Tooth and Nail, Fur and Scale

by Anupam Arunachalam

  Airavata relaxed a bit, venturing a cautious smile. ‘Heh!’ he said. ‘Erm . . . I guess doing anything over and over for all eternity could get a bit . . . well . . . redundant?’

  ‘Boring, my pachydermous pal! That’s the word you’re looking for!’ Indra chuckled. ‘Tell you what. I think both of us are due for a bit of a break. What do you say?’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘A change of scene, Airavata. A vacation.’

  Airavata stared blankly. ‘Uhh . . .’

  ‘What do you say?’ asked Indra again, flashing him a broad smile.

  ‘You’re not . . . you’re not serious!’

  ‘Sure, I am.’

  ‘Bu-but . . . the entrance to Swargaloka needs to be guarded at all times!’ said Airavata.

  Indra stroked his chin and made a thoughtful face. ‘True, true . . .’ he said. ‘Hmm . . . how about this? You go out for a while, swim in a cloud with your wife or spend the evening chilling with Garuda and Nandi—do whatever you vahanas like to do on your day off—and I stick around here and guard the gate!’

  ‘WHAT!’

  ‘What? You don’t think I could do it?’

  ‘But—my lord! You’re the king of heaven! Why would YOU—’

  ‘Don’t be so uptight, Airavata!’ said Indra (very hypocritically, thought the elephant). ‘I told you, I need a change of scene—and I don’t care what it is!’ He turned towards the gateway and looked up at it, his hands on his hips. ‘Wow! You know, I think I should do this more often. The palace looks breathtaking in the light of the setting sun, doesn’t it?’

  Airavata watched the god-king admire the building for a while, then edging around a corner of the palace on tiptoe, he did a little jig. A break! He hadn’t had a real break since he had first been churned out of the ocean and fallen into Indra’s service—and that had been aeons and aeons ago! Softly trumpeting his joy, he cantered up to the edge of the parapet and leapt off the concourse of Indra’s palace, right into air thick with fluffy white clouds.

  ‘Fffffwwhhheeeeee!’ he squealed, diving into one of them with an audible PUFFFT! When he emerged, he was wearing a slowly dissipating tutu made of cloud stuff, his skin glistening with dew.

  After a few minutes of swooping through thunderheads and riding tornadoes, Airavata realized that he might not be taking full advantage of this unique opportunity that he’d lucked into. The chief problem of workaholics and slaves—folks who’ve either voluntarily or involuntarily given up on enjoying life—is that they have no idea what they should do when faced with free time. And being a bit of both, Airavata was completely baffled.

  He supposed he could take Indra’s first suggestion and go see his wife. He supposed that would be enjoyable in a way, but perhaps it would be best to do that after he’d had a bit of solo fun.

  I wonder what I like doing, thought Airavata, who hadn’t had much occasion to consider such things in millennia. In his mind, he cycled through the different activities he’d been involved in over the years and arranged them in ascending order of preference: being spit out into the world from a vigorously agitated waterbody, guarding the gate of Indra’s abode, having Indra ride everywhere on his back, helping Indra crush evil beings with the force of his thunderbolts or under Airavata’s feet, making it rain for the mortals . . .

  Ah, he thought. That’s what I ought to do first!

  He swooped under the clouds and scanned the earth, looking for a nice dry patch. A place that might need a bit of a shower. After a few minutes at a lazy Mach 51, he found a large stretch of cracked and discoloured terrain that looked like it would never grow anything again. He thought he could make out a few villages scattered on it, next to fenced-off plots of fallow farmland.

  Airavata blasted away and, after a quick recce, located a placid lake in the middle of a dense forest that no road cut through. He plunged all seven trunks into the water and sucked, filling up until his cheeks were at maximum capacity.

  Holding his breath, he streaked back over the area he had earmarked, and blew with all his might. The stream arced over his head and was split into a billion drops by the air as it fell over the arid earth. Airavata shook with silent laughter, water gushing out of his trunk, and watched the people and the animals milling out to witness the sudden downpour, their faces elongated by expressions of absolute pleasure.

  Ages ago, after Indra had vanquished the dragon Vritra, who’d held all the waters of the world captive, Airavata had delighted in filling his trunks with water from the underworld and spraying the parched mortal world with refreshing rain. And he had never seen so much joy on the face of man before or since—until now.

  He reflected on that day, when he had flown around sprinkling the world with the possibility of life, after which Indra had taken him back to Swarga. There, as a reward for saving the world, the divine architect Vishwakarma had built for Indra the great palace, which shone from afar with the brilliance of the sun. Up close, you could see that the facade was dotted with majestic minarets and lofty shikharas, the walls intricately carved with murals depicting Indra’s victory over the Dragon of Drought. The numerous lawns and plazas were landscaped in complex patterns that led the eye elegantly from the beautifully crafted administrative buildings, pleasure castles and residential quarters to the monolithic central keep, which dominated the palace grounds and was to be Indra’s abode.

  ‘This palace,’ Vishwakarma had said as they approached, ‘is also a fortress. Its walls—though they may look elegant, with their elaborate inlays of ruby and sapphire—will repel the most persistent siege. Its only vulnerability is its gate, which, my king, you should have no trouble defending, mighty as you are!’

  Indra had looked around, scratching his chin, smoothing back his hair, flexing his arms to shake off the stress of the terrific battle. Then he’d turned to Vishwakarma and said, ‘I suppose it’s all right. When will it be finished?’

  Airavata would never forget Vishwakarma’s reaction—he’d looked like Indra had struck him with one of his thunderbolts.

  ‘Your Majesty . . . it . . . it kind of . . . sort of . . . is!’

  Indra, predictably, had flown into a rage, and it had taken several attempts by the celestial architect and an intervention by the Trimurti to get him to stop demanding that the palace be made even larger, even grander.

  And then Indra had bestowed upon Airavata the duty of guarding the gate to the largest, most expensive palace ever built. ‘It isn’t much,’ he’d said, his face screwed up in dissatisfaction. ‘But it’s what we’ve got.’

  Airavata, his reminiscing having ended, sputtered out the last of the water from his trunks, a chill creeping inside his stomach.

  ‘The palace looks breathtaking in the light of the setting sun,’ Indra had said earlier that day. Airavata had never heard a good word about the palace from him in all the ages since it was built, and now he wanted to guard its gate and just look at it?

  ‘Wow!’ he’d said. Indra never. Ever. Said ‘wow’.

  The air resistance almost pulled his ears off as he streaked back to Swargaloka, his eyes wide with fear and bloodshot with rage.

  On his way, somewhere over the Mediterranean, he saw a flash of red in a sea of black and made a very quick stop.

  The asura still wore the face of Indra and watched for approaching guards as twelve of his kin assembled outside the gate.

  ‘Quick, you dolts!’ he said, his eyes darting between them and the interior of the palace. ‘Why on Patala didn’t you shape-shift before you started for Swarga?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said an asura whose skin had changed from its original blue to a livid peach. He had already brought himself down to average human size. Now his waist was gradually shrinking and his matted brown hair was becoming softer and silkier. ‘If our friends saw us in these forms, we wouldn’t live to hear the end of it!’

  ‘Yeah, and if Indra saw you right now, you wouldn’t live to hear much at all!’ said the demon who looked like the god-king.<
br />
  Soon, all twelve hopeful intruders had managed fairly accurate representations of slender-waisted, big-hipped, glossy-haired, flawless-skinned, sensually dressed beautiful women, and were practising their sashaying and strutting.

  The Indra lookalike couldn’t hold his giggles back. ‘You make far better apsaras than asura warrior-spies!’ he said, his whole body shaking with mirth. ‘If you weren’t lumbering about like gorillas, I’d almost find you attractive!’

  One of the newly minted celestial dancers twirled his long, thick plait, which was braided with tiny silver bells. ‘Heh!’ he said in a gravelly baritone. ‘If you think this is funny, wait until I’ve bitten off Indra’s jugular! That’ll be hilari—’

  His last syllable devolved into a scream as liquid fire rained from the skies.

  ‘Watch o-o-o-wwww!’ howled the fake Indra, a gargantuan white leg coming down on his own head.

  ‘It’s that stupid eleghhhh—’ choked another as a thick white trunk wrapped around his middle and squeezed.

  The others didn’t get a chance to say very much for they were headbutted, tossed, squashed, constricted and skewered by a large ivory blur that resolved from time to time into the shape of a very angry elephant, just to squirt hot torture on to their faces from one of its trunks.

  That was a good decision, thought Airavata as he heard their screams, to dip into that volcano for some fresh lava.

  As he lashed, stomped and jabbed at them, he thought about the fit that demonic rights activists would have over this. The countless wars between the devas and the demonic beings had almost driven the latter race to extinction. A lot of the apsaras that these guys had been mimicking would be protesting on the streets of Swarga tomorrow against the wanton destruction dished out by Airavata to individuals of an endangered species. He could already hear Urvashi screaming into a microphone, ‘Every demonic life is precious! Each asura’s phenotype is different—their physical structure, their mental capacities, their magical abilities. They’re each unique in a way that members of no other race are!’

  He’d heard it several times now, ever since the devas had conspired with the triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva to disenfranchise the asuras of their ‘rightful’ share of amrit—the divine nectar that came from the legendary churning of the ocean. The demonic rights group had only increased in volume (if not power) since, as the asura race declined.

  The good thing, he thought, is that I don’t need to hold myself back. Most of these asuras had shape-shifting powers that they could use to heal their injuries in no time. Of course, the keyword was ‘most’, but he tried not to think about that too much.

  When Indra arrived, having heard the commotion, all he saw were a few shapes in the distance, a faint blue shift2 indicating the speed of their retreat. Airavata stood at the gate, heaving, his white flanks smeared with blue goo and grey gristle. Standing in a sludgy puddle of indeterminate source, he saluted the god-king as he appeared.

  ‘Wow,’ said Indra. ‘How stupid were they?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Good job, steed of mine!’ said Indra. ‘You’ve outdone yourself again!’

  ‘Th-thanks, my lord,’ said the elephant.

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I just need a wash is all.’

  ‘I’ll send someone along. You know . . . I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should have some sort of entertainment around here as you guard the gate—it must get awfully boring waiting for these sporadic threats. What if I got one of those human talk-boxes installed out here for you?’

  ‘Tha-that would be—’

  ‘I mean, I wish I could offer you more, like a vacation or something—but we really need you guarding this—’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Airavata. ‘I totally understand, my lord! Just a TV would be great.’

  ‘Right, right! I’ll send someb—’

  ‘Actually, I heard someone say that there are tons of great shows and things on the Internet these days . . .’

  ‘Whatever you’d like, Airavata. Just tell my guy and he’ll have you sorted,’ said Indra as he walked back inside.

  ‘Thanks, my lord,’ said Airavata. ‘Thanks a bunch!’

  He settled down on his pedestal and sighed. The clouds looked beautiful, drifting by like that beneath him.

  ‘Hnnnnnshh!’ he blew out as his eyelids drooped and his lips curled into a satisfied smile.

  AIRAVATA

  Legend has it that the devas and the asuras once churned the ocean to extract from it the elixir of life. While being stirred, the water threw up several other important artefacts and beings before the elixir itself rose to the surface.

  Airavata, the great white flying elephant, was one of these free gifts. And since Indra, the king of the gods, thought the beast would make a good vehicle, he rode Airavata to war.

  Together, the god-king and his mount defeated the dragon Vritra and showered the earth with the waters of the underworld. Indra came to be known as the god of storms, wielding the lightning bolt as a weapon, and Airavata became associated with clouds and rain.

  The exact number of Airavata’s heads, tusks and trunks varies from account to account. Some say he has multiple heads, each with a regular pair of tusks and a trunk, while others count a single head with multiple trunks and several sets of tusks. However many there are, I assume he uses them well to hand the asuras some old-fashioned beatdowns.

  DINNER WITH MA

  The deer turned up in their backyard later than usual that month.

  Latika knelt in the mud and studied it. As usual, the wound was at the neck, a deep slash that had quickly bled the creature out. For the first time, she appreciated the precision and the power that would have been required to make it. Just as she was about to touch the puckered edges of the cut, her father’s shadow fell over her. He slapped her hand away.

  ‘Inside,’ he said as he picked up the hind. She obeyed, but watched him from within the house as he washed the blood and dirt off under the handpump.

  Beyond him, beyond the little picket fence that defined their backyard—with its handpump and its chicken coop and its large stockpile of firewood—there was a field of untamed grass that gradually became a bush and then rose up as the forest in the distance. Listening to the silence behind the rustling of the trees, she sighed heavily.

  Her father saw her off to school at their front gate, as always. When she crested the hill and caught sight of the pukka road down in the valley, she turned around and saw him walking into the bushes. He’d spend all day in the forest, collecting wild herbs. He had taken her along a few times when she had been younger, but she’d sensed that it was something that he preferred to do alone, in his own set ways.

  When she’d get back from school, he would be gone, to the village to buy rice that they never ate at home when it was just the two of them. He’d cook the meal slowly, carefully, and by the time he’d be done, the smells would permeate the very walls of their little house. He would then douse the fire, tie an old dhoti on his head like a turban and walk out of the house. Latika had learnt not to speak to him on days such as this—his mood was sombre and his manner, brusque, and sometimes, he wouldn’t respond to her at all.

  By the time her mother would walk into the house through the back door, the food would still be steaming in the pot and there would be no sign of the cook.

  That evening, Latika could see the smoke curling out of the windows of their home all the way from the hilltop. When she entered, she saw her father hunched over the fire. He turned around, smiled at her weakly and proceeded to sweep the meat off the cutting slab into the pot.

  She changed out of her uniform, unrolled her mat and sat down, putting her bag on her lap. He liked to see her reading her textbooks when she got back from school—something he figured would make her a better student. He had never seen the inside of a school in his life, but his ideas about what made for a successful student were as stubborn as any other parent’s.

  Her heart beat
wildly as she thought of the impending evening. She made a show of reading, but the words were blurry on the page and fleeting in her mind.

  A few moments later, to her surprise, her father turned around and said, ‘Remember what we spoke about, all right?’

  Latika stared at him, probing her molars with her tongue.

  ‘You do remember what we discussed, Lati?’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘It’s for your own good. I’m not asking you to lie, understand? I’m just telling you not to bring it up.’

  Latika bit her lip. ‘What if she knows?’ she said. ‘What if she asks me?’

  He thought about this for a while, studying her anxiety. The pot bubbled behind him, releasing a heady fragrance.

  ‘You can’t tell her,’ he said with a ringing finality. ‘She won’t ask you, but even if she does, don’t tell her this.’

  She stared at him, hurt that he would violate his own rules about honesty and speaking one’s mind. Hurt that she was forbidden in this way.

  ‘It seems wrong,’ she said. ‘She should know, shouldn’t she?’

  She noticed that his lower lip was trembling now. He turned away.

  ‘Promise me,’ he said. ‘Promise me you won’t tell her.’

  She peered at the indistinct words in her book. After an age of silence, she said, ‘I promise.’

  He left without a word when the food was done. She stood at the doorway for a while and followed him with her eyes as he walked up the hill, towards the village. He had hardly gone over it when she heard water sloshing in the backyard.

  A few moments later, she saw her mother’s silhouette through the window, creeping up on all fours to the sari her father had hung on the windowsill, then draping it in smooth, flowing movements.