The One Who Swam with the Fishes

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  We had our own boat, made by my father using a fallen palm tree. He had worked on it with his axe for weeks, chopping off the ends and hewing it down, and then, with his wickedly sharp little knife, stripping off the bark and revealing the warm brown underneath – light at first but after another few weeks of being worked over with oil and unguents, turning into the shiny brown of my skin. The boat was almost a living thing; her name was Vayupriya, the wind god’s love, and although it was common to name a boat after one of our deities, this one actually seemed blessed by Lord Vayu himself. She always moved easily, even on the stillest day, with a rudder so light that I learned to steer her when I was quite young since my father used to take me outside and keep my mother’s wrath away from us both. Now I was allowed to take her out by myself, ferrying people across the river for coins or goods. A fisherman is only as good as his boat, and my father appeared to have picked a magic palm tree for no other boat in our village was as delicate as Vayupriya, as easy to move, and better yet, as lucky. She cast no shadow on the riverbed below and my father could just reach down his net and scoop up the fish, swimming all around him, unafraid.

  That evening though, he looked preoccupied, as he pushed with his oar to the shallows on the other side of the bank where we would be undisturbed. Then he turned to me and asked, ‘Which fish do we never eat at home, Matsya?’

  I shook my hair back as I thought about the answer. We ate everything in our home – sardines fried crisp as a snack, mackerel hung and dried in strips to be used as a condiment during the rainy season, river shrimp that added a little extra zing to any curry. We did eat everything – except, except … ‘The seer!’ I said, pleased. Not once in my many years with my parents had we eaten the seer. My father had caught several but he gave those to our merchants to sell. The seer was prepared at feasts – large fish with their silver bellies turned redly brown on the fire, split open and stuffed with spiced rice – but I had always been steered away from them, given other fish to eat, and now that I thought about it, I realized I had never tasted seer at all.

  ‘That’s because it was a seer who was your mother,’ he said.

  Now

  The king orders his man to stop shaking me. I can hear his voice boom out behind me, it’s deep and regal, just as I imagined. ‘We command you to desist, General,’ the voice is saying. ‘Let her go.’ I am released, none too gently, and I open my eyes, still trembling a bit from the encounter.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ says one of the soldiers surrounding him, ‘the lake is just ahead. We can make camp.’

  I can see the king quite clearly now – stern grey eyes, a colour I’ve never seen before, large bushy eyebrows serving to make his face look even craggier than it is, long, thinning hair that is a mixture of black and grey hanging down his back, bound by a leather tie. His chest is bare, save for a yellow cloth draped around his neck, his shoulders are broad, and his moustache hangs down, framing his thin lips. His eyes are still on me as he waves away the soldier. ‘Go ahead and make things comfortable,’ he says. ‘We shall join you shortly.’ Then, one hand drawing up the reins of his horse, he pronounces, ‘We shall dismount.’

  One of the soldiers gets off his horse in a smooth, swift motion, almost like dancing, and in no time at all is standing next to the king, gripping the reins with one hand while holding out his other, palm facing up. The king still has his eyes on me as he dismounts. Once off the horse, he is shorter than I’d expected, barely a width taller than me.

  ‘If Highness was to ride a little further, Highness could rest in his camp,’ says the soldier who shook me. The king stretches, makes the same oof noise my father does when he sits down after a long day. ‘We do not choose to rest at this time,’ he says. ‘And we would that you leave us.’

  I’ve kept my eyes downcast this entire time other than an occasional darting glance, but now I can’t resist looking up and taking him in. He’s dressed just as the other soldiers are, except for jewellery that proclaims his noble birth. A diamond on each ear winks as it catches the sunlight. High up on his right arm is a band made from battered gold, with the sign of the moon, founder god of the Kuru house. The symbol is set appropriately with moonstone, and some red gems that I don’t recognize cluster around it. He is approaching me, and I look down again, noticing as I do that almost every one of his fingers has a ring, mostly shiny and bright with expensive stones, except for one dull pebble whose carvings set it apart as a charm stone, something I didn’t think that kings wore. He is touching this pebble almost absently, stroking it as a talisman. This gives me a little more confidence. If the king thinks he needs his charm ring to talk to me, then he can’t be as forbidding as he looks.

  ‘Look up at me, girl,’ he says, and I do, making eye contact at very close quarters, which we both take a step back from.

  ‘Highness, she might be dangerous,’ says the soldier, who I’m really beginning to dislike.

  At this the king laughs and, after a beat, the soldiers laugh with him.

  ‘Vidura,’ he says, still with a smile in his voice, ‘does she look like an assassin to you?’

  The soldier called Vidura looks embarrassed, I’m pleased to see, and shoots me a very dark look. ‘One can never be too careful, Your Majesty,’ he says dourly.

  ‘That is true, and we are always grateful for your vigilance, Vidura,’ says the king, and he puts affection in his voice so Vidura is no longer embarrassed but almost proud of his paranoia. I think it’s quite clever of the king to manage that. ‘Just to be sure, we will just ask her intentions.’ Here the king looks at me, and his moustache quirks up at the ends as he regards me. ‘Were you trying to hurt my royal person?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say, and then remember my father’s instructions and sink to my knees. ‘Oh no, sire. It was just … watching you go by, I was overwhelmed. Do forgive me, sire.’

  He is still smiling. ‘You are forgiven.’

  ‘Thank you, sire,’ I say. The ground is wet and murky under my knees and something is poking into me, but I know I can’t stand up until he says so.

  ‘You will address the king as Your Majesty or Your Royal Highness, girl,’ growls Vidura from his perch.

  ‘I apologize, Your Majesty. I’ve never met a king.’ Here I toss the hair out of my eyes and look up once more, meeting his eyes.

  ‘And when would you have met a king,’ says the king, laughing again. I’m glad he’s in a good mood. It will make my role easier.

  Make yourself indispensable, says my father’s voice in my head. Make it so that he cannot stop thinking about you.

  ‘Rise up, girl,’ says the king, and I do. His eyes skitter across my body, taking me in. I’m trying hard not to cringe, not to fold my arms across my chest, not to pull the pallu of my sari over my bare waist. I feel so naked and exposed. I think about the warnings we’ve had about soldiers – they’ll rape, they’ll take, they’ll be high with the winnings of war, and they will conquer you as they have conquered land and kingdoms. But I’m with the king – I should be safe, right?

  ‘What is your name, girl?’ asks the king, and if he can see the wariness on my face, he does not comment on it.

  I’ve been given a new name; my father made everyone practise it. The girl cannot go around being called Matsyagandhi for the rest of her life, he had shouted. No one will marry someone who is named for the reek of a fish.

  ‘Satyavati,’ I say. She who speaks the truth. My expression remains impassive.

  ‘A truth-teller,’ he says, and now he looks tired of talking to me and as though he’s a million miles away. ‘We need some truth-tellers. Ah well.’ He’s turned his back to me, and a soldier is ready with his horse, his palm held out, and all is lost – how am I supposed to make myself indispensable now? My heart sinks all the way down to my hennaed feet, and I prepare to pick up my water pot and walk the long dark way home.

  But wait! The king is turning to me, one leg over his horse, one foot still resting on the soldier’s palm. ‘Do you live a lo
ng way from here, Satyavati?’

  How to answer? Yes is the real answer, yes, my home is far away, yes, please escort me back to my village. But then it would look like I’ve engineered this moment so I can be face to face with him, and kings are touchy people – he might see it as me manipulating my way into his presence. Saying no, however, might make it seem like I’m just around the corner, a village two hops and a skip away – what if he wants to see it and then realizes I’m lying to him? I am torn, speechless.

  But realizing he’s still waiting for his answer, I say finally,

  ‘Yes, it is a kosa in that direction, Your Majesty.’

  ‘You have come a long way for your water then.’

  I can’t tell whether he’s simply amused or whether he’s interested in knowing why I am here. The lies churn around in my head like a spinning wheel with prizes on every spoke. I pick one.

  ‘I wanted to be alone, Your Majesty.’ I gesture to the woods. ‘My village is so crowded, so full of people, I just wanted to go for a walk among the trees.’

  ‘I too like to be alone, sometimes. It is a rare person who understands the value of solitude.’ He turns to Vidura. ‘Will you make sure this girl gets a fresh pot of water and that she is escorted back to her village so that no harm befalls her?’

  Vidura looks very much like he wants to object to this plan but he bows in acquiescence.

  ‘Goodbye, young Satyavati,’ says the king, moving his horse into a trot. ‘Perhaps we will meet again.’

  ‘Goodbye, Your Majesty,’ I say.

  The rest of it is just me walking with a young soldier who can’t be that much older than I am, back to the lake and him refilling my water. His name is Baana, and he is a lot friendlier than the other soldiers were.

  I can tell by the way his shoulders are drawn and the way his head rests on his neck that he is suspicious of the woods and the dark road beyond it.

  ‘Nothing will happen to us,’ I say, and then to distract him, ‘So Vidura is a general?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Baana, ‘and the king’s favourite. Vidura has even been charged with training the crown prince Devavrata.’ When he says that name, he drops his voice in awe. It’s clear that Devavrata has at least one young admirer.

  ‘Is the crown prince like his father?’ I ask.

  Baana looks at me, surprised that I need to even ask about things that are apparently common facts. ‘He is very different from the king,’ he says. ‘Taller and a great warrior.’ Hastily: ‘Not that the king isn’t a great warrior himself, but Devavrata … he’s truly one of the chosen ones. A real Kshatriya in every way. He knows all our names too, even us, the foot soldiers. One day, I shall be a general in his army and we shall fight together. Jai Vishnu! Jai Shiva!’ Carried away by his excitement, he does a little leap and half the water falls out of the pot. He looks so crestfallen I have to laugh.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘See, there’s our village, and there is a little stream nearby which I can use to get more water if need be. You can go now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Baana desperately wants to run back through the scary woods and reach the safety of the other soldiers, but he doesn’t want to abandon me either.

  ‘I am very sure.’ I smile at him. ‘Godspeed.’ And then recalling what the king has said to me, ‘Perhaps we will meet again.’

  Baana grins back, his teeth flashing in the darkness, and then he’s off like a shot and I am left alone at the edge of my village, wondering what is to happen next.

  Then

  This is the story my father told me on that long-ago evening when we both sat in his boat and he explained that my mother was a fish.

  That once there was an apsara called Adrika, who liked to frolic in the river with her gandharva and apsara friends.

  That into this festivity, one evening, came an old Brahmin to bathe.

  That they were heady on heavenly intoxicants, and loud and brash as only godly teenagers can be.

  That they mocked the Brahmin to each other and one of Adrika’s friends dared her to dunk him underwater.

  That she was never one to back down from a dare, so she shook her lovely long hair over her shoulders, and swift as a current, swam to the Brahmin’s legs.

  That, swift as a current, she pulled him down so his eyes and mouth and nose filled with water and he sputtered and struggled, and she could hear the underwater laughter of her friends, yes, but she could also feel how panicked he was by the way his ancient heart beat like a frightened bird against her body.

  That she released him, and the vale in which the river bend nestled was filled with the chiming of other-worldly mirth.

  That the Brahmin stood very straight, even though he trembled with fear and rage, and commanded them to show themselves, and when they would not, he summoned them with a chant.

  That her friends were used to this chant and flew away before he could get beyond the first lines, leaving Adrika alone.

  That she appeared in front of him, her corporeal body appearing to steam as she formed from the mist.

  That he looked at her and saw not her scared young face or the beauty of her naked body but a female who must be punished.

  That she felt herself shrinking and falling till she was flopping on the riverbank, a large fish with silvery scales.

  That the Brahmin held her out of water for several breathless moments and as he gazed at her with cold, righteous eyes, he told her this was what it felt like to not be able to draw breath.

  That she must live as a fish since she liked the water so much. That maybe then she would learn her lesson.

  That, not long after this, there was a king called Vasu, who, in dreaming of his young beautiful wife while away on a hunting trip, spilt his seed all over the riverbank on which he slept.

  That Vasu and his wife longed for children, and he thought of this and the joy it would bring her as he wrapped up his emission in a palm leaf and gave it to his trusty falcon to carry home to her, along with a letter that expressed his love and hope that this present would result in a beautiful child.

  That the falcon was attacked by a hungry kite as he flew over the river, and in the skirmish, the bundle fell down, down, down, into the depths of the river.

  That Adrika-as-fish ate it, as she ate most things, lurking alone at the bottom of the swirling bed of sand.

  That several moons later, a fisherman caught a bloated fish which died almost instantly in his net.

  That he cut the fish’s belly open, and instead of finding what was usual (blood, guts, gore), he saw two human infants, a boy and a girl, fully formed, waving their weak little arms for the first time in broad sunlight.

  That he did not think about what to do next for more than a moment – he placed both babies in his basket and set off to King Vasu. (King Shantanu was many kosas away in a different direction, and King Vasu’s small kingdom was all the fisherman knew.)

  That King Vasu examined the babies, heard of their origin story and immediately concluded from whence they had come. That King Vasu claimed the boy child for his own and told the fisherman he could have the girl child for himself. That King Vasu rewarded the fisherman by giving him a tract of land on the outskirts of the river, closer to King Shantanu.

  That the fisherman brought the baby home to his wife, who rejected her violently, but came around when she heard of the land and the fact that her husband would now be the fisher king.

  That that long-ago baby was me.

  How would you react if you heard this story? Likely, you wouldn’t believe it. Why would you? Apsaras were part of tales that grandmothers told, kings were part of legends, and while a cursing Brahmin episode had happened to everyone’s second cousin’s best friend’s uncle, you wouldn’t exactly stumble upon such a person yourself.

  However, something about the story felt … right. I knew that for once in his life, my father was telling the truth, or at least what he believed to be true. My father is a great storyteller – he likes to spin them out and wea
ve pretty pictures. He’s famous in our little kingdom for his tales of long ago, which he invents. People wait for each sing-song so that he will thrill them with a new instalment, and when he does, they discuss it with each other for weeks till the next one is told.

  Did you hear the one about the maiden who went to battle with the gods?

  Yes, it was good, but not as good as the one about the low-born boy who battled all odds and became the king.

  In another lifetime, my father could have been a wandering minstrel, feeding himself with his stories, good enough to be brought to the notice of the king. But he claimed he thought of them only if he was by himself on his boat, waiting for the fish. The difference between those stories and this one though was that while the former were rich with description – what the story-people wore, what their voices sounded like, what they ate – this was a bare-bones telling, as if he had stuck to facts the entire way.

  After telling it, he wouldn’t look me in the eye at all. I finally had to break the silence. ‘Ba,’ I said, and stopped, not knowing how to continue.

  He looked up then, and reached across to stroke my head. ‘I have raised you as my own, Matsya, keeping my vow to the king. Your mother made no such vow, and as she deals with you, so may fate deal with her. However, I have raised you as my own.’ He sighed, and rose to dip his oar into the river. ‘But I always meant for you to know about your origins, about your real parents. You were not meant to be a mere fishergirl, Matsya, and you can repay your debt to me, to your mother, by being aware of that.’

  There are only two ways women can be powerful in our world: you have to be born into power or you have to marry it.

  W

  My mother didn’t say anything when we returned – just looked up and grunted and told me to fetch my father some food and to feed Chiro after that.

  I – the daughter of an apsara and a king – to be treated like a common lackey in this fishwife’s home! But I bit my tongue and went to work. It would not do to anger my mother nor be ungrateful to my father. We spoke a lot of the debts we owed – to each other and to ourselves as we made our way down the path of duty already laid out for us before we were born. It was part of what made us who we were. Even such a child as I was then understood that.