the earth erupted noisily. The green ring of trees around each home became so much a pile of brown inflammable wood, its rustling leaves promising a sparking without invitation. Floods, then fires, a cooling down and an ultimate entropy. No one had imagined such heat, such immense fear. Hailstones hit their homes, and then in the damp, after such an event, they would hope, but the dark brought new terrors as insects landed dazed by the circumstances in their window of time, which the sudden cooling had brought. The movements of animals brought them immediate knowledge of what was to come, and they would flee their homes, because they knew that when the deer, snake, rabbit and dog jumped to some unheard tune, that the earthquake was imminent, and they would have to take note. They usually left without possessions, as these, like memories were heavy to carry. Once they crossed the desert, there were the oceans, and after that forests. They held on to one another, burning the carcasses of the dead without shame or honour. They beheld battles, they mourned the loss of kin. Friends remained together and no shame was thought necessary for the immediate copulations that resulted in children. The old were unable to keep in tune, unless they were carried by someone, and everyone was too tired and emaciated to do that. Life, as they knew it, was no longer possible, so they died terrible deaths with no one to comfort them, or to shut their eyes. The Metro had become the last Empire, before the Final Entry into the Space Age, and those who had come in when the gates locked, counted themselves lucky. Here, they had quickly been divided into the old and the young, and separated accordingly. Stella had thought herself lucky to have entered while there was still hope of survival. Looking out into the endless night, she thought achingly of the sunlight that had been recreated by the permanent sun, a technological innovation involving endless bursts of hydrogen, but that too had become extinct in the matchbox called Time. So they vanished from earth, and were left in the vacuum the old world had called space. There were light years to be crossed, and they were prepared to do that. At the end, there would be the planet of Mars with its iridescence, and its many flags. “Dig deeper!’ the slave drivers would roar, as they pierced the crust looking for the turquoise water that their computers had discovered so many aeons ago. It was a time of stillness, the journeying, the preparation, the longing. And so began the retelling of the story which Stella had been carrying with her for decades: “Up the high mountain, with the wind blowing. The desert loomed closer, the empty earth, rid of its many plants became a kind of crumbling dust. Too many people wanted to reach the top of the mountain, so the soldiers had been harsh, and sent back the old and the encumbered. Children were not allowed, for instance, nor the sick. What was there, at the top? Why, a castle. What was there in the Castle? A Queen. What did she do there? No one knew.” Novella 2 Pluto’s Earth It was dark in the rooms, and the young woman lived alone. The cruelty of the men was known only too well among her serving maids, so they hid her away. And yet, she herself longed to meet her husband and her brothers, for she knew that they rode up every day to meet her, before setting off for pillaging and war. She had no idea why they wanted to kill and usurp, but they said that that was what they did. They had need of priests too, so they brought them along whenever they came to glimpse her as she walked in her gardens. They saw her, she was alive, that was sufficient for them, and away they rode off ridding one more farmer of his land, one more gardener of his fields, one more shepherd of his flock . Their pettiness surprised her, she felt the sorrow of the people among who they were strangers, but there was nothing she could offer them, and no one came to see her in any case. She could hear them screaming when they were robbed, and their women captured. Looking from her windows, the field lay completely fallow, and the chopped heads were united to bodies arbitrarily, and the limbs were all piled together and burnt for the convenience of the marauding soldiers. The smell of roasting bodies wafted up, but she returned to her embroidery, thinking that the world of women was perforce separated from those of the warriors. She was sad for those lost souls, and had prayers said in their honour. The evening brought the stars, and forgetfulness. The dreams she had were of the families who had lost sons. She wept as she knelt and prayed asking for forgiveness, but those prayers wafted up with the incense, and did not find the gods she sought, for those had been left behind in their own country. She understood then that her brother’s gods wanted war, lusted for blood, that they were conquering heroes who knew only this one creed. They came as giants into hot luxurious countries, and then slaying the people, made their beds on the earth soaked with blood. She had no way of stopping them. They were the dragon seed, where one fell, a thousand took their place and grew to manhood thirsting for blood. After them came the farmers, running over the mountains, for their own fields had been stolen by others. Each brought with him his plough, and married the sorrowing wives of those whom the soldiers had slain.Then they grew the maize and millets that were to feed them, on the land manured by the blood of dead warriors. Each Spring, they dug up the earth, and smiling skulls turned up, which they threw to the dogs, or buried in another field. War had turned their brains, they knew neither friend nor foe. They recited the sacred scriptures before hunting, before digging the fields, before setting out to war. There was nothing to be mourned. The terrible heat, the drought, the shudder of an occasional rain…this they knew. The women were as foul mouthed as the men, their children torn from the womb, they were like blood hounds who know their victim. When the fields were harvested, the sheaves bound, the wheat would throw up a tooth or two, which would be thrown away like river pebbles occasionally found in the grass. Was there ever a season without flames, was there a cycle of growth without death? The time of looking forward was now gone, they only looked backwards to what they did not have, to the the time of hunger and death. Now, the granaries were full, and the people were busy hunting others down. Loot in the name of war was perfectly legitimate. Robbing, conquering, shooting, killing…all these were commonplaces. There was a war cry, and then a collective lunge, and stabbing if not being stabbed was seen to be perfectly normal. Below the earth, was now a steaming sea could absorb the magma in a hiss and tremble. The soil was thin and dry, pebbles seeming to magnify, become brittle and then crumble into dust. People no longer tried to walk on the land, as their feet would burn, the soles becoming worn out by the incessant heat. War brought ashes, and ashes brought famine. For the moment, the granaries containing the plenitude of other kingdoms, and petty chieftains offerings satisfied them, but as they had no time to plough, sow or harvest they knew that they could indeed starve in the winter. So they set the women to be farmers, while they roamed the naked land for more people to enslave, more goods to steal. The women sang songs, took lovers, bore children, and forgot the men who had first enslaved them. New villages arose, and were taxed by ruling kings. They too, became in time, a new class of soldiers, setting foot in new lands. And remembered that they were only substitutes to those who had left the community to achieve greatness and immortality. And the great warrior arose among them, looking to the hill tops to build his castle. He built one for himself, replete with courts and gaming houses, abodes for courtesans, and stables for horses and stys for pigs. And here he did not permit his wife to enter. For her, on an adjoining hill, he built a filigree palace, exquisite to behold, and quite different from his own. Here, there were rooms which emptied out from the rock into the sky. Flower gardens were laid, and music halls and dancing rooms. Alone, she would live, his prisoner, subject to his whims, never allowed to leave. He was her brother, and given in marriage to her, for their mothers were sisters, so that she would know that her only duty was to bear children. There were slaves ofcourse, to guard her. The Abyssinians had come specifically for this task, and they had nothing to do, except to see that any lover who climbed up the ramparts would be killed immediately. So the days were empty, and the men gone to war, and there was nothing to do except read and write poetry. Here, then were the sorrowful laments of women who had known nothing but death, who had no future, who went unnamed in history, because their only task was to wait for the men to return. Looking from the window, for miles and miles, it looked as if the people accepted their subjugation. There they were, going to their prayers. Vishnu perpetuated his guiles upon innocent milk maids, who languished when he departed with his conch. Every single woman thought she had him for her own, but he appeared somewhere else, with a fresh conquest. Nothing the Queen did brought him to her. She alone had to wait for her King to return. And he did, once a year, with bugle and lanterns, accompanied by a hundred soldiers, who waited for him outside, with the fires lit, and the stars all turned up to see their royal couple. It was boring for the soldiers who had seen the king at work with his courtesans every evening, and who had enjoyed the voyeurism of the lowly. Here there was no work, but the placid sounds of snoring, and the hushed turning over, and the placid creaking of a handmaiden’s fan, by the bedside of a queen, growing older every year. What was her purpose? she thought, again and again. The children born to them were by other women, she had never labored, and her bed remained clean sheeted and full of the subdued verse that the Gods liked to hear from their chatelaines. It was this she was used to, there was nothing new that she could offer. From the depths of her heart she loved her brother, he alone who could by the genealogists notation be her mate. He had been her childhood playmate, the one who understood her every gesture, her expressions, her covert glances. It was understood that one day she would be queen, and he would be her consort. But then, no one knew what the future would bring, how matriarchy would fall, and kingship prevail. One of the first things he did, after their marriage was to cut her off from her friends, from her brothers, from her mother. Her father had died in venomous battles with kin folk. They were known to be blood thirsty, they had no conscience, they had no will…death ran in their veins, and only by spurting the blood of brothers could they ascend their thrones. It was as if loss of life was a paltry thing for the jewels, playthings and huge tracts of land that they got in return. This instinct to murder was accompanied by the love of the finest things, and they coveted what they did not have. It was a simple expedient to give up family, domestic harmony, the ordinary, the everyday routine pleasures for what they saw as their right. The mildewing pleasures of mother’s milk and contented coitus was beyond them. The passivity of the glades of romance, of the swarthiness of workers and oil pressers they left to their women to harness. They had no rights in their children, who clung to their mothers. As soldiers, they found pleasure where they would. This sense of belonging to the sword and the blood run fields was what they took to be the real world. Armies marching, shepherds fleeing, the billowing of flags, the hollow call of the trumpet, and the soft pulp of strange vaginas, a new body ransacked every night…this then was their world. The anonymity of captive women, killed after a night’s pleasure or yoked to the bullock cart with the other loot of war was not unusual. It was indeed as if people whose villages were burnt were immensely wounded by what had happened to them, but the wars between chieftains was known to them by history and by song. Sometimes, when life returned to normal, and they crept back to their homes, they found that everything they loved was gone. Ofcourse, they knew that would be so, but the treachery that had surrounded them shocked them once more. Where were their vessels, their tents, their bales of wool, their sheaves of corn? What would they now trade for salt and gold? Yet, they settled down, and began to till, plant and sow. When the first ears of millet stuck its feathery brushes up, and the women too were willing to be pleasured by their lovers, the tax collectors would arrive, pulling up their kingly chariots, carting their sacks and seals with the authority of deputies. Selvi would usher the tax collector into the Queen’s room. The maid knew that they could not hope to teach him manners, but surely he knew he had to enter bowing and prostrating himself? The very day the bailiff had seen her, he had known that the king had chosen well. She was large and fair, her very being carried a certain authority. She was not bedecked with jewels, nor dressed in fine linens. A simple cloth was draped around her body, tightened under her left arm with a single knot. They said that her family was from the mountains, and that as clan members of the king, the intimacies between them had soured with the years, and the number of wars fought and won. It was not unusual, wives were meant to stay home, and bring up their children. In this case there were none. “The King sends his salutations.” “He was here just last month, before the harvest.” “Yes, that’s why I am here, so that the Queen may be divested of her excess.” “I have no need of anything, as I follow the path of my master.” “And who may that be, Lady?” “The Lord of the Seven Hills.” “So be it, meanwhile, I will meet your head accountant.” He bowed, and left, never turning his back to her, his black eyes gleaming. She was not frightened, though his manner both apologetic and arrogant made her feel that he would not find fault with her arrangements. He was a chattel to the king, after all, just like herself. The Bailiff had power only for such time as he had money and tribute to bring to the king. The moment that stopped, his reputation was tarnished, and not being a soldier, his sedentary occupation was always at risk. The soldier could ride off, he could attach himself to another chieftain. The Bailiff knew that the fear he felt for the King was not about the loss of his life, but it was about the seizing of his properties, of being beggared. He had a worldly manner, his height was proportionate to his task, for he had to frighten people into giving up their secrets. The Queen did not even know his name, she was contented to see him leave her apartments, knowing that he would not visit till the next harvest. She went back to her embroidery, to her parrots and dice games. Every moment was accounted for, her solitude was noisy with the accompaniments of slaves, who in turn whispered her day’s activities to the soldiers who accompanied them everywhere, and reported what she had said and done to the King. Ofcourse the King had a new consort, and it was a matter of pride to this court that he kept her imprisoned in her quarters, feeding her the finest foods, and draped in garments embellished with gold. The diamonds and sapphires she wore were so heavy, that he really could have furnished a new army for wars across the furtherest borders. The Queen thought about it, and then shrugged her shoulders. Here, high up in the fort, Hampi was of no consequence. Here, the air was clear, the eagles flew high up, and she had the finest of cottons to wear. The Empire came with a price, and cheated of everything, she had learned to engage herself hour after hour, with new teachers. There was the drawing master, the fencing instructor, the masseuse, the embroidery teachers, the language teachers, the theologians. There was no possibility that she could escape the hill, except to throw herself down. When the summer grew hotter, and the plains burnt down from threshed paddy and maize and millets to a dull patina of browns, she hid in the inner rooms, counting the days till the seasons turned and rain fell, and they could come out to the terraces again. The Castle was built only to conceal her. As chieftains of wandering armies they could not possibly take their families with them. And every day was spent apart, each with distinct duties. No wandering monk was permitted by the soldiers, and how the queen had found the poems of the elite squadron of foot soldiers was beyond any one’s understanding. Three thousand years of verse, and the sound of untranslateable phrases in their ears every morning came from her quarters. The sorrow of her people, those whom she had adopted, by the simple act of looking from the ramparts of her fort, was implicit in these verses. The wind had rounded the rocks, the trees and bushes were sparse. From where she stood, she could see the King’s castle, more comfortable than her own, with courtesans’ chambers, and a hunting lodge for itinerant chieftains who came to present tribute. She could see the Artisan and Oil Pressers’ Barracks, from which she got word every day, for the bee keeper sent her messages wrapped to the delicate foot of pigeons. They were of utmost simplicity and evaded the eyes of the soldiers, flying straight to the window of the queen’s apartment, and she sent it back with a note of her own, before the sun was up. The notes even if found, could not possibly hurt or alarm any one. It was the easiest way to learn a new language, the simplest way of staying alive. The Queen looked up startled. It looked as if it was going to rain. The hot winds, the blue skies, had given way to clouds that were as black as the rocks, and a cool breeze wafted in through the windows. There were no windows to shut, brown screens of dried hay protected them from the rain, they would just move into the inner quarters and let the storm do its worst. Down, two miles below, the horses were neighing, and the threshed paddy was falling over in bundles like soldiers cut down in war. It seemed unnecessary to tell the serving maids what to do, for they were all running around, with set expressions and doing what was required. They did not even glance her way, she was the one who had been set aside for a paramour. The King was so well loved, that there was no regret in the mind of the people that he had set aside his ascetic wife, who had not given birth to sons. Their faces were impassive. Her beauty was dead wood to them, and her orders ignored. Finding her unconcerned, they went about their duties wanting only to keep their jobs and feeding their bodies. Her austerity was an embarrassment. They found her suitably occupied through the day, and thought that it sufficient that they did not have to worry about her sanity. As for her love for white pigeons which flew in from the oil pressers fort, they were curious but not preoccupied by doubt or suspicion. For every note she received, she sent a single word back. There was no mercenary motive, lust was not their idiom. Basavana had been their mutual lord, and every single moment was a tryst with him. If they did have a way of meeting, we do not know about it. The soul was ever constant, and the circularity of the snake biting its own tail was the symbol of immortality. First, the verse, then the syllable. The cost of living was not worth the breath that went into each, separately or together, they could hear one another, and so, they could bear the gravity of their situation. The soil was dark, thick, crumbly, rich. The sacred plants which grew in the ravines parted with their juices willingly, and the artists drew their gods intertwined with the bodies of the men and women who lived in their thatched huts. The golden leaves that cured jaundice, when rubbed on the body, made it of a golden hue, and wealth poured into the homes and hearts of those who knew the secret mantras. The very secrets of the earth were told to the chosen ones, who kept their remedies to themselves, and the Queen, rendered a vagrant by the order of her Supreme Commander, Lord of all three Forts, kept her counsel, and learned from everyone equally. Leaving the fort was not easy, so she waited for the dark night of the new moon, and as it became a disc in the sky in a few days, her time was very limited. Selvi was her only friend, the one she trusted with her keys, and she would sleep in her bed and pretend that she was the Queen, while the guards let out the one whom they thought was Chaya the servant maid. Meanwhile, Chaya slept undisturbed in her quarters, willing to wake up only when the sun was high up in the sky. The guards thought she, Chaya, was going to keep a tryst with her lover, and did not enquire closely. The slave was the duplicate, she was the one who had freedom, her work designated to keep her close to all, without giving up her identity. In the forest, her feet bare, the thinnest of anklets decorating her feet, the Queen was pleased to smell the fruits of summer, the hot fragrance of mangoes, and to compensate, the cool scent of jasmine. She breathed the air, and saw the stars cluttering the dark sky with their distant light. She felt as if her life was captured in the intensity of time, caught in starlight and meteor journeys. If the King were to cross her path, he would not recognize her. That was why she chose the few days when he did not go hunting, when he dazzled his court, and his courtesans with poetry. The road, what there was of it, was rugged, and the stones cut into her feet. The wind was cool, and the embers of the sky, flying across the train of stars, drizzled the black night. She waited for the hoot of the owl, and sure enough, there it was. Crickets and cicadas were so loud that she could hardly hear herself think. Shades of the night passed her by, whispers, sounds, the wind, the trellis of creepers rustling, dry leaves under her feet. She heard them all, under the flapping wings of bats, telling herself that freedom was for the bold. She knew that hunters were about, and if they saw her, they would shoot their arrows, for women out at night were thought to be ghosts, yakshis, demons of the dark. The bee keeper had met her just once, and he had kept her secret. He was a large burly man, with the sharp nose of the peasants, who had escaped being rounded up for soldiering. He had large black eyes, and he was almost mute. When he had seen her, sweat had broken out on his brow, and his fire torch had wavered in his hands, and he would have dropped it, but she said, “Tell no one, I am your queen.” He had thrown himself on the ground, and then when she told him “you have to help me get to the town”, he had laughed, held her hand with respect and adoration, and then together they had walked till morning, when she could see the town before her, with its bustling shops, its metal smiths, and its cowherds. Their return was more fleet footed, up the steep hill, and they had not stopped for food or water, because her return would have to wait till dusk, when the guards assembled near the iron studded gate. She entered quietly through the jungle, merging with other waiting women, and no one noticed her absence or her return. It seemed to the beekeeper that the hours he had spent in her company were a dream. They had not spoken, and the silence was worthy of the seers who kept their own counsel. The Queen bathed in rose water, and sandalwood incense filled her rooms. The King made sure she had every comfort, and she lived as if there were no tomorrow. The day was sufficient to her, she did not enquire where the food came from, and who brought it to her. Selvie did all the talking and sometimes she thought that the world depended on the images of speech, of the concern that the poor had for the rich, who were not remotely human. To be human was to care for each other, to look out for signals, to know right from wrong. Selvie always wanted to know, “Do you not care what he does to you? Do you not feel that you have a right to know what your future is?” “When the men are at war, and have courtesans to comfort them, then what need they have for spiritual seekers?” “You must ask for the right to adopt a child. Our Lord still visits you, though his visits are fewer and fewer.” “What we have is the comfort of our habits.” “Ask him to take you with him, when next he comes.” “Water finds its own level, and people must make do with what fate has chosen them.” “Your fate is what you make, not what descends on you like bird shit. I see a white pigeon at your window.” “Shut the door, and bring my food in the afternoon. Rice with thin curd. I want only what the artisans eat.” “I will inform the King.” “So be it. Remember, you are my only companion.” “Alright, I wont tell him then. But if a stranger appears at your window, then remember, we will know what it is you do.” The maid left, clanging the plates she had brought, the food, ravenously eaten, the millet doshai and the black peas with shredded coconut, and small pieces of raw mango having been eaten so rapidly, that the maid had been shocked. It had been long since the Queen had an appetite. They were not allowed to call her by name. The door shut softly behind her, and the Queen went to the pigeon. The paper was thin, hand made, with flecks of some flower on it. The man was able to tell her simply that he loved her. His neck would go, as would hers, should the king find out. “It’s of no consequence to me what you feel” she had written back. “I do not understand”, it was just one word, in the artisan’s tongue. The pigeon fluttered back. It was not so far to the Oil Presser’s Hill, and he would have his answer soon, with no possibility of replying till the moon waned. Chapter 10 It was morning. The jeweled sky had disappeared into the bright light of day. A scythe of moon showed, and the fragrance of jasmines filled the room. The night had gone by in a blur of dreams. The very stability of the Queen’s existence depended on a good night’s sleep. It was being said that her husband would never return, that he was enamored by his new wife, and she never left his side, even accompanied him to the battle fields. It made her own head heavy. Though she imagined her competitor’s armor, she did not even think about it, it made her own head heavy. It was summer, the days stretched hot. The beekeeper had not sent her the pigeons for many weeks. Their letters to one another had ceased. Selvi said he had been seen wandering in the forest, and no one knew why the Queen asked about him so often. He had brought herbs too, for the royal baths, and was much sought after by the women in the Queen’s fort. She was not competing with her slaves, and had him come in alone when he could be found. An abandoned Queen was of no interest to anyone. She could do as she pleased. The fort gave her pleasure. Enclosed from all sides, the climb up was never monotonous. The cool breezes blew, the butterflies swept past her myriad coloured, the wild flowers bloomed in the hottest months. All she wished for was the days to pass, each one unique, studded with events. The court poets who resided with her were quick to write verse about her, though she aged in the brazen sun, and wrinkles creased her smooth skin, the mouth turning downwards a little in disappointment and solitude. She still remained their Queen, though most days, they never bothered to visit her, or seeing her in the gardens on early summer mornings, walked quickly in the other direction. No new incumbents entered, they were tightly wrapped together, remembering the past at Hampi. They had heard that a Roman and a Moroccan were coming to visit soon, and the preparations had begun. They did not know how he would speak with them, but apparently he knew their language, and had interpreters. She was happy to meet someone new. Conquest was one thing, rule another. To oversee these rich lands, one had to have power. Even to greet the pepper merchants, money was needed. However large the territory, or small the kingdom, it had to have one who knew the King intimately. The birds were singing loudly outside the window. She rose, and went to the window. No pigeon awaited her. To have a friend seemed the most blessed thing. The beekeeper had been her sole companion for many months. He knew poetry, and like other artisans living with him, they thought in verse. His understanding of the Gods was complex, and he lived by his wits. Now that he had gone on his mandatory journeys, crossing the borders of alien kingdoms, she was left alone. He had warned her ofcourse, for when the moon was full circle, his journeying into the forests would begin. No one knew where he went, except that he returned to the oil pressers hill with huge combs of honey, each with the queen imprisoned within. Outside, it was calm, the farmers were busy with their rice fields, and the earth was thick and moist. It seemed only yesterday they had arrived from Hampi, crossing the parched earth with their caravans and hunting dogs, the women carrying their scythes, shields and swords with equal worth. Hampi, where the palaces and temples were always bedecked. The land was arid, but they got everything they needed from the enclosed gardens and ponds. The Vijaynagar empire only grew every year by conquest, and the women stayed in their interior places. Of the common people, they knew nothing. How did they survive, these slaves and farmers? Their palates knew only millet, and wild berries. The King, however had rights of tribute, and received their best produce – rice, coconuts, bananas, yams, tendrils with the accompanying gourds, packed in large shallow baskets to excess. She stretched, she looked at her feet, henna and toe rings just as they ought to be. So he would not return to her? Well, she had heard Basava had embraced the Lord with a sigh. She too hoped to die, having no memory of it. People thought her life dreary, but she was filled with the blessed light, the incandescence of stars. Nothing displeased her, nothing incurred her wrath. She was always delighted by the smallest thing. The hot wind blew in her face. They were from Bellari, the heat of Gingee was nothing. She had hoped to return to Hampi, but after some years, she knew she had been forgotten. The King had used her palace as a hunting lodge, rising only to use his bow to shoot deer, rabbits, and with a sling shot bring down the occasional egret, which would fly skywards, its white wings furling outwards before it fell like a stone. The summer would become heady when he arrived, but after a few days he would get weary of playing chess and swimming in the courtyard tanks, and when the early morning hunting brought him back empty handed, he would be gone before the sun had reached it zenith. The silence that enclosed the castle, the simple fort on the hill was so total, that she could hear her own heart beat. The Queen was still standing here, near the window, where the disc of a daylight moon was paling and fast disappearing. The maid came in, along with the entourage of cooks. Odd that one woman should have so many people to serve her. But yes, they always anticipated the King’s return, always presumed he would be present for lunch. “And what will you eat today?” “Horse shit.” “Madam, the King has sent a messenger today asking that you be fed well today. He has won a major battle.” “I will eat nothing.” “He asks that you be fed well.” “So be it.” She withdrew herself into the inner chambers. Her bath water was ready, and she bathed, and was scented and clothed in the finest embroidered cottons. The reign of Deccan Kings from the North had left behind a language, and the softest of robes. The soil embaraced the good things that conquerors left behind, and forgot them entirely when they left the place. The King believed that his presence brought bounty to his people. By his absence, he willed the land to rot, his people to die. War was pestilence. “Let him go!” “Where, Madam?” “To his death!” “That is a curse, the soldiers will take messages to the King.” “Ah yes, I whispered it.” “I did not hear it, Lady.” “I must become a new woman. Let me learn new arts. Send the poets.” “They are at work on a new poem of love and death. The losses incurred by the king’s love for war, and yours for the black skinned beekeeper.” “Everyone knows?” “How can anything be hidden?” “You know that he is the boon?” “And you will die unattended in the sun, your fort a necklace of skulls, and we too.” “He is human and his smile is all I seek.” “There are no words?”’ “Yes, poetry.” “He treats you like a man would treat his courtesan.” “He treats me like his Queen.” ‘That title no one can take away from you, dear Lady!” The women having finished their work of soaping, scraping, scrubbing, paring, washing, drying, went away to their quarters. She looked at her ornaments. They were too heavy, too precious. The arched open window brought in the sky. A sole eagle flew high up, swooping down, its target seen. The day had begun, nothing was sought from her except the recovery of memory.. the beekeeper had given her the black string with the amulet that he wore. He was a follower of Kali, though he immersed himself with sandal wood paste, and the fragrance of dried herbs, he thought of the young wild haired goddess, who pounded her father, and He, benevolent and detached, allowed her her prey. “I am her prey!” the beekeeper would shout, intoxicated with honey. She knew that her lover thrashed the ground, and cried for her. He could not distinguish between Goddess and Queen. The metalsmiths who mended the shoes of the cavalry and kept him company on drunken nights, told the soldiers that the beekeeper was the most loyal of them all. The temples to Vishnu were precious to her, and she brought flowers for the incarnations each bedecked by previous kings: chariots, sea shells, tortoises and wild boars. At the bottom of the hill, were the sacred drawings, aeons older than her, hidden by bushes. The stories were told with a linear simplicity. She lost herself in meditation only Basava appearing to her, and the songs to Shiva her only verse. The legend of the Shepherd King remained in her memory. With him, she had learned much, each syllable of his advice remained in her mind. He had no fears, he had been prisoner to the Deccan king, he had seen their coins, earned their wrath, travelled to Delhi, understood their language. Slave kings, having the ambition of their fathers, who were slaves once, and Lords forever. The dusty wind blew into the fort. With it were leaves, and faded petals of flowers. A light drizzle, barely reaching the earth, before it vanished, fell. The date palms were swaying, and the people far below, were tethering the buffalos and the goats. The people did not think much of the fort. It was a necessary evil, if not the Cheras, then the Pandas, or the Cholas, and now these Rayas, afraid of no one. The marauding kings from the North had arrived too, and taken prisoner one of the young princes who had disguised himself. He had gone as prisoner, and learned their language, and imitated them, when he was free. He was a shepherd king, one of them, Vijayanagara was embellished by his presence. He had no need of armour, he rode with his soldiers, and wore his jewels in layers so that they protected him. The Queen looked out of the window. There was a caravan approaching . She could see the dust clouds, and knew there would be a mile of them. The wind blew them here, they knew the routes from the maps drawn for them. Each time they visited, they had new things to offer her. There were songbirds in golden cages, and myrrh. Ofcourse, olive oil, and handpainted fans. She was delighted by their visits. It meant there was someone she could talk to, and if she waited at the window, she would know if the prince accompanying these treasures was someone she knew. Hampi was the most crowded of cities, and everyone knew that this outpost that she governed had a thousand coveting eyes. These rules of warriors and petty kings, that they must always know that at the end of the day, there was one richer and more powerful than them, to whom they must bow, was something that she understood perfectly. Here, in the Queen’s Fort, they lived by the day, waiting for news of a lost war. Meanwhile, they enjoyed the privileges of their kind, and found friends among one another. From the Artisan’s Fort, they got all their news, for the horse shoe fitters were replaced by others, when wounded, and as new men left for the battle ground, the wounded would recover from the scourge of battle, and slowly start reporting to the men around them. There were those who could quite easily turn to verse, the new events, setting them to tunes which they composed as if the lyrics were their heart beat, the sound of drums at sunset. The queen knew she only had to ask for the bee keeper, and he would entrance her with his music, his rough body lying over hers. She believed that the secret of their ardour was safe, till such time as the King returned. No one would dare to whisper to him while he fought but once he returned to the Fort, someone would surely tell him. She was now 22 years old, a discarded Queen, keeping the Fort for reasons of convenience. There was no reason for her to fear for her safety. Yet, the bee keeper always told her that their time was limited, and that love was not a thread that connected them, it could not be. He had a wife, she loved him, he returned to her. Is that a problem? He laughed, showing her his teeth, sharp and stained, his hands rough, and his feet gnarled by many years of climbing the rocks, which hung over all of them, with the steep incline, the occasional bush, the heat, which burnt their bodies without leaving marks. The wind blew, and the smooth rocks, round and mellowed by the work of the rain and wind, were like stepping stones of time, and the King had only to call his soldiers to get the artisans together to build the fort, and the extensions of parks and steps, and lakes and houses. The very presence of the King, she remembered, made men drop their armour and do what he asked. They carried the Queen and her women in palanquins, and settled them into the Fort when it was ready. She delighted in its odd stylishness, its perfection, knowing it was her prison. Every day was the same, the dust beat them, and the sun burnt them. They stayed close to the trees, and waited for the cavalry to return. The horses were fleet footed even on the most rugged terrain, and the Queen’s hearing was so good, that she could hear them neighing even before they arrived. She felt that her life was counted by the pulse beat of the soldiers, if they won, there would be gifts and feasts, the concubines would arrive dressed in plumes and silver on their breasts and ankles. If there was defeat, there would be death and funeral pyres. The Queen knew that the Rayas brought with them the legends of the long dead slave kings, that they themselves were cherished soldiers of the Golconda kings, who had become Rayas perforce, wearing fine linens and keeping horses. Their sojourn in Delhi had been spent mainly in the company of sages and pirs, the holy men of Islam. Although they knew everything about battle, and were masters of strategy, yet they knew that one day they would return home. They were sure of their maneuver, and waited for the day when their Lords would trust them so totally, that they would be given their freedom to roam. And that’s how they became familiar faces in the market places, their fairness, and their aquiline noses the spitting image of their father, the great Raya himself. The logos of battle was to win, or to die, and by the time the brothers were fifteen years old, they knew that their lives were written by the stars and the eye of time. The heirs of the Slave Kings had contrived to be ever present. They hired lookalikes to merge with the people, disguised as the King, and always in command, these men brought to their city the reputation of ceaseless domination. The Rayas too, became hardy at their work, mingling with the shepherds, learning their language, sharing their food, and then joining with their commanders to learn new skills in battle. When they returned to Gingee, they had to hide for many months, before they could display their skills. And finally being King meant to subdue the local people, and spin tales about Hampi, which they yearned for. The river stretched in their minds, for glittering miles, and it was for Hampi that they swore victory over death. The Queen had no wish to live. She thought that her duties had been given to her by the Queen Mother, who had died when she was still a child. Even if she had no memories of those conversations, the maids who waited on her, had memorized them, and daily told her what needed to be done. She was content to live in the palace, high up on the hill, and watch the slow circling eagles. The romance with the bee keeper was kept a secret, and no one so much as winked at her, for keeping her secret. She was alone more than ever, and the meditation and sighs of pleasure over food and jewels now remained her only pursuit. The caged birds had been allowed to fly away. And as the days passed, there was news that the King and his bride would visit her, on their way to the next battlefield. She was horrified by the news. What would she say to them? She had betrayed the King, and had no remorse. Her monthly period had stopped. Her breasts were swelling. The bee keeper had no news from the Queen, as she sent back his birds, or wrenched their necks. It was Spring before the King returned. His new wife was small and pretty, and kept to herself, not wanting to enter into dialogue or dissension between the First Wife, the Concubines and the other rivals. She was young, her hair fell soft and straight, quite unusual, so it was presumed that she was an Artisan’s daughter. The King enjoyed her company, playing with her like she was a small forest animal. That he was so many years older did not cause anyone but the First Wife discomfiture. When they met, the two ladies by passed each other, without sharing a glance. It was as if the other did not exist. The King noticed that the Queen was larger than when he had met her last. However, having no interest in her at all, he only asked for his food to be brought to him. There was some commotion, because it had been a hard summer, and only the mango harvest had been of any worth. To feed an army on maize was not considered seemly so they had killed all the goats and deer in the vicinity, and the soldiers were satisfied with their meal, accepting the millet bread with alacrity. The Queen looked at her husband, the killer of his brothers. They had been influenced by the Slave kings, and had brought the terror of siblinghood and rivalry. Alas! She who had loved them both, and had been forced to choose, and now the one she truly loved was dead. She had to live with the secret. She knew they had taken the path of no return, that his ghost would not visit her, she had betrayed him. They had returned, no longer slaves, but free men, dressed in fine linens and jewels. Then they waged war against Mohammad Bin Tuglak, seeking to wrest back kingdoms, but found only the lesser, a descendant. They had won, battle after battle. The one at Kamlapur which she had heard about was the bloodiest. They lived to tell the tale, that itself was a surprise. But after winning back Anegunde, did they stop? Their father had been mighty, and they owed their people victory. Yet, blood lust did not leave them, and they wished to put back the clock. The sorrow of grieving men and families meant nothing to them. To soldier, to wage war, to win battles, they had no sense of loss. If they lost a battle, they hid in the woods, then they would amass armies and bring them together again. They had known every detail of Mohammad’s madness, how he loved to feast warriors, and bring them to his table, giving them expensive gifts, honouring them, flattering them, then when they had left, sending them a death warrant. They had learnt, as his prisoners, the arts of emulation, subtle manipulation, shrugging off evil deeds with a slight grimace. The art of war was camouflage, it was to deaden the live spirit, love, honour, gentleness, fidelity…all that which they had learned as children. Here, now, were new men, who saw the bullion of war as the only gain. What need did they have for fealty and justice? Hampi had been built from their successes. It was their return to the Gods of their childhood. That had been the supreme sacrifice to belong to Nandi, and not worship. To have grown up in the ardour of Shiva in the arms of Pamba, and to repudiate her in the court of their enemies, where the brothers had climbed from being slaves to soldiers to Lords in the space of a few years. To give up one’s love for one’s own Gods and then camouflage splendidly and appear like luminaries of Allah, whose shining light they did deduce, for they were shepherds first, willing subjects of which ever king subdued them. Hampi had been their jewel. The huge ramparts of fortresses, the sanctuary from war, where they returned with the loot and slaves, where foreigners came, and business was heady. Here, they would build to the Gods, and leave the strategies to their generals. It was where the temples would bring as much money as they burnt in clarified butter, and the ashes smear on the brow of the weary and the desolate. Not that the shepherd kings had much to weep over. After they had fled the courts of Delhi, they had disguised themselves as wealthy merchants, wearing fine linen and brocaded shoes. They had travelled over thousand of miles with their camels, giving new names in every city. They never had to prove themselves, people recognized their mules, and called them Gaddhas. The mules were driven by servants who brought metals, jewellery, silks, and as the camels had to be left behind when the monsoons arrived with their customary lashing ferocity, the Rayas too, rode mules, wearing now the disguise of turban, sheathed swords and long cotton coats, with tight fitting pants. The brothers stopped at every village and small town, when they had escaped the Quzbat kingdom, a woman had risen, the aged mother of Tughlaq, and they were quick to flee. They knew that once their escape was known, they could never return to the arched domes of the stone palaces, for they would be hanged like robbers. Ofcourse, they were enemies to each other, for competition between brothers is the reason for fratricide. For the moment, having a common aim, they could suppress their rivalry. Where ever they went they had new roles to play, sometimes presenting themselves as comediennes, some times uncle and nephew, other times, master and slave, two lovers, and even husband and wife. The older Raya demanded fealty, the younger one gave it. Submission was not hard, it only required good manners and a sense of humour. Closer home, they would be recognized, however beautiful their costumes. So they turned back to the simple clothes of hunters and goat herds. Their manners became more rough, they were more fraternal, back slapping and easy in their conduct. No one recognized them. They knew they were home, when they saw the mountain slopes, harsh and sudden, arising from the slopes of ever verdant forests, when the land became terraced, and open to the hot winds. The flat plains of their native land burned in the sun, they saw the rigid lines of Vijay Nagar with its fluted plain architecture, the splendor of the temples, the luminescence of the water, which had collected in the monsoon. As they rode their horses, the sweat gleaming on man and animal equally, they knew that no one could tell them apart. Their similarity had been their virtue, though they were divided by many years, the older rougher and more martial, the younger slimmer fairer, and muscular and, yet, if they switched roles, people believed them. It was not their features, it was their bearing, their voice, the sense of power that they had. Many times while wandering in the forests, they would meet bands of robbers, but were never hurt or wounded. They would take on the identity of those whom they were guests. They would present themselves exactly as if they were one of them. It did not matter whether they were princes, or monks or dacoits, the brothers were skilled at the languages of each principality. They spoke Telugu with Kakatiyas, and Tamil with others, and Kannada with their own Badagas. They acted as if they were men of the world, and having been for long years with the Moroccan, Ibn Batuta, they did not see it misfit to abandon friends and families after years of being with them. Sometimes they thought of the woman, their kinsman had betrothed to the younger. Who knew what she did in the years they were away. It was not their fate to live as householders do. When they died, they always remembered the years of war, not the years of harvest. Blood flowed not in their veins, but in the fields that they had destroyed, like the crushing of a beetroot harvest. They felt agony for lost souls, and built temples to the Gods, to the Great Annihilator, stone lingams promising ever more wealth to the priests. The priests were nonchalant, for they had their daily duties to perform, the lotus to be bought to the temple before the sun rose, the preparation of sacred foods, the coconuts to be smashed with every prayer. The sea was distant, but every monsoon, the Tungabhadra swelled, and spilled into Anegunde and Hampi. The very nature of their destiny was deprivation of the soul, and squalor of the body. Yes, they wore fine clothes, and displayed their jewels, but both the brothers knew that they, as companions were also rivals. When Mohammad Bin Tuglaq had reduced them to paupers, and when they hid in the forests with their families, they had known hunger and death. They had hidden in the dread dark, the twilight of green for months. They had escaped to Hampi, and seen their temples and towers torched. Divested of everything they had, they knew that the treasures they had underground, the diamond mines, would be waiting for them. What could they say on finding their world famous marketplace divested of every coin, every merchant, every animal. Mohammad never forgave his enemies, and after destroying them he would give ceremonial coins, and elephants to one or two survivors. Yet, the two brothers had survived the visit to Delhi, had come back better equestriennes, were able to duel and sing marvelous poetry. They had not known hunger, only imprisonment, and that too, behind filigree walls. When Delhi was emptied, the Queen mother had given them their freedom, and they walked home. The brothers had a sense of humour, they knew that the Violator was God, so they carved his image. How could they differentiate the Annihilator from their named and venerated God. They carried memories of him, so sharp nosed, so aquiline, so fair. His face was beautiful, and his heart knew no mercy. He believed that friends were foes, and his foes were friends, keeping them all at a distance, frightening them daily with his gift and threats. The Rayas knew that he had been impressed with them, and that they had escaped with their lives. The mules had replaced horses, and their fine robes by hemp and local cloth. No one could tell them apart, and they dined with all, presenting themselves as holy men. Their artifices had become legion, and all they thought was to return to their Queen. She ofcourse had died decades before, but how were they to know? They had no newsbearers while travelling from Delhi to Daulatabad. They were unknown, and then, when they returned home, they found that she, their childhood friend had died in childbirth. Or so they told anyone who asked them. “Nothing is known of the child, we were by her side. It was a girl, a small dark thing, with no features which we recognized. It could have been the bee keeper’s child, for he was the only companion that she had. We think that they were lovers, but so many years have passed since you returned, we did not imagine that you would come back.” Selvi told them without remorse, though she knew that death was a paltry thing, compared to dishonor. The brothers did not speak of the Queen again, and she was forgotten. It was as if their memory of her was so simple, so clear, without a line of truth. Was she their sister? How had they found her to be so innocent, when she was not theirs to own or know. It was as if among their 3000 concubines they had attached themselves to her. They had not found happiness with her it was true, but that recognition, they still preserved, that she was married to one, but loved the other. This they knew to be true. So many years had passed, they were old men now, but their instinct to rule was still intact. They had left her in the solitude of her own fort, and the older had given up his rights to her, in favour of his younger brother, thinking that she would live longer with the younger. But, that was a fantasy, the younger had an obsession with war, not love, and the many brothers they had, sometimes substituted for one another. They looked similar, and women loved them all equally. The truth was their memory was failing. She was one among hundreds whom they had known ephemerally. How simple were their lives, they knew no guilt. They sometimes said that they had been captured by Mohammad Tughlaq, sometimes they said yes, captured, but delegated with military powers. Fifty thousand men had died, Mohammad had retreated. They rebuilt Hampi, they venerated Shiva and Pampa, they used their wealth to empower the idea of Vijayanagara, they were the brothers who were loyal to their father. What was a son or a bride, what was a mother, or a concubine? They were like victims of the fragile threads in a spider’s web, and to escape them, they had to keep control of their territories. The Queen had only been a pawn, like so many others, they heard she died at 20, of an illness. The little girl who was born was returned to the Oil Pressers’ hill. It was always noted, if not recorded, colour and web of blood, and the practices of tutelage. She would grow up curly haired, strong, dark, intensely worshipful of her father who took her to the bee hives hanging high up on the side of the rocks. Her love for him was as delicate and respectful, as the love her father had bestowed upon her mother when she was living on the ancient hill, all by herself. The story was over, Stella stopped recording, for there was no one to read it, and she was alone, as the stars continued to shine, and the black hole was their galactic neighbor. Before it swallowed them up, telling their story in another warp, pushing them back into a time before eternity was counted by the spasm of magma, Stella would think of yet another story, to keep death at bay. Novella 3 Final Order Morning brought her the brightest pleasures, the sun was drenched in its own spangled light, the moon wilting in the far distance could barely be seen. Yet she knew that it was there, quite incandescent, teller of time, keeper of tales. We were brought into the simplicity of our forest homes by the kindness of vagrant hunters. We knew our time was simply that of silence. No one would ask us any questions, we would be brought our food at appropriate times. All that was requested of us was that we obey the order to remain hidden for ever. Ofcourse, the boys were small, barely toddlers. They grew up knowing the forest as their only home. They feared nothing, often leaving their homes in search of honey, the dead-skull moth being their guide in this venture. Their mother would wait, never anxious, always smiling and murmuring prayers and songs, for without them, the hours would never pass. They had no servants, they were denied friends. They had to live in the clear light of the woods, where the trees were splayed, and otters frolicked in the water. They neither feared the snake, the bear or the tiger, hearing them sometimes, but so distant, that they knew they would not approach. Every night they lit a fire. They knew their only hope to life was to return to the earth, to be once more a part of it. They were unnamed, unknown, full of odd anxieties, never looking to the past for it had brought them nothing but shame. The sorrows of the years clung to them like cobwebs. Even in their mother’s womb, when they heard the whispers of those who wished them dead, coveting their father’s kingdom, they were sorrowful. It was as if there was no end to human desire, that the longing for another’s possessions was what made people what they were. War was only another name for lust, and the children knew that their mother cried often in the loneliness of the cool shade in which she slept every afternoon. They would see that her clothes were damp with sweat. The heat of the sun, her sorrow, her tears and sweat combined to lend an odour to the very air, a fragrance of neem and jasmines. Occasionally a bee hunter or a forager stopped by with things they could eat, hurriedly leaving when their mother, still young and beautiful, muscular, brown skinned and very strong like the bow she carried with her beckoned them, and whispered something to them. They knew of her royal clan, they were afraid of her, sometimes they said things which made her laugh, but then they would turn and run, faster than the gazelle in the face of the running leopard. She knew how to take care of herself, and those who thought she needed pity, often received a barbed remark. Sometimes, she turned away friends, afraid that they would give away her hidden palace of leaves, roots and flowers, disclosing where she now lived, away from preying eyes. The earth was always damp, the sky blazoned, things grew easily, they were never hungry. In the beginning she thought of their father, but as the years passed, and they were forbidden to meet, she forgot him. She did it without regret as she had been exiled without notice. They had been away from each other before, and while his company was dear to her, he was after all a stranger. The enemy had become more familiar, and memories of her escape still haunted her, the smell of burning flesh, the conqueror of a petty kingdom whom her once beloved husband had rooted out as a hated enemy. The washer woman’s often- told story sometimes got lost in the sound of clothes hitting the rock… It had begun with a grievous injury. Not willing to accept the love of the strange maiden, he had taken his knife and made to cut her lock of hair, but in a moment, it was the nose which got sliced off. They saw it lying on the ground, the bone was like a white scalpel, the knife was bloody, there was no going back. Suprankha, the woman with the large eyes and the long tresses of hair, had lain in her beautiful silken clothes, till her brother swooped down from the skies, and took her away. The brothers knew then that a careless gesture had taken away their right to freedom, to the possibility of return to the glades of their own country, where the forests were waiting for them. It was not the plenitude of these hills where they had lived for some years, the very land was continually harvested, leaving boulders and rocks, threatening existence itself. The flat plains were now golden with grain, their brother was well able to look after the people. He had drawn in the rivers, and life there under his care was gentler than when they had left it. This accident of pushing off a woman whose lust had irritated the lord of the forest made an enemy of the king of the South. No, he did not have ten heads. He was just a very intelligent man, dark, suave and worthy of his kingdom. He took his sister home, mutilated, dying and eager for revenge. And so, many days after the event, he came back sworn to take the Lord’s wife away from him. The washerman’s wife stopped in the telling of the story. She was a thin woman with a golden nose ring, and used to have a group around her, as she finished the tasks of the day. They expected her to keep them entertained, and as someone who went to the hidden palace everyday, she always had news of the events that she had seen, for the listening pleasure of the young boys who crowded around her in the lush afternoons when she was weaving brooms and mats.. So, you see, they were all very young, and helpless. The twin brothers were adept at climbing trees, and dropping fruit. Sometimes they were frightened by the wind, and would hide in their mother’s thick woven robes. Their father and his brother had come to visit them, but they had fled from them, hiding in the thick forest till they heard them galloping away. How could they return when once abandoned with the finality of civic virtue? How could they find comfort in the company of nomadic soldiers? It was as if they had been rendered insignificant, thrown out like a bunch of old clothes. The boys often pressed their mother’s stomach. Was it possible that they could have been hidden there? How could they have found space inside this frail woman, who now looked as if she had been reared in the woods, a tendril of vine, the white flowers of the bitter gourd could not compete with her for her beauty. And so, from their memory, of forgotten stories told by their mother, they dredged an unfinished story, a final report, saying that now that their mother had been absorbed into the womb of the earth, they would tell it, to painters and writers alike, with their father’s benediction. How pleased they had been when it always ended with their father bringing her home to Ayodhya, and in every city that they passed, people lit their lamps and came out to greet them. When she heard the washerwoman’s version, their mother had said abruptly, “That’s her account. There are many accounts, as people remember things differently when time passes, and the years bring us to new endings.” 1 So was the woman who owned the bow a giant? He lifted it. He was empty of thoughts. His father had sent him so far in search of a bride that he was surprised when he stood in front of the audience that watched him so closely. It was early summer. The cuckoos were calling, the mango trees had flowered. He rubbed his eyes, and looked at the bow. He lifted it without difficulty but his brow creased. He looked around. There was silence. He was a quiet man himself, and his teacher had explained the path to him. There was only one goal. That goal was his from birth. Anything he did was essentially a fulfillment of that promise. The perfection of his life was a seeming camouflage for the greater things that lay ahead. So in the silence that followed, he understood the bride was his now. She came to him with startling fleet footedness. She had nothing to say too, except to offer him the marriage garland. They saw no one around them, and with the very act of mutual acceptance, she was his. He had no language to communicate that he had been sent to win her, and she had no words to say that there was no debate. Whoever lifted the bow (and he had broke it in his eagerness) was hers to command. Her days of freedom were over. She had no choice, it was fortunate that there was such mutual understanding and love between them. They found themselves looking at each other, startled by their beauty, their immediate and instinctive conjointness. They knew fate had brought them together, and before the mangos ripened she would have left her father and mother, and accompanied him to his home. These things were not unknown to them, there were border crossings for other such marriages. Their dialects often fused, and she had to learn to speak like him. He didn’t mind how long it took, and he didn’t mind what mistakes she made learning the language of power. Secretly, she agreed to marry him, and secretly she agreed to accompany him. No one would know the pact she made with him. She was after all a young girl, it was easy to persuade her. Her home was all she had ever known. And now, this Prince immersed in his books would take her away on a white horse. She had never seen a horse like that before. It was Arabian, from across the seas, and ridden by soldiers in turns. He thought it would be easy to travel with her on it, and they would be home before the seasons had changed. But her mother sent elephants, servants, boxes of gold and silk, and enough cows to feed an army. He felt slowed down by it all. Yet, he said nothing. She was afraid that his silence was a sign of boredom, but he assured her it was not so. His world was different from hers, that was all. He felt comforted in her presence, he said, he found it peaceful. He liked looking at her, her skin was dark, her hair black and curly. This was pleasing to him. He did not believe that kinship was about colour, that preferred pale whiteness: he was happy that she was slim, young, clever. He was not looking for beauty or wealth. He had heard many times that she had been born in a furrow. He laughed, saying that was how the people would describe a woman who stayed home and kept her garden embellished by fruit trees. They never called each other by name, and nor did the people who accompanied them. Her mother came with her, and stayed for a few days to see that her daughter was well looked after. They had quarters in the palace all to themselves. They were accompanied always by an entourage of brothers. She remembered her father and his austerities, and the simple life they had led. She would wake up in the morning, as the sun was beginning to ride the sky. It would be the day that the dogs would gather under the mango tree, waiting for her to arrive. There were many of them, some were spotted and others were marked by the deer as their enemies, for their tongues were lolling out, they were greedy and sharp eyed. Sometimes when they saw her, they mistook her for a deer. Her colour was dark, and she was born out of the earth, dressed in deer skin, and in the early mornings she was full of a certain agility. Her hair fell down in the waves that were combed out carefully by her mother. Her father allowed her to ride on her own as she was his only child. He was not afraid for her, because she was after all the daughter of a king, and simple though he was, unafraid of greater warriors, he knew in his heart that he must give her away in marriage to one who surpassed him in wealth and learning. Her father had thought the Prince bored and willful, but to his great surprise he had lifted the bow, and with a simple shrug had broken it. It was the beginning of a new era. His wild and sturdy daughter, lettered and sophisticated, always dressing in deer skin in the cold winter months was now ready to roam in palanquins, wearing jewels and beautiful clothes. She was after all one of the greatest painters of her time, skilled with the brush and eager to squeeze colours and saps from flowers in the jungle, from the trees in the great woods outside her father’s home. The river where she bathed culminated into a simple lake, and it was here that the mango tree was revered, for they thought she brought with them luck, joy, bountifulness. It was their safeguard against famines and poverty, the lustrous fruit was their motif on weavers’ looms, on the paintings on their floors, on their walls. Each child in the agriculturally wealthy land was reared on these paints, and the Princess was as adept as the poorest and the highest born. Those days were now long past, almost forgotten in the grandness of her new world. So in her husband’s palace she learned to keep silent. It was required of her. He was always busy at his studies. His teachers continued to tutor him, and he was thought to be befitting as a warrior to concentrate on Bisrakh, the Lord of Death, ten headed, or so they said. It was his clan duty to kill him. Tenheaded! That’s another way of saying that he is intelligent, very very learned. Demon King, they call him, but we have often reduced his clan to ashes, and his brothers to aliens. It is my sworn duty, not just a vow, to defeat him. Sometimes she was sad that military strategy engaged him. They were children after all, surely there was time for play. So she asked her father to let her study too, and to convince her husband that it would not distract him, but only fulfill the promise that Bisrakh would be punished for his excesses. Her father wrote back, on her mother’s return that she had his permission, but while the Prince was at war, she was not to leave her new home. They were peaceful happy days, nothing could be better than the kingdom of the Prince, built ornately on the fecund plains, with the river beside, though not as broad as the one she knew. Every morning she woke to the sound of birds, and the sun rising promised her another day of learning to live in swathes of time which were evenly divided between his mother and him. It was almost as if she were married to his mother, something she did not find difficult to understand, it was true of most brides, they learned more from their husband’s mother than from their own. What was required of them was perfect obedience and polite speech. The language she spoke was not acceptable to them, so she had tutors who made her conform to the palace. And she was quick to learn. There was no way that her husband would find fault with her. She learned to control her temper, her moods, her desires, and to remain silent. He was appreciative of her beauty, and sometimes he said that he had never loved anyone before he met her. Her complaisance became her second nature. Her acquiescence to the customs of her husband’s palace became the jewel in his crown, the sparkling sense of wifely duty, loyalty and mutual affection. Bisrakh, their enemy’s home, was only a night’s journey away, and crowded into their consciousness. It had been evacuated many aeons ago and the dark knight was now a king in another land. There was no occasion to fear him, but he pervaded their thoughts. He was always there, they never let a day pass but they conjured him up, and invented his fabled warriorhood, how he venerated their uncle Krishna, but was contemptuous of their lineage. The Prince had teachers who saw that he was eager for war, but with a lovely wife, and an anxious mother, what need was there for journeys and conquest? So they waited, teaching him the verse that drew attention to his powers. No one could write a text as beautifully as he, no one meditate on the greatness of Indra with as much valour, no one could understand the texts of verse and divine will, the play of future and past in contemporary existence. His father left him alone, never seeking his advice for anything. This left him speechless most days, and he wandered endlessly, thinking about the reason for his birth, but then his increasingly powerful teachers took him away to the forest, and showed him the ceaseless wonders of the earth. Sometimes his wife followed him, and overheard the lessons. Silence was requested of them, they had to listen, they could not do else but memorise the instructions. There would be the hollow incessant sound of the blackbird, and the steadfast tapping of the woodpecker, and occasionally the guttural cry of the peacock, the blue streaking by, of the kingfisher, and the curious foraging of the egret. The drone of the teachers’ voices sometimes made them sleep, and the Prince would wake to see that his wife was chasing the iridescent brown speckled butterflies that were blue in the inner wing. How to be present while conspicuously invisible that was what was demanded of her, and sometimes she presented herself to him, but ran away before he could catch her. They lived entirely in the moment, and her friendship with his brothers extended to the white horse which they called the Ashvamedha horse. The rituals of fire, the ritual of wandering: these were almost instinctive. There was not much difference between her father’s longing to be absorbed in the Gods, and her husband’s ambition to rid the world of the demon king Bisrakh, now known as Ravana. To name him was dangerous, he was the one who brought fear and envy in the hearts of those who coveted his power over the firmament. What does one king have which the other doesn’t? It didn’t seem to her that any of these warrior kings were different from one another. They had different principalities, were used to servants and concubines, and when they married they did so to extend their properties. And there was Kaikeyi, always trying to rid the young couple of their property and their rights. Quiet! I can hear what you are thinking. As your father’s wife, I forbid you to talk to him. You may not come near our quarters. If you wish to speak to him you must send your mother. I alone will take your message to the King. The Prince went away without speaking to his father. It was years since he had done anything but take orders from Kaikeyi. So be it. He went to his own chambers and found that the Princess was reading as usual. His mother was a gentle soul who had been given the status of resplendent Queen who must not speak. His brother Laxman was always hovering around his wife, a kind of guardian, jealous of his duties, and never far away. And there was Bharat, with his shining eyes, his valour as great as his siblings, quiet, rule bound, full of enthusiasm and energy, never letting their blood lines be confused by a false ardour for priority. He was in awe of his brothers, and slipped across the lines of control with a certain brevity of speech. On seeing the Prince arrive, they stood up, his mother included. He demanded from them a certain propriety, he was the next in line, everyone should know it. This was in contrast to his usual demeanour of philosophical detachment, which allowed everyone to know that he was absorbed in other things. “Was the sky blue?” His servants, the priests and teachers, were absorbed in the same quest, if the sky has no circumference, and is not blue, how can we measure it? Yet, today, he was spurned from his duties by his father’s wife Keikeyi, and now he would have to wait to meet his own father as if he were an ordinary serf. It was unthinkable. Chapter 2 Did she really send you away? Yes, she kept me waiting for many hours. I could hear him, but I was not permitted to speak with him. Was there anything that you needed? No, mother. I just wanted to see my Father. Maybe she thought you wanted a share in the kingdom. Before he is dead? It would never occur to me. And yet, and yet, Kaikeyi fears us. She thinks we will take away your Father and make lives of our own, without her. How is that possible? You know he loves her. He sees in her the beauty of a young woman, she has access to his every thought, and she thinks she knows what we want, which for her is terrifying, the possibility that with my ascension you will be in power again. His mother laughed. She was now charmed by her son and his wife, the way in which they frolicked in the woods like deer. She could imagine them, lying side by side, thinking about the children they would bear together. SiiyaRam was how the people referred to them, they were indeed one. No one could separate them, for their bonding was in peaceful silence. Their being together was something that the people exulted in. They looked at them as if they were Gods, as if they could stand for the holy in all its manifestations. As close as siblings, sharing the same breath, lying on the sandy river bed, free of inhibitions, yet secretive in all they did, they were like a mutual blessing in a peaceful realm. Their siblings were proud of them, and as lovers they were respectful to one another, and to their parents. He had been warned of their separation even before they were married. He could smell the fragrance of the jasmines which had been her wedding wreath to him. Her sweetness filled his senses, and yet…yet.. it was not yet. He would enjoy her presence, the flitting sense of her shadow self. The duplicity of presence that accompanied her, they called it maya, the self that was her, yet not her. He wondered if she knew that she was spirit manifest, the keeper of the sacred bow, that he had accidentally broken when pulling its string. What was there to fear, in prophecy, or bad news, or events which were yet to happen? The Prince’s thoughts were on his Father. After his marriage to Kaikeyi, he was preoccupied with continuing the line, as if it was an obsession that came with his blood line. Was he, Rama, not enough? There was Bharat, Laxman, Shatrughan. And each carried the pride of their clan, the descent from the Sun, whose maternal uncle, accompanying him daily was the Moon. So why did he fear for his Father’s life? He was detached the whole day, speaking neither to wife nor mother, nor the troupe of younger brothers who followed him everywhere. He was concerned that they not think of him as the harbinger of bad news. It was as if his gentle face was wrought with sorrow, as if he knew intuitively that a man like him who had been asked to concentrate on his foe, by his teachers, could find no time for anything else. Who was the foe? He pitted his brain against this question. He was told he had been born to destroy evil. What was evil? He had no recourse with it in his young life. Ofcourse Keikeyi was the closest he had come to hating. She was the one who used her beauty to wrest from his father that should have rightfully belonged to Kaushalya and himself. A warrior, a woman, born to produce more male progeny. They were needed to continue wars which had not even been manifested except in the imagination of the protagonists of battle. It was, as if they, though rich and landed, thought of war all the time, like Parushram, and those cousins who were as if born from pepper seeds, where there were two, there were now a hundred. So hot, so full of wrath, neighbours of theirs who sought war with the Pandavs, first having reduced them to poverty and exile. He too had been told his fate, exile, and separation from loved ones. He thought these were assignments from the skies, what matter to him how it emanated, it would still be him, making choices with the set of cards that fate had given him. He felt no wrath or greed, he would proceed with equanimity of mind and strength of purpose. Chapter 3 Suprankha appeared, and the dice was cast. The game had begun. She was a visitor to the palace, bearing jewels and fine silks, and spices. He looked at her and knew that here was trouble. She was ushered into a beautiful room which overlooked the river, and there she stayed for more than a year, not disclosing her identity as the daughter of the Bisrakh clan. They would have sent her away politely, but it was their custom to maintain peace among princely clans, and since she arrived with soldiers and servants bearing letters, they gave her every comfort. He could not bear that she avoided his wife, and spoke ill of her to the servants who shared gossip among themselves. He thought it was apparent that just as he was busy with his studies with his teachers, the women would find much to do among themselves. On the contrary, they avoided one another, and behaved like rivals. It was as if some great spirit of war rode in the house with the coming of Suprankha. And the year passed with evil intent, as Kaikeyi too insulted him at every turn. It was difficult, but such was human nature. Kaikeyi wanted him away and out of sight, and Suprankha wanted to create a wedge from the covetousness and rivalry she felt and made instinctively known to the Princess. She looked at him and sighed every time he passed by. She walked past him, with the silk of her clothes touching his bare arm. She passed her fingers close to his, almost placing it over his, when they ate together in the inner chambers of Kaushalya who was always generous and courteous with guests. Supranka gave him fine gifts, constantly procuring them from her brother across the seas. They were gifts of gold and rosewood, sometimes crafted in fine furniture. After some months he knew she was a Bisrakh princess, come with the Sanghas from across the sea. Lanka. He didn’t dare say it. They had sent an emissary. He asked her. She denied it. She said she was in love with him. It was a familiar story. The woman scorned. So he snubbed her again and again, and left her to Lakshman’s devices, till at last she left of her own will, and appeared at her brother’s court, and said, “He cut off my nose!” Her brother, a valiant prince, who had ravaged many kingdoms, and desecrated palaces was always indulgent of her. “Not really, my dear. Your nose is as pretty as it ever was. Let me send you a nose ornament, a diamond which shines like the stars. I love that you are back with us after so long, though its true that I never lost sight of you.” “He cut off my nose. He loves that woman. He never looks this way or that. He reads his books. Just as you think of him all the time, so he thinks of you. You are a great Shiva devotee, so he knows that you cannot be harmed.” “He broke the bow that Janaka’s daughter has. So Sita is Kali, and I am devoted to her.” “Krishna is Kali too, and so I want to know what you will do for me. I must have my revenge.” “Oh my dear heart! You know I love you best of all. You are my sister. If he has hurt you, I will wage war.” “He has cut off my nose.” Bisrakh laughed. “If I didn’t know you, my dear, I would think you wanted me to go to Ayodhya and ask him why he did so. You must have behaved inappropriately, tried to get between his sheets, looked at his beautiful black skin and wanted it for your own. Your own line will not come near you for fear of your temper, and you dare to ask the Prince of Ayodhya to be yours? Shame on you. I have other matters on hand. Go quickly to my wife and tell her that you have returned, and if you keep saying that he has cut your nose, there will be war. In a mutual dream I picked you up from the ground, and sewed your nose back, a pretty piece of cartilage for sure, but no one would want a war over a displaced nose. Yes, he offended you, yes, you felt grievously hurt, yes, he punished you for pursuing him. As he is a happily married man seeking to bear male heirs with his wife Sita, the ambition or fate of all those Sun kings, you really must set aside your vagrant thoughts. I do not look to anger him, I do not want to enrage that fine prince, but your stories of his wife’s beauty have me very very curious.” Chapter 4 Kaikeyi demanded that the Prince be exiled, and sent him and the Princess away. They went without a murmur, bidding the weeping Kaushalya goodbye. She accompanied them to their wagon in which they had packed nothing of significance. The humiliation was more than she could bare. Laxman unable to stay away from Ram and Sita, went with them, and Bharat swore to look after the kingdom while they were away. To them 14 years of exile, and the loss of their home meant nothing: they had one another, they believed that whatever happened was fore-told, they would continue their studies, they would lead good lives, they would pray to the Gods, and keep the ancestors in mind. It was not as if they could judge the importance of anyone’s actions. Their weeping mothers, the wrath of their fathers and concomitant impotence of men in their prime of life, was of no consequence. Kaikeyi had spoken. She was the Queen, she demanded the right of rule, she had no enmity with anyone, no rancor, she only demanded her rights. This was how it would be. The pallor of the King went unnoticed, he could not lift his hand, he could only lie in a stupor. He said not a word, ate nothing, his sleep was marred by bad dreams and less than a week later he was dead. When news reached Ram and Sita in the forest they felt the dread that comes with a sudden unexpected death. They had thought exile was punishment for their worldly desires, and being young had accepted the will of the Queen. Alone in their simple home in the woods, they cried themselves to sleep, knowing now that they could never go back, or not till they were summoned. Laxman looking on Ram as his greatest and most loved Prince, got them food and water, made friends with wandering mendicants, got news of home, and kept them safe. They knew that the palace they had lived in was a dream, the past was ofcourse sacred, their memories kept them secure. It existed, Kaikeyi’s ambition had destroyed them, but time was fleeting in its essence, for as scholars they lived entirely in the presence of eternity. Sita made friends with the animals, every wolf, deer, rabbit, tiger, leopard, even the lions, showed themselves to her, leaving her surprised and wonder struck. The elephants trumpeted outside their home, trampling the gardens and looking in through the windows, but never endangering them. They too were contented to see those humans who had become like them, accepting life for what it was, never communicating the finiteness of their dreams. The forest people allowed them to converse with them, and were not afraid of them. They lived peacefully for many years, till Bisrakh arrived looking for vengeance. The six days of Dashrath’s death were slow, accompanied by dreams and self flaggelation. No one could save the old man from this his fate, the loss of a son, the necessity of abandonment to the spirits that visit one, before the last breath is drawn. He remembered the chatter of birds, the secrets they told him, the way in which he would draw them to his breast, asking of each if it were well. He understood that they could circumscribe the earth with their little wings, travelling long distances in the company of their friends, forming patterns in the sky. He, too, would become like one of them as his spirit swept past the minutae of time. Nothing could stop his death, neither his fear of it, nor the heroic radius of the arrow pulled out from below his metalled coat. He was free to roam. It was with a shudder that he remembered how precious his life had been, how much he had enjoyed every moment, made amends with those whom he disliked. It was as if the voice of Kaikeyi demanding Ram’s exile would be interred with him in this long sleep. He did not fear death, he only longed for his son to return, so that he could question him about so many things he did not understand. Kaikeyi wanted to hold on to his body, she wished him to forego the next stage of his dharma. She thought that by keeping Bharat by her side as King, she would have Dashrath and the kingdom. But life is not according to our wishes. It was not he who was in the forest now, it was his beloved son, whom he had spent so many years with, watching him as he grew, marrying him to the loveliest girl that his messengers had found, seeing that he was educated by the wisest. Now the long sleep would fold him into its gentle embrace, he would feel that his days were numbered, with each dawn he would say goodbye to the world. He had nothing to teach Bharat, who had accepted Ram as his King even before the exile took place. What was there to fear? The boy understood his worth, through a process of delegation the empire would be ruled. If there was justice, it would come to its natural logical conclusion after 14 years were spent by his son in the forests. What was decided was the manner of rule in absentia. From his death bed, Dashrath could see his weeping wives, the mothers of his sons. He loved them all, inspite of everything it was his fate to think of each as having given him what he desired most. Each of those children they bore allowed the clan to extend itself, fructify, move forward. They had no rights other than through their children. They were carriers of virtue, they were progenitors of royal seed, the wives hated each other, but they loved him. He was independent of them now, they could do as they wished, live together or not, support Bharat or not. It seemed odd to him that each one of them believed that life was about the future, going on, living in the midst of ever changing seasons, seeing the trees bear fruit, leaves fall, flowers fade. Human life was the same, each was given a span of time. He could not bear to think that in his lifetime he had spawned so much hatred, so much dislike. Because of him, Kaikeyi hated Ram, Kaushalya hated Kaikeyi and the whorl of life went on. He had become attached to Sita who had always treated him with love and respect. He thought her ornamentation of the halls with her beautiful paintings of the fish-eyed goddess the most beautiful expressions of her devotion. Bisrakh’s sister had penetrated their inner halls and had been treated with courtesy. Even if they were enemies, the etiquette of their ancient people had been to trust, to welcome, to make others feel at home. Bisrakh himself had gone into exile in a far off land. It was thought that he would return and wage war on their kingdoms but he never had. When his sister had been recognized, she had been sent off, her gifts of cinnamon and mace (jathipathri) had been thrown into the river and her name forbidden to be spoken. Word had reached them that she had told Bisrakh that her nose had been cut off. Dashrath laughed. He thought that her language was always sweet and pleasant, her rage must have poisoned her tongue. How did one get rid of an unwelcome guest? One fed them well and sent them on their journey, espousing a variety of causes, including the arrival of wedding guests, remaining vague about what wedding and when. He denied the possibility of Suprankha’s nose being mutilated, his sons would never do that. As they had descended from the sun god, they could never never go against the honour that came from the lineage of Chaya, who protected the land and sought to keep everyone in the penumbra of her shadow. Cut a woman’s nose…never, his sons were not capable of that…the cause of war would be something else. And yet, and yet, he knew that tumultuous rage caused men to do things they were ashamed of, and hid from their father. If only she had been sent to him, the King, the purveyor of justice, he would have sent her home with many fine jewels, never mentioning to her or to her brother that they had felt rage welling up when she had broken the force of conventions, and sought to absorb Ram, into her own retinue. Like most powerful princesses, she was used to getting her own way, and her King had appeared before her in the heady assurance that if she brought Ram to him, he, her brother would crown her queen of Lanka. It was a lie ofcourse, but in a laughing wrangle, incestuous and amused, she had agreed. When found out by the ladies of Rama’s court, she denied it all. She had not been pleased to leave the court finally. She had wept, her face becoming quite swollen. Her love for Ram had become an embarrassment to the clan. They realized that having an enemy who wished to cross over was demeaning both to the king who had sent her as a secret emissary, rather spy, and to them too, who did not trust her at all. Kaushalya always believed people could change, but even she was alarmed by the many different ways in which Suprankha was intimidiating everyone. She was bad tempered, and full of a sour and vitriolic language, coupled with great personal charm which overrode these deficits. She could look through Sita as if she was not there, putting her hands on Ram’s shoulder as if it was a sibling bond which they shared from the past. It was difficult to shake her off, till one day, she accidentally said, “My brother Ravana thinks you to be easy to conquer. I shall tell him you are not, surrounded by these many lovely women by your side, your mother and your wife. Your kindness in giving me a home has enabled me to live the life I should have, were our countries not at war.” They had all stared at her, and then she realized that a moment of intimacy had suddenly turned on her, that her fictions which had been so easily accepted were no longer holding them enchanted, and her entourage was called, and she was casually but firmly dismissed. Chapter 5 Laxman and Sita were wandering in the woods when they saw the bird, and wondered from where it had come. It looked like it was made of some strong metal, but it was light and criss crossed with light. They forgot about it, because there were plants to be foraged for their day’s meal. Fruit was plentiful, the sky blue, the wind chill. It seemed to them that the forest had integrated them, made them one of its own children. They no longer felt afraid of the night, of storms, snakes, the roar of wild animals or the trumpeting of elephants. Sita was able to light a fire, and bake earthen pots. And everything seemed simple, till the arrival of the stranger. He was dark and tall, handsome, and able to speak their language without communicating that it was a foreign language. He introduced himself as a prince of a neighbouring kingdom. “My father knows yours” he said, politely, to Laxman. “I have no knowledge of such a friendship.” Laxman was a man of few friends. “Why should you? It was before you were born.” “How did you arrive here?” “By free will.” “Come! You know my meaning!” “A flying machine. You saw it I think.” “So that was what it was. We wondered.” “It was hard to make, but easy to ride.” They fed him, gave him a straw pallet to sleep on. He didn’t seem someone to be afraid of, even when he told them that his kingdom had been ravaged and burnt to ashes. They were children, after all, they had no knowledge of war, other than their assumption that they were victims of an incendiary family situation. They really did not pry into matters of state. Ram continued to study tracts and passages, memorise what his teachers had taught him. He was not there the day that the visitor arrived. It was another day in the forest, Sita and her boy guardian were not afraid of their guest. He stayed quietly in his room, only stepping out to enjoy the stars. He was a fine conversationalist, and he spoke only when they had questions for him. The only time he boasted was when he spoke of his garden. “It’s the first garden, its paradise.” Sita was intrigued. “What does it have?” “Mango trees, my dear. Many different types of mangos.” She was immediately interested. “Can I see it?” The visitor nodded and went inside the room where he had his belongings. Next morning, Laxman found the visitor had left, and Sita was nowhere to be found. Ram returned from his pilgrimage to Gangotri, and found the home he had built was empty. He had no idea where his brother and his wife were. Then after much searching in the woods, he found Laxman with the silver anklet. “You let a stranger into our house?” “He was such a gentle wise person. How could I know he was Bisrakh?” “Bisrakh came to our house?” “We did not recognize him.” “Was Suprankha with him?” “No, why?” “Because she wanted revenge.” “How would we know that? You know I have been awake and alert, yet, I heard no sound. Sita and I were always together, and we had news from Urmila that your father had died of heartbreak. We were spent with weeping, and you were hiding your grief by your pilgrimages to Ganga.” “This is absurd! You wish me to believe that its because of my absence that Suprankha has sent her brother to take away she who was most precious to me?”’ “Brother, the fault was entirely my own. I take full responsibility for it. I have been looking for her in the forest, and look here is her anklet. She dropped it for us to understand that she has been kidnapped. I know that every morning and evening she tightened the clasp so that she would not lose this piece of jewellery.” “You knew her better than me, then. I have no recall of this silver. What else do you know of her?” “Brother! This is not the time for suppositions. You know I got rid of Suprankha. It might well be her brother. That visiting prince must be Ravana. You dare to waste words, when we must be riding to save her.” “And how shall we find her? Can the squirrel tell us, this squirrel who has crossed our path? Sita is as sweet as these forest friends, she is full of an ancient calm distilled from mother Earth. Bhumidevi, where can we find you?” The brothers watched the curtain fall. It was scene change, and the producers had to provide the backdrop of the sea at Rameswaram, for which they used many feet of finely woven silk cloth from Kanchipuram. They were confounded how quickly their lives had changed. Living in the forest had come easily for them, and now this space had been destroyed. The trees were still there, the boles of their trunks as large as buildings in Ayodhya. The trees had protected them, fed them fruit and flowers, and Sita’s presence still clung to the leaves which continually regenerated themselves after every harsh winter. The Prince watched his brother, wondering at his rage. Lakshman jumped about nervously. It was as if his brother felt the intensity of separation in every inch of his body, in every cell of his being. How would he calm him down? Sita was so precious, he could imagine her a prisoner, without food or water, but not vanquished. Ravan! He was punishing them for having what he could not have, he was their enemy by long lineage of remembrances. Vanquished once, as their neighbor, he was accosting them now from across the ocean. How would he cross the seas? He looked at Lakshman. “I have a friend, Anjaneya.” “Who?” “Anjaneya. A man like you, with few words, who is the greatest physician of our times. He is my brother, and worshipful of the Gods who have given him great spiritual powers. He can fly, heal through magical herbs, move mountains.” “Let’s go to him.” Chapter 6 “You can call me Hanuman” “This river by your home is very turbid.” “It joins the Ganga in the pitralok. Tell me how can I help you.” “Sita is a captive of Ravan.” “How do you know that.” “He is the only enemy we have. A former friend’s son, who wrecks havoc when he has opportunity to quell us.” “Old enmities are hard to heal. We heard about how you treated his sister.” “We were her hosts, but she tried to take Ram away from us.” “How can anyone steal anyone, I fail to understand.” “She angered the women of the house by her manners.” “So her arrogance was not pleasing to you? You insulted her?” “We sent her back from where she came.” “You kings are always full of guile.” “We are exiled princes with no home. My brother’s wife is captive. Ravan told her about his garden, he said he would show her trees she knew were different from those whom she had seen. A different variety of mango.” “And she went out of curiosity, hearing the sweet words of a visitor?” “I’ll chop off your head.” “Alright, alright. Now tell me what should I do for you? How can I help my friend?” “We need to cross the sea with our army. You know how we can do it?” “If Ravan can fly through the forest in a machine of light, then, my heroes, I can build a bridge for you.” The bridge was an archipelago, a construction of natural stones placed together. The bridge was their stronghold. They found that they could easily walk across, and tell the waiting audience that the play was over. Sita had been saved and they could return to Ayodhya. The audience was not pleased. It was loudly interactive, jumping on the stage, and demanding to see Hanuman’s tale. Anjaneya yawned and stretched. Yes, the matter was of grievous importance. A woman had been abducted. God knows where she was. He lay on the sand. The Tungabhadra in monsoon was always a sight. It flowed dangerously close to his home. The sun was hot. The river sand was damp, the tides were almost like they were sea coves, linking the marshes and grass lands. He swung from tree to tree, his arms long, his head powerful and the eyes sharp and bright. They would leave for Rameswaram tomorrow. It would be monsoon, and dangerous, yet he was sure his men would find a way. For aeons they had worked for others, their sinews rippling in every season, as they lifted loads, living on nuts and berries. Anjaneya knew that these princes who came to him for help were immensely powerful, and that Sugriva had finally given him legitimacy of work in every domain. His people asked for nothing but the blessings of these princes. The journey across the waters took almost a year, as it had to be done by cover of darkness, and then there were the monsoon months, which sometimes appeared twice across the archipelago buffeted by the heavy laden winds. They reached the other shore in batches, and being bearded and swift swinging across trees with great skill, they reached Sita’s garden. They looked and saw her, sleeping in a grove. Though it was bright daylight, she was not clearly visible to them. They saw that the groves of mangos hid her, and that there were guards and servant women constantly at watch. They also saw that she had become half her size, and no food was served to her all the long day. Yet, she seemed peaceful and quiet, accepting the gentle ministrations of her servants. At night there was a loud shouting, which they could not understand. Sita woke up, she did not look frightened. It was Mandodari, constantly quarrelling with Suprankha. What was it about? The reason for the quarrel was not very clear. That it was a regular occurrence that much was certain. Sita called out to both women. They stopped for a moment each to acknowledge her, but they did not stop heaping abuse on one another. The noise brought Ravan down from his loft. He was busy in his morning rituals though the early morning sky was becoming visible in the night sky..it was his patron, the venus that was at the same time pluto of the night, (or so the Greeks called them) for him, it was Shiva. He came to look at Sita. He was pleased by her austerities. Ten years had passed, and yet her husband could not make any headway with his plans. Clearly he was still in the clutches of the forest, the wiles of the monkey people who had professed their loyalty but had no sense of their worth or their value. It was odd how badly they were treated, left to their own devices. With the death of Sugriva, there was no camp, no follower, no leader. Ravan had heard that a man called Hanuman was leading the pack. He had devised a strategy where his ability to minister to his master’s anxiety had made him a prime favourite. We all do that, Ravan thought. We befriend those who can help us, and we bestow them gifts and honours. How would they find Sita? There was no chance at all. She was not even recognizable as so many years had passed. With the fall of the fruit, season after season, he knew that the creases on her cheek were now permanent. Fortunately, they are children who value their traditions, those monkey people. They believe that the earth was made for the education of their senses. The monkey brigade, he thought to himself, laughing. He loved them, truly, for they charmed him by their antics. He watched them up on the trees, offering them fruit when they came close. To think that their fingers have an opposable thumb. We dropped our tails, but are not very different from them, truly! They will never recognize Sita for the old woman she has become, it is pointless that they feel so deeply for her, think of her as someone with beauty and virtue. Age and loneliness are the price people have to pay for the passage of time. He had often looked out from his window in the turret, and seen that she was in a space of meditative quiet. Why had he thought that solitude would kill her? She was curled up, in the hollow of the tree. It was a large tree, with its leaves delicate and pointing upwards, full of the sap of life. The transparent leaves were a promise of life. She herself was unaware of its beauty, as her mind was constantly taken up by dreams of her home, her kingdom where one hut was sufficient, an abode of the Gods, the protective deities, who had kept them alive for so many years. It was not that she had aged in any way, she was after all still a young woman. It was just that age had appeared inconsequential to someone in the continuous landscape of death. There was nothing to do, except tide the day, from morning to evening, hiding from the sun and rain, and the gaze of the dark and awesome lord, her husband’s sworn enemy. She saw him every early morning, like the evening star when it shines brighter and brighter to become the early dawn planet signifying the start of a new day. He was always staring at her, his black eyes thrust into her vision, as if he had no other recompense than to look at her. She had heard that he called her “daughter”, to his attendants, described her as having filial obligations to him. She only turned her back to him, to drift into a longer sleep. There was no escape from this terrible prison. It was not that he said anything to her, vile or propitiatory. He just stared at her as if he would like to eat her. His eyes were large, hungry, slit eyed when frustrated as he often was, but in the mornings, when he first beheld her, they spoke volumes of his longing: incestuous, desiring and yet vanquished. Mandodari brought her food, when the sun rose. It was delicious food which she had cooked for Ravan and herself, but Sita would not open her mouth. She would not let her come near her, and when she left, she would tip out all the food under the tree, providing nutrition to the birds and insects. The ants would rush to the floods of food that came their way, reveling in the sweet things that had been meant for Sita. After the sun dried out the remaining morsels, left by the predatory dogs and mewing cats, the food was left to the birds who swept down from the high skies. Ravan was hungry for attention. He felt that whatever he did, he could never get away from Supranka and Mandodari. There they were, quarreling as usual, it meant the day would be just a round of invectives and counter invectives. If only he had not accepted his sister’s challenge and gone into the forest to look for the beautiful wife of Rama. Boredom was the curse of Princes’ never mind their nation or rank. Everything was done for them, what was there left to desire, except war and its loot. He had always thought of himself as a handsome man, his darkness a kind of accolade to the night sky. Prince of darkness, his valour was much appreciated. He had lived in this torrid kingdom that he had wrested from the forest people, the rivers, lakes, lagoons and seas anointing him with their casual splendour. Their colours muted the sky, they were myriad in their hues. This beautiful green land, with its wealth of rubies in the rocks, how rich he was, and how completely in love with the earth. Going back to Bisrakh had never been an option, and with the many slaves at his command he had ruled wisely and well. The girl, the woman he called “daughter” was his only mistake. He had fallen in love with her as soon as he had seen her. He was so eager to please her, to show her his kingdom, to entrance her, to inhabit her body, that he had forgotten that she was married to another, that she was only a girl. Everything about her had enraptured him. If only he could have slipped away with her, without her husband’s brother following them, marking his trail, he could have vanished with his trophy, his new bride. Now, many years had passed, and with the respect that she was due he had instinctively protected her from her obvious slavery… what else could a woman be, but a slave. They had no will, no power, the husband was always ever present in their consciousness. for he spoke through her dreams, he promised her liberation. And she the willing slave to the fantasy of the passing dream, lay in the garden, ringed with Ashoka trees, as if she had only to wait…only to wait… “Come, daughter, come with me, into the palace. I have made you a bed, so comfortable, so lined with fine muslin that you will feel as if you are girded by the softest hands.” She stared at him, her brown eyes were clear, and she did not suspect him of malice. He was much older than her, and his beard was flecked with silver. “My husband will come soon. He has told me, I have heard him whispering in the wind. His voice comes to me through the sweet sound of the blackbird in the mango tree.” “No, daughter, you have been in my palace for many years now. You can count the years by the length of your beautiful black hair. Mandodari, your mother has combed it and plaited it, twining it with these beautiful silver threads. See, my daughter, see how my hands have held you close while you were drowsing in the bole of the tree.” “My father will avenge me, and my husband will burn you to ashes.” “Don’t curse me my daughter, come lie with me. You are the answer to my prayers, never did I think that I would have a daughter who would be my bride. I wait for you, I long for you, I think of you.” The thought that the monkey watching her from the top of the coconut trees was Hanuman, her husband’s friend crossed her mind. She looked at him closely, yes, she was almost sure that it was him. “I am tired. Go back to your window, I have now no need of your stories, your lies, your death dealing words. I hate you for stealing me, so many years have passed, and I grow older, knowing that if my husband were to cross the sea and find me, I would be too old to bear children. You have taken away the right I have to hold a child in my arms.” “Not at all, my dear! You are my child, I can find you the most handsome husband that you would ever want. I shall plant him here, next to your bower. I can find him now. Tell me, who it should be. Who would you like for a husband.” “Your cruelty is without measure. Go away. Do not come near me.” “Are you withholding your friendship? After all that I have done for you? I gave you to Mandodari, a tiny seed, and she threw you into the furrow, and there you were found. She said you were beautiful but she had no need of a baby. Your father and mother found you, so exquisite, like a young sapling. Come, let’s forget this sad story, no one knows you are my daughter, no one knows how much I love you, no one knows what you mean to me.” Rage and sorrow twisted Sita’s heart. She looked to the trees but the man that she had thought was Anjanya was no longer there. In the hot afternoon sun she felt the strange languor that beset her every day, and she fell again into a deep sleep. It was not happening to her, it was a dread story that she had dreamed. So her husband was descended from the sun and attendant moon God, and like Chaya, the moon maiden, she too had a split personality. In her dream world, sleeping the day away, awake at night with the stars and the blood curdled moon, she knew that these were just passing fantasies. She who could paint and sing, laugh and weep did so in another world. These eclipses of the moon which sent the world, her world into darkness, was what she dreaded most. She was always awake when the first birds called, the sweet songs of the sunbirds, the ones who were so dear to her, bringing to her the sheer evanescence of dew and their bright colours, blue, black, irridiscent…when she saw them, she realized that the earth was indeed splendid, and found herself again. In the dream state she inhabited during the day, season after season, she lived with Rama in the forest, contented by his presence. Here there was no time, no history, no war, no exclusion, no venomous snakes. There was only the profound calm that accompanied them when they were together. Neither asked for conversation nor gave it. It was the silence that allowed them to believe there were just the two of them, in a love that caused the world to glimmer and exist as if it were new, not as a spiral of time, but in the deep sense of belongingness. Yet, she knew having seen Anjaneya that a battle was being planned, and in the silence of the garden in which she had been placed by her captors many things would occur. She could see it, the battle, the deaths, the end of the reign of Ravan. He was an odd sort of man, churlish, bad tempered, even elderly, one might say. Yet, his blood flowed, and his eyes flashed. He was given to sitting by the window and reading his books, looking at her all the while. She thought of her husband from whom she had been separated for these many years, every moment an aeon. “My dear, my dear, you are awake at last. The sun has been up, and the bees circling your bower. I will come down and see that your mother Mandodari feeds you.” “I threw the food she gave me for the dogs yesterday. If you come near me, I will pierce you with my dagger. You think I am unarmed. My hairpin will be sufficient to cause your death.” Ravan laughed. “Daughter, your venom is sweet. I have never heard such words in my life.” “You have imprisoned me these many years, keeping me away from my loved ones. Yet. I do not fear you, you make me sad, angry..but I feel sorry for you, you are kind to your people, and they look to you as one who is favoured by Shiva. My husband will never forgive you for what you have done to me.” “What did I do to you? You wanted to see my garden, I brought you here. A thin pretty girl you were those many years ago. Now look at you, fully endowed with all your faculties, none are harmed.” “You stole me from my husband.” “He left you alone. Now, don’t be angry. You belong to me. Mandodari and I care for you like our daughter. Everything about you is perfection itself. Tell me, what jewels, precious jewels can I gift you today. I know you prefer the fruits of the forests, just like those monkeys who now constantly visit us. Tell me, should I get you rubies like the pomegranates that you eat so readily from my garden? You refuse the food I send you, or which Mandodari brings for you, but you live on the vegetables you grow yourself…does that make you feel more free?” “However you may describe yourself, with your fatherly feelings or not, I know that you will die at the hands of my husband.” “Don’t curse me, daughter. You are what I most value, you have my heart. I have desired you since my sister described you to me…so many years have passed, and you are still as innocent as when I first saw you, playing in the stream in the early morning.” Sita said “You are nothing but an evil man, your love is nothing but the rapaciousness of one who claims his seed in incestuous union. You hate me, you imprison me, but you cannot vanquish me. Ram will come.” “Yes, ofcourse and burn me like an old faggot. I know. One day he will come, but today is not the day. Eat some bananas. I’ll put some new groves for you. The bees will enjoy the flowers, and you shall have their honey. See that monkey up there? I know that’s your husband’s friend. You think I don’t know that he sends his spies. Yes, I know I have very little time, but I will have you for my own, daughter, you who grew up in a palace beloved in Mithila and beyond. I cannot forget that we who travelled by sea aeons ago to come to this beautiful island, the pearl island, still have memories that accompany us of our many travels.” She turned her back to him. She had become used to him, she felt that he was now as familiar as her own face. It was a frightening thought. She who was his slave, his prisoner, had become used to him. Every day he opened the window of his turret room and looked at her. She had nowhere to hide, she felt that he as a villain, as a predator, as a possible rapist, the old man who called himself her father, saying Mandodari had begot her…lies, such lies. She dried her tears, she walked to the edge of the garden where he could not see her as she disappeared into the surrounding woods. Ofcourse he had his inventions, he watched her through a display of mirrors, he had machines of all kinds, her world was circumscribed by his ability to be intuitive, to know what she wanted. She missed her mother, the woman who had given her through childhood, every conceivable skill and gift, who had labored to show her the meaning of the world. Mithila was as beautiful as its rivers, its plains of sweet grasses, its mango trees, its brick kilns. Here, in this rain forest she knew no one, and was allowed near nobody. The loneliness she had known was that of the deer and the leopard as they went their own ways, one in search of the other, the other escaping into hidden crevices. She knew that Ravan was engaged in a battle of wits, by keeping Sita with him he caused immense discomfort to those who loved her. His intention was to make them feel he was all powerful, and as for her, he treated her with delicacy and affection. It seemed to her that his sense of vengeance came from defeat, he had been robbed of everything by the powerful clan of the Ikshus, and now he had his sweet revenge. Chapter 7 “You must think I stole you out of revenge. Not at all. I had forgiven them for desecrating my lands, for treating me as a demon, for slaying my kin. It is the right of rival princes to destroy one another. But now, the battle is a different one. I have spent peaceful years watching over you who are rightfully mine. It is my quest to make you that brought you a life. You might deny it. Mandodari did not want you. She threw you as far as she could. Yet, nature tells us that we rightfully get back what is our own.” Another day, hot and full of the venom of an untiring sun. The rains were not yet due, the forests burnt with a single spark. Sita lay by the cool of the river, watching the dragonflies settle one by one on the white lotus flowers. The old fool was ranting again. There was no end to it. Every day he boasted of his many inventions, his many successes, the love that the people of his land felt for him. Sometimes, between heavy sleep laden lids, for the torpor of the rainforest made her eyes shut involuntarily, she watched him carefully, bleakly, reciting to herself the many shlokas that she and her husband had recited in their courtyards when they were merely children. How easily she had learned them, sung them, invisible to the teachers as she hid in the boughs of trees, looking only to see if Ram could sight her as she dangled her feet, sometimes imitating the sunbird’s call when she thought he had forgotten her. Then he would look up and smile suddenly. Childhood, love, adolescence, adulthood…and then exile. There was nothing to be said for these years of imprisonment. The language of lust and longing went over her head, and was forgotten before Ravan announced them over and over again. “Yes, yes, I can hear you, but it means nothing to me. I have married, I have loved, my heart is taken. What you feel is nothing to me, I cannot understand what you mean, calling me ‘daughter’ and ‘bride’ in the same breath. Is it the custom of your clan to marry a young woman to such a noble chieftain, renowned for his liturgy and ever present love for Shiva yet stealing a girl? You think your devotion to Shiva can save you, but no, my husband will avenge his loss. I only have to wait. I do nothing. Yes, its true I throw away the food that you give me, and eat from the trees and the labour of my hands in the furrows of your land. That is my true home, isn’t it, that I belong to the earth, and bhoomi devi protects me. You can never make me your own, however much you use the language of love and verse..it may come to you from your head, but it does not touch your heart, so filled with hatred and enmity. If you were happy here, why did you come in search of me? I bring you your death.” “One day, when your husband slays me, you will lay your cool hand on me. You will bring to me the penance I seek, remembering that I never caused you any harm, that I watched over you, that I loved you as a father might.” “I will remember only my tears that made your garden fertile, that I have lain by the cool of the river and in the dark bole of trees. You have made me someone who is known only by her skill at survival, who never meets anyone except the forest animals who make me laugh. Look, Anjanya is there. Look up there. Ram is close by.” “Haha! You have been our prisoner for ten years, you have lived in my garden, enjoying my hospitality, if you have cried and missed your simple hut, we have not known about it. Your silence has been our companion, we have learned to love you for your simplicity, and you have never spent a single day outside your present home. You think of us as strangers, as your enemies, but for Mandodari and me you are our guest, the beloved, the one who makes us acceptable to the Gods, for in your company the sun shines brighter.” Sita looked up at the torrid sky. The colours were blueblack, she could hear the roar of the sea, smell the sand as the wind brought to her its heated golden dust. Yes, ten years had passed. When she had first come here, she had been so certain that she would be rescued very soon. But there had been no sign of Rama, no sign of his army, the feet of Lakshman and Bharat had not flitted near her…they were as light as dancers, they had the guile of the birds and the squirrels, always looking at her from afar. Now they must be older men, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. She smiled to herself. They had never forgotten her, nor she them. Ram thought of her every moment. He stood at the edge of that luxurious blue sea, at Rameswaram. He visited every ancient temple, praying to Shiva and Parvati, to Uttara who was always present. He was sure that Shiva would appear. “Even if he does not, I will set Ravan aflame, I will make him the column of fire that he seeks to see. I will set fire to him and his brothers, and his lands and fields. I will set light every single palace he owns, just as we set fire to the fields once the stubble has dried.” Sita could hear him, feel his rage in the dusty storm that had sprung upon them. Ravan was still watching her carefully, his eyes loath to leave her. He could not understand why she was smiling, why she appeared to him in a state of blissful contentment. “ She enjoys my presence. She is pleased I am always here, looking at her. She can sense my tenderness. My love cannot be quantified. All these years, I have watched her from a distance, seeking her to become used to me, to find me familiar as her father, her slave, her bondsman. Let her become used to me, let her forgive me my terrible covetousness. When she becomes used to me, she will not mind that I step closer. She did not know that I encircled her in my arms when she slept….she had no knowledge. Soon, I will become as familiar as her own skin, become her second skin. She will not know the difference between her body and mine. I will slip into her bed, when she lies in her afternoon slumber.” Mandodari was laughing. “You old fool. You thought you could trick me with your stupid invention, a seed, a sapling, a child. You think everyone sucks up your stories as you produce them. Yes, Parvati produced a child to guard her, and you thought that you could produce a daughter who would be your companion. You thought she would be in love with you, and replace me. Fool. Coward. I will deal you death, I will give you a taste of my anger, my rage, my jealous fumes will over power you.” Sita ran from both of them. There was little to choose, her two foes were locked in marriage, which was more like bitter combat. And yet Mandodari often protected Sita from Ravan. It was as if they, as women, had a common bond, it was as if Mandodari was able to understand that her piety which had kept her childless, had been recompensed by the birth of this beautiful woman who like a young tree, stood tall and graceful, her skin dark and gorgeous, her hair long and easily combed though it was as curly as the tendrils on the bitter gourd, the blue grape, the jasmines that she often smelled of.. Mandodari protected her from Ravan by standing between them, by blocking the poor child from the lascivious gaze of the man who claimed that he was her father and had rights of her. Adam’s peak stared down at them, and in the babble of the brooks she thought he actually chanted the dreamtime of an invention, which was about a shared rib. “Its nonsense, what he says is nonsense. My parents in Mithila married me off in great style, and hundreds of people came and were feasted. My parents have always stood by me. They would never believe Ravan’s story of me being born from a mango seed. It is what he says to hide his lack of shame, he says these things to distract people with his fabrications, just as people weave cloth, Ravan uses words to beguile. How can I have been born to you, Mandodari? What is the meaning of these words with which he covers up my birth. Who am I? I shall ask this question till the day I die. Ram does not spend a day, no, even a moment without thinking of me, and how he may wrest me from my captivity. I am only the excuse… the real question of fate lies in Ravan’s death…only his death can free me.’ “You can think what you like, and spend as many days and years plotting and planning against me. But I shall die of old age, with you by my side.” “This marriage that you conceive of with your own daughter is against nature.” “Mandodari, I produced her from nothing, she is my daughter, but I can marry her, because she is not of my blood.” Day after day, Sita had heard the couple wrangling and felt that in his drunkenness Ravan had absorbed the legends by which a man could marry his brother’s daughter, first claiming her as his own, and then distancing her by suitable phrases. She found his lust at first alarming, then she was amused by it, wondering what had caused him to look towards her from his flying machine as she played in the cool sparkling streams when she was but a child, exiled to the forest by her husband’s jealous step mother. Ravan had fallen into a rage. Just like Mandodari and Suprankha, he could vent in a language which made Sita hide for days. It was as if he could imagine whole worlds into existence, and at every syllable he took Ram’s name. She thought it was odd that for someone who hated her husband, and wished him dead every day, he spent all his time thinking of him. “Only a lover thinks of his beloved as much as you think of my husband. You take his sacred name all the time. I am sure it can only bring you good fortune. Your venom will be the cause of your death. His vengeance will be total, for he has sworn to burn you like dried kusa grass. Wait and see, Ravan. He will come for you, your beauty will bite the dust.” “No, dear daughter, he is busy with his books, he remembers you, he thinks of you, but my time machine tells me that his army of good friends keeps him busy. He has to feed them, he has to stand up to the seasons, it is true that he loves you but he will not be wresting the waves to rescue you. I have a time machine, I am the greatest inventor the planet has ever seen. I can see him, I know where he is now. I tell you, he is busy with his tasks, as all his forest friends see him as Prince of the Universe.” “There is no need to gnash your teeth…you can never come near me. I am girdled by the great serpents that keep you at bay.” “I can wear your serpents around my neck. I can smash them, I can pull out their forked tongues.” “You will never find me, because I can disappear. You seek me, but you are always empty handed”. “You think your words mean anything. Your husband has been searching for you since you were a young girl. Now, look at you, at the pride of womanhood, wearing thin white muslin clothes, my prisoner, fed by my wife. Come, come, you are just a used up old rag, a wasted foot mat. No one even notices you. I look out my window every morning, and I remember you for your great beauty.” “I have no mirror to look at myself. I never grew old because I knew that my husband would come, and for him I preserved my youth and my innocence. For him, I preserved my virtue. There are no ways into the wood, except from the boughs of the trees. My illnesses are few and they are cured by eating the berries in the woods, and drinking the bitter juice of boiled bark of trees. You, old man, you have committed the double sin of desiring me, and simultaneously adopting me. Your virtue remains in that you take my husband’s name everyday, and in repeating it, in the hope of seeing him, you have signed your death warrant and foretold your redemption.” “Alas, dear daughter, your theology is homespun, and you are only too wise in warning me that your husband will one day be here. We shall greet him with fire in the woods, we will burn the woods and hunt him down.” “He says the same of you. He says he will burn you like wild kusa grass.” “So you are also adept in telepathy. I too carry the messages the wind brings. I too know his plans by virtue of the airwaves. I keep my head blank. I do not like my thoughts to wander, but they intercept the thoughts of others. The virtue of Kings is to keep their empires strong. I have made this island my own, my renown spreads beyond its borders, and my learning runs to the realms of magic. No one understands the future as well as I. With my flying machines I have travelled across the oceans. They fly faster than thought, and according to you, I am merely the fool that hangs around waiting for his own death.” Mandodari appeared, and started chastising Sita for talking back. “You should have respect for him. He is your honourable host. He has protected you these many years, and found you wandering in the forest, while your husband was chasing the river’s source. How could you have wandered off and lost your way. Now, come, it is hot afternoon, you must rest. We will look after you as long as you need our help. Do not think of us as jailers. We are only here to help you in any way we can. “ “Every day, I have to hear all this nonsense. These lies. I know how much you hate me, you have done nothing for me except make fun of me, blaming me for my misfortune. I have no fear. I lack nothing. I live with my husband as I always did. He knows that I am your captive, but he longs for me to return to him, and he reassures me with his many promises that the breeze brings to me. The voices I hear are always comforting. You believe me to be foolish and impatient. What you do not realize that very early we understood that time meant nothing, we were bonded, we can never be separated from one another. These bodies are but symbols of history and time, but in reality we are the keepers of the earth, of existence, of love, laughter, the seasons. Do not be fooled by our manifestations.” Ravan stared at her for a bit. He had no idea that she could twirl him around her thumb. He was transfixed by her speech. His eyes were glazed, he felt that he was swallowed up by her beauty, her poise. He felt that all the universe was caught in her brown eyes, which through some star crossing made her different from other women. “There is something foreign about you”, he said hesitantly. She started laughing. There were times when this ferocious elderly man, who should have treated her tenderly and kindly as her father had, behaved like an adolescent. She was not afraid of him. She staved him off with kind words, she reminded him of the existence of her husband, she restricted his approach by putting obstacles in his path. She had grown used to her enemy, he had become familiar, a little idiotic. He fumbled with his weapons, he rolled his eyes, he looked for Ajneya, whom he too recognized watching them from the trees. He had an odd sense of foreboding, for Sita said, “Ram will come for you, he loves me, he prays that I return to him unharmed. I will tell him that you guarded me, your prisoner, never let harm come my way, that you protected me from the elements and the wild animals. I came to you as your guest, eager to see your orchards, never imagining that I would become a prisoner. I cannot protect you when my husband comes to claim me, he will set fire to your kingdom, and you, and all that you treasure will go up in flames.” “Go catch a bath my dear. No point threatening me with words, your images have a certain vitality to them, a sense of how warriors wives must behave in captivity. I have put some beautiful black fish in the lotus pond. The are speckled with divine patterns. Why not go look at them. They will calm you down. All this talk of my imminent death confounds me. I have been up since dawn and now must go up to my rooms. A king must not spend all his time with his pet deer and slaves. You are neither, my dear daughter, I have given you freedom of speech, and it is that you use against me.” Sita thought that if she went towards the pond with the white water lilies it would look like she was obeying him. Instead, she wandered away further into the woods. Bisrakh’s fort stood out in the afternoon sun, somber and huge. He had built it to protect himself from his enemies, namely Ram and Laxman, adding rooms and turrets at every turn, expecting a siege. Sita thought that to live in continuous fear was against nature. Rivals had their reasons to go into combat, but war was a terrible thing, it destroyed more than it could ever be possible to gain or recover. Her beauty and her youth were no longer in question, as petals must fall, so must she. Ram often called her Bhoomi Devi, but now, it was absorption in the earth that was her fate. Just as she looked towards the sea and the horizon, wondering when Ram would arrive, Anjaneya beckoned. Chapter 8 “I thought it was you.” “The years have been kind to you.” “Ravan and Mandodari pose as my parents and have given me every comfort.” “Ram is near, just on the other side of the water. You will hear his bugle soon.” “I am glad to hear it. “ “You will have to come with me before the war starts before the fires begin. Between rival kings there is no mercy. So we must leave soon.” “They were enemies aeons ago, but now Ravan has slided into indifference, he does not care if he lives or dies. He truly believes that the years have been kind to me, and that I have adjusted to my condition, living under the Ashoka trees. He plies me with rich foods, hoping that will put me into a delicious slumber. He is fascinated by my flat belly, and constantly wishes to touch me, as his ‘daughter’, he says…but I know by my prayers that Ram recites the shlokas we learned as children, I do too, which were destined to keep me safe. What are prayers to the Gods! It is that moment of utter concentration, that utter belief I have in our lives as mendicants. We were thrown into that condition by the avarice of Kaikeyi. She did not wish us to have a home. Her jealousy of our mutual love was enough to throw us out of our own home. She would not let us even enter. Now I know that Ram is coming to save me, the mountains, rives, lakes and the sea echo with my happiness. He understands me as no one else. Anjaneya looked at Sita. “Lady, your husband has been planning this for so many years. Every step has been discussed with me. The forests are filled with my army. They have long arms and they twist themselves around the tree trunks, and hide themselves in clusters of leaves. We have been living here for many yeas. We know the lie of the land, and how to run and hide when we have been spotted. Ravan’s many magical glasses and sound capturing deices have not been able to locate us. Leave it to me, I am waiting for the next eclipse, so when it’s a curdled moon, your husband will land and wage war. They are fulfilling their destiny. Each one knows the outcome, but the battle has not been won, yet. We cannot jump the claims of history or time. Now, for a year or two you must act as if everything is the same. I promise you that we will be here soon.” “A year or two. He has been at my bedside every morning, saying the oddest things. I have befriended him, to allay his suspicions. The years of my youth have been lost. Should Ram not come soon, I will never be able to bear heirs. My life will come to nothing. We who are women we know that we are born to serve. It frightens us, for we may not ask for anything but this privilege. If we do not, then we are thrown out, cast away, we become as nothing. We are taught that we exist only because we carry out other people’s wishes. We are here only by virtue of our consent to carry out the will of the men who give birth, or marry us. Ravan says that I am his child, born of misfortune, sneezed out like a misplaced pumpkin seed. On better days, he says I am born of a mango seed, he planted in a furrow, and gifted to his wife, but she didn’t want me, and threw me, and her aim was so good, I landed in Mithila. Have you heard such lies? My mother who oiled my hair, scrubbed my feet, and taught me to paint is now nothing but a foster mother. I have spent many years in the company of Ravan and his wife, and that Suprankha who is the cause of all my troubles. She was jealous of the love Ram had for me, so she sent her brother to look for me in the forest.” The little squirrel ran into their path, it’s grey coat was streaked with black stripes. “It looks like you do not have to wait that long!” “Why?”Sita asked hopefully. “Ram has sent his emissary to me.” “Ah, yes, the little grey squirrel with the black streaks…. Delightful fellow, travels close to his master’s heart. I didn’t see any ships or flags in the sea…how could Ram have arrived unannounced. I was dreading having to wait another year or two. You have no idea how slowly time has passed in the company of these people, my hosts, who have demanded that I see them every day and listen to their long stories, always the same, about how long they have waited for revenge against the lords of Ayodhya. Now, fires will rage, we will all be in danger, but so be it..better than absorbing all that hate clothed in fine words which Ravan and Mandodari bring to my bed every morning. Mandodari says that when I was born, I was very tiny, they did not think I would survive, and so she had me sent to Mithila, and left me in a furrow….as if I would have survived such a long journey..but then Ravan says I was born from his temple, meaning his head, and then transported in his flying machine. They can say anything, they just have to believe their own lies, and then it becomes truth for everyone. I have survived only by my ability to be polite, to make them feel that indeed, I am their guest, and I am their honoured friend. They fight among themselves, but to me they have only been most courteous, and ofcourse they never let Suprankha come near me. They know that she would try to kill me. I hear her shouting at her brother and his wife sometimes. Its enough to make one deaf. She keeps saying, “I know you have let someone in. I know it. Didn’t I tell you to keep the doors shut.“ Her brother fears her, he always try to make peace. He says, “Beautiful eyed Suprankha. So you fear invaders. Cannot you hear the silence. Breathe, my dear. You are too lovely to behold. I could never marry you off to a stranger. Your temper makes life difficult for Mandodari. Everyone can hear you screaming. You live in a torpor of unfulfilled desire. You still think of Ram. You remember him, and wish the years would roll back and you were their guest, unknown, a stranger, but loved. Oh, my dear, I stole his wife from him, only out of curiosity. You could not have him, so I wanted his wife to be robbed of the pleasures of bed and his constant company. Is that not proof of my love for you.” Can you imagine! What wicked people I have fallen into the company of. They rejoice that I am alone, they puncture my solitude with their errant behavior. They feel that if I am left to myself I will surely die. But Anjaneya, I was always alone. They would have married me to the peepal tree if they could have. It’s the custom, when they see a girl like me, they think I would be safer in the company of my ancestors. I was never afraid. Now, I know that when Ram arrives, I should be ready. I will pack my few belongings and make ready to leave with you.” Anjaneya laughed. “It’s not that easy. We have to take you away secretly. Not a mistake can be made, or else if you lose your life in the accompanying battle then all will be lost. I have been asked to take you away without Ravan’s knowledge. That give me only a few hours when he sleeps. You know he chants all night, with his eyes open…his only wish is to bedeck you with rubies, and keep you by his side. He is one minded. They call him rakshasa in the Northern kingdom, but here in the south, we know him well as a careful and honourable king, who studies the scriptures and prays to Shiva and to Krishna. He is the enemy of your husband, he has however many lineages who can burn you down to ashes. You think hatred is the only catalyst between two kings? No, when it comes to loyalty it is much more resilient. We do not know how many are followers of this king who is known to us by name only. But we talk too much. My Lord will not like it. He swears us to silence so that he can plan your safe return. He has spent many years learning the maps of the sea, the monsters that lie below, the strange caverns that bedeck the ocean floor. If anything happens to you, it is us who will have to pay with our heads. My men are also courageous, but sometimes they are fool-hardy. I have to be careful with my instructions, lady. They sometimes get into fights and become visible. We know that Ravan has planted mirrors in the forks of trees which radiate back to him through sunlit glades, recreating images. He knows where we are now, he sees us as warm emissions of light…He then sends his men, come you must return to your garden. No one must know that we have spoken.” Sita hurried back, stopping to swim in the lotus pond. She sat on the swing below the large tree, whose boughs were black with age, their thickness proof of the years that she had spent in this garden. The trunk was larger than any she had seen before, and its leaves sharp and pointed and green, transparent in the evening light. It had been many hours since she had gone, but no one seemed to have noticed. To have seen Anjaneya atlast, of whom she had heard so much as a child, was a great gift. She felt safe, secure, hopeful. What he said, he would do. He was like a rock, patient, logical, just. Now all she must do is not show that she had understood the plan: wait, be still, have trust. Anjaneya knew what to do, he had received a sign. The army hid in the trees, they were many, they were adept and fearless. It seemed odd that the day was coming close that she had waited for, hoping it would bring her the one she longed for most. Had he forgotten how time would change her? She had tried so hard to keep her jewels, but Mandodari had taken them from her as soon as she arrived. As for Ravan, he promised her the treasures of his mines, but they were just words, for he would never bring them to the garden for his prisoner to look at. She had been happy with the flowers she saw every day, and the exquisite colours of the butterflies. Nothing pleased her as much as the beginning of each day, and the colours of the morning sky. She was only a girl, and when she saw the moon, the stars, the sun, she thought with pleasure that her husband could see them too. In the garden, Ravan was waiting. “So you met with Hanuman. You think I did not know. You think I am stupid. No, Sita! I know every plan you have, your value to me is not your servitude…it is the opposite..that you actually think you are a free being. It makes me believe that I am generous in letting you live. You become the wick of the candle I light every day in prayer, I am the humble devotee to the great Lord Shiva. He gives me every wish, I bring for him the choicest fruits and flowers, and burn the sweetest incense. We who live in this earthly paradise, value our every possession. For us, this is the new world, we do not miss what we lost, nor do we think about it. Bisrakh is still the place where our ancestors roam, but you, my dear are my trophy…even Mandodari has no share in you.” “How can one human being own another. We are not cattle. We have thoughts, feelings. We know what we want. I have never coveted some one else’s things. I grew up with my husband. It is true we were children, but he put me in the care of his mother. She fed me first, putting all the other children aside. If you demand that I behave to you as a girl to her father, why have you let me grow old, waiting in your garden. What is the reason that you robbed me of my youth, took away everything that was most precious, left me alone and without reason or thought, allowed me to while away the hours in your garden. It’s the cruelest thing that any man could do, to pretend love, even fatal desire, and leave me uncared for, with no one to talk to. You left me alone.” “Its not I who left you alone. It was your husband, making kidnapping you ever so easy.” “So you admit it. You admit that you robbed me of my life, and made me your prisoner.” “My sister was humiliated by your husband and his brother.” “Let’s not go into that old story. Its not the first time we have visited it. She tried to steal my husband.” “And for that she was summarily banished with no explanation.” “My husband will come to fetch me. He is close by now.” “So I have got the information I sought.“ Sita turned away. She would not let Ravan win battle after battle, it was as if in these conversations, he sought to be her friend, and then catapulted back into being that most familiar persona, her enemy, insulting her in a very convivial tone. She had grown old waiting. Ten years had made her wise. She had no idea how her husband had spent the years. He was attractive to women, they were always pursuing him, and he gave them fragments of time, which they cherished, believing that it was equally precious in memory to him. She had seen how many of them sought his promise to return, and to each he said. “My marriage to Sita is inviolable. I will see you again, and I thank you for your company.” These simple courtesies were sufficient for these languorous women, and even the most active of them, who had spent many years in pursuit of Ram would withdraw to their household responsibilities, care of parents, care of immediate members of their recognized family. They understood that he did not want them to abnegate the rights and privileges of family life, their every day routines, their marriages past or future. All these lovely willing ladies, throwing themselves at her husband…how many more had appeared while she was absent, swearing fealty to him and his clan, promising him male children. Sita wept. She herself had always been so loved, so full of an ephemeral evanescent joy, nothing tangible, nothing visible, an aura of contentment that followed her like the perfume from the earth aafter a drizzle of rain. So be it. She dried her tears. So her enemy had foreknowledge, he would use it to expand his army, but he did not know that the battle was won only when he was dead. She would wait. Let him die, by fire or sleep, it did not matter to her. She did not seek vengeance. Just suppose this incestuous bastard was actually her father? Chapter 9 Rameswaram had been hot. The blue waters of the beautiful sea ran side by side with the tree lined roads maintained by the princes of small principalities. The blue sky matched the waters. Hundreds of people walked in line to see the temples. Ram’s ambitious plan to recover his wife was part of the shared mission of many hundreds of people, who saw it as their divine quest. His goodness and justice had been bequeathed to them by many delegated orders that his brother Bharat carried out for him. Bharat had not a streak of vanity, or envy, he always acted merely as his brother’s envoy. And Laxman was forever impatient, that they cross the sea to Lanka. The sea stretched, but it was indeed blessed with a horizon. It seemed as if the winds were in their favour, and his people were ready to cross the waters with him. They were men and women, not all warriors, but simple farmers who wanted their princess returned back to him. Hanuman had left a huge stone in a pond near their homes to remind them that he could move mountains for his princess. They knew that he was now in the company of Sita. Those who had heard of the plan to bring Sita back had just picked up their bows and arrows, and axes and clubs, for who would not seek to bring back their lovely queen? Though many years had passed, they remembered her for the curly haired child, with the quartz eyes, resplendent in her simple clothes, loved by all for her free will and her love for her husband which she had carried like a talisman. Everyone knew of the mutual love between them. Even their adversaries knew that they could not be separated from one another, though many tried. Word had come to them from Hanuman that Ravan had tried to conquer Sita by guile and lies, while keeping her captive in his garden. He was known for his wit, his malicious intent, his enmity to all those who stood in his path. Yet, the monkey army had been able to penetrate his well known fort. They had arrived in small groups, hiding themselves in his garden, waiting for the appropriate moment when they could take Sita and run. They had no magical bird, they only had their will to defeat a common enemy, and take her and run, with the intent of escaping through the forest and reaching the shore. Boats would be waiting for them, and while Ravan gave chase, Ram and Laxman would arrive. There is no innocence in war. Everyone knows their role, they each know what they must do, and not do. Ram’s army of ordinary people were ready to give up their lives for their Lord. They only knew that laying down their lives had not been demanded of them, and they had voluntarily arrived. The local people, subjects of Ravan were not their friends or enemies. They were mainly villagers too, some writers, soldiers and politicians among them, who stood firmly supporting Ravan. For them the insult to their Princess Supranka was answered by an abduction of Sita. They were sorry that that virtuous couple had lost the opportunity of spending beautiful years together, eating food from their villages in the forest. When were they ever exiled when even the forests were their private property? The grass cutters, keepers of cows, bee hives, fruit orchards, the hunters and farmers were all their own beloved people. They were known to be good paymasters, never allowing favours to go unnoticed. They could have spent 14 years in ‘exile’ very comfortably together in the company of the obsessively loyal Laxman, who not only got them their food, he also regularly sent his carrier pigeons with news to his younger brothers and his wife. Being born of different mothers had never made any difference to them. They were all very joined together in love and loyalty. Ram lay under the great tree that marked his camp in the precincts of an ancient temple. The stones were quarried from the mountains. They had absorbed the heat of the sun, but Laxman, always attentive had sprinkled water. It was late evening, and a transparent moon could be seen. It was a thin slice of moon, like a sliver cut from a water melon. He stared at it, thinking it was some days since the new moon. Sita had always been afraid of the dark nights of eclipses and new moons. She would plaintively say that it was a time when the monks never spoke to women, and shaved their heads. She looked anxiously to see if Ram had shaved his hair. Would he repudiate her? Would he keep her away from the marriage bed? Well, she was only a child. He had been always patient with her. Since the time that Sita had been abducted, she had slept in the grove of trees, the servants always protecting her from bats and bees and snakes and wild animals, by the sacred fumes of tree resins brought from the groves. They had boiled her cinnamon water for her bath and for her early morning infusion. It was only Mandodari’s choicest foods that she threw away. For the rest, she lived like any hermit would, not looking for human company, but not declining their attentions. She really could not tell the difference between night and day, there were no events to mark them. Her dreams ran through the hours, linking her to her loved ones. She had no idea about their whereabouts, because she averted her face when Ravan told her about her kin, for he had news of all kinds, every day, for nothing escaped him. She knew that he was trying to be kind. Yet, she shut her ears. Ofcourse, it was revenge that had motivated the abduction. He had admitted it himself. In his magical garden, where fruit trees abounded, and the silkworms made their cocoons, she crooned to herself the beautiful verses her mother had taught her as a child. When the early morning fires were kindled with the first rays of the sun, she chanted those verses she had learned in the company of her husband. What was she going to do, when she met him again? Would he be bored by her, now that she had wilfully chosen the path of silence? Would they have anything in common? Earlier, he had basked in her peacefulness, said his best work was done in her company. Ofcourse, they had known that he was being trained as a soldier to fight and vanquish a famous warrior. There was no getting away from a destiny they had been warned of. They needed, then, the manifold ignorance which romantic love provides as a shield. They had disclosed their fear of imminent separation from their mothers, who had merely comforted them, saying that soothsayers always used the light from the stars which were indeed very far away to explain to their clients their obscure calculations. Anyway, the time was not now. And so they had gone back to their well loved pursuits. It was necessary that he continued his studies of military histories, and she started to note down in detail which of the shlokas that they both knew by heart which were to be painted. The gorgeous colours entranced her. She knew that after her death, for they were mortals after all, these paintings with the fish eyed goddess would remind her people that she had indeed been loved. There was no use in trying to avert fate. As soon as she had seen Suprankha, she knew that this woman had enough ambition and energy to separate her from her husband. “There is no fairness in love and war!” Supranakha would announce loudly to all present. Sita and Kaushalya had been surprised at the invocations of their guest. They had looked at each other, puzzled. Their goodness and piety was a dirge for their visitor, who sought to humble them at every turn. And yet, yet, their melancholic good manners prevailed. They tried very hard to be accommodating, for these guests usually brought alliances and political weight with them. The women were taught to be in accordance with her husband’s ambitions, but in this case, they were not very clear who they were appeasing. Since she came in with so much valour and beauty, they presumed that she was known to the clan. How could a guest enter the private chambers and be accommodated? How could she be allowed to access the intimate details of their inner lives? Yet, now, languishing in a garden with no hope of any kind, as her husband had not sent any further emissaries, Sita wondered how much longer she would have to suffer imprisonment. Every morning, Ravan asked her in the kindest terms, whether she had slept well, whether she had eaten the meal that Mandodari had made for the family? He knew he would be met with an averted face, but still he persisted. “And how do you feel today? Give me your hand. Let me feel your pulse.” She felt anxious, hearing his soft confidential burr. It would be hard proving that he had not touched her. He boasted to the servants that he had lain with her. Would it be possible? Had she encouraged him? Had she by some form of unacknowledged gesticulation communicated that she was his subject? So many years had passed in his courteous company, that she was now anxious that her tears had not dissolved her heart which was made of stone. Fear rent her awake. Yes, it was true, the claims that he was her father were in themselves lewd. He assumed that his learning was sufficient to prove his case, that as the keeper of mysteries he was a most powerful person. Only his wife understood his claim to being the great priest king, and forgave him every calumny. Sita wondered where Ram was. What beautiful damsel now held his attention, promising him sons: the eternal demand that vainglorious men had in their small principalities, which women sought to fulfill. The coexistence of dream time meant that he could always assure them he would return, but in this life, he belonged to Sita. She had heard that many times. Ram’s absence, Ravan’s continual assurance that he would never hurt her, all of it was beginning to confuse her. When would Ram find a way to release her from this bondage. She had heard that he was at Rameswaram. She knew the beaches well, and the long queues of those who waited for the sight of the Gods, and the supplication of the men and women who sought boons. Ofcouse the Gods and their consorts waited. They lived because the people breathed life into them. It was now late morning. Sita wondered if she had dreamed of the conversation on the beach. It had made her head spin, thinking of how close escape was. When would they come to fetch her? Who would it be? Would Ram send Laxman? No, she doubted it. He would be in the front line of war. He had invented a new form of artillery not requiring human presence, just a press of a button. Ravan had boasted of such a weapon in his armoury, but Laxman had made one ready too. They would not be needing a large army, if that were the case. Preparations for war had taken a very long time indeed, but with such a disaster weapon, they would need less than a night to mop up their victory. She waited for night to descend. The candle in Ravan’s turret burned late. He slept very little, like his sister he needed very few hours of sleep. As Sita lay, twisting and turning, she saw that the sky was suddenly alight, it was on fire. The war was on. Chapter 10 Her sons had asked her, “Was it ten days that you were prisoner? That’s what the parathi (washerwoman) says when she washes clothes and tells us stories.” “Perhaps. It felt like ten years. I went into the enchanted garden a girl, and came out a woman, who was creased by time and nothingness. I was to hide in the boat when the war was waged, but it went awry, because it dashed on the rocks, and brought me back to shore. I had to wait knowing that if I was found I would be locked away. That war, it burned the garden where I was hdden, and would have killed me too, as it spread from the beach at a rapid speed. The fires which Ravan started were lethal, not just annihilation but a fog of poisonous fumes which spread everywhere. And Laxman’s weapon with the newest technology did not work. It rained, the fires were not extinguished, it grew dark, your father and his brother were wounded. As were Hanuman’s men. He had with him the sanjeevini which he had got in bulk with him, bringing many herbs together not recognizing the real medicines among the multitude of plants. I too managed to survive the poison fires because Mandodari came to our help, and hid us, and told us where Ravan and his brothers were, giving up through her whispers their secret lairs, in revenge for his many betrayals. Whatever be the cause of our victory, it was hard won. Ram came to fetch me, as I lay hidden, refusing to leave with Anjaneya. He was a bachelor, you know that, so even if I had accompanied him when he wished to leave with me before the war began, I had explained that I would leave only with my husband. I never imagined that my cautiousness about my virtue would come to naught because as we were leaving, Ravan, dying from the fires that melted his kingdom, suddenly held my hand. “Remember your promise. Remember the benediction. Pull me out of my grave. Drag me out from the hole your husband has left me in. Help me.” I could not wrench my hand free, and so I gave him the blessing of Bhoomi Devi. I could not withhold it. It came to me as easily as Mandodari passing us state secrets. Something asked, something delivered. Sometimes we don’t know why we do what we do. His large eyes were beseeching, he was already melting with the heat of his own warrior inventions, and Ram’s wrath coupled with Hanuman’s dexterity and bringing things to a conclusion. There was no end to the treachery of war and mutual hatred. I wanted him to be peaceful at last. Bisrakh of the lost kingdom, the heart gone astray, the man thought to be a demon by some, including my husband and all our kin, and yet, in hindsight, an intellectual loyal to his own. Was I mistaken, that I should have shut his eyes when he died? He was our enemy, but he had been my constant companion for ten years…can you imagine? Knocking at my heart every day, asking for my love, begging for my tenderness, clutching at my hand but not receiving even a glance from me. How his wife must have hated me. She watched us with a deadened gaze, hurting from his indifference, and the insults of his sister. She was after all someone who understood that his lust was knitted in his very being, that he longed for coitus with a woman whom he had conjured to meet this very need. How repulsed Mandodari was that he tried to pass me on to her, as his ‘daughter’. Constantly asking her to cover up his sly attempts at seducing me, watching me as I aged from day to day, knowing that my tragedy would one day be his downfall. And Ram looked at me, thinking, “What is she doing? Why is she giving Ravan this moment of condolence, why is she the last thing his iris sees and imprints in his dying brain. This is odd.” Hanuman gave me an odd look too, I am sure that the parati, your washer woman, was not wrong when she said that the war took only a week, ten days at the most. They say that in Adam’s hill too, it took seven days to create the universe. And six days for my father in law to die. Is time so graspable, counted only by full moons? And Ravan also said to his wife that I was Hava, born of the rib cage of the first woman born from man. I was born from that relic bone which he fermented in obsidian glass, and so he explained my brown eyes and black hair…they were merely genetic hand me downs which he had nurtured, and created me. So I was not born of him, and he could marry me, if he wished. Such a beautiful man, full of odd longings. Every day I saw him, and I was repelled by his lust. Every day he came to me, bathed and shining, full of an unnameable ardour. So that’s why the washerwoman says that it took only ten days to find him, and then in the palace in Ayodhya she would wink and say, “ She lay in the garden, and when she was asleep he lay with her.” Did I know that? My heart was full of that leaden hatred, that sense of being continually vandalized by his hate. As for his ten heads, which she boasted were buried with him, that was the fantasy of those who interred him in the soil while I redeemed him from his wounds and sores. I had that much humanity, to know that my jailor is capable of pain, and believes himself to be omnipotent when alive, and merely a soft spineless venomous creature when defeated. He was on fire, I saved him with the beneficence of the cool earth which makes no distinctions between friends and foes, and absorbs all easily. So as a joke, they buried a well worked effigy of nine heads which fitted well together. he was buried with it. Ram was pleased to burn the many effigies that came up. Only a vast turbulent sea had stood between him and me. Why would he not burn Ravan a thousand times? Or perform sacrifices to commend me after my death? All his life, and he lived long as warrior and king, he burned Ravan. We who are human, we hate with a terrible intensity, while avowing love for the gods. We are without mercy when we accost those who took that which was most precious. And so it was with Ram and Ravan, whose stories were told differently in Lanka and Ayodhya. I was the catalyst, the manner by which a prophesy became fulfilled. It was about the punishment meted out for a borrowed time, both the lust that served Suprankha well, when she desired my husband, and for the reciprocal lust that Ravan had for me. This is what Ravan said, “So! He invites my sister as his guest, and introduces her to his wife and mother. He takes her to the family chambers. He lives in proximity with her. He says she invited herself. She left her garments on their marriage bed. So she was ousted by his brother Laxmn, for her covetousness. In rerurn, I will steal his wife, and show him what absence does, how corrosive it is. I will show him my sinister face, let him think on it, every time that he reads his kinship charts and speaks of Karna. I, Bisrakh will tie his hands with an amulet, the kind which brothers tie on their sisters. He will try to meet his wife, and fail. He will try to kill me, but the amulet of memory will absorb his wrath. He will seek her return but she will be my ward, my daughter and she will not remember how she arrived or how she left.” But such a man did exist, the handsome warrior who conquered and raped without compunction. Our soldiers have done the same, when they came to Lanka. They killed all those whom they could lay hands on. They raped many women, and they attacked many small children. War, they said, loftily. These are our enemies. They would do the same to us, if they ever set foot on our lands. Hanuman knew he could not control his foot soldiers. His only intent was to save me. He would do anything for me, but he was also very knowledgeable. He knew that others would spy on us, disgrace us, with rumours and lies, so he always laughed and said “Not now” every time I asked him to take me to Ram. Then, I got tired of waiting, and I said, “I will only go with my husband.” Yet, I agreed to go in the boat waiting for me, but then, the battle got dangerous, and I was hidden away so that I did not have to see the continual violence. Being wooed by Ravan every day for ten years was a splinter in my soul. Every day, he called me by sweet names, endearments I dare not describe. Mandodari read the poems he wrote for me. She was shocked, but she trusted me, and in the end she became our ally. We could do nothing in all that time as Ravan sat by me, longing, looking, demanding. At night, I called his name, beseeching him to leave me alone. Mandodari heard me. She cooled my brow, and tried to awaken me. Did the washerwoman hear what I felt, how I cried, how my heart broke in two? She was always present, accompanying me, fearing for me, my intimate because she knew every aspect of my life. And so it was to her that Rama turned for advice. “Did she menstruate while I was away” “Yes, my Lord.” “Were her sheets wrinkled with shapes other than her own.” “No, my Lord!” It was not surprising that my husband asked these questions. If not him, Laxman would have. They knew every detail of what happened when I was a captive. They even knew the names of my pet deer, and their fawns. They were jealous of every passing breeze, and they had heard Ravan shouting that he loved me, that I was his creation. They assumed that meant ownership, and they sullied their warrior minds with the thought that Ravan had possessed me. How could I convince them, when I myself did not know what had happened when I slept. The dream time that I entered was so horrible, so full of death and vituperation, that even the continually hallucinating Suprankha could not tolerate my cries for help. The garden where I was hidden away became my refuge, it was where the small grey crickets took over the surface of the clear waters of the pond. It was where the dragonflies came to rest, where the well dressed tree frogs came to dance in their yellow coats polka dotted with red…I had never seen them before, these lovely creatures, amphibians of a lovely land. That’s why when your father put me through the test of the gossip of the people who did not want me to be by his side I returned to the rain forest. I came here, to Pupally, because I had ways by which I could meet the hills and trees and grasses, the forest people, smell the fragrance of the kundrikam, the tree resin, when the local people burnt their fire wood, and yes, I learned to live with my memories. Here, with every torrential season of rain, I knew that one day I would die, that the land would rent me open as if I was nothing but a jackfruit tree, scoured from inside to store clear water. These kennis, like the bee hives, each so round and rich and thick with the sponge that stored honey were my symbols for continuing life, which I had to promise you. I was put aside for purposes of state craft, my very identity was absorbed into the golden image, as if I was a deer to be crafted by goldsmiths and paraded. So be it, the malice of my own servers, who could not bear our coupling, who could not be witnesses to the great passion that your father and I had they became the questioners of my virtue. They passed every rumour, exulting in my loneliness, my loss of speech, my selfhood which no longer existed except as the shadow of who I had become. Interred for ten days, or ten years, separated from my loved ones, how could I expect to be what they wanted to be. A mendicant living on the fruits of the deranged lord of another land, refusing the cooked food from his kitchens, speaking to myself, watching the monkeys in the trees…I who had a vulture for a pet! So, we returned to Ayodhya, spent by our passion and our renewal. We lived together for the duration of our journey, the people of the South as vehement in our joy, saying a demon has been destroyed, and the people of our own allied kingdoms delighting in our journeys and our successes. How were we to know, that this placid love which had withstood every calamity, every possible obstacle would fall into the pit of this continual dissonance, the chant to prove my chastity while in the hands of Ravan. He was greedy, it is true, his eyes always lit up with hope when he saw me. He tried to touch me, in the presence of his wife, who was sympathetic to me for the travail that I had to undergo. Yet, he knew, and I knew that his head would burst asunder in the memory of previous curses which had been heaped on him. There was nothing for me to do, really. He had to meet his fate, as just as I met mine. And Ram, my husband, was he not a scholar, as much as he was a warrior? He got tired of the questioning that continually led to suspicion about me. He thought the easiest way would be the agnipariksha, the mouth of the volcano, of agnilingam. “Go prove your chastity! Do your job. Calm the people! Let me get on with my work.” It wasn’t easy, but I had no choice. Sometimes, love and longing throw you into the abyss unasked. I walked through the fire, remembering to cool my body with water (all water is holy) and then I ran over the coals so fast that my feet did not burn.” And then? “We couldn’t go back to each other, and the needle of suspicion always hovered over my head, so continually was it poised. That murmur, that glance, that raised eyebrow, that sudden laugh..suspicion like Suprankha’s continually missing nose is our punishment for taking a path which others do not. And that is the assertion of a common humanity. Its not easy to say that I was virtuous. The word is a description of actions, and I had none other than staying alive, believing that my husband would return for me. He had to fight a war, they say I was the cause. No, it was that they were enemies pitted across aeons, and would always recognize each other and go for the kill. I had no one to fight for…and your birth, my sons, was to avert the ashvamedha, which according to legend, required me to lie under it. There were many things the scriptures ordained, and I lacking teachers or texts, being there by chance, heard them in the wind. Here the rainy season rages. We are hidden away for four long months. If your father or Hanuman comes, I will ask them why they made me undergo the agni pariksha, the fire travels, the fire trials. I will lock up your uncle and make him witness to my agony. I will keep him here as my prisoner till he answers my question. I am no longer that girl he watched from tree tops in the Ashoka groves…I am a woman who has known hunger and death, and the friendships of the poorest people of the land. I will not go away without asking these questions.” Hearing this, her sons became witness to the earth opening up and swallowing up their mother when their father after a long absence returned only to ask his wife, “Ready to return? Ready to face the enquiries of the people, my people. Were you faithful, loyal, careful of your virtue?” We tied up our adoptive uncle, whom our mother called Anjaneya. We sought answers for her suffering. He could say nothing, except smile and say,”That was her fate. She encountered it with courage. Bhoomi devi gave her great strength to face what was her lot. We were there to help her when she most needed it. You cannot punish your father. He is what he is, his burden is his to bear. If he forgot your mother in the long years that she lived in the forest with you, well, that was fate too. He was busy with his studies, he always felt that he needed to take care of his kingdom, his people. What they wanted, was what he wanted. He was always loyal to your mother, turning away these many eager women who accosted him at every turn. Your mother always said that his kingdom meant more to him, but truly, these are obligations which are ours by our very birth. We seek to avoid them, but they follow us, saying, these are our primary duties. And your father made no distinction between subjects treating them all equally. Trial by fire, well, my dear brothers…it is a tradition among the Ikshus, you know that. They burn everything that comes in their way, it’s a cosmic havan if you like, they are used to it. When they are peaceful, calm, they light sticks of sweet smelling incense to substitute. Trial by fire…she could have done it again..she knows that is asked of women when they live apart from their husbands and seek to rejoin them. You know that your father had quite forgotten that she had been sent away. But he knew what the people want, its always trial by fire. Say something a little different, and all the people respond, ‘Camera! Action. Cut!’ Nothing changes. What’s your next question?” End