Sita's Ascent (5 page)

‘But you’ve tricked
them successfully, Urmi. Now you’re safe. They will not be looking for you
here.’

Valmiki was immersed in his thoughts.
‘Just when I thought I had swept aside all possibilities of adding more
characters. Here’s a seed that has sprouted with infinite branches
creating infinite probabilities!’ But he was also aware that now he was
the only man in the hermitage with three women, and not all of them on a mission of
spiritual learning. In fact, now he was the disciple of women, learning how they
lived life.

The most important thing was that Sita
and Urmilla needed to be together. So, after Urmilla regained her strength, she,
along with the attendant and Valmiki, began to build a hut.

A couple of months later, at two in the
morning, Sita woke uneasily and tugged at the rope next to her that had been tied to
the beam. Urmilla leapt up and got the attendant to bring a wreath of leaves and
soft grass. Water was always on the boil. Urmilla felt around Sita’s belly
to determine where the foetus’s head was, as Sita convulsed in pain. Both
women lifted Sita’s torso and guided her leg by leg to step on to the
wooden frames on either side. Within the outer wooden frames were wooden stirrups
and the wreath of leaves and soft grass was placed on the floor. This was swathed in
several pieces of cloth. Sita was given ropes in both her hands that were suspended
from the beams. As she stood on the wooden stirrups and pulled
the ropes, she heaved, and with a gush her water burst with an explosion of blood
and mucus. Urmilla’s midwifery included soothing Sita and calming the
terrified ascetic attendant who was witnessing how life comes ripping and tearing
through flesh into the predawn darkness of a busy morning in the forest. Amidst
Sita’s intermittent earsplitting screams and howls, the women cheered her
on:

O lovely Sitamma! Tie your hair in one breath
In the next let it down
This way we can count
How many breaths it takes to bring our long-awaited guest’s arrival.

You are a queen, a mother who brings this one in
Sure as night brings the day.
From the ocean of warm darkness where you held this one
Now from those swirling waters this one has come to play.

Sitamma, Sitamma, you can endure a while longer;
Tie your hair in one breath
In the next let it down
This way we can count …

Valmiki was sitting outside, as he did
when he had to think of words shaping an idea. But his heart was racing. Birth for a
man is so different. It is the soft footfall of an idea that can easily go missing.
No surface, texture, smell or volume. But from the women’s hut he could
hear screams, laughter and songs and what would emerge would be a full
body—hopefully with breath as with blood. With the birth of an idea he had
to build its muscle with words, find phrases that made for blood, sentences that
gave skin, grammar that gave guts, vocabulary that gave weight, sound that gave
breath and voice, irony that afforded insight; but he wondered how did one create
the testicles, penis, vulva and vagina to make for the sex of an idea? A woman holds
an entire epic in her womb, brings it out and it speaks for itself! When this
realization dawned, Sita had been in labour for nearly two hours.

By four the singing had escalated into a
frenzied game cheering. Valmiki began seeing things through the dark. The owl had
been hooting and he had heard it between the screams, almost reassuring him that his
nightscape would return to normal. Women had entered his life and things had been
turned upside down. A part of him enjoyed the challenge. Suddenly, he saw a luminous
figure in the clearing, about to enter the women’s hut. He wore a silk
dhoti, his forehead beamed and the sandal-paste mark was
prominent. His feet barely touched the ground. In one hand he held a string of
pearls and in the other, a stylus.

‘Brahma!’ Valmiki
uttered, hardly able to say the name. He bowed low at the figure’s feet.
‘I am impressed that you should be able to see me, Valmiki. So much is
happening now, eh? What with births and exiles … hmm?’ said
Brahma.

‘But, O Great One, this is
your hour between sleeping and waking, the profound moment of creation. I am so
honoured you have graced this hermitage.’

‘Well, I’m on my way
to see the child. He is born.’

Valmiki blinked. ‘Of course,
Great One. Could you grant me one favour?’

‘Depends on what it is.
I’m economical with boons.’

‘Would you tell me what is the
karma of this child who has such a great ancestry?’ asked Valmiki.

‘It is
difficult.’

‘But you are the one who
writes everyone’s karma! How can you …’ Valmiki was
indignant.

‘Don’t hold me
responsible. Ancestry is merely social and material reality. I take account of what
thoughts rippled through one’s last moments in the previous life.
That’s what makes them choose the location of their next life. What have I
got to do with this child’s difficulty?’

Valmiki only said, ‘Narayana,
Narayana!’

Brahma reasoned: ‘Why call on
Narayana? Ask yourself—whenever you have conceived a character, have you
ever been able to control their karma? Is creation about structure or control from
your point of view?’

The luminous figure glided on the
owl’s wings as it flew across the clearing to its favourite tree.

The first memory was never about words.
It was sensation. Sleep in a warm fluid. Swimming. Kick-dancing, ever buoyant. It
was perhaps dark, but then it was a great and deep sleep with some fleeting
impressions on a mind not yet conscious. Sound? Yes. The first consciousness of not
being alone. Or a sense of a presence around and out there. It was the sound of
ticking. Ti-dhik, ti-dhik, ti-dhik, and on and on it went through the timeless
swimming, with each instant, as the tiny body grew cell by cell with sap from
Sita’s body. Then there was a voice that was familiar and constant.
Sita’s humming. Resonant and rising from the depths with a musical air.
The familiarity with the sound started a chord of communication for the tiny body
when it heard the hum, and, like a snake charmed by a piper’s melody, it
would pause from the great float and kick-dance. Sita would place her hand on her
belly sometimes with laughter or would say, ‘Did you enjoy that? Want to
hear some more? What would you like for dinner tonight?’ and the
call-response of words from the outside in and kick-dancing from within to the
outside would start again. It was the primal choreography of sound rhythms and foot
flexes as dance, and an eternal dialogue of heartbeats and the motion of life.

The brave new arrival into the world was
dependent on the ripening of all body cells. Sita’s body was ready to
release this configuration of a complete body from a dark, warm, fluid interior to
an exterior of air and light. The head coming out through a contracting and
expanding cave-shaped ring of flesh. For the tiny body, its eyes shut tight, it was
sound alone that marked the first difference between the experience of the interior
and the exterior.

What a whirr, so different from the
sound of the eternal swimming. Only later would he come to know they were human
voices crying, singing and cheering, happy and exhausted. Then a tight slap on his
back. It was the first trauma of air and sensation and flinching skin—a
great change from being inside fluid and floating. The tiny body’s eyes
opened. Now the sensation had changed, and it was of the warmth of a human hand, of
being held. The tiny body, all crinkly, was being wiped clean as it screamed and
kicked at all the dryness; having come out of a snug wet interior, this felt too
prickly and dry. With his first gulp of air, the one sensation that took over all
else was hunger.

Hunger was screaming within him; the
hunger to live. As the boy came into life, screaming in affirmation, his inner eye
opened. The space he entered was bathed in light, and standing in the doorway was a
luminous figure who touched the boy’s forehead. From that moment on the
boy named Lava always saw a white luminous dot between his brows. He also remembered
the moment his eyes first opened when he was born, and at times the sensation of
swimming before his birth. As the luminous figure left, Lava heard around him the
sound of ocean waves like the fluttering of owl wings. He saw his mother
Sita’s face. The moment she took him in her hands and soothed his tiny,
trembling body, holding him up to her face, and started humming
Om Namo Narayana
, he could recognize the resonant hum from when he was
inside. His being registered this touch as
home
, safe
from all others and embedded it in his memory as ‘Amma’.

‘Sita,’ said
Urmilla, overcome with emotion, ‘he is every bit like the sun, born at the
break of dawn. He will dispel every kind of darkness.’

‘Yes, my lovely darling will
hold up truth like a mirror! May that always be your armour!’ replied Sita
exhilarated, forgetting the agony and exhaustion of her labour till a few moments
ago. She was made to lie down with her baby. With cloths soaked in warm water and
turmeric, Urmilla and the attendant sponged Sita and the newborn. Hot milk laced
with turmeric and crushed pepper was brought and Sita drank it eagerly holding on to
her baby, lying face down on top of her. With the birdsong of early morning, her
racing heart started to slow down, the milk and turmeric soothed her throat, and
with a feeling of lightness and joy, and a heaviness in her body she slept,
smiling.

The morning hours passed in bursts of
sleep for Urmilla as she watched over Sita, the attendant and even Valmiki. In the
hour before midday, the visiting deer, the goats, the cow and her calf heard a
shrill cry. From the haze of sleep everyone jumped up. The raw cry of hunger
spiralled from the women’s hut making the leaves shiver in the warm
breeze. The realization that life in the hermitage would be changed forever dawned
on Valmiki as he decisively walked, then hesitated, then moved towards the
women’s hut as the birth had been announced to him. He had not seen the
newborn yet. As he approached the hut he was waved away vigorously by Urmilla:
‘Sita’s giving the first feed! I’ll tell you when is a
good time to come.’

Valmiki was indignant, but after years
of discovering how events change human responses, he smiled wisely and withdrew. He
witnessed his reaction: ‘How dare she! She is a guest here and now she is
dictating when I can and cannot see Sita! Am I to be treated as a stranger in my own
hermitage?’ He began to hear the same phrase from another corridor of
thought in his head: ‘Sita has just given birth and is exhausted; Urmilla
is the only one who can tend to her needs. Why am I interfering with thoughts of
power, about who is playing host and who is the guest? What a terrific and
unexpected stroke of genius in the grand accident of life that Urmilla should appear
at the time of Sita’s labour. What could I have done? Who could have
predicted that Sita would be exiled? It has changed the whole course of the story
and, so many lives.’

Inside the hut, the newborn was gorging
on Sita’s breast secreting the ivory-coloured, sweet milk-sap of life.
Sita’s heart danced with happiness. Urmilla and Sita laughed at the way
the infant made smacking and chortling sounds as he suckled. Sita stroked his tiny
head of jet black hair, saying, ‘May you never be in want of anything. Let
your heart and mind always be your best friends in life.’

‘He certainly has strong
lungs! So he will know how to shout and get whatever he wants,’ said
Urmilla cheerfully.

Valmiki entered the hut when Sita was
ready to receive him. He bowed low with folded hands, saluting the newborn. He could
see the signs of Brahma’s visit in the luminous dot on the
infant’s forehead. The tiny window of the hut brought in a draft of fresh
air and the dazzling sun streamed on the heads of mother and son, thick with
blue-black hair. ‘Well, Maharaj! You picked a fine spot for a hermitage!
Now it has become a township!’ was Sita’s welcoming remark.

‘What better way to
contemplate Truth than by applying all of life’s variations to experience
the Veda, heh? So, you are well, Sita? What have you named the child?’

‘Lava. I hope he and I can
have a home here. It is true I don’t have a home, but I want this boy to
be learned and who could be a better guru than you, Maharaj? Urmilla and I
…’

‘Done! You don’t
have to say another word, Sita. He may not learn the ways of the court, but he will
learn to tell the story of Truth,’ said Valmiki emphatically, wiping his
tears.

So, within a few days everyone was
getting into a new routine that at first seemed all-consuming and centred on
Lava’s hunger patterns. But soon, everyday rituals were threaded together
with making the fire, cooking, feeding, washing, listening to thoughts of the day,
singing, debating and hosting pilgrims and, occasionally, travellers.

The days passed into months and it was
already time for the rice-milk ceremony for Lava. His head had been shaved of his
bee-black curly hair, but within a few days the stubble emerged like an indigo wash.
His eyes were blue-black and he buzzed with a curiosity about everything that moved
or was still. His hearing was impeccable and he could repeat the exact tone and
pitch of what he heard, even if he could not pronounce complete words properly.

He had a large vocabulary to draw from.
The wind in the trees, soft rain, hard rain on the huts, lightning, rolling thunder,
water pouring into vessels, crackling fire, the snap of dry branches and sticks, the
cow mooing, the calf calling, goats bleating, the plopping and patting of dung
cakes, the difference between wet and dry wood being chopped, Valmiki sweeping the
hermitage, the shy arrival and departure of deer as they munched on leaves. With
human sounds the repertoire was limited to the people around him. He could catch the
high notes of Sita’s humming, the cackling of Valmiki’s
laughter, Urmilla’s throaty and nasal voice and the attendant’s
whispers. The passing travellers never stayed long enough and were often too tired
or deferential in Valmiki’s presence, but what Lava could understand was
who made up his ‘family’ of humans and animals, and who were
‘outsiders’.

The rice-milk ceremony was also a
preparation for the first word to be inscribed on Lava’s tongue with
honey. Valmiki inscribed an
aa-au-mm
and so took on his
youngest apprentice. ‘There,’ he said with his customary cheer,
‘the three syllables that make for all dimensions of the world and the
human body! But don’t forget the silence after each cycle. That will teach
you everything about this world and that, and how to tell it.’ Lava only
sucked the honey and put his hand in the leaf cup and licked his palm clean.

The merriment continued, but Sita held
on to its sanctity as well. ‘Imagine that!’ she thought.
‘Were Lava born in the kingdom, Rama and I would have sent for Valmiki for
this auspicious rite! How naturally this has happened now—I wish Rama was
here to see …’ She had to stop herself. It seemed as if a former
self was taking over. Was it natural to think of Rama with such closeness since he
was the father of the child? After all, no woman can make a child all by herself.
Was she weakening? Should she inform Rama about the birth of the child? But then,
would Lava be taken away? It might mean that Lava would be in greater comfort and
learn to be a prince were he to be sent to Rama in Ayodhya. But, if Rama remained
obsessed with matters of the state, would he make any time for Lava?
Wouldn’t the child feel more abandoned amidst luxury without someone to
love and guide him? What life was he being exposed to in the forest? Was she being
selfish in not being able to part from him because he was the only joy she felt of
late? Sita decided after all these apprehensions that Lava should stay with her, as
in this forest he would have his mother’s love, his aunt’s and
the attendant’s care, and the tutelage of the great Valmiki, who would
initiate him into the ways of enlightened learning the way no court scholar could.
Lava was playing with a piece of wood that Urmilla had carved into a wheel. He was
looking intently at Sita, and when she looked back she wondered how much of that
decision was really hers? Does a soul really choose the family it wants to live in?
Then wait in the womb of its choice to form a body? She had not said a word, but
Lava felt the chord of communication. He pushed the wheel away and stood up bouncing
and stretching his arms. Sita’s heart was churning. She wiped her tears
and picked up her son and, placing him on her hip, said: ‘No more tears
from me, Lava. Come, let us go and talk to that peepul leaf and see what she has to
say.’ Lava held her face on either side with his tiny hands on her ears.
Sita looked into his face as if she were looking into a mirror, not just for her
reflection, but for a quality of her being. Her son looked straight into her eyes,
and with a toothless smile acknowledging her, kissed his mother’s
forehead.

One day, Urmilla had set off with the
attendant to seek out some leaves and berries to create a health tonic for Lava. She
also prepared vast quantities of it and stored it for willing travellers and
pilgrims and they bartered it for grain and cloth. Sita was bathing Lava, and
Valmiki was composing a new metre.

Sita had to wash clothes by the forest
spring and return with some fresh water for drinking. She had counted on Lava being
asleep after his feed and bath. However, that was not working to plan. She began to
wonder if he had had an extra dose of Urmilla’s health tonic as he was
extremely energetic. Sita tried to play with him and tire him out but he seemed to
be more vigorous and would not have her leave him. Sita couldn’t help
gazing at the sun’s speeding journey towards midday. She didn’t
want to blame delays on Lava and wanted to keep everything just so by the time
Urmilla and the attendant returned, as they never really got a break from daily
chores. The heat was rising and Sita had tried every trick to get Lava to nap, but
he tricked her back by pretending to sleep, and when he got wind that she wanted to
go somewhere, he did everything to detain her without crying.

At last she went to Valmiki.
‘Maharaj, it’s getting late for my chores. Please, could you
take Lava’s lessons a little earlier?’