RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (4 page)

The first is K.M. Munshi whose Krishnavatara series remains a benchmark of the genre of modern retellings of ancient tales. These lines are from Munshi’s own Introduction to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan edition of 1972: 

In the course of this adventure, I had often to depart from legend and myth, for such a reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little imagination he has. I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination. 

I could not have said it better. 

Yuganta, Iravati Karve’s landmark Sahitya Akademi Award-winning study of the Mahabharata, packs more valuable insights into its slender 220-page pocket-sized edition (Disha) than any ten encyclopaedias. In arguably the finest essay of the book, ‘Draupadi’, she includes this footnote: 

‘The discussion up to this point is based on the critical edition of the Mahabharata. What follows is my naroti [naroti = a dry coconut shell, i.e. a worthless thing. The word ‘naroti’ was first used in this sense by the poet Eknath].’ 

In the free musings of Karve’s mind, we learn more about Vyasa’s formidable epic than from most encyclopaedic theses. For only from free thought can come truly progressive ideas. 

In that spirit, I urge readers to consider my dried coconut shell reworking of the Ramayana in the same spirit. 

If anything in the following pages pleases you, thank those great forebears in whose giant footsteps I placed my own small feet. 

If any parts displease you, then please blame them on my inadequate talents, not on the tale. 

ASHOK K. BANKER 

Mumbai

April 2005

EVERY END IS A BEGINNING IS AN END IS A BEGINNING

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO THE LIMITED SIGNED AKB BOOKS EDITION 2009

So here we are again in Ayodhya. The question is why.

In late 2004, when I wrote the last pages of King of Ayodhya, I was sure I was done with the Ramayana Series. Two years later, when the book went to press, I wrote an Afterword that confidentally stated the series was over and even gave my reasons for not writing the part of the story that is known as Uttar Kaand in the Valmiki Ramayana. Next stop, Hastinapura, I said. And then went back to work on my Mba. No, not a business degree; that’s just my personalized term for my retelling of The Mahabharata, a mammoth project by any standards, and equivalent to several degree courses! At a projected ten volumes of over 1000 pages in hardcover each, aiming to cover ALL the material in the original 18 Sanskrit parvas, it was enough to occupy me (or several dozen other writers) for years if not decades. It should have been reason enough for me to wave goodbye to the Ramayana forever, hop on the slow train to Epic India and never look back.

But life has a way of deciding where and when to stop the train. And sometimes, looking back, most of the stops that really matter in the end, turn out to be unscheduled ones. 

That’s how it was with me and the tale of maryada purshottam. 

As some of you may already be aware, I had always been fascinated by myths and itihasa since childhood and around the turn of the millennium, I had begun seriously re-reading, researching and studying the puranas with a view to writing my own series of interlinked retellings as well as original works, comprising an enormous range of books that would, in theory at least, encompass all the major myths, legends, itihasa of the Indian sub-continent. I call it my Epic India Library, and it comprises Four Wheels (to use the Sanskrit analogy) that look something like this:

ASHOK K. BANKER’S EPIC INDIA LIBRARY

A Lifetime Writing Plan In Four Wheels

WHEEL ONE: PURANAS

Imaginative retellings of Ramayana, 

Shrimad Bhagvatam and Mahabharata.

RAMAYANA SERIES
®

Prince of Ayodhya

Siege of Mithila

Demons of Chitrakut

Armies of Hanuman

Bridge of Rama

King of Ayodhya

Vengeance of Ravana

Sons of Sita

OMNIBUS VOLUMES

Prince of Dharma

Prince in Exile

Prince at War

King of Dharma

KRISHNA CORIOLIS

Slayer of Kansa

Dance of Govinda

Flute of Vrindavan

Throne of Dwarka

Field of Kurukshetra

Chariot of Arjuna

Coils of Ananta

Lord of Vaikunta

OMNIBUS VOLUMES

Krishna Leela

Radhey Shyam

Gita Govinda

Vishnu Ananta

MAHABHARATA SERIES

The Forest of Stories

The Seeds of War

The Children of Midnight

As The Blind King Watched

Brothers in Exile

While War Lords Speak of Peace

Upon This Crimson Field

When the Blue God Awakens

Beyond Black, White and Grey

Age of Kali

WHEEL TWO: ITIHASA

Richly detailed historical fiction based entirely on factual research, Starting with Dasarajna (Battle of Ten Kings), the seminal war described in the Vedas that established the Bharata nation in the subcontinent, the rise of the Aryas, the story of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations, the time of Mahavira, the Buddha, Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, etc, through the Golden Age, Moghul Era, British Era, upto the present day covering the entire national history (with no special North, South or other emphasis) including other related cultures and nations in Asia. An honest and sincere attempt to reconstruct our history for our point of view, rationally, incisively, without the religious, racial or cultural bias that unfortunately mars so many revisionist histories, using fictional devices in the tradition of the finest literary history fiction in order to understand our history better.

WHEEL THREE: OURSTORY

Contemporary novels that explore diverse facets of the Indian condition, with an emphasis on how history, both personal as well as collective, influences, affects and informs every decision, act, motive, outcome. An attempt to create a literary document that records snapshots of contemporary Indian life from a variety of points of view, illuminated by fictional devices, genre tropes, and literary devices. Vertigo, Byculla Boy, The Pasha of Pedder Road, This Song Like A Stone In My Fist, Indian English, Beautiful Ugly, Under A Mumbai Sky, The First Vampire, Devi Darshan: Dark Tales, Man With Celluloid Eyes, In This Cup The Ocean, and various novels and short fiction in the genres of crime, science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance or simply general fiction.

WHEEL FOUR: FUTURE HISTORY

To boldly go where no historian has gone before: Using literary devices to extrapolate possible futures, outcomes of present-day policies and sociopolitical structures, imaginatively and intellectually explore possible future events and histories. Gods of War and its sequels, Judgement Day, The Greater Jihad, Rage of Angels and End of Days. The Vortal Codex, comprising Shockwave, Python, Flash, Dreamweaver and Final Cut. The Indus Rising trilogy comprising Gandhi’s War and its two (untitled) sequels. 

As you can see, there’s a certain chronological flow to the whole plan. Not only through all four Wheels, but within each one as well. Now, it’s true that I’ve already begun submitting books from all four Wheels to publishers – Gods of War is already published, Vortal: Shockwave is available to readers as well, some of the contemporary novels have been out for years, and so on. That’s because, for better or worse, I am following tracks and trails of the imagination and intellect that lead me where they will. I feel it’s important to write down those parts of the overall plan that most intrigue and excite me at a given time, rather than methodically and mechanically following the plan chronologically. So for example, I wrote Gods of War and Vortal: Shockwave while working on my Mba and Krishna Coriolis and other books, and felt the first two were polished enough to be published right away. This is why you’ll find various volumes in the overall Epic India Library appearing out of sequence. The hope is that someday, you will be able to own every single volume in the entire Library, all repackaged in conformative formats and specially related covers, with numbers indicating the correct reading sequence, and then you can sit down and start reading the whole shebang from start to finish – now, that would be something to look forward to, wouldn’t it? 

However, within each Wheel, it really would be best to read the books in chronological sequence. Just as, for instance, you can’t read Bridge of Rama before Siege of Mithila, and so on without destroying the author’s attempt to create a cumulative buildup of story through accretion of detail, incident and character development. In short: while you’re certainly free to do as you wish, faithful reader, to get the full effect of what I wrote you need to read the whole Ramayana Series in order, complete it, and then go on to read the Krishna Coriolis, which after all, continues the epic adventures of the Vishnu-avatar (the Sword of Dharma as I call Him) through his next incarnation. And then read my Mba when it starts appearing midway through the Krishna Coriolis, thereafter alternating between volumes of Mba and Krishna Coriolis in order to get the full ‘stereoscopic’ effect of the entire tale. (Or, since there are Four Wheels in the Epic India Library we could even call it a ‘quadroscopic’ effect!)

Which brings us to Uttar Kaand. 

The ending of King of Ayodhya left Rama and Sita and the others back home in Ayodhya. The war of Lanka was won. Sita recovered. The exile ended. Rama presumably crowned and esconced on the sunwood throne. Sita pregnant with their children. And a world of possibilities ahead – all happy ones, we would assume. 

Yet anyone who knows the basic story of Valmiki Ramayana – or even Tulsidas’s commentary, which differs somewhat from the adi-kavya and adds a strong religious and revisionistic colouring to the original Vedic tale – would know that Rama’s story certainly does not end there. In fact, one of the most dramatic events of the entire tale occurs after the return home to Ayodhya. Also one of the most controversial, and the reason most often cited by angry young Indians who still fume about what they feel was Rama’s chauvinistic ill-treatment of Sita. Kamban chose to ignore that part of the tale – and so did I, at first, placing my small feet in the footsteps of the giants who went before. Because, as I said in my Afterword to King of Ayodhya, I couldn’t reconcile my idea of Rama with the king who cruelly cast out his beloved life-companion. So it was with a clear mind that I put aside the Ramayana Series and went on to write about those amazing five brothers in that great ancient city. 

But as I worked on my Mba over the next few years, I realized two major things: one, my Mba was growing far too large and compendious to fit into the original nine volumes as planned. The reason being, I’m not satisfied with offering yet another abridged version of the great purana, but wish to make my retelling the first complete, comprehensive Mahabharata ever attempted by any single writer. (Or, for that matter, by any of the several teams of dozens of academic scholars aided by hundreds of researchers and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over decades – none of whom, curiously enough seem to have managed to translate the Sanskrit epic in its entirety, either leaving the project abandoned midway, or completing it while leaving out valuable details for inscrutable reasons and using language and ideology that seem designed to make the work accessible to western minds rather than honestly attempting to capture the full detail, glory, and greatness of the work itself irrespective of who reads it.) 

This problem of length, I eventually resolved by splitting the story into two separate series: Krishna Coriolis in eight volumes and Mba in ten volumes, making a total of 18, exactly like the original epic. 

The second fact that struck me was the realization that the Krishna Coriolis, in the manner in which I was treating the retelling, continued almost directly from the Ramayana Series®,. This is because of my concept of the ‘Sword of Dharma’ about which you will read more in my Afterword to Sons of Sita: Book 8 of the Ramayana Series®, which will explain many other things as well. For an avatar or amsa, the moment of death is no death at all. It is simply a transmogrification. The aatma, that eternal and undiminishable part of brahman of which each living or inanimate being is composed, simply moves on to its next host. Thus, Rama dies and is instantly reawakened as Krishna, the next Sword of Dharma. Mortal years – and our mortal sense of chronological temporality – are irrelevant to the flow of brahman. To His conciousness, the transition is virtually instantaneous. 

There was also the issue of my considerable alteration to the original tale, done because I was seeking to find answers to questions that had constantly plagued me (as it had plagued, and continues to plague countless Indians even today): Why did Rama act as he did? If dharma was his justification, then why did he have to be so cruel and heartless about it? Why not gently and regretfully banish Sita? 

Because as anyone who puzzles over this age-old problem knows, the real issue is not just that Rama exiled Sita. We might swallow the difficult (near-impossible, in my honest opinion) argument about him abiding by dharma – I don’t, but still. But how do we explain the extreme cruelty with which he treated her? Not in front of all Ayodhya, but in a private faceoff where only the two of them were present, and where he says things and addresses her in a fashion that is unlike the Rama of the preceding story. It’s as if this is a completely different Rama now, one that is impossible to reconcile with the loving, gentle, equalitarian Rama whom Sita is able to speak harshly to, even slap, and otherwise act and behave on completely equal terms with throughout their earlier life. (This is one of the crucial differences between Valmiki Ramayana and Tulsidas and other recenscions, including Kamban to some extent: the egalitarianism of the sexes, and the clear evidence of womanly power in exchanges between men and women in those Vedic times, unlike the considerably diminished stature of women in 16th century India during Tulsidas’s lifetime.)

The problem I faced was a simple two-fold one: One, how to reconcile Rama’s behaviour (not his actions, mind you, which can be justified, however absurdly, by the ‘dharma’ argument, but his behaviour towards his beloved wife) with the Rama we had known and shared mindspace and heartspace with for over 3000 pages in the preceding six books. Two, how to bridge the time between Rama’s return home to Ayodhya at the end of King of Ayodhya, and the start of Slayer of Kansa, the first book of the Krishna Coriolis (which, by the way, will be appearing in bookstores only a few months from now)?

And so my mind returned to Ayodhya, and as an idle mental exercise, began to follow the mindtrails and scent-trails of the imagination. 

As I finished Gods of War and began work on Judgement Day, the trail widened and the scent deepened. 

When I finished Vortal: Shockwave and began work on Vortal: Python, it became even clearer. 

And finally, by the time I finished Dance of Govinda, the sequel to Slayer of Kansa, I knew exactly how and why it had all happened. Or at least, my version of events. (Just as the previous six books were my version of the Valmiki and Kamban Ramayana.)

And so you now have this book in your hands. 

Vengeance of Ravana. 

And you’re about to return with me back to Ayodhya. And to begin a journey that will seem both familiar and strange, I suppose, since that’s how it seemed to me. And start down the wide, scented path that will lead you to a whole barrage of new questions that will answer some of the old ones, while raising completely new ones. 

All questions will be answered not here, but in the succeeding, final book, Sons of Sita. In fact, I should probably warn you that Vengeance of Ravana ends on a cliffhanger, most definitely incomplete, unfinished, unresolved, and altogether unsatisfying ending – because that’s the way the story unfolds. What I can reassure you off, old friend and companion, is that all these new questions as well as old ones, will be resolved in Sons of Sita. You have my word on that. Of course, the story itself will not end there, even in Sons of Sita. Because, as I mentioned earlier, while Rama’s story ends there in SoS, Krishna’s story begins – and continues in SoK and its seven sequels, and in the Mba thereafter.

But the story starts at this point, and so here we have to start again. 

Once again in Ayodhya. Once again in Rama’s bed-chamber late at night. Once again with the sound of a disembodied voice in his ear, and warm breath on his neck. Because endings usually bring us back to the beginning in some fashion. In fact, in Indian (and Asian, to some extent) storytelling, all tales are cyclical, as are all lives. 

So in a way, every end is a beginning. Which itself is an end. And which in turn is a new beginning. And so on. 

After all, as they say, all stories are ultimately linked together. Just as all people are. All beings. All things. All matter. All universes. 

And that’s the last thing I have to tell you before we return to that bed-chamber in Ayodhya. 

While VoR and SoS do conclusively end the Ramayana Series®, they also begin a whole new tale. One that doesn’t simply continue through the Krishna Coriolis, Mba, and beyond into the other three Wheels of my Epic India Library. But also slips sideways and leaps forward in time to other linked stories. 

Gods of War and its sequels are one storyline that is directly linked to the events that conclude the Ramayana Series®. Without reading that series, it is impossible to fully understand and, more importantly, fully appreciate and enjoy the larger tale that begins in VoR.

Vortal Codex is another series that must be read in order to understand and, again more vitally, relish the thrill of the underlying story that starts here in this book. 

In short, once you read this book, loyal reader, you run the risk of entering a maze of chambers. One leads to another to another and so on. Not endlessly. Because there is a definite end. But a long journey nevertheless. A journey that will take you through the entire mythology, itihasa, history and contempory sociopolitical world of the Indian subcontinent (and to a lesser extent, the world at large). As of this writing, it looks like being about 70 volumes in all. Hence the term Epic India Library. 

In a sense, you began reading the Epic India Library the moment you read any of my earlier books. 

But once you read VoR you will be committed.

Of course, you could still choose not to continue reading. In fact, it’s quite possible that you may be so fed up of me and my work by the time you put this book down, that you may never read anything by me again. (Those who take extremist views for or against Rama may feel that way, since they most often have their own fixed notions of what they believe really happened, and are simply not interested in anyone else’s point of view.) But since you’re still here, still reading this long and possibly irrelevant foreword, I have a feeling you will go on.

And if you choose to do so, then I just want to remind you that I warned you. Right here. Right now. I warned you that reading this book will commit you to a very wide, very scented path that will lead on those dozens of other books, tens of thousands of pages, and a vast labyrinthine story that will take several years more to complete, publish, purchase and read, and will occupy a considerable portion of your waking hours and your book-buying budget. 

Will it be worth it? You’ll have to answer that one yourself. I think so. But then again, the engineer always enjoys riding the train. Just as the charioteer always loves leading the team of horses. 

Why else would the charioteer be a charioteer otherwise? Or the train engineer a train engineer?

Ultimately, it will be upto you, constant reader, to decide whether this epic undertaking was worth the effort and time and investment. 

And in case all the above seems like the insane dream of a bibliomaniac, well, one can dream, can’t one? In any case, I’m only talking about writing the books. As was the case when I started writing my Ramayana Series®, it’s quite likely that no publisher will want to even look at the manuscripts, let alone publish them. It’s equally possible that I won’t live long enough to finish telling all the stories, or even most of them. But what the hey, I’m a 45-year old, balding, greying, paunchy father to a teenage daughter and an adult son, husband to a schoolteacher wife, care-giver to an adorable but stubborn basset hound, I live and work surrounded by books, family, some filmed entertainment and a few good friends, and that’s pretty much it for me. A simple life, almost boring by Mumbai/Bombay standards or any standard for that matter. So at the least, at the very very least, I can afford to dream big, and I’m damn well going to do so.