‘Quite honestly, Baba, I have not really read about these details,’ replied Damini. ‘In fact, very few people would have.’
‘Damini, havan-kundas are essentially used for Vedic rituals. Even today Hindus across India and Nepal worship deities like Pashupati and Shakti. If Yoga existed even in Harappa, what does it all mean?’ asked Dwarka Shastri animatedly.
‘It means that the Harappan civilization was nothing but a vast Vedic settlement on the banks of the mighty Saraswati…’ mumbled Damini as she deciphered the truth.
Both Dwarka Shastri and Vidyut were pleased to see that Damini had finally understood the truth behind Harappa. Or at least some of it.
‘So you see Damini, reducing Brahminabad to rubble, ignoring further excavations for half a century, propagating halftruths and hiding facts about the glory and achievements of the Harappan civilization were all part of a concerted effort to darken an entire eon from the pages of history. White-skinned men riding horses through the Khyber Pass was a picture slowly imprinted on the entire sub-continent. Harappa was the perfect ploy to disconnect India with its ancient glory. Indians would never know that it was they who civilized the world!’
Damini nodded in agreement. She had never in her wildest dreams imagined such a profound conspiracy around something as obscure as Harappa. Tea had been served and the three of them sat in silence for a while. Damini needed time to internalize the truth.
Suddenly Damini turned to Dwarka Shastri and enquired in a tone of urgency, ‘But then Baba, who were the Aryan invaders?’
Dwarka Shastri looked at Vidyut and they exchanged grins.
‘My dear Damini,’ said Vidyut leaning towards her.
‘There were no Aryan invaders.’
Harappa, 1700 BCE
PRATISHODH
For several minutes the devta had not moved or spoken a word. Somdutt gave him that time to assimilate the horror the Gods had sent his way and to nurse his deep angst. The engineer was worried that the time he had bought at the mrit kaaraavaas was running out. Just as he was about to reach out and comfort the devta with a friendly arm around him, Vivasvan Pujari spoke with his face still sunk into his knees.
‘The mountains…what about the mountains of brick and bronze that were to be made to change the course of the raging Saraswati?’
‘Chandradhar is going ahead with that project on war footing. Within hours he has gathered the other engineers to build the mountains of brick and bronze as per your plan and drawings. It is a massive undertaking, and thousands of men, women and beasts of burden are being deployed.’
Vivasvan Pujari suddenly looked up. The chief engineer skipped a beat at what he saw.
The devta was looking more manic than the recently intoxicated and deranged inhabitants of Harappa. In the blackness of the cell all Somdutt could see was Vivasvan Pujari’s eyes gleaming red like those of a panther caught in the darkness by a fluttering torch. In the same body, with the same limbs and the familiar face – Vivasvan Pujari was a different creature. Whether his own soul had twisted into its darkest manifestation or that he had summoned a black spirit from the netherworld into him, Somdutt couldn’t say. But Vivasvan Pujari was certainly not himself.
‘Uuurrrrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh!’ the demonic devta screamed so loud and hideously that all the moaning and crying in the mrit kaaraavaas stopped for a few brief moments. Every inmate of the death-prison could sense the presence of someone whose profound grief was greater than their collective suffering. The deep agony in Vivasvan Pujari’s cry cut through the hearts and souls of the condemned wretches, and for now they wept for this unknown sufferer amidst them.
‘Aaaaarrrggghhh…aaaaaarrrrgggghhh…nnnaaaaaarrrrggghhhh’ Vivasvan Pujari kept yelling, his eyes rolled-up, his arms outstretched on his sides and his hands twisted into claws, as if possessed by the devil himself. To Somdutt’s horror, the devta turned and started smashing his forehead against the sharp edged rocks of the cell’s walls. The engineer leapt forward to grab hold of him and pull him away. But he was late. The walls were already smeared with the devta’s blood, and his eyes and face were once again dripping with his pious bloodstream.
Somdutt held the devta and with great difficulty made him sit down on the dirty floor. As he held his friend and till recently the most powerful man in all of Harappa, he panicked. Vivasvan Pujari’s skin was as cold as ice and he was mumbling some ethereal chants like a bumblebee high on Somras (flower-toddy). The engineer was considering calling for help. Much as he respected the devta and his divinity, had Vivasvan Pujari finally lost it?
‘I am fully in my senses, Somdutt,’ said the devta in a hissing voice, as if he was reading Somdutt’s mind. He probably was. ‘May I borrow your dagger for a moment please?’
‘We…we will rescue you from the Great Bath arena tomorrow, my lord,’ said Somdutt. ‘Even if it means we fight to the last drop of blood in our veins.’
‘May I borrow your dagger please, Somdutt?’ insisted Vivasvan Pujari as if he had not heard what his engineer friend had just said.
‘O great devta, please don’t worry about your wife and son. They are as revered for us as you are. We will not let them be harmed,’ said Somdutt, now sitting next to the devta, cleaning his face with his own fine angavastram.
‘May I borrow your dagger, Somdutt?’ repeated Vivasvan. He was not relenting.
Somdutt pulled out his gleaming blade from the scabbard, went down on one knee and held his dagger up with both hands towards the devta, like he was submitting an offering to a God. As far as was concerned, he was.
‘What are you doing, my lord?’ exclaimed the engineer.
Vivasvan Pujari had slit open his right wrist and the blood was oozing out profusely. Somdutt was as shocked as he was deeply concerned. The loss of blood that the devta had suffered over the last one day could prove fatal.
‘Don’t worry, Somdutt,’ said the devta. ‘Don’t you remember, I cannot be harmed by fire, hunger, thirst, injury, alchemy, illness, gravity or exorcism.’
‘But, my lord…’
‘You must leave now,’ interrupted the devta. ‘Keep archers and horsemen ready tomorrow morning. Intercept them when they are bringing me back here from the Great Bath. I will take care of the rest.’
Somdutt had to obey the devta. But he was horrified to see that the devta had turned his back towards him, and was using the blood from his right wrist as ink to inscribe something on the stone wall of his cell. Although Vivasvan Pujari appeared to be stable and calm as he continued to write on the wall, Somdutt noticed that the devta’s hands were shivering.
‘Guard!’
Without turning even for a moment, Vivasvan Pujari had called out for the prison security. Within seconds they could hear the stomping of a drunken guard walking towards the cell. Just before the cell door was flung open, Vivasvan Pujari turned his head partially towards Somdutt and whispered, ‘Remember my friend, on the way back tomorrow. Keep archers and horsemen ready. We will pull off the greatest rescue of all time.’ He tried to smile.
In the flickering light of the tiny lamp, Somdutt saw one side of Vivasvan Pujari’s face. It was a horror of a sight. A face that was once illuminated with love, brilliance and Godliness, was now a concoction of sweat, blood, pain and hate. Something told the sharp engineer that a fierce and gory battle was going to rage across Aryavarta soon. The devta was not going to be vanquished easily.
As Somdutt took leave and the inebriated guard swung the massive wooden door so as to shut the cell, the engineer noticed what was being smeared on the wall in the color of blood. It was a word. A split second before the door finally slammed shut and Somdutt lost the view of the back-wall of Vivasvan Pujari’s cell, he got a glimpse of it.
The prison wall of the mighty devta was now painted with his own blood, spelling out one lone word – Pratishodh.
Retribution!
Banaras, 2017
THE LAST SAPTARISHI
‘The word Arya is from Sanskrit, whic
h roughly means the noble one. In ancient times all of northern India was called Aryavarta, or the abode of the noble ones. It did not mean abode of the Aryans as a specific creed,’ clarified Dwarka Shastri.
‘So you can say that the people who were original inhabitants of Aryavarta or ancient north India, were called the Aryans. They were builders of great cities, ports, metals and trades. But the theory of sharp-nosed, blue-eyed horsemen from the west is nothing but a figment of imagination…a lie propagated so widely that it almost became the truth,’ added Vidyut.
Damini nodded thoughtfully. She was still in a daze, but glad to have seen the hidden end of the Harappan mystery unravel itself.
‘This is all so unreal. You know Vidyut, we owe it to our great nation, to our fellow Indians. We must share this knowledge with everyone!’ said a delighted and charged-up Damini, looking at both Vidyut and the grandmaster expectantly.
Vidyut and Dwarka Shastri exchanged glances. ‘It is not that simple, Damini,’ said Vidyut. ‘What you have discovered today and I heard from Baba yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg. This conspiracy is not restricted to just the East India Company and the Indian subjugation. It is far deeper and more ominous than that. It involves the whole world, the entire human race.’
‘Our bloodline is cursed,’ said the mighty Dwarka Shastri.
That didn’t sound very heartening to Vidyut and Damini. It was like they were in a thriller movie. Only this was all real, they both knew.
‘Vidyut, you must tell Damini whatever you know till now about the painful and chilling saga of our greatest ancestor, the devta Vivasvan Pujari,’ continued Dwarka Shastri, ‘but at this point it is important that you both know about the curse of the Saptarishi.’
His two-member audience was staring at the grandmaster, spellbound.
‘It will take me many more days to narrate the full tale of Vivasvan Pujari, Pundit Chandradhar, Priyamvada, Sanjna, Sara Maa, Manu and the eventual fall of Harappa. I will also tell you about the events that unfolded immediately after the devastating deluge of the river Saraswati, and how these events changed the course of mankind’s destiny. But we don’t have that kind of time today. The enemy stalks us from very close,’ said Dwarka Shastri. Vidyut and Damini assumed he was referring to the showdown with Romi, which was now only a few hours away.
In all of what Dwarka Shastri had just said, Damini caught the name Sanjna. This is what the grandmaster had welcomed her as when she had stepped into his room. She had ignored it as perhaps a slip in the grand old man’s aging memory. But now he had taken the name again, and that too in the context of a cruel tale.
While Damini was still groping with that one name, Vidyut’s mind was running at lightning speed. He was putting the two and two together. It struck him like a thunderbolt that his great grandfather would have referred to Damini as Sanjna for one and one reason only. As the scion of the Dev-Raakshasa matth and the last devta, Vidyut could see the picture clearly. He also now knew why Dwarka Shastri had said that the statuette of the bearded Priest-King of Harappa was of none other than Vidyut’s himself.
The matthadheesh was quiet, as he closely observed his great grandson’s pensive face. He knew Vidyut had figured it out. The grandmaster intoned a couplet from the Bhagvad Gita.
:|| vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya
navani grhnati naro ‘parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany
anyani samyati navani dehi ||:
Vidyut translated it for Damini without looking at her –
‘As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the “soul” accepts new material bodies, giving up the old ones.’
Damini was not able to understand what was going on. But Vidyut was fully enlightened.
Punarjanma, he thought.
Reincarnation.
Vidyut shook his head slightly at his great grandfather, who immediately understood what Vidyut was trying to say. Damini was not ready for everything just yet. That the three of them had met before, millennia ago, in a distant and violent land was something she would not be able to comprehend.
‘Baba, please tell us about the curse of the Saptarishi and about the web of this conspiracy,’ began Vidyut. ‘Tell us what happened in Constantinople.’ Besides his keenness to know more about what was plaguing his divine bloodline and humankind at large, he also wanted to steer the topic away from Sanjna and her connection with Damini. He would tell her one day. But not today.
Before the matthadheesh could respond, there was a knock at the door. It was Balwanta. He folded his hands in reverence as he bowed to the grandmaster.
‘What is it, Balwanta?’ asked Dwarka Shastri.
‘Gurudev, pardon my intrusion but it is well past noon. Vidyut must come with me so we can prepare for the evening encounter. Only a few hours remain. This adversary must not be taken lightly,’ replied Balwanta, his hands still folded. He worshipped Dwarka Shastri like a God. And while the assassin was here in Varanasi for Romi, Balwanta believed it was his own fight. For centuries his forefathers had protected the Shastri clan. He was not going to let them all down.
‘Thank you, Balwanta dada. Please give me some more time. Baba is about to make a vital revelation, which might tell us more about this Romi,’ replied Vidyut instead of Dwarka Shastri. He was now more and more connected to his great grandfather, and could take some liberty.
‘But, Vidyut…’
‘Just one more hour please, dada, then we will begin the preparations,’ insisted Vidyut.
‘As you say, Vidyut. But one hour it is.’
Balwanta bowed to the matthadheesh and left.
‘It was in 312 AD that the powerful Roman king Constantine embraced Christianity. Whether it was the popularity of the faith that encouraged him to enter its fold, or whether it was his own powerful influence that made the religion even more widespread, cannot be said with surety. But one thing is certain; Constantine did for Christianity what the great Ashoka did for Buddhism. He rallied the power of the king behind the word of the priest,’ narrated the grandmaster. ‘It was all happening just like the curse said it would.’
Both Damini and Vidyut were stunned to hear the great Dwarka Shastri speaking about a Roman king, about the spread of Christianity and events that had no connect with Harappa whatsoever!
Or so they believed.
‘Anyhow, it was not under Constantine that things went out of hand. It was in 445 AD under Emperor Valentinian that one faith was officially declared as the faith of the empire. This political gamesmanship, deceit and eventual bloodshed in the name of God was exactly what the curse had banished mankind to.’
Vidyut and Damini were blank. They had no clue why Dwarka Shastri was talking about Constantine and Valentinian, when their concerns and questions were around Harappa and the killer that was stalking them.
‘I know your concerns and questions are around Harappa, and around the killer that is stalking us,’ said Dwarka Shastri, as if he were reading their minds. He probably was. ‘But what I am telling you is equally material to the bigger web of treachery, power and hate that is being spun for centuries.’
‘Please go on, Baba,’ said Vidyut. He did not want to rush the matthadheesh.
‘The burying of Harappa’s glory and truth by some officials of the East India Company was in comparison just a tiny manifestation of a much larger disease – one that would time and again unleash unbridled and unstoppable bloodshed, only to maintain the political superiority of one people over another. And this disease has nothing to do with Christianity, which is a great religion with peace and love as its bedrocks. It is the religion of Yeshu or Jesus, the fair and benevolent Son of God who never spoke of anything but love. Therefore I am talking about the dark corruption of men, not any particular religion. Scoundrels are not restricted to any one faith. They are born under every creed, every race. If it was Christianity unleashing holy wars during the Crusades, it is some other religion now. Tomorrow there will be another. This murderou
s lust would spread from one faith to another – and each will justify killing their fellowmen in the name of God. These men would use religion and their own interpretation of the word of God to inflict unthinkable atrocities on their own kind. And this is precisely the destiny the Saptarishi had cursed the human race to endure.’
Vidyut and Damini’s mouths went dry as they tried to grapple with the new revelations Dwarka Shastri was making. In fact Damini felt her head would explode, and wanted to run away from the massive cottage of the matthadheesh.
Dwarka Shastri could make out that his beloved children were fatigued with information overload. But he had little choice. Vidyut was the prophesied savior and he had to bear the burden.
‘We will speak about the rest later, my dear Vidyut and Damini. For now there is only one more aspect I want to share with you both.’
‘Please go ahead, Baba,’ said Vidyut. He could have sat in this room for days together. But he knew Damini was reeling under the conspiratorial information onslaught. He had to get her out.
‘There were in fact two dark curses, Vidyut,’ continued the grandmaster, ‘one each from two dying sages. They were the fifth and sixth of the Saptarishi. One curse was for Vivasvan Pujari’s descendants and one for mankind at large, as I have been describing,’ said the grandmaster.
This was going too fast, even for Vidyut. Who were the Saptarishi? Why were they dying? What made them cast such ghastly spells? And how was everything connected?
There was another knock at the door. This time it was a long and urgent one. Upon Dwarka Shastri’s permission Balwanta entered the room again. He was clearly annoyed.
‘Vidyut we need to leave…now,’ said Balwanta. He was in no mood to dilly-dally. There was a battle awaiting them. And the warrior chief was not going to go into it underprepared.
Damini bowed to Dwarka Shastri, who smiled at her with fatherly love. Both of them had moist eyes. Vidyut was fidgety, as he wanted to know more. He decided to squeeze in his one last question.
Harappa - Curse of the Blood River Page 18
