Now what else was she to do? She had no one to support her. Once again, the man whom she trusted broke her faith, though she did not feel anger toward the sage; just pity. He had done his best, and he was still doing his best, willing himself on against her enemy in spite of knowing that it was fruitless to do so. He would learn soon enough, she knew, and he would come back, his body bruised and his soul shattered, and he would ask her to go elsewhere if she still wanted to have her revenge.
Or, she thought with a sneer, he would tell her to forget it all and live in peace.
She called out: ‘Mother!’
An answering breeze touched her face and cooled it. Outside, each of the huts had lamps burning at their front doors. Only hers was dark. She felt a shadow move across the doorway, but when she walked out and stood under the stars she found no one. ‘Mother!’ she called out again, ‘why do you place me among impotent men who can neither wield weapons nor study the scriptures? Where must I turn now? Is there not a man in all of North Country who could stand up to Bhishma and subdue him?’
Another breeze blew from the direction of the well, and she ran to the fence, looking out to see if she could hear anything. All she heard was the faint hiss of the Yamuna flowing in her own unfettered way. The smell of night queens made her nose hair tingle, and when she picked one up, she saw that it had been trampled upon. She smoothed the petals tenderly and set it in her hair just above her right ear, and looking up she said again: ‘Mother, give me a sign that you hear me speak!’
A third gust of breeze blew, this one so strong that it sent her hair flying and knocked off the flower in her ear to the ground. From far away in the woods, she heard the distinct call of a nightingale. She looked all around her to see if anyone else was present, and when she looked back at the tree, she heard the call once again. She took two steps toward it, but she hesitated and stopped, for it was dark and cold out there. ‘Mother,’ she whispered, ‘whom shall I turn to now?’
A fawn sprang out of the woods, startling her, and blinked at her with big blue eyes. When she extended her arm to him he merely held her gaze for a long minute, then turned and skipped away into the bushes. Amba followed him.
The fawn led her to the riverbank where she had often sat with her head buried between her legs, weeping at her fate. The stars seemed to have drawn closer this night, she thought, looking about herself, marvelling at the blue light that bathed the trees, the silver sparkle in the calm waters of the Yamuna, and the white heads of wildflowers that waved this way and that in the breeze. When she neared the shore and extended her arm for the fawn he once again bounded away out of reach, and looking at his thick purple coat she thought of the corn fields of Panchala.
As she sat on the edge of the bank, with her feet immersed in the water, she repeated the question, this time to herself: ‘Whom do I turn to now?’ At the same time the fawn came and sat by her, stretching himself out on the sand such that his chin came to rest upon her thigh. She leaned forward to run her hand over his head, and in so doing she caught her reflection in the water.
She had perhaps changed more in the last one month than she had throughout her life, she thought, looking at her naked toned arms, her loose hair, her unruly skin. Once a princess, now she had become half a priestess. And what had the High Sage said? A priestess is slave to no man. She only answers to the Goddess. Why should a priestess, then, depend upon men to do her bidding?
The fawn closed his eyes and nuzzled against her hand. His fur was cold and soft to the touch. She had raged against Sage Parashurama and blamed him for not giving her what she had wanted, but she had not realized that he had given her all that she needed. She had held him responsible – like she had held Drupad responsible – for not being brave enough for taking on her problems on his shoulders and delivering her to her goal, but she had not stopped to think for even a moment why he must fight her wars. By starting her on the path of a priestess, he had given her all the tools she needed; now it was up to her to find her path and walk along it, wherever it may lead.
She could not – she would not – stay on at the hermitage and rely on the sage. The longer she stayed on, the more she would resent her life and his inability to fulfil her dreams. She had to move on. She had to learn to look inward in times of strife and find the solution within, and she had to remember that a true priestess bowed to no man.
She got to her feet, and looking up at the sky she murmured: ‘I am coming to you, Mother.’
TWELVE
AMBA SPEAKS
I remember that night as if it were yesterday. People who claim to hear the gods are either mad or are lying, but on that night when I sat by the Yamuna and looked up into the dark blue sky, I felt the Goddess’s smile warm on my arms, and she seemed to whisper to me that I must go to her. Perhaps I was at the edge of my own reason. Still, as I sat caressing the forehead of the fawn, I was aware of no other sound but the Yamuna’s soft gurgling, of no other smell but that of the wet grass beneath my feet, of no other touch but that of the Mother’s caress.
I waited till the Sage’s return to tell him of my decision, and though he warned me again that the path of a priestess was a long and arduous one, he blessed me and said that I should set up my hut a mile or so northward, closer to the riverbank where the green-apple trees stood. Although he said that I was not yet ready to live on my own, I left him the very day he returned, accompanied by two of his younger sages who would help me raise my hut. I did not tend to the sage’s bruises and wounds; I was too eager to go where the Goddess promised to lead me. I would look back at the oversight later as evidence that I had not yet learnt to step out of myself, and I would offer my nursing care to the sage, but by then all his wounds would have turned to scars.
In the beginning of that first year, when I went to the lake to fill up my earthen pot, every now and then, my glance would steal to my reflection, and I would set my hair in order, or lift the edge of my garment to better cover my bare shoulder. When I came upon blooming jasmines, my hand would pluck them seemingly on its own and place them in my hair, and on some evenings I would sit by the doorstep tying them together with a thread into a garland. I would apply sandal paste mixed with turmeric to my arms and hands, and I would rub them together, marvelling at how soft they became.
On the first full moon day after I moved to my own hut, I invited the sages at the hermitage for a meal – though I still took the raw grains from them – and all evening I spent restless in my mind, eager to hear from the sages how tasty everything was. I dressed up well for this occasion, I remember, and it was only at the end of the meal, when I caught my reflection on an upturned brass plate, that I wondered why the Goddess had not spoken to me after that night by the Yamuna. After everyone had left and I lay alone on my mat with my arm resting over my forehead to shade my eyes from the moon’s rays, just as sleep was about to take me, it hit me like a bolt. I suddenly knew the reason for the Goddess’s silence.
Beginning the day after, I cast away my hair pin and the container of sandal paste and turmeric. Whenever I went to the river or drew water from Parashurama’s well, I made certain that I did not look at myself. I kept away all brass plates and began to use only earthen vessels. The less I saw of myself, I found, the less I thought of myself. The only things that remind us of ourselves are these objects, things that reflect our physical appearance, I thought, and only after about three moons of such abstinence, I saw Parashurama’s scars for the first time.
‘I beg your pardon, High Sage, for not nursing you when you returned from the battle you fought for my sake,’ I told him, but he just smiled and brushed his beard with his fingers. That night, after I had said my prayers and rolled open my mat, I saw in my courtyard the fawn of that fateful blue night, prancing in joy.
At the beginning of the second year, Sage Parashurama brought for me a grey cloak made of a hard, coarse fabric that burnt the back of my hand when I felt it. I was to wear the hood over me for twelve hours of every day, and for thos
e twelve hours I was to tie around my eyes a black cloth so that I do not see. Only when you stop seeing do you truly open your eyes to life around you, said the High Sage that night, and over the course of the year I would see what he meant. In the autumn of that year I reared a calf after her mother had died in childbirth, and during that winter my fawn broke his hind leg while trying to jump over a stream in pursuit of a butterfly. I brought water from the brook and froze it with the white salt-like powder that the High Sage gave me, and I tied the ice wrapped in a piece of cotton around the fawn’s leg. In that spring I also sprained my hip when the calf butted me one morning when I was about to leave to the hermitage to fill my vessel with water. But she hurt her nose too in the process, and I applied some turmeric on her bruise and allowed her to sleep next to me until the wound healed.
Sometime during this year, news came to me that Ambika and Ambalika had both given birth to sons. It did not raise so much as a flutter in my heart.
The first day of the third year began with heavy storms. The river overflowed and immersed the roots of the green-apple trees, and the well from which we drew water swelled so much that we could just lean over and reach the water. At nights I heard the boom of thunder and old, heavy trees crashing to the ground. On one such night Sage Parashurama came to my hut, his hair dripping with water, and I asked him the question that had been plaguing me for a long time.
‘Am I a priestess yet, my lord?’ I asked. ‘Am I ready now to vanquish Bhishma?’
The High Sage said, ‘If you have to still ask that question, my dear, then you are not ready.’
He gifted me a cow to rear that autumn, and his sages built for her a shed in my yard, under the big guava tree. My calf took to the cow’s teat enthusiastically, and the cow did not resist. She gave me milk every day too, and now on my return from the well after filling my vessels, I would bring for her a bale of dry hay from Sage Parashurama’s yard.
I would hear news of Bhishma and of Hastinapur, and as the year progressed I found that my fist had ceased closing at the mention of his name. By the time the first rain clouds of the new year had begun to gather, I found that I could think about him without my heartbeat quickening, and I even thought that if he were to come to my hermitage in need of a vessel of milk, I may – just may – find it within my heart to invite him in and sit by his side while he drank, to fan away the mosquitoes and bugs.
My fourth year began on a sunny note, for Bhishma had begun to recede from my thoughts, even as Hastinapur’s news became less and less frequent now that everything was well. I went to the hermitage on the first day of the year and brought back with me seeds for tomatoes, potatoes, spinach and corn. I had no knowledge of farming and rearing crops, but I thought it should not be that difficult compared to caring for animals, and with my calf now on the way to becoming a full-sized cow, and my fawn outgrowing his need for my attention, I had begun to notice that time hung heavy on my hands. I thought that if Parashurama could have a vegetable garden, so could I.
Although it was not as simple as that, by the end of that winter, I had a patch of land behind my hut on which I grew most of the things that I needed to eat. But for rice, which I still got from the hermitage – and which the hermitage still got from the kingdom of Kunti – everything else the Goddess gave me through her land.
It is one of the great wonders how time seems to shrink when one is busy. Plants, I found, were harder to look after than animals. For one, plants could not swat away flies and mosquitoes on their own, so one had to guard them, protect them, nurture them. I built a fence around my farm, much like the one Parashurama had, and every morning, a zebra and a clutch of monkeys would come and sit atop it, calling out to me to come feed them.
All year, I woke up each day before dawn broke, and I went to sleep only long after the sun had set, with aching muscles and heavy eyes. It was probably the least mindful I had been of time in my life before or since, and it was also the soundest that I had slept.
In my fifth year, I cast off my rings, my jewelled coronet, my sleeping mat, my silk clothes that I had taken when I left Hastinapur, my arm bands, and the few gold discs that I had bundled up in my sack. I do not know why I did this; but I can say that I knew I needed to do it, and once I had done it, I felt happier, and I could feel the Goddess draw me closer to her in embrace. During that year I gave away most of the milk my cows produced to the hermitage, and my vegetable farm had grown to a size where it could quite easily feed three grown men. Sage Parashurama often sent young men from the hermitage to my hut for foodgrains and for manure, and though they smelled like heaven and carried the knowledge of the world in their eyes, I found to my surprise that I was not once tempted to draw one of them to my side. I was not beyond bodily desires yet, I knew, for I still bled between my thighs every month, but there was not the ache I once had for the touch of a man.
Once a wandering sage came to me for water, and while I asked him to wait he stared at me through the doorway and asked if I was a priestess. Quite taken aback, I said, ‘No, my lord, not to my knowledge.’ He said he was from the Northern Mountains and that he needed a place to stay for the night. Though I understood his meaning, I pretended that I had not, and guided him to Sage Parashurama’s hermitage.
I still had desires, and I did not hide them from myself, for had the High Sage once not said that a priestess ought not to be ashamed of that which comes from the Goddess? But I no longer had the ravenous fire within me that demanded a man by my side, the fire that I had grown up with, the fire which – during my time with Salva and with Vichitraveerya – had at times threatened to devour me.
Now it just seemed to glow somewhere deep in me, blue and cold.
THIRTEEN
The queen who knelt in front of her was no more than a girl, thought Amba. She was dressed in all her royal finery – a green and yellow fabric stitched together to wrap her up like she were a silkworm. The heavy gold pendant hung off her neck and dragged it down like it was a millstone. Her mind went back, for one fleeting second, to that day eight years ago when she had come to Parashurama’s hermitage, dressed just like this.
‘Which kingdom do you come from, child?’ she asked softly.
‘My lady, I come from the city of Anga, which resides on the shore of the Eastern Sea.’
‘That is quite some distance.’
‘My need is pressing, my lady,’ she said, bowing low.
‘We shall come to it, my dear. But first, tell me your name.’
‘They call me Anjasi, after the river.’
Amba nodded at the attendant waiting outside. When he entered, she said to both of them, ‘You will need to cast away your clothes and dress in garments that we shall give you.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Every spring, we keep the rite of fertility. All four of my priestesses take part in it. This year’s rite is perhaps too soon for you, but if you do well, you can keep it next year.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘I must tell you that this one year will be the hardest of your life, child.’ She tried to keep her voice free of derision, but she was not certain that she succeeded. A hint of scorn crept into her tone. ‘This is not a palace, and you will have no attendants serving you.’
Anjasi bowed. ‘I shall serve you with all my love and care, my lady.’
Amba saw the glittering rings on the girl’s fingers. She had half a mind to instruct her to give away her jewellery too, but she caught herself. Amba herself had not given up her coronet until the third year, she remembered. It was one of the hardest things for a girl to do, giving up her jewellery. It was akin to asking a king to set aside his sword, even if he had never fought a war.
‘We do not have mirrors in our hermitage,’ said Amba, ‘nor do we speak to each other unless we must. We all know our duties, and lord knows there is enough to keep you on your toes from sunrise to sundown.’ She paused to look at the queen. ‘Have you seen to any household chores in your father’s house, girl?’
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br /> Anjasi shook her head, shamefaced.
Amba sighed. This was going to be harder than she had thought. They all came with twinkling eyes and pretty smiles, but after two days of the life of a priestess, they fled, covering their ears with their dainty little hands. She wondered if she should tell Anjasi of all the other hardships she would see in the next one year, but she cut herself short. Anjasi would learn all in due course, like she – and all other priestesses – had. It was like crossing a bridge of stones; only after stepping on one did you think of the next.
‘Do you have any questions?’ she asked.
The queen began to shake her head, but mustered courage and looked up at Amba. She said, ‘My lady, they say you walked through fire after you had become a priestess. Is that true?’
Amba thought of the night three years ago, after her five-year period of training had ended. Parashurama had pointed her towards a bed of burning coals and asked her to walk through it. Without hesitating for even a second, she had closed her eyes, joined her hands, and stepped on the red embers with the mother’s name to her lips.
Amba wondered if she would do the same today. Three years of being a priestess had dulled the keenness of her senses, somewhat. Now she had four young women doing her bidding – and a fifth was about to join them. Though she kept up her basic training, she doubted if she had been firm enough with herself to withstand the test of fire. She had thought becoming a priestess was hard enough; in the last three years she had come to realize how wrong she was: staying a priestess was the real challenge. She smiled to herself, hoping the Goddess could not hear her think.
‘It was a long time ago, my child, but yes. I did walk through fire.’
‘Will I … be required to do the same, when I am done?’
‘Nothing will be required of you that you cannot do, my child,’ said Amba, holding the girl’s chin with her forefinger. ‘But you shall not become a whole priestess, therefore you shall not be asked to walk through fire. You will merely be taught the ways of a priestess so that you may bring forth a son that your kingdom is proud of.’
The Rise of Hastinapur Page 9
