by Daljit Nagra
Monkeys on the field need scoffing!’
said red-faced Raavana, once back at the palace.
It was a task making Koombarkana yawn
for the six months of his sleep had not ended yet.
A small army blored trumpets and whacked drums
and pulled that dire Oooloo’s hair.
Food hall was bubbling juicy vats
with creamy kidneys, hearts and limbs
from God knows whatever beast.
Koombarkana would be wolfing from the pillow:
he’d make a meal
of whoever he could grab when he stirred,
so it was best to have food steaming.
No more casualties during war needed!
Still asleep, elephants were ridden over his tummy.
Tickled by this, Koombarkana finally roused.
Loudest trumpets now performed most cacophonic
to bring him home
from the land of nod.
Koombarkana finally yawned and whilst yawning
he popped with greedy speed
a handful trumpet-wallahs in his gob!
Burping and rousing to consciousness
he slobbered on corpulent gobfuls of meat
and quaffed war-wine gallons.
He farted till the palace air was unpalatable.
Advisers filled him in about a somewhat major rumpus.
Temporarily sated
Koombarkana was then hugged by his dearly Raavana.
‘Rama has our measure. He is with too many monkeys.’
Koombarkana, that proper fellow,
showed how he could stir-in the serious
whilst making light of the most knotted drag,
‘Beloved brother, I am eaten up by your gloom.
But shouldn’t a king adopt lean counsellors?
Any jabbering adviser who says wrong conduct
is correct, I say feed him to the dogs!
Listen hard, Raavana: you should have spies chewing
on every word of your foe. If you guard your ground
how can power go plump belly up!?
War is the final fatal morsel to be chewed on
by noble kings when all arguments are famished.
You began the last course, passing on the starter!
Did any adviser wake you from your craving,
your rushing on another’s man’s dessert?
If one did, what did you consume?
But fret not your brows.
I love snacking on live meat.
You rest, Raav-ji, I will go for a solo paseo
and on the way I may just fetch my own din-din!’
Then rolling up his jolly giant sleeves
and expanding in size at the thought of food from battle
that Oooloo Ballong was
Down the slope he thud-dud-dud-dud-duddered
but seeing the millions monkeys still active
he snacked a dream
where he was a double-roti din-din for Death.
Yet for his Raav-ji he would happy go down dining.
Straight off, his big blam!smash! palms
grabbed any amount monkeys then down his chompy gob
they juiced, like puréed ants!
Like ants, monkeys clambered
all over him. Any got grabbed got noshed.
And bones
like pips
were spat out
becoming clubs bludgeoning the monkeys.
At best, the monkeys stabbed the giant with pointed
trees, firing stones at his face.
But all was pinged out and pinged back
so the monkeys lay punch-drunk or dead.
Koombarkana went after their king
but Sugreeva flew upwards, saying,
‘You can brag fame now
by killing so many of my army.
Let us ruck so you can check an Oooloo foe, ho!’
Said Koombarkana, ‘Brahma is your ancestor.
Why brag?
Show me your candy!’
Sweet flying Sugreeva whirled a rock cone
whipped fresh from a mountain crest.
It cycloned for Koombarkana’s head!
But Koombarkana thrashed his arms about
grinding mountain-matter to a dusty phenomena
that
simoomed
for the ocean.
At the receiving end of Sugreeva’s whizzing about
and rock chucking
the giant finally zoomed in on Sugreeva’s movements:
his finger-flick beserked Sugreeva
from his spinwhizz
and sent him spiralling
downward.
Koombarkana shoved Sugreeva under his arm
and waved the other arm in victory, yaaah!
King as hostage would weaken monkey morale.
But who fears most
the thing in the thick of their grip …?
Who doesn’t become like the ape
that the higher he climbs in the world
the more he shows his arse!?
O sloppy-cocky Koombarkana! Look under your arm
on your way back to the palace!
Sugreeva has roused from near-death
and is about to make his sharp attack.
Before even the Oooloo noticed,
with crystal-pointed teeth and nails
Sugreeva bit and clawed at the bulbous ears and nose.
Near scrambling them off.
Poor Koombarkana was dizzied.
His small army was trounced
and he was all on his lonesome
save for the monkeys now furring him …
Rama blasted his sharpest arrows,
they fell away
but for the one that he had sunk in Bali.
It took a dozen such arrows for the end-result.
A dozen such arrows before those giant arms were slit,
were discommoded
limb to limb
plop to the ground like puddings!
Queasy Koombarkana
kicked about and head-butted
biting
at anything by his chomp-yard.
Finally though
Rama shot a flank of tight-knit blade-like arrows at his neck,
so many arrows they beheaded
that bullied bugger!
Oooloo Ballong bombastic bum-up thud.
Then permanent sleep.
Then grand hoots bore at the blood-bloated hills.
Chapter Eight: The Dream Arrow
Indrajit is encouraged to be visible when fighting. The citizens of Lanka mourn.
I
Overnight, Sugreeva had sent an army
with firebrands to set alight towers and mansions
and smoke issued in the morning. Rama’s army
had the upper hand. On the fourth morning
Vibishana had leapt from sleep, and seeing Lakshmana,
‘I have been remiss for I have been forgetting
that my nephew, Indrajit, has the power to summon prayers
that will harden his body so he is free from injury
eternally. He will be able to grant his soldiers immortality.
He can achieve all this only in battle.
We must go to him. I know where he prays.’
They crept behind a hill
then stole behind a banyan tree.
Indeed it seemed Indrajit was in full spiritual flow.
Indrajit fed his altar with butter from a ladle of black iron
and rubbed marks with ashes on his brow.
Whispered Vibishana to Lakshmana,
‘These marks will grant him invisibility for long enough.’
They watched cracks
in the ground broaden and from the underworld
Naga serpents whirled forth to bathe Indrajit’s javelins
with their karella-flavoured venom.
Nearby a black goat at a stake
which Indrajit bled for new blood.
Indrajit was then about to use the blood in an offering
that might be making him immort –
when, ‘What coward seeks personal reward in battle?
What coward fights invisible?
Come and fight me face to face and show the gods
you are deserving immortality,’
roared Lakshmana from behind the tree.
Indrajit, who saw his uncle step out, cajoled him,
‘How can a raksassy betray his own blood?
In times and times to come, dear uncle,
I envision you fleshed
in stone or ink as a traitor, or, as we say, a pandy!’
‘Have I not been serving dharma only? As one serving dharma
you too must regard the pandy truly as the hero.’
‘My dharma is to support my father, your brother!
Is there any greater loyalty?’
Vibishana spoke firmly, ‘When two factions
are not equally clean
how can we be leaving behind what is a stain on Truth?
‘Despite brotherly affection securing your safe release
from Lanka, you return having judged your brother.
Now this Rama, your new star
blazes all in his path
so Yama erase the ghost of his parting …
Even a sun when it cools leaves a blot.
What blot can ever be cleansed
from Sita, from Rama?’
Vibishana was inwardly torn
to see his nephew perilously visible.
But he could not kill him himself.
Lakshmana called out coward! again.
Indrajit had never before been, who dare do it,
called a coward!
Indrajit was on his chariot and said,
Lakshmana, if you have missed seeing my power before,
I pray you see it now. I ask for the gift of single combat.’
‘I give it.’
Both boys twanged their bows then fought.
They would fight for hours.
Neither backing down.
The boys were near deaf and blind with focus.
Lakshmana admired Indrajit’s speed and stamina.
The stalemate needed unlocking,
Lakshmana stepped up a level
and from his celestial gear he fired a missile
presided over by the Water-God, Varuna.
Indrajit saw the missile
looping towards him
and fired back his celestial missile
presided over by Havoc-God, Rudra.
Rudra annulled Varuna.
And on they went till it must be curtains for one:
Indrajit plucked an arrow given him by Yama.
Lakshmana recognised it. He matched it
with an arrow given to Kubera in a dream:
it was invincible, it was invisible!
It swallowed Indrajit’s javelins as they were fired.
And forwards it continued till it realised its aim
in Indrajit’s ever-so-wide windpipe.
Indrajit was choking
like a child who mistook the size of the stone in his mouth.
In mercy,
Lakshmana pulled out an arrow that was too hot to hold
but demanded to be the rending shaft.
Reciting a mantra,
whilst the arrow was burning his fingers,
Lakshmana shot the flame into Indrajit’s heart.
Indrajit’s innards were instantly barbecued.
II
Lay slain in Lanka, besides Indrajit,
lakhs upon lakhs dead bodies. Not buried yet
and become a banquet for flesh or fowl …
From Lanka came outdoors lakhs upon lakhs
raksassy women
some were there they lost their husband,
some were there they lost a son,
some were there they lost a brother, a cousin or uncle.
All were there feeling all now was lost.
Some blamed Soorpanaka for her Rama adoration,
some scorned Sita’s charmed beauty.
They gathered at Lanka gates and huddled one another,
they locked arms and embraced in a tight circle.
They locked tight then set free one huge hush cry –
one soft lamentation.
Their cry went unstraightforwardly ascending –
its heart-breaking tenderness vapoured
and sheared off at the fringes
Then rising
through that soft
cry’s pollen core
Raavana’s harsh
sob that had shot
separately from
the highest palace
turret
momentarily deafening space.
Chapter Nine: Attack of the Astras Mega-Fantastic to the Death!
Rama and Raavana fight again.
At the palace, Raavana attended a ritual bath.
His special prayers were assisted by Mandodari,
his dearest wife. She suggested,
‘My Lord, if we end Sita – we end Rama …’
No answer. She tried distracting him,
‘You have captured my heart always.
I love our life.
I pray the omens are bad … O do not go
where our son has gone.’
Raavana’s master magician, Vidyujjivha,
was waiting in a chamber and finally had his meeting,
‘My Lord, do you not hanker for a head or two?
A gore head of Rama … has been prepared …
The living dead-head double of this saviour …
perchance we show it to Sita? Would it send her
to sleep … Would this end Rama’s halo-headed cause?
Or … on a platter I have garnished,
with a Choodamani, Sita’s mimic head … Take it to
the battlefield …?
My Lord, what say you to my …
… dainty pair of beheaded …
lovers?’
Vidyujjivha wore his glacial air,
his skin seemed made of glass, his cheeks
in the sunniest day looked scabbed with frost
and his words fell faintly as though heard
from the other side of a window pane, more seen than heard
and being seen merely guessed at …
Vidyujjivha kept his head down. Raavana, emphatic,
‘You do well to ready your deceits but I am
already the victor, for another’s wife lies in my grip.
And though it be my privilege, my prerogative
to expatiate my conquest upon the flesh of the defeated,
I would not.
Sita is our guest and must be honoured to the end.
No chink or junk thinking will blink me
from my fair fight to the death. Are we not ever
in the eyes of the heavens?’
Raavana returned to his chambers and Mandodari
knew that with so many now fallen
her duty lay in helping her gentle husband
fasten his battle dress, armour, armlets and crowns.
She ensured that protective armour covered all his broad-bulk.
She silently tightened his sword-belt
then bolstered him with accoutrements:
decorative yet also protective. In his ample hands:
a special sword from Shiva, a double-edged scimitar, a mace,
an axe,
a shield, a bow and so on.
Raavana was now on his chariot. The gods feared
his deaf mood. And feared earth’s fate.
They rained blood as a harbinger
and even though Raavana saw the blood
with his twitching left eye
he remained steadfast: do or die.
So the gods sent Rama their special chariot.
Rama watched the vehicle descend fro
m the skies.
He was bowled over by a chariot and charioteer, who said,
‘Lord Rama, my name is Matali.
We can move faster than light itself.
Lord Brahma has sent me to help you.’
The beat of war drums.
Lord of Mortals versus Lord of Raksassy.
Raavana blew his conch
and its shrill call resounded through the universe.
The battle that must bring both men to the end of the road …
Raavana’s and Rama’s chariots smashed hard.
Raavana glared up at the heavens.
Both held ground.
They took their chariots skywards
and fought above the clouds.
They conjured ample diamond-hard Maya-made missiles.
The strength of each in the bobbing and firing back redoubled.
Instead of one, Raavana now went twenty-fold with bows
for his twenty arms.
Rama’s arrows
broke no end Raavana’s arrows.
The gods were
horrified for the
haemorrhaging
earth.
Rama and Raavana were an inferno!
Wherever their missiles crashed
they blackened measureless green things
