Asura- Tale of the Vanquished

by Anand Neelakantan

  King Janaka stood up and everyone waited for his pronouncement. His voice boomed across the large hall. “Mighty kings and princes, today is an auspicious day. Today is the swayamvara of my beloved daughter, Sita. Only the mightiest, the bravest, and the most skilled among you, will win the hand of my beautiful daughter today.” He paused. I looked around. Many pot-bellied or scrawny men were also sitting around in anxious anticipation. “The rules of the contest are simple. The heavy bow here has to be lifted and strung. Gentlemen, it is not an easy job. The bow is called Triambaka and was once used by Lord Shiva himself. The one who is able to lift and string it, will win the hand of my daughter.”

  I nearly choked with laughter. ‘How did these people get hold of Shiva’s bow?’ Shiva’s bow, my foot! Perhaps it gave them a thrill to imagine that someone would be able to lift the bow of Shiva, the primeval Asura King and God.

  “Kings and Princes, behold my daughter.” Janaka’s voice stopped me short in my musings. I waited in trembling anticipation. A hush fell on the crowd. Then a door with lots of bells on it jingled open and a tall, bejewelled figure walked out with a trail of maids in her wake. I gripped Maricha’s hands tightly. I could feel the muscles of my face bۀ of my fecome taut while my heart pounded wildly. She stood there in the middle of hundreds of men, trembling, while many lusty eyes greedily assessed her – the prize of a stupid contest. One of the maids came forward and slowly lifted her veil and the crowd gasped. She stood there so radiant and lovely that I almost wept. Sita. She resembled her mother, but her skin was dark, the colour of honey. She had long, black tresses. She was my daughter, an Asura princess.

  I noticed that the princes and kings assessed her like they had come to a cattle market and have found their prize cow. I burned with anger. What sort of custom was this? An innocent young girl in her prime exposed to the lustful eyes of old men who could win her in a contest? What about her feelings, her loves, her dreams and wishes? Any ruffian who has enough strength to lift that stupid bow could marry her. She would know none of the joy of courting her husband, there would be no whispered words of love, no pangs of separation and the sweet wait to see her lover on a moonlit night. Maricha held me firm. Initially I had resented my arranged marriage to Mandodari and cursed my interfering mother many times. But we had known each other and spoken many times. This was uncivilized.

  I could not take my eyes off my daughter, Sita. She demurely lifted her head and scanned the lusty crowd that had assembled. She did not pause for more than a few seconds on any one face. When she stared at me, my heart skipped a beat. She stared at me intently and I was afraid. Something tugged inside me. Was it guilt or fear? I don’t know and quickly looked away. When I looked up again, I saw her peering intently at a young man of about eighteen. He was no prince. He wore quite ordinary clothing, but had a bow thrown over his shoulder and had his hair tied in a knot. He was tall and well toned and there was something arresting about his appearance. He looked composed and at peace with himself. For a young boy of his age, his composure was remarkable.

  I saw my daughter’s eyes lock with the boy’s. She blushed and her dark face lit with a dimple. She looked down quickly, turned, and walked away. I watched the dark-skinned boy intently. I felt a strange jealousy and hatred rush through my veins. He might have sensed my feelings for he turned to look at me and smiled. I recoiled. I do not know why or how, but I knew this man was dangerous. I was sure he was going to win my daughter. I was afraid for my daughter and for myself. I wanted to rush and protect her from harm. I wanted to whisk her away and take her to Lanka, away from these barbarians and their boorish customs. But I stood rooted, alone in my fears and apprehensions, and prayed for a miracle to save my daughter.

  An old Brahmin with a flowing white beard stood near the boy. Another young man, with a perpetual scowl on his face, looked at me. When my eyes met his, he gave me such a look of pure hatred that I winced. ‘How did the young muster so much confidence and arrogance so early?’ I too, had been young once but I had never had this kind of confidence or arrogance. I had always been humble and deferential towards my elders.

  The contest began. One by one, the contenders came forward, tried to lift the heavy bow, and failed. After watching a few of them, I realized that the bow had different weights on either end. The correct way to hold it had to be thought about first and then attempted. Soon, all the invitees had tried and failed. There was a disturbing silence in the room. But I was relieved. No brute could marry my daughter now. It was time to reveal my identity to Janaka and claim my daughter. I would take her to Lanka and give her a life befitting an Asura princess. She would marry who she loved or I would find a good match for her. I would confess to Mandodari and ask for her forgiveness. Only I could aۀnly I cotone for all the follies of my youth. I stepped forward.

  I felt the crowd staring at me as I walked towards the king. But then I realized my mistake. Everyone thought I too was a contender and Janaka looked at me hopefully and then frowned. He must have thought I was too old for his daughter. I was only forty-six, but in a society where girls were married at six, I was ancient. I stopped when I was near the bow. I was curious. I touched it, running my fingers over its curves. I gripped it. It had poor workmanship and I was sure this bow could never be strung. It would break if anyone was able to lift it. Shiva definitely could not have used this inferior product. Janaka must have picked it up from some school of armaments were trainees practised making bows. This was an imperfect sample and these people were conducting a contest to sell off my daughter with this?

  “Sir, if you want to try, you should hurry,” a minister called out. I stared at him evenly. ‘What would I do if I lifted it? Marry my own daughter?’ Then the dark and handsome young man came forward and bowed to the king. I looked up. Sita had removed her veil and sat waiting in anxious anticipation. A part of my heart wanted this young man to win. My daughter would get a husband she liked, if not loved. Another dark corner of my mind kept telling me that Sita would never be happy with this man. I was certain that even if the young man succeeded in lifting the bow, it would break if he tired to string it. If that happened, Sita would be spared, at least temporarily. I waited for him.

  “Your Highness! I am Rama, Prince of Ayodhya, first born son of King Dasratha.” The young man bowed to King Janaka. ‘Ayodhya? hmm. . .where had I heard that name before. . . possibly one of those small and irrelevant pastoral principalities that dotted the dusty northern plain.’ Then it struck me. King Anarnya. . . and my campaign. ‘Oh God! That dreadful little one-horse town, not even half the size of Mithila.’ I remembered how primitive the place was. I had finished off the last king long ago, hadn’t I? These plains sprouted kings like mushrooms!

  I moved back. Rama walked around the bow two or three times, observing it keenly. I was impressed. This chap was intelligent and resourceful. He had not rushed in to show off his strength. He measured the bow from one end to the other with the tip of his middle finger and thumb. Then he found a spot three fingers above the middle and with one smooth motion, lifted the bow. He almost staggered with the weight but got back his balance quickly. I began to perspire. ‘Would he do it?’ The bow should break, if my knowledge of arms was to be trusted. It could not be strung. I looked at Sita. She was tense, with her palms together in a silent prayer.

  Rama took the string from the bottom and tried to tie it to the top. His muscles were taut and his face showed the stress of the effort. I watched fascinated. ‘This boy was a good warrior. Maybe almost as good as Meghanada.’ The bow bent and Rama wound the first round of string. I could feel the tension in the air. Everyone watched the young man perform the impossible. Miraculously, the bow held. I could not fathom how. ‘Is my knowledge so rusty?’ I looked away from the taut figure of the Prince of Ayodhya to my daughter, and in that instant I heard a small creak. I turned back quickly. My hearۀckly. Myt raced. I knew that sound. The next instant the bow broke into two with a whip-like crack. Rama looked confounded for a minute
. Everyone was too stunned to speak. I was ecstatic. No one could string the bow. I could now take Sita away to Lanka. I looked at Maricha, but he sadly shook his head. I was confused and raised an eyebrow in question.

  Then a deafening cheer rose all around me. I watched in dismay and shock as my daughter approached the Prince of Ayodhya and garlanded him. From that moment, Sita and Rama were husband and wife. Tears welled up in my eyes. I looked at the young couple and could see the happiness and pride in Rama’s eyes at the unexpected victory, and the prize. It upset me. ‘You do not deserve her, young man,’ I wanted to shout. Then I saw pure and innocent love in Sita’s eyes and felt helpless. What right did I have to destroy the happiness she felt? ‘Daughter, I have failed you.’ I hoped she would be happy with the man she love so much. I hoped he would treat her with love and respect and reciprocate her love. I hoped he would be worthy of her. I had no rights over my daughter, but I prayed for her happiness. Something told me that the man she had chosen, or more correctly the man who had won her as a prize, would only make her sad. I hoped I was wrong. But I would keep a protective watch over her from now on. She was the daughter of the most powerful Emperor on earth. If I ever found that the man was not worthy of her, I would whisk her away to my palace, my bosom, and protect her from all harm. I turned and pushed my way out through the thronging crowds. I emerged sweating and tired, unable to control my tears. I tried to push Sita from my mind and cursed myself for having come on this trip.

  I retraced my steps to where we had hidden the Pushpaka. I was tired of this Deva kingdom and their strange practices. I wanted to get back to Lanka, to my wife, my sons, and my people. I reached the hiding place and only then realized that Maricha was not with me. Maricha came a little later. I was still worried about my daughter. ‘At least her husband seemed to be a capable warrior. Let’s see how things turned out.’ I could not shake off the dark premonitions I felt as I climbed into the Pushpaka and motioned Maricha to follow.

  “Tell our entire network to keep a watch on them, Maricha. Keep an eye on the boy. Watch him closely,” I told Maricha and he nodded gravely.

  “We shouldn’t have waited this long to take her home,” Maricha said. I felt the same. But there was no use thinking about that now.

  We reached Lanka in two days. I confessed to Mandodari my affair with the Deva Brahmin woman. It was difficult but I told her everything. I told her about our daughter and the fear I felt for her. She wept at my betrayal, but forgave me. I had a feeling Mandodari had known about it all along but had not brought up the subject. My confession was good for both of us. I had the feeling that from that day on, she respected me more. Mandodari told me she yearned to have our daughter back, but since she was already married, it would be better to leave her with her husband. I finally slept peacefully.

  As promised, I watched Sita closely. I learned with dismay that Rama had thrown away his inheritance because his step-mother wanted her own son to be king. She had extracted a promise from Dasaratha that he would send away his eldest son to the wilderness for fourteen years and

  make her son, Bharata, king. My son-in-law, the fool that he was, volunteered to abdicate his claim and vanished inۀd vanishto the wilderness. Though the people of Ayodhya wanted Rama to be their king, he ignored the wishes of the masses to satisfy his henpecked father. I hated Rama for his false ego and eagerness to prove his self-righteousness to the world. I would never understand his logic. And how could his father have made such an unfair promise? A king could not act like that. It was against Raja Dharma. As the heir, it was Rama’s duty to rise against the king who had acted unjustly. He should have overthrown his father and assumed the kingship. Instead, he abdicated in favour of his step-brother. And his other brother, Lakshmana, followed him into the wild. And now my beautiful daughter had been dragged along with them.

  I instructed my soldiers to protect the trio from enemies and keep me informed. I learnt that Rama roamed all over India and many times my spies saw Sita crying silently, all alone. I suspected that Lakshmana was an uncultured brute and was always afraid he would harm my daughter. But my fears were misplaced. Lakshmana appeared to be devoted to his brother and sister-in-law. Meanwhile, Lanka prospered and I introduced many reforms. But Sita continued to occupy my thoughts. I was worried. Then one day, Soorpanakha came running to my court. The time had come.

  39 Return of the Asura Princess

  Bhadra

  I am almost fifty now and I had grown bald and lost the strength of my limbs and my mind as well. Each day was like any other day. It dawned, I woke and did my chores, ate, imagined the beautiful girls I had seen at some point in my life, brooded over the way things were going, drank, complained about the affairs of the world, bored listeners with the real and imagined feats of my youth, and collapsed onto my bed at the end of the day, to wake again the next day. And the cycle continued. Ravana’s revolution had given us nothing. We were perhaps slightly better off. Maybe even more civilized. But we had been put in our place and quickly learnt how to behave. There were the nobles, and then there were all the others. There were the privileged ones, and then us. As long as we kept to our place, we could live. But many among us, through enterprise, luck, and a great deal of sycophancy, had managed to rise. Most of my earlier companions in the army continued to be dirt poor like me. But a few had become really important.

  The most irritating thing was how the Brahmins had grown in recent years. After the failed coup and the butcher incident, there was a temporary halt to Brahmins coming south. And there were fewer followers for their religion. But not long afterwards, they began seeping back in. Ravana had by this time developed his own ideas about how a great king should behave. A group of Brahmins, led by their holy man Agastya, requested asylum in the Asura kingdom. Prahastha opposed giving them refuge and there was much resentment among the public as well. But Ravana, in his kingly wisdom, decided to grant them asylum.

  For a few years, Agastya and his herd of Brahmins stayed out of the cities and led a quiet existence. They kept to themselves and gave us no trouble. Agastya would go and plead with Ravana to allow them to set up villages inside our kingdom, almost every day. Vibhishana also threw his weight behind their request. Eventually, they built villages on the west and east coasts of south India, including on the island of Lanka. It started as a trickle. The fair-skinned, plump, Brahmins slowly formed their own little islands in all the major towns and cities of the empire. And before we knew what had happened, they had occupied all the important positions in the civil services, taken over the temples, and effectively pushހ^ed out all others from lucrative and important positions.

  Ravana believed that to be respected in the world, he had to be a secular king and treat every religion with respect and tolerance. The ideals for which many Asuras like me had fought, were forgotten. He went to the extent of saying that the minorities had equal rights over the country’s resources, and as King, he was duty bound to protect them.

  The people fumed. After fighting for Asura glory and sacrificing everything in quest of the ideal Asura empire, was this what we deserved? It seemed that only the rights of the minorities and their religious feelings mattered and ours did not. Thanks to the Brahmins, beef, a staple food of the Asuras, was banned. Brahmins could enter our temples and abuse our simple Gods, or worse could take over the temple, if the money collection happened to be good. Eventually they wouldn’t even allow us to enter our own temples. We were, after all, impure. The rights of the minority became an obsession with the ruling class. There were many conversions from Asura to the Deva religion, even when obstinate pigs like me refused to be converted.

  After that incident when Athikaya and I were almost beaten to death at the duel, I no longer wanted to go to the palace. I was tired of being a doormat. I wanted to start my own business again but the place no longer existed. They had widened the road and gardens had come up where my old Banyan tree had stood. Trikota expanded on all sides and we were driven further and further away. Me
n who travelled said that the city was more beautiful than the main port city of Muzaris. But for people like me, things had not changed. We were still eyesores and had to be hidden from people who mattered. But they needed us too. After all, who else would have tended their gardens; become their maids and nannies; drawn water and hewn wood for them; swept their streets; and carried away their night soil? So, while they did not like us, they tolerated us. We learnt how to become invisible. Most of us would perform our chores and vanish before the city woke. And life went on. It had been almost fourteen years since they had beaten my son and me.

  When Trikota expanded and grew, I moved with my wife to a small hut many miles south of the city, and tried my hand at farming. I cleared some jungle and decided to cultivate pepper and cardamom. I did not have seeds, so I took some on loan from the local money lender. And then we began weaving our dreams of becoming rich. After some time, those dreams were diluted to dreams of living comfortably. Later, we only dreamed of making ends meet, then of eating at least one meal a day. We dreamed of somehow getting free from the tangle of debt. Finally, we gave up dreaming altogether.

  But the nobles continued to prosper. They dazzled the world with their wealth which they showed off with pomp and pride. And it was said that under Ravana’s reign, the Asura kingdom prospered at a great rate. It was true. The elite prospered, so the country prospered. Did it really matter if the majority struggled or farmers committed suicide to escape the usurers? We were the invisible people and did not count. I took solace in the fact that my country was one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Not that it filled my stomach, but it helped me to brag and it tickled my ego. I had many friends like myself. We got drunk every day in the local, shabby haunts and raised toasts to the prosperity of our King and the Asura empire.