Raavan- Enemy of Aryavarta

by Amish Tripathi

  Maharishi Vishwamitra was seated on the royal throne of Mithila, the one customarily reserved for the king. The present king of Mithila, Janak, sat on the smaller throne to the right of the great maharishi, while the king’s younger brother, Kushadhwaj, sat to the left of Vishwamitra.

  Raavan spoke loudly to Vishwamitra in the distance. ‘Continue, great Malayaputra.’

  Raavan did not even deem it fit to apologise for the great insult of interrupting the chief of the Malayaputras in the middle of his speech.

  Vishwamitra was furious. He had never been treated so disrespectfully. ‘Raavan…’ he growled.

  Raavan stared back at him with complete insouciance.

  Vishwamitra managed to rein in his temper; he had an important task at hand. He would deal with Raavan later. ‘Princess Sita has decreed the sequence in which the great kings and princes will compete.’

  Raavan took his foot off the chair and began to walk towards the Pinaka while Vishwamitra was still speaking. The chief of the Malayaputras completed his announcement just as Raavan was about to reach for the bow. ‘The first man to compete is not you, Raavan. It is Ram, the prince of Ayodhya.’

  Raavan’s hand stopped a few inches from the bow. He looked at Vishwamitra and then turned around to see who had responded to the sage. He saw a young man, around twenty years of age, dressed in the simple white clothes of a hermit. Behind him stood another young, though gigantic man, next to whom was Arishtanemi. Raavan glared first at Arishtanemi, and then at Ram. If looks could kill, Raavan would have certainly felled a few today.

  This is that little kid born in Ayodhya on the day I defeated his father! And Vishwamitra has the gall to put this child up against me? Against the king of Lanka? Against the ruler of the world?

  Raavan turned to face Vishwamitra, his fingers wrapped around Vedavati’s finger-bone pendant that hung around his neck. He needed her. He needed her voice. But he couldn’t hear anything. Even she had abandoned him during this great humiliation.

  Raavan growled in a loud and booming voice, ‘I have been insulted!’

  Kumbhakarna, who stood behind Raavan’s chair, was shaking his head imperceptibly. Clearly unhappy.

  ‘Why was I invited at all if you planned to make unskilled boys compete ahead of me?!’ Raavan’s body was shaking with fury.

  Janak looked at Kushadhwaj with irritation before turning to Raavan and interjecting weakly, ‘These are the rules of the swayamvar, Great King of Lanka…’

  A voice that sounded more like the rumble of thunder was finally heard. It was Kumbhakarna. ‘Enough of this nonsense!’ He turned towards Raavan. ‘Dada, let’s go.’

  Raavan suddenly bent and picked up the Pinaka. Before anyone could react, he had strung it and nocked an arrow on the string. Most people could not even lift the mighty Pinaka easily. Yet Raavan, in a supreme display of strength and skill, had smoothly picked it up, strung the bow and nocked an arrow before anyone could react. The speed and dexterity with which he moved was mind-numbing. Even more remarkable was the target of his arrow.

  Everyone sat paralysed as Raavan pointed the arrow directly at Vishwamitra, the great maharishi and the chief of the legendary Malayaputras.

  The Malayaputras were the tribe left behind by the previous Vishnu. So their chief was, in a way, a representative of the Vishnu. For someone to even say a rude word against the chief Malayaputra was unprecedented. But for someone, even a man as powerful as Raavan, to point an arrow at Vishwamitra? It was unthinkable.

  The crowd gasped collectively in horror as Vishwamitra stood up, threw his angvastram aside, and banged his chest with his closed fist. ‘Shoot, Raavan!’

  Everyone was stunned by the warrior-like behaviour of the great maharishi. Such raw courage in a man of knowledge was rare. But then, Vishwamitra had been a warrior once.

  The sage’s voice resounded in the great hall. ‘Come on! Shoot, if you have the guts!’

  I should shoot him. The pompous nutcase… But the medicines… For Kumbhakarna… For me…

  Raavan shifted his aim ever so slightly and released the arrow. It slammed into the statue of King Mithi behind Vishwamitra, breaking off the nose of the ancient king.

  The king of Lanka looked around. He had insulted the founder of the city. The ancient king was respected and idolised by all. His memory remained sacred even today. Raavan expected at least some Mithilans to respond with righteous rage.

  Come on! Fight for King Mithi’s honour. Give me an excuse to order all my soldiers in and massacre all of you!

  But no Mithilan stood up. Shamefully, swallowing their pride, they remained seated even at the public insult to the memory of the founder of their kingdom.

  Cowards!

  Raavan dismissed Janak with a wave of his hand as he glared at Kushadhwaj. He threw the bow on the table and began to walk towards the door, followed by his guards.

  In all this commotion, Kumbhakarna stepped up to the table, quickly unstrung the Pinaka, and reverentially brought the bow to his head with both hands.

  My apologies, great Lord Rudra. My brother did not mean any insult to your sacred bow. He has surrendered to his emotions. Please don’t hold this against him.

  With utmost respect and dignity, Kumbhakarna placed Lord Rudra’s bow, the Pinaka, back on the table. Then he turned around and briskly walked out of the hall, following a seething Raavan.

  Chapter 26

  ‘How dare they!’ Raavan was pacing up and down inside the stationary Pushpak Vimaan. ‘How dare they? I am Lanka! I am their lord! How dare they?’

  Kumbhakarna tried to calm him. ‘Let it be, Dada. I told you what to expect. Let’s just leave.’

  ‘Leave? Leave? Are you crazy, Kumbhakarna?’

  Kumbhakarna knew that if his elder brother was calling him by his proper name instead of ‘Kumbha’, he was in no mood to listen to any brotherly advice about staying calm.

  ‘These pathetic losers have insulted me,’ Raavan hissed, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘They have humiliated me in public. They will pay the price!’

  ‘Dada,’ Kumbhakarna said, his tone even. ‘What do you intend to do?’

  Raavan pointed towards Mithila. ‘I’ll burn the city to the ground! I’ll kill everyone in it! I’ll grind this city of the sons of the soil into the soil!’

  ‘Dada, why punish innocent civilians for the crimes of their leaders?’

  ‘If civilians don’t rebel against the crimes of their leaders, then they are criminals too!’

  ‘But Dada—’

  ‘No buts! I said they are criminals too!’

  Kumbhakarna changed tack, trying to appeal to reason rather than compassion. ‘Dada, the crown-prince of Ayodhya is in there. Apparently, he won the swayamvar for Princess Sita’s hand. He will not abandon his wife and escape Mithila. My intel also tells me that, over the last few years, Prince Ram has become Emperor Dashrath’s favourite son. If we end up killing him, the emperor will almost certainly declare war on us. And if the emperor calls for war, treaty obligations will force other kingdoms to join too. You know we cannot afford to fight a war right now. It’s only our reputation that keeps us safe.’

  Raavan cursed. Kumbhakarna was right. The plague had weakened the Lankan army. An all-out war was out of the question.

  But Raavan’s anger would not be pacified easily. ‘Whatever it is, we are not leaving,’ he said.

  ‘Dada, I was told by Akampana, who had it from Samichi, that there are nearly four thousand policemen and policewomen in Mithila. They will be able to put up a fight.’

  ‘But we have ten thousand Lankan warriors.’

  ‘Even a five-to-two advantage will be negated by their defensive double walls. You know that.’

  Raavan was not ready to give up. ‘I’ve heard that there’s a secret tunnel on the eastern side of that inner wall. We can send a small force to enter the city through the tunnel. Once our soldiers overpower the guards at the gateway and fling the main city gates open, the army can take over.
We will massacre them!’

  Kumbhakarna had also heard about the secret tunnel from Akampana, who had sourced the information from Samichi. Akampana had told Kumbhakarna that while agreeing to lead them through the secret tunnel, Samichi had exacted a promise from the Lankan that Princess Sita would not be harmed during the attack. This was a bizarre demand from someone who had sworn loyalty to Raavan and Lanka. Maybe all the talk of a secret tunnel was a trap. Kumbhakarna doubted Samichi’s loyalty. Clearly, Raavan did not.

  ‘Prepare for an attack,’ he said.

  ‘Dada, I still think—’

  ‘I said, prepare for an attack!’

  Kumbhakarna took a deep breath, bowed his head and whispered unhappily, ‘Yes, Dada.’

  It was late at night, the fourth hour of the fourth prahar. Torches lined the Lankan camp. Raavan’s bodyguards had been working feverishly through the evening, chopping down trees in the forest and building rowboats to carry them across the moat. Simply marching across was out of the question since the Mithilans had destroyed the pontoon bridge.

  Raavan was standing beside the lake, looking across the water to the fort walls. He wore armour that covered his torso. Two swords and three knives hung from his waist. Two smaller knives were hidden in his shoes. An arrow-filled quiver was tied to his shoulders, across his back. He held a bow in his left hand. Raavan was ready for battle.

  Standing next to the king of Lanka was Kumbhakarna. He had even more weapons on his person than Raavan, since the extra arms on top of his shoulders were also capable of flinging knives.

  Their soldiers were armed and ready too. Ten thousand Lankans stood at a distance, close to the boats—on full alert, and with a reputation to protect.

  Raavan lowered the scope he was looking through. ‘They have nobody on the outer walls.’

  Kumbhakarna pulled up his own scope and looked through it, examining the walls thoroughly. ‘Hmm. That makes sense. They want us to scale the outer wall. Most of their soldiers are on the ramparts of the inner walls. While we are rushing towards the inner walls, they will fire arrows on us and hope to kill as many of our soldiers as possible in that zone of death.’

  Raavan sniggered. ‘Somebody in that namby-pamby city of intellectuals has battle sense, but not enough to match ours. We won’t be climbing over the inner walls. We’ll be racing through the open gates.’

  Kumbhakarna nodded.

  ‘When are we likely to get news?’ asked Raavan.

  Kumbhakarna continued to stare at the fort as he replied, ‘The fact that we haven’t got news till now does not bode well.’

  ‘I don’t care. We are not retreating.’

  Kumbhakarna turned to his elder brother. ‘I know, Dada.’

  Just then, Akampana came rushing towards them. ‘Iraiva! Iraiva! It was a trap!’

  ‘Softly, you fool!’ hissed Raavan.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Kumbhakarna.

  ‘The secret tunnel had already collapsed onto itself, great Iraiva. Even worse, that traitor Jatayu and his Malayaputras were on top of the wall, firing arrows at us. We lost half the platoon. Ten of the men escaped somehow to give me the news. Perhaps Samichi has been discovered and forced to reveal our battle strategy to them.’

  ‘Or Samichi lied to us,’ said Kumbhakarna.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Raavan. ‘We are still attacking.’

  ‘Dada…’

  ‘I have a backup plan.’

  Kumbhakarna looked towards the boats. Large wooden contraptions were being loaded on to them. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My backup plan,’ said Raavan. ‘Let’s go.’

  The soldiers began to push their boats into the moat. It would take half an hour for all the ten thousand soldiers to cross the lake and assemble on the other side of the water, outside the fort.

  The Battle of Mithila had begun.

  The Lankans organised themselves outside the outer walls with great efficiency.

  Since there was no resistance—no Mithilan soldiers on the ramparts shooting arrows at them or pouring down boiling oil—they could move about freely.

  Kumbhakarna, meanwhile, was staring in wonder at Raavan’s innovation—his backup plan.

  ‘This is brilliant, Dada. It just might work,’ said Kumbhakarna.

  ‘It will work!’ said Raavan.

  ‘You’re the man! You still have it.’

  ‘I never lost it!’ said Raavan.

  The object of Kumbhakarna’s admiration, a device Raavan had invented, was simple in design and devastating in its potential to destroy. It consisted of a large stand with an enormous bow, almost the size of a man, fixed at the far end, horizontal to the ground. The bow was fastened to an axle at the centre, with an extremely thick bowstring attached to it. A rough seat had been built at the other end of the stand, where the archer would sit. The job of the archer was to load an enormous arrow, almost the size of a small spear, onto the bow, then pull the bowstring back with both hands and let it fly. A system of gears and pulleys allowed the stand to be adjusted so that the direction and angle of the arrow could be controlled.

  There were a thousand of these stands, with one thousand bows mounted on them.

  Essentially, Raavan had adopted the standard tactic of an attacking army firing arrows at soldiers on a fort wall and turbo-charged it.

  They already knew, thanks to Samichi’s information, that the ‘soldiers’ on the Mithila side were mere police personnel, not warriors. They would not have metallic shields, only wooden ones. Shields that were good enough to stop a hail of arrows but were certainly not sturdy enough to stop missiles the size of spears.

  ‘They won’t know what hit them,’ Kumbhakarna said. ‘They’ll keep wondering how we are managing to reach them with spears thrown from outside the outer walls. They’ll wonder if we have monsters and giants in our army!’

  Raavan grinned, the bloodlust rising in him. Nothing got his heartbeat going like the heat of battle. ‘They won’t have time to wonder. They’ll be too busy dying.’

  ‘Should I order the attack?’

  Raavan looked around. Long ladders had been set up against the outer walls of the fort. Spotters had been stationed on top of the ladders, each with a scope, to focus on the inner walls of Mithila and report the destruction that would follow shortly. Raavan expected the Mithilan soldiers to flee as soon as the attack of the spears began. But a good general trusts hard data more than his expectations. Unlikely though it was, there was still the chance that a few courageous Mithilans would put up a fight. Once he received confirmation that there were no Mithilan defenders in sight anywhere near the inner fort wall, the Lankan soldiers would scale the outer walls and charge.

  Raavan looked at Kumbhakarna. ‘Let’s begin the massacre.’

  Since this was a charge at night, orders could not be conveyed through flags. Kumbhakarna turned to his herald and nodded. The herald immediately raised a conch shell and blew into it. The signal rolled out, the length and the breaks in the sound conveying Raavan’s message to the soldiers. The other heralds across the Lankan lines repeated the signal.

  The archers began putting arrows to the massive bows. After a brief pause, the conch shells signalled again and a fusillade of Lankan spears was released. A thousand missiles flew together on their deadly journey towards a city built for knowledge and not war. The Mithilans cowered behind their wooden shields. Shields that were utterly inadequate for blocking the spears coming their way.

  Raavan and Kumbhakarna waited for a sign from the lookouts. A moment later, each of them could be seen raising a closed fist, almost in unison.

  A loud cheer went up from the Lankans on the ground below. ‘Bharatadhipa Lanka!’

  Lanka, the Lord of India! Or more accurately, Lanka, the ruler of India!

  ‘Direct hit!’ roared Raavan. The spears had torn into the Mithilan ranks amassed at the inner fort wall. ‘No time to waste! Fire one more volley.’

  The archers bent to their task immediately. It would t
ake a few minutes for all the bows to be ready.

  ‘We cannot fire once our men scale the outer wall,’ said Kumbhakarna. ‘We may hit our own soldiers while they are running towards the inner wall.’

  ‘That is why I want another round of spears fired,’ said Raavan. ‘I want the Mithilans in retreat before we charge.’

  Kumbhakarna looked up at the lookouts. Almost all of them had both hands above their heads in a swinging motion.

  ‘Look, Dada! We may not have to fire another round,’ said Kumbhakarna. ‘They are in retreat already.’

  Raavan grunted in disgust. ‘Bloody cowards. Can’t even withstand one volley!’

  ‘Should we charge?’

  ‘No. Fire another round for safety’s sake.’

  The lookouts were now holding their arms over their heads, crossed together. The Mithilans were in full retreat.

  Kumbhakarna looked at Raavan as another booming, ominous whoosh was heard. A thousand more spears sprang out of the bows and flew towards the inner ramparts, ripping into the stragglers among the fleeing Mithilans.

  At least one thousand of the four thousand Mithilan warriors were downed in those devastating few minutes. Without a single Lankan life being lost.

  The lookouts were now clapping their open palms together above their heads. The signal was clear. There were no Mithilans on top of the inner wall anymore. They were either dead or had run away.

  ‘Charge!’ roared Raavan.

  The heralds announced the orders down the line, and the Lankans began scaling the outer wall, roaring their battle cries. Weapons drawn. Ready to kill. Ready to destroy the hapless residents of Mithila.

  They were in for a surprise.

  Mithila was a poor city, and the little wealth it had was distributed unfairly. The rich were too rich. And the poor, too poor.

  As a consequence of this, the rich lived in luxurious mansions in the heart of the city, while the poor lived in decrepit slums and hovels close to the walls of the fort. Sita, the princess of Mithila and its prime minister, had not been able to countenance such injustice. So she had raised money, through taxes and support from outsiders, to redevelop the slums. Since there wasn’t enough land to construct large houses for all the slum-dwellers, she had come up with an ingenious solution—a four-storied honeycomb structure, which extended right up to the inner fort walls.