KRISHNA CORIOLIS#4: Lord of Mathura (19 page)

‘‘And after that he killed Baka, your great champion. And Sankhacuda whom we sent to kill Nanda-Maharaja. And Vyoma. Our last three asura assassins. All your plans have failed, Jarasandha.’

Jarasandha glanced sharply at Kamsa. It was the first time his son-in-law had called him by his name, openly to his face. It was obvious he wasn’t pleased by the familiarity of usage. ‘Then perhaps you should take matters into your own hand.’

Kamsa looked at him. ‘How?’

‘Kill the Deliverer yourself.’

Kamsa stared at him. ‘I thought you said I ought not to do that.’

‘At the time, I also thought one of these several methods would work: attempting to kill the children of his adopted clan, or his adopted father or mother, or to destroy the whole clan by fire or natural calamity. But nothing has worked, has it? So I think it is time you stepped up and did your own fighting.’

Jarasandha stood up and placed a hand on Kamsa’s shoulder. 

‘The time has come for you face the Slayer of Kamsa and prove the prophecy wrong.’

31

After
Jarasandha had left, Kamsa sat for hours, pondering on his father-in-law’s words. He waved away courtiers, ministers, even Pralamba who had urgent matters to discuss with him, spurned more wine and drink, and even rejected the advances of his favorite women. Hours passed, then days. He paced the corridors and halls of his palace. 

Finally, he went down to the basement of the palace, down winding stone stairways and walls dripping so freely with moisture that they had turned lichenous green, spouting weeds in places. The doors here were of iron and most had rusted solid over the years, opening only reluctantly with a great deal of creaking and screeching. The guards were old and mostly lying drunk in stupors for they had no real work to do here, merely to stay on watch for the prescribed number of hours day after day. The work was so numbingly mindless, they turned to drink or gambling to while away the hours. Kamsa ignored them. Many were former aides or guards who had been penalized for errors by being sent to these postings. There was little point in punishing them further. Besides, no prisoner had ever escaped these lowermost dungeons: in most cases, most of the prisoners had never even been seen by the guards. So long as the food was eaten and the slop trays filled each day, they assumed the wretched souls were still alive. Other than that, nobody knew or cared. 

In the lowermost level of the deepest, darkest dungeon in the kingdom, he made his way to the farthest end of a long deserted corridor. Stone walls bounded each side and a stone ceiling sagged noticeably from the weight of groundwater and rock pressing down. He had to duck his head in places to pass. Here, the doors were rusted shut and had to be forced open for him to pass - he tore them apart like paper with his dense strength, but normal human guards would not have been able to pass through. Indeed, none had: these deep dungeons were serviced by conduits on the upper levels. Food was placed in cloth bundles and thrown down from time to time. That was all the care these prisoners received. Whether they lived here or died, nobody knew. In the ancient texts, it was said there were seven levels of Naraka or the hellish realms. If there was an Eighth, this dungeon would surely be it. 

There were only two prisoners in this lowermost level of hell. As Kamsa reached the stone wall that marked the end of the passage, he stopped and looked up, holding the torch he had taken from a sconce on a higher level during his descent. The sound of water dripping irregularly on stone was the only sound in this place. The crackling of the mashaal counterpointed it now. 

High up on the wall were a few niches, cut into the stone. They were just sufficient to allow a little air to pass into the walled compartment beyond. These niches and the conduits down which food bundles were thrown were the only access into the cell beyond this wall. He found that the torch sucked up whatever little air existed here, leaving almost nothing to breathe. Already, his head felt faint from the lack of aerial sustenance. To survive in that enclosed cell, the prisoners must have to breathe only marginally, the way tapasvi sadhus breathed in high Himalayan grottos, drawing in just enough for survival. There was no more than that to be had. 

He decided to put out the mashaal. He dropped it on the floor which had squelched underfoot as he approached. The torch fizzled out instantly, leaving him in pitch darkness. 

After a moment, he raised his palms, touching them to the wall of the cell. 

He stood there a while, touching his palm to the cold stone wall. 

He said nothing, did nothing else, just stood there. 

Finally, he turned and left the way he had come. 

The sound of his footsteps ascending the stairway echoed down in the deepest dungeon. 

They could be heard inside the walled-in cell. 

32

AKRURA
felt a peculiar mixture of sadness and anger as he approached the palace complex of Mathura. The towering stone towers of the old palace had long since been subsumed by the gleaming new facades of the new one raised by the Usurper. 

He felt worse as he rode his horse up the winding stone pathway that led uphill, designed to make it harder for invaders to approach and more effective to defend. 

Once, he would have counted himself as being among the defenders, should Mathura ever happen to be under attack. Now, were such an event to occur, he would almost certainly be on this side of the great gates, leading a rebellious force of militia uphill to reclaim their stolen heritage and restore the Yadava nation to its former glory.  

It had not been so long ago that he had come up this same winding paved path, accompanying his dear friend Vasudeva and so many other kith and kin. What hope had filled his heart that morning, what expectations he had carried aloft alongwith the cheerful kritha-dvaj banner of the Vrishni that he had held up s he rode. The watching crowds that had thronged these walled streets had shared that hope and expectation, filling the crisp morning air with their own shouts and cheers of encouragement and support. And within those great ancient stone walls, as Vasudeva and his counterpart King Ugrasena had crossed raj-tarus, how deafening had been the cheers then! Loud enough to carry across all Bharat-varsha, this great land of Jambudwipa, sub-continent of the Jamun tree, where the Bharata tribe had co-existed in relative harmony since the seminal battle fought by Trtsu Bharata King Sudas on the banks of the Parusni, the battle that won the Bharata nation the right to continue to inhabit and proliferate across this great realm. 

Surely their ancestors had heard those cheers and smiled at their optimism, just as they must have shaken their heads and sighed as the historic peace treaty had been shattered within hours by King Ugrasena’s own son, the then-Prince Kamsa. 

Now that prince was King, Usurper to his father’s throne. Vasudeva and his wife Devaki were in veritable exile of their own choice, calling it a life pilgrimage to neutralize the political implications of their years-long absence. 

The Yadava nation was embroiled in the nastiest tribal politics and infighting since its inception by the great ancestor Yadu. 

A semblance of peace hung over the nation like a reeking cloud of smoke over a cremation ghat, but beneath that obscurantist facade were the ugly faces of opportunists taking venal advantage of the atmosphere of exploitation and oppression. Those with capital in their fists and greed in their hearts thrived and grew richer and greedier. Those with only honest labour and the talent of craft, art or knowledge suffered and were misused by the capital-holders. It was the lowest a society could descend morally and still appear to be prosperous and vital, and it was all the result of Kamsa’s kingship, supported, encouraged and artfully designed by Jarasandha. 

Akrura stood against all that Kamsa stood for now. A far cry from that day of the peace treaty when he had stood side by side with the son of Ugrasena and prayed for peace. Today, he led the most widespread resistance movement against Kamsa’s continuing oppression of the people, controlled a militia the size of a small army, and managed a network of refugees and migrants that moved across the Arya nations like a concourse of rivers and tributaries. 

He represented the opposition, illegal, unofficial and responsible for more actions against the state and its governing head, Kamsa, than any of the hundreds of criminals rotting in the city’s deepest dungeons or those hundreds of thousands of protestors and opposers who had been despatched over the decades of Kamsa’s long and cruel regime.  

And yet, here he was, riding alone and unarmed up the last leg of the pathway that led to Kamsa’s palace. In a moment, he would reach the great gates and pass through as he had that long-lost day of the peace treaty. Some time later, he would be taken before Kamsa himself and presented. And after that, it would be seen whether he was condemned and executed, tortured or torn apart. 

His people had begged him not to go. They had pleaded, cajoled, urged, argued, fought and done everything else possible to make him stay. 

Yet here he was. Riding into the demon’s den. The asura’s lair. The rakshasa’s hellish homestead. 

Why? 

The reason was simple: Kamsa had summoned him. And he was curious. 

Akrura reached the great gates of Mathura palace and passed through them unchallenged. 

33

KAMSA
grinned down at Akrura. Leaving his throne, he came down from the dais, surprising the entire court. At once, Akrura sensed people stepping back, cringing or wincing as they anticipated a bloody end to the royal visitor. He had heard tales of how Kamsa enjoyed using his newfound ability to despatch those who offended him in court, be they emissaries from foreign lands or his own people. It was said that he could crush a man’s skull between his thumb and little finger, with no more effort than an ordinary man would need to squash a grape, and with similar results. 

Akrura held his ground, keeping his palms pressed together in the same namaskaram stance with which he had just greeted Kamsa. He maintained the same pleasant look on his face and kept his head slightly bowed as a show of respect. But inwardly, he thought that if Kamsa had planned this as a means of crippling the militia and the resistance, he had certainly played this hand with more finesse than Akrura had anticipated. 

He did not tense visibly as Kamsa stretched out a hand towards him, a hand that appeared quite normal if a bit thickened at the wrist as befitted a swordsman and wrestler, but which he knew was capable of feats of strength that elephants could not hope to match. Even the legendary Hathi-Yodha, recently retired from active duty due to age and ill health, had never been feared as Kamsa’s strength was now. If even a tenth of the rumors were to be believed, the Usurper was as close to being superhuman as it was possible without aspiring to god status. 

Akrura did not even need to credit rumors: he had himself watched more than one wrestling match where Kamsa had participated, observing incognito from the crowd as the Usurper had pounded and hammed opponent after opponent to bloody pulp. It had been a chilling sight and he had been filled with greater respect for Kamsa than he would have believed possible. 

It appeared that as Kamsa had grown in strength and ability, he had gained in self-control and maturity. While the old Kamsa had wildly struck out at anyone and everyone, using his rakshasa size and power to kill randomly, this Kamsa picked his fights and opponents carefully and kept his considerably enhanced strength well curbed, unleashing it only on the wrestling akhada. That was impressive and also a sign of a dangerous opponent. Beware the enemy who can control his power and unleash it only when unavoidable: he is more dangerous than the fool who lashes out at every provocation. 

Now, as Kamsa’s legendary hand reached out to Akrura, he tensed despite himself. One twist of those powerful fingers and the head of the resistance movement would be crushed, quite literally. 

But the most feared fingers in the kingdom descended with surprising gentleness upon his shoulder, resting there with the weight of a normal man’s hand. 

‘Bho! Bho!’ Kamsa said, ‘Well met, Friend Akrura. Well met indeed.’

‘The privilege is mine, my lord,’ Akrura said mildly. 

‘You do yourself a disservice,’ Kamsa said loudly, clearly speaking for the benefit of the court. He turned theatrically and continued addressing Akrura even though he faced a chamber filled with those who represented the considerable wealth and prestige and power of the nation. ‘You are among the most respected Yadavas in the land today. Do not even bother to deny it!’

Akrura did not deny it. He listened, as curious to see what new political maneuver was being unfurled. 

Kamsa continued praising Akrura in language that sounded carefully rehearsed, perhaps even scripted. Akrura noted that the old minister Pralamba was present and appeared to be hanging onto every word spoken by Kamsa. Akrura resisted the impulse to smile openly. So Kamsa had asked Pralamba to prepare an eulogy for him and had memorized it word by word. Interesting. That was not typical Kamsa behavior. Which behooved the question: was this to be Akrura’s last eulogy? 

After several minutes of typical bombastic political wordage, Kamsa finally came to the nub:

‘You are friend alike to the Bhoja and the Vrishni clans,’ Kamsa said, now standing with one foot on the first level of the dais, knee bent, leaning with one arm on his own thigh. ‘You act as spokesman for both clans, conveying delicate messages from one to the other with tact and diplomacy. Your neutrality is unquestioned. Your wisdom and loyalty to the Yadava nation as a whole beyond dispute. Most of all, you are famous for always acting in the best interests of others, even when the outcome may not be in your own best interests.’