Vanara

by Anand Neelakantan

  Baali resented every moment of his life in the Ashram. He might have run away long ago, but for his fragile brother. Baali ran his palm over his brother’s forehead and frowned. The boy had developed a fever. He gently kissed his forehead. There was cold sweat that lined Sugreeva’s brow. He mumbled something. Baali shook him awake. Sugreeva half-opened his eyes and blabbered. He was getting delirious. Baali knew they had to get down. He was scared of the forest-fever which had affected many of his people. The fever never discriminated based on whether the skin colour was golden or black or whether the tongue spoken was refined or not. It had carried away many to the abode of eternal silence.

  ‘Sugreeva,’ Baali shook him again. The boy was developing rashes over his body. Baali hugged him tight, trying to push back his own mortal fear of contagion. The lynch mob looked up. There were hushed whispers among them.

  ‘Come down, you monkey!’ a fat sage shouted.

  ‘My brother . . . my brother has forest fever,’ Baali cried in desperation. There was a shocked silence.

  ‘Let me come down,’ Baali said as he raised his brother to his shoulders. The branch swayed dangerously. A few dry leaves swirled down. The mob stepped away from the leaves, scared and angry.

  ‘Stay there, you fool,’ a sage cried.

  ‘Die there.’

  Baali was now jumping from branch to branch, balancing precariously and carrying the weight of his brother on his shoulders. As he came in their range, a few boys hurled stones at him. A few found their mark, but he continued to come down, not even bothering to wipe off the blood that was almost blinding him. As he landed down with a thud, the boys scattered and the few junior sages who were leading them stood fearfully away.

  ‘Run away, you monkey!’ a mendicant screamed. Soon it grew into a frenzied chant.

  ‘Help him,’ Baali cried as more stones rained on them. He covered his brother from the shower of stones. They were cursing them.

  ‘Help,’ he cried again as a stone smashed on his face and broke his lips. He had had enough. He hurled himself into the nearest Brahmachari. The boy screamed. Baali scratched his face and bit his cheeks. A few hurried to help their fallen mate but backed out when they saw Baali’s face. He roared with all his strength and the forest stood still. The trees above exploded with frightened birds. The boys and Ashram inmates circled him, with sticks in their hands. Baali roared again and thumped his chest. A stone hit his chest, but he kept advancing at them. They backed up. Someone stealthily approached him and tried to hit him from behind. Baali caught hold of the stick that came down on his head and snatched it from the attacker. He smashed and broke the stick across his assailant’s face and bellowed, ‘Coward, attacking from behind?’

  The man lay whimpering on the floor. Baali roared again, ‘I want help, my brother is dying.’

  ‘Die, you monkey boy,’ cried someone. With a rage and strength that Baali never knew he possessed, he attacked the Ashram inmates. They scattered, running in fear and indignation.

  ‘The world is going to end. The untouchable Vanara is hitting us,’ a sage cried. Soon, the entire Ashram was in uproar. Baali knew they would turn against them as one. He had done the unthinkable. He, an untouchable, had dared to raise his hand against the upper castes. He had mocked them by throwing half-eaten mangoes and made them impure and instead of submitting to their punishments as per their sacred texts, he had dared to question them. He and his brother were sure to be killed. He had been a fool.

  He hurriedly picked up his brother, who was now unconscious, and ran. He could hear the shouts of the lynch mob. A few stones bounced past him. He forded through the knee-length water of the river. It was a miracle that he did not slip and break his head on the sharp rocks. He made it safely to the other side. He put his brother on a bed of damp grass and collapsed on his knees, panting and puffing. He could see the angry mob still hurtling curses and stones. He was too far to be affected by either, but both created ripples, the stones in the river and curses in his mind. Why were they hated so much?

  When the sun rode to the high skies and the breeze stopped blowing, Baali dragged Sugreeva to the relative coolness of a tree shade. Sugreeva was still feverish. He was not talking. Baali tried every trick he knew to try and wake him up. He carried water in the cusp of his palm from the river and poured it over his brother’s face. He dipped his dirty dhoti in water and put that over the forehead of Sugreeva. He tried to revive him with jokes they had shared, and promises about the travel they had planned to the great city of Trikota that the Asura King Ravana was building in the pearl island, across the southern seas. He prayed to the God of the mountains and the God of the beast, Ayyan, who the invaders had usurped and called Shiva. The fever continued to be unabated even when the sun had begun disappearing behind the western mountains.

  Baali wanted to go to the distant jungle villages of his tribe to find an oracle who knew chants in the old tongue, who knew the heart of the plants and the mind of the moon and who could work a miracle. However, he didn’t want to leave his brother alone. He cried holding Sugreeva’s limp body which was turning cold. The night that was hiding in the shadows crept out like death and slowly embraced the two forlorn figures. Trees started dripping dew. An owl hooted nearby and flew away with a noisy flapping of wings, startling Baali. Centipedes crawled over fallen leaves around his feet. Baali pleaded to Ayyan fervently, to save his brother or if he was powerless to do that, to make him sick too along with his brother. Wouldn’t my poor brother be afraid to go alone into the dark cave of death? Take me too, the Lord of the Beasts, he prayed to Ayyan.

  By midnight, Baali too had developed a fever. He knew they were going to die. Nobody would miss them. Nobody would even care. They were urchins of a forgotten tribe, not important in the world where mighty Devas and Asuras fought for dominance. He wished he would die first so that he would be spared the agony of witnessing his beloved brother’s death. He could see eyes twinkling in the darkness. Jackals had come, sensing an imminent feast. Some time before dawn, he woke up with a start. A cold palm was pressed against his forehead. A shiver went down his spine. He was sure it was Death. He took one last breath and was surprised at the fragrance of sandalwood paste.

  Baali opened his eyes and saw a beautiful face looking down at him. It took a moment for him to recognize the face as that of Ahalya, the young wife of Maharishi Gautama, the head of the Ashram. She forced him to drink some hideous concoction. He spat it out. His first thought was that she was trying to poison him. Yet, she forced him to drink it. He slipped out of consciousness soon.

  When he woke up, he was lying on a mattress of hay. The pungent smell of cow urine and dung made him feel at home. Sugreeva . . . where is Sugreeva . . . he looked frantically for his brother. He was sitting in a corner, on his haunches. He smiled at him.

  ‘You slept for two days,’ Sugreeva said with a tired smile. He had grown thin. Baali tried to sit up but his head spun. He collapsed back onto the hay mattress. The cow mooed loudly and splattered a stream of urine on the floor. Baali watched it snake its way towards him. He didn’t care. He was alive and more importantly, his brother was too. Nothing else mattered. They had beaten the forest fever together. They felt strong and invincible. A spider was stealthily moving towards a fly it had trapped in its web. Baali lay watching the drama without a word.

  A boy called out his name from without. Baali and Sugreeva looked at each other. They had forgotten about the punishment they were sure to receive. Sugreeva helped Baali get up. They had to go through the indignity. That was their fate, to be oppressed, kicked around and considered lesser than the beasts of the jungle. They were Vanaras, mere monkey men. They walked out of the cow pen, swatting straws from their hair. The brightness of the sun dazzled their eyes. A crow hopped around in the courtyard. The smell of boiling rice made Baali realise that he was hungry.

  They waited for the big men of the Ashram to arrive and read out their punishments. Baali looked at Sugreeva to see whether he was scare
d. The boy seemed to be resigned to his fate. When Ahalya came to them, carrying an earthen pot with steaming kanji, Baali was more suspicious than surprised. He thought she was giving them their last meal, like how they feed the goats before they’re ritually sacrificed. She gestured to them to dig a hole in the ground. They were aware of the ritualistic purity involved in the gesture. The nobles didn’t want their utensils to be polluted by a low-caste eating out from it. Who would clean the vessels that a Vanara touched? Baali eyed Sugreeva warily digging the ground with his bare hands. He sighed and started digging a hole in the ground. When they had made a mound of mud, Ahalya came near them, careful to keep the ritualistic distance. She put two banana leaves that she had brought on the ground. Baali picked one up, made it into a round bowl and placed it in the hole. Sugreeva imitated him. She poured steaming kanji into it. The boys waited for the water to drain away so that they could eat the rice. Ahalya poured a watery curry made of buttermilk, cucumber and turmeric into the hole in the ground. She stepped back and waited for the boys to eat. Baali and Sugreeva looked at each other for a moment. Sugreeva looked down as if in guilt, and started eating the boiled rice, licking his fingers once in a while to prevent them from being scalded by the hot rice. Baali kept staring at the steam rising from the hole and the yellowish curry settling down to give a pale colour of stools to the rice. He didn’t feel like eating but his stomach protested with a grumble. He closed his eyes and started eating.

  ‘Why’re you two so naughty?’ Baali heard Ahalya asking. He continued to eat without answering. An ant came to enquire and sniffed the lone rice grain that had fallen on the sand. Baali watched it carry away the grain, staggering yet managing to take it back to its nest. There was a quiet dignity to this tiny creature. A dignity which they lacked, the monkey people.

  ‘They mock us as monkeys, Amma,’ Baali heard his brother answer. Ahalya laughed, ‘But you two look like monkeys.’

  Baali’s eyes flashed in anger. The rice she served seemed to have stuck in his throat. He stood up.

  ‘Eat son,’ Ahalya said, but Baali had walked away to the cow pen, to lie down on the hay mat. Sugreeva watched his brother go and looked longingly at the rice. Baali wanted him to follow, but he saw Ahalaya serving him another round of rice. Baali shook his head in sadness. The boy has no control over his hunger, he thought. Then he remembered that he too was hungry. He would die hungry but wouldn’t stand the taunt of that Deva woman, he told himself. She came inside the cow pen.

  ‘So much anger isn’t good in monkey boys,’ she said. He looked at her in surprise and wondered how someone could speak like that. He understood that she had no malice. She was parroting what had been taught to her, but she was kind. Uneasily, he remembered that he and his brother owed their lives to this woman. She was barely a few years older than them, maybe in her late teens. She was beautiful to look at. Baali averted his eyes. How could she consent to marry Rishi Gautama, who was more than seventy years old? The customs of Deva people were unfathomable to him.

  Ahalya pushed the bowl of rice she had brought with her to Baali. ‘Eat. You’re recovering from fever and you should not go hungry.’ Baali took it reluctantly. He should not be rude to the woman who saved his life. He swallowed his pride and started eating. She watched him eat, sitting a few feet away.

  Sugreeva entered the cow pen. He fell on Ahalya’s feet, ‘Amma, you saved our lives,’ he sobbed. Baali saw Ahalya hurriedly moving back, lest Sugreeva’s polluting hands touch her feet. Baali watched her smile, enjoying the respect she was getting. She looked at Baali, as if expecting him to imitate his brother. Baali continued to eat.

  ‘You can keep the pot,’ Ahalya said as she turned and walked away. Suddenly the cow pen felt empty. The lone cow in it continued to chew cud. Flies buzzed around.

  Sugreeva said, ‘Such a nice woman, isn’t she, Brother?’

  Baali didn’t reply. He didn’t want to tell his innocent brother why Ahlaya had generously gifted them the vessel he was eating from. Baali licked the last of the rice clean and smashed it on the floor.

  ‘Why?’ Sugreeva asked in horror. Baali went out without a word. Baali had decided that day to leave the Ashram, but his brother would hear nothing of it. They continued to live in the Ashram as if nothing had happened. Obviously, Ahalya had instructed the Brahmacharis not to disturb them. The taunting continued nevertheless, but never in the open. The two boys grew indifferent to it, or acted as if they didn’t care, but it still hurt. They were neither treated as humans nor respected as monkeys. But Sugreeva was scared to venture out of the security of the Ashram. This was where they had grown up. He had started calling Ahalya mother and Baali didn’t have the heart to stop it. For Baali, the jungle was his mother and father. He kept his distance from Ahalya and her old husband, the chief of the Ashram, Sage Gautama. He tried his best to wean Sugreeva off from his slave-like loyalty towards the masters but was unsuccessful. He gritted his teeth and stayed on.

  So when Sugreeva spoke about what he had seen Ahalya doing, Baali’s first reaction was to scoff at it. He was wise enough to know what it meant. Sugreeva was worried. Baali advised Sugreeva to keep his mouth shut. What Deva men and women did was their concern and Vana Naras need not interfere in them. Sugreeva nodded in agreement, but Baali was sure that it was tearing his brother apart. Though Sage Gautama was often indifferent to the brothers, he was the head of the Ashram and any misdoings of any member of the Ashram were to be reported to him. Baali himself was confused about what he should do. He cursed and wished that Sugreeva hadn’t witnessed Ahalya with her lover. His fool of a brother had jeopardised everything. His ecstasy in discovering the method of making fire had evaporated.

  ‘Shall we run away?’ Baali asked, pleased at the thought of killing two birds with one stone. He had always wanted to escape the slavish existence in the Ashram and was ready to face the wild. Maybe, this would convince his reluctant brother to come with him. Sugreeva shook his head slowly. Baali cursed.

  ‘It isn’t right. I should tell father!’

  Baali grabbed Sugreeva’s shoulders and shook him hard. ‘Father? Whose father? That sage isn’t our father. Neither is that Brahmin lady our mother.’

  Sugreeva gulped. His eyes were filling up. Baali averted his gaze.

  ‘But . . . but . . . it isn’t right. They fed us, clothed us and we should not be—’

  ‘Fool, if you need to show any loyalty, you should show it to that lady and not to that old man. Has he ever bothered to speak to you, even look at you? For him, we’re mere monkey boys,’ Baali spat.

  ‘Hmm . . . but what she is doing is wrong. She can’t—’

  ‘Why can’t she? Are you a small kid? You’re twelve. Grow up. Men do such things and so do women. She is young and beautiful and he is old and shrivelled like an old coconut.’

  ‘But she is his wife. She is supposed to be loyal—’

  ‘Says who?’ Baali bellowed. Sugreeva’s shoulders stooped and he looked down. ‘Says who, you fool? These are rules made by a few selfish men. Who are they to decide who should be loyal to whom, who should bow to whom, who should rule over whom? A few men are manipulating everyone. Open your eyes and see. In the forest, does any animal obey such a rule? There, might is strength. What is true for a beast should be true for a man too. If the old man finds his wife is taken by a younger man, let the two men fight it out with each other. What has that got to do with us?’

  ‘But there are rules—’

  ‘No, there aren’t. Not for us. For us, the rules aren’t set by any books written by some old croak under the influence of Soma. They call us Vanaras, the monkey men. So be it. As far as Vanaras are concerned, Ahalya did no wrong. So you keep your mouth shut.’

  Sugreeva didn’t raise his head. Baali stared at him with contempt. He loved his brother, but it was exasperating the way he trusted people and developed a dog-like loyalty to anyone who behaved half-decently with him. The poor boy yearns for love and affection, thought Baali. He put his hand
s over Sugreeva’s shoulders and pulled him close.

  ‘I have made fire,’ Baali whispered with a conspiring smile. Sugreeva’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Baali stepped back and threw his arms wide. He howled, ‘I have made fire. The God of fire answered my call. They’re all liars. Agni Deva doesn’t care for the mantras or the caste of the caller. He comes to all, if we follow the method. I have a feeling that it’s true about everything. There is a method, there is a process for everything. We can achieve anything. There are no magical chants that bring miracles. We can create our own miracles.’

  Baali took a smouldering firewood from the Arani pit and waved it in a circle. With a swoosh, it caught fire. Baali waved it and the fire burned bright. Sugreeva started laughing. Baali pulled another flaming firewood and threw it at Sugreeva. The boy caught it mid-air. Together, they started waving the fire, making circles and ovals, drawing patterns in the air as they laughed and howled in delight.

  ‘We have made fire. We can make anything now!’ the brothers screamed, standing on the edge of the cliff. The valley echoed their cries back, as if challenging them. Far away, from the deep forests, drums started rolling. Maybe it was other Vanara men who were in hiding, or maybe they were Asuras thinking of this as a warning signal. It didn’t matter to the two boys. They had lit the fire.

  Chapter 3

  Baali was hewing wood when he heard the commotion from the main Ashram. He threw the axe down and ran towards Sage Gautama’s hut. Most of the Ashram inmates were already assembled there. Some were jostling to find an advantageous place on the rock that stood before the hut. The sage was sitting on the veranda. His cragged face was grim. Without the customary toothless grin, he looked grotesque. He was pale like a ghost and seemed agitated. Baali searched for Sugreeva but his brother was nowhere to be seen. More and more Sanyasis and Brahmacharis were assembling in the courtyard of the Sage Gautama. Four Sanyasis brought a struggling man outside. The crowd gasped when it saw that the man was naked. ‘Indra—the King of Devas . . .’ the Sanyasis whispered to each other. The man was struggling to break free but the Sanyasis held him firmly. Another Sanyasi brought Ahalya, dragging her by her hair. He threw Ahalya at the feet of Sage Gautama. Everyone expected her to beg for forgiveness, but she remained quiet. Her clothes were in disarray, as if she had hurriedly put them on. Her hair was undone.