Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana (24 page)

Ravana had made up his mind, Muthassi said; he would avenge Sur-panakha’s humiliation. His prize would be Sita. There would be war. There would be war. There would be war.

Sarama found Sita a silly creature to fight a war over. She was beautiful certainly, but
Sarama had seen different kinds of beauty in her time, beauty that possessed you, turned you inside-out, forced you to be impatient. Sita’s beauty almost made her untouchable, too pure, too good, too right. Sarama
spurned such beauty, it made her uneasy. Maybe that is why Ravana desired Sita, she felt. He wanted to pollute her, to consume her, to make her more real.

Still, as the Old One,
our ancestor, helped keep watch over the young princess of Ayodhya, the would-be girl-queen began to intrigue her.

She paid close attention as Sita fought Ravana practically every day, refusing to be intimidated by his advances. Even when the rakshashis tried to scare her into relenting, shaking the earth, turning the sky foul and ominous, threatening to eat her alive, theatrics that made most
mortals quiver and piss, she held firm. Sarama smelled fear in the young Sita, but she also admired her audacity, her will. Sarama could tell Sita would never submit to Ravana’s lust. If he tried to touch her, Sarama knew, Sita, the daughter of Janaka, would rage against her tormentor, scratch him, maim him, pull out tufts of hair from any of his ten heads, until her body no longer pulsed. Samara
respected that rage, a rage she didn’t believe Sita, a would-be girl queen, possessed at first, the sort of rage that only became evident when Rama refused to take her back when the war had ended. Because she respected such rage, when Ravana threw Rama’s decapitated head near Sita’s feet, Sarama told the would-be girl that it was an illusion, that Rama was still safe, and that his forces were
crossing into Lanka.

Muthassi pivoted her head towards the pond again, staring at the water, taking some time before moving on to the next phase in the tale. It was important to her that everything be clear.

The evening before the great battle between the two armies, one bes tial, the other demonic, Samara found Surpanakha sitting by the gardens where Ravana held Sita captive. Surpanakha
avoided the forlorn-looking Sita, preferring to sit by herself. They would meet later, after the war, after Rama’s death. For now, they both stared silently into the open, deep in thought.

The other rakshashis had been afraid to approach Surpanakha. They left her alone, to stew in her rage. But Sarama was braver. She was also concerned, inching her way to the mutilated lady, where she watched
a grieving Surpanakha gently touching what was left of her nose, her ears, her butchered breast.

Surpanakha felt the rawness of the wounds, imagining the sight she had become. She wouldn’t look into a mirror just yet. She couldn’t. She had almost caught a glimpse of her new state when she drank water from a stream. She would wait until the war was over, the mortals who did this to her slain.
Then she would take the corpse of Rama, fling it at his young widow and dance pitilessly and mercilessly over the dead man, like Kali. She would delight in watching Sita as she did this. Then, in quiet, she would sneak Rama’s remains away, cremating his body, extinguishing it in fire, as Yama, The Lord of Death, would wait patiently on his buffalo, his giant club resting on the ungulate’s belly.

Sita’s plight would be different. Surpanakha would scheme to keep the princess alive for thousands of years, refusing to let her die, breaking her heart as many times as it could be broken.

Lakhsmana’s bones and entrails, she would wear, his flesh fed as carrion.

When Sarama, the Old One, our ancestor, finally reached Surpanakha, she was holding her bloodied breasts, trembling. There were
tears. Sarama also realized flies had laid eggs in her open wounds, and the larvae would soon hatch. Samara reached out to touch her. Gently. Surpanakha seized the gnarled hand, ready to tear it off the person who dared disturb her. When she saw who it was, she calmed down a lit tle, but still spitting in Sarama’s face, screamed “Not pity, old hag, not pity!”

Sarama, understanding, knelt low,
pressed her palms to Surpanakha’s feet and whispered, “It isn’t pity, child, your wounds must be tended to. Let me. Let the old one through. I knew Tataka, I knew Tataka.”

At the mention of her grandmother’s name, Surpanakha relented, al lowing herself to be touched and held. And there they sat, the two of them, Sarama tenderly washing Surpanakha’s wounds and picked out larvae, as Surpanakha,
tired and overwhelmed, fell asleep. The following morning, when the two armies rode out to battle, the beginning of war, Sarama searched for Surpanakha. She had slipped away. The two would never meet again.

When Ravana was finally slain, the war over, our ancestor Sarama stepped out of the palace grounds and walked towards the battlefield, followed by concerned wives and children, family of
the missing soldiers in Ravana’s army.

The battlefield reeked of the dead, stinking of dried blood, piss, shit, men, demons, monkeys, bears, pachyderms, horses, and giant birds. The wounded lay everywhere, waiting to die or be rescued—rakshashas called out for help, dying monkeys and bears pleaded for water, while other beasts of war, elephants with no trunks and crushed legs, the horses with
broken backs, the raptors with torn beaks and burnt wings, squirmed, struggling to breathe. And amidst the wreckage were anxious wives and children, picking through the rubble, calling out and hunting for loved ones, frantic to find bodies to burn or salvage, as the four-eyed dogs of Yama prowled the dead zone with ease.

Into this mayhem walked victorious Rama, followed by his brother Lakshmana,
the new king of Lanka, Vibhishana, the Monkey King Sug-riva and Hanuman, whose tail lit Lanka for days.

Grateful for their support and relieved with victory, a visibly tired Rama, close to tears, invited the bears and giant vultures who participated in battle to feast on the carrion, their deserved spoils of war.

“As the soldiers celebrated,” said Muthassi, “Rama and the others started making
their way to the palace gates. For Sita.”

“But all is never as it seems,” warned Muthassi. “Behind the scenes lived the uglier underbelly of war, unscrupulous soldiers from Rama’s army who scoured the conquered land like parasites, interested in loot and women, the dirtier spoils of war.”

But virtuous warriors also fought on Rama’s side. Many, although injured themselves, offered to help
set pyres for the dead, finding sages and priests to perform the last rites quickly. Some opted to sit with the children of dead rakshashas, while their mothers searched for their fathers. Others, they didn’t care, they pillaged, raped.

Even Sarama became prey to such wanton feasting, grabbed by a soldier from Sugriva’s camp, bent with rage, The Male, our ancestor, ferociously and brutally
violating her on the very battlefield where moments ago, Ravana’s ten heads scanned for Rama, his heart still healthy with life and blood.

Sarama watched the creature forcing himself on her, dirtied from war, raging because of it. She paid attention to his hands, callused from bridge building, tired of killing, tired from killing. She felt pity. And then she remembered the war, Surpanakha’s
mutilation, Ravana’s insistence on punishing the brothers by punishing the young princess, what hubris had done to Lanka. Pinned down, spread legs rubbing red earth, armor scraping old skin, Sarama breathed in decay, heard maggots. She had genuinely wanted to believe that after the loss of so much life, victory belonged to a just lord leading a disciplined army. It was difficult to be certain anymore.
On the battlefield, nothing was fair, not even God. And right there, as the creature shuddered inside her, spilling his seed into her old womb, she howled with rage, screaming with such force that she tore a hole in the monkey’s chest, exposing his heart. Sarama reached in, and held his beating red organ in the palm of her hand as it continued to pump blood. The monkey, The Male, our ancestor,
alarmed, looked at Sarama, his body still trembling.

Looking him in the eye, Sarama slowly crushed his heart.

In the celebratory din, no one noticed. Nearby, giant vultures tore through an elephant as it waited to die.

She picked herself up quickly, forgetting in her haste to wipe the mud, spittle and blood off her body. She would deal with the shock later. For now, she headed for the
palace gates. She needed to be there. In the garden. When Rama received Sita. She needed to see the end to all this madness.

Sarama felt a sense of dread when Rama didn’t meet Sita immediately. Even Vibhishana seemed embarrassed when he greeted the lady on Rama’s behalf, requesting her to bathe and bedecked in her finery. Her lord would see her then.

And when they walked her out, and Rama
stood in front of his wife like a guest, a stranger, Sarama sighed. Surpanakha’s revenge was complete. Rama had shunned Sita publicly. Neither would fully recover from the hurt. Ayodhya would never let them forget it.

Sarama understood quite well why Rama did what he did. As she waited for Sita to appear in public, even she heard and recoiled from the spite with which soldiers from Rama’s own
army, men, monkeys, bears, and other half-beasts he had commanded only a few hours ago, discussed the young princess’ lost virtue. When a group of them were shushed, the gossiping would stop, only for the cackling would resume soon after. In Ayodhya too, it would be the same. Yet when Sita stepped into the lit pyre, not a sound was made. You could only hear burning. The crackle of embers. The burning
of virtue and the fury it brings.

And as Sarama stared at Sita, she spied tears of rage through the flames, fire which refused to touch the sullied princess of Ayodhya, as though afraid. She, Sita, burnt harder than fire, swallowing fire itself, her rage burning through fire, scorching even Agni, who pleaded with Rama to accept his virtuous queen, whose purity, if questioned further, would
burn every living thing into oblivion.

When Rama was appeased, and the test, the public trial, over, the fire extinguished, the young couple faced each other once more, as husband and wife, Crown Prince and Princess of Ayodhya. Sarama did not wait to see Rama walk towards his absolved wife.

Sarama, our ancestor, didn’t wait at all. She started to walk. Even as shouts of Long Live! burst
across Lanka, as garlands rained down from the Gods.

She walked, disgusted, walking away from Lanka, refusing to stop. She could have used her powers to transport herself elsewhere. She could still fly. But she decided against it. She wanted to walk, inhaling the mayhem, recalling the egos that helped mutilate two women and burn Lanka.

She stopped only when she started approaching the bridge
the creature who raped her helped build, The Male, our ancestor, the father of the child she would conceive. She stared long and hard at the beach.

The water was calm but red, the shore quiet, yet stinking of decomposing flesh. Seagulls circled the shoreline, rats started to surface. Sarama stepped forward, didn’t look back. Not even once. The war was over but she believed little that was worthwhile
had been salvaged. She began to walk across the bridge. The salty wind would ravage her face but she didn’t care. The sound of the sea kept her company until she reached the end.

“And when she reached the other side,” Muthassi ended, “Sarama, our ancestor, her belly was swollen.”

Regressions
Swapna Kishore

When we are in a village, time flies by as I help the women in their chores-drawing water, milking the cows, stoking cow-dung fires and stir ring the simmering pots of the payasam pudding, or even braiding jas mines in the hair of the young girls. By night, I am tired and fall
asleep almost immediately. But when we are traveling, I lie awake below the open, unpolluted skies staring at the full moon and I often think of my Ambapur, oh, so far away, a blur across time and space.

My last evening with Mother is the most vivid of my childhood memories. I was five years old, and supposed to join the Facility the next morning, and Mother and I stood in our dome’s viewing
tower, looking at the moon, my small hand in hers.

“You will never be alone,” she told me, “because when we both look at the moon at night, we can imagine we are standing together.”

I wasn’t consoled. “Why can’t I come home for holidays?” I cried plaintively. “What exactly is a futurist?”

Mother’s face seemed all shadows and sharp angles, and her hand stiffened around mine, hurtful. I
realized with a shock that she didn’t know the answer.

“Futurists improve the fate of women everywhere, not just women in Ambapur,” she said finally. “Kalpana, learn whatever they teach you, and don’t be impatient.”

I am not impatient now, Mother.

Sometimes I pace, the wet grass ticklish to my bare feet, and absorb the sweet fragrance of parijata flowers. And I wonder-is my past true,
if the future will not hold it?

Futurists, I learned at the age of seven, operated in two streams, the researchers and the agents. Researchers provided data while agents changed the future. The glory lay with the agents, though we trainees weren’t told what they did. I couldn’t qualify as an agent; I failed the profile tests thrice despite my through-the-roof IQ and my ‘A’s in every subject.
I’d have fudged my personality profile, but I spotted no pattern distinguishing the accepted girls from those rejected-no discriminating levels of IQ, extroversion, assertiveness, nothing.

The shame of my failure struck me fully the day I was moved to the research wing and knew I would never see the agent wing or interact with an agent. I buried myself in work, barely smiling at fellow researchers
at meal times, avoiding evening gossip sessions in the common room. If I was doomed to be a researcher, I’d be the best.

Over time, my work began fascinating me. My assignments involved analysis of the complicated social causes and scientific breakthroughs that preceded the initiation of the Ambapur experiment. How did mythology, history, and culture influence the emergence of Swami Sar-vadharmananda?
What made his rants against Ambapur so popular? Would the Hindu Religious Resurgence have grown without
Nava Manusm-riti?
What triggered India’s splintering into multiple countries with the largest, most prosperous states forming Swamiji’s dream Navabharata? To me, that century-old partition of India was particularly interest ing because it transformed Ambapur from an experimental district to
a country, howsoever small.

On some days, though, as I unraveled and scrutinized critical forks in history, I wondered at the futility of such intense study, because the applicability of lessons from ancient history was limited, wasn’t it? Then I’d tell myself that my honed abilities would be used later for complex, contemporary scenarios.

My life changed the day Seniormost’s voice boomed
from my contact port, taut, curt. “Kalpana, report to Room 455 immediately.”

“Pardon?” My stomach crunched. Why would the country’s most powerful woman, summon me?

“Hurry, Kalpana,” urged Seniormost. “This is an emergency.”

I raced down the corridors. Momentum and panic carried me through an open door, but I skidded to a halt before grimfaced senior women ringing a screen showing an abstract
low-res animation-red, yellow, brown splotches, moved in weird patterns. Grainy and coarse and scary, though I could not understand why I felt so queasy.

“Kalpana?” Seniormost frowned at me. “We want you to replace an agent.”

“I’m not qualified,” I stuttered.

“You are the only Series K clone available right now. We need someone similar enough to Kavita to replace her at a critical gender
fork.”

“Gender fork? But those happened in the past.” They were events that determined major trends in gender equations.

“Futurist agents,” she cut in, “change the past so that the future changes.”

Change the past?
I stared at her, trying to comprehend her words. I’d always thought agents changed the future. “But…”

“Pay attention, we have only fifteen minutes,” Seniormost said. “You
know how important Sita was in shaping gender roles, right?”

“Of course.” Sita was projected as the ideal woman in Swami Sarvad-harmananda’s
Nava Manusmriti,
which ended up as the final reference on Hinduism for Navabharata; Swamiji used Sita to justify the strait-jacket gender laws binding millions of Navabharata women. I had often done what-if analyses of related mythology.

“Because the
Ramayana of
Nava Manusmriti is not based on a sin gle story but is a melding of several candidate stories,”
and Seniormost paused for a beat, “we have several potential intervention points. For our correcting nudges, we have selected ten most significant scenarios. In this particular one, the Sita equivalent assists her husband in his trade, cures her grievously ill brother-in-law, and manages
the house and finances during an extended business trip which will later be called an exile.”

“Sounds an improvement on the stereotypical Sita,” I said.

Seniormost waved me to silence. “They returned home and rumors started, as in all Ramayanas. The husband did not ignore them.” A muscle on her face twitched as her gaze snapped to the screen.

I swiveled to see the display, my uneasiness
growing as I tried to understand what those strange red and orange splotches meant. “What is happening there?”

“Kavita’s fire-proofing failed.” Seniormost’s tone was heavy.

The import of her words sank slowly into my mind. That scarlet dance was an inferno, licks of flame, and sparks and embers-fire seen by someone burning inside it. A chill crawled up my spine.

“That’s Kavita?” I whispered
hoarsely.

“They call her Vaidehi.”

Vaidehi, one of Sita’s names. This is what the fire had made me suspect. What I was seeing on the display was the agni pareeksha, the shameful episode present in each of the over eight-hundred
versions of Ramayana. An Ambapur agent was being burned alive, and I was supposed to replace her.

“But Seniormost,” I whispered. “I am not trained. I am clueless…
please, I am not sure…”

“I’ve seen your records, Kalpana. You are brilliant and capable of extraordinary mental focus. All the assignment needs is focus. Let them dress you and I’ll explain the rest.”

I barely noticed the women who surrounded me and the hands flurry ing around me; I was numb as if I’d been plunged into ice water. I was supposed to become Sita. Well,
a
Sita, if not
the
Sita.
My legs wobbled. I think I swayed.

I tried to sort my thoughts as women peeled off my bodysuit and wrapped silk around my waist and chest. Capsules were snapped into my brain implant. A woman tried injecting something into my leg; I kicked reflexively, so someone held my arm rigid and plunged in the needle. A small wart appeared on my skin. “We don’t have time for a binding operation,” someone
said. “Left to nature, it takes a week for the button to integrate properly, but it’ll be stable enough unless there is extreme trauma.” Jewelry clasps clicked, someone explained the hidden tools. A spray coated me with a golden haze.

“Thank you,” said Seniormost, and the women withdrew.

Before I could pour out my questions, Seniormost started speaking, so I focused on her words.

“Kavita
was trained in essentials and sent out when she was seven years old,” she said. “We had coded the relevant cultural information in her brain implant, and we briefed her frequently using her sync but ton. We got periodic updates on her activity from the button; we have uploaded all information into your implant. Access is by using normal thought control techniques.”

She had not talked of Kavita’s
death. I shuddered. “Kavita died in spite of her training. How will I survive?”

“That was an accident.”

“And what am I supposed to do there? How will I know how to behave, what to say, how to recognize people?”

“The implant has all the data and guidance algorithms to help you conform and stay unnoticed.” She smiled reassuringly. “Just stay low profile for a day or two till we study the
situation and brief you.”

It sounded tough, but manageable. I took a centering breath. “When will you replace me with a proper agent?”

Seniormost’s face softened. She patted my shoulder and strapped me in a chair. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I know you can do it.” She flung a lever.

The conflagration hemmed me in, intimidating in spite of my fire-proofing. Bile soured my throat
as I tried to push away the horror of the situation. My implant flashed an instruction; I obediently directed a miniscule atomizer on the charred remains of my predecessor near my feet. No burnt human bones must be found in the ashes.

Again, impelled by the implant, I ran to the edge of the pyre where the onlookers were grey smudges beyond an orange shimmer. I stepped out of the fire. I must
have looked impressive with my skin burnished gold from the afterglow of the dissipating fire-proofing shell, resplendent in silk garments, dazzling with jewelry. A woman certified pure by Agni Devata, the God of Fire.

“Jai Ho!” A few scattered cries from the crowd.

I walked slowly, painfully, on the rough ground, trying to look calm and dignified. A pall of silence smothered the crowds.
Some women, several men. I had studied about men, about their salty smells, their thick, coarse voices, their hairy bodies, but even so, seeing them made me shudder. Petals were showered at me-jasmines, roses, marigolds-soft touches against bare skin, a creepy feeling. A crone grasped my hands into her gnarled ones, and led me to a short, skinny man with male-pattern baldness
and a bewildered
expression. Sweat on his brows. And fear, sour, nauseous fear-I could smell it.

Curiosity overrode my fear. This must be the husband, the wimp who burned his wife to stop baseless gossip about her chastity. How unimpressive he looked! Most mythological interpretations described him, or the collective of men like him, as tall, broad-shouldered, muscular of body and yet sensitive of face, hair
a silky curtain.

“My chaste wife,” he muttered, averting his gaze.

Touch his feet, prompted my implant. Seek his blessing for a longer life.

But I couldn’t force myself to act docile to someone who had just killed his wife.

The man raised his hand as if blessing me. I walked past him; he scurried after me, annoyance flitting on his face.

A rickety chariot, lumpy seats covered by
a thread-bare spread. I settled down. The man sat opposite me, torso angled away, body rigid, too scared to bother me for a while.

Good. I had time, finally, to orient myself to the situation. A couple of centering breaths helped me focus. Then with my eyes half-closed, I began viewing Vaidehi’s downloads, filter set for salient personal facts. The husband was a local chieftain’s son. After
his father called him good-for-nothing, he left his village in a huff , keen to prove his trading acumen. He dragged along his brother and Vaidehi for the business trip. They roamed from village to village, traded, earned gold and jewels. When they returned home, a washerman challenged Vaidehi’s chastity. Rumors, insinuations, and the demands of a fire test followed. Vaidehi expected the husband
to ignore them. She knew him to be demanding and easy to anger, but assumed he valued her because of her hard work and loyalty during those years of travel. That was the status last evening, as per the most recent transmission.

I was soaking the information when the chariot jerked to a halt.

No marble palace, no lush bowers, no gold fountains-only a simple stone building. Rice and lentil
baras were drying on cloth spread out in the courtyard. Cowpats had been slapped on the walls. A naked boy wheeled a painted wooden cart. Women with their heads covered, some embroidering, others slicing yam. Men sprawled on rope cots and smoked something noxious.

The husband led me to a whitewashed room and closed the door behind us. He whipped out a dagger from his waistband. “How did you
survive that fire? Witchcraft?”

My implant suggested I fall at his feet and plead forgiveness.
Forgiveness for what, surviving?
I had not integrated sufficiently with the Vaidehi persona to manage such acting; such false humility was some thing I could not manage. I ignored the advice and readied myself for his attack.

He lunged at me. I twisted aside and hit his wrist sharply, making him
drop the dagger. I kicked it across the room. Mouth agape, eyes round with shock, he stared at his empty hand.