PRINCE IN EXILE (119 page)

Rama smiled at the vanar’s incisiveness and sensitivity. ‘With you as my champion, how can I doubt it?’ 

Hanuman looked up at him, wonderingly. ‘Do you jest with me, Lord Rama? I, your champion? Surely you make fun of this poor vanar?’ 

‘Why would I make fun of you, Hanuman? You are a valiant being, and I am certain you are a great warrior in combat as well. I have not had the pleasure of seeing you at war, nor have I fought alongside you, but my instinct tells me that you have a brave heart, a stout resolve and great reserves of strength, and anything you set your mind to, you can accomplish.’ 

Hanuman’s eyes grew large and wide. ‘That is the second time you have spoken highly of my abilities, Rama. You praise this wretched vanar overmuch. Do you really see such qualities in my feeble form?’ He stretched out his limbs, staring down at them himself as well as inviting Rama to do so, as if wondering how these thin arms and legs and concave belly could have the strength that Rama spoke of. 

‘My friend, true strength comes not only from the body, but from the soul. Those who are strong in dharma can summon great reserves of physical strength to accomplish their goals. I sense in you an infinite reservoir of untapped shakti. You have but to reach down within yourself and draw upon that reservoir and you will have all the strength you need.’ 

Rama indicated the leaf of food lying beside Hanuman. ‘But you must also feed your body to keep it healthy and fit. We are Kshatriyas. Ours is not the way of the Brahmins and the seers, we do not need to fast and starve ourselves in order to attain moksha. We achieve our salvation through the commission of righteous deeds. Through karma lies our way to godhead. Eat well, eat hearty, my friend, feed your body as well as your mind well, and nourish your inner being. For he is the Hanuman I speak of, and he is as great a yoddha as any I have ever known. He is my champion.’ 

Hanuman sat so still and stared up at Rama so intensely, that Rama thought the vanar must surely choke from want of breath. Anticipating another show of profuse gratitude and prostration, Rama picked up his own leaf of food and held it out to Hanuman. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take some of my strength. Eat, my friend.’ 

Hanuman’s eyes misted over with tears. Rama, embarrassed now that he had so overwhelmed the vanar’s emotions, picked up a morsel of food and offered it to Hanuman. ‘Go on now, do not deprive yourself of what your body and spirit need to grow strong.’ 

Hanuman opened his mouth and took in the piece of food from Rama’s hand, taking it upon his pink tongue as reverentially as if he was being fed prasadam by a purohit after a yagna. Rama put the leaf in Hanuman’s hands, urging the vanar to eat. 

After that, Hanuman ate eagerly, enthusiastically. His eyes watched Rama every moment, glazed with thoughts and emotions that Rama could not begin to comprehend. Rama wondered if he had said too much, if he had been over effusive; after all, he himself was hardly in his senses these days. For all his talk of a Kshatriya needing to feed himself to maintain his strength, he had hardly been able to touch food and find sleep. In the dark watches of the night, his thoughts churned like buttermilk in a dai-ma’s earthen pot. The other night, lying on his back on the grassy slope of a lower hill in the redmist ranges, looking up at the midnight-black sky, lightning had flashed intermittently in the distant southern corner of the sky. In those curling, intertwining streaks of godlight, he imagined that he saw Sita writhing in the lustful clutches of Ravana. He passed a hand across his face, fighting to dispel such images. 

When Hanuman had finished his second or third helping, Lakshman squatted beside him and asked casually, ‘How was it, then, my friend?’ 

Hanuman grinned, his mouth appearing much too large and wide in relation to the rest of his face. Rama noticed the telltale lines of self-deprivation around the vanar’s eyes and neck. He had seen identical indications on the faces and bodies of tapasvi sadhus who spent their lives in penitential fasts. The vanar was clearly used to staying long periods without eating, a fact that accounted for his spare physique and bony ribs. 

‘It was a meal fit for royalty,’ he replied. ‘Truly, I must take some to my lords Angad and Sugreeva to show them how Agnideva graces your meals.’ 

‘Certainly,’ Lakshman said, sounding pleased. He served a quantity sufficient to feed a half-dozen vanars in plantain leaves and bound it all up with some slender vine that Hanuman fetched. 

As Hanuman started to leave, Rama stopped him. ‘My friend, a small request.’ 

‘Anything, my lord Rama,’ Hanuman replied with great earnestness. 

‘Just plain Rama,’ he reminded the vanar. He indicated the crowd of vanars bristling all around them, grown bolder and more curious now that they had seen their fellow vanar sitting before the frightening fire for a while without coming to harm. The dusk-darkened mountainside glittered with red vanar eyes reflecting the firelight not unlike a sky full of stars. ‘Without conveying any insult or giving offence, could you somehow request your fellows to give us a little privacy.’ 

‘Privacy?’ Hanuman sniffed. ‘I do not scent your meaning. What is privacy?’ 

Rama glanced at Lakshman who explained. ‘We humans are not accustomed to being watched so closely for so long. If you could request that your fellow vanars stop staring at us while we rest and sleep, it would be most appreciated.’ 

Hanuman tilted his head to one side, considering this odd un-vanarlike concept. ‘Privacy.’ He glanced around at the twinkling eyes. Sudden understanding dawned in his own eyes. ‘I scent it! You wish to hold a council, and do not wish to be heard until you are done, yes?’ 

Rama shrugged. ‘Something like that.’ 

Hanuman looked disappointed. ‘Then I will not be welcome back by your agni again tonight.’ 

‘Not at all, my friend. You are most welcome to rejoin us and stay by our fireplace all night. We would welcome your company, would we not, Lakshman?’ 

‘Of course,’ Lakshman said, and Rama was glad to hear that he sounded like he meant it. ‘I would like to speak of many things with you, about the vanar art of war and combat. We are fellow warriors after all.’ 

Hanuman’s chest puffed up with pride, his nostrils flaring. ‘You may ask me any question you wish about war and combat. If I cannot answer, no vanar can!’ 

Lakshman clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Then hurry back, my friend!’ 

Hanuman beamed with pleasure, then turned and loped away up the mountainside with startling speed. He issued an ululating call as he went, sounding simultaneously outraged and commanding. At the call, the hordes scattered, issuing varying cheekhas that seemed to range from irritation to impudence. Rama watched as Hanuman swatted several of his fellow vanars, cuffing others playfully but with enough strength and force to command compliance. The crowd surrounding their campsite dissipated slowly. Among the last to go was a young vanar hanging upside down by his tail. Hanuman called out to him in the vanar tongue, sounding stern, and the youngun somersaulted away, leaping agilely a few trees back where he sat, with his paws clapped over his ears. Rama wondered about that for several moments, then recalled Hanuman’s words. The vanars had no concept of privacy the way humans did. Hanuman had probably told the youngun that since the mortals were holding a council, they wished not to be heard, so the shrewd young fellow was continuing to watch them from afar, while covering his ears to avoid hearing their talk! He nudged Lakshman, pointing out the vanar and told him his theory. Lakshman burst out laughing. 

After a while, Lakshman brought the baked nuts and sat beside him silently for a while, cracking open the shells and placing them on a leaf before Rama. Across the mountain, birds wheeled and cried out, rushing to their nests before twilight turned to night and darkness enveloped the world. The vanars of Mount Rishimukha had all retreated as well, the females scolding and shooing away the last of the little vanars playing around the coconut-shaped rock. They waved their tails at Rama as they went, and he smiled and raised a hand, waving back. That made him think of Sita again, of how she would have loved the little ones and chased them around the rock and played hiding and seeking with them, and his smile faded like the last threads of sunlight in the west, leaving his face as dark and desolate as the night-shrouded earth. 

‘They are not what I expected,’ Lakshman said, mercifully breaking into his tortured thoughts, ‘your vanars.’ 

My vanars
? Yes, they were his vanars now, he supposed. Most of all, Hanuman, with whom he felt a bond growing with surprising quickness. ‘They are stout-hearted and wholly innocent in their emotions. It’s a rare quality to find among mortals.’ he replied. 

‘Yes, I see that. But …’ Lakshman hesitated. 

‘But?’ 

‘But are they strong enough to take on an army of rakshasas?’ Lakshman asked. 

Rama was silent as he pondered that. ‘I do not know. I think it depends on how many rakshasas we have to face.’ 

‘Then that is the first thing we must find out,’ Lakshman said. ‘Before we go to Lanka, we must send someone to spy out the lie of the land and the strength of the enemy, and—’ Lakshman paused again. ‘And see if Sita is safe and well.’ 

Rama’s throat tightened. ‘Yes. We will send spasas.’ 

‘And we will have to train these vanars, if we are to lead them into battle against rakshasas. No matter how many the enemy be in number, the rakshasas are bred for battle. They do not back down from a fight until every last one is wiped out. These vanars are stout of heart but they are not natural predators. They do not even hunt or eat flesh. They have never fought rakshasas in an open battle, I think. I am not sure how they will fare without preparation and training.’ 

‘We will train them,’ Rama said. 

‘And we must start very soon. Each day that passes is a day in hell for Sita. Devi alone knows what she must be going through in that lair of rakshasas. I cannot bear to even think of it. The sooner we march for Lanka, the sooner we will be able to free her from the clutches of that villain.’ 

‘We will march soon,’ Rama said. 

Lakshman fell silent then. Rama knew that he was thinking as well of Sita, and of what she might be going through at this very minute. He tried not to think the same thoughts, knowing they would only draw him into the spiral of despair he had been battling ever since they had set out for the redmist ranges to seek the aid of the vanar sena. 

He put his hand on Lakshman’s shoulders, squeezing tightly. 

Lakshman looked up at him, his eyes shining wetly in the gloom. He clutched Rama’s hand in an iron vice, and Rama squeezed back as hard as he could. They sat like that as the sky went from indigo to black and the stars came out like a wedding panoply embedded with glittering gems above them. In the distance, vanars called out to each other and the night grew peaceful and calm. In the night sky, the stars twinkled and turned as they had turned for countless aeons and the world went about its business as if this day was no different from any others before it or yet to come. 

SIX 

King Sugreeva’s face looked even sadder in the artificial light. The vanars had found rocklights and set them around the meeting place beneath the great tree, out of consideration for the reduced night vision of their mortal allies. The oddly shaped rocks gave off a weak greenish glow that seemed barely sufficient to dispel the thick jungle darkness, but as Lakshman’s eyes grew accustomed to them, he found he could see quite well. The same set of elders that were present at their arrival were here again, along with Angad, Hanuman and a few other younger vanars whom he presumed were watchguards, although they seemed more interested in the meeting than in keeping a lookout. Lakshman found their lack of watchfulness disturbing, and took it as yet another vanar habit that would have to be changed if they were to face Ravana’s army. 

He had expressed his concerns to Rama, and Rama had given him exactly the responses he had expected, but what neither of them had said aloud was the fear that the vanars, for all their bravado and pride, would be no more than butcher’s blocks for the brutal blades of the rakshasas of Lanka. Lakshman did not know if the vanars in Kiskindha were more disciplined or warlike, but if they were also the same as these exiled ones, then he did not have great hopes for their prospects of victory. The brigands they had led against the rakshasas in Chitrakut and had eventually defeated in Janasthana had been fighting men all, battling for their very survival. These vanars, even if they sent an army to aid Rama in his cause, had no true motivation. Win or lose, it would make no difference to them individually. Their homes, their lands, their loved ones, nothing was endangered, nothing hinged on the outcome of that conflict. And while several showed great spirit and warriorlike drive—Angad was certainly one, Hanuman another, that ageing general Sharaka—Lakshman was uncertain if they possessed the necessary martial skills to face and conquer rakshasas. 

King Sugreeva spoke then, compelling Lakshman to pack away his troubled thoughts for the nonce. 

‘My friends, I have asked you here at this late hour because I wish to tell you the story of my brother Vali and myself. Tomorrow, as we have mutually decided, we march for Kiskindha. It is only right, therefore, that I inform you of the reasons for my conflict with my brother that you may understand why you risk your lives on the morrow.’ 

‘We listen with great interest, Great One,’ Rama said. ‘My brother and I both wish to know of the history of this conflict, and of how a venerable vanar such as yourself came to be cast out of his own house and kingdom to wander the wilderness of Mount Rishimukha thus. Please, tell your story.’