INFORMATION TO USERS

T his reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this document, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted.

The following explanation of techniques is provided to help clarify markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction.

1. The sign or “ target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is “Missing Page(s)”. If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure complete continuity.

2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an indication o f either blurred copy because o f movement during exposure, duplicate copy, or copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed. For blurred pages, a good image o f the page can be found in the adjacent frame. If copyrighted materials were deleted, a target note will appear listing the pages in the adjacent frame.

3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part of the material being photographed, a definite method of “sectioning” the material has been followed. It is customary to begin filming at the upper left hand comer of a large sheet and to continue from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. If necessary, sectioning is continued again—beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete.

4. For illustrations that cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by xerographic means, photographic prints can be purchased at additional cost and inserted into your xerographic copy. These prints are available upon request from the Dissertations Customer Services Department.

5 . Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases the best available copy has been filmed.

University M icrofilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

Order Number 1333198

Ganga Lahari (Waves of the Ganges). [Original novel]

Arora, Meena, M.F.A.

The American University, 1988

Copyright ©1988 by Arora, Meena. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

GANGA LAHARI (WAVES OF THE GANGES) by

Meena Arora submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American U niversity in P a r tia l F ulfillm ent of

The Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts

in Creative Writing

Signatures of Committee: Chairman: /X.

ean of'the College

A pril 26, 1988 Date

1988 The■iwe American ftiuciitaii U unxversicy niversity rJi/i Washington, D.C. 20016 I 1

TEE AMERICA!! UElTERSlTy LI BHJIB? © COPYRIGHT

BY

MEENA ARORA

1988

AL L RIGHTS RESERVED GANGA LAHARI

(WAVES OF THE GANGES)

BY

MEENA ARORA

ABSTRACT

"Myth is not fictions it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again, i t i s something th a t happens to man, and men have mythical fates..." Carl Jung wrote. The protagonist of this novel exists through the annals of Indian myths and history, contending the vagaries of fate, accepting the permanence of time, living like any other man; the fact that he is immortal should be treated by the reader only as incidental. Hindu belief does not recognize death. Nothing is ex nihilo. not even the thoughts or the action of men. Angiras, the protagonist of this book, struggles with this ultimate truth. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Professor Charles Larson for his untiring patience with my punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes; to Professor Bujorjee for his fatherly pride and encouragement of my work; to Professor David Rodier for his valuable knowledge of Indian L iteratu re and Mythology; to Dr. M. Siddaqi for delineating the historical incidents in this thesis by providing information on dates and facts; and to my husband for his belief in the characters of this novel.

i i i Pulling out the eight grey strands from her hair,

Shrivasta asks me for the umptieth time why I spilled the

"Shri, my love," I say, "You know I didn't do it on purpose. I tripped, and the soipa I held in my mouth for you spilled on the ground. But wasn't it my idea to make you lick it off the ground?"

"Yes, and that an t I swallowed along with i t keeps me awake at night as she wanders in my blood stream, forever immortal."

"You should have s p it out the l i t t l e sucker rig h t away." "Sure. And with th a t the few drops I had managed to lick up? Those precious drops that stopped my aging at these eight grey strands. But I know if I had spit it all out, it would have made you happy. You could have then clung to the breast of that woman forever."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Shri. If I had wanted that to happen, why would I have brought the ssus for you in the first place? I put in so much effort, pretending I was a god, pulling at the head of Vasuki, that serpentine demiurge, to churn Mount Mandar in the ocean, just to get a sip at that

1 2

brimming cup of th e gods. And I didn't need it, you know

that. It was for you I ran miles, holding the liquid in my mouth."

"Why not? I was always ready to giv e you more than th a t woman would." "She' s my m other."

"Why do you keep calling her that? She's notyou mother. You were never in her womb. In fact, you didn't draw lif e from any woman. You were s p ille d on the bosom of t h is earth even before you were born. I f anyone is your mother, it is this earth you've loused up so badly."

I become quiet. I always do when Shrivasta brings up the circumstances of my birth. I shouldn't have told her, but once in the Dwapur Yuga, an elephant charged at me for no apparent reason. Shri wanted to know why, unprovoked, it had done so. It was then that I told her about the first betrayal and my own. I told her how I betrayed my father, Agni, through that elephant, in consequence of which the god of fire cursed him th at he and h is whole species would have a twisted tongue for the rest of time. But that's another sto ry .

I related to her the beginning of beginnings. The tale of the lonely Grandfather who wanted a companion. He made the left side of his body fall apart and created a woman. 3

She was his daughter, for he created her. But with her he admitted the element of incest into Creation. The gods were angry. They were very angry because Prajapati intended to do that which for the first time had to be expressed as forbidden.

"Our Creator was sinful," Shri said, shaking her head as i f to say, "How can we be different?"

"No, not sin. It wasn't sin," I told her, for sin, as the mortals know it, wasn't born till much later. In fact, he is Shrivasta's half brother. She hates to admit that. She refuses having any connections with him. But sibling inclinations are hard to hide.

To go back to my story: the angry gods sent Rudra to stop Prajapati from defiling the chastity of his Creation. But by the time Rudra reached the shores of Kasuki, the site the Grandfather had chosen to begin Creating, that which mustn't even be intended was already in act. In anger, the god shot an arrow at P r a ja p a ti's heaving back. At the pang of pain from the arrow, the Grandfather withdrew his phallus, and the remaining semen flowed onto the earth. Agni blew on the seed w ith his fie ry breath, and the Angiras brothers came to be born. The god of f ir e counted seven w ailing babies. He did not notice the one born from the semen that had flowed into the reeds. That whom he never acknowledged and never 4 knew, was I, the eighth Angiras.

When I told Shrivasta this the first time, she didn't believe me, so I let her look into my mind. She saw eternal mdmory there, along with immortality. But instead of seeing Vedic matters: truth, divinity, fortitude, and so on, she saw contradictions to the golden age. "Why?" she wanted to know.

I told her how for days I lay entangled in the reeds, wailing for my mother. I fed on th e watery b r e a s t of the

Kasuki river and made friends with the fish and birds, l'hey told me stories about the beautiful seven babies that fed on the ever-flowing breasts of the Daughter, i knew they were my lucky brothers. I envied them and longed to join them. One day Indra sent an sp SSIS, a beautiful nymph of his court, to disrupt the SSMdhi of a lisbi. The King of Gods was nervous because the xiglji was becoming much too powerful through his asceticism . Bathing one morning in the Kasuki, the 3P5 3X3 saw me lying in the reeds. Taking me for an abandoned baby, she picked me up and took me with her to

Amaravati, in d ra ' s golden city, she was the o n ly mother I knew. I nursed at her breast and played in her lap. When I grew a little older, she took me to court with her. No one questioned my abrupt appearance, because in those days babies could be made by a simple conception in the mind. I learned 5

the workings of the court and also the workings of Indra's mind. He was my hero.

In Vaikuntha, my brothers, the seven Angiras, learned the secrets of divinity from Agni and th e Gurus, while I

learned to c u ltiv a te an ego and how to overpower enemies. Whereas they were taught to be future mediators between men and gods, I studied the art of spying and hypocrisy. To

Indra anyone who wasn't weak was a prospective enemy. He connived with and manipulated the gods to assist him in

destroying those engaged in acquiring power through war or asceticism.

The Gurus and the gods never knew me. The Vedas never mentioned me. Even my mother didn't know who I was. I was just another immortal nobody, created by an egotistical god or xishi. Only I knew my identity. I don't know why I kept s ile n t about th is . Perhaps I feared no one would believe me, if I told them, or, maybe, I didn't want to be a divine Angiras, a spiritual celestial, who would never know the excitement of baser emotions. Shri is the only person I told, because from the first instant I saw her, I felt an emotion that was by no means spiritual or heavenly, but of the earth.

I look at Shrivasta. She is pulling out the last grey h air. 6

"Shri," i say, going to her and slipping my arms around

her waist. "Do you remember when Shiva's love-making made the earth tremble on her tortoise?" I reach up to fondle her breasts.

"Hm," she says, covering my hands with her own. "Parvati was a wanton woman. She was oversexed."

"Not like you, though. You're unbelievable in bed."

She gives a little laugh and turns around to face me. Placing a kiss softly on my lips, she says, "Come, or you'll be late for the party." "To hell with the party. Let's go to bed." I let my lips linger on the curve of her gentle breasts. Slapping me lightly on the back of my neck, she says,

"We'll be late for the party."

I groan into her breasts. "Stop," she says. "Besides, I want to save myself for another man tonight."

My head jerk s up. "Who?" I ask.

"You don't know him. He's..." she hesitates. Disengaging herself from my arms, she continues, "I've been seeing him for a while."

"Shrivasta, you can't do this. Why didn't you tell me?" She laughs and says, "Aren't we jealous tonight," and runs into the bathroom. In a few minutes I hear the shower 7 running.

I sit down on the edge of the bed, wondering at myself.

I hadn't realized that the years had bred so much jealousy in me. I used to be able to accept Shrivasta's liasons as an irreputable law of nature. In fact, I even encouraged her. So how could I explain the sudden contraction of my heart when she mentioned this other man? This was surely the nadir of time when even first born immortals like me were rebelling against pre-ordained laws. "Shrivasta pads out of the bathroom. Her bare, golden body gleams with drops of moisture as she stands in the middle of the room, freeing her long, black hair from the shower cap. "Shri," I say, "I've been thinking. I want you to go back into purdah." "What?" she asks. I smile, for it isn't often now that

I can surprise her. "You know, wear a v eil, lik e you used to in the Mughal era, back in the sixteenth century." "What?" she says again. "I guess I just don't want anyone to see you any more."

"Angiras," she says, "Shut up." "Why? There's nothing wrong in not wanting to share your wife with other men. This age is too permissive for 8

m e."

"I'm not your wife. Besides, haven't you heard that

women today have a lib e ra tio n movement?"

"Sure. I've heard of women's lib. since the time of K a li." "You're damn right. Women were goddesses in their own

right in those days. They weren't just wives of gods." She

runs her fingers through her hair untangling the snarls. "Could you pass me me the comb?" she says. I get up and walk

to the dresser, eyeing her from the corner of my eyes.

"Angiras," she says, extending her hand for the comb. "What's the matter? Don't you trust me any more?" I hand her the comb without answering. Instead I ask h er, "Why did you say what you did?"

"About the other man?" she asks, teasing the tips of her h a ir with the comb I gave h e r.

I nod.

"You're playing with contradictions again, Angiras. Remember who I am?"

"Can't you forget that even for a minute?" "How can I? It's in my nature. I was made that way. A wanton woman," she says, stressing each syllable. "That's me." She arranges her black curtain of hair over her b re a sts, and throwing her shoulders back looks at me from 9

under her lashes. "Wanton woman," she whispers playfully. Silently I curse the Grandfather again for making other people do his dirty work. Out of the duplicity of their minds, the gods made him create wanton woman to keep human beings from aspiring to be gods. Thank god, they hadn't taken human love into account. "But you do love me, don't you, Shri?" I say, going to her and brushing away hair from her breasts. "Uhm," she says. "I just like other men, too. One in particular." "Have you already gotten tired of me?" I put my arms around her. "No," she says, pushing at my chest to free herself. "After all, it's only been four hundred and twenty million y e a r s ." "That long," I say, ignoring the sarcasm. " It seems I only met you yesterday in Amaravati."

"No, not Amaravati. Remember, I've never been to that city. By the time I was created, the gates of Amaravati were opened to only a chosen few." "Of course, I remember now." I release her and walk to the bed again. "It was Urvashi I met again in Amaravati." "You mean your mother?" The edge is back in her voice.

"She d id n 't know I was the same boy, when I met her 10

hundreds of years later." "The slut," she says, vigorously combing her hair.

"She's a beautiful woman. Did I tell you how I met her again?"

"Many times. But you can t e l l me again. I like to hear how the 3PS5I3S a t In d ra 's court were considered chaste and unspoiled even after they had screwed hundreds of gods and rishis, not to mention their own sons."

"I'm telling you, there was no way of her knowing I was the same boy."

"Bull. Let me tell you, dear Angiras." She points the comb a t me as though i t were a weapon. "A woman knows th e man nurtured on her milk even when she meets him after the whole JcAlps of the four aeons of creation."

"How would you know? You've never had a baby?" i say, and bite my tongue. I hate to remind Shrivasta of that. Many, many years ago, when babies could no longer be created by the power of the mind, or Agni's fire, Shri told me she wanted a child. I still remember her suicidal grief when I told her she couldn't. She's barren. And it's my fault, or rather it's Parvati's fault. Once the gods and rishis went to Kailash to implore Shiva to stop his violent love-making, because it made the Earth tremble on her tortoise. Their intervention denied Parvati the embraces and seed of Shiva. 11

So she laid a curse on them that their wives would be forever b arren .

I went there for a different purpose. I wanted to peep in on the divine p a ir and note down a few as§&g_*which years later could be included in the KamgArtja.

Shri drops the comb on the floor, and runs a hand over

her supple, flat stomach. "I'll never know what it is to be a mother," she says softly. Then her fingers trace the veins visible through the transparent skin of the inside of her

forearm . "My only baby w ill be my ant. I wonder where i t is now?"

I take her naked form in my arms and rock her gently.

"We'll be late for the party," she says, suddenly breaking away from my arms. "And I still have to get dressed." She rushes to the closet. I watch her bare bottom moving among the s ilk s a ris , as she decides what to wear, envying her ability to snap back into time so easily. Of late I've been having trouble doing t h a t . It takes me unaware sometimes, this eternal memory I've been bestowed with. Normally, I can keep it stored away in my subconscious, so that when I meet people I only have faint memories of having met them at another time, in another form. I can get reacquainted with them in their present situation without the distraction of their former births.

But every once in a while, the past creeps up between us, and there before me, like something made of celluloid, I can see a person change countless forms in a matter of seconds. It's very disconcerting, because it's impossible to know how to address the person.

Like now, that man there (talking to Shri) is taking on many forms. I see his body become luminous. His clothes change into majestic robes of silk and brocade, and his head bears the halo of a god. Instinctively, I move forward to pay him my respect, but even as I look, the nimbus of the brilliant halo lifts from his face, and I see who it is. He's Nahusa, the one-time King of Gods. When, after having killed Vrta, a great Brahmin, Indra, fearing the nemesis of his crime, disappeared, th e gods elected Nahusa to be th eir new king. But supreme power corrupted him. In his d e sire

12 13

to win over Indra's wife, Sachi, Nahusa went to visit her in a golden carriage which he made the seven Angiras carry on their shoulders. The holy .righis were so insulted that

Agastya Rishi condemned his demonaic behavior and cursed him to assume the form of his indulgence—the form of a demon.

As though the curse were only just taking effect, I see Nahusa's handsome body outgrow his clothes and change into the huge, ugly, tenebrous shape of a demon. I knew him once, but I can't recall his name. He did something as a result of which he was banished to the Earth. It's consoling to see other damned souls from the heavens—souls as illustrous as

Nahusa. I wish I could remember what it was that caused him to be thrown to the Earth. But before I can scour my vast memory, the dingy, wild hairs on his head become longer, and his body fills out. He is now the female demon, Trimukha, of the Tjrstg.Yijgg in the J&isya&d- When Ravana, the king of Lanka, kidnapped Rama's fair queen, Sita, and kept her captive in Ashok Vatika, Trimukha mocked the king for not raping her. I f Ravana had n o t secretly known that S ita was really his daughter whom his wife had removed from her womb as a foetus and placed in an earthern-ware jar to hide in the soil of Mithila, because she wanted her first born to be a boy, he would have followed Trimukha's advice and raped

Sita. In that event there wouldn't have been a paiit.psysB, 14

quintessential wife to emulate. Valmiki's RMipyaoii would then have set a different course for all tales. And the

formula of Hindi films would have been reversed, proclaiming the villain forever victorious. He was devious, that one I'm talking about, always on the look out to find a place in history, or at least to

change i t . His d esire was f u lf ille d , for as I see now, he is Krsa, the Brahmin boy who showed K&li_Yggp an easy entry into the race of the eras. He was born in a Brahmin family just at the closing of the Pk 3pp.e_Yjjga. This man was one of the generations to be born in the cusp of the Pksppx and Kpli

2iJS3£. Although had already lifted three hooves of the cow of Pham s from Mother Earth a t the time o f Krsa birth, he totally crippled her existence on Earth. He had the last of the P.KSpp.l_Yug3 kings killed, and his executionist tendencies persisted through the ages.

Raja P arikshat was the la s t of the Pandava kings, the protagonists of the . He was the last of the believers of truth; the last of the righteous and godly.

Although K&li_YPsa had already breathed messages o f evil in his ears, he still retained the stature of gods. One day while hunting, Parikshat felt thirsty. Stopping at a yogi's hut, he asked for water. The xAshj., Saunaka, was deep in 15

meditation and did not hear him. The king thought the jrisJji

was deliberately ignoring bin*. In anger, he garlanded the yogi with a dead snake th at was lying close by. Krsa witnessed this insult and related it to Srngan, the hot

headed, seven-year-old son of the yogi, who in turn cursed Parikshat: on the seventh day of the incident, the snake Taksaka would bite the king and kill him. Although later Janamjaya, Parikshat's son, tried to kill all snakes in a

sacrifice to avenge the death of his father, the curse was

irrevocable, and the birth of Kdli-Xugs was inevitable. Sin, th at had t i l l then wandered th e Earth on tip -to es, grabbed the reins of the tortoise and declared himself the

indisputable ruler of the Earth. Alone at first, he later brought his whole brigandage of e v ils. With them he's been ravaging the Earth and will continue doing so till the end of th is iDSDydDiXd. Shri still refuses to accept Sin as her half brother, but I know she secretly admires his guts.

The image of Krsa becomes fainter, and a million other indiscriminate faces flash by. Then a face I never wanted to see again takes shape before my eyes. I look away; I don't want to remember what ensued between him and Shri in Mohenjo Daro four thousand years ago. I turn to look at Shri, 16

instead, she looks like an 3PS3I3 from Indra1 s court in her turquoise-blue silk sari. Each fine fiber of the material has been woven with silver sequins, and the effect is original, for Shri designs her own saris. That's my Shri, the trend setter. Even in the days when the Kamdhenu trees fulfilled our every need, Shri challenged the norm, in those days we had only to think of a thing, and the object of our desire sprang from the branches of the trees. Women used to pick yards of silk from the branches and drape them around their hips. They would tear off a quarter of a meter from th e edge and t i e it around th e ir b re a sts. Even in those times, Shri used to spend hours designing fabrics in her mind. When they were to her satisfaction, she would walk to the tree in our garden and pick them off the branches. One day she pulled off a slightly longer piece and wore pleats in the front, instead of tearing off the edge, she left it hanging over th e le ft shoulder in the fashion of the modern day sa ri. That became the rage in Vaikuntha, and women have been wearing it that way ever since.

Another of her creations became so popular that the adopted it, too. She designed a mode of attire that consisted only of precious and semi-precious stones. The silk worms spun their fiber till they smothered in it, but the women had totally abandoned silk. The worms complained 17

to Vishnu. Shri was ordered into court. She walked into the

palace in braided pearl panties and hollowed out mother of pearls covering her nipples. She looked sensational. Vishnu took one look at her and begged her to become his consort. Shri was already living with me at that time, but I didn't want her to miss out on her big chance of being the queen of a god. I admit I had a selfish motive, too. I hoped that with her help I might finally be able to win recognition. It never hurts to have friends in high places. We both agreed that she should take Vishnu's offer. But she returned in only a few days. Laxmi, the god's wife, was implacably jealous. She made the wearing of fabric to cover the body mandatory for all time. Jewels could be used only for adornment. Then she banished Shri to Earth.

Long before I met Shri, I had already condemned myself to join the descendants of the seventh Manu, the human race, on Earth. At the time my exile was announced, the race of the seventh Manu was only a prediction. But I knew that as soon as the father of the human race was old enough for procreation, I would find myself on Earth. At the time Shri was cursed, the seventh Manu was in ISuxuiSlll, being tutored by the Great Brahma himself. Till the time he descended to

Earth, I walked around possessed by Brahmanvadh, the nemesis risen from the f i r s t s la in Brahmin. 18

Some time ago, I went to Amaravati to visit Urvashi, the

woman who had nursed me. She looked weary and haggard, the

liveliness of spirit that used to fill her eyes lay like

shadows upon her lids, the tranquility of her smile that

reminded one of cool, silent waters was marred by the lines

around her mouth. I was pained and surprised to see her like

this, because I knew that the apsarag had been bestowed with

eternal beauty.

"What's the matter?" I had asked her.

"Ever since Brahmanvadh's come to live among us, we've been marked by her hideousness." She related to me how Indra had slain Vrta, the son of the Prajapati Tvstra, because the king of gods feared the manifold powers of his asceticism.

With the help of Vishnu, who hid in his thunderbolt, Indra had killed the Brahmin. From this brahanincide had risen the fearful form of Brahmanvadh. Fearing the emanation of his crime, Indra had fled. No one could find him, not even his wife, Sachi. Afraid that the throne of heaven might fall into the wrong hands, the gods conferred together and decided to nominate another king. Nahusa, a wise and brave god, was made king. But this position of supreme power went to

Nahusa's head, and his wisdom lost the battle against his ego. As king, he started to treat all other gods as his vassals. Even Brahma could not speak to him without being 19

spoken to f i r s t . As the new king of gods, Nahusa was not s a tisfie d to lim iting his powers to governing only. He wished to replace Indra in his palace and his bedroom, too.

He began to molest Sachi, Indra's wife, forcing her to accept him as her husband. Sachi ran to the Grandfather for refuge and begged him to help her find Indra. The only way to do th at was to elim inate the vengeance of Brahmanvadh. The

Grandfather then called Agni, the Grass, and the aps&ras to him and asked them to accept Brahmanvadh and share her among themselves, so Indra could return to the throne.

"Now we must live with her till someone else takes her responsibility," Urvashi lamented.

"Tell me how?" I asked her. " i'll take her away from you."

"You cannot. In fact, I don't think it's possible for any man on heaven to free us from her." "Why not?"

"No man in this Ypgs could be demoniac enough to do that which w ill make her leave us."

"I'm not a demon," I said. "But I owe you a favor, so I'll do whatever is needed to rid the apg&r&g of this m onster."

"Who are you?" she wanted to know, but I didn't tell her my name. I knew if she discovered my identity, she wouldn't 20

let me help her.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "What matters is that the 3 P S 3 I3 S b e restored to their former status as the most alluring women in heaven."

She told me if a man had intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period, he would be instantly ridden by Brahmanvadh.

I took the SPSSISS' plight upon myself, knowing that even though in K 3li_Yijg 3 brahmanicide would be shared by innumerable men, yet Brahmanvadh1 s weight on my shoulders would never lighten. I knew that by incurring this heinous sin I was giving up all chances of ever joining my brothers. I knew after this I would never mediate between men and gods like my brothers, and that even if some day I was accepted as one of the Angiras, I would never be mentioned in the scriptures as the holiest of the rishis, for castes at this time were assigned only by character. Birth had nothing to do with i t .

What I did not know at that time was that, by accepting Brahmanvadh, I had exiled myself from heaven. The transference of this demon from Agni, the Grass, and the 3 P S 3I& S required such evil actions that Brahma hadn't anticipated such a person to be a heaven-dweller. When he banished me to earth, I saw fear in his eyes—the fear of a 21 man who sees a rat in his house and knows that others w ill follow. At that time he conceived of the idea of a human race that would absorb all the infirmities of the heaven-dwellers.

Just as we were preparing to leave Viakuntha, Shrivasta lost her name. Vishnu was so smitten by her that when she left, he named a curl on his chest Shrivasta. Shri had loved to entwine her fingers through this particular curl of hair. In time, Laxmi derived this same pleasure. By pronouncing Vishnu's name for the curl, Laxmi struck the last blow, ensuring th at S hri would never regain her name. Every d a y I watched my woman wander about lost and forlorn, not responding to anyone, because she had no name. It made me so angry, I cursed. I cursed the god and goddess to a fate similar to ours. I cursed Laxmi to be born on earth, and not even knowing the security of a mother's womb. I cursed her to be born in an earthern-ware jar which Raja Janaka would find in Mithila. Millions of years later, I met a man in

England—Edward Steptoe. In passing, I told him about th is birth. He worked on it, and the first test-tube baby of Kali Yuga was born.

Vishnu, I cursed with ten life cycles on earth in d iffe re n t forms. Ten times the god was to reincarnate on earth. Now when I remember that curse, I await his last 22 birth, because I know that when he dies for the tenth time, he will bring total annihilation to this nj3BY3B.fc£.§. It's strange how I have come to look for deliverance in the very person I cursed.

Shri and I descended to earth in our original forms. Laxmi was born as Sita, and Vishnu as the Raghuvansha prince, Rama.

As for Shri: "Listen, "I said to her. "You are still Shrivasta. Now there will be two Shrivastas—you and that curl on Vishnu's chest."

She smiled and took her name. Since then, people have been allowed to use a name again and again for d iffe re n t people and have still been able to retain their identity. I let my eyes rove over the faces in the room. I'm glad they all flash by undistinguished like scenery from a moving train window—all except the Buddha who sits lotus-postured and life-like on the floor in one corner, guarding a door.

The beatific smile on his face embraces the people who have come to house-warm h is present abode with gossip and hypocrisy. I smile sympathetically at the Buddha and turn to look at the rest of the room. I can now believe the rumors that Mr. Khanna spent twenty-lakh rupees to build this house for his wife. I can see the vast amount of wealth concealed in the apparent simplicity of the decor. I recall having heard Somati, our maid, telling Shri about that woman—Khanna

S ahib's wife— who thought she was a pbillPi heroine, and how she shaved her head because she became a Buddhist. The room I'm standing in resembles a Stupa—the architectural design of the monasteries Emperor Ashok built in the sixth century. I remember the telephone call I received from Mr. Khanna one morning to ask if I knew an architect who could build a dome over the entire area of the new land he had bought.

"You see," he said, "Arti is very religious. She has to

23 24 go to th e monastery every day to m editate. I told her I would build her a house that looked like a monastery, so she wouldn't have to drive so far in the heat. She's so excited. She wants the house to look like those domes Ashok built in Bihar—Madhya Pradesh—I forget where. But you know what I mean, d o n 't you?" "Yes, the Sanchi Stupa, "I replied.

"That's right. Sanchi. That's the one she wants copied. Do you know of anyone who can do it?"

"What about the man who planned your last house?"

"Oh, he's a lazy son-of-a-bitch. He doesn't want to work hard. He told me he couldn't build a dome that size.

That ssjLS_B3ID3Jsjj3iaiDf th a t incestuous in g ra te . But I'm sure you know someone. Money is no question, you understand?" "No, Surinder, I'm afraid I don't know anyone who would do such work." I remember smiling into the phone, feeling almost glad that over the years the mantra-like mystery of classic architecture has been forgotten.

Mrs. Khanna never did find an architect to build her the house of her newly-found faith. Now she has to be satisfied only with her drawing room resembling a stupa. It is built separate from the rest of the house. The carved oval door, which the Buddha guards, leads to the other quarters. "Sanchi"—as the house, or rather as the drawing-room is 25 called—is painted pure white, unlike its brick original, and from an a e ria l view i t looks lik e a g iant egg emerging from the earth. Inside, it has a single-story room with a chandelier hanging from the center, shedding milky light from fifty tiny bulbs. The furniture is low and made of walnut carved in the intricate design of women with ridiculously thin waists and large breasts standing in artistic postures imitating the frescos of the Ajanta Caves. The seats and the backs of the furniture are of white satin. The same figures in the furniture are woven into the ocher rug on the floor where many feet tread upon them.

I think of the mockery Mrs. Khanna has made of the g re a t Stupa. I remember the time Ashok had it built in reverence of the Buddha. Before I can delve into my memory, I see Mrs.

Khanna walking towards me with studied grace, kicking the pleats of her ocher-colored, plain-silk sari with each step to allow them a measured movement. I'm surprised to see th a t she is not bald in the fashion of the Buddhist monks as

Somati said; instead, her h air is dressed in a deceptively simple fashion, which I'm sure must have take her hair-dresser hours to braid. "Angiras," she says, reaching out towards me with both hands. The single large diamond on her finger catches th e fifty lights of the chandelier and converts them into a 26

m illion. "Forgive me," she continues. "I couldn't meet you at the door." I stay where I am, letting her walk to me to take my hands in her own. "I'm so glad you could come. When I called Shri to tell her about the house-warming I was having for this little house, she thought you two might not be able to make it. I'm so glad you could come after all," she repeats, squeezing my hands. I disengage my hands and smile a t her. I'm aware of what Shri thinks of this woman. "She's a farce, a total farce," she said, when I told her about Mr. Khanna's call. "Arti," I say. "I wouldn't miss your party for the world. We cancelled all other plans to come to this house-warming." "It's not just a house-warming. It's to pay homage to this." She makes an extravagant gesture with her ringed hand to include the whole room.

I turn once again to the Buddha. I feel a strong desire to ask A rti Khanna who is supposed to pay homage to whom?

The people to the Buddha, who are treading all over the women from the Ajantas and kicking dust into the Buddha's face with their Italian leather shoes and golden sandals? Or, is the 27

Buddha paying homage to th e people by sittin g a t th eir feet, smiling complacently? i look at Arti and realize that she expects a response. "Oh, i agree. I absolutely agree. Homage must be paid to this—this— f" I grope for words, "—this spiritual p lace."

"Oh, thank you, Angiras. Thank you for recognizing the intrinsic spirituality of this place. I made Surinder build me this house so that I can transcend into the peacefulness of the s p ir i t . That is why I wear th is color. I know i t makes me look ugly, but it reflects its serene qualities into my mind."

"You look beautiful." 0ver the years, I've learned to say all the r i g h t things. After all, I've been taught by the greatest master of diplomacy—Indra himself. I watch Arti lower her artificial lashes in simulated shyness. Suddenly I'm tir e d of the facade. "Arti, would you lik e a drink?" "Yes, thank you," she says. "But only fruit juice, please, i don't drink alcohol any more."

I wander towards the drinks, debating whether to take back a drink for the lady or not. Finally, I take the middle course and send back a waiter with mango juice for her. I look around for Shri. She's still talking earnestly with 28

that man. I wonder if I should walk over to them and claim my wife.

"Angiras, my man." I look round to see my host, Mr. Surinder Nath Khanna, walking towards me. His large belly is barely concealed under the hand-spun, silk kurta. His

unusually larg e eyes a re crowded by flabs of fle sh in his

cheeks that rise up to cover them when he smiles, as he does now. His p erfect te e th are even and white lik e the walls around us.

"Come, I must introduce you to my niece. She's doing her Master's in Political Science and has read your books."

I try, ineffectually, to step behind a waiter carrying tall glasses with shimmering liquid. I'm in no mood to meet some fawning young woman who has read my books and wants to gush. She might even be a younger version of A rti Khanna and might want to clean up Indian politics as the first step towards Uiiysus. But Surinder Nath Khanna keeps coming at me like a bull.

"Come, my man." He grabs my shoulder. "Come, You must meet Jhankar, my niece." I'm propelled by his arm around my shoulders through the crowd and towards a sofa. There is only one occupant on the satin seat—a young lady, a rather plain looking young woman. I lose all the interest I have mustered during my walk across the room, she could at least 29

be beautiful. She stands up as we approach.

"Jhankar." Surinder relinquishes his hold on my

shoulder to throw a heavy arm across his niece's. "This is Angiras, the political scientist." His smiles at her like a genie, as if he has just conjured me up for her exclusive

pleasure. I fold my hands before me in a gesture of

greeting. "NanteSiS," I say. she does the same. Khanna smiles on, his eyes disappearing behind flabs of skin. "I'll

leave you two to ta lk about the fa te of our country," he

says, patting Jhankar's shoulder before withdrawing his arm. We both watch his large back jo in the crowd.

"You know, you're an unusually handsome man." I turn towards her. "You should be in movies, not writing books on p o l i t i c s ."

I laugh. "Why? Are my books so bad?"

"No, just a little antiquated." She smiles. She has an extremely pretty smile. It reaches right up to her eyes, which I notice for the f ir s t tim e. They are not the proverbial doe-eyes of an Indian woman. Nor are they oval or brown. They're kind of square and black to match the curtain of hair that hangs down her shoulders like silk.

"You seem to be very familiar with Kautalya's idealogy." "We used to be close friends."

She looks at me surprised then bursts out laughing. 30

"I see you believe in reincarnation," she says.

"Oh, yes," I say with a stony look towards Shri and her male friend. "Unfortunately, I do."

"Why is it unfortunate? I think it's a kind of relief to know that all you do in this life is not obliterated when you enter the void or heaven or hell or whatever—that you can pick up the threads of this life in your next one." "Yes, but if you're a murderer, or a thief, or even a ra p is t, would you lik e to continue doing th at in your next life, too?"

"That's where Karma comes in. You try to reform." "What did you say you study, Hindu philosophy?" I joke.

She laughs again, then says soberly, "It's rude of me not to talk about your books, isn't it?" "No, why is it rude? As a matter of fact, I'm glad you're not talking about my books." We are quiet for a few seconds. I watch the waiters with their pretend-I'm-not-here-act meander through the guests with drinks and hSIS-&lQ§H3I§§• "Would you like a drink, Jhankar?" I ask her.

"Yes, thank you," she replies. "But only fruit juice, please. I don't drink alcohol." "Are you a Buddhist too?"

"No, I just don't drink." 31

I summon a waiter and select pineapple juice and a gin-and-tonic.

"So," I say, handing her the tall glass of juice, "tell me about yourself. Where do you go to school?" She names Kalimpong, a h ill station.

"I've never had a chance to visit there. It must be very beautiful. I've heard that you can almost touch the Himalayas from th e re ."

"Uhm. Some mornings it seems that way. You're right, it is a very beautiful place." I think that maybe Shri and I can make that our next destination. It would be good to live in the hills again. "So, you're v isitin g your aunt and uncle?" "Yes, we are."

"Who are we?"

"My parents and I. We've come for th is house-warming." "Some house, isn't it?" "You really think so?" She asks as though i t ' s important for her to know what I think. I evade a direct answer. "What do you think?" "I think that it's grotesque that my uncle spends so much money to indulge Arti masi. I hate to think what she'll do when the buddhist fad is over. I wonder what she'll do with that Buddha and those statues?" 32

I don't know what to say to her obvious repulsion of wealth. I wonder if Jhankar's parents are rich like the Khannas.

"I see you don't approve of money being used for

personal indulgence," I say, after a while. "I didn't say that," she says defensively. "I just

don't like people flaunting their wealth like those ladies over there. Do you see those two in their Kanjivaram saris, and do you see their diamonds?" She gestures towards the ladies with her chin.

I feel like a Peeping-Tom, almost as if I were looking in th e ir bedroom windows.

"In fact, except for a couple of ladies, everyone here

is competing for Miss Rich." She gestures towards Shri and says, "Now that lady there, talking to her husband, she is so tastefully dressed. I'm sure she has loads of money, too, but it only shows in her bearing and not in the things she's wearing."

Bile rises to my throat at that man being mistaken for Shri's husband, yet I feel a wave of pride pass through me. "Would you like to meet her?" I ask Jhankar. "That's not her husband. I am." "Oh, I didn't know you were married."

I get up to go to Shri, thankful for the valid excuse to 33

interrupt her and the man she's standing with." Jhankar gets up, too. "I'd love to meet your wife, but right now I've got to go inside. Will you excuse me?" I watch her walk back towards the door th a t Buddha guards, wondering why she does not wish to meet Shri. Then I remember the observation she made about Shri and I'm warmed with a glow. Suppressing a strong desire to look into her past, I turn towards Shri and my I walk over to S hri and her companion.

"Hi, mind if I jo in you?" I ask them.

"No, of course not," the man says. "Amarvinash, meet my husband, Angiras." Shri introduces

us. "You have a very beautiful wife, Angiras." It is a voice from the past. I have heard him say those very words in a different language thousands of years ago.

"I know," I say, forcing the intrusive memory away. "Angiras, Amarvinash is a politician. He's just come from Delhi to visit our constituency."

"Oh, no," I say under my breath. I remember him double-crossing the Dravidian chief in Mohenjo Daro. He sold information about weapons to Aryan invaders in exchange for political power.

"Welcome to our state," I say aloud.

"Angiras is a political analyst," Shri tells Amarvinash.

"I thought the name rang a b e ll," he says. "Didn't you w rite PfiBSSXSSy—She AflcigDt TjjMifcieD?" Then without waiting for a reply, "Great book, although the theories are a little simplistic."

34 35

"We writers only play the game according to the rules you guys set down."

Shri nudges my arm.

"Surely you can't call the responsibility of safeguarding the rights of people a game."

"I mean," I add, "it should at least be a fair game."

"Of course. That is if it's to be a game at all. Actually, I'm very sympathetic to the problems of the people. In this age the rights of men seem to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of realpolitik."

"And into the bank balances of politicians," I add.

"Amarvinash, will you excuse us for a minute? There's someone I want Angiras to meet." The man nods. "What's the matter with you?" Shri asks me angrily, as soon as we are out of earshot.

"Do you know who th a t man is?" I ask.

"Of course," she says. "He's from the Central Government."

"No, I don't mean in this life."

"I don't want to know," she says in angry whisper. "I thought we agreed never to discuss people's reincarnations and to take them as we see them in their present situation. I don't want to know who Amarvinash was, and I wish you'd stop exercising your unnatural powers." 36

Unnatural, I think, looking at the people around me

talking and laughing. Yes, it is unnatural for me to be here among the earth people, these mortals—ignorant people who are living by the aspirations of their previous births and yet a r e n 't even aware of i t .

"I think I need some fresh air. Would you like to come with me?" I say to Shri. "No, I think I'll just mingle."

I watch her walk back to Amarvinash, hoping she doesn't get too involved with him. I can't blame her seeking the company of other men. It's inherent in her nature. But not this man, I think, not Amarvinash, or Sanbhadra, or thedemon from Satya_Yuga# or Nahusa, or whoever he is . He's too powerful; he'll hurt her again. "We'll move from this city,"

I say into my glass. Anyway, it's time to move. We've lived here longer than we usually do in one place. We usually move after every ten years, because after that people start noticing how age avoids us. Women who once looked younger than Shri get grey in their hair, the skin in their faces crumples up, and age appears criss-cross around their eyes. Shri, of course, doesn't show signs of age beyond her eight grey hairs.

Once Isuggested to her that we should use cosmetics to look older. Shri didn't approve of the idea. 37

"The whole purpose o f drinking that ambrosia was to always look young and beautiful. If I make myself old, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?" At other times she almost wishes she hadn't taken a share of that drink, for always having to move from place to place wearies her. "I can't have lasting relationships," she complains.

How ironic it is that she seeks lasting relationships with people who are destined to break all relationships. Anyway, I can't understand this wish of hers. It wasn't supposed to be in her chemistry. Maybe Kali_YJJS3 has defeated the purpose of the Grandfather. What began as a planned playground for Sin has gotten out of hand. And what about my brothers—the m ediators between gods and men—those seven lAshis who were to keep both parties informed? What has happened to them? I wonder what the gods are doing in Vaikuntha? What Indra is doing in his no longer uniquely beautiful Amaravati. Amaravati. I remember now. I remember why Amarvinash was banished from heaven. He stole the plans of Amaravati from Indra's architect, Vishvakarman. He was Andhkar at that time. Andhak, h is blind guru, wished to build a c ity sim ilar to that of Amaravati for the demons. Many models were reviewed, but none seemed to promise the beauty and 38

organization of Indra*s city. Andhakar, harboring a desire

for Indra1 s city from a previous life, suggested having the

Amaravati's plans stolen from Vishvakarman's palace. He volunteered for the job, knowing that in the night his body would merge invisibly into the darkness.

At that time there was another faction of demons headed by the great Sukra, which did not want its city to resemble

that of Indra*s. It was Sukra who sent Virocana, the demon with the illumined body, to expose Andhkar. At dead of

night, when the dark demon slipped into Vishvakarman*s

palace, Virocana stood outside at the door, waiting for him to come out with the plans. As soon as Andhkar appeared, Virocana's bright body revealed him to the guards. Caught,

he was ordered to return the plans, but he devoured them with his mind, thinking he would spill them out as soon as he was released. But Vishvakarman cursed him. He banished Andhkar to Earth, destining him to an incapacity to divulge the plans until the race of the seventh Hanu, and that too, only in the lugs of Ksli^ The brought almost total annihilation to the

race of the seventh Manu. The few people who survived the war divided themselves roughly according to their castes. These groups left Hastinapur to settle in faraway lands, mostly to build settlements on the banks of perennial 39

rivers. A few groups of the Vaishyas and Sudras got together and set up home on the banks of the Sindhu river. They were

adept farmers and experts in raising domestic animals;

however, they' knew very little about weaponry, so they concentrated on carving household knives and axes from flint and stones. They made exquisite jewelry from bone and

colorful stones that both the male and female members of their clan wore. They baked clay to make hand-crafted utensils, and brick to build their houses.

The Vaishyas have always been great businessmen.

Through them, trade flourished on the banks of the Sindhu river. Over a period of time, they started trading with other settlements. They learnt to use the waves of the river to their advantage, floating on rafts made out of bark to get from one settlement to another. At first, barter was their only means of trade; later carved seals of stone and wood became their system of exchange. These people built houses along the banks of the river and lived almost idyllic lives.

Andhkar was born in the seventh century of this settlement. He was a dark and ugly baby, so his mother named him Ghor Lalat, or Dark-Faced. When Ghor Lalat grew up, he took over h is fa th e r's livelihood as guard of the Mounds of the Dead. 40

At about this time, the settlement elected a new chief,

Giriraj, a handsome youth, who earned his name as King of all elephants. At his coronation, the population on the banks of the Sindhu river had already increased to such extent that people had sta rte d moving inland. They were so widely scattered that any time Giriraj wished to make a public announcement, it took his envoys days to gather the people together. So Giriraj decided it was time to sketch out a housing plan that would ensure the erection of houses in a regulated pattern within a set radius. He announced a reward of a hundred seals to anyone who designed a perfect plan for an organized town.

The time had come for Vishvakarman's curse to bear fruit. It was time for Andhkar, now Ghor Lalat, to regurgitate the plans of Amaravati. Sitting on the mounds one day, doodling with a twig, he drew the plans of a magnificent city in the mud. Soon its construction was under way. They named i t Mohenjo Daro, because i t s o rig in was on a mound of the dead. After the party, Shri and I walk to the car m silence. The fragrance ot the Rajm Gandha pervades the night air. By morning, the Diooms will l i e on the ground in abandon, the essence ot each blossom lotussed in its heart. When I was a hoy, I used to love squeezing the flowers between my hands to inspire their fragrance through the pores ot my skin. Long before perfumes were bottled, Shri used to rub flowers on her skin. The Rajni Gandha were her favorite. I remember the last time she perfumed her body with these flowers.

I bend and pick a white blossom as we cross the bush.

Turning, I reach to put it i n Shn's hair. She gerks her head away. "What's the matter?" I ask her.

"You know I don't like Rajm Gandha."

"I'm sorry. I forgot," I say, tucking the flower in my button hole instead. "Angiras, please," she pleads.

"Please what?" I act as i f I don't know what she's asking. "Please throw it away. You know I can't stand the smell." "Why?" I ask.

41 42

"I don't know. I just don't like it."

I ignore her request and continue walking. I know why she can't bear the smell of Rajni Gandha. She may have forgotten, but the memories attached to that fragrance are so

clear in my mind that I can almost smell her perfumed pubic

hairs as she squeezed the nectar in them for the last time. I remember it was very late at night. The jangling of her bangles had awoken me.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm just getting dressed."

"Why? It's the middle of the night. Are you going to see someone?" "Yes."

"Who? Ghor Lalat?" I asked. I knew she'd been seeing him. "No, Giriraj," she said, braiding Rajni Gandha in her long tresses.

"Where did you meet G iriraj?" I was surprised, for even Parashar, the chief of our tribe, hadn't been able to meet the Dravidian ruler yet.

"I didn't. But tonight I'm going to, Ghor Lalat is going to take me to him. He promised me."

"Shri," I said, getting up. "I don't trust that man. Let me escort you to Mohenjo Daro, or wherever it is you're 43 meeting him. I 'l l hide and follow you quietly to G ir ir a j's house. I just want to make sure he takes you there."

"Don't be silly, Angiras. I know Ghor Lalat. There was only one thing he wanted from me, and th a t I gave him in exchange for his promise to take me to Giriraj. Tonight's the night he's going to keep his promise."

"You don't know anything about G iriraj. You haven't even seen him. What if he mistreats you?"

"He won't. He's a good man. Besides, I've seen him.

Remember that day I went to the city to buy these bangles? I saw him ride past. He's so handsome—flat nose, dark complexion, and all. The lady I was buying the bangles from told me what a just man he is. She also told me that he's very religious. He meditates before the Shiva Linga daily and sacrifices to the Devi on every new moon. I must meet him before his ascetic power takes him beyond human reach."

I lay down reluctantly. "Be careful, Shri. I just don't like Ghor Lalat. I have a feeling he's a very dangerous man." "So what if he is? Besides, crooked people sto p being dangerous once you find out what makes them so."

"And you've found that out?"

"Uhm,” she nodded, but didn't tell me what it was she had discovered about him. As for me, I knew the man was 44 devious.

After setting up camp in an oasis a few miles from Mohenjo Daro, our chief had sent word to G irira j about our peaceful v i s i t . Although we were a warrior clan, we had come to the Sindhu valley only to trade Babylonian seals (which we had gotten on our visit there) for grain. Giriraj had sent an envoy with many gifts and a welcome scroll in which he begged forgiveness for not being able to welcome us. He invited us to a dinner he was hosting in our honor and permitted us to stay as long as we wished. Ghor Lalat accompanied t h i s envoy on the sly. While the others delivered the chief's message and left for the valley, the dark-faced one begged a private moment with our chief. "These g i f t s are a cover up," he told Parashar in th e privacy of the latter1 s tent. "Cover up for what?" "For the raid Giriraj's planning on your camp. In the dead of the night, he's going to bring his men, plunder your camp, and carry away your women."

"Why are you telling me this?" Parashar had wanted to know. "Why are you betraying your chief?" "Giriraj is a cruel man. The people of Mohenjo Daro are tired of his tryanny. I've come as a messenger of our people to beg you to h elp us. Please d eliv er us from this demon. 45

I ' l l g iv e you a ll th e logistics you require. Attack Mohenjo Daro and k ill G iriraj and his men."

"We haven't come to stay here or even to fight. We're only travelling through," Parashar had told him.

"You don't have to stay. You can appoint your representative and continue on your way." Our chief had guessed Ghor Lalat's real intentions. He knew that Ghor Lalat wanted to overthrow Giriraj and usurp his power. Not having enough men and weapons, he figured that foreign intervention would be a perfect solution. Our chief had doubted t h a t story about G iriraj being a cruel chief; however, he le t Ghor Lalat provide him with military data, thinking that, if by some quirk of nature, Ghor Lalat's words proved to be tr u e , the inform ation would prove u se fu l.

Meanwhile, Shri had obviously discovered the truth about Giriraj. True to her nature, she couldn't rest till she had seduced him. One day, on a shopping spree to Mohenjo Daro, she met Ghor Lalat. In due course, she must have responded favorably to his sexual overtures in exchange for the promise that he would introduce her to Giriraj.

"I love you," she said, her lips brushing my eyes. "Go back to sleep. I'll be back in the morning." She slipped out of the tent, the soft jingle of her an k lets, and the fragrance of th e Rajni Gandha hanging in the 46 air. I thought sadly how Shri no longer performed romantic rituals for me. But I wasn't jealous. I knew her fu lfillm en t came from other men. I t was strange though, how the saintly qualities of the men she slept with gave her an aura of supernatural beauty. I t was as though she s to le their divinity to dress herself in it. I imagined her transcending her earthliness one day and rising up—up— beyond my reach. The v ision brought tears to my eyes. Turning on my side, I put a hand under my cheek and tried to sleep. The rumbling of the Sindhu river under my ear was not very reassuring.

I awoke as the day was breaking. Shri hadn't returned. After my daily lustrations, I decided to ride toward the city, hoping to meet her on the way. It was yet early, but the streets of Mohenjo Daro were unusually crowded. I wondered i f i t were a fe stiv e occsion. As I drew nearer, I realized that the people were hardly dressed for a celebration. I t seemed as though they had thrown on th e ir clothes in a hurry. They were running across the streets in the direction of the mounds. Some of them were picking up stones on the way. I urged my horse towards the throng of people. When I was a few feet distance from it, a stone flew in front of me and hit me on the head. In a daze, I saw people turn toward me screaming, makingthreatening 47

gestures. I tried to turn my horse around to retreat into the haven of the d esert, but they were a l l around me—men, women, and children—pointing at me. All I could hear was,

"He's one of them. He's one of them." A fear for Shri suddenly assailed me. I spurred my horse. Cutting through the screaming and yelling crowd, I rode towards the mounds. She was th e re , my proud Aryan apSSJTa. Theyhad strip p ed her naked. She lay on the mound, bent backwards and held in place by the ropes they had tied around her wrists. Two guards held the ropes behind her, pulling tighter whenever she squirmed. People threw stones at her—sharp edged stones that struck her bare body, cutting it, drawing blood. I watched a little girl walk up and spit on her. Curses burned

in my mind, but I knew the futility of uttering them. My banishment had robbed me of th a t power. But I couldn't ju s t stand there and watch these people torture my Shri. I rode up to her. I stood right before her, facing the crowd, daring anyone to pick up or throw another stone. There was no stopping them. A stone hit my horse on the head. The legs of the poor beast gave under him, and I was thrown to the ground. I don't remember much after that, except for the

interminable rain of stones. When I came to , the stoning had stopped, and most of the people had left. I turned my head to look at Shri and saw 48

her bloodied body lying spreadeagled over the mound. Her head had fallen forward, and her long hair fell over her face onto her breasts. The tips of her hair trailed on her belly, mingling with the rivulets of blood that streamed from her. As I watched, the guards released the ropes slowly. She slumped to the ground, her head a few f e e t from my own. The guards came over and lifted her. They laid her on top of the mound and left. I knew they had left us for the wild animals. Later, they would collect our remains and put them in ja rs to give us a decent burial—th e kind th a t all Mohenjo

Daro people were entitled to. These were a fair-minded people. After a criminal received fit punishment for his crimes, they accepted him back in the fold of their social institutions.

As I lay there, too weak to move, my mind wandered. I thought again of my origins, of my privileged brothers enjoying spiritual bliss in heaven. I felt no rancor towards them. I was learning the human acceptance of f a te . With an effort, I lifted one hand before my eyes to look at my palm.

I t was smooth and unlined. I raised i t above my head and said to the Grandfather, "Look. Look at this. Is this a hand of a fate-bound mortal? Tell me, on what lines is fate guiding my life?" I heard Shri moan. "Shri," I called.

Shri gave no reply. "Shri," I called more urgently. Still 49

there was no answer. I tried to raise myself, but it was too painful. I tried a second time. Fresh blood spurted from

th e wound on my forehead and almost blinded me. I lay back once again, not knowing what to do. "Help me," I begged Him, the Grandfather. For the first time in my life I prayed. I prayed, not with hands folded, as was the customary manner, but with both fateless hands raised heavenward, reaching out, as if for the light. A little while later, I tried to get up again. The sun was getting high, and I knew I had to move Shri from its untutored rays. This time I was able to crawl to her. She had slipped back into unconsciousness. I patted her face to

revive her, but she didn't respond. I rolled her gently down the mound. Leaving her in i t s shadow, I s ta r te d a long, painful journey towards camp.

Contrary to the Grandfather's attitude to the feminine principle in His act of Creation, the Guru's first lesson was to teach men respect for women. An insulted woman can provoke a UsJj.3bMr.St3. History is witness to that. If Dushashan, th e second e ld e s t Kaurava had not audaciously stripped Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas, in c o u rt—because the Kauravas had won her in a gambling match from the Pandavasa—the war that resulted would only have been like many others, not a UsMlJMrst* not a battle in 50 which both warring sides swore to wipe out entire generations of the other.

The indignity Shri had suffered, goaded me to seek revenge. On my a rriv a l back in camp, I told Parashar about how the people of Mohenjo Daro had stripped Shrivasta publicly, and had stoned her almost to death. I saw the blood rise to his eyes. I watched him grit his teeth and clench his hands over his bow. Through tight lips he said, "So that ugly Sudra was telling the truth after all." I could have prevented the horrible events that followed. I could have revoked Indra's wish and the ordinance of

Prajapati's scribes. I could have told Parashar the truth about Shri and about the punishment th e law of Mohenjo Daro prescribed for p ro s titu te s . But I d id n 't say anything. I cared too much for th is wanton woman. The people of Mohenjo Daro never knew what happened. In a matter of hours, a whole city was massacred. The dark-skinned ones didn't even have a chance to bring out their weapons, let aside fight. The paved, right angled streets that were designed to provide a natural venture were now cluttered with bodies. Noone was spared, not even the children and the aged. The unconscious Shri was one with her half brother, helping him accomplish the first massacre of history. 51

We c a rrie d Shri back to camp. In a few days she recovered, and we set out towards the Hindukush mountains to reach the land of our b irth rig h t— Bharatvarsha. Meanwhile, the Sindhu river swelled with a colossal flood. The water rose to the height of the double-storied houses that the people had b u ilt with such love and pride. The waters never receded. The river had changed i t s course, as i f to hide the inhumanity of the Aryans. It now flowed peacefully where a city had stood proudly. Mohenjo Daro and its people were wiped out, but the places where S h ri's and my blood had fallen were preserved under the water, invisible but alive.

Thousands of years later, the Sindhu, or the Indus as it came to be known, returned to its original course, but the site of the city was buried so deep in silt that it took another thousand years for archeologists to uncover it. The portions that lived by virtue of our immortal blood came to light again, and the plans of Amaravavti were revealed to the world. By this time sin had built his impenetrable barriers around th e earth. The Angiras could no longer v i s i t humans. However, unknown to Indra, parts of Amaravati were replicated again on the soil of Bharatvarsha. So, maybe Ghor Lalat really is to be thanked for stealing those plans when he did, or the people of Chandigarh would have been b ereft of th e ir 52

well-planned city. Eat your heart out, Indra.

To return to the present. "Shri," I say, starting the car. "I hope you're not going to see that man again."

"Who? Amarvinash? Why not? I think he's fascinating." "Evil always is."

"Yes, isn't it? It's like a snake. I love watching snakes. Tell me again how King Janamjaya burned all the snakes in a sacrifice." "Not now, S hri. Right now I want to ta lk to you about that friend of yours."

"What do you mean, friend of mine? Why can't you say his name? Amarvinash. See it's easy. Amarvinash." "Eternal destruction," I say to myself. "How appropriate." To her I say, "What does it matter whether his name is Amarvinash, or Ghor Lalat, or Andhkar. It's one p e rso n ."

She suddenly clutches my arm. The wheel jerks, and the car swerves on the road. I t ' s a good thing i t ' s so la te at night and the road is empty.

"Ghor Lalat," she says, almost in a whisper. "Did you say Ghor Lalat? Amarvinash is Ghor Lalat?"

I nod. "I tried to tell you that, but—." 53

She isn't listening to me. As if in a trance, she keeps repeating the name.

"So you won't see him again?" I persist.

"My god," she says. "Do youknow what he did to me? Do you know what that bastard did to me?"

"Yes. I was th ere," I say, taking my eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. Herhands are clutched in her lap, digging into the patternof sequins in her sari. She draws her shoulders up and holds herself tightly closed.

"Oh, my god. You don't know what that man did to me." "Shri, let's forget this, shall we? I'm sorry I brought it up. Let's talk about something else."

"He knew those people would k ill me if they found out I meant to seduce their chief. He knew. He assured me no one would find out, and then to save his own skin he told them I was a prostitute. He told them that the fair-skinned ones had sent me to tempt th e ir ch ie f with my body and deter him from the right path. When that guard caught him raping me, he bribed him—"

"He raped you?" I brake suddenly and turn towards her.

"You never told me that, Shri." But then she hadn't told me anything about that night. I only knew what I had seen. "He called me a slu t and s p it on my face. Then he offered me to that guard, and together they—." She covers 54 her face with her hands. I see her body shake as she sobs silently. I park the car on the side of the road and take her in my arms. "Shsh. Hush now. It's all over. It was over thousands of years ago. You don't even have to think about it any more." She just sobs and sobs in my arms. I try to calm her. I haven't seen her this broken since her name was stolen. "Shri, please don't cry. You'll never have to see that man again. I promise. Anyway, he died in that massacre, remember?" She just keeps sobbing. "Please don't cry, Shri." I feel wetness on my own cheeks. I wish I could take her pain away somehow. I wish I s till had the power to erase memories. We sit there for a long time—just like that—she sobbing in my arms, as I hold her helplessly. After a while,

I realize she has stopped crying. "Shri," I say softly. She d o e s n 't answer. Gently, I remove her from my arms. Her body is limp. She's dozed off. I lay her against the seat and start the car. She hiccups once in her sleep.

She's still sleeping when we reach home. I get out of the car and unlock the front door. Leaving it open, I go back and lift her out. She lies in my arms like a baby. As 55

I begin to climb the stairs to the bedroom, she wakes up. "I'm all right," she says. "You don't have to carry me

u p s ta irs ."

I put h er down. "Can you switch off the lights, please, Angiras?" While I lock the door and turn the lights off, she goes upstairs to our bedroom. A l i t t l e la te r, I follow h er. When

I reach the bedroom door, I r e a liz e she's locked i t from inside. "Shri," I call softly. "Are you all right?" "Yes," she says, and nothing else.

Quietly, I come down the stairs again and go to the guest room. I can understand why she wants to be alone tonight, why she doesn't want to feel a male body beside her own on the bed. I'm awakened by the feel of Shri's warm, naked body against my side. I open my eyes. Paint light filters through the blinds. The day is breaking. I smile and put my arm around her. She starts unbuttoning my pajamas. I feel her hands roam over my chest. Then she bends her head and starts kissing me all over, her tongue playing with my nipples. "Angiras, make love to me." Before I can answer, she slips under the sheets. I feel her fumbling to pull the draw strings of my pajamas. She pushes them down. 56

Impassioned kisses burn the inside of my thighs. "Love me, Angiras, please," I hear her say again.

"Let's make the turtle shake," I think to myself and smile. When I wake up again, Somati, our maid, is pulling the blinds open. Bright sunlight pours in. I shut my eyes again and throw an arm over them.

"Where's Shri?" I ask her.

"SSllikt B i b i j i 's gone out." "Did she say where?"

"Yes. She said to tell you that she has gone to visit Amarvinash sahifeji and that she will go straight to work from th e re ." I lower my arm and stare into the glaring sunlight. The ritual of welcoming fijahpaiir the fire penate, every morning has long become redundant, but I continue performing

it according to ancient tradition. Whether I do it out of respect for a father, or pity for him, knowing what depreciation the times have wrought on his stature, I do not know. Shri indulges me, and our maid, unaware of my connection with Agni, takes pride in working for a pious, god-fearing family. Freshly-bathed, as I enter the kitchen, Somati leaves me alone to pray. I recite a mantra, and a little orange flame settles around the wick of the the clay lamp, standing in a cove built into the wall of the kitchen. The ghee in this diys is replenished all day, so that it does not die out. Somati picks flames from this tiny, eternal fire to kindle all other household fires. At night I blow the diya out and bid my father goodnight.

Having paid respects to Agni, I open the kitchen door and step into the garden. The grass is freshly cut and is wet from the sp rin k ler. I t smells loamy sweet. As I wander among the flower beds, enjoying the soft, satiny sunshine of the early morning, I see Gulu, Somati's ten-year-old son,

57 58 sitting on his haunches beside the sunflowers, peering closely at something in the grass. I walk across to him.

The cuffs of my cotton pants absorb moisture from the grass and stick to my ankles. When I am a few feet from the boy, I can see that he is looking at a garden snake lying limp and twisted in death. He is so engrossed in it that even when I am a few feet away from him, he remains unaware of my presence. Lighting a match to a tapered piece of paper, he applies it to the tail of the dead snake. I walk up to him quietly. A silent, smoky flame clings to the tail of the snake, fueled by its thickening body fluids. In silence we watch the lifeless shape perform an involuntary dance, writhing and wriggling in a last spurt of life or pain, while the fire burns down the entire length of its twelve inch speckled body. Then, only the ashes remain—dull and grey—sticking to the dark green blades like stardust on glue pape r.

"My friend told me that snakes don't really die until you burn them," Gulu says, without looking up. "It was only a garden snake, Gulu—absolutely harmless." "A snake's a snake," he says sullenly. I look down at him and smile to myself, thinking how like a miniature janamjaya he is, swearing animosities towards these reptilian forms and burning them, just as Janamjaya, the great king, 59 did. But of course, Janamjaya's vow to exterminate the whole species was never fulfilled, or Gulu would not be sitting here carrying on the crusade. Unlike Janamjaya, though, Gulu is not avenging the death of his father. He's only reacting against the mistrust Taksaka, the serpentine destroyer of r has earned for his brothers.

I try to flick some ashes off a blade of grass with the toe of my leather slippers, thinking that maybe I should lament the death of a relative, for all snakes are related to me by blood. They are the p o sterity of my brother, Kashyap

Rishi. Kashyap is the eldest among us Angiras brothers. Long ago, he married two mortal sisters, Kadru and Vinata. Having spent many happy and full years with his two beautiful wives, Kashyap thought it was time to return to a life of asceticism and go up into the Himalayas. But before he l e f t , he wished to reward his wives for the their devoted services by giving them offspring of their desire. Kadru asked for a thousand powerful sons, and Vinata wished for two that would have more strength than Kadru's one thousand put together. Giving Kadru ten eggs and Vinata two, Kashyap Rishi left for the mountains. In time, Kadru's ten eggs hatched and a thousand wriggly, magnetic, reptilian forms emerged. Their tails had the strength to curl around an oak and squeeze its life out, and their tongues had the venom to kill even those 60

who had immortalized th e ir liv es by drinking sflips. They were

as powerful as Kadru had wanted them. They were the snakes.

Kadru's sons took their place in the world. The eldest among them performed great austerities. At the behest of

Brahma, he undertook the task of holding the Earth steady by winding his gigantic body around her. Then, A tlas-like, he

slipped his great umbrella head under her and held her up out of the ocean waters. Vasuki, the second eldest, let himself be used as a churning rope around Mount Mandar at the time

SAIDS was gleaned from the ocean. Kadru, needless to say, was

very happy with her offspring—even more so because her sister's eggs showed no signs of hatching. One day, tired of waiting, Vinata forcibly broke open one of her eggs and gave

this world its first deformed baby—a half-formed bird-child who held in its beak a curse for all mothers—an ever-present

possibility of premature babies. The child was still raw and red and translucent, for its

bodily flu id s had no time to submerge in to its opaque body. Being a bird, it had to fly. But before spreading its

crippled wings, the newly-born uttered one more curse—this

time upon his own mother, who in her selfishness had ruined the life of her own child. Aruna, the bird-child, cursed Vinata: she would be a slave for five hundred years to the very s i s t e r against whom she had wanted to compete. Then her 61 second son would be born, and he would release her from this curse, unless, of course, in ruthless impatience she forced open the other egg, too.

Aruna flew into the sky as best he could and remained there, staining the blue with the red colors of its body, flying from one corner of the horizon to the other, seeking a way to return. He never returned, for in foetal incompletion, although he had learnt the art of flying into the sky, he had been deprived the knowledge of returning to the earth and to his mother. Kashyap Rishi saw the lo s t baby in the sky. Recognizing him as his son, he blessed Aruna with the noble duty of being Surya's special messenger, using his iridescent colors to announce the arrival and departure of the Sun god every day.

I look up into the sky. Aruna has left the sky bare for his lord. Although the weather reports anticipate temperatures over a hundred degrees during the day, it is still cool. But I'm sure that in a little while the air is going to become thick and hard to breathe. I think of going inside while it is still pleasant.

"Don't you have to go to school today?" I ask Gulu. He is standing now, exploring the prickly stalks of the yellow flowers with his shoes.

"Sdl)ib," he says with his eyes still lowered, his foot 62

s t i l l searching the bed. "You won't t e l l Ma, w ill you?" "That y o u 're not going to school?" "Oh, no," he bends to pick up a twig. "I'm going to school. I'll go as soon as Ma has made my lunch. I mean

about the snake. She'll be scared. She thinks that all

snakes are sacred because Shivji loves them. She says if you kill anyone of them, Shivji might get angry and burn you with his third eye. " "Gulu, I don't think it's a good idea to do something that makes your mother unhappy, especially something that has to do with h er beliefs." "But she believes in all kinds of stupid things. You know why she does that, £&bi.b?" I begin bo answer when he says with a sense of being privileged. "It's because she's never been to school. She's never read that all these gods she talks about are not real." He waits for me to respond this time. I'm quiet. I want him to continue. "But they're not, are they?"

"Who told you that they are not?" He sits down again and drives flakes of ash in to the soft ground with the twig. "Masterji in school told us that a ll these s to r ie s about Bhagwan Krishna and Rama and S hivji are only stories like that one about the golden fairy.

T hey're not r e a lly true." 63

I look up again at the Sun godr wondering if he can hear the l i t t l e boy denounce h is au th en ticity and mine ju s t lik e th at. "Gulu," I say to th e boy. "You believe what you have to. You don't have to believe everything your masterji teaches you."

"You mean all those stories that Ma tells are true?" He's insistent on my opinion.

"If you believe that they are, then they are," I say evasively. He sighs deeply beside me. "If i believed what Ma says about snakes and Shivji, then I wouldn't have killed this snake, and it would have bitten me. Then Ma would have been very sad, and she too would have stopped believing in Shivji and his snakes." "It was only a garden snake, Gulu," I say again. "It didn't have any poison in its fangs to hurt you." He grinds the twig in the place where the snake had lain. "Go in and tell your mother to hurry up with your lunch, or you'll be late for school today." Throwing the twig into the bed, he walks away towards the house.

"And remember all snakes are not poisonous," I call out after him, thanking Shiva again silently for rendering most snakes innocuous and preventing the poison from spreading. 64

When the ocean was churned, many things emerged from the frothing waters beside soma. The goddess Laxmi appeared, pure and ethereal. Vishnu claimed her as his own and took

her to Vaikuntha with him. The divine horse, Ucchaihsravas, also rose out of the deep waters. He was immediately claimed for the gods. Later he became the cause of V inata1 s curse, and eventually the reason for the snake sacrifice. Many m illions of gems and precious stones were also found risin g to the surface of the water. And along with life-giving SSIBa, the most lethal of all venoms oozed out of the ocean flo o r, threatening to k ill a ll those who were engaged in acquiring the and poisoning the sojna itself. Panic swept through the ranks of the gods and demons who pulled at Vasuki. Shiva calmed them all byvolunteering to drink the foaming, blue liq u id . He scooped i t up in his cupped hands and took a sip, but he did not swallow it all the way. He let it lodge in his throat. We all watched his throat turn a fiery blue. K§&tJb3 , blue-throated, was the name everyone used for him from then on. Since then snakes have paid homage to Shiva, for in him they recognized the cure for their death-sting. Prom that day, snakes—tired of being ostracized for the danger they posed with th e ir fa ta l b ite — went to Shiva and begged him to take over their burden. Towards the end of the j?&fcy3_ Yjjg3, 65 almost all snakes had their poison extracted or considerably reduced. Shiva helped the reptiles gladly, for although Creation was not his, he had no wish to see it destroyed by creatures that were part of it. Yet there were some snakes like Taksaka who took pride in their toxic threat and retained all intentions of using their venom to its full extent at every opportunity.

One day, not long after Shri had licked those drops of jpjna from the ground, she and I were walking in the forest when we came upon a clear, sparkling stream, and Shri wanted to luxuriate in its refreshing coolness. Undressing, she stepped into the shallow waters. There was a tre e stump not far away. I walked to i t and s a t down, watching Shri on her back in the water, seductively trailing a moist, creamy lotus on her body. As I watched, Taksaka came out of the trees and crawled towards the water's edge. Thinking him to be just a snake on his way into the forest, I sat still, waiting for him to slither away. But Taksaka did not leave. Instead, he curled his body into a tight coil and lay by the water's edge watching Shri. I sat transfixed, wondering at his next move. He spoke to Shri. He told her he desired her and would like to lie with her both in his human and his reptilian forms. Shri refused. The next thing I knew,

Taksaka was in the water swimming towards her. I got up and 66

ran to the stream, but it was already too late, for that sex-starved devil had flicked his black forked tongue and

bitten her in the throat. I watched Shri's head drop to one side, as she went underwater. I jumped in and l if te d her

out. Laying her on the forest floor, I noticed the blue

spreading fast down her throat towards her heart. Even

though she had drunk the ssm&r I wasn't sure how long those few drops would hold out against untempered venom. Although my blood was boiling, and a ll I wanted to do was find the bastard and kill him, I knew that first I had to find a cure

for Shri's snake-bite. I thought of going to Shiva for help, but his abode, Kailash Parvati, was too far away, and I wasn't sure Shri could last that long. My only other choice was my own fa th e r. Somewhere I had heard that fire could burn out the most potent of venoms. I knew where I would find Agni. Ever since he had hidden in the reeds at the water's edge to evade the gods, he liked to spend his nights in the cool, comfortable in te rio r of these aquatic plants. Even though I revealed him to the gods at that time through the elephant whom he cursed with a twisted tongue, I knew he had never given up sleeping there. I looked up at the sky. Darkness was fast descending, but I knew that i t would be some two hours before my fa th e r 67

arrived.

When he did, I waited for him to s l i p into th e reeds before asking him. I told him how my wife had been bitten by a snake, and I begged him to lend me his fire to burn out the poison.

"Go away," Agni said. "My fire isn 't for everyone who comes asking."

"I'm not everyone. I'm your son."

"No son of mine would plead like a common beggar. If you were my son, you would be able to cleanse your wife of the poison by the sheer power of your asceticism ."

I could see that there was no use in wasting time convincing him of our filial bond. So I resorted to something that Indra would be proud of. I used force. I brought my foot down on the reeds and held my father prisoner until he agreed to give me the mantra that would create fire . Since he had once blessed the reeds for providing his bed with the boon that no f ir e would ever burn them, I knew that he could not reach my foot from the inside of the reeds. The only way he could get out was to comply.

"I haven't given the mantra to anyone." It was his time to beg now. "Not even to my sons."

"I am your son," I said again. "But even if I were not, you have no choice now but to give it to me if you want to be 68 released before the morning sacrifices begin. Unless, of course, you want to miss your share of the sacrifice."

I could t e ll th at Agni was becoming desperate by the sound of smoke w histling in the stems of the reeds, but I was desperate, too. If he did not wish to lose his share of the sacrifices, I did not wish to lose Shri. "I'm not going to let you go, you know. Not till you tell me the mantra." "All right, I'll tell you the mantra, but please let me come out first." I did not trust him, so I told him to call out the mantra from inside the reeds. In an angry voice, he did, and I lifted my foot. There were some flies by the reeds who also heard his fire-making mantra. Till today these flies make tiny fires glow in their tails to impress their mates. As for me, I was relieved at having found a cure for Shri and thrilled because among all my brothers, I was my father's true son, for only I had inherited his essence—the ability to make fire. Placing a hand on Shri's forehead, I recited the mantra. In a matter of seconds, the fire burned out the poison in her blood. Her skin regained its original wheat complexion. When she came to, I told her all that had happened. 69

"I'm going to kill that reptile," she said in a cold voice.

"In fact, I'm going to kill all reptiles, so they'll never approach women again with their ugly, slimy bodies." I

shared her sentiments about Taksaka, but I did not wish her to harm all snakes. I tried to tell her about Vasuki and how she wouldn't be immortal if it hadn't been for him. I even

told her about Sesh and how he kept the earth steady. She

hadn't been banished to the earth at that time, so she didn't care if Mother Earth rocked and rolled or sank underwater. But I cared, for I had already taken on the guilt of

Brahmanicide, and I did not wish to see Sesh, the scion, die and leave the earth unsteady. I tried to talk Shri out of such destructive thinking, but she has always been a determined woman—determined and unforgiving. I wonder how that unforgiving nature has deserted her, especially in this yjjss where people breed feelings of revenge and nurture them as one would a nest of vipers. I wish she would avenge herself on Amarvinash, just as the cruel revenge she sought for the snakes with the help of her brother. She helped trigger a series of vicious incidents.

Taksaka was the cause of a ll of them. Sometimes I wonder how my b ro th e r's blood could su stain the l i f e of th at snake. He was totally ruthless and lucky. Oh, yes, he was lucky, for didn't he escape Janamjaya's sacrificial fire? 70

One day, about five hundred years after the birth of

Kadru's one thousand sons, Shri and I came upon Kashyap

Rishi's hermitage. Knowing it to be the abode of the snakes, Shri begged Kadru to employ her, thinking th at a t such close quarters to her enemies, the chances of destroying them were better. Kadru was not averse to the idea of having a woman as beautiful as Shri working for her, so she employed Shri as her hand-maiden.

Shri's chance came sooner than she had expected. One

day Vinata and Kadru had a difference of opinion about the

color of Ucchaihsravas' hide. Vinata was sure that the divine steed was as white as the snows on Kailash Parvat, but Kadru argued that he was as black as the second p&b&t of the night. They made a bet deciding that the loser would serve as the other's slave for life. It was also decided that the tru th would be verified the very next morning a t dawn by waiting for the horse to rise out of the water as he did every day.

That night, as Shri rubbed rose water on the soles of

Kadru's feet, the latter mentioned the deal she had made with her sister.

"You wouldn't know Ucchaisravas' color, would you?" she asked Shri.

Long ago, relating the incident of the churning of the 71

ocean, I had told Shri about the ethereal horse.

"Yes," Shri replied. "I know what color he is. He's pure white."

Kadru fain ted . When she came to, her whole body trembled, and she pulled at her long black hair. "What am I

going to do?" she wailed. "How can I serve my younger sister for the rest of my life? Oh, how can I live like that? You

are wise," she said to Shri. "Please help me find a way to save my bet."

Promising to think about something, Shri came away. In

the middle of the night she went out for a walk. I got up to

go with her, but she said she wanted to go alone. I let her go, for as the moonlight fell on her face through the window, I could see the ugly lines from the countenance of her half brother, Sin, hopscotching on hers. I knew she would meet him th a t night.

When she came in again, she went straight up to Kadru's

room and told her the ingenious plan she had devised to fool Vinata into believing that Ucchvaihsravas was black. She asked Kadru to call her thousand sons and to tell them to braid themselves in the horse's tail, so that in the fog of the early dawn his tail would appear black, and Vinata would think he was the color of the night.

When the snakes heard this deceitful plan, they refused 72

to connive in it. If they had agreed, they would have been

damned for deceiving Vinata, but now that they had refused to

comply with that part of Shri's plan, she had something else in mind. When Kadru turned towards her at the refusal of her sons, Shri said to her, "Is that all the love and respect your sons have for you, dear woman? What good does it do you to be called mother of a thousand sons if none of them are willing to save you from a life of slavery?" As Shri had expected, Kadru was livid with anger and

hum iliation. She immediately turned towards her sons. With

eyes burning like live coals, she cursed her offspring with the fate that they would all burn to death in a sacrifice

Raja Janamjaya would perform to avenge his father's death. The snakes quaked at their mother's words, but they knew that

they were damned. Righteous ophidians like Vasuki and Sesh and others—who

having lived in Shiva's hair had gleaned every iota of wisdom

that spilled from the god's head—decided to plead with the

Grandfather to help them. But there were others like Taksaka

who wanted to help their mother. They decided to carry out Kadru's plan, hoping that she would revoke her curse if she

won her bet, but words are like feathers thrown into the

winds; once uttered they can never be retrieved. Even though Kadru won the b e t, she could not save her sons from the doom 73 she had contrived for them. The snakes now lived in mortal fear, trying to think of ways to avoid the blazing fires. Vinata, losing the wager, started her life of slavery, praying and waiting for the birth of the son who would release her from bondage. After five hundred years, Garuda was born. He was another bird-child who equalled Indra in strength. In no time at all, Garuda liberated his mother and ascended to the heavens to be Vishnu's vehicle, bracing the elements and overpowering them. The snakes still labored under the fear of the sacrifice, now even more so, because Taksaka, that evil one, had agreed to bite Raja Parikshat to fulfill the hermit boy Srngan's curse. The first step towards the extinction of the snakes had been taken. Shri walked on air for days. She felt she had given Taksaka and all the snakes their just deserts. What she never found out was that Vasuki and Sesh had been successful in procuring the Grandfather's promise that only the evil snakes would die in the sacrifice. He told them that a son would be born to their sister, Jaratkaru, by her husband, also of the same name. This son, Astika, would stop the sacrifice and free the snakes from their mother's curse.

When the time of the sacrifice came, Janamjaya's xistois chanted mantras to bring the snakes forth into the hissing flames. There was a constant sizzling of snake skin as 74

hundreds of snakes were drawn into the inferno. Taksaka, who having taken advantage of Indra's hostility towards Garuda had befriended the king of gods, now ran to him to seek refuge from Janamjaya's holocaust. Indra hid him in his lap. But the power of mantras was like the pull of gravity, and Taksaka was wrenched out of his hiding place. He descended to the earth tail first. As the tip of his tail touched the flames, Astika, the saviour, arrived upon the scene and the sacrifice was stopped. Taksaka escaped with only the tip of his tail smoldering.

"Snakes don't really die until you burn them," Gulu's words come back to me, and I realize the truth in the boy.

Maybe if Taksaka had died in that fire, people wouldn't have inherited his character. Although Shri's wish to destroy all snakes was never fulfilled, what she said about those slimy bodies approaching other women had perhaps occurred, and

Taksaka was able to have sex with a woman. That would explain snake-like human beings like Amarvinash. At the thought of Amarvinash, a faint memory comes alive in my mind. I recall the insignia on the banner that the people of Mohenjo Daro carried. It was the hood of a snake arching his black forked tongue at the enemies. I wonder now i f th at had been initiated by the people who worshipped Shiva, the 75

eliminator of Evil, and his wise snakes, or by one person—reptilian, who inherited the evil of the snakes. Vinayak comes to ask about last night's party while I am still having breakfast. I have just started my second s2jj_Jsa

P S ra a tJ lil when I hear the front door open. I think Shri has returned to talk to me or to join me for breakfast or something. But a few minutes later, when the door of the dining room swings open, I am disappointed to see it isn't her but my friend, Vinayak, the politician. Vinayak doesn't knock at my door or ring the bell to announce his arrival. He used to, when his visits were limited to about one or two a week. But now that he spends almost half the day here, he thinks it would be unfair for Somati, who would hurry to the door every time he rang the bell anticipating a guest, only to find him at the door again.

"Hi," he says, coming towards the tab le. "Hi," I say back and continue eating.

He pulls out a chair opposite me and sits down. "So, how was Sanchi revisited?" he says, sliding down in the chair so that he is almost stretched out straight, and crossing his arms over his chest. "Assuming you have v is ite d the o rig in a l."

"You mean, how was the DfcarPIRlSSys# don't you?"

76 77

"Her, too." He tries to take a banana but he can't reach it. I break one from the bunch lying in the fruit tray in the center of the table and pass it to him. He peels it.

"But if she has already reached the empty, luminous state of mind, and can o n ly create s p iritu a l energy now, I do n 't want to know about her. Just tell me about her 'humble abode'," he says, between tiny, delicate bites of the banana.

I laugh. "How do you know that she calls her new house that?" "Knowing A rti, she has to. But tell me about the house.

I re a lly want to know." "Sanchi has gold mines buried in it. And the

PhsxsipJssysiB mind would boggle at the meaning of the word." "A boggled mind in a bald head?" he asks, folding the banana peel over and laying it on the place mat before him, arranging the leaves d elicately as one would a dead man's hands. "Oh, yes— bald lik e an egg and an ugly scalp, too. I t 's all dandruffy and patchy with bones protruding in a disgusting manner. Who would think all th a t hair re a lly camouflaged such an ugly skull? it made me wonder onceagain what you ever saw in her." "Obviously, not her bald head. Oh, all that lovely black hair." He lets his head drop on his chest 78

dramatically. "Why did she do it?"

"Now, now, Veenu, cheer up. She looks lovely in ocher." "Does she really?" he asks, suddenly s ittin g up

s tra ig h t. "I knew she would. Her color and that p e rfe c t

round ass—th ey 're made for ocher." I can fe e l the laughter rising up my throat as the food goes down it, but I don't wish it to spill out till Vinayak sees the humor in the

situation. Although he says he has gotten over Arti completely, I'm not sure how much of that is true. And I'm eager to see how Arti's first public rejection has affected Veenu. This was Arti's first party he wasn't invited to. I look closely at Vinayak's almost femininely beautiful face. I see him suck in the sides of his full lower lip in a curiously idiosyncratic gesture. The next moment we both burst into laughter.

"But really," he says, "she's got a great body. Do you know th a t she doesn't want to have kids because she th in k s i t will ruin her figure. And that sucker Khanna; he loves kids. He's so crazy about her that he's letting her have her way. If she were my wife," he says, rolling up his sleeves in a mock th re at, "I would— ." "Sorry, buddy, that was never to be." "And thank god for that. I don't know what I would have done with a bald wife." 79

"Who said that it was Arti who was bald? She had her beautiful, black hair worn in a braid yesterday."

He picks up the carefully folded banana peel and swings it at me. I duck, and it lands on Somat'i's freshly cleaned carpet behind my chair.

"If you continue that, I'm not going to offer you any of

these hot, delicious 3lJJ_JS3_P3i^DiJ}35j" "What do you mean you're not going to offer me. You don't have to, Somati will. Somati," he calls out.

"Aayiji/" Somati replies from the kitchen. "Are you kidding? After that?" I say, pointing to the sp lattered peel, do you think th a t sh e 's even going to let you come back in the house let aside offer you food?" He rushes to the peel, picks it up, and brings it back to the table. "Here." I hand him a napkin. He cleans the banana stains from the carpet and comes back to the ta b le .

"Now what am I supposed to do with all this trash?" he says, holding the peel and the napkin. "Go to A rti's house and present them to her." He makes as if to throw the trash in his hand at me again when Somati enters.

"Oh, Somati," he says, holding the napkin and the peel 80 in his hand stupidly.

"Here, let me take that," Somati says, taking them.

"Somati, I think this man needs to eat one of your

to get the energy to walk to the trash can." "I'll get a plate," she says, smiling.

Vinayak sits down again. "So, tell me about the party,"

"What is there to tell? What is there ever to tell about Arti's parties?" "Tell me how the house looked?" "Khanna has spent a fortune on th at house, and A rti loves it." I told him about the Ajanta women and the sacrileged Buddha. "Tell me who was there." I told him the names of the people we were mutually acquainted w ith. "Oh, and there was a man from Delhi," I say, picking out the potatoes from the parantha on my plate. "Well, did he have horns on his head?"

I give a fake laugh. "Yes, invisible ones. But seriously, he is from the Central Ministry. I was wondering if maybe you knew him." "Maybe I do. W hat's his name?"

"Amarvinash," I say, looking at my paiS&fcbS. It now has gaping holes in it. "Oh, him. How d id Arti fin d him? Yes, he is with the 81

Center. In fact, I think he's planning to fight elections from our Constituency. He's a smart p o litic ia n ."

"Too smart," I say, pushing my plate away. "How do you know? I mean, do you know him?" "Oh, yes. I mean, no. I mean, I know of him."

"Apparently Arti did, too. What I want to know is how she found him?"

"Do you think h e 'l l win?" "Uhm. I'm almost certain. You know how popular our

Party is here, and then when the people find out that the PM has sent him, there's no way he can lose. And Arti, of course, will make sure that he gets to meet the elite of the town. I wonder how she knows him. His visit is pretty hush hush right now. Only theprominent members of our Party know. I want to know how she gets a ll th is in sid e information?" "I wonder how S hri met him?" "Oh, didn't she meet him at the party last night?"

"No, she seemed to know him before la s t n ig h t." "Well, it certainly wasn't from Arti, I'm sure of that, considering what J&hsbJbi_thinks of the Khannas. Why don't you ask her? And tell me, too, for I really would like to know how the world outside the Party gets to know about our activities." 82

"Big Brother is watching," I say in a fake voice. "Or shall I say, Big Sister?"

"No, it couldn't be Arti. Not now, not since we broke up."

"Maybe she found another politician." "Yes, maybe," he says distractedly.

Somati comes in with another plate and another patsntia. "Where's b^bbi today?" Vinayak asks, trying to change the topic. I've been waiting for this question all morning, and now that it is asked, I don't know how to answer it.

Earlier in such situations, it was so easy to evade a direct answer or to lie about her whereabouts. Not this time. This time I want to tell Veenu where she actually is. But I remember that Veenu is not aware of Shri's real identity. He thinks she is the last word in a perfect wife. A true

PStiYlSiSf a one-man wife, who would die for her husband. I wonder what his reaction would be if I told him the truth about Shri.

"Don't tell me she's gone to work so early?"

"Yes, yes," its's easy to pick up from there."Yes, sh e's gone to work. She had some work to fin is h .You know how she is when i t comes to work."

works too hard. We must do something to entertain her. I know, why don't you guys come over to my 83 place one day for dinner? in fact, how about next weekend? That is, if you don't have anything else planned."

"No, I don't have any plans for next weekend, but I'll have to ask Shri. She might have some plans." "O.K," he says, breaking off little pieces of pajantba and stuffing them into his mouth in quick succession. "We'll have a ball," he says, inbetween bites. "I'll show you what a good time really i s . "

I laugh. "You're here h a lf the day, Veenu. How come you never showed me a good time then? What'll be so special about going to your crummy little apartment?"

He takes mock umbrage at th a t. "Wait and see," he says, chewing the food hurriedly, "i have to go now. I have so much work piled up on my desk th a t i f I d o n 't go now, I might not be able to survive till Saturday."

At th e door, he reminds me to ask Shri about dinner on Saturday.

I go into my study and call Shri immediately.

The phone rings for so long that its harsh chimes seem to become an appendage of my ear. I look at my watch. It is a few minutes after nine. I know that Shri's office opens at nine and s h e 's always the f i r s t one in . She hates to be tardy.

Shri's secretary finally answers the phone. "Hello. 84

Shri's desk, may I help you?"

"Karima," I say. "Is Shri in? This is her husband."

"No, I'm afraid she hasn't come in yet. Would you like to leave a message?" "Yes," I say, and then, "No, no. It's all right. I'll catch her later." "Oh, wait. I see her. She's just come in. Will you hold for a minute while I go and tell her?"

"Sure." Phantom humming remains in my ear, as she puts the receiver on the table. Then suddenly there's Shri's voice—soft, cheerful. "Well, hello. Isn't it a little early for you to call? Don't tell me you miss me already."

"What if I said I did? Would you come home to see me then?"

She gives that tacit laugh of hers. "Maybe." "You sound lik e you're in a very good mood."

"Why shouldn't I be? I have a husband who d o e s n 't seem to be able to live without me." "That's tru e ," I say in a somber tone—too somber.

"Did Somati cook you a good breakfast?"

"Yes, we had 3l.y_]S3_p3j;.3B±M§." "Who's the we?" Is that a touch of jealousy I detect in her voice? I 85

wonder. "Vinayak dropped in to ask about la s t night's party. He's invited us to dinner at his apartment next weekend. If you're not doing anything on Saturday, would you lik e to go?" I hadn‘t meant to ask her th is now, but I d o n 't know how to ask her what I really want to. "You're kidding? Veenu actually invited us to his apartment? A r ti's rejection must re a lly have gotten to him." "As a matter of fact, he seems to be taking it pretty well. So, what do you say, shall we take him up on his o ffer?" "I wouldn't miss going to Veenu's house for the world.

We must take advantage of this very rare opportunity." "Good, t h a t 's settled then."

We are q uiet for a while, and th e phantom sounds take over again. I feel compelled to shut them off.

"So, how was your morning?" "Great." "Did you—" I hesitate. I want to ask her so many things about her morning with th at man. "Would you like to have lunch with me?" I put off the questions till lunch time. "I'd love to. Where?" "Oh, anywhere. Tell you what? Why do n 't I pick you up around one and then we'll see what w e're in the mood for?" 86

"Sounds good," she says.

"Great, I'll see you then." "Good bye, darling," she says, blowing loud kisses into the receiver. I press the disconnect button gently, cutting off the link where her kisses hang like raindrops on electricity wires. I've never heard Shri so flamboyantly demonstrative. Wondering at this unusual behavior, I place the receiver back on its cradle.

"Sahib," Somati's voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn around and see her standing in the doorway of the study with a shopping basket on her arm. "Are you going to be home for a while? I have to go to the market to pick up supplies." "What? Oh, yes. Yes, I'm going to be home tillabout half past twelve. I'm having lunch with Shri at one. I don't know why I tell Somati this—after all, it's none of her business whether I have lunch with my wife or not. Maybe I want to convince her and myself that our having a date in the middle of the day proves that all is well between us.

"Will you be eating at home then?" "Oh, no, no. We're eating out. You go on to the market, and then you can take the rest of the afternoon off."

"Thank you," she says, lifting the corner of her veil to check the knot that holds her money. " I 'l l take Gulu to see his We haven't visited her for a while."

87 88

I nod absent-mindedly, my thoughts already back with

Shri. I look at my watch; it is only a few minutes past the last time I checked. Then I set its alarm. Realizing I have over th re e hours before my d a te with Shri, I wonder what I could do to k ill the time. I look around the room, le ttin g my eyes rest on each piece of furniture for a brief moment, as though expecting the inanimate objects to suggest a possible source of distraction. My eyes alight on the typewriter lying on my desk. It is covered with a protective plastic cover which has a large white sheet of paper scotch-taped on it. There are letters in black marker written on the paper. Without even attempting to read it, I know what it says. It is the title of my new book. I like to do this—dress my typewriter in the garb of my latest project for the entire time it takes me to complete it, so that every time I look, it w ill allure me and persuade me to undress it and get to work. I smile to myself, realizing how unalluring the cold machine dressed in black and white looks at this moment when my thoughts are filled with Shri, that man, and another possible scene of undressing. I turn my eyes away from th e typew riter as though embarrassed a t being caught a voyeur. But a moment later, I walk to the machine with resolute steps—pull off the cover and roll in a paper—all in one 89

motion, so that my mind is allowed no other options. Prompted by the reassuring buzz of its electric connections,

I press the shift key and lock it. Peeling my fingers on the keys as though I were reading braille, I type:

KAUTALYA'S TWENTIETH CENTURY Then I sit reading and rereading the words. I'm aware now that I'm committed—wholly committed to recording memories of eras past—memories th a t have been strangely infused with life by the events of the present, just like

Kautalya's theories gaining relevance in contemporary politics. I can still hear Vishnugupta (as was Kautalya's real name) telling me about the quality that could make a king and his policies immortal.

"Angiras," he would say, "a king should learn the art of cotton picking, for the science of polity grows like puffs of cotton among the people." Vishnugupta foresaw democracy pervading international politics long before the world realized its ubiquity.

I touch the return key and type slowly, still feeling the keys, letting each word ricochet in my mind before I give it indelible expression on paper.

This book is dedicated to Kautalya, the man who taught

the world its first and last lesson of polity. 90

The first time I saw Vishnugupta, it was hardly as a pioneer politician. He was being dragged across the marble floor of Raja Dhan Nanda's court. The long hair of his top-knot was wound around the thick fingers of a heavily built security guard who dragged him by the hair. His dirty yellow dhoti, the only piece of clothing he wore, had become undone and trailed behind him like an angry streak of fire.

But the Brahmin bore it all stoically, not uttering a word of plea, not even when the n js, sitting on his throne, threw back his head and laughed in contempt, while courtiers echoed him. As I stood watching at the gates of the court, the bare

/ torsoed guard pulled the emaciated brahmin over the cobbled doorstep to throw him into the street outside. The laughter of the courtiers rose to a crescendo, while the dust outside rose around the fa lle n brahmin. I stepped forward to help him up.

"Leave me," he said, shrugging my hand off his shoulder. I stepped back again and watched the ugliest man I have ever seen rise to his feet. His unsightly face was a grimace grooved with dust that seemed to reach right up into his shaven head. He stood up and reached behind him to tie his loose hair into a knot again, then to tend the lose end of his dhoti.

"Who are you?" I asked. His great eyes bored holes into 91 my question. The whites seemed almost to spill onto his fleshless cheek, the pupils hung like swinging puppets in the cen ter. He did not answer me. Instead, he turned towards the gates of the court and spat, "Accursed are you for this

Dhan Nanda. Seven generations of yours w ill pay fo r th is." The veins in his neck stood out tau t and b r ittle , l i k e the tightened strings of a Veena. Then he turned to me again and said drawing in his dry lips, "Is there a saraj in this city of sadras where a brahmin can spend the night?" "God, he was ugly, "I say aloud, remembering th e urge I had at that time to move aside or at least to turn my face away, for when he spoke, spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth, and a fine spray hit whoever happened to be standing within aim.

I did not move away, nor did I turn my face, for I felt a strange affinity to this ugly man, almost of kindred spirits. I dispelled the urge to evoke his past to verify t h i s feelin g , because I wanted to le t events take t h e i r natural course. I invited him to spend the night with me in my house. He pulled a scab of dried skin from his lower lip and spit it out. "Who are you?" he asked, licking his lip. "Why are you offering a stranger shelter?" 92

"Because I have already lost my livelihood. In the

Nanda court, I am a minister managing public affairs, but the king does not trust me very much." I explained that I had only been appointed a few months gone by, and that I worked more for the people of Ushara—the capital city of the Nanda empire— than for the king, and th a t Dhan Nanda did not know whether to consider this loyalty or otherwise. That morning

I had been called away on business, and had missed the spectacle the king had provided his courtiers by humiliating this Brahmin. "Now that so many courtiers have seen me assist you after the king himself has denounced you, I will receive my £££££ from the royal offices," I told him. "I think, since I will no longer have my ministry, I might as well get to know the man who is responsible for my coming d£n»a£c]jg."

He ignored my thrust. "No one in his right mind should work for that sadis. Surely KaJ,i_Yugs is at its height, making low-borns like that Dhan Nanda rulers of this sacred land," he said . "However, I w ill go with you." I called for my carriage (while I still had it) and on the way home, I asked Vishnugupta the reason for his dism issal, so publicly staged, from the Nanda court. "Your ignorant king thinks that Saraswati cannot abide to live in this ugly head," he replied. "I asked him to test 93 me and see. I have spent my entire life studying the scriptures in Texilla and have won Saraswati by sheer dint ot dedication, but that usurper ot thrones cannot understand the true nature ot goddesses like Saraswati. 'Go ugly brahmin,' he told me 'tor my eyes hurt to look at you.' 'Your eyes should hurt every time you see your retlection,' I wanted to say to him, tor when his inner selt is revealed, it will surely be more monstrous than my outward body. But I didn’t say it; instead, I insisted he test my powers. At this, he stepped down trom his th ro n e. And, my good man, can you believe it? He kicked me? That low-born kicked me, a brahmin ot the highest cast. What other signs do you need to see th a t we are now in KaiA_YySii?n "And then he ordered his guards to throw you out," I tinished to r him. He nodded. It suddenly dawned on me why Vishnugupta had gone to visit the Nanda court. He had wanted to apply tor the post ot manager ot the the newly-opened Dan Kendra. Dhan Nand was a miserly ruler. His kingdom lay dilapidated in ruins, yet he did not spend a rotten inadi^ on repairs. The levies, however, increased regularly every year, so the cotters ot the king could remain tu ll. And his army could maintain his power. His people shook th e ir t i s t s at him and prayed to their gods to deliver them trom his avarice. 94

A month after I started working for Dhan Nanda, there were rumors in Ushara that the subjects were planning to murder the king. I gathered a few other ministers, and we went to the xsjS and advised him to mend his ways before one of his subjects made good the threat. We advised him to open a P3B_K£Bd£§r a charity center, as a first step towards reconciliation with his despairing subjects. It was decided then that an eminent brahmin, well versed in the scriptures, would be hired to manage the cen ter. Drummers were engaged to beat their drums in village squares all over the kingdom, and town-criers loudly proclaimed the royal decree. Vishnugupta, I figured, had come in answer to that notice, and I said as much.

"Yes," he said. "I heard a drummer in Patliputra where

I was visiting the Learning Center. The fact that this part of Bharatvarsha was being ruled by a fudxs distressed me, and

I thought I would compromise by helping him run this Pbb

Ksi)dj;a and other such humanitarian agencies, but I realize now that one cannot erect pillars in quicksand."

When we got home, there was, as I had expected, an official waiting for me at the door. He bore a notice of eviction from the king, ordering me to quit the kingdom in twenty-four hours.

"Where will you go?" Vishnugupta asked me. 95

"To Texilla," I said. "My wife is there. She's studying design."

"Oh, I look forward to meeting her," he said. "Does that mean you're going to Texilla, too?" "What else can I do? I have a permanent position

there. I teach the laws of polity. There my studentsare not repulsed by my face, but are drawn to my mind. Yes, I will go to Texilla with you."

We rested for the night and, at daybreak, we managed to

get a carriage for our long journey east of Bharatvarsha to Texilla and to Shri.

Vishnugupta and I learned a lot about each other in

those two weeks. We talked about everything from politics to women. I discovered he was my match in all subjects. It was easy to respect his mind.

We talked about generalities like the state of affairs in Bharatvarsha. Alexander, or Sikander, as we Sindhus called him, was in Bharatvarsha, waging his re le n tle ss wars on the weak kingdoms of the country, annexing almost the whole of Bharatvarsha to his vast empire. Just recently Raja Ambi of Texilla had been subjugated, and now he, too, ruled as the Greek's vassal. Although we talked about Bharatvarsha as by-standers—observers who did not care about the tribulations that rent the sacred land—we both knew that 96

each of us felt in his heart a keeper of the land who had

somehow failed to prevent the imperial larceny that had occurred. "Bharatvarsha," he would say, "This land of and

saints will be ravaged many times, not only by foreign invaders, but also by her own sons, her own rulers and kings, who like that gudxs* Dhan Nanda, will pillage the soil of this land. Narayan give me strength 1 I will change the fate of Bharatvarsha if it kills me. I will build an army of the loyal sons of this soil." We exchanged ideas on—among other things—the art of ruling. I exchanged with him the policies I had learned from

Indra for the knowledge he had gleaned in his fifty years. "Who was your guru?" he asked me once. "Indra," I said, without thinking and laughed to cover up.

He looked at me gravely. "If Eklavya could learn the art of archery by erecting a Dronacharya from the mud, one can surely learn polity from Indra by reading his written word."

One night we rested in the historic land of Kurukshetra, where the soil was still red from the bloodshed celebrated in th e flaJjgfeJjsigiSji Day broke and we walked across the portion of the field that remained unravaged and sanctified after the 97 building of the city of Kurukshetra. The lot was fenced off, and except for a small temple in one corner, it was vacant. This was the only temple in the city of Kurukshetra, and, perhaps, in the whole of Bharatvarsha that did not celebrate a god. Its six by six foot square ground, three walls, and thatched roof protected the gentle light of a djya from the elements. An old widow plastered the wall and the floor of the temple with fresh cow dung every morning before sunrise. She also refilled the <3iy3 with gbSS to keep it burning in memory of those epic heroes who died in the Mbabbsxata and achieved yiigaii. "Vishnugupta," I said. "Do you. remember the tale of vir Abhimanyu?"

"Yes," he said, kneeling in the soil before the temple. "Who doesn't? Brave sons of Bharatvarsha will always be remembered."

"Do you know that it was his courage which wrought havoc among the tightly-knit arrays of the Kaurava armies?" "Yes," he said. "I read about him breaking the formation of the Chakravhyu." "Do you know how he learned the strategy?" He shook his head.

"One day when Subhadra, h is mother, was pregnant with him," I told Vishnugupta, "Abhimanyu's father, Arjun, lay 98

with his head in his wife's lap. By the light of the

receding sun, he started telling Subhadra about the

Chakravyuh. But by the time he finished his account of the strategies to penetrate it, his wife fell asleep. So he stopped, l i t t l e knowing that Abhimanyu, his unborn son, had learned how to break effectively into the formation but would always be ignorant about how to make an exit. And do you know th a t, even though Abhimanyu knew i t was a death tra p , he volunteered to penetrate the Kaurava ranks in the Mshabharata to help the Pandavas, because no one except he and his father were familiar with the strategies? The day they formed the Chakravyuh in the field, the Kauravas made sure that Arjun was engaged elsewhere. So Abhimanyu entered alone."

"He was reckless," Vishnugupta said, "but oh, so courageous."

"Exactly," I said, "Courageous and reckless. That's the kind of youth you need at the head of your army." "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Haven't you told me that the kings of Bharatvarshahave learned the futility of attacking the vast armies of the Nandas and are a fra id to attempt i t again?" He nodded.

"That is why what we need now is a reckless youth willing to take on the risk of a defeat and a possible 99

death. Where the experience of age dictates caution, the unpredicatability of youth takes the enemy by surprise. We need to find a youth as daring and dauntless as Abhimanyu, and in him we will breed patriotism for this land."

He seemed hesitant to accept my suggestion. "I agree that Abhimanyu entered the Chakravyuh alone and fought the Kaurava army single-handed, as though the whole Pandava force had converged into his inexperienced, eighteen-year-old body. But a r e n 't you forgetting th e events th a t followed? Don't you remember that the Chakravyuh closed behind him like an alligator's jaws as soon as he entered, and none of the

Pandavas could follow him?" "Yes," I said, "But this time we won't let the formation

close behind him. We will follow him all the way."

He liked that. "Yes. We will drive spokes in the a llig a to r 's mouth so th a t he can never close i t . Then we will follow our brave youth right into the monster's heart."

Taking a fistful of the emblazoned soil, Vishnugupta smeared it on his lined forehead and pronounced a vow. "On this

sacred soil of Kurukshetra, I vow that I will not rest till I have rid this holy land of its foreign yoke and also of that

.sMrs king who is worse than any foreigner." To me he said, "We will eliminate not one but both evils

from this land, for the true politician is he who pulls 100 asunder all evils with one powerful grip."

His resolve was infectious. I found myself sharing his enthusiasm and making my own secret vows to the fiery soil.

"Then shall we scour the f°r this paragon of bravery and courage, this stripling youth who is going to deliver us and this land?"

"Yes," he said. "But before that I would like to warn the Greek of our in ten tio n s." "And Dhan Nanda?"

"Not him, for th a t one is a snake. The Greek is brave. His valor and true warrior spirit have won him the right to be informed of his enemy's intentions. The other one, the deserves to be stabbed in the back. Remember, my friend, each enemy must be met on his own level—onlythen there can be a fair fight. And a defeat from an enemy on an equal level is the most crushing defeat one can receive, it is a defeat worse than death."

We decided to take a detour on our route to Texilla so that we could visit Sikander's camp.

Vishnugupta sent me to the camp with a piece of dry animal hide.

"Tell him to step on it," he told me. "And then what?" I asked.

"You will see." 101

"Is that it? You don't want me to say anything to him?" "You will know what to say," he said smiling.

I went to the camp and begged permission to see the Greek Emperor. Thinking me a harmless Brahmin, the guards took my message in and returned with Sikander's consent. In the Greek's presence, I placed the dry hide before him and

told him to step on one side of i t . The young Greek looked at me curiously, and then obliged. As he put his sandal-clad foot on one side of the hide, the other side rose and slapped

him on the legs. I told him to get off and step on the other

side. He humored me, and the same thing happened—the other side of the hide rose and slapped him again on the legs. Vishnugupta's tacit message suddenly became clear to me, and

I laughed out loud. Immediately two spear points appeared on

either side of my face. Gesturing the guards to move away, Sikander said to me,

"You laugh, Brahmin. We d o n 't see anything funny. If you tell us the joke, perhaps we can all enjoy it." "Sikander," I said, "Bharatvarsha is like this dry piece of hide. After defeating one side of it, when you proceed to another point of attack, the side you thought you had subjugated will rise and slap you. When you return to quell that rebellion, the side that you have left unattended will rise and slap you, also. Leave Bharatvarsha, Sikander, for 102

this land will never be conquered. It will only slap you to d eath."

He had me thrown o u t, but he kept the hide. "Now we shall proceed to find our young prince," Vishnugupta said, on my return. He made it sound so

simple—to find a king, to build a whole army, to defeat the

Nandas and Sikander, and to furnish an empire from scratch,

when the only resources we had at our command were his will, his wisdom, and his energy. I was fascinated by this ugly brahmin who claimed he would build an empire stronger than any that had existed in Bharatvarsha.

We dispensed with our carriage and began the search on foot, dressed in the ochre robes of ssdMg, carrying staffs

in our hands and Js3IB3Dd3.1.§ to beg for our food. We climbed to mountain regions where unfriendly tribes eyed us warily and, seeing we were only men of god, left us alone. We

roamed through rich fields and bustling cities, talking to people, telling them that God had sent Bharat a's liberator among us. We asked them i f they knew of any young boys who showed singular indications of becoming prodigies. We looked at many boys, for all mothers brought us their sons—suckling babies to tall youths, smart, insolent children to the retarded and simple. Vishnugupta was not satisfied. He had a picture of the young prince in his mind and was looking for 103 a boy who would t i t tb a t— a boy wbose shoulders would be able to carry the weight ot a lettered Bharatvarsha, whose smooth, uncalloused hands would be able to break away those tetters, and whose head would be able to carry an Emperor's crown. Then one day we entered the c ity ot Ushara again, thinking th at perhaps the doom ot the Nandas was w ritten in the hands ot one ot their subjects atter ail. As we crossed the village green, we tound a group ot children playing together. Vishnugupta halted to watch their game ot two armies at war—a dangerous game played with sling shots and pebbles which they aimed at each other like bows and arrows. A log ot wood lying in the center ot the common set the boundaries tor the two tactions. It a child got hit, he or she was considered dead and had to step out ot the game. We watched in lascinated horror as the battle became heated and tense. Arrow-like pebbles shot children dead on both sides, but one side showed a d e tin ite advantage. Then tin a lly only one child remained on the losing side: a child who moved with the speed ot lightning, loading pebbles in his sling shot, shooting, loading again, and shooting on all sides till his ammunition was gone. Seeing him disarmed, the remaining members ot the other army surrounded him, their sling shots aimed a t him, ready to shoot at the sig n al trom th e ir ch iet. "Do you surrender?" called out the victorious chiet. 104

"No," the unarmed child c a lle d hack, a hoy ot not more than seven or eight years ot age, his thin shoulders thrown back in detiance, his tair tace ruddy with anger. "Let me get some more stones and I ’ll Deat you yet."

"Your army is a l l dead," c a lle d out theother hoy. "But we have not lost the war," he replied. "We will not lose till I die." "That," said Vishnugupta, pointing to the lone hoy in the circle ot adversaries, "is my Abhimanyu—my prince. I will guide him on the path ot Kingship accordingto the B i t i g s elaborated in our holy texts."

I look at the keys ot my typewriter and think ot his prophetic v isio n . He could see the world moulded into a pertect structure so long as it tollowed the scriptural Bitigs ot polity, hut once men barkened to the monsters within, the structure crumbled, just as it it were a product ot mayg.

I think about the monsters that plague the world today and how men succumb to them. Even Shri had succumbed to the spectre ot an ancient tiend. The boy belonged to the Maurya trib e . We bought him from his foster parents and performed a oaflijtax^ij ceremony, invoking Agni to witness the naming. The boy could not remember his birthday, neither could the foster parents, so Vishnugupta calculated an auspicious hour and declared that time as his time of birth. The Sanskrit letter that resulted from the auspicious configuration of the stars was 'Ch.1 "Chandra," I said instinctively. "Yes," said Vishnugupta, "j like that. He will be Chandra—the son. He will be Chandragupta." I thought he was intending to adopt the boy by giving him his own name. But he explained to me, "He win be Chandra, the son of Bharatvarsha, and gupiji—disguised, hidden as if in the womb, till it is time for him to be delivered to this land. Then he will take his own family name, for no man should forget his origins." So Chandragupta he remained, until almost a decade later when having won his wars successfullyr he was hailed as th e Great SsiDiat Chandragupta Maurya.

That very day we proceeded to Texilla where Vishnugupta enrolled the boy at the Learning Center. An instructor himself, Vishnugupta was entitled to large quarters on the

105 106

grounds of the center. I, of course, went to stay with Shri in her little two-room student quarters.

L ife returned to normal again. I took to living each day as it dawned, reading the Texts, adding my own chapters to them, counselling students at the center in political science and social behavior, and following Chandragupta1 s progress keenly. Vishnugupta would often invite me to his house to discuss the boy's development and to comment on the strategies he was formulating against the time the prince would be old enough to accept his responsibilities. It was then that he started writing the h i tjj&sh>x£. While

Vishnugupta1s text bore his stamp and made him immortal through the name he subscribed for himself in it—born to immortal anonymity—my writings could not proclaim my identity, for though my additions to the Texts were considered as a vital part of the originals, their author was written off as "Anon."

On one v isit, Shri accompanied me to meet the learned Brahmin. Vishnugupta was sitting crossed-legged at his small wooden desk when we entered, his white dove q u i l l moving rapidly on his scroll.

"Vishnugupta#" I said, "I have brought my wife today to meet you." He d id n 't look up. "S it down," he said, s t i l l w riting. "I want to complete 107

this section. I'll be with you in a few minutes." I led Shri

into the other room—a sparsely furnished room with jute cushions painted ochre and thrown on the baked mud floor.

There was another writing desk in one corner with a number of quills all dipped in one large ink well and a pile of

s c ro lls . On one wall was a sketch of Chandragupta done in charcoal, and on the other a white linen sheet with a map of Bharatvarsha. The boundaries of all the kingdoms were set off in d ifferen t colors. The area annexed by Alexander was covered with little black crosses, and the land comprising the Nanda empire was shaded completely in black.

"You'll like him, Shri," I said, lowering myself on a cushion. "He seems to be descended d ire c tly from Indra. He knows so much about the a r t of ru lin g ."

"He's very uglyI" Shri whispered to me, pulling her cushion close to mine.

"Shsh, his mind is as beautiful as that of Indra's, you'll see."

"How would I know? I never met Indra. The Grandfather specially instructed us to stay away from his gods."

"Never mind th a t. Just stay away from him, too." She made a face at me and said, "It is supposed to be pleasurable for us, too, you know. The Grandfather didn't want us to be repulsed." 108

"Angiras, thank you for coming," Vishnugupta said from the doorway of his study. "I wish you to hear this section that I have just finished. It's about how a king should practice restraint of the senses in order to overthrow not only the enemies of his physical state, but also those of his spiritual being." "My wife and I would love to hear it," I said smiling.

"Thank you," he said, still at the door.

"Shri," I said, "this is Vishnugupta. We both claim descent from Indra in matters of polity." He laughed. Shri turned around. Vishnugupta1s soft, almost soundless laughter froze on his thin ugly face.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "This is my wife, Vishnugupta." "I know," he said. "You've talked about her often, but who is she?" "I was created by the Grandfather for a very special purpose," Shri said, laughing. "Vishnugupta licked the foamy spittle from the corners of his mouth and pulled a scab of skin from his lower lip with his teeth. "We were all created for a purpose," he said. "But no one was created to disrupt the purpose of o th e rs ."

"Maybe that is my purpose," she said, with a sweet 109

sm ile. He looked at her as one, who coming upon a snake lying stomach up, does not know whether it is dead or just catching rays of sunlight in its colorless underskin. In a moment the puppet pupils abandoned their fixity, and his scalp rippled as he forced a change of expression, regaining composure.

"You're studying design here, Angiras tells me," he said, sitting down on the bare floor, facing her.

"Yes, I design clothes among other things." "Why do you study design?"

"Attire, I believe, is as definitive as a person's face and h is actions." "Good. "I believe that too. That is why I wish you to design the attire for the future of Bharatvarsha." She looked at him surprised. "Why, yes. I'd love to, but I'll have to meet the king first." "I don't think that is wise, considering I haven't yet started his lessons on the restraint of senses. Besides, he is s t i l l unaware of what course of actio n he is going to pursue. His mould is in these hands," he said, holding his hands together to fashion a womb. "I will tell you what his actions will be. Will you design his clothes around a conceptual idea?"

"Yes," Shri said, seriously, "I will. But there is one problem. I don't design clothes for men. I only ruin

them." I nudged her. Vishnugupta threw h is head back and laughed. "This time will you design to build and not to ruin? Will you help

Angiras and me give expression to Bharatvarsha's future?" She nodded.

"What do you think of him?" I asked her on our way back

home. "He's really ugly," she said. "Besides that. What do you think of this chapter on self-restraint? Don't you think he's a great statesman?" "Uhm, Chandragupta is lucky to have a guide like him. I

have to start on those clothes right away. I'm pretty excited about designing a king's first clothes—clothes that

will become a statement of the whole man." It was strange how all of us, including Shri, considered Chandragupta a king

already, never once doubting that Vishnugupta might not be

able to see this one through. Shri got to work on the attire that very evening. The Samrat's clothes obsessed her. She couldn't talk about anything else. She had a student from the department of

sculpture build her a clay dummy along the measurements Vishnugupta had given her of Chandragupta. I became I l l accustomed to seeing the dummy in different clothes every time I looked at it. I felt I was back in the days of the Kamdhenu trees, for Shri was like a magician conjuring designs from the fa b ric of her mind. She created outrageous outfits of flaming colors with body-baring measurements, demure clothes th a t covered the dummy in white linen from head to foot—outfits that she cut and sewed day and night— until finally one day, sitting in the other room, I heard her laugh aloud. I lowered the book I was reading. I thought her obsession had unsettled her. But when I listened more closely, I heard relief in her voice and pleasure.

"Come in here," she called out to me. I went and looked. The clay replica of the future king of Bharatvarsha wore a yellow dhoti that reached down to his ankles. Over the dhoti he wore a knee length tunic of brocade that strung all the way down at the side. There was a shawl draped half over his shoulders that went around the elbows and hung loose at the sides to be maneuvered for the most comfortable position. On his feet were silk slippers, embroidered at the toes with edges that strapped around the ankles. And on his imperial head sat a silk turban, the same color as the slip p e rs, tied in numerous folds th a t were layered one on top of the other to a tapering finish.

"Shri, it's magnificent," I began, but she had run out 112

of the house. I came to the door and watched her rush towards Vishnugupta's quarters. She returned an hour or so

later, in spirits higher than when she had left.

"He'll come to see it later," she said with a secretive

smile. Throwing a sheet over her masterpiece, she l e f t the

house again. "I'm going for a walk," she told me.

"Want me to come along?" I asked." "No," she said. I'd rather go alone, if you don't

mind." I decided to go for a walk, too, though not with her.

Passing Vishnugupta's house, on an impulse I knocked on his door. I thought it would be pleasant to discuss Shri's

triumph with him. No one answered the door. I knocked again, but the silence persisted. I pushed open the door and entered. "Vishnugupta," I called aloud, "are you in?"

I thought he was dead when I entered his study. He lay

on the mat, absolutely still, his arms lying limp beside

him. His face was ashen, making the wrinkles appear like deep gashes across his skin. The spittle around his mouth had dried, coating h is lip s like a grey membrane. His eyes were closed; the lid s unusually white and unwrinkled were

stretched taut over their bulges. I sat down beside him and reached out to touch his forehead. He reacted as if touched by a hot iron, rolling away from me in one sudden jerk. 113

"What is it, Vishnugupta? Are you sick?" I asked

so ftly . "Who are you?" He turned towards me and stared at me

for a long time. Then he said in a voice hardly audible,

"Who are you? Who is your wife?" "Why do you ask? You know who I am." He pulled himself into a sitting position, still looking at me, searching my face for answers. "Look at th is face, Angiras. Which woman would give herself voluntarily to this?"

"Then are you saying that, Shri— ."

"Yes," he said, biting his lip till blood appeared on it from a scab that brought along raw skin.

"Tell me the truth, my friend, who is she? Is she a

IP3ySYi, an illusion created to ruin men? Is she a snake woman who can change h e rse lf into any allu rin g form to mislead mortals? Or is she a product of sorcery conjured by

Dhan Nanda's magician to prevent me from liberating Bharatvarsha from his sydjs clutches? My ancestors will be doomed. My caste will disown me. Don't you see?" he said, bending towards me to read my eyes. "Don't you see that it is my duty to free Bharatvarsha? If I fail in this duty, my vow w ill be fa ls ifie d . I will lose Brahminhood for seven births. I will be doomed, Angiras. I am a celibate, a 114

Exaljffisjjaiil}. Who is Shri, t e l l me? I know she is not of this earth, or she wouldn't have been able to reduce me to a

snivelling sex-starved fool." He wept, tears disappearing into wrinkles and smearing his whole face. "Fifty years, Angiras—I have spent fifty years of this life cultivating celibacy, deriving power and strength from it, letting the oj^s water my brains, so I could let highest strategies of polity grow there. I am a celibate. Oh, god," he groaned and clutched his groin, doubling over on the floor.

"I looked down at the brahmin, my heart filling with pity. For the first time in my life, I felt anger for Shri rising in my throat—a red hot anger for that woman who had reduced such enviable strength to such pitiful feebleness.

I took a deep breath and lifted him by the shoulders.

"Listen, my friend, forgive her. Shri is like a child who likes to take apart everything that' fascinates her just to see what makes it tick. She is aware of the control she can have over men, yet she likes to test it every time she meets a match, and you, my friend, were more than a match for her. She just couldn't resist taking you apart. Forgive her. I will talk to her and tell her to stay away from you. I promise you will never have to deal with her again."

As once before, I saw him release the strings of his pupils and move his scalp, letting a silent resolve settle on 115

his face. He straightened his back. Gently shrugging my

hand off his shoulders, he said, "No, wait, don't do that. I think I'll be just fine."

I left him sitting on the floor, his lip quivering in consternation. His show of bravado hadn't fooled me. "I'm sure you'll be fine," I thought to myself. "But my friend,

you don't know my wife." I decided to talk to her that

night, in spite of what Vishnugupta said. "Don't you wish to see Bharatvarsha liberated?" I asked her l a t e r th at evening. "What does it matter whether this little bit of land you

call Bharatvarsha is liberated or not. The rest of it will never be united again. Anyway, we can go and live in that

land th ey call Greece now. I would love to meet th a t young

Greek." "I talked to Vishnugupta today. He told me about your behavior." "What do you mean, my behavior?" she said, lips pouting. "Why did you have to go and see him today. You've ruined everything." She turned to leave the room.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her round. The rage I'd felt earlieron Vishnugupta's account surfaced again. "I've ruined everything?" I shouted. ”I ± Z £ ruined everything? Shri, do you have any idea what you d id to th a t 116 poor man?" Do you know th a t he's a celib ate? Do you know what you've reduced him to? Do you?" I shook her t i l l her head rolled on her shoulders like a a rag doll's. "I don't believe you, Shri," I said, letting go of her. she staggered and fell to the floor.

"What do you want me to say?" she said quietly. "Do you want me to say I'm sorry?" I sat down on my haunches beside her. Taking her hand in my own, I said gently, "Shrif please leave him alone." "Why?" She pulled her hand back. "Do you know what will happen if I don't intervene now? He will claim a saintly position in history. People will never regard him as an ordinary niti. shastri, a brahmin who missed his true calling but will see him as a direct descendant of indra. Among all the politicians of this land, he will be the only one whose name w ill cause the same bated breath used for the gods."

"Shri, Vishnugupta is not an ordinary brahmin. Anyway, if we lose men like him to women like you, you know what will happen? Your precious gods will not be mentioned at all, for the world will be ruled by egotistical kings who w ill declare themselves gods and forbid their subjects to mention the names of any other gods. Let this man help in this lib e ra tio n movement. In f a c t, Shri, I beg you to l e t a ll 117

liberators of Bharatvarsha pursue their goals unhindered and unseduced. I'm sure their gaining saintly height is a small

price to pay in exchange for the favor they will be doing the gods in making them tru ly immortal."

"Oh, all right," she said, getting up. Then suddenly

she looked down at me and laughed. "Anyway, I was only playing with him. He's so ugly. I would be repulsed at even the idea of having sex with him." She gave me her hand to pull me up. "Tell me about the Greek. I hear he's very good looking," she said.

"Yes," I replied, an idea forming in my mind. "He's very good-looking. I'll introduce you to him one day, but only in exchange for the promise that you’ll leave

Vishnugupta and those others alone."

I leave the typewriter on and walk to the far end of the room where an entire wall is covered with shelves lined with books. Tracing the titles with my index finger, I pull out the one that reads, and thumb through the yellowed pages of the book to a picture of Alexander in full regalia as a conqueror. I trace his iron suit of armor, his heavy gold helmet, and fan of white plumes on the crown, then his hard jaw and his muscular body, recalling the time Shri met him. I laugh out loud as a picture of Shri's face as it 118

looked at that time flashes in my mind. Shri was definitely

taken by surprise. I recall her abortive efforts to fire the interest of the virile Greek. Poor Shri, she could have been an ugly amphibian for all the Greek cared. After so many years, the memory is humorous enough to make me guffaw.

One tim e when Chandragupta was about fifteen,

Vishnugupta arranged for his students to visit the conqueror and study Greek war strategies and weaponary. Chandragupta went in th e capacity of a stu d en t of p o lity and not as a prospective enemy. Shri w en t to. she managed to weasel out a visit by saying she wanted to study the Greek mode of dress.

Early that morning, she ground the arabicus plant and burnt the powder on a lamp whose wick was dipped in the oil of blue vitriol. After her bath, she applied the lampblack to her eyelashes and put on a plain cotton sari. She refrained from the use of any ornaments to emphasize a false asceticism. But the cotton of the sari was so sheer that her clear skin flashed through the material like millions of radiant windows. She piled h®r long silk y h air on top of her head and tie d i t there with a ribbon, showing o ff her long graceful neck to advantage. Then she took her conch sh e ll bead that had been enchanted i>Y the incantations from the 119

Atharava Veda to augment desire in another and tied it around her neck. When she stepped out into the crowd of students waiting for the carriages, I saw a number of young men turn their heads and give her hungry looks; some bold ones even made low wolf-howls. I began to have second thoughts about letting her go to the Greek camp. But the carriages that Vishnugupta had ordered for them were ready, and there was no time to argue her out of going.

Later that evening, just as the sun was setting, Vishnugupta and I watched the carriages return. The red after-glow of the sun and the dust swirling around the wheels created a haze over the studentsdisembarking. We walked briskly towards the group. Shriwas there. She had thrown a shawl around her shoulders and tied her hair at th e nape of her neck. Her face was stony and expressionless. "What happened?" I asked her. She tightened the shawl around her shoulders and, without saying a word, walked towards her quarters. I followed her. "Shri, t e l l me what happened? D idn't you meet

Sikander?" She went on with quick, short steps.

"Shri, where's Chandragupta?" Vishnugupta called after us.

I stopped. In the obscurity of the evening light, I had 120 not missed Vishnu's prince. I turned towards the carriages. The students had started dispersing, the excitement of visiting the Greek camp receding with their chatter and their foothalls. Shri kept on walking.

"Shri." Vishnugupta half ran towards us. "Where's Chandragupta?" The panic in his voice was almost palpable. Shri stopped and turned towards us.

"Don't panic," she said to Vishnugupta. "Your precious student is all right. He was detained by the Greek Emperor." "Why?" We both asked in unison. She gave a short sarcastic laugh and sta rte d walking again. "The virile Emperor wants him to be his girl tonight," she said as she turned her head. Vishnugupta and I looked at each other. The lines on his forehead were compressed close together in anxiety.

"Don't worry, my friend," I said, putting an arm around his thin shoulders. "He'll be fine, Sikander won't hurt him ."

"I'm not worried about th a t. I know the Greek will be gentle. I'm just sad. I wanted Chandragupta to have his first sexual experience with a beautiful woman like Shri." I pressed his shoulder in surprise and gratitude and wished him a good night. 121

When I entered the house, Shri was drawing something on a scroll with a bit of charcoal.

"What really happened there, today, Shri?" I asked, my

tongue in my cheek. She turned to me, livid with anger.

"Nothing," she said from between clenched teeth . "Nothing happened, a ll right? Now stop asking me."

"All right," I said. "But I have to say that I was

hoping you could seduce the Greek. I'm sorry to hear that your charms are wearing off." She came at me like a lioness, her nails extended, her

hair swinging wildly around her shoulders. "Stop it I" she screamed. "Stop itl Don't say another

word." She untied the knot that held her sari up and stood before me, her beauty like the earth. "My charms are wearing off?" she said coming towards me. In a moment she had me on the flo o r and had pulled my

clothes off. She was upon me hissing, biting, striking, scratching. When I reached out to touch her, she struck my

hand away, and stretching her leg, she retrieved her sari.

She then proceeded to tie my hands above my head. Batting

her blackened eyelashes at me, she said, "Let's see about my charm, s h a ll we?"

Later, when we lay panting on the floor, I said to her, 122

"Your charms never f a il to a llu re me, Shri, but i t seems that the Greeks are immune."

She turned her head to look at me. After a long moment of staring into my e y e s , she pulled herself on one elbow and dug a finger nail into my breast, pulling it through the skin to draw a fine line. Then she drew another and another. I lifted my head to look down at my breast. There were three even scratches, an inch or so long and a few centim eters apart, running parallel to each other, all glistening with blood. "This is for you to remember me by while I'm gone," she said getting up. "Where are you going?"

In answer she untied my hands. I watched her dress. She put on the same cotton sari again, the wrinkles clinging to her soft body, and with the fragrance of our love-making still clinging to her skin, she left the room. She didn't return that night. I didn't expect her to. The next morning, even before I had awakened, there was a knock on the door. Tying the knot of my dho ti, I padded to the door. I found the young prince on the doorstep. "Chandragupta," I said.

He bent and touched my feet. I blessed him. "This is for you," he said, handing me a note. 123

"Why don't you come in?" I said, opening the door wider, the note clutched tightly in my hand.

"Thank you," he said.

"Did you ju st get back?" I asked.

He flushed a deep red and nodded. I gestured to him to sit and opened the note. It had only one line written on it—"The Greeks love me."

"Who gave this to you?" I asked Chandragupta. "Sikander's Commander-in-Chief."

"Thank you for bringing i t," I said.

He nodded again, never lifting his face to look at me.

"Are you all right?" I asked him. The flush spread into his hairline and down his neck.

"What will I tell Guruji?" he said. "How will I face him?" "Chandragupta," I said, sitting beside him to put an arm around his shoulders. "Your Guruji is a very understanding man. He knows it wasn't your fault."

"He asked me. I could have said no," he said, his chin digging into his chest. I pressed his shoulders. "It's all right, don't worry.

Your Guruji won't be angry, believe me. Would you like me to go and t e l l him that you are here?" He nodded hesitantly. "May I sleep here, in your room 124

for a while? I don't think I can face him just yet." "Of course," I said. "Here, lie down on this mat." I

straightened the sheet. "You can sleep here as long as you

wish."

He pulled the sheet over his face and pretended to fall asleep immediately. I smiled and let myself out of the house

quietly.

I went to see Vishnugupta to tell him that his prince had returned safely without any apparent loss. I decided not to tell him about Shri, thinking that if he asked I would say she had gone to visit relatives.

Shri stayed in the Greek camp for about a week, during which time the love scratches on my breast kept me constantly reminded o f her. Every time I moved a muscle in my right arm, they tw itched. A couple of times, they to re open, and I

felt a fresh wetness of blood against my skin. I could have healed them with herbs if I had wished, but I didn't.

Sikander and his men le ft the vicinity of Texilla to continue their conquests, but the winning streak that had marked their wars had now deserted them. We heard rumors of his men rebelling, of their wanting to return to Greece to th eir homes and wives. S h r i's powers of persuasion had worked yet again. Sikander left Bharatvarsha, appointing SStlSPS to govern the te r r ito r ie s he had annexed. A few 125

years later we heard the news of his death in distant

Babylon. By this time Chandragupta had come of age. The three of us—Chandragupta, Vishnugupta and I—started on another tour of Bharatvarsha, this time to recruit an army. Employing robbers and outlaws and d are-devils, we soon had a large enough force not only to remove sikander's representatives from power, but to elim inate all tra c e s of foreign rule.

Then it was Dhan Nanda's turn. With Kautalya's ingenious mind, we met the Nanda on his own level of cunning. Waging unlawful war, we brought the great Nanda Empire to its knees. One night, Dhan Nanda—disgraced and humiliated by the man whom he had kicked out of his court lik e he would a crawling spider—drove a sword through his own heart. The coronation of the new itemcst was a grand occasion, with Chandragupta wearing a suit designed by Shri. Shri and I returned to Texilla, where she spent the next couple of months designing Sikander look-alike clothes for the younger students. "You should be glad you were what you were," I say to

Alexander's picture, "because if Shri had her way with you, you might not have been in this book." Then I shut the volume and put it back on the shelf. The typewriter is still buzzing softly—beckoning. I cross the room and settle down at my desk to work. My fingers fly across the keys now, the keyboard is no longer lik e b ra ille . At noon, the alarm in my watch goes off. Finishing up the last line in the paragraph,

I roll out the paper. My fingers leave sweaty stains on its ends, i realize that the back of my shirt is sticking to my skin, and my face feels clammy. The temperature must have risen considerably since th e morning. Summers in th is city give one a true sense of exile. It is no wonder that Shri has been pestering me to install air-conditioning in the house ever since we moved here ten years ago. she complains about the paucity of our comfort and appeals to what she calls my money-managing instinct, "if you can't afford air-conditioning for the whole house, get it installed in only a couple of rooms—your study, the bedroom, and perhaps my studio." Last summer, 1 had a cooler f i t t e d in her studio, but

126 127

the noise disturbed her so much that one morning she called

in a man and got it moved to my study. She was right, the

water in the infernal thing circulated as if it were breaking on rocks. So we packed up the cooler and put it into storage and decided to live with the ceiling fans, which are

considerably quieter but only rotate the heat off the smouldering w alls. Sometimes at n ight, Shri hangs towels soaked in ice water on the windows to cool the air, if only for a few minutes. Deciding to fit the cost of

air-conditioning in our budget this summer, I go upstairs to

take a quick shower before I leave. It is almost a quarter of one when I finally step out of

the house. The air is a tangible mesh of heat. The Loo* the hot summer wind, is a thick, fiery breath exhaled over the city. By the time I walk to my car, I'm stewing in my own

sweat. So much for the shower, I think, getting into the

car. The interior of the vehicle is no better. The

sun-softened vinyl seat burns through my cotton pants, and the steering-w heel almost singes my hands. I wonder if

Amarvinash's car is air-conditioned. But, of course, it must be, I tell myself. After all, it only behoves his position.

I wonder too, if he drove Shri to work in his air-conditioned car, this morning, "What the hell," I say. "I'll get the car air conditioned, too, this summer," and remember 128

Kautalya's advice about meeting the enemy on his own level.

His words ring in my ears as I start the engine and

shift gears. Isn't that what nations around the world are doing today—meeting enemies on their level? Of course, only

today, the dictum is couched in deceptive terms like "balance of power." It's like a balance between the powers of Nahusa

and Angiras—chief of gods, against chief of rishis. An idea takes shape in my mind. But then would i t really be a balance of power, I ask myself? Would there ever be a balance of power between me and a mortal? I wonder i f I could employ the inherent deception of the term to my advantage. On the other hand, this might be the only true exploration of a balance of powers. In fact, revitalized by his life cycles, Nahusa might prove stronger than any

immortal. After all the ultimate defeat wasn't to be death. I almost hit a rickshaw-puller crossing before me with his hand extended to indicate his intention.

"^B^l)3_i)ai_J{yal" Paddling strenuously to cross the road, his bare brown back a pin cushion of sweat beads, he accuses me of being blind. Fear strikes my heart. After so many m illions of years, my true id e n tity looms before me again to be acknowledged. I am afraid to be me. I am afraid that time might have sieved out that which was Angiras, leaving behind a shell—a delusion called immortality. I 129 feel like a lost child who runs from street to street, searching, afraid to let the lump in his throat dissolve and flow through the eyes in case he misses his mother in the haze of tears. " cpip£_±s_you_a^_child_his_ I P P th j r L I PPm§_as_ar)_orphan_mpi s£_with_ " The seventeenth-century poet Jaggannath's words from his eulogy, S 3B3 3_&alx§j; i , come to mind, and suddenly I know what I must do. I get onto a highway, and at the roundabout, I go all the way around, turning on the same road again, this time to take the street to the Khannas' house.

A maid lets me in when I ring the bell. "Please sit," she says, showing me in. "I'll let £ihiji_know you're here."

I step into the drawing-room. The cool air from the air-conditioner devours the sweat from my shirt. The sun is allowed no entry in this room, for the thick satin drapes are drawn tight. The room is almost as dark as it was last night, but the lack of trampling feet affords more privacy to the women from Ajanta. I walk cautiously, placing my feet on the unembroidered parts of the rug to avoid stepping on their voluptuous bodies. I sit on a sofa facing the door at the end of the room, which I remember leads to the re s t of the house. The Buddha still sits guarding that door. He seems to have taken very well to his new vocation, for he still smiles as complacently as he did centuries ago in Gaya when 130

he sat under the banyan tr e e , enlightened.

"Angiras, how nice to see you." The door opens and Arti comes through, wearing a robe.

I stand up and watch her walk across the rug insensitively. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. Vinayak was rig h t, she does have lovely h a ir. Strangely, 1 feel glad she didn't shave it off. Without the heavy makeup and in that white silk robe, she actually looks beautiful.

Vinayak must have seen h e r like t h is on many occasions.

"Arti," I say, "forgive me. I should have called." "Yes, you should have," she says. "I've only just woken up. I haven't even had a chance to change."

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to disturb you so early in the morning."

"Don't be s illy ," she says s ittin g . "I'm only joking. You know you're welcome here any time."

"Thank you," I say, sitting down beside her. "Well, now, what would you like to drink—coffee or something cold?"

"Something cold," I say. "It's very hot outside." "Is it? I'm so glad Suri had th is whole house air-conditioned. The last one only had air-conditioning in our bedroom and the drawing-room. The other rooms had coolers. But those are so middle-class." 131

I think of th e cooler in our storage room, wondering what she would say about ceilin g fans. "Gyansingh," she calls out. A grey-haired servant appears, as if he has been waiting just behind the door. "A mango lASgi for the sahib, and a cup of tea for me.

Mango a ll right?" she asks me. I nod. "Sounds like nectar."

"So, tell me, did you like my little house-warming?" "Of course, but then you always give smashing parties, A rti."

"Thank you. But this wasn't a party' party," she says. "It was a house-warming for this humble— ."

"Yes, I know." I in terru p t her before she has a chance to go into that ’humble abode' routine. "That's what made it so smashing." She smiles with pleasure.

"Arti," I say, "I have a favor to ask you." "Anything," she says, taking my hand. "Any-thing, sweetheart, any-thing."

"Arti, I wanted to get in touch with Amarvinash. I was wondering if you could give me his telephone number." Her expression becomes guarded, but she continues to hold my hand. "I'm not sure I have it. You see, when he first came to this city, I invited him to stay with us for a 132

few days, but then he made other arrangements for himself."

"But he was at the party. How did you get in touch with him?"

She lets go of my hands and stands up. "We told him about this party a week ago when he left. I didn't have to call him again. He remembered."

"Oh, that's a shame. I wanted to interview him. My new book is about the ruling party. I thought he would be an excellent person to talk to."

Her face relaxes. "You know what? I seem to remember writing his telephone number down somewhere." She closes her eyes as if she were trying to recall what she's done with the number. "Yes, I do remember w ritin g it. Let me go and look. I'm sure I have it tucked away some place."

She goes back in through the guarded door.

I settle back in the sofa, wondering why she's hesitant to let me see Amarvinash on any other but a political level.

The door opens again a few minutes later, but it isn't Arti. It's her niece.

She's dressed in a white-and-pink flowered suit with a shirt that fits tightly over her well-shaped body. The pink djjpsttS-spread over her shoulders faintly reveals the shape of her small breasts and the high neckline of the shirt.

There is a small pink b indi in between her eyebrows th a t 133

looks like a lotus on its leaves. Her luxuriant hair is parted in the center and tied behind her neck with a clip,

exposing the delicate bone structure of her face, leaving her black eyes to fend for themselves in their entrapping

squares. "Hello, Jhankar," I say, getting up.

"Oh, hello," she says, straightening the dupps£±a on her shoulders self-consciously, "I didn't see you." "You look very nice and cool in that suit."

The pink from the flowers on the suit ascends to her cheeks. "Thank you," she says softly and walks hurriedly to the sofa opposite me, but her tight shirt forces her to take only small steps. "Are you going out?" I ask, noticing the handbag under her elbow. "Uhm," she says. "Arti jDa§.i_and I are going to do some shopping."

We sit quietly for some time as she plays with the clasp of her bag and I wonder what is taking Arti so long. Gyansingh brings in the refreshments—a tall glass of golden and a tea-cozied kettle; a gold-rimmed cup, milk, and sugar.

"Gyansingh," Jhankar asks the grey-haired servant. "Do 134

you know if Arti jnaji is ready?"

" I ' l l check, bi.bj.ji_," Gyansingh rep lie s resp ectfu lly , walking to the oval door.

"I don't think she's ready," I say to Jhankar. "She was here a few minutes ago, and she was s till in her robe. She told me she just woke up."

"Oh, no," Jhankar says in a little voice. "She told me la s t evening that I should be ready by one f ifte e n , and i t ' s

five minutes past that now," she says looking at her wrist

watch. "It's one fifteen?" I suddenly stand up. "Oh, my god." "What's the matter?"

"Jhankar," I say, "Do you think your aunt will mind if I use the phone?"

"Of course, not—please go ahead." I rush to the telephone on the carved table against a

far w all. Karima answers the phone again. "Karima, is Shri there?"

"She stepped out for a few minutes. She's been waiting for you, Mr. Angiras."

"Yes, I know. W ill you do me a favor, Karima? Will you tell her that I'm sorry I won't be able to meet her for lunch a fte r a l l . Something very important has come up. Tell her, 135

I'll pick her up after work."

Jhankar is gone by the time I get back to the sofa, and

Arti is sitting, sipping her tea.

"Jhankar was waiting for you," I tell her. "Yes, I know," A rti says with fa lse regret. "The poor dear. Last evening I told her I'd show her a little of the

city today. But at that time I didn't know I wouldn't be able to get to bed till five in the morning. Anyway," she adds, "I found the number. I knew I had it." She tenders me a piece of paper. "Thanks, Arti. I really appreciate this. If there's anything I can do—mention you in my book or

something—please let me know." She laughs. "You could do that, or you could do something else for me." "Ouch," I say under my breath. I shouldn't have asked her if there was anything I could do for her. "Would you be a dear and show Jhankar around the city a little? The poor girl's parents left today. I asked her to stay on for a week or so since she's on vacation. I would show her around myself, but believe me, I have so much to do today." She runs her hand through her hair, impatiently. "She would be bored with me. Will you do that for me?"

"Well, actually I too am...very busy," I am going to 136 say, but she interrupts me.

"Will Shri mind?"

"No, of course not," i say, thinking of Shri with

Amarvinash in this very room last evening. "All right, Arti, I'll take Jhankar with me."

"Oh, you are a dear. Thank you. S it now and have your la&Si. I'll send Gyansingh to tell Jhankar." Gyansingh is called again and Jhankar comes back to the room. "You don't have to," she says when Arti tells her I'm going to show her the city. But the squares of her eyes beg me otherwise.

"I want to," I say, smiling. Once in the car, I tell her I have to go home first to finish some business. "I hope you don't mind," I say, starting the engine.

"Of course, n o t. I'm sorry Arti jnagi imposed on you like that, but you didn't have to agree, you know." "I know," I say. On the way to my house, I t e l l her about the historical sights in the city. "I wouldn't recommend visiting them, though. It's too hot for that sort of thing. I was thinking we could go to the underground air-conditioned market, have some lunch th ere, and then we could go and see th e Mughal Art museum." 137

"That sounds good," she says, without much enthusiasm.

I wonder where last night's spirited girl is. i am

afraid the day is going to turn out very boring if 8he

continues her meek, whatever-you-say behavior.

We reach the house, and I lead her into the drawing

room—so different from the Khannas' . This one is done up in monochromatic greys and pinks, a product of contemporary/

lifeless homes with closets that sweep up all the sights and smells of life and disappear into walls. Shri wanted it that way.

"Have a seat, and give me about ten minutes," i tell

her, walking towards the door that leads to my study. "Can I have a glass of water, please?" "Sure," i turn around, preceding her into the kitchen.

Opening the refrigerator, I take out a bottle of water and pour some in a glass.

"It's really hot. I didn't think it would be this hot," she says taking the glass. "I almost feel like pouring this down my s h irt."

"I know what you mean,"I say, glancing at the front of her shir t» There’s a wet line just under her breasts where the bra ends.

"Can I have some more, please?" X hand her the b o ttle . She cups her hands around i t , 138

enjoying its coolness. The drops of water on it dissolve and trickle into the cracks of her fingers. "You know, I've been

thinking. It's really too hot to go out." I wait for her to continue, wondering what she has in mind. "Could we visit all those places another day?"

■Sure. So what do you want to do today?"

"you could finish your business without rushing, and maybe we could ta lk ."

"O.K,. what do you want to talk about?"

"Oh, politics, your books, your wife, anything."

I look at her curiously. "I'm not sure I would enjoy

talking about my books, but sure, we could talk." She hugs the bottle again, this time bringing it close to her face, and then puts it in the refrigerator. "You go on and finish your business. I'll be fine. I'll just read some magazines

in the drawing room."

I leave her there and walk once again towards my study,

remembering to shut the door behind me.

Then I open the locked drawer in my desk. I take out

two things: a large antique key and the birth certificate I had made on the pretext of having lost the original. I put

the certificate in a folder and slip the key in my pocket. Then I lock the drawer again. Picking up the folder, I go up 139

into the bedroom and put it on the bed. Prom the top of the

closet, I pull down a suitcase and a shoulder bag.

I pack S h ri's clothes f ir s t. Opening her dresser

drawer, I take out underwear, wondering if she would prefer to wear a white bra or a black one. I remember Shri

complaining to me once before when I packed her suitcase to

take her to a wedding. She didn't get to check her clothes till after we reached the hotel. I had packed a white bra and a dark brown sari. "Are you crazy?" she said to me.

"How can I wear this?" She held the white bra in front of my face. "Under th is?" she said, picking up the brownblouse with the other hand. "I might as well wear the bra on top of the blouse, it’s that glaring." we had to shop for a new bra that very day for her to attend the wedding properly dressed. Leaving the drawer hanging out, I open the closet, thinking it would be a good idea to decide on the sari first. But that is even more mind-boggling. The closet is packed with sa ris of more colors than can be seen through a prism. As I look at the array, my eyes pick out a maroon one which brings a strange memory to my mind. It is the color of Urvashi's menstrual blood when I lay with her exorcising the s p ir i t of Brahmanvadh from the flpg&rag, damning myself t i l l eternity. I feel compelled to reach out and touch the fine chiffon of the material. I choose that sari for Shri. The 140

blouse and petticoat are hanging neatly under the sari. Now for the bra again. White or black under maroon? I hold the first one under the blouse and then the other, taking them to the window to see the effect in the light. Finally I decide on the black, hoping she will approve. I put in her night gown and divide the suitcase into two equal halves with her slip p ers. Then I pack a change of clothing for myself in the other half, in the bathroom, I fill up an overnight bag with toothbrushes, night creams, razor and soap and bring it back to put in the suitcase. Folding two towels, I lay them over the clothes in the suitcase, covering everything under them from end to end.

Next, I pull out a trunk from under my bed. It's a very old wooden trunk, like the kind hidden treasures are buried in. I take out the key from my pant's pocket and kneel before the trunk to unlock it. The key sticks in the lock. It has been over a hundred years since it was used. The trunk contains souvenirs from years past. I reach into it and gently take out a blood-stained sari. This is the sari

Shri was wearing in Mohenjo Daro on the morning of the stoning. It was preserved by the blood that Shri shed on it. Then I take out another piece of fabric—bloodied and dirty. It is the yellow dhoti smeared with Shri's and my blood from th a t same day. 141

I hold the clothes in my arms as if cradling a new-born baby, and wrap them inone of Shri's velvet shawls.

Unzipping the shoulder bag, I place the velvet wrap in it and zip i t up again, and lock i t . Then I go downstairs. Jhankar is sitting crossed-legged on the rug in the middle of the room, directly under the breeze of the ceiling fan. She has taken off her sandals; her hair, freedfrom the clip, now lifts at the ends and falls back gently on her shoulders, like the rising ebbing waters of a dark mysterious stream. A magazine lies before her, but she does not even look at it. Her eyes are focused upon something beyond the grey w alls of the room. I walk slowly towards her, my footsteps muffled by the rug, but she senses my presence. "Hi," she says brushing wisps of hair from her face. "Finished?" I nod. "I'm going to warm up some food. Do you want some?" "Uhm. I'm pretty hungry." She picks up the magazine and gets up. "Let me warm i t ." We walk into the kitchen together. She is so small. In her bare fe e t, her head hardly reaches my chest.

"I hope Somati has made us something," I say, remembering I had to ld her I would not be having lunch a t 142 home.

"If she hasn't, I'll make us something. I'm a pretty good cook, you know."

There is a fa ir amount of food in the re frig e ra to r. I watch Jhankar choose from the assortment. She lifts a canister full of cooked vegetables, and another one full of rice. Efficiently, she pours them both in pans, and warms them on the stove, remembering to sprinkle water on the rice to freshen i t , and on the vegetables. I wonder what

Shri would say to my bringing another woman home for lunch.

I remember the last time I did that it led to a situation that lasted over a century, establishing an order that made goddesses of women. But the road to sainthood was excruciating. "Why should only men aspire to be gods?" she would argue with me, never admitting to the real reason that led her to set this course of history. But the goddess element was a result Shri hadn't expected from her actions, or rather from her words.

It was in the year 1526, the year of the first Mughal invasion in India. The state of Bikaner declared its independence from the newly-erected Mughal empire. For generations, the house of Bikaner had had cordial relations with the Muslims Afghan ru le rs, predecessors of the Mughals. But the Turks brought a new law to the land: all infidels 143

were to convert to the faith of Islam or die. Raja Anup

Singh, the King of Bikaner, severed his relations with Delhi on this account, igniting the hostility of the Mughals. Anup Singh had three daughters: Sarla, Srila and Lajwanti. They were lovely girls—all three of them—well versed in all the sixty-four arts that mould a woman into perfection. Raja Anup Singh received messengers from suitors everyday for his two elder daughters, Sarla and Srila, t>ut Lajwanti, the youngest, he feared would die an old maid. The shy little twelve-year-old girl had a limp* She had fa llen out of a tree when she was six and had broKen her leg. The king's physician had done his best, but the bone set crookedly, marring the g irl's gentle beauty*

Shri was a handmaiden to the princesses, spending most of her days and occasional nights in the women's quarters at the royal palace. I was employed as a teacher, educating the princesses in the affairs of the court, for the Rajputs of

Bikaner believed in preparing all their children— daughters and sons— to be rulers. I enjoyed my job, and was very fond of the girls, but I had a special fondness f°r Lajwanti who» as her name suggested, was as timid as a doe and just as lovely. In time S arla and S r ila were married to neighboring princes. Lajwanti was sixteen at this time. She had grown 144

to be a beautiful girl. Reconciled to the fact that she would never marry, she devoted herself to her studies and

so c ia l work in the kingdom. During the course of our study sessions, which continued after Sarla and Srila left, we became good frie n d s. I discovered what a cynic she had become at her age. But her cynicism towards the world, the institution of marriage, the social system was only a pose, for at the center, where it really mattered, she was still that little six-year-old girl who had fallen out of a tree a n d gotten hurt. She was still the child who believed that her father would come and make everything right again.

"You're s t i l l young," I would t e l l her, "and you're very beautiful. One day a prince will come who will not see a limping girl, but the beautiful woman you are inside." She would liste n to me, her eyes brimming with emotion and dreamy b e lie f.

She did get married. The Rajmata of Jodhpur sent a marriage proposal to Anup Singh, asking Lajwanti's hand in marriage for her son, the Raja of Jodhpur, Bikram Jit. He was forty eight years old and married, but his wife was barren. Considering the absence of an heir for Jodhpur, the Rajmata had decided to have her son marry again. Raja Anup

Singh accepted the marriage proposal and Lajwanti was married amidst great pomp. 145

A year after her marriage, Jodhpur was attacked by the

Mughal forces. Raja Bikram J i t went away to war. Months passed by. Lajwanti's mother invited her for a visit to Bikaner. Meantime Shri accompanied a royal entourage to visit Sarla, the eldest daughter of Anup Singh. Her husband, the crown prince of a neighboring kingdom, was to be crowned king.

One evening as I lit the wood stove in my house, I heard a horse stop outside my door. A little later, Lajwanti entered. She was dressed in riding-clothes, and her face was covered with a scarf, the purdah that Rajput women had been forced to wear since the intrusion of the Mughals in their streets. I bowed to her respectfully, as befitted her position of Queen of Jodhpur. "How are you Angiras?" she asked, removing her purdah. "I'm fine. How is Jodhpur?"

"It’s good," she said, evading my eyes. "Were you going to eat?" she asked, seeing a pan on the stove. "Yes," I said. "I was just going to heat some food."

"Can I have some, too. I'm hungry." I was surprised, but I nodded my head. I sensed that she wished to talk to me as we used to when she was unmarried. I wasn't sure it was proper for her to be in my house, especially since Shri was away. 146

"Here, let me," she said, taking the handle of the pan from me. "Let me warm i t up fo r you. I t must be d if f ic u lt for you without your wife."

We ate together as we had on many occasions when she was younger. It was almost like old times, except that I couldn't forget the s in d fr o o r in the parting of her hair.

She visited me a number of times after that, and we regained the comradery of earlier years. She told me about her life in Jodhpur, and her relationship with her husband and his family, especially his domineering mother. She wasn't happy in her married life. Her husband didn't care for her. He was only in tere sted in the h e ir she would provide him. The Queen Mother still treated the elder wife of Bikram J it as the Queen of Jodhpur. Lajwanti's status was reduced to th a t of a prospective surrogate mother for the heir apparent. I felt like a liar in her presence, or a vendor of untruths who had sold her dreams of handsome, loving princes in fairylands. One evening, as we sat by the fire reminiscing about old days, she told me she had loved me secretly all those years I was her teacher. "You're the only man who cared how I felt, not how I walked or looked," she said, and her eyes told me that love s till lived. One thing led to another and before we knew i t , we were on the floor in each o th e r's arms. We 147 did not even notice when the door opened, and Shri entered. Of course, it was an embarrassing moment, jn all our life together, Shri had not seen me in bed with another woman. Her reaction was typical. She did not lose her cool. Apologizing, she stepped out of the house a3a *n' closing the door behind her and locking it. She came in again when Lajwanti and I were dressed. She wa8 e n tir e ly resp ectfu l when she addressed the Queen of Jodhpur- she advised her to return to the palace before someone missed her. It was only when I made the mistake of offerj.ng to ride with Lajwanti to the palace grounds that her eyes purned, or was it just the smoke from the wood-fire igniting a latent spark? "Why? Is she afraid someone will steal her honor on the way?" she sneered.

you're a traitor," she said to Lajwanti. "whiie Your husband is fighting with his life to protect the honor of his country and th e honor of the women of his kingdom, y ou in bed w ith another man. They say sin s are always re p a;i-d bY the ones closest to us. God forbid that anything happen to the

Rajaji," she said, covering her mouth with her hand- "If 1 were you, I would atone for the sin before the g OC|0 mete out punishment."

Lajwanti became pregnant and Raja Bikram p ie d in 148 war, never having returned to the kingdom since the attack. They brought his body back to Jodhpur, so he could receive the of a king. While the priest recited last-rite mantras from the Vedas, Kaushalya, the elder of the two queens, sat beating her breasts and crying over her husband's body. But Lajwanti would not go near the corpse, not even to see Bikram Jit's face before they covered him with the shroud. She sat in a corner, absolutely still and tearless as a stone, seeing her guilt bleed through the fatal wounds in her husband's body. "She must be made to cry." The elder woman of the court whispered to the Queen Mother, "otherwise she will go mad in grief." The Rajmata took Lajwanti inside.

"What's the matter, Lajwanti?" she asked, "Do you know that you're a widow now? Don't you know that the man lying dead outside is your husband? This whole kingdom has become orphaned. We have no king to care for us now. I married you to Bikram hoping— ."

Lajwanti burst into tears. "I’m with child," she whispered. The Queen Mother's first reaction was joy. But then she remembered her son hadn't been home for over eight months.

"Hare Krishna," she whispered, already hearing the people of the world laugh at the great house of Jodhpur, seeing them point fingers at the kingdom, and saying, "What 149

honor? What Rajput honor are they protecting now, for all they have are principles as flexible as the sand dunes around

them." She saw millions of Rajput women being raped by

Muslims, now that the the Queen of Jodhpur had willingly given her honor away.

"I wish I could die," Lajwanti sobbed. "I wish I could burn myself on Bikram Jit's pyre. It is because of me that

he is dead. I wish I could atone fo r my sin s. I wish I could purify myself in the same fire that sanctified our m arriage."

"Why don't you?" said the queen mother. She ordered

handmaidens to take away Lajwanti's white sari and dress her in bridal clothes.

Then stepping into the large congregation, she declared Lajwanti a martyr, as great as the king who died in war,

protecting the honor of his country. "Now that this land has no king, the Muslims will come in hundreds to loot, to raid

our wealth, but most of ail to steal women. A Rajput woman's greatest wealth is her honor, if sne loses that, the respect that this land commands from the world will change into mockery. Today, Rani Lajwanti is going to set an example of what Rajput women must do when their honor is in jeopardy. She has decided to give her life to the sacred fire and leave this world with her husband rather than face dishonor." 150

Millions watched Lajwanti climb onto Bikram J it's pyre. I watched, too, helplessly. What could I do? if I stopped

her, I knew she would be shamed before the world. Would

that be better than this suicide? I doubted it. Shri did not attend the ceremony.

They built a temple for Lajwanti in Jodhpur. It was called the temple of Sati Lajwanti. The Mughals fought many wars and ravished many women, but those who chose the flames with their dead husbands became unwitting goddesses. It was Lajwanti's retribution for Shri. I called it poetic justice.

"Is something the matter?" Jhankar has turned off the stove and is standing looking at me.

I realize my eyes have been focussed on her all this time.

"No," I say. "I was just thinking what a good housekeeper Somati is." She nods. "It's difficult to get good help these days," she says, reaching for the plates in the rack above her head. She stands on tip-toe, but her hand barely touches the rack.

"Here, let me," I say, going behind her to get the plates. For a minute she stands wedged against the stove within the circle of my aura. I smell a gentle perfume that 151

has acquired a new quality from the heat of her body "Thanks," she says, as I place the plates on the shelf.

She puts the pan of rice before me. I take a generous helping of both the rice and the vegetable. I am pleased to see her do the same.

"I'm sorry," she says, seeing me look at her plate. "I'm a big eater."

"I can see that," I say, smiling. "But I'm wondering where it all goes. You're so tiny." The flowers return to her face again. We sit at the kitchen table to eat.

"So, did you enjoy the party la s t night?" I ask her.

"Yes, I did." "Jhankar, why did you leave as soon as I mentioned my wife?"

The color in her cheeks becomes deeper. "I forgot something in my room," she says, evading my eyes. "But I came back a little later. You were talking to someone then."

I don't remember seeing her in the party after that. But I let the lie pass.

"You have a very beautiful wife." Her eyes are trained on the p la te . 152

"I know."

"Aren't you afraid someone might steal her away from you?" The black squares seek my eyes.

"No. She loves me very much." An emotion shadows her eyes. She lowers her lid s . "How long have you been married?" "Oh, about eight years now." "How did you meet her?" I have stock answers to questions lik e these. "She used to work in a men's clothing store. I met her there. It was love at first sight." "She must meet a lot of men in her business." "Not so many now th a t she works in a woman's boutique.

Besides, she's into designing now, not sales, as she was th e n ." We concentrate on eating for a while, or rather she does. I spoon my food without much interest, watching her from under my eyelids, wondering about her thoughts, at her interest in Shri. Two tiny lines come and go between her eyebrows, wrinkling and straightening the lotus bjjidi. Aside from that, her face is smooth and impassive. She lives in her eyes, I think, and her hair, which she lifts from around her neck and throws back. I watch the way her dyg §± .£3 l i f t s from her breasts every time she raises her hand to her 153

mouth. She looks up suddenly and catcHeS Ine starin g at her. I smile. She smiles back, pushing her p iste away.

"Tell me about your writing," she says.

"What do you want to know?" I get- UP to put th e plates in the sink. "How do you get your material?" g t x e gets up, too, and starts putting the leftover food back ih the refrigerator. "From experience."

"But you’re not actively involved An politics."

"I have been a very interested on!001161 f°r a l°n9 tim e."

"Have you ever thought about s t a n d i n9 for elections?"

"If I did, would you vote for me?w "Of course. You'll be great at governing."

"How do you know? I might be a ve*^ corrupt man." "You don't look the type." She lodlts at me gravely from behind the door of the refrigerator,

"Oh, re a lly . What type do I look?" 1 9° to her and stand directly before her. The open re fri9erator door is between us. "Just and fair."

I laugh. "Come," I say, taking he* arm to draw her from behind the door, and shutting it with fcJ3e other hand. "You're too trusting." I take her into the drawing-room. 154

"It was so nice and cool there," she says, lifting her hair from the nape and holding it up for a minute, gesturing towards the refrigerator. "Why don't you pin it on your head? Your hair, I mean." "Yes, I think I'll do that. My clip is in my t>ag."

I follow her to the sofa, and watch her try in g to imprison the abundance of her hair with the clip she holds in one hand. But the silky strands keep slipping out. After three attempts, she lowers both her arms, letting out a deep breath. "I can never do this," she says. "Perhaps, I should get my hair cut." "No, don't ever do that. You have beautiful hair. Here," I say, taking the clip from her. "Let me h elp you."

I put the c lip in my mouth, as I'v e seen S h ri do so often, and collect her hair with both hands. She trembles. Holding the hair on the top of her head with one hand, I use the other other to fasten the clip. It clicks into place, but the next moment it flies open, spilling her hair around her shoulders like a black waterfall. "I'm sorry," I say, but her eyes are closed. Her hands grip tightly in front of her. Gently, I remove the strands from her face and bend down and kiss her eyelids— first one then the other. "Let's leave it," I say softly. Her breathing has 155 become a little heavy and beads of sweat have appeared on her

upper lip .

"You're very beautiful/ Jhankar/" I say. She draws in a deep breath, exhaling in short broken gasps. I take her in my arms gently and kiss her on the lips, touching her lips with the tip of my tongue. I feel her draw in her shoulders and stand tense in my arms. I half carry her to the sofa and lay her down against the cushions. Kneeling on the rug, I put my arms around her and place short hard kisses on her lips. "Don't do that, please," she manages to say.

I stop kissing, but don't release her. "Why did you come with me, Jhankar?" I ask her. "Because I wanted to talk to you," she says in a whisper. "About what?" I kiss her little shell-shaped ear.

"Don't, please," she says without conviction. My lips trail down her neck and stop at her high neck line. I put a finger in mouth and burn a trail along her neck line with its wet tip. "Oh god, Angiras, please, stop. I've never—I don't— ."

"In olden days, if a woman wanted a man, all she had to do was ask, and if that man refused, he would be cursed with impotency all his life," I tell her. 156

She lies in my arms, her eyes shut, her body

fibrillating like my heart.

"Do you want me, Jhankar?" I whisper in her ear.

New color spreads in her face, and she lowers her head. I help her to her feet and lift off the dupsitj unveiling her

like a piece of art. Then I help her with her very tight s h irt. We have an awkward moment when the sh irt s tic k s over her head, b u t she manages to tug i t o ff. Her hands fumble to untie her She stands before me in her modest underwear. I throw the cushions from the sofa on th e flo o r and lay her gently on i t . Kneeling once again before her, I reach behind her to unhook her bra. She has such small breasts, they almost disappear now that she is lying on her back. As I t>end my head and bury my mouth in the s o ft centers of her areolas, the nipples come stiff and erect against my tongue. Her body arches up towards me. When I reach down to remove her panties, she draws back. "No, stop, please." i draw her clo ser in my arms and say, " i t 's a ll right, believe me," trailing the tips of my finger just barely above the skin to make contact with only the tiny hairs on her hody. She relaxes a little. I get up and undress quickly. When I enter her, she is a flower unfolding its petals to receive the rain.

Later, I raise myself to look down at her. Her eyes are wide open, a n d— I am shocked to see— accusing. 157

"I saw your wife with another man," she says.

"Is that why you— "Yes," she says. "I felt pity for you, especially after you told me you believed she loved you."

I get up and p u ll on my pants.

"I know about my wife," I say.

"And you le t her?" "Yes, she has her own l i f e to lead, ju s t as I have mine."

"But don't you love her?" "I do, very much. She loves me, too." She watches me quietly tor a while, then looks down at herself. Then she cries quietly, tears running down the sides of her eyes and disappearing into her hair.

I kneel beside the sofa again. "Jhankar," I say, not touching her. "You're very beautiful. And this was beautiful for me. Thank you."

"I love you," she bursts out.

"I know," I say. "I'm sorry." I take her in my arms then and rock her like I do Shri. "Shsh. It's all right." She sobs in my arms for a while then whispers. "Please take me home." I release her and help her get up. She picks up her clothes and goes to the bathroom. I finish dressing myself 158 and straighten the cushions.

When she comes out, her hair is tied behind her neck, her dupafcts spread neatly over her breasts, and her biDdi coated afresh with powder. She appears just the same as when she came. I take her hand and lead her to the car. By the time I drop Jhankar off, it's almost time to pick

Shri from work. Skirting around sweating rickshaw-pullers, cursing meandering auto-rickshaws, and avoiding stray bycycle riders, I pretend my car is only as wide as the steering wheel, keeping my toot glued to the gas pedal all the way home.

I park the car in the driveway. Leaving the motor running, I rush into the house and up the stairs, taking three steps at a time. Picking up the folder and the suitcase, I rush out of the house again, thinking I would have to ignore all speed limits if I were to get to the electoral office before they close for the day, because tomorrow will be too late.

As I pull out of the driveway, I remember Somati.

Shifting into neutral again, I go back to the house, into the kitchen, to write a note to her. I hope she doesn't leave

Gulu behind at his aunt's, because then she won't be able to

read this. I tell her we'll be gone all night and all the next morning. I leave her Karima's number and Vinayak's, too. I also let her know there's money in the kitchen drawer

if she needs anything. Then I tell her she's a great

159 160

housekeeper. Stripping SOine notes from my money clip* 1 shove them in the topmost Kitchen drawer; and tearing oft the paper from the telephone pad, I stick the note on the refrigerator with an apple magnet. On the way outf j grab a bottle of ice-cold water and pull the towel from the refrigerator handle. Getting in the driver seat, I soak the towel in the water and hang dripping on the open window on the passenger side. Then X roll the glass up an tbe way

I am able to make it in time to the electoral o t f ice*

Attaching my birth certificate to the application, I band it to the official.

"Thank you," he says. We'll be getting in touch with you in about a week."

"Thank you." I shake his hand.

As I turn to go, he s a y s , "Best of luck."

"Thank you," I say a g a in . "But I won't need it."

Then I drive across town to Shri's office. The traffic is busy. The £ive-o-clock rush has just begun. Although

Shri's boutique remains open till eight at night, she gets off at five-thirty, i join the general mass of people in the automotive limbo, driving bumper to bumper, participating in the daily ritual of cursing and honking at the same time, assuming the bored expressi°n of motorists in a traffic 3am*

The radio in my car plays an old Hindi film song, i only 161 catch snatches of it every now and then, for the rest is drowned in the noises of a world at odds with itself.

Bending forward, I turn up the volume. The song has ended now, and the DJ talks about the golden voices of bygone days and lyrical melodies that take one to seashores and moonlit mango groves. I close my eyes and relax. The breeze from my open window ricochets against the wet towel covering the passenger window, and leaves a cool sensation on my neck and face. In the back of my mind, the DJ's voice somehow gets associated with the towel.

Suddenly the honking around me dies down and is replaced by revved up engines. I open my eyes. The traffic in front of me has unsnarled. Vehicles rush past me in haste.

Suddenly the DJ's voice begins to grate on me. I turn the volume down again and shift gears. The road is now clear. Shri is clearing her desk when I enter. She looks as fresh as she would at nine in the morning. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and smoothly brushed. Her lips gleam with coral pink lipstick, and the gentle blue of her eye-shadow echoes the color of her sari.

"Hello, darling," she says, looking up when I enter.

I walk around her desk and kiss her on her coral pink lip s . "You look beautiful." 162

"Did you w rite today?"

"Yes," I'm surprised. "How'd you know?"

"What else could have kept you from keeping our date?"

"I might su rp rise you someday, S hri," I say. She laughs and, picking up her hand bag, says, "Shall we go?"

I nod, take her arm, and we leave. Karima is a t her desk in the fro n t o ffic e . I walk Shri to the car and open

the passenger door. She gets in. Before closing the door I say, "Shri, excuse me for a minute," and go back into the boutique.

"Shri's not going to be in tomorrow," I tell Karima. "And sh e'll probably not be in the day a fte r, e ith e r. Could you te ll Mrs. Salman th a t."

"Yes, I w ill," she says. "Are you folks going away?"

"Yes," i say. " I t 's our anniversary, and I'm giving Shri a surprise."

"Oh," she says. "But isn't that in August? I remember attending your anniversary party last August."

"Our wedding anniversary is in August, but this is the anniversary of the day we met. It's a very special day for u s . "

"Of course, it is. How exciting. Have a wonderful anniversary, you two. I ' l l t e l l Mrs. Salman." 163

"Thank you," I say to her smiling. "You're a doll, Karima." Then I walk out again and join Shri in th e car.

She has turned the radio on. The same DJ is still talking about melodies of the past and cool romantic evenings, but Shri has ro lled her window down and has removed th e towel.

"Where did you go?" she asks. "I thought I dropped something inside."

"Tell me, how much did you w rite?" she asks me. "Not much," I say. "Half a chapter, may be."

"That's wonderful," she says, moving closer to me. "I forgive you for cancelling our date." "Thank you," I say, not looking at her, wondering if she would forgive me so readily for the reason I cancelled the date.

"I had a wonderful day. We got the Hazaria account. We're going to be designing tor them now."

"But don't Hazaria's do men's clothing?" I ask, starting the car.

"Yes," she says smugly. "Is Salman's going to hire new designers then?" "Why? Don’t you think w e're capable enough to do male clothing?"

"I d o n 't mean th a t. I ju st mean a women's group doing— ." 164

"What do you mean, a women's group? Angiras, do you

know that in a recent market survey it was discovered that

eighty percent of men today let their wives or girl friends choose their clothes? I think Hazaria's is smart to hire

women to handle the process from scratch. Anyway, a woman knows a man’s body best." She t r i e s to snuggle up close to me.

"I guess you're right. It's been decades since I last picked my own clothes." "It isn't just decades. Remember Chandragupta?

Kautalya had me design for him centuries ago." "Funny you should mention Kautalya," I say.

"Why is it funny?" she asks.

I don't reply and pretend to concentrate on a vehicle behind me honking to pass. After a while she notices the road. "Aren't we going home?" she asks. "Are we going to celebrate your starting the book?"

"Yes," I say. "We're going to celebrate, but no, we're not going to celebrate my starting work on the book." "Then what?"

A cab driver stops in front of me to pick up a passenger. I pump the brakes, cursing him under my breath. A woman in very tight pants and halter-top sways her way to 165 the cab/ her thin steel heels striking the concrete road with sharp precise echoes. Fifty yards ahead, the road intersects the G r a n d Trunk. I turn on i t . "Angiras, where are we going?" Shri asks. "Kashi," I say quietly.

The Grand Trunk Road is the aorta of India. It runs from one end of the country to the other, connecting all the main towns and cities, and like the vital human blood vessel, it throbs with life twenty-four hours.

We drive in silence. I sit up straight, keeping a sharp eye on the evening flow of traffic. Shri sits away from me, leaning against the passenger door, looking out at the limitless press of trucks, lorries, buses, and cars. Every once in a while, she turns her face towards me, not to look at me but to avoid inhaling the noxious fumes of a bus or truck passing too close. The sunlight, stark like a naked bulb, f in a lly dims. The sky suddenly turns grey. This city does not have twilight. It only has the grey of pre-night.

One minute the sun is there and the next it disappears behind the tall buildings in the west, allowing their shadows to rise over the city in dull gravity. We stop in the Mughal c ity of Lucknow fo r dinner. The silence from the car follows us to the table. Shri eats as if she hasn't eaten tor days, or as if it were her last meal 166

on earth, eating even the raw onion salad that comes free with the meal, but which she hates.

Soon we are on the road again. Shri winds up the window

of the car and untangles her hair with her hair brush. Braiding it loosely, she puts a rubber band at the end. Then slumped against th e closed window, she sleeps a l i t t l e . Her sleep is shallow and disturbed. She murmurs once or twice—nothing comprehensible, just faint reflexes of the vocal cords. After a while, I feel my eyelids weighing heavy, too, and my throat feels so dry and thorny I feel spit catching on it. I reach for the bottle at my feet. Still driving, the wheel in one hand, I hold the b o ttle between my thighs, and open th e cap with the other. Placing the cap beside me, I take the mouth of the b o ttle in my hand and turn it upside down. The water splashes my hand. Turning it straight side up, I put it back between my thighs and rub my wet palm against my eyelids. I repeat this process a number of times, till I can feel the night breeze coming in on my side dry the water. Then I take a drink from the bottle. It is luke warm, but it is fresh, and it feels good trickling down my throat. Eventually th e tr a f f ic thins out and lo r r ie s rumble past only occasionally. The drivers sitting high up with their companions in their red-or-green lighted compartments look 167 down on the dark world with impassive eyes. A bottle, not of w ater, passes between them every now and then. The density of the h Q Q _attenuates as do the diesel fumes. In the early ho'urs of the morning, I smell wafts of humid air. Kashi, the luminous city, the city where the

Ganga coolly flows in the arc of a crescent moon, is only fifty miles away. As the darkness lifts, traffic picks up again. Clouds of grey smoke mingle with the blur of the early hours. When I stop at a toll-gate, Shri wakes up. She lies there with her face still on the window pane, her eyes open, bright clear of any signs of after-sleep grogginess. "This is it, isn’t it? Is this the end?" she asks q u ie tly . I turn to look at her unsmilingly in silence. She lifts her face from the window and sits side-ways on the seat. There is a crease on her face from the frame of the window. "Why don’t you talk to me, Angiras? This is the end, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?" I can feel her looking at me, but I keep my eyes straight ahead. "Oh, God," she says, taking a deep breath and covering her face with her hands for a brief moment. "This is it. I know it." She opens her handbag and takes out a brush. Then 168 unbraiding her hair, she runs the brush through it. Half way through a stroke, she pauses and pulls out the brush hastily and throws it back in her bag.

"What's the use?" she says, almost to herself. "What does i t m atter now, how I look?" Then turning to me again, she says, "My god, Angiras, couldn't you have told me earlier? I could have prepared myself." But she doesn't expect an answer, for the next moment she turns her face away to look out of the window. She sits biting her lip, thinking, her hands lying limp in her lap, palm upwards.

Then she sobs quietly. I will not offer her any solace. After a while she takes out a tissue from her bag and blows her nose.

"You know, there were so many things I wanted to do, Angiras. I had started enjoying my exile. I really had. I didn't really mind this Yug^" She takes a deep breath again and releases it quickly. "Well/ what happens now? Do we get to meet the Kalkin Avtar before he begins annihilating the world? When d id he descend to th e earth, anyway?" "He didn't," I say finally, still not looking at her. "He d i d n 't . Then why? why are we going to Kashi? I thought we were going there to wait for the pxaiayd, the fin a l deluge. I s n 't th is the c ity th at Shiva i s going to raise on his trident so that it doesn’t flow away into 169

oblivion with the rest of the world? Aren't we going to Kashi tor that?"

"No," I say. "We're not. We're going to take a dip in

the Ganga."

For a while my words don't sink in. "It's not the end?" she says, her face breaking into smiles. "Oh god, for a

minute there I was so scared." She can't seemto stop smiling. Winding down the window, she c a lls out to the

passing vehicles, "What a lovely morning." No one pays her

any attention. From her bag, she retrieves her brush and other make-up items and touches up her face.

"Why did you say we were going to Kashi?" sheasks, pulling off the cover of her lipstick. "To take a dip in the Ganga."

Her hand h a lts near her lip s .

"Why? You haven't taken a dip in the Ganga ever since you came to th is e arth . Why now?" "She's the only liberator," I reply. ""What are you talking about?"

"Shri, I'm going to stand for the parliamentary elections against Amarvinash."

She bursts into laughter.

I let her be. 170

As a rosy light suffuses the city which Shiva built at

the dawn of Creation, we leave the Grand Trunk road and turn

south on the Panchrukhi Road, encircling the c ity of Kashi.

Even at this early hour, we encounter hundreds of pilgrims making the five-day circumambulation of the city along this

road, most of them barefoot. To circle this city is considered as good as encircling the world, for when Shiva raised the city on his trident, piercing it with his luminous

linga, all the gods left their heavens to dwell in this city. Avimukta, Shiva called it. Avimukta, the city that

will never be forsaken by Shiva, the Great Lord. At the fork, where the Panchrukhi Road meets the road named after the Asi river, there is a small rest house. Shri

and I check in th ere. The owner of the rest house shows us to a small room on the ground floor, lit by two windows

facing west. The walls were probably white-washed a decade ago, and the closet in the corner added as an after-thought.

It stands there bereft and abandoned, its doors swinging on

the rust of hinges hanging from frames eaten by termites. There are two hospital, metal-framed beds in the center of

the room with sheets that once were white. "I'm sorry," the owner says, looking at Shri. "We don't get many pilgrims at this time of the year, it is so hot in

Kashi in th is month. Those who do come prefer to liv e in the 171 hotels in the city." Shri gives me an accusing look, as if I were to blame tor this man’s lack of business. The bathroom, we are told, is at the end of the corridor.

"I'm not spending one moment in th is dump," she says, as soon as the door closes behind the owner.

"You won't have to," I say. "We're going to the g^ats," "Angiras," she says, coming to me. "I don’t know what it is that has made you do this, but I'm not going along with this. I don't want a dip in the Ganga. I have no sins that

I need washed away by the waters of th a t riv e r. You go on ahead, if you have to . I'm going to take a shower, and then

I'm going to find a place in the city." She goes to the suitcase and pulls out towel, bag, and clothes, and her maroon sa ri.

"By the way, how am I going to t e l l Karima I'm not going to be able to make it to work tomorrow? It was really dumb of you, Angiras, to trick me into coming. I'll have to find a phone some place."

"I le t Karima know," I t e ll her q u ietly . "Oh great," she says. "Now I'll have to face questions about why I went to Kashi. Not many people my age make such pilgrim ages, you know." I let that pass. "Go take your shower, Shri." She goes out of the room to look tor the bathroom. 172

Meantime, I unzip the shoulder bag and remove tb e velvet wrap gently. I put it on the bed, and lift my dhoti out. The dried blood on i t crackles as I open its folds. There are large holes in p a rts that escaped our blood.

I'm tying the last fold when Shri comes back unbathed. "There's no water," she begins to say, but then sbe notices what I'm wearing.

She advances towards me very cautiously, as though along with the dhoti I, too, were a fossil from Mohenjo Daro. "Might I ask," she whispers, "why you are wearing that?"

"The Ganga is going to wash away the stains," I tell h er.

"You're going to go out dressed like that?" I nod. "Here," I say, lifting her sari from the bed.

"You wear th is."

She steps back involuntarily. "Shri," I say. "Let's both bathe in the Ganga today.

I t w ill do us good. We have become too happy in our exile. Here." I advance towards her with the blood-stained sari.

She backs off till she's against the door.

"You're crazy," she whispers. "How could you bring that. I had forgotten I still had it."

"Shri, listen to me, please." "No," she says, reaching behind her to open the door. 173

"I'm not going to stop you from doing whatever it is you wish to do, Angiras. But, please, don't ask me to join you." She

has the door open now and is standing with the l i g h t behind her. I cannot see her face clearly. The sun allows her only a profile.

"I'll see you in the main market tonight." She backs out of the door as if afraid I might throw the past at her if she turned her back. She halts a little distance away, waiting for me to leave.

Dressed like a beggar, I step out of the door and out of the rest house, on the street leading to the first gfiatj Nobody gives me a second look. I merge right into the host of pilgrims in my ragged and bloody dhoti.

Beginning at the southern most tip of Kashi, I start off the P3DcjjtixiM in bare feet. The Ganga in Kashi is like the wisdom cjjakia residing between the eyes. The Asi river in the south and the Varana riv e r in th e north are th e two eyebrows; th e Ganga, jo in in g them a t two ends, i s the ppajtjra. I walk down to the Asi Ghat at the confluence of the rivers. The waters here are tra n q u il, lapping gently at th e banks, washing the feet of hundreds of pilgrims every day.

I walk into the water, farther and farther, till I'm shoulder deep in it. I t s warmth i s a mother's embrace. I look out on the mud-brown river and see only its purity, its 174

forgiveness, its acceptance. I am back in Vaikuntha, feeding on the watery breast of the Kasuki again. Jagganatha's words, "I_comg_tp_you_as_a_ cDiid_tP_Di£_lDS4i}Sir-.Z J_cpme_a§ afl_fijpl)an_aipi££_i/itl)_lpys," come back to me, riding on the waves that gently lave against my chin. I am the lost child again. My eyes fill with tears which quietly flow down my face and mingle with my mother's. Slowly, I immerse my head. She is warm and welcoming like the inside of a teardrop. We weep together in cathartic abandon. I emerge, cleansed.

The guide at the g p a t beckons the people towards a large P§£pul tree under which is a gigantic Shiva Linga, the true

Lord of the Confluence. People horde around it, following the guide's instruction closely, showering flowers and milk on it. I walk out of the waters. But my business is not with the lord of this city. My business is not with Shiva.

It is with the mother I am visiting, the mother I had forgotten in exile.

I walk down through the Tulsi, Hanuman, and

Harishchandra fifcats where already the smoke from burning bodies mocks the dead ashes of the evening before. My next destination is the Dashashvamedha Ghat, the glasP where Brahma, the Grandfather, performed ten with the help of the great king Divodasa. Bathing here, one 175

acquires th benefits of ten AsJjysiRgdlJilS• Here, too, I walk down to the waters and take a dip, willing the merits of ten

X S j y a S to obliterate the mortality accumulated over the years. The priest leads the people to the temples, the

lingas, the various ghatg. The sun shines directly overhead now, its sharp rays illuminating the waters, lending them its brilliance.

I am now half way down from the Asi Ghat. The ground rises high here, and Benaras, the city, sits proudly on this incline. Here I follow the guide and visit a temple, tor this temple belongs to my father. It was here that the sage Vishvavanar did £ap&§ and received a boon from Shiva—a son as brilliant as the Sun God, yet dearer to the gods, for he would bring them their offerings from the mortals. The boy bore his father's name Viashvanara, until he did jfcapag and received a boon from Shiva to be Agni, the god of tire. I prostrate myself before the temple, leaning my forehead on the weathered doorstep, praying for a child's reunion with his lost parents, and, yes, praying, too, for myself. My heart is full. I do not go into the temple lest he, my father, see my tears and weep with me at my fall. My next stop is the Adi Keshava Ghat, the ghat devoted to Vishnu. During the rainy season, the waters of Ganga to t a l l y flood the temple of Vishnu, which is b u ilt a l i t t l e 176

lower than the other temples around it. Although waters only touch the door ot the temple today, I do not follow the other pilgrims inside, touching my forehead to the water at the instead.

Panchganga Ghat is the next g.ba£ I visit. Over the y e a rs, th is g]iat has succumbed to some ot the indulgences of modern times, it has broad concrete steps leading into the water. It was here that the saint Kabir received his in itia to r y mantra from Ramananda, and i t was here th a t Jagannatha, whom keepers of re lig io n had excommunicated because ot his love for a Muslim woman, sat singing his hymns to th e Mother River from his eulogy, Ganga Lahari, begging the mother to purify him and accept him back into th e fold of

Brahminhood. And it was here that the waters of the river rose above the steps and c a rrie d him and his Muslim lover way on her undiscriminating waves. I sit cross-legged on the last stair where the water spreads like a thin, transparent sheet of liquid. A passer-by, taking me for a beggar, throws a coin at me. The round nickel bit lies before me on the concrete stair, shining through the water but too heavy to float. I pick it up and throw it into the deep waters ot the river. It touches the water and clings to its surface, refusing to sink, floating away merrily as Jagganath's verses did centuries ago. 177

The sun has now reached the occidental extreme, lowering its gaze to look into the mountains where it will disappear.

I walk the last half mile to the fifth gfrftt, the

Hanikarnika. The Varana river and the Ganga meet here—the second eyebrow at the corner of the Chakra. This ghat is the microcosm ot the world, tor creation and destruction can be witnessed here side by side. At the beginning ot time,

Vishnu dug a well here to enrich all life with its waters.

Pilgrims from all over the country come here to wash away their sins and return to revivified. And every day, hundreds surrender the five elements ot their bodies to the holy tlames, tor the Manikarnika Ghat is the busiest cremation ground in the country. Aside trom this eternal play of life and death, this ghat is the most revered among pilgrimags because, when King Bhagirtha brought the Ganga down to the earth to liberate the spirits of his dead ancestors, it was here that the Ganga first struck its waves.

I let myself be swallowed by the water, abandoning myself totally to the swell. My body sheds its carapace, and each drop that filters in through the pores fills me with a life as old as time and as new as the first heart-beat of a baby. I rise again. Drops of water between my eyebrows catch the last rays of the sun and burst into a hundred brilliant colors. I look down at my dtocfei. The dirt has 178 washed away. Eyes tilled with its pure whiteness, I look at the world around me. Par away behind the spirals ot smoke, a flick e r of maroon stains my vision. SUMMARY After tour hundred and twenty million years of living like a mortal on earth, the god in Angiras begs tor release. The duality he has been forced to accept now tattles in his

consciousness. The dip in the purifying waters ot the Ganges

has helped Angiras expunge most ot h is earthly entrapments, but the element that was the reason ot bis banishment to earth—woman—still hovers within sight. The oovious question that any reader would ask at this point is, will he unveil h is godliness now, or will he continue using the disguise ot a mortal? Back amidst the 'ig n o ran t m o rta ls,' he contends with h is arch enemy—Amarvinash. Resolving to tig h t the parliamentary elections with all his divine powers and human instincts, he prepares a campaign. S h ri, tor reasons known o nly to her, insistent upon pursuing her clandestine attair with the man who once raped her, moves out ot A ngiras’s home. For the first time, the direct female element is removed from

Creation and divine forces are unleashed in full intensity. Angiras losses the election. Prom the depths of anger and failure, he invokes Shiva, the god ot final destruction.

179 180

KSiiyj#S3» with its course only halt done, now awaits the verdict ot the Annihilator.

The tinal chapter decides whether the wish ot a god will curtail ordinances ot time, or will MaijaJsal.* the Great Time, strike the tinal blow to the stature ot Indian gods, leaving the concept ot eternity as distant and obscure as it was in the beginning ot the book. Glossary of Proper Names

Abhimanyu, the brave son ot Arjun, the third ot the tive Pandavas—heroes ot the epic, Mahsbhgiafc

Adi Keshava, a bank ot the Ganges in the city ot Kashi named after the god Kehsava or Vishnu

Agni, god of fire. Among his many forms mentioned in this book are Vaishvanar, the digestive fire within all men and Grahpati, the household tire.

Ajanta, name ot sculptured caves near Bombay, depicting the life ot the Buddha Amaravati, 'place of the immortals'; city of Indra

Angiras, the seven holy men created at the dawn ot Creation to be mediators between men and gods

Arjun, bravest ot the Pandavas; the addressee ot the ]3MSi?at. —Gita h £ , The earliest extant textbook ot political science attributed to Kautalya, the minister ot Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Aruna, 'tawny'; the crippled bird child of Kashyap and Vinata; the twilight in the sky Ashoka, the most revered Emperor ot India; the second Maurya ruler after Chandragupta Maurya. He reigned from 325 AD to 352 AD.

Ashok Vatika, a garden on Ravana's palace grounds in Lanka Ashvamedha Yajya, the ceremony celebrating an Emperor's victory over the world Avimukta, 'never forsaken’; another name for the city of Varanasi in India; a pilgrimage

181 182

Babur, the f i r s t Mughal Emperor of India. The Mughal empire in India lasted for over two centuries. Bharatvarsha, ancient name of India

Benaras, another name for Varanasi, a city of pilgrimage in India Bikaner, a city in Rajasthan

Brahma, the Creator Chakravhyu, a strategy employed by the Kauravas in the _ a formation of armies to erect an impenetrable barrier tor the enemy

Chandragupta Maurya, the f ir s t Maurya Emperor ot India; a disciple of Kautalya Dan Kendra, charity center

Dharamkaya, 'righteous body'; an illumined s ta te of being achieved in the p ra c tise of Buddhism

Dronacharya, a holy man and a teacher in Mfta&UsldJ;; guru ot the Pandavas and Kauravas

Dwarpur Yuga, the third age in classical measure of time; an age when the cow of righteousness is supposed to rest two hooves on the earth, as opposed to three in Treta, all tour in Satya Yuga, and only one in the age of darkness, the Kali Yuga

Ganga, Ganges, the holy river of India said to have been brought to the earth to liberate souls; the purifier a eulogy written by the seventeenth century poet, Jagganath Garuda, 'the devourer'; son of Kashyap and Vinata; enemy of serpants; the bird whom Vishnu rides

Grahpati, Agni; the household fire Grandfather, affectionte name for the father ot Creation, Brahma Gurukul, school for learning under the gurus 183

Harishchandra Ghat, a bank of the Ganges in varanasi named after a philanthropist king

Hanuman Ghat, a bank of the Ganges in Varanasi named after the monkey god who was a constant companion L°rd Rama Indra, king of gods

Jagganath, a seventeenth century poet; author o t Janaka, 'begetting'; king of Videha; father of Sita

Janamjaya, son of Parikshat; performer of the snake s a c r i f i c e Jodhpur, city in Rajasthan

Kabir, a seventeenth century poet and saint

Kadru, wife of Kashyap; mother of snakes

Kailash, a mountain in the Himalaya range; p a r a d is e of shiva

Kali Yuga, the last and worst of the tour ages; the Present age

Kalpa, an aeon; a day ot Brahma; one thousand a 9 e s r 3 period ot tour thousand, three hundred and twentv million years as mortals count them

Kamdhenu trees, 'tulfiller of desires'; trees in SatYa Yuga Kautalya, the author ot £xtha§hastra; minister and guioe of Chandragupta Maurya

Kashi, 'holy city'; another name for Varanasi, tJhe Pilgrimage Krishna, the ninth incarnation ot Vishnu Krsa, a brahmin boy

Kurukshetra, 'field of the Kurus'; the field where ttle Mahabharata was fought; name ot a city in India Lanka, kingdom ot Ravana; Shri Lanka

Laxmi, 'good fo rtu n e '; wife ot Vishnu; goddess o t wealth U^JiabDajat, the great Hindu epic 184

Manikarnika Ghat, a bank o£ the river Ganges Manu, progenitor of the human race. Men are called human (m

Manvantra, the cycle ot tour yysilS or ages Mithila, a city in the kingdom ot Videha. Sita was hidden in an earthenware jar in the soil of Mithila. Mohenjo Daro, the archeological site in Pakistan with evidence ot the Indus V alley C ivilzation Nahusa, the king of gods tor the brief period ot time Indra was in hiding Nirvana, ultimate liberation of spirit Pandava, one ot the two warring tactions in the Mahabparat; sons of Pandu Parikshat, last of the Pandavas, sons ot Abhimanyu and uttara

Parvati, 'daughter of the mountain'; daughter ot Himalaya; wife of Shiva Patliputra, ancient name ot city ot Patna, a city in India P rajap ati, 'lo rd ot c re a tu re s'; an epithet ot Brahma, or any class ot primeval creators Raghuvansha, the descendents of king Raghu Ramayan, a great epic celebrating Lord Rama

Ramananda, a great yogi in the seventh century

Ravana, 'scream ing'; a demon; the v illa in ot the RamayaB Rudra, 'howler' or ruddy one'; the Vedic antecedent ot Shiva Sanchi, 'pure'; a stupa built by Emperor Ashok in homage of the Buddha Satya Yuga, 'age ot truth', also called Krta Yuga; the first and best ot the tour ages; the golden age 185

Saunaka, an ascetic Sesh, the eldest snake son ot Kashyap and Kadru; a saintly se r p a n t said to t>e holding the earth out of the waters on h is hood Shiva, ’auspicious’; god ot ascetics, ot the linga, and ot cosmic destruction

Shri, ’prosperity'; a wife ot Vishnu

Sikander, the Indian name of Alexander the Great

Sita, 'the turrow'; daughter ot Janka; wife of Rama

Srngan, a brahmin ooy; son ot Saunaka

Subhadra, sister ot Krishna; wife of Arjun; mother ot Ahhimanyu

Sudras, the lowest caste in the caste system in India

Sukra, 'b rig h t'; name ot guru ot demons

Surya, the sun god Taksaka, the v icio u s snake; son of Kadru and Kashyap

Texilla, the home ot the ancient center ot learning, now in Pakistan Treta Yuga, the age lesser in p e rfe c tio n than th e 55tya_Yuga nu t more righteous than the and £3li_Yiig&g

Tvstra, a prajapati Tuisi Ghat, a bank o t the Ganges named a fte r the Goddess Ucchaihsravas, -long-eared' or 'neighing loudly'; the horse ot th e gods; prototype and king ot horses

Urvashi, a beautiful celestial nymph in Indra's court

Viakuntha, Vishnu's heaven Vaishvanar, the formot Agni th a t is the digestive tire in a l l men; son ot th e sage Vishvavanar 186

Vaishyas, the thrid caste in the caste system consisting ot businessmen and agriculturlists

Valmiki, author of the RajnaysD; a great sage

Vasuki, the second eldest of the snake sons ot Kadru and Kashyap. He let himself be used as a churning rope when the mountian Mandar was churned in the ocean to get the ambrosia.

Vinata, mortal wife of Kashyap; sister of Kadru; mother of Garuda and Aruna

Virocana, a demon with an illumined body

Vishnu, 'the pervador'; the supreme god

Vishnugupta, real name of Kautalya

Vishvakarman, 'all-maker'; the artichitect ot Amaravati, the city ot Indra

Viashvavanar, father ot Agni

Vrta, son of the prajapati, Tvstra Explanation ot Hindi Terms anttpspthi, last rites ceremony apsara, celestial nympn tindj, the dot Indian women wear in the center ot their forehead for ornamentation or as a sign of heing married. bhabpi, sister-in-law; brother's wife dxahmapchar ip , celebate cfiakfa, a center ot energy in the body. Hindu Yoga devides the energy of the human into seven cpakfas or centers. The center between the eyes is a cluster of the energies ot wisdom. It is also called the all knowing th ird eye. deya§, demigods d h a rti f the e a rth dhoti, loin cloth djya, clay lamp lit with oil and a wick dupatta, scart Indian women wear over their dress ghats, river banks gfiep, c la r ifie d butter kamandals, begging bowls

Jcufta, loose shirt masi, aunt, mother's sister

187 188

maya, divine magic

inayayi, a product ot divine magic

mudra, ancient Indian currency

S i t i e s , policies

niti_shastri, policy maker

rjamkaraa, ceremony performed to name a chile ojas, sexual energy

pancatirtpi, the circle ot five pilgrimages pajama, Indian pants peepul, banyan tree ra ja , king

rishi, ascetic padhjip, ascetics papadpi, deep meditation samrat r empero r saiaif rest house, motel satrap, representatives left by Alexander in jndia to rule the territories he had conquered

Pindhoor, vermilion worn in the parting ot hair oy Indian women to indicate their married state. soma* ambrosia tjjpap, meditation v ir g a ti, martyrdom