The One Who Swam with the Fishes

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  His eyes snaked over me, not even stopping for one second on my face, and instead, lingering on where the sari wrapped across my chest, the swaddles around my still-childish hips, the arches of my feet. He held out his hand again, the one not holding the smoking beedi, and because I didn’t know what to do with my new distrust, I allowed him to tug me closer to him, till we were face to face, his yellow eyes narrowing at me as he smiled a strange smile.

  ‘Are you ready for marriage?’ he whispered, so low that I could feel his breath against my chin. I didn’t reply and when he asked me again, I shook my head. ‘No? Not ready for marriage? Some people like the full blooms, but I, I like the buds.’ And just like that he stretched out his hand, the same hand with the hair and calluses on the palm, and he slipped it under my sari so his fingers lay against my beating heart. I squirmed to get away, and he seemed to find this amusing; his grip grew tighter while his fingers on my chest probed all the way from my chest to the dip of my navel.

  ‘Let me go,’ I managed to whisper, tears swimming in my eyes, and then I heard the welcome sounds of my father’s voice, always stentorian, echoing across the courtyard. ‘Father!’ I called, and twisted till I was free of the man’s grip. ‘Father, I’m here!’

  The man let me go but not immediately, not before pinching one of my nipples so hard that I gasped, and as I jumped, I saw the lit tip of his beedi fall on my sari and burn a perfect hole in it. As soon as I was released, I ran to my father, who patted me on the head, too distracted to notice that I was weeping, that my sari had all but fallen off my torso. ‘Don’t run away again,’ he told me. ‘We’re almost ready to go.’

  I wanted to tell someone about what had happened, maybe my new sympathetic mother, but when we returned home, she was sitting all alone in a darkened hut, blood all over her legs and thighs, which she seemed insensible to as she wept.

  But this is not my mother’s story, it is mine, and so I will not go into lost hopes for babies that never were, or the face of a foster daughter as she prepared a small plate for her mother, who pushed it away and wished herself dead as the child inside her was.

  Then

  On the island, Parashara grew younger-looking every passing shade, till he finally stopped at a few years older than I. I expected some big, magical transformation but he was just Parashara, still Parashara – one hundred and eighty rains, give or take a few, only he looked no older than a callow youth of sixteen. He wasn’t very handsome, his nose was too thin, his eyes slightly too close together, but he had a lovely smile which I could finally see, because this young Parashara had no beard and the merest hint of whiskers. I saw too the way the muscles in his arms moved as he brought in chopped firewood, or shrugged rocks with his shoulders to clear a path, or taught me to hold a bow and arrow – young, supple arms, hands that were ready for all life had to give, not old, wrinkled and liver-spotted.

  Oh, he wasn’t handsome, but there was something about the way he’d look up and smile suddenly at me. His smile was like a spark in a waiting pile of kindle – it took a few moments but soon it lit up his whole face. Sometimes he’d sing to me, and I took to following him around to hear his imitations of bird calls or his made-up songs about a girl whose face was more beautiful than the moon’s.

  How can I tell you about falling in love when I know so little about it myself? Could you really call it love if one person knew what they were doing and the other didn’t? Could you call it love if the person you fell in love with was not your husband? Could you call it love if it was just a young girl worshipping an older boy who she followed around like a pet followed its master? Could you call it love if the young girl was not yet thirteen rains old, not yet bleeding, and the ‘boy’ was so many years older than her that her small decade of being alive was a drop in the bucket for him?

  One day, he sat down by a tree and looked up at the sky. I was only a few footsteps behind, as I usually was, and I soon caught up, sitting next to him, tilting my face back to see what he found so absorbing. There was nothing there, so I settled for looking at him, the line of his throat, the curve of his mouth, wondering, as I always did, what this strange fascination was that held me. I had brushed his old face from my mind, thinking of that person as a stranger, as the old Parashara, while this one was my friend and companion.

  ‘Stop staring,’ he said, but with a smile in his voice, and I blushed and began to pick at the grass. His hand came over mine, stilling it. ‘Easy there, my restless sparrow. Look up, use your eyes.’ I looked again, and there, wheeling in the sky, was a falcon, probably looking for prey.

  ‘Now, heed me,’ he said, and began to chant a low mantra under his breath.

  The falcon veered in the sky and I saw it pause, talons stretched out, sensing us, trying to fathom what sort of a threat we posed. For a long while it just stayed there, steadily hovering in the air, while Parashara waited patiently. ‘Say it again,’ I said impatiently, and he shook his head at me. ‘She’s our new friend, she’ll come when she’s ready and be our servant for life. Let her enjoy a few moments of being no man’s slave.’

  He was right. Baadal came down to be conquered and tamed, catching us bits of wild game, always close enough to keep an eye on us, gentle as a deer when we stroked her, or around the other little wild creatures Parashara tamed for my amusement, but as terrible as a, well, falcon when she needed to be. I often think back on what he said then – Let her enjoy a few moments of being no man’s slave – because I think that’s how he thought of me. A wild creature who he murmured to and soothed, and whose beating fate was held between his hands, ready to do his bidding.

  Now

  Mohini, Ila and Pari line up in front of my bed, looking at me sadly.

  ‘What?’ I ask, but I know already that the king isn’t going to let me go home till I have bowed to his wishes.

  ‘We’ve been asked to amuse you,’ says Ila, bouncing a little on her small heels.

  ‘I do not wish to be amused.’

  ‘A game then? I have a set of chaupar,’ says Mohini, holding a box out in front of me temptingly.

  ‘I have no desire for games.’

  They look at each other despairingly and then Pari says, ‘How about stories? I know many from the seamstresses.’

  ‘I am not to go home, am I,’ I say, bowing my head.

  ‘His Majesty would prefer you to stay,’ says Mohini, but her tone is very, very gentle and she sits next to me and takes my hand in hers.

  ‘Shh,’ she says, as I lie down, head under the covers. ‘It won’t be so bad. He is a kind man. Give him what he wants and you shall want for nothing.’

  ‘It is not nothing that I long for,’ I say.

  ‘What is it, what is it you want?’ asks Pari, joining us on the bed and looking at me sympathetically.

  My voice is low but the room is quiet and they all hear what I say: ‘I want to be queen.’

  There is such profound silence that I am tempted to look up and see if they’re still there, but then Ila gives a cough and it breaks the moment. And Pari takes up the stroking of my hair and she begins to talk as though this has never happened.

  Once upon a time, she begins, there was a king called Mahabhisha.

  And Mahabhisha was very godly and prayed hard and made many sacrifices so that when he died, he went straight up to heaven, freed of the circle of rebirth, unlike the rest of us. And when he got to heaven, Indra, king of the gods, had a big welcoming dinner party, with golden plates and all sorts of nice food, to celebrate his arrival.

  Pari!

  What?

  Don’t make heaven sound like your aunty’s house.

  If I knew what my aunty’s house was like, I’m sure it would be equally grand.

  That’s not how we talk about gods.

  Very well, I’ll try again.

  So – where was I? Yes, Mahabhisha went up to heaven, and was invited to Brahma’s court – is that solemn enough for you, Mo? Yes? Good! – where all the gods were present. Also ther
e was the goddess Ganga, young and lovely, because she lives in Brahmalok, and she always has, since the great god Vishnu made her appear through a hole at the end of the universe.

  Mahabhisha just could not take his eyes off the goddess Ganga. Everyone else there worshipped the Lord Brahma, creator of us all, but here was this saintly king dedicating his entire devotion to the river goddess. She was lovely, yes, but you don’t go to Brahmalok and ignore the god who is sitting there on the throne in front of you.

  And then, the most amazing thing happened. A little stray wind, a little stray mischievous wind, came in and blew her clothes awry.

  No, Ila, I don’t know what she was wearing, but I imagine it wasn’t very much, if a little wind could make her so naked.

  Well, she was a goddess, so I suppose she could wear what she liked.

  All the other gods continued to pay respect to Brahma, pretending that nothing had happened, but Mahabhisha, poor fool, was so overwhelmed, he could only stand there staring, his mouth open like a carp – oh, what now, Mo? I suppose I can say whatever I like about a king, if I’m not insulting the gods? Do you want to tell the story? No? Then let me continue.

  Brahma noticed and grew so incensed that he cursed Mahabhisha to be reborn as a mortal. Mahabhisha, poor, poor fool, at least had the presence of mind to pick which parents he’d be born to, which Brahma agreed to. The second part of the curse was that he, as a mortal, would be left deeply emotionally bereft by Ganga.

  Anyway, so Mahabhisha came back to earth, to new parents, and was reborn as our own king Shantanu, long may he rule.

  Yes, you do well to look surprised, my lady. People’s past births are so important, and yet, no one spends enough time talking about them. Of course, for ordinary people like me, our past lives are probably much of the same, but I wonder who you were before you became this person. It’s interesting to think about.

  Shall I continue? All right.

  Our king Shantanu was once hunting by the river when he came across a beautiful maiden. It was the goddess Ganga! The king was no more immune to her charms in this life than he was in his previous one, and persuaded her to marry him. She agreed, if and only if she was never questioned about the things she would do.

  Blind with love, the king married her, and soon they were expecting their first child. How the kingdom celebrated when they heard of the birth of a son, and how they mourned when they heard the son had died. Six times this happened, six times the child – to all appearances, a healthy baby boy – perished. But how?

  It turns out Ganga was taking her children one by one to the river and drowning them, and Shantanu, mute in the face of her conditions, couldn’t question her. Yes, drowning them, the poor innocent babies – sons who would have grown up to be princes.

  When her seventh child, another beautiful son, was born and she walked down to the river with him in her arms, the king could bear it no more. ‘Stop!’ he cried, and he may have called her names: witch, heartless mother, monster. And she looked at him sadly, so sadly! Because she knew it was time for her to leave him.

  She left, taking with her the baby, who she returned in his twelfth rain, and he became our prince Devavrata. He is ever so handsome and trained in the art of war by heavenly teachers.

  And that is the story of our king’s marriage.

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Why did she kill the other babies?’ I am so drawn into this tale, I have been sitting on the edge of my seat, even though the story of the king’s previous marriage is not new to me.

  ‘She was cursed to rebirth the Vasus, another noble family, after she ruined their worship. The six children she bore were all the Vasus, who could rejoin heaven after their mortal ordeal.’ Pari has her chin propped up on her fists as she lies on her stomach, dreamily telling the story, and her face keeps the same faraway gaze as she says, ‘It makes you wonder though. Was it really such an accident that Mahabhisha happened to see the goddess naked? Was his curse his own fault or something that had already been planned for him by the gods? After all, Brahmaloka is our creator’s domain and even an errant breeze has to answer to him.’

  I ponder over this but before I can answer, there is a man at the door, looking at us. ‘His Majesty is here,’ says the man, pompously. ‘You girls should make yourself scarce.’ They get up in a flurry but I hold on to Mohini’s hand.

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘I need you here.’

  The pompous man looks as doubtful as his thin eyebrows and impassive face allow. ‘His Majesty might not like it,’ he says, and I realize he’s not looking directly at my face. In fact, he’s keeping his eyes well over my head, and this, oddly enough, gives me confidence. If this man, emissary to the king, is already treating me like a noblewoman, who he can never look directly in the eye, then I am entitled to a few airs and graces.

  ‘His Majesty surely will not care if I have my maids with me,’ I say. ‘Otherwise, how will I offer him something to eat or drink?’

  He is about to argue but then we hear hoof beats and the low drum that a boy always beats to ensure everyone knows where the king is at all times. I’d like to be able to sneak up on people so I can hear what they’re saying about me and my rule, but maybe the king feels this is the best way.

  I’m still thinking about the story as he comes in. The beautiful maiden, the besotted king. The babies, soft and plump and drowned. I wonder how he ever recovered from it. His eyes look sadder than ever as he enters and looks at me – sad and full of longing.

  ‘My lady,’ he says, very properly, and bows his head. I am on my feet and I sweep low to the ground upon his arrival, my palms pressed together.

  ‘I have good news for you, Satyavati,’ he says, his face still drawn into melancholy lines. ‘Your brother has recovered and they are bringing him to this tent, for you to take care of him.’

  ‘Your Majesty is too kind,’ I murmur. ‘But perhaps my brother would be better served at home so we do not impose upon your hospitality any longer.’

  ‘Enough!’ At least I have stirred some emotion in him. His eyes flash cold temper at me. ‘You will leave when I tell you to leave. I have provided all the comforts you could desire over here. Must you be so ungrateful as to toss my hospitality in my face?’

  ‘I meant no offence, Your Majesty,’ I say, bowing even lower. ‘I just do not wish to be a burden.’

  I can’t see his face but his tone softens. ‘You could never be a burden, lovely Satyavati. Just having you here, it’s as though I am bathing in the loveliest stream, or as if I’m on top of a high hill, feeling the first fresh air of the rains against my skin.’ He reaches out a hand to me, and I let myself be pulled up against his chest. He’s wearing a tunic over a long gold dhoti, and I feel the embroidery on it, stiff and scratchy on my cheek.

  ‘Do you feel how my heart beats for you? It goes faster, as though I am ten, twenty years younger.’ His voice is a low murmur and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  And just like that, he is kneeling before me, and someone squeaks behind me; I think it is Ila, who still can’t sit on her emotions as the rest of us do. ‘Your Majesty, do rise, what are you doing?’ I ask, reaching for him. And he finally smiles at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and says, ‘I am an old man with not much to give you except a kingdom and my soul. You asked if I would make you my wife, I am ready. Will you make me your husband?’

  Breathe, breathe. Don’t look him directly in the eye. Say what your father told you to say.

  I can even hear my father’s voice: When you get the offer, because you will get the offer, thank him for it. And then say these words.

  I make my mouth form the words, my voice squeaking a bit as I begin, at the audacity of it. Will it work? My father thinks it will. But what does he know? ‘Trust me,’ says my father’s voice inside my head. ‘Trust me, and go to your destiny.’

  ‘Your Majesty, I thank you kindly. Your offer is truly generous.’ I take a deep breath, gulp and start talking again. ‘But I must think of my chi
ldren, Your Majesty. Yours and mine. I will make you fine princes, but will it be fair to them to be denied the throne because I met you after you already had a son?’

  The king is looking up at me, his eyes wide with amazement. I know without looking around that the girls are looking at me with much the same expression. How dare I – and yet I do.

  ‘I will marry Your Majesty if you make my sons the heirs to your throne. Your name will live long over the ages. Our sons will be perfect princes, groomed by you from the day of their birth, and they will be fine kings when the time comes to take over from you.’

  ‘What are you asking me, woman?’ he says, and his voice is agony.

  ‘I am asking that I be named queen, yes, but also that our line lives on, first in line to the throne.’

  He is rising fast, up off his knees. For a moment, I think he will strike me, his face is so full of anger and sorrow.

  ‘Foolish girl! It is unheard of! I cannot deny my son the throne!’

  ‘Then I ask to be excused from your kind offer,’ I say, my voice trembling. So close, I’m nearly done. ‘There can be no further discussion on it.’

  He looks me in the face, long and hard, and then without a word he is gone, and I am left alone in the tent, the girls vanishing as soon as he does, not wanting to be left alone with me and my wilfulness.

  Here’s what I’ve learned in my fourteen rains on this earth—being a wife to a king will bring you some power, but being a mother of kings, that will bring you all of it. And I’m greedy, if I can’t have my life the way I want it, then I will have this one, where no one will ever question my existence again.

  Then

  When Parashara’s desire finally made its demands, it felt like it was a long-awaited guest. How long had I watched him, stood next to him, been held in his arms as he stroked my hair, sending electric currents through my body, causing a tingling between my legs, raising goosebumps on my arms? At night, right before we went to sleep, he’d make me lie by him on a raised platform he had built on the trunk of a tree so that we could look at the stars, and he’d point them out to me and tell me how he had learned the history of men through those faraway lights beaming back at us.