Pregnant King, The (37 page)

‘Because like Shiva, your throat is blue with a truth that threatens our sense of order. With compassion you withhold it and suffer it, until we are wise enough to receive it.’

‘You equate my truth with poison?’

‘The truth is not poison. It is our inability to handle it that makes it poisonous.’

‘Why Bhairavi?’

‘Because you terrify us with the infinite possibilities of the world. Tell us there is always something we do
not know. You demand that we widen our vision and our vocabulary, so that we make room for all, and are frightened of nothing.’

The Angirasa then led Yuvanashva by his hand and made him sit on a great black rock under a banyan tree. Behind the tree was a vast waterfall. They spread a tiger skin on it. ‘Sit,’ they said. Yuvanashva sat down.

The hermits collected water from the river in their gourds. This water was poured over Yuvanashva. The Angirasa then sprinkled turmeric and vermilion powder on him. It fell on him like a shower of gold dust and sacrificial blood. They garlanded him with strings of red and white flowers. Then the hundred ascetics and the eight Angirasa lit lamps on leaves and waved them around Yuvanashva.

‘Nilakantha Bhairavi, we salute you,’ said the Angirasa touching their heads to the floor.

‘Yuvaneshwar, we salute you,’ said the hermits bowing their heads.

Tears of joy rolled down Yuvanashva’s eyes. I am both. I am the terrifying embodiment of society’s unspoken truth. I am also yet another of nature’s delightful surprises. I am the soul. I am also the flesh. This is who I am.

Amidst the circle of waving lamps, Yuvanashva had a vision of Ileshwara stretched out between the earth and sky, bedecked in all fourteen symbols of manhood and all fourteen symbols of womanhood. This was the ancestor who understood his particular pain. This was the divinity who understood everyone’s pain. His lips were curled in a tender smile. Her eyes were full of affection. The glance had only inclusions, no exclusions. Total understanding. Unconditional liberating love.

Hundreds of priests gathered on the banks of the Kalindi, their heads tonsured, their faces grim. It was the last day of the waning moon in the third month of the monsoons. The day when the land of the living was closest to the land of the dead. The day when every man pays his respects to his forefathers and renews his annual promise to rotate the cycle of life.

The crows waited patiently on behalf of the ancestors for the sons to arrive.

The Brahmanas had been busy all night. Senior priests updated the family tree of the households they served: the births and deaths that had happened in the last year. Junior priests organized the ingredients of the ritual: plantain leaves, black sesame seeds, rice cakes.

First the priests invoked their own ancestors. This happened before dawn. By first light they were ready to receive their Kshatriya patrons. Ceremonies for farmers, herdsmen, craftsmen and merchants were planned later in the day. For the rest, a collective ceremony was organized at the end of the day. The rituals continued at night for those whose names had been forgotten and for those who had left no offspring behind. Due attention was given to each and every ancestor of Vallabhi.

As the sun rose, the river bank was crowded with men belonging to warrior clans, all with tonsured heads, all dressed in simple white dhotis, sitting in small groups while their priest on their behalf invoked and offered oblations first to the gods who live in the sky, then to the demons who live under the earth, then to the spirits in between who protect the family, the home, the clan, the village, the earth, and finally to the ancestors. The chanting lacked melody and was occasionally interrupted by the wail of men who remembered their fathers.

The sky was grey. Even the trees, washed clean, bent their branches as if in mourning.

The barber had arrived at the palace at the crack of dawn. As he produced the gold razor, reserved for royalty, Mandhata protested, ‘But my father still lives. My mothers are not widows yet.’

Simantini, who had given up all solid food since her husband’s departure, replied, ‘It is the way of the Turuvasus. Your father is not physically dead. But he has renounced his role as head of this household and ruler of this kingdom. He has severed all ties with his family. Even given up his name. He is dead as far as society is concerned. Until this fact is ritually acknowledged, you cannot become king.’

‘Why did he have to leave, mother?’ asked Mandhata.

Like you don’t know, thought Pulomi. Keshini started to sob. Simantini looked at Mandhata. How long will we ignore the truth, she wanted to scream. But she controlled herself. Before her sat not the ruthless opportunist but a lonely boy consumed by guilt and shame.

She saw the tears welling up in his eyes. She straightened her back, and said, ‘It is inappropriate for members of the royal family to shed tears over the king’s decisions and its consequences. This moment is the way it is supposed to be.’

Jayanta sat next to his brother, holding his hands, feeling his guilt. He refused to judge Mandhata. Or be angry with him. Or make pronouncements of how royalty should or should not behave. He let his brother be. He made himself available for comfort and conversation. Whatever was needed to go through this day. He let himself be tonsured too.

The barber had left only a small tuft of hair on top of his head. ‘That’s to remind you to return to the world of the living. The shaved head to mourn those in the land of the dead.’

The sound of conch-shell trumpets and the sight of red flags announced the arrival of the king. For a brief period it broke the prevailing melancholy. Priests on the river bank rushed through the ceremonies of their patrons so that they could see the king. The patrons did not protest. They too were curious to see the new king conduct his first offering to the ancestors.

Head shaved, dressed in a single piece of cloth, Mandhata walked barefoot to the bend of the river reserved for royal ceremonies. There was no parasol above him. No elder beside him. Only his brother. On this day, he walked not as king, but as a mortal man. A son.

As Mandhata sat down, he felt strange. This was one ceremony where there would be no laughter or music. Only the sound of chants and the cawing of crows. Hundreds of crows. Flying overhead, seated on
the fences, swooping down to eat the countless rice balls that lined the river. He felt anxious. He looked around and found his brother standing at a respectful distance, along with other members of the royal family and his curious subjects. The public spectacle of mourning made him uncomfortable. But it had to be done. With a gesture, he asked Jayanta to sit next to him. He could not go through the ceremony alone.

Plantain leaves were spread out before Mandhata— vertically not horizontally. His sacred thread was shifted so that it hung from his right shoulder not left. He was told to consecrate the food by pouring water from the wrong side of his palm. ‘While we respect our ancestors, at no point must we let them feel too welcome, lest they become ghosts and haunt our land,’ said the senior priest whose family had served the royal house for centuries.

Mandhata faced south. Far beyond the horizon the ancestors lived in a world that was all upside down. But Yuvanashva was not there. He walked on the northern hills known by his new name—Nilakantha Bhairavi.

A strange name. Nilakantha Bhairavi. The blue-necked god who evokes fear. Shiva’s name after he drank poison. Is that what he called the magic potion? Poison? Did he feel he was a monster after the poison changed him forever? A freak who frightens all? Mandhata felt the guilt returning. When the truth was revealed, he had rejected Yuvanashva, turned away from the truth. Yes, at that moment, Yuvanashva was Bhairavi, an ugly truth he did not want to face.

‘Your father’s name?’ asked the priest. This was a ritual question. The ritual demanded an answer. For in
speaking the name, the dead were remembered. And in being remembered, they come alive.

‘What?’ Mandhata was shaken out of his thoughts.

‘Your father’s name?’ repeated the priest. Mandhata saw the plantain leaves before him, placed vertically. His mind returned to the ceremony. What was that question again? Father’s name?

Mandhata remembered his last real conversation with his father. ‘I gave you birth, son. I nursed you.’ Mandhata remembered his shock. His revulsion. Why did his father have to say it and make it real? The whole scene was so melodramatic, so surreal. Why could his father not be mature about it? Just keep silent. Let things be. As they were. Move on. But then, he was not a father. ‘There is no one here. Just you and me. Will you, just once, just this once, call me “mother”? Just once. I so long to hear it.’

‘My king, your father’s name?’ the priest repeated a third time, a little louder, but careful to hide his impatience.

Mandhata could not respond. The poison of deceit could not be swallowed. It could not be spat out either. It burned the throat. Like acid. Truth is that which is uttered. Mandhata could not reply. He did not know the answer. A tear rolled down his cheek.

Embarrassed, the priest looked away and pretended he had heard the answer, ‘Yuvanashva. We invoke you. Yuvanashva’s father, Prasenajit. We invoke you. Prasenajit’s father, Pruthalashva. We invoke you. We invoke all the ancestors who walked the earth before the father, the grandfather and the great grandfather, all those whose names have been forgotten. May Mandhata’s offering please all. He renews his vow to
repay his debt, to father sons, to bring his Pitrs back, to follow the footsteps of all the men before him.’

Jayanta saw the tear. He heard his brother’s silence. In that silence he heard Mandhata acknowledge Yuvanashva for the first time, perhaps the only time, as his mother.

Jayanta wept.

He wept for his family, his mothers, his brother and for his grandmother, the venerable Shilavati, and for all the pain and suffering that we endure to maintain a façade of order.

He wept for his father, the pregnant king, for the imperfection of the human condition, and for our stubborn refusal to make room for all those in between.

And then it begins

The search

For the fifth head of Brahma

His first gave us words

His second gave us grammar

His third gave us meter

His fourth gave us melody

The last one is missing

The fifth

The head with meaning

The story of the pregnant king is recounted twice in the Mahabharata. Once by the sage Lomasha during the exile of the Pandavas. And the second time by the poet Vyasa during the war with the Kauravas. The story is also retold in several Puranas, each with its own unique twist. Why does this bizarre tale exist, I have wondered. What function does it serve in the sacred chronicles?

Typically the tale belongs to an earlier era, pre-dating the battle at Kuru-kshetra by many generations. Not so in my book.

This book is a deliberate distortion of tales in the epics. History has been folded, geography crumpled. Here, Yuvanashva is a contemporary of the Pandavas who engages Arjuna in a dialogue.

There are new characters like Yuvanashva’s mother, Mandhata’s brother and Shikhandi’s daughter. None of these have any scriptural basis. They have been churned out of my imagination as I have tried to weave a tapestry of tales that at the very least delights.

Yes, the classical scriptures do tell the tales of Somvat, Sthunakarna and Shikhandi. Stories of Ayli (called Pramila here), Iravan and Bahuchari (called Bahugami here) are part of the rural and hijra traditions of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. But I have let these only inspire, not limit, me. I have even taken the liberty of coalescing the story of Ila and Bhangashvana into one.

The book is full of hymns, chants, rituals, spells, speculations, philosophies and ancient codes of conduct. These must not be taken as authentic as my intention is not to recreate reality but to represent thought processes.

At the end of my yagna, after long deliberations with many gods and demons, I find myself holding a pot: the narrative. Within the pot is a potion: a concoction of ideas, thoughts and feelings.

My patron, the Yajamana, can admire the pot. Or break it. Drink the potion. Or spit it out. Or she may ask, as I often do, what matters more: the pot or the potion?

Did the events actually happen? Does it matter? Is it really about Shilavati, Yuvanashva, Shikhandi or
Somvati? Or is it about love, law, identity, gender, power and wisdom? The impossibility of universal fairness? Who knows?

Within infinite myths lies the eternal truth

Who sees it all?

Varuna has but a thousand eyes

Indra a hundred

And I, only two