THE CURSE OF BRAHMA

by Jagmohan Bhanver

  ‘Listen to me,’ he commanded. ‘Run down and get Airawat and the soldiers. I’m going up now!’

  Without waiting for her response, he dashed up the hill and felt his blood turn cold at the sight of what greeted him.

  The pisaca was startled when he saw Devki jumping off the roof. Before he had time to react, he saw the kalakanja barge through the temple door and hurl himself at her. Damn you! What the hell were you doing inside? Why is she still alive? A flurry of confused thoughts coursed through his mind as he saw the Kalakanja attack Devki.

  Devki saw the towering creature heaving himself at her. In her terrorized state, she let out a bloodcurdling scream. And then, the years of training took over. She ducked just as the kalakanja jumped her. The momentum of the jump carried him over Devki’s bent figure and he stumbled over, across the ground, far from her. This gave Devki the opportunity to start running downhill.

  Devki’s scream made it clear to the pisaca that the soldiers would arrive within a few minutes. I will have to finish the job myself, he thought viciously. In one gigantic leap from the tree he was hiding in, he crossed half the distance between Devki and himself within a flash. And that is when he saw the behemoth figure of Kansa emerge over the hill.

  Kansa stopped in his tracks as he saw the half-serpent, half-octopus body of the pisaca, just a few feet away from his sister. Brave warrior that he was, this was the first time he was face to face with a pisaca; a creature he had just read about in books till now, as inhabitants of Pataal Lok were prohibited from trespassing in the world of Mrityulok. The hypnotic movement of the pisaca’s tentacles seemed to lock up Kansa’s muscles, against their own will. Then his gaze fell on the terrorized face of Devki and he saw the marks on her face where the kalakanja had inadvertently scratched her while jumping over her. The rage at his sister’s state loosened the pisaca’s hypnotic hold on him and he growled in fury. The pisaca did not want to get into a fight with Kansa; the Dark Lord’s instructions had been explicit—kill Devki and get out of there with proof of her death. He calculated the distance between him and Devki, and decided he could reach her and yank her head off her body before Kansa would get to her. Kansa followed the pisaca’s eye movements and realized what the monster was planning. In the very instant that the pisaca leaped towards Devki, his tentacles flexing to decapitate her, Kansa threw the heavy brass urn full of ash at the pisaca. The metallic urn found its mark and hit the pisaca in the centre of his head from where all the eight tentacles sprouted. The pisaca staggered in mid-air and landed on the ground, dazed. The ash had clouded his vision and he faltered. Seizing the opportunity, Kansa caught hold of him by his serpentine tail and dashed his body to the ground with one mighty heave. The pisaca lay motionless, his tail twitching involuntarily in pain and wrath.

  Kansa held Devki in a tight embrace, half-sobbing in frustrated rage at seeing her in this condition. He knew, though, that the fight was far from over. The kalakanja was lumbering in their direction, his face contorted in anger. Kansa instinctively shielded Devki behind his body and got ready to battle the towering monster. He knew the kalakanja had the advantage of height and speed, but Kansa gauged from the monster’s gait that he may not be able to turn around that fast. He balanced his body weight on the balls of his toes in the classical pose of a pugilist. He waited as the kalakanja approached him and allowed him the first punch. Kansa feinted to his left and at the last moment, moved his right hand in a deadly jab just under the kalakanja’s abdomen. The blow would have permanently disabled a large mortal. But the kalakanja wasn’t a mortal. The jab only served to halt him for a moment, and before Kansa could land a second punch, the kalakanja had lifted him up in the air with the ease of a full-grown man picking up a toy. However, this was what Kansa had been waiting for. He would never have reached the level of the monster’s height on his own. As the kalakanja glared at him with a malevolent smile, Kansa dug both his thumbs, deep into the sockets of the monster’s eyes. The kalakanja screamed in pain and instinctively let go off Kansa, clutching at his eyes in agony. Kansa balanced himself as he landed on his feet and in a sweeping motion, kicked the kalakanja behind his right ankle. The gigantic creature tripped and fell to the ground with a loud thud that reverberated throughout the hill.

  Kansa was about to sit astride the kalakanja, with the intention of breaking his neck in the typical stratagem employed by wrestlers, when he saw an enormously built midget rushing towards him at what appeared to be an impossible speed. He stared, fascinated at the new monster, and tried too late to get out of its way. But the bonara was lightning fast. He rammed into Kansa before he could move and Kansa crashed to the ground in a nerve-jarring fall. The bonara seized the opportunity to slash at Kansa’s neck with one of his sharply pointed talons. Kansa rolled away just in time to avoid the fatal blow, but the talon still scraped his chest. It was enough to rip through the steel mesh covering Kansa’s torso. Kansa looked down at his chest; he was bleeding profusely. The blood was pouring out of his body at an alarming rate. He knew he only had a couple of minutes left after which he would not be able to move his limbs. The severe loss of blood would leave him in a state of temporary paralysis and the enemy would finish him off with ease. The bonara understood this too, but he knew there wasn’t enough time to play with the mortal. The soldiers would be upon them any moment now and they needed to leave with Devki’s head before that happened. Killing the giant mortal was not that important. He turned his attention towards Devki, who had rushed to Kansa’s side. Devki felt a rage she had never felt before and looked at her impending death in the form of the bonara with a total absence of fear. The bonara raised a talon and moved in for the kill.

  Just as he was about to bring down the talon to guillotine Devki, there was a chorus of ‘Har Har Mahadev’, and a spear flew through the air, chopping off the bonara’s descending talon in half. He stared uncomprehendingly at the severed limb that served as one of his feet. All at once, the scene was full of Madhuvan soldiers rushing in the direction of the monsters. Airawat led them with a wrathful countenance. It was his spear that had chopped off the bonara’s talon. But Airawat had underestimated the latter’s strength and his evil purpose. Thinking that the bonara would not be able to balance himself on his remaining leg, Airawat ran towards him without defending his body with his shield. When he was within touching distance, the lethal creature heaved his body in the air, and in a swishing movement, slashed at him with his remaining talon. Airawat saw the talon coming at him and lifted his shield in defence, but it was too late. The talon sliced through the heavy shield and hacked off Airawat’s left hand at the wrist. The bonara was about to finish him off when a bevy of soldiers rushed in to save their commander. The bonara’s attention was diverted in killing the brave soldiers, who gave up their lives to save their noble leader. Airawat had by now lost consciousness and lay senseless on the ground.

  Meanwhile, the pisaca got up gingerly. He was grievously injured from the beating he had received earlier from Kansa. He looked around in dismay at the kalakanja and the bonara caught up in trying to ward off the soldiers. His eyes searched for Devki; her death was the only thing of significance for him. He moved towards her. She was kneeling beside Kansa, trying to bandage his chest wound with cloth cut off from her sari. Devki saw the pisaca coming in her direction and she stretched her arm to grab the sword of a fallen soldier. The pisaca swirled his several tentacles in the direction of her face, each tentacle a deadly weapon. Devki was momentarily confused, and the pisaca seized the opportunity to knock off the sword from her hands. The next moment, his tentacles were wrapped around her neck, in an attempt to jerk her head off her body. Exactly at that moment, Kansa made a superhuman effort to lift himself off the ground and grabbing the sword Devki had been holding, he dug it in the middle of the pisaca’s head, right up to the hilt. The attack on his head made the pisaca involuntarily pull back his tentacles to shield himself, releasing Devki’s neck in the process. Exhausted with the severe blood loss and the en
ergy he had spent to get up, Kansa staggered. For a brief instant, his eyes closed of their own accord. The Pisaca, with the last vestiges of his strength, pierced Kansa’s exposed abdomen with the spike that lay hidden under his tentacles for close encounters with enemies. Kansa reeled back with the impact and fell to the ground, mortally wounded. The pisaca too tottered, swaying with the loss of blood from the head wound. Through a haze, he saw the bonara with his severed limb hard-pressed keeping the attacking soldiers at bay. The bonara was bleeding profusely from various cuts on his scaly body. The pisaca saw the kalakanja had killed more than ten soldiers but the large numbers attacking him from all sides would overpower him in a few minutes. The pisaca looked on helplessly, trying to decide what to do.

  As if on cue, the raucous voice of the Dark Lord entered his mind. Leave… Now! the voice seethed, the rage in the voice unmistakable.

  The pisaca trembled. They had failed their master. He had failed his master. The retribution would be terrible. He hooted in a low frequency, the sound audible only to the kalakanja and the bonara. The message was clear—they needed to leave at once. The three creatures from Pataal Lok focused at a point eight gavutas above the ground, equidistant from where each of them stood. The bonara and the kalakanja pointed one of their arms in the direction of that point, and the pisaca pointed one of his tentacles in the same direction. Before the others knew what was happening, an eerie green line of light emanated from the pointed limbs of each of the three creatures. It travelled upwards and seemed to culminate at the point above the ground, where the three of them were focusing their energies. As the three lines of light merged there was a simultaneous blast, eight gavutas up in the air. At the same time, there was a flurry of wind where each of the creatures stood, and what appeared to resemble a mini-typhoon hauled the swirling figures of the three monsters up into the air and disappeared along with them. The soldiers looked at where the three creatures had stood, just a moment ago. It seemed they had vanished into thin air. The mutilated and lifeless bodies scattered all around were the only evidence of the carnage that had taken place on the hill. Kansa and Airawat lay motionless, their life blood still ebbing out of their bodies.

  Shiva Educates Brahma

  here is he?’ Ugrasena roared in pain as he ran in the direction of Kansa’s quarters. A shell-shocked attendant had just informed the king that Kansa had been brought to the palace in an injured and unconscious condition. Devki had sent the attendant to urgently call him to Kansa’s chambers where the royal vaid was administering emergency procedures to try and save the prince’s life.

  ‘Father!’ Devki exclaimed as she hugged Ugrasena.

  ‘Wh-What happened?’ Ugrasena stammered as he saw the scratches on Devki’s face and her bedraggled condition. Then his gaze fell on Kansa lying motionless on the bed, and he took a sharp breath. His chest and abdomen were bandaged all over and yet the blood had soaked through the layers. There was no visible sign of life, and it appeared that Kansa’s soul had already departed his body. Ugrasena moved hesitantly towards his son and tentatively touched his forehead to smoothen the locks of hair covering Kansa’s eyes. His lips were quivering with suppressed emotion as he sat beside the lifeless body of his son and took his hands in his own.

  ‘Don’t leave me, my son!’ he whispered through a haze of tears, as he kept rubbing Kansa’s palms. ‘Don’t leave me yet!’ he repeated to himself over and over again.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ the royal vaid gently touched the king’s shoulder. But Ugrasena was in a world of his own and did not respond. The vaid looked pleadingly at Devki. He was afraid that the trauma of Kansa’s death would kill Ugrasena, who was already frail due to his prolonged illness.

  Devki shook her head helplessly. She did not know what to do either. She couldn’t believe her giant of a brother was dead. It can’t be, dammit! You can’t die like this, she thought angrily, as the dam broke and the tears threatened to drown her in her own sorrow.

  ‘The wounds were too deep, my child. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything,’ the vaid tried to sound professional but his voice choked towards the end of the sentence. He willed himself to regain his control, ‘We will need to prepare the body…uh…the prince, for his final journey,’ he said in an attempt to shift his thoughts to something that he could do in order to stop thinking about the young prince’s death.

  Ugrasena still sat mumbling to himself. But now his voice trembled with an unnatural excitement. Devki strained to listen to what he was saying. She froze as she heard the words.

  ‘He is alive…he is alive. My son is alive,’ Ugrasena was rambling incoherently.

  Devki glanced in the direction of the vaid, who shook his head sadly. ‘The king is in shock,’ he whispered gently to her. ‘It happens when one is faced with a trauma as big as this.’

  Devki was only half-listening to the vaid. She was attentively looking at Kansa’s body and suddenly caught an unmistakable movement of his arm. She wasn’t sure whether Kansa had actually moved his arm or whether the king had shaken it unknowingly while rubbing her brother’s palms. She walked towards the bed to take a closer look at Kansa’s body.

  And then it happened! Kansa opened his eyes and his pupils gleamed with a bright green light. Devki wasn’t sure whether it was her imagination or she actually saw the flash of green. It was there for a moment and then it was gone, replaced by the brown pupils that she had always adored.

  She turned around excitedly towards the vaid, ‘He is alive…he opened his eyes just now,’ she said exultantly.

  The vaid rushed to the bed. The eyes were closed now. He gave Devki a confused stare, trying to decide whether she had imagined it, but Devki was pointing at Kansa’s torso now. The vaid followed her gaze and his mouth fell open at what he saw. The bandages covering Kansa’s wounds were beginning to dry up on their own. It was happening at an imperceptible pace but there was no doubt that it was happening. The vaid also noticed something else. He pointed at Kansa’s arms to show Devki what he saw. The scratch marks on the prince’s arms seemed to be vanishing before their very eyes. It was almost as if the skin surrounding the scratch marks was closing over to shroud the cuts, healing them completely.

  ‘What sorcery is this?’ Devki whispered in amazement, as she saw the cuts healing on their own, one after the other.

  ‘Not sorcery, dear; in some people the cells replicate and grow back much faster than in others. This is why it takes some people a long time in having their wounds healed, while others heal much faster,’ the vaid explained.

  He examined Kansa’s body more closely, ‘But I must say I have never seen a man heal so rapidly in my entire life. The prince’s cells seem to be replicating and growing back at a faster rate than any other case I have ever seen or heard about.’

  ‘His heart has started beating,’ Ugrasena whispered, still not taking his eyes off his son. The king was still in shock but he had regained some of his composure, now that Kansa showed signs of being alive.

  ‘Your Majesty, I’m going to take his bandages off,’ the vaid said motioning respectfully to the king to move aside.

  ‘What? Won’t that cause the wound to bleed again?’ Ugrasena said in an unsure tone.

  The vaid pointed at Kansa’s torso, ‘The bleeding has stopped, Your Majesty. The healing will be faster if I open the bandages and let the wound breathe freely.’ For once in his life, he didn’t wait for the king to give his concurrence, as he started to carefully remove the bandages.

  ‘Wait!’ Ugrasena commanded. ‘How can the bleeding stop so suddenly?’

  The vaid sighed ‘I can’t explain how, Your Majesty. This is the first time I have seen something like this. But I do know that the bleeding has stopped completely,’ he said, putting the palm of his hand on Kansa’s bandages and showing the king that his hand was dry.

  Seeing Ugrasena’s uncertain expression, he continued, ‘Sometimes the body clots at a much faster rate. In the prince’s case it has happened at an unprecedented speed. If I d
on’t open the bandages now, the wound might start festering inside.’ He waited impatiently for Ugrasena’s reaction.

  ‘Father, let him open the bandages,’ Devki urged, as she patted Ugrasena’s arm reassuringly. Ugrasena reluctantly nodded his agreement and the vaid proceeded to unravel the layers of bandages covering Kansa’s torso. There was a loud gasp from the vaid as he undid the final layer. He motioned to Devki and Ugrasena to behold what he had just seen. The wounds on Kansa’s torso, including the spot where the pisaca had pierced his abdomen with his deadly spike, had almost completely healed.

  ‘Lord Shiva be praised!’ Ugrasena breathed in relief as he kneeled down to thank the God. Devki mumbled her gratitude to Shiva too, as she gazed upon the now completely healed body of her brother.

  The vaid shivered involuntarily. He knew what neither Devki nor Ugrasena knew. No mortal could have healed as fast as Kansa had just done!

  The cavernous room appeared even more sinister today to the three creatures than it had on their previous visit. The terracotta lamps shed their dim light around the room, making shadows appear out of nowhere. The windows were open; and outside the wind howled with a fury that was ominous in itself. The pisaca steeled himself to face the wrath of the Dark Lord. He knew he had failed him and would have to bear the consequences. His serpentine tail had almost recovered from the bruises received at Kansa’s hands, but his head was badly wounded. The blood loss had been severe. In the haste to report to his master, he hadn’t found time to get it attended to.

  The bonara balanced himself on his lone taloned foot. The loss of his other limb hurt him sorely. It wasn’t just the physical pain. His two talons had been his prime tools of imparting death to his enemies. The loss of one talon hit him psychologically. Yet at that moment, the bonara was more concerned about dealing with his master’s rage at the failure of their mission than with anything else.