by Daljit Nagra
Lakshmana must go too.’
The sage agrees, then appeasing the king,
‘Being at home, being in touching distance
shows closeness in love
but if a seed is not removed, if it is made to sprout
at the heel of its parent tree
will it not be
stunted?
Will not Rama leave me also
for what is becoming his correct trajectory?’
King Dasaratha’s eyes glaze over.
He is remembering the day, aeons ago it was,
when he was out hunting.
As huntsman he was used to firing an arrow by hearing alone:
sight not needed when you are a hotshot!
Except on this day,
whilst he was hidden in leaves and waiting for prey at a lake,
on hearing a splash
Dasaratha shot an arrow
into what he sensed was a deer.
Instead he heard a cry …
A boy’s cry. A boy who had been carrying
two baskets on a pole
each of which held his blind parents.
The frail blind dad touching his son’s head;
through feeble tears, cursing the king,
‘I pray you learn too
what it means to lose a son.’
In the stonking new hall, before his audience,
was all the king’s great wit and wisdom mustered,
‘Call my sons.’
Chapter Three: Kill that Mother!
The boys enter a desert where they meet a raksassy. They are then trained by the sage to become warriors.
Perfect drought everywhere horizon’d in a desert.
Heat licking heat
in a death-lust where only is growing Death.
Deep in the desert and somehow unfazed,
as if this were not miracle enough,
a mere boy wearing a divine blue demeanour
was steadfast walking. Nippy walker
whose feet were barely touching the ground
for the speed of his crossing too was unnaturally composed!
So who was this warrior-looking walker?
Rama, of course! Rama! The mighty boy
already with lithe but supernaturally powered limbs.
Rama was being followed
by his brother Lakshmana
and a bit behind was Sage Viswamithra.
They were north of Ayodhya
in the sun’s anvil. A sun that slumped its deadening weight
on stone and rock
turning rock and stone into fine-spun sand.
Gaps in the soil gaping.
The sun’s anvil immobile
blurring the line
between dawn noon evening.
The bleach-bones strewn
were from decayed animals.
Enormous horror jaws gaped
into a frozen lunge after, even just one,
wa
ter-
dr
op. Into these dead jaws
had rushed
the serpent and elephant alike for shade
and died there. Fossilised tableaux.
The sage explained this was the sole way
to the sacrificial grounds, adding,
‘Here was once a jolly peopled zone
with gardens and grounds, like bazaars, bright with fruits
BUT
a demon family, a family of raksassy lived here once.
The couple had two boys who were born
hippopotamusly tough!
As toddlers, the boy’s larrikins involved
killing for the thrill! The big-head parents
boasted of the edible end-product
the children’s play-dates were becoming.’
The sage told the boys about a little saint, Aga,
who had his hut-home in the forest,
who felt compelled to cease the murder spree.
He turned
gnat-sized
then flew
at the neck
of this laughing-his-head-off braggart dad.
He flew at that mid-laugh neck
whilst it was stretched
for it was easier to prod and puncture in a sec.
At his final breath the dad
zipped about
like a wailing balloon when its air pours out
then slopped alongside
some redolent berries.
When Tadaka, the mum, and the brats spotted
their splatted fellow
they’d have swatted, in kind, this gimp saint,
but this gimp – where’s he?
The gnat-sized saint
buzzed a curse
that tore mum and the youngest brat from their former
physiques
into smudged
malformed forms of themselves.
Heart-stopping to stare at!
Saint Aga had deformed them into extreme versions
of their ogre states.
The young son scrammed and in scramming discovered
he had a wheeze
and had ankles shagged with spikes
so the boy not so much scrammed, as trudged
to loaf with arsooras in the underworld.
His dear brother, Mareecha, had got away
owing to the shape-shifting properties of certain raksassy.
Mareecha was beautiful at switching into a deer,
and had sneaked away for Raavana’s kingdom.
Said the sage, ‘I have a dread fear
Mareecha will cross your path again, one day.’
Rama was unperturbed
as the sage shared news about the mum
who was cursed to live alone,
‘… in this forest which she turned to a desert
by her single gift:
the gift of breathing ill fires.
She’s called a scorcher …
If her sons were strong as ten hippos each
Tadaka is rampant as a hundred hippos.
And her diet being raw humans
she’s called a man-eater.’
The boys smiled nervously as the sage sniffed the air.
‘Tadaka pierces anything alive with her spiky trident.
Not even here will you hear the shrill beetle
or any tweeting sweetie bird. All been spiked.
Tadaka roams here still. My vow of
non-violence means you must step up.’
The sage stood Lakshmana back with him
for it was clear Rama was being tested.
Rama pleaded,
‘Where is she?’
Before the sage answered the question,
the question was being answered
by a rackety storm
ploughing towards the sage and the boys.
What formed through the ploughing, before Rama,
was a normal-size woman
but with eyes gobbing fire,
with fangs dribbling molten.
All of it hung on an old mama
bereft of her boys and her husband.
Good grief!
Rama felt her blue-mood
when he used the word ‘mother’ on asking the sage,
‘This poor mother – how should I kill her?’
Said the sage, ‘You must not be considering her
as woman. Think not she is woman. Think only the epitome
she presents you.’
The thought struck home.
Though Rama ached for his three mums’
hugs
he knew ‘mum’ was not the warrior word
and hardened as recipient
of this fiend’s three-pronged spear
which came at shrill speed
for his brows
and arrived within eye-shot
just in time for Rama’s nimble-fingered
stringing of his massive bow
so his arrow flew just in time
/>
to shatter
The shattered spiky shards flew up
and gaining speed
rained sharply down
into the mum
stabbing her
in her tender
flesh-parts.
Tadaka was dead.
Hoisted with her own petard.
Spectating overhead
the gaggle of ebullient gods
made life move fast-forward across a once desolate region.
They made flowers plurp into dandy lives of purples and tangs
shaded by newly sprung panasa, palm and mango trees.
The gods chimed into the sage’s inner voice,
‘Grant this fine-handed boy the deepest know-how.
He may be the saviour!’
Over the coming seasons, upon his willing wunderkind
the sage delivered the subtlest A to Z techniques
so both Rama and Lakshmana mastered
the art of defence, and if necessary, attack.
Rama perfected the hardest mantras,
that once recited
allow you to ignore those gobby rogues:
Hunger, and her dry beau, Thirst.
Rama was fast becoming awesome:
he could shoot an arrow exact through ninety palm trees
to pierce a juicy apple
and could shift a hill
or heave-ho an irksome cliff.
But he had to master restraint
for the sage advised against causing a stink
on nature’s blossom harmony.
Said the sage, as he sat midst crags,
‘I will now teach you bala and antibala mantras.
These are essential for martial know-how. Once mastered
you will gain instant insight to select the good path
from the gnarled entangled junctures.
Plus too, when asleep you will be shielded from demons.’
The sage next taught them how to hone mental focus
for summoning and harnessing the Dev Astras,
that is to say, the snazziest weapons of the gods
that can only be activated by mantras. Mantras only
can return the weapons or else utter chaos
when weapons back-fire!
And mastery of a mantra leads to best tool control.
What a bruising time
that left the boys with singed limbs and digits
when they practised conjuring Astra weapons
because some could be hot as hot coals
and some mere
smoke-wisp.
When the boys were really skilled
it became a cinch, a doddle, sending back each Astra
to its celestial shelf!
The sage then loaded Rama with weapons
for the journey. Trooping through the air
out of nothing
were brand-new weapons of shiniest divine-gold
paraded before Rama, as if to say,
‘Lord, we are yours to command.’
Not forgetting Lakshmana who also earned
with flying colours blades, spear-like missiles
and diamond-set scabbards
to rival Rama’s that stood at his feet, as if to say,
‘Lord, we are yours to command.’
Chapter Four: Our Exchequer Ganga
Sage Viswamithra relates the importance of nature.
‘Just as our stories recall and revive our long line,
so it is we only attain greater knowledge of our circumstances
once we feel the earth we are
daily sharing.
My dear boys, every inch of the earth
is a divine memory.
As one of the five original elements
Mother Earth has been here from the off.
Though each human trace is erased
from the universe and the Earth,
though each corpse be million years under,
Mother Earth will always bear
an impress of every foot that trod anxiously
and ecstatically, through good and evil, upon her …
Upon her … till Kala consume all again.
And what of Ganga? Ganga is the greatest necklace –
its riches draping our world.
Just look at her streams flowing down from the Himalayas
and kissing all they touch
for blooming essence of rare herbs and wild fruits.
Ganga feeding all that beards and garbs the earth.
Ganga nursing the parched throat
dying for a sip.
The souls of each being are cleansed for salvation
once their ashes replenish the roots
by flowing through water.
Ganga rushing down cleansing
and bearing so each stitch touched
becomes, in essence, holy!
The wizened sage was speaking from within
the mist-covered wood on a mountain height
and as the mountain exhaled its tender vapours
the sky was calmed
and calmed too were the boys
who were soothed into sleep.
Chapter Five: Utter Foul Sacrifice
Sage Viswamithra attempts to make his sacrifice.
Now from the highest mountain peak
in Sidhasrama, said the sage,
‘We have been travelling across the great heights
for only a dozen sunsets, or so it seems,
but many seasons have elapsed
and how well you have fought for insight
in yoga, philosophy and the ways of demon destruction.
Here is where we will perform the great sacrifice.
We must toil to attain our vision’s purpose.’
The sage went high-low preparing,
and the brothers brought cartloads of sages
from near and far
who themselves had been busy propitiating the gods
for this culminating battle.
The rabble of arsoora and raksassy
was running about in the sky
like feet tapping on the floorboards upstairs.
Their pongy rain indicated to the brothers
an attack on the sacrifice was getting dirty.
The sages lit fire from a hundred-plus trees
and circled it with chorus prayers
so song and flame ascended with a pomegranate brightness.
But what came down from above
were distress cries from supposedly tortured children.
Each trauma or sorrow was reconstructed by the demons
and played aloud. Endless mimic voices.
Horror radio! Psycho crèche …
The demons, who lived in the lowest regions
of the ooper-world, were scuppering the sacrifice.
The sages felt unduly boo-hooey
at the next set of mimic-whines
from sisters, mothers, grandmothers
supposedly under attack:
whose shadow is at my nape
release my wrists fiiiieeeendd
my sons will my husband is coming
HARAAMZADAAAAH!!!
The demons were having a wild time.
To further unsettle the prayers
they thrashed down vat-load
A gonad fell in a sage’s outstretched palm,
urine dribbled the beard of another …
The delicacy of the story forbids further embellishments
of this nature, save to say
many an abattoir must have been ransacked and spilled
at devious intervals.
The battle was hotting up
so Rama made a solid promise,
‘Belt out your prayers about this spiring fire …
We will shelter you.’
Rama and Lakshmana fled
to different mountain ranges
and became pure arrow action
shooting thousands of spears at dizzy
ing speed,
so many arrows
shielding the sacrificial fire
from being doused or spattered.
So long as each multiple-arrow-round made a penumbra
the sacrifice stayed prayer-happy.
The desperate demons resorted to earth eruptions
that flung lava.
Lava, mimic-cries, gassy stinks and suchlike malarkey
were thinning, were fading …
Somehow the sages were pulling off the sacrifice
with extreme-focus imbrication of mind and body
till each sage was a flame-ball burning evil from earth!
May this story be forgiven for digressing
but dear Sages
please do not be forest-firing too much
this cuddly planet whilst engaged in an anti-demon combat:
who would rather not be harbouring a floorboard of evil
than be losing their home sweet home?
Returning to our story,
now that the region was freed from the demons,
in the place of eruptions were wide-ranging rainbows
because peace was advertising itself
as promoted by the mountain-to-mountain-wide calling-card
of spangly colours.
Rama, Lakshmana and the sages saw, flying
through the rainbows,
and couldn’t help but wave
at, the birds, birds, birds.
Even cheeky cuckoos.
