Pralay- The Great Deluge

by Vineet Bajpai

  Vidyut was recuperating rapidly. While still on the infirmary bed, he was fully conscious and back to his alert self.

  ‘As soon as you are well enough Vidyut, you must spend more time with our grandmaster, the great Dwarka Shastri ji. You both have a lot to catch up on.’

  ‘There is nothing more I want than to be with Baba, Purohit ji,’ replied Vidyut. ‘But he is a hard man, don’t you agree? He speaks at his own pace. He reveals only as much as he wants to at a particular time. No one can rush him. At least not me!’

  ‘You are the only one who can make him do as you please, Vidyut,’ said Purohit ji with a tired smile. ‘At least make him confess to the lethal battle of exorcism he fought to protect you.’

  It took Vidyut a few seconds to grasp what he had just heard.

  ‘Sorry...did you say battle of exorcism, Purohit ji?’

  Purohit ji arranged the orange slices neatly on a plate.

  ‘Yes, Vidyut. Your great grandfather did not fall prey to a natural disease or any age related illness,’ stated Purohit ji matter-of-factly.

  ‘He almost died combatting the world’s most powerful black-magician.’

  ‘A very dangerous and accomplished occult practitioner from half the world away had unleashed two exceptionally powerful beings from the netherworld on you, while you were still in Gurgaon, Vidyut. These foul spirits would have killed you and pulled your soul into the dark realm had it not been for our great master. Dwarka Shastri ji saved you from this long-distance exorcist attack. He nearly gave up his life to protect you.’

  Vidyut was as angry as he was stunned. He knew his great grandfather loved him dearly, no matter how detached the pompous old man attempted to show himself to be. But, until now, Vidyut was not aware that the grandmaster of the Dev-Raakshasa matth had fought a battle to the death - just to defend him.

  ‘Who is doing all this, Purohit ji?’ enquired an agitated Vidyut. ‘Who is trying to kill me? Before I left for the Dashashwamedh ghaat that day, Baba mentioned something called the New World Order. What is that and why are they our adversaries?’

  ‘The why you ask is a very complicated question, Vidyut. The answer to that only your great grandfather can and should give you. But I can tell you who was the fierce opponent in this vicious battle of exorcists.’

  ‘Okay.?’ Vidyut insisted that Purohit ji goes on.

  Purohit ji looked into Vidyut’s eyes and spoke flatly.

  ‘Dwarka Shastri ji is one of the most consummate taantrics to have ever walked this planet. Imagine what it would take in a challenger to nearly vanquish him. This is not an ordinary soul. He is a spiritual overlord and is second only to our mat-thadheesh in skill and ethereal power.’

  Vidyut was listening intently. Purohit ji continued.

  ‘It was a fearsome night. Our gurudev Dwarka Shastri ji appeared to be perturbed right from the early evening as we witnessed violent winds sweeping through the matth. None of us could sense anything sinister but as the strength of the gusts increased, our matthadheesh suspected at once that it was not a natural occurrence. He confided in me that as per planetary positions, it was an exceptionally vulnerable time for you, Vidyut. Someone who had command over both western as well as eastern astrology had chosen the perfect hour to turn you into a living puppet.’

  Purohit ji was now gaping into nothingness, recollecting that ominous night stroke by stroke.

  ‘Gradually the colour of the moon turned a ghostly red as the menacing winds gave way to a blinding dust storm. Tens of thousands of birds of all kinds began cawing against the bleeding dark sky in a cackle so loud as if a hundred evil witches wept and guffawed at the same time. As the night grew darker, dogs began to howl like a pack of angry bhad-maanas (werewolves). And then, we heard it. Distant bells from the guardian temples surrounding the periphery of Banaras were all chiming at once. The mystical sadhus of all those ancient shrines were awakened to the threat, just as Dwarka Shastri ji was. They were tugging the chains of their temple-bells, raising the alarm to save their savior, even as they all beckoned their collective army of pious spirits. The blackest hour, for which the concentric spiritual construct of Banaras and the Dev-Raakshasa matth had been built, had arrived. It was now that the skies above the ancient city were set to become the arena for planet Earth’s biggest battle of the exorcists.

  Those abhorred and awaited for centuries, had finally come.’

  Vidyut could feel a thin film of cold sweat all over him. But he did not want to interrupt Purohit ji with any sudden reactions. He kept his questions to himself for now and listened quietly.

  ‘Within moments the great matthadheesh was heading towards his grand cottage, fervently chanting counter-attack mantras from the darkest recesses of the Atharva Veda and other ancient occult scriptures. He was probably summoning his own ethereal militia. The grandmaster’s cottage housed his most powerful companions, and he was seeking their assistance in what he knew was the ultimate battle of his life. But he was late. Even before he could reach his spiritual fortress, a bolt of red lightning struck from the sky directly upon our grandmaster. It was like hellfire being spewed by the skies. For a moment we all stiffened, for we were sure we had just witnessed the end of our beloved leader. But, lo and behold...as the smoke cleared we were stunned to see the mighty Dwarka Shastri standing his ground firmly, his legs pillared like ramrods and his long white tresses flowing in the wind. His giant trishul (trident) glowed orange after bearing the brunt of the otherworldly attack.

  The great battle had begun.’

  Banks of the Indus, West of Harappa, 1700 BCE

  A-SURA

  In the dark of the night, his horse galloped with the haste of a storm. Smeared from head to toe in a green paste of tulsi, lohabaan (myrrh) and other ayurvedic herbs, only his lone eye shone in the nocturnal blackness like those of a prehistoric wolf.

  A massive scimitar hung from his waist-belt. His very own, very dreaded sword – the Ratna-Maru. His saddle was strapped with a hundred arrows and a powerful bow slung across his torso. His lost eye was covered with a leather flap, to shield the empty socket from the ever-increasing, violent winds that now swept across the vast plains incessantly.

  Vivasvan Pujari was riding to the camp of his once sworn enemy. He was riding to the demon-king, Sura.

  He could not believe his ears. The name his watch guard had taken, was one that Sura both admired and feared.

  How could this be?

  ‘Are you sure...? Are you sure this is the name of the visitor?’ enquired Sura again.

  The soldier was now nervous. One rule that everyone in this behemoth of an army knew was that the great Sura was not to be angered. Ever.

  How a man of such diminutive stature could appear so indescribably domineering was something most people who met Sura could not understand. His skin was fair but he perpetually smeared it black in the ashes of his burnt enemies. Known never to even sleep without being fully armed, he drank his daily copious volumes of wine from the skull of a desert panther he had killed with his bare hands. Known to enjoy the company of beautiful women, particularly the wives of his fallen foes, he never took a woman by force. He waited till they fell for, or more likely pretended to fall for, his raw and irresistible charm. Those of them that didn’t were fed to his pet wolves in public spectacle. That made him more irresistible to the next set of widows he claimed. He beheaded a massive beast every morning for meat meant for his savagely loyal soldiers. Not one of them ate breakfast unless it came from the sacrificial sword of their master. His court of law had a simple rule. Any criminal he condemned to the death penalty had a redress mechanism. He could battle the king himself to the death. But in case of losing, it would mean an execution so brutal that would disturb generations to come.

  A man known for a gaze so piercing that it could tear deep into the heart of a human if he looked hard enough, Sura was a God to his people.

  He was a demon for everyone to the East of his dominions.

  This legendar
y demon-king began his life as the son of a cobbler in the great city of Mohenjo-daro. After summarily slicing off the leg of a nobleman who had kicked his father in the face for a faulty shoe-stitch, Sura had left the city with a band of seven loyal friends. He had thought the matter would end with his departure. When the news of his parents being sent to the dreaded mrit-kaaraavaas reached his ears, Sura knew they would never return alive. And he was too weak then to rescue them from this gruesome fate.

  He swore vengeance. Not just against the city that wronged him and his parents, but against all of Aryavarta. Sura took a vow that he would decimate the prevailing order for good. His seven followers joined him. As months and years passed, Sura rose from being a highway bandit to a dreaded warlord of the hills. His band grew into a militia and then slowly into a tribe. His army came to be known as the most cruel and invincible across the known world. And unlike the glowing Harappan way of life, Sura’s army was a savage force. The only reason they took male prisoners was to burn one of them alive every day, to anoint themselves with the ashes of the fallen foe as a daily ritual. King of every speck of dust across the entire Hindu Kush ranges, Sura was a living legend.

  To put a seal of opposition to the very way-of-life of Aryavarta, Sura made his massive tribe take an oath that they would never speak a name from Aryavarta in its true form. Their hatred would be embodied in every word they spoke. They would speak the un-language, the a-bhasha. They would call the ultimate form of enlightenment and the Creator Brahma, A-brahma. Even though they worshipped Him as the supreme God just as their Aryavarta counterparts did, they would never address Him by His Harappan name. Their God was now Abrahma.

  The same God was now worshipped under two different names by two different cultures. But He was one. Always was. Always will be.

  And in this very un-language, as the years passed and his legend spread, Sura and his army of followers were themselves renamed. Worshipped as Gods by their subjects and loathed as fiends by their neighboring colonies...

  They were now...the A-suras!

  ‘Yes, my lord. This is the name he asked me to convey to you,’ said the guard, not once raising his eyes to meet those of his mighty king. ‘And your highness, I must inform you that...he is brutally disfigured.’

  Sura’s sparkling eyes were now darting from one point on the ground to another. He placed his wine skull on the table next to his makeshift throne and turned to his friend and senapati Prachanda, who had stopped devouring a roasted camel-leg as soon as the name of the visitor was announced in the large tent.

  ‘Kill him without a moment’s delay, Sura,’ advised Prachanda. ‘You remember what he did to us the last time we met...’

  Only Prachanda could address the great king Sura by his name. And only Prachanda could risk reminding him of his humiliating defeat.

  ‘I remember vividly, Prachanda...’ snapped Sura. ‘I remember he crushed our armies with a handful of warriors by his side. I remember he rode away with my finest ashvas from the mountains. I remember he trounced both you and me with his sword!’

  Sura took a big gulp from his skull of intoxicating nectar.

  ‘But I also remember...that he spared my son’s life,’ spoke Sura again. ‘I also remember that he did not touch any of our womenfolk and treated them with great reverence.’

  Prachanda was listening. He could not disagree. He knew Sura was right.

  ‘I remember how he waited for me to pick up my sword again, every time I fell to the ground during our duel. I cannot forget that he simply walked away when he could have beheaded me.’

  Sura turned to his childhood friend and the commander of his armies.

  ‘He is not an ordinary man, Prachanda. No ordinary man can beat both you and me with such ease. He is a devta! I have seen it in his eyes. There is an uncanny twinkle of benevolence in them, even towards his enemies.’

  You are right, my king,’ replied Prachanda, recollecting everything that Sura had just said clearly. ‘But he is still our enemy, Sura. He is the only barrier preventing you from becoming the king of the whole world!’

  Yes he is. Yes he is...’ mumbled Sura. He suddenly turned to the guard and gave his orders.

  ‘Bring the visitor in. And bear in mind that he should be treated with utmost respect.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ bowed the soldier and left to escort the mysterious and repugnant visitor in.

  Sura and Prachanda could not believe their eyes. What stood in front of them was not the devta they remembered with awe and fear. Covered with a green paste that had now turned brown because it was now mixed with so much blood, this man looked nothing like the glorious warrior-ascetic they had met last on the battlefield.

  Sura looked closely into the eye of the visitor. It was staring back at him with disturbing brutality. It was he, all right. But something was different. Frightfully different.

  What happened to him?

  ‘Welcome to my humble camp, O great a-devta,’ greeted Sura, after holding back his gasps and shock at what he was seeing.

  ‘Welcome, O great Avivasvan Pujari.’

  Banaras, 2017

  BRAHMA RAAKSHASA

  ‘Do you know what a Brahma Raakshasa is, Vidyut?‘enquired Purohit ji.

  ‘I am not very sure Purohit ji, but I believe it is a contorted being, cursed to endure suffering for centuries,’ replied Vidyut.

  ‘You are close. A Brahma Raakshasa is a monstrous being that is neither here nor there. A Brahma Raakshasa is not fully dead and not fully alive. He is neither a resident of the underworld, nor of the material world. It is a transient state for the cursed spirit of a very profound mystic who, despite all his knowledge and wisdom, sinned terribly in his lifetime. He is condemned to suffer for millennia together, in a hideous, ghostly form.’

  As he uttered these words, Purohit ji’s gaze turned to something outside the window. Vidyut realized he was staring at the cottage of the great matthadheesh.

  Without taking his eyes off that mystical chalet, Purohit ji continued.

  ‘You know Vidyut, there really is a Brahma Raakshasa residing in the villa of our grandmaster. I saw him that night. For years we felt his presence. But that night, Dwarka Shastri ji unlocked and summoned the otherworldly beast to his aid. I...saw him...’ By now Purohit ji was in a partial stupor.

  Vidyut put his hand on Purohit ji’s shoulder and tried to calm the old priest down. Purohit ji appreciated the gesture immediately, tapped Vidyut’s hand and offered a bleak but reassuring smile.

  He cleared his throat, took a sip of water from a glass and continued with fresh resolve. Vidyut needed to know everything.

  ‘The ritual intones of a hundred necromancers emanating from his cottage were bloodcurdling. It was a chilling hour, for each one of us in the matth had seen our gurudev enter the cottage all by himself,’ continued Purohit ji.

  ‘We saw Dwarka Shastri ji enter his villa alone, but within moments the whole place erupted in a strange, outlandish glow. It seemed like hundreds of sacramental fires had been lit at once. And then in one great flash, the whole of Banaras went dark. Every light bulb, every street lamp, every TV screen...why, even every cooking fire went out in a black puff. It was like an evil, cosmic djinn had blown away every source of light for tens of miles. There were only two things visible thereafter - the unnerving glow of the taantric fires from the grandmaster’s cottage, and the red streaks of thunder-flash raining from the sky.’

  There was silence for a long time in the quiet nursing room of the matth. Vidyut was dazed. Purohit ji was lost in the macabre memories of that haunting night. A matth nurse entered the room with Vidyut’s meal, but was turned away by a polite but firm shake of the head from the devta.

  ‘But Purohit ji, if they were coming after me, why did all this begin to happen here, in Banaras? I was hundreds of miles away!’

  ‘Long distance exorcism is a very old and accepted practice, Vidyut. Some legends have it that western clerics, Pope Pius XII in particular, attempted it on no
ne other than Adolf Hitler himself, at the peak of World War II. Convinced that Hitler was the Devil incarnate, they unleashed intense remote exorcism on him. No one can say for sure what the outcome was; except that folklore has it that one of the high priests from the Vatican was almost killed in this ritual. They say the demon in Hitler was too powerful to dislodge.’

  ‘Wow! Hitler?? Who would have imagined that?’ gasped Vidyut with disbelief.

  ‘It is recorded in several texts related to Hitler, the World War and the church. Later Vatican exorcists, including Gabriel Amorth, said the long-distance exorcism failed because the subject was not physically present in front of Pius XII. That, of course, is a western notion. Our ancient dark-arts suggest no such barriers.’

  ‘This is all so fantastic and so terrifying, Purohit ji. But my question still remains. If you say the attack was on me, why did all this happen here in Banaras? Why not where I was, in Gurgaon? And while I am a novice as compared to my great grandfather, I would not have been overpowered easily in this battle of occult.’

  Purohit ji nodded vigorously, in agreement with Vidyut’s last statement.

  ‘Yes, you would have given them a hard fight, Vidyut. But you would not have beaten them. Remember who Dwarka Shastri ji is. You are an accomplished taantric no doubt, but you are no match for your great grandfather. Moreover, our matthadheesh did not fight that battle alone. He had help from hundreds of profound taantrics and rishis of Banaras, who joined this decisive battle from their ritual pits, temples, homes, ghaats and cremation grounds. It was a powerful glimpse of the proverbial battle between good and evil. They all fed Dwarka Shastri ji with the illumination of their lifetimes of penance. They all knew, mankind could not afford to lose this battle.’

  Vidyut could now picture that perilous night. The Dev-Raakshasa matth and the grandmaster Dwarka Shastri’s hut being the epicenter of the spiritual counter-attack, while hundreds of occult practitioners from around the primordial city joined forces via pre-practiced chants passed-on from generation to generation, resonating like the shielding voice of God across the black skies.