Shakti: The Feminine Divine (12 page)

‘I have always known that my existence is destined to be a brief one. Don’t ask how I could possibly know such a thing, as even I don’t have any satisfactory answers. Knowing what I do, it makes sense not to waste my time on things like senseless hate and obsessive dissatisfaction with petty trifles, wouldn’t you say? Death will come for me suddenly and with no warning. It is not something I can hope to control and therefore I will not even attempt to do so. Acceptance is often mistaken for stupidity or cowardice, but for me it is an endless source of comfort.

‘That is the best explanation I can come up with for my sunny disposition and bloody niceness, as you called it. Funny that you should ask and funnier that I should tell you all this, as I have discussed this with nobody. But I suppose these things are meant to be, even if they don’t necessarily make sense to us.’

Indra stared at him for long moments, struck by speechless wonder, and then walked out without replying. Trishiras accepted the abrupt ending to a fulfilling conversation, where he had been comfortable enough to bare the secrets of his soul, without question, as was his chosen way. But the truth was that by revealing intimate details about himself to Indra, Trishiras had conflated his essence into the lifeblood of one who would be the instrument of his death. Not surprisingly, his killer fled from the unwelcome closeness that conjoined their souls, as it was physically repellent to him, given what he planned to do.

Rumour had it that Trishiras was close to his mother’s relatives and sure enough, he was seen fraternizing with them, although it was openly enough to allay suspicion. Indra wondered if he ought to act. Trishiras’s familial bonding was clearly a ruse to plot Indra’s downfall under his very nose. The indecision made sleep elusive for Indra and when he did manage it, his slumber was far from restful. The cold-blooded killer in the making knew he had to act fast or forever lose his peace. And still he hesitated, much to Sachi’s annoyance.

Indra thought he might never be able to do the necessary but as it turned out, he could and he did. He had dropped in for a meeting with Trishiras, but his preceptor was asleep in his mother’s lap. Recana cradling the three heads of the most powerful Brahmin in the three worlds was a sight to watch. Indra’s lips curved upwards of their own volition, but froze when Recana suddenly looked up and met his gaze squarely.
The baleful hatred he saw reflected there hit him like a blow to the kidneys.

Speechless he fled, unable to meet the look of the mother whose unfailing instincts had stripped his heart of deception, understanding his treacherous intent. Indra wondered what she would do now that she knew. Undoubtedly, Recana would talk to Twastha and together, they would plot his death. Sachi had been right; by procrastinating, he had risked losing everything. Now he had to act fast.

Indra felt the need to make his move as soon as he could. Trishiras had a habit of spending time in prayer at the end of a hard day’s work in a secluded space of his own. One night, Indra saw him steal away from the intrusive presence of his charges and he sensed that it was the right time to put his plan into action.

From close observation, Indra knew that his nemesis would perform the evening puja before losing himself in the rigours of meditation. Allowing some time to elapse, measured out in anxious heartbeats, the killer made after him. When he caught up with Trishiras, Indra paused for a moment. There was no need to hurry—in his vulnerable state Trishiras could be killed at leisure.

It was a good place to die. Trishiras had chosen it himself. Thanks to Twastha’s endeavours, every inch of Amaravathi had been tweaked and sculpted into perfection. Trishiras had once joked to his father that he would not be surprised to learn that even the leaves on trees, the grains of sand and the droppings of birds had been skilfully manipulated into an unnatural evenness.

For himself, though, Trishiras had unearthed a little thicket crowded with bristly bushes and gnarly trees in a remote corner
of the woods, which had somehow escaped being manicured to suit the exacting aesthetic sensibilities of the celestials. Five stones had been asymmetrically arranged to house Agni, and a little fire was blazing merrily away. Trishiras sat in front of an ancient tree, although his ramrod-straight back did not rest against its bark. His eyes were closed and he was lost to the world. This was contrary to popular belief, which suggested that one pair of his eyes remained constantly vigilant as it surveyed the imperfections of a sorrowful world.

Indra willed him to open his eyes and react with anger or fear. The sudden disturbance in the all-pervasive tranquillity would have caused him to loosen his thunderbolt almost as a reflex and it would all be over. But Trishiras refused to oblige him. Instead, he looked so much at peace with himself and his surroundings that Indra was bitterly envious of him. The biliousness of the emotion filled his mouth and made him want to gag. That was when Indra’s senseless rage and hatred reached its zenith.

‘How dare he?’ Indra fumed to himself. It was maddening of him not to give anybody a perfectly good excuse to hate him. In fact, his virtue and perverted proclivity for being everything Indra could never hope to be was the aetiological foundation for the disease that had infected the thousand-eyed god and robbed him of the joy he once had for living. Death was a small price to pay for what he had done.

Indra watched detachedly as his vajra flew towards his enemy’s son, who had served wonderfully as the preceptor of the devas. The dreaded weapon severed Trishiras’s thick neck cleanly, as though it were made of butter, and his three heads fell on the scene of the crime with the casual messiness that Trishiras had preferred to the exquisitely manufactured beauty
of Amaravathi. They rolled about, a little like mildly demented marbles, before coming to a rest.

Murder ought not to be so mundane, but at that moment it was. After the agonizing hand-wringing and soul-searching that had given the deed its impetus, the entire thing felt anti-climactic to Indra. The stillness of the air and the silence itself bounced off his head like the shrieks of a hysterical harridan. It had all happened so quickly that Indra had not even taken note of the expression in his victim’s eyes when death had claimed him in the manner he had anticipated and foretold to his killer, no less.

For want of anything to do, Indra waited and watched for a little bit longer. Murder was such a tedious business. They were without a preceptor again and Indra would have to crawl on all fours to his uptight guru. Brihaspati would then have to be cajoled into sanctioning his actions.

No avenging fury had come for him yet, and Indra figured he need not hold his breath. Not deigning to look at the remains of his victim, he walked away. Sachi would give her stamp of approval in her own inimitable way, ‘Finally, you are behaving like my husband instead of your mother’s pampered baby!’ Indra smiled at the thought. Relief flooded through him and he laughed aloud, giddy with happiness.

He felt no guilt, because no crime had been committed. The conversation that had unhinged him reared its head from within the murky depths of his memory. Trishiras had given him a little piece of his heart for safekeeping by showing him the most intimate parts of his psyche, in the manner of lovers sharing secrets, and it was alive and well within Indra. Twastha’s son was not dead, Indra assured himself. And it was good, as he had never deserved what he’d got.

The Making of the Buffalo Demon

T
RISHIRAS’S MURDER OUGHT
to have created quite the stink. A defenceless Brahmin, one who had been the preceptor of the devas themselves, had been slaughtered in cold blood. His mysterious assassin had left fingerprints all over the crime scene, in the form of his inimitable vajra, the traces of which no self-respecting celestial could claim not to know. Yet, there was no outcry or furore. The overall policy was to see no evil, hear no evil and hope against hope that whatever was rotten in Amaravathi would disappear eventually, like a malodorous fart.

Indra was their king and under his suzerainty they had no cause for complaint. There was none braver or more valiant than him. The wielder of the thunderbolt had ridden the lightning to victory and done things that no one but him dared even dream of and, on the strength of his audacity, coupled with blinding physical prowess, taken them all along. Thanks to him the nectar of immortality was currently in their possession. He had led them to riches beyond their wildest dreams and
made sure that the devas were catapulted to the top of the food chain, where they would rule forever over every other species.

Therefore, the isolated incidents when he felt the need to attack women, covet the wife of another or use dubious means to eliminate a threat were best forgotten, if not forgiven. Amaravathi was a kingdom where there was no room for ugly discord. The immortals pledged their allegiance to divine unity and worked hard to maintain equilibrium, which would see them triumph over adversity.

Brihaspati had returned to them. The reinstated guru stayed locked away with Indra all day. It was murmured that a slew of purification rituals were being performed to counter the baleful influences that had gained ascendance following the lamentable death of Trishiras. But barring the hushed talk that petered out almost as quickly as it began, nothing was said about the tragedy.

It was this kind of cold rationale that Twastha found hardest to bear. No one mourned his precious son, who had been the purest soul in all of creation. Trishiras had done so much for the devas and they saw fit to condone his slaughter with their mute acceptance, while allowing his killer to get away scot-free. He could have wept, but neither he nor his wife was inclined to do so. Tears would have given their rage an escape valve and they needed to conserve every drop. It would come in handy for the terrible vengeance they planned to exact on Indra and the rest of the devas. The criminal and the accessories to the crime would not go unpunished. They would make sure of it.

Shakti took note of Twastha’s pain and sympathized with him. Grief and rage had become food and drink to him and with time, his toxic diet would corrode all that was good in
him. She said as much to Vishnu, who for some reason was determined to remain tight-lipped on the subject.

‘The murder of Trishiras is a new low for your dear friend Indra,’ Shakti said bluntly. ‘I wonder what he will do next… If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that he would adopt the mass murder of newborns as his new hobby and the spineless devas will fall over each other to help him carry out his sadistic plans. Perhaps then, at least, you will open your eyes to the fact that he is spectacularly ill-suited to occupy the throne of heaven. Surely this is as good a time as any to chop him up into little pieces and feed him to the fishes? The question is why neither of us is going to do it. Explain to me again why we are proving ourselves no better than his pusillanimous underlings?’

Vishnu sighed and shrugged resignedly, acceding to her need to discuss the topic. ‘The fact that power has corrupted him is something even Indra will not dispute. However, it also has to be accepted that the nature of the job has taken an unwholesome toll on him. But nobody else could have withstood the pressures it entails for as long as he has. From the beginning he was marked for something special and for better or worse, he has made himself an integral part of the three worlds. That is not to say I condone what he did, nor do I think he is going to get away with his moral transgressions, however justified he may believe them to be. Good or evil incurs a debt that is always repaid with the same coin, and who knows it better than you?

‘However, we cannot give up on him—no one is ever past the chance for redemption or exempt from divine grace. I am confident that he will see the error of his ways and reform himself to once again become the great champion of all things noble as he once was. Despite everything Indra, like everything
in creation, has always had a strong urge to give in to divine unity rather than pull away from it, and once he has a grip on himself, he will find his way back.

‘Meanwhile, the deed is done. Even though he only suspects it, Indra has sown the seeds of destruction and is going to have a rough time reaping the bitter crop of retribution.’

‘That is exactly what bothers me no end…’ Shakti complained. ‘His actions have all but guaranteed a comeuppance of epic proportions. Too many lives will be lost, but not before rivers of blood have been spilled and entire oceans of tears have been shed. And let us not forget the ensuing pain, misery and hate that will see the future of subsequent generations blighted as well.

‘This is why, I feel, it will be so much simpler for one of us to use our weapon of choice to kill him immediately and spare everybody a world of trauma. It would make for a wonderful cautionary tale; even the most intellectually challenged mortals will be able to join the dots and never be misguided enough to assume that it is possible to get away with being a remorseless killer.

‘Unfortunately, while it is great fun to rant, I am fully aware that this wishful thinking will get me nowhere. In fact, it is going to be entirely counterproductive. My feelings in this case are so passionately vehement that I can bet the celestials will come crawling to me for help when the demon spawn of their evil deeds grows horns and claws and makes a beeline for them, baying for blood. And, no doubt, I’ll be bound to oblige!’

‘It will be as you say—Indra will beseech you for help and despite your annoyance over his misdeeds, your compassion will be roused. He will have you to thank for his continued existence and he’ll worship at your feet. But his new-found
penitence will not stop him from being monumentally stupid again and we’ll be having this conversation yet again. You are indeed omniscient!’ Vishnu intoned with mock solemnity, prostrating himself before her, palms joined as if in prayer. He was rewarded for his histrionics with a powerful kick.

Far away, Karamba and Ramba, the sons of the asura king, Danu, had taken the unexpected decision to forsake their cosseted, privileged lives and devote themselves to the performance of intense tapas. Those who knew them were taken by surprise, as the princes had never displayed a religious bent of mind and stories of their drunken revelry and carousing were legendary. When they opted to turn their backs on sensual pleasures, speculation was intense about whether they were possessed by evil spirits or had become afflicted by a deadly disease and were dying slowly while their brains turned to mush.