This time Khara held Jatayu’s head firmly with his injured right hand, to prevent any head-butting. The sneer was back on his face. He held the knife to the Malayaputra’s throat. ‘I can cut the jugular here and your precious captain will be dead in just a few moments, great Vishnu,’ he said. He moved the knife to the Malayaputra’s abdomen. ‘Or, he can bleed to death slowly. All of you have some time to think about it.’
There was still no response.
‘All we want is the Vishnu,’ yelled Khara. ‘Let her surrender and the rest of you can leave. You have my word. You have the word of a Lankan!’
A feminine voice was heard from behind the trees. ‘Let him go!’
Kumbhakarna whispered to Raavan, ‘It’s her. It’s the Vishnu.’
Khara shouted, still holding the knife to Jatayu’s abdomen, ‘Step forward and surrender. And we will let him go.’
And Sita, the princess of Mithila, the one recognised as the Vishnu by the Malayaputras, stepped out from behind the forest line. Holding a bow, with an arrow nocked on it. A quiver tied across her back.
The Lankan royals could not see the Vishnu. Raavan tried to push through the cordon surrounding him, to catch a glimpse of her. But he was pulled back by Kumbhakarna.
‘Dada,’ said Kumbhakarna, ‘her husband and brother-in-law could still be hidden in the trees. We cannot risk you being in the open.’
‘Dammit!’
‘You promised me, Dada.’
Raavan remained where he was. Angry. But compliant.
‘Great Vishnu,’ sniggered Khara, letting go of Jatayu for a moment, and running his hand along an ancient scar at the back of his head. Stirring a not-quite-forgotten memory. ‘So kind of you to join us. Where is your husband and his giant brother?’
Sita didn’t answer. Some Lankan soldiers began moving slowly towards her. Their swords were sheathed. They were carrying lathis, long bamboo sticks, which were good enough to injure but not to kill. Their instructions were clear. The Vishnu had to be captured alive.
Sita stepped forward and lowered the bow, an arrow still nocked on it. ‘I am surrendering. Let Captain Jatayu go.’
Khara laughed softly as he pushed the knife deep into Jatayu’s abdomen. Gently. Slowly. He cut through the liver, a kidney, never stopping…
‘Nooo!’ screamed Sita. She raised her bow and shot an arrow into Khara’s eye. It punctured the socket and lodged itself in his brain, killing him instantly.
‘I want her alive!’ screamed Kumbhakarna from behind the protective Lankan cordon.
More soldiers joined those already moving toward Sita, their bamboo lathis held high.
‘Raaaam!’ shouted Sita, as she pulled another arrow from her quiver, quickly nocked and shot it, bringing another Lankan down instantly.
It did not slow the pace of the others. They kept rushing forward.
Sita shot another arrow. Her last. One more Lankan sank to the ground. The others pressed on.
‘Raaaam!’
The Lankans were almost upon her, their bamboo lathis raised.
‘Raaam!’ screamed Sita.
As a Lankan closed in, she lassoed her bow, entangling his lathi with the bowstring, snatching it from him. Sita hit back with the bamboo lathi, straight at the Lankan’s head, knocking him off his feet. She swirled the lathi over her head, its menacing sound halting the suddenly wary soldiers. She stopped moving, holding her weapon steady.
Conserving her energy. Ready and alert. One hand held the stick in the middle, the end of it tucked under her armpit. The other arm was stretched forward. Her feet spread wide, in balance. She was surrounded by at least fifty Lankan soldiers. But they kept their distance.
‘Raaaam!’ shouted Sita, praying that her voice would somehow carry across the forest to her husband.
‘We don’t want to hurt you, Lady Vishnu,’ said a Lankan, politely. ‘Please surrender. You will not be harmed.’
Sita cast a quick glance at Jatayu.
‘We have the equipment in our Pushpak Vimaan to save him,’ said the Lankan. ‘Don’t force us to hurt you. Please.’
Sita filled her lungs with air and screamed yet again, ‘Raaaam!’
She thought she heard a faint voice from a long distance away. ‘Sitaaa…’
A soldier moved suddenly from her left, swinging his lathi low. Aiming for Sita’s calves. She jumped high, tucking her feet in to avoid the blow. While in the air, she quickly released her right-handed grip on the lathi and swung it viciously with her left. The lathi hit the Lankan on the side of his head. Knocking him unconscious.
As she landed, she shouted again, ‘Raaaam!’
She heard the voice of her husband. Soft, from a distance. ‘Leave… her… alone…’
Kumbhakarna heard the faint voice too. He looked towards Raavan. And then shouted his order to the soldiers. ‘Capture her now! Now!’
Ten Lankans charged in together. Sita swung her lathi ferociously in all directions, incapacitating many.
‘Raaaam!’
She heard the voice again. Not so distant this time. ‘Sitaaaa…’
The Lankan onslaught was steady and unrelenting now. Sita kept swinging rhythmically. Viciously. Alas, her enemies were one too many. A Lankan swung his lathi at her, from behind. Into her back.
‘Raaa…’
Sita’s knees buckled under her as she collapsed to the ground. Before she could recover, the soldiers ran in and held her tight. She struggled fiercely as a Lankan came forward, holding a neem leaf in his hand. It was smeared with a blue-coloured paste. He held the leaf tight against her nose. And Sita keeled over into unconsciousness.
‘Carry her to the vimaan! Quickly!’
Kumbhakarna turned to his elder brother. ‘Let’s go, Dada.’
‘Let me see Sita.’
‘Dada, there’s no time. King Ram and Prince Lakshman are close by, they might get here soon. I don’t want to be forced to kill them. This is perfect. We’ve got the Vishnu and the king of Ayodhya has not been injured. You can see her once we are all in the vimaan. Let’s go.’
Raavan and Kumbhakarna started walking towards the craft, still surrounded by their bodyguards. The Lankan soldiers followed, carrying Sita, unconscious on a stretcher.
The Lankans began climbing in and taking their seats in the Pushpak Vimaan.
The last of the soldiers pressed a metallic button on the sidewall and the door began to slide shut with a hydraulic hiss.
As the brothers reached their seats, Kumbhakarna turned towards the pilots. ‘Get us out of here quickly.’
While Raavan and Kumbhakarna braced for take-off, the unconscious Sita was being strapped on to a stretcher fixed on the floor of the Pushpak Vimaan.
‘She’s a fighter!’ said Kumbhakarna, with an appreciative grin.
When the attack took place, Sita, accompanied by a Malayaputra soldier called Makrant, had gone to cut banana leaves for dinner. Ram and Lakshman were away hunting. They had all assumed that the Lankans had lost track of them.
The two Lankan soldiers who had discovered Sita had managed to kill Makrant but were, in turn, killed by Sita. She had then stolen to the devastated Malayaputra camp and had killed several Lankans from behind the tree line, using a bow and a quiver full of arrows very effectively from her hiding places. But her desire to save her loyal follower Jatayu had been her undoing.
‘The Malayaputras believe she is the Vishnu,’ said Raavan, laughing. ‘She had better be a good fighter!’
Just then, the Lankans who were crowded around Sita left her and went to find their own seats in the vimaan.
Her unconscious body lay on a stretcher, some twenty feet away from where Raavan sat. She wore a cream dhoti and a white single-cloth blouse. Her saffron angvastram had been drawn over her entire body, with the straps of the stretcher tight across her. Her head was turned to the side, and her eyes were closed. Saliva drooled out of her mouth.
It was a large quantity of a very strong toxin that had been used to render her u
nconscious.
For the first time in their lives, Raavan and Kumbhakarna saw Sita.
The warrior princess of Mithila. The wife of Ram. The Vishnu.
Raavan stared at her.
Breath on hold. Heart immobile. Transfixed.
A shocked Kumbhakarna looked at his elder brother, and then at Sita. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
The baby had survived. Thirty-eight years. She was a woman now.
Sita was unusually tall for a Mithilan woman. With her lean muscular physique, she looked like a warrior in the army of the Mother Goddess. There were proud battle-scars on her wheat-complexioned body.
But Raavan’s eyes were glued to her face. One that he had seen before.
It was a shade lighter than the rest of her body, with high cheekbones and a sharp, small nose. Her lips were neither thin nor full. Her wide-set eyes were neither small nor large; strong brows arched in a perfect curve above creaseless eyelids. Her long, lustrous black hair had come undone and fell in a disorderly manner to the side of her face. She had the look of the mountain people from the Himalayas.
He knew this face well. It was a little thinner than the original. Tougher. Less tender. There was a faint birthmark on the right temple; perhaps a remnant of a childhood injury.
But there could be no doubt. Mother Nature had crafted this face from the same mould.
It was a face that Raavan could never forget. It was a face that he had seen grow old in his mind. It was a face that he loved.
The vimaan began to ascend as the mighty rotors roared to life, spinning powerfully.
Raavan could not breathe. He clutched his armrest tightly, trying to find a stable hold in a world spiralling out of control.
Perhaps the time had come, to finally settle an old karmic debt.
Ka… Ka…
The vimaan lurched, buffeted by a sudden gust of strong wind. But Raavan didn’t notice.
He continued staring, wordlessly.
His breathing ragged.
His heart paralysed.
Time standing still.
It was obvious. It was obvious from her face.
Sita was the child of Prithvi.
Sita was the daughter of Vedavati.
‘Guruji! Guruji!’
Arishtanemi rushed into the modest private chamber of his guru in Agastyakootam, the hidden capital of the Malayaputras.
Vishwamitra opened his eyes slowly, roused from his deep, meditative state. Normally, no one would dare to interrupt him at such a time. But this was an exception. He was expecting some news and had ordered Arishtanemi to inform him the moment it was received.
‘Yes?’ he asked now in his distinctive voice.
‘It has happened, Guruji.’
‘Tell me everything.’
‘Raavan and Kumbhakarna received intelligence from Samichi about the whereabouts of Sita, Ram and Lakshman. They flew there in the Pushpak Vimaan and carried out a surprise raid.’
‘And?’
‘They have kidnapped Sita. Everyone in the camp was killed. I have been told that Ram and Lakshman survived only because they were out hunting at the time.’
Vishwamitra leaned back, a slight smile on his face. We’re back in the game.
‘Guruji, I don’t know why we delayed sending more Malayaputras to their aid. We knew Raavan would seek vengeance for what happened with Shurpanakha. We could have saved—’
‘Saved whom?’
‘Jatayu and the other Malayaputras with them. They were all killed in the raid.’
‘They sacrificed themselves for the greater good of Mother India. They are true martyrs. We will honour them. We will build temples to Jatayu and his band.’
‘But what about Sita, Guruji? The Lankans have our Vishnu. From what I have heard, they captured her alive. But I don’t know if Raavan can be trusted to not hurt her. Or, even worse, kill her.’
‘He will not hurt her. Trust me.’
‘Guruji, you and I both know he is a monster. Who can predict how a monster will behave?’
Vishwamitra looked at Arishtanemi thoughtfully. The time had come to reveal the secret.
‘A monster, you say? Let me ask you then, do you know of any person this monster has been good to?’
Arishtanemi frowned at the strange question. ‘I can only think of his brother, Kumbhakarna. And even he has been ill-treated at times.’
‘Only his brother? Really? Nobody else?’
‘Well, obviously, he is kind to his son. Oh yes! Also, his long-dead love, Vedavati.’
‘Vedavati is the reason he will not hurt Sita,’ said Vishwamitra.
Vishwamitra had long suspected that their earlier interpretation of the events at Todee had been off the mark. Many years ago, he had sent Arishtanemi and a few others, once again, to unearth more details. Arishtanemi had spoken to the men who had discovered the corpses at Todee and learned that a few bodies had been found tied to the trees close to Vedavati’s house. Each of them bore clear signs of extreme torture. The bodies of the others who had died had been found strewn all around the village, suggesting that they had been chased and struck down while trying to escape. The corpses had been left to be eaten by wild animals. Arishtanemi had also ascertained that the only bodies that had been treated with respect and cremated with full Vedic honours were those of Vedavati and her husband Prithvi.
All this had caused Vishwamitra to revise his opinion on what had transpired. Perhaps Raavan had behaved honourably, contrary to what they had thought. Perhaps the men who had been tied to the trees and tortured were the ones who had killed Vedavati and her husband.
The conclusion was clear: Raavan had loved Vedavati deeply and had treated her well, till the end. The massacre was a result of his anguish at losing her. He must have ordered the killing of the villagers in a rage, after her death.
Vishwamitra was fairly certain that the tribe of the Mahadev, the Vayuputras, had reached the same conclusion. But he suspected they were unaware of what had happened after the massacre. They had not made that last crucial connection. That Vedavati’s child had survived. Or they would have behaved differently towards Sita.
Arishtanemi was still looking puzzled. ‘What connection can there be between Vedavati and Sita, Guruji? Why will Raavan not hurt her?’
‘He will not hurt her because Sita is Vedavati’s daughter.’
Arishtanemi was stunned. ‘What?’
Vishwamitra nodded, the hint of a smile on his face. Yes, we’re definitely back in the game.
‘How long have you known this, Guruji? When did you find out?’
‘Just before my decision to appoint Sita as the Vishnu. When she was about thirteen years of age.’
‘By the great Lord Parshu Ram! That’s nearly twenty-five years ago!’
‘Yes. And it was the sound of a hill myna that helped me make the connection.’
‘A hill myna? Really?’
‘Yes. When I realised the connection, I became even more certain that my choice was right. Sita will be the perfect Vishnu, the ideal hero. Because the villain will never be able to bring himself to kill this hero.’
Arishtanemi bowed to his chief, in awe. ‘You are truly worthy of being Lord Parshu Ram’s torch-bearer, my lord.’
Vishwamitra acknowledged the compliment with a smile and said, ‘Jai Parshu Ram.’
‘Jai Parshu Ram,’ repeated Arishtanemi. ‘What now, Guruji?’
‘Now, we use all our resources, our soldiers, our money—and Hanuman—to attack Lanka. Sita will destroy Raavan. And all of India will accept her as the Vishnu.’
‘Why Hanuman? Considering he is close to… ’ Arishtanemi stopped himself just in time. He had been about to name his guru’s arch-rival, Vashishtha.
‘Many reasons,’ said Vishwamitra. ‘The most important one being that Hanuman loves Sita like a sister. And Sita trusts him like she would a brother.’
Arishtanemi smiled, shaking his head in wonder. ‘There is nobody like you, Guruji. No one else could have p
lanned this.’
‘Wait and see. I have no doubt that Mother India will be saved. And she will be saved by our Vishnu. We will be remembered forever for this. Our ancestors will be proud of us,’ Vishwamitra declared.
Arishtanemi put his hands together in respect and said, ‘Jai Shri Rudra. Jai Parshu Ram.’
Glory to Lord Rudra. Glory to Lord Parshu Ram.
Vishwamitra repeated the chant of the Malayaputras. ‘Jai Shri Rudra. Jai Parshu Ram.’
‘Divodas! Turn around and face me!’
Vashishtha, known as Divodas during his gurukul days, turned to face the man who had once been his closest friend: Vishwamitra.
‘Kaushik…’ said Vashishtha, through gritted teeth, using the gurukul name of Vishwamitra. ‘This is all your fault.’
Vishwamitra looked at the cremation pyre and then back at Vashishtha. ‘She’s dead because of you. Because you simply couldn’t do what had to be done! Sigiriya and Trishanku were supposed to be—’
Vashishtha stepped closer, interrupting Vishwamitra. ‘Don’t you dare! She died because of you, Kaushik! She died because you insisted on doing something that should never have been done. I told you! I warned you!’
Vashishtha was thin and lanky to a fault. His head was shaved bare but for a knotted tuft of hair at the top of his head, which announced that he was a Brahmin. His flowing black beard gave him the look of a philosopher. At the moment, though, he looked anything but gentle. He was shaking with fury, fists clenched tight. Rage poured out of his eyes.
As tall as Vashishtha was, he was dwarfed by the strapping Vishwamitra, who stood facing him. Almost seven feet in height, dark-skinned and barrel-chested, with a muscular torso and a rounded belly, Vishwamitra intimidated people just by his presence. His long black beard and knotted tuft of hair flew wild and free in the wind. He looked like he was fighting for control, to stop himself from wringing Vashishtha’s neck.
‘Get out of here,’ snarled Vishwamitra. ‘I will not kill you in front of her.’
Vashishtha stepped even closer and stared coldly at Vishwamitra. Their friendship was long dead. Its remains burned in the pyre that was consuming the woman they had both loved. From that same seething fire, a new enmity was being born. An enmity that would last more than a hundred years.
Raavan- Enemy of Aryavarta Page 31
