VoR Hardcovers (finally) despatched – did you get your’s? (SoS delayed, sigh.)
VoR (Vengeance of Ravana) Hardcovers have finally been despatched this past week. If you had ordered a hardcover limited edition or won the auction for the #1 Collector’s Hardcover Edition, you should have received it by now. If you have not received it, please visit the How To Pay Page and post a message there alongwith your full postal address with pincode+tel.no. (the address will be edited out before approving the comment) to save time.
Thanks for your patience waiting for these hardcovers – it’s been a very long wait for me as well, with the printer repeatedly messing up the printing, binding, etc, and endless delays. Thankfully, the wait is over now…
…and another wait begins, for SoS (Sons of Sita)! But don’t worry, it won’t be as long as the VoR Hardcover delay. The AKB Books Signed Limited Edition of SoS (hardcover as well as paperback) is now scheduled to be released by end-April. Updates will be sent to you closer to the date. 
As always, I welcome reader correspondence and always replies to every message. You are most welcome to post a message to me at the Readerswrite Page
CLICK HERE FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ON AKB BOOKS
CLICK HERE TO ORDER AN AKB BOOK WITHIN INDIA
CLICK HERE FOR ALL PAYMENT AND DELIVERY RELATED MATTERS
SoS pre-orders open again on popular demand! Note the special pre-order price for the SoS hardback: offer open till stocks last. SOLD OUT!
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army in an extraordinary battle. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Hardback Edition/Rs 500 SOLD OUT!
300 Pages/2nd Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400 SOLD OUT!
Click here to read excerpts from Sons of Sita.
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT
(AKB Books are currently unavailable to order outside India.)
How to Pay
Thank you for your AKB BOOKS order.
Your book will be despatched by courier within 24 hours. Please allow between 3 – 5 working days for the courier to deliver and ensure that someone is there during working hours to receive and sign for the book. If it is returned, you will be liable to pay an extra charge of Rs 50 for each time the book is re-sent to you.
IMPORTANT: Pre-orders will be shipped when the books are printed as per the announced date. Sons of Sita is delayed and is now scheduled for delivery in April.
Please pay the total sum due into the following ICICI Bank account – only via online transfer or cash deposit into any branch anywhere in India. (No cheques please!) Once you have made the payment, you can revisit this page to fill in the Payment Confirmation Form (below). If you have any queries or comments related to payment or delivery, please leave a comment below.
Here are the details you’ll need for the pay-in slip or online transfer:
ICICI Bank
A/c Holder: Ashok Banker
S/B A/c No: 003801016973
Bandra Branch, Mumbai
IFSC Code: ICIC0000038
Thanks again for your order!
Warmest wishes
AKB Books
AKB BOOKS PAYMENT CONFIRMATION FORM
(Note: Please fill in this form only AFTER payment is made!)
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#5
FOUR
When Luv came sprinting around the outcrop, two pairs of eyes instantly snapped around to stare at him. The two men on the second wagon looked startled to see him. I know that look. They think I’m Kush and can’t figure out how he could have run off in that direction and then appeared again from this direction. He was used to that response. He yelled at them as he sprinted past: “Stay where you are!” They looked too startled to try anything anyway.
Barely had he run past the wagon when he heard the sound of pounding hooves from ahead, around the next spur of rock. A few broken boulders lay on the path, their insides gleaming rusty red where they had broken open after falling in a minor landslide during the last monsoon. Others had been pushed over deliberately to block the path, for this was a popular ambush point on the raj-marg. The sound of hooves and rattling of wagon wheels was very loud by then and he knew better than to run around a blind turn. Instead he swerved and leaped up onto the largest broken boulder. He could smell the iron in the air here, so rich was the vein in the lohit stone. These hills were rife with minerals, good pure ore for making steel.
He stood in the relaxed archer position that Bearface had taught them, waiting.
Don’t call your guru that name, Maatr’s voice said in his mind’s ear, He is Gurudev to you, remember!
Yes, Maa.
The position that Bearface had taught them, the lazy cobra, their guru had called it, was now second nature. He waits, seemingly indolent, swaying lazily, but the instant threat appears, he strikes with lightning-speed.
Luv didn’t know if he moved at lightning-speed, but the instant the wagon came into sight, he let fly. The first arrow hit its mark and the second was flying even before the wagon had rolled fully into view. A man shouted out with pain and tumbled off the wagon, with two arrows sprouting, one from each shoulder – the first had clearly been Kush’s work. The driver screamed like a wounded horse and clutched at the arrow quivering in the meat of his thigh – the head must have struck the thighbone, hence the vibration and the extreme pain. Then the wagon rolled past and the next came into view, and still no sight of Kush.
Damnit, Luv thought, feeling the heat rise in his face, cheeks burning. Where are you?
The men on this wagon were better prepared and better shots. Three well aimed arrows came blurring at Luv and he had to somersault sideways to dodge both. Landing on his bare feet on the rubble of the lohitstone, he felt warmth on his waist where one had nicked the skin just enough to draw a bead or two. He loosed off two quick ones before the men could shoot the second volley, and both hit their marks. Both men dropped their own bows, one grunting, the other choosing the strong silent response.
Then the rest of the grama came into view, riding fast, faster than any grama ought to have been especially on this twisting treacherous neck of the raj-marg, and everything began to move very quickly, so quickly that Luv felt his senses slowing to a crawl as they always did in a fight, the world popping into brilliant crystalline clarity and colour: the veins on every leaf visible, every knothole on the wooden slats of a wagon’s side in view, hearing every grinding creak in a wheel, smelling the raw red odors of freshly spilled human blood mixed in with the pungent smell of horse sweat, man-sweat and the rusty tang of the lohitstone.
The flaps of the following wagons opened and revealed armed men. Burly, hirsute, armoured men in the familiar purple and black of Ayodhya’s inner guard. PFs, or some new extension of the PF regiment – for PFs were meant to guard the inner city, not ride with trading gramas as hired escorts. Whatever they were, whomever they were, there were a lot of them, too many for Luv to simply disarm. He would have to fight them seriously to survive, kill some quite likely. And even then it would be touch and go.
The good warrior knows when to retreat, said his guru’s gruff voice in his ear. The code of the kshatriya means nothing if there is no kshatriya left to fight!
Agreeing with Bearface – sorry, Gurudev – was his mother’s voice in his other ear. Run, Luv, run! You can’t fight them all!
Ji, Maatr, jaisi aagya, he said in his mind as he began the heavy task of fitting arrows to bow and aiming not to maim or disarm but to disable, possibly kill. I would love to run. But not without my brother.
“Damnit Kush, where the hell are you?” he said aloud as he began shooting.
Kush emerged from the wagon to see his twin brother standing on a pile of lohistone landslide, the edges of the outcrop at his back, loosing arrows with concentrated ease. He appeared to be single-handedly battling what looked like at least five quads of armed PFs, even though PFs never ventured armed and uniformed outside the Ayodhya city limits. Clearly this grama was a notable exception to the usual rules.
Which makes sense, considering the cargo they’re carrying, he thought as he sprinted away from Luv and to the other side of the raj-marg, unnoticed by either his brother or the men busy trying to kill him. In three deft leaps and grabs he had climbed a tree and was standing on a near-horizontal branch twice as thick as his own thigh. It would have bent and drooped under a grown man’s weight but it took his own lithe form easily, and he steadied his left shoulder against the trunk, took aim at his first target and loosed. The man took the arrow in the meaty muscle joining shoulder to neck, and it popped out through his collarbone with a small explosion of blood. The man yelped like a pup and dropped the javelin he had been about to fling at Luv.
Without turning to look directly at Kush, Luv cried out with joy. “Kush!” Then added in a disgruntled tone even as he continued loosing and dodging: “Took your time, didn’t you!”
“Had to make a short visit to the royal treasury,” Kush called back, grinning. He continued loosing, and saw his third target drop, roaring with frustration and fury as he tried to clutch at the arrow sprouting from his shoulderblade. Hit the bone, hurts like blazes. That voice was old Nakhudi’s, who always seemed to know how to inflict maximum pain on the enemy without actually killing them. Only male enemies, as she liked to remind them, grinning to reveal her astonishingly white gleaming teeth in her buffalo-dark face.
The fight continued for another few moments, the PFs on and around the halted wagons trying with admirable skill to face an attack on two diagonally opposed fronts with diminishing success. Their leader, an efficient and intelligent-seeming fellow, tried to rally his men to use the wagons as shielding, while attempting to send a pair of quads around to outflank Kush – Luv was bolstered by the outcrop which would have taken hours to cut over and around – but the brothers had them at the deadliest cross-angle two bowmen could take, and the broken stones shielded Luv while the tree and foliage shielded Kush, and while many arrows and javelins were aimed at them, none came closer than a single wayward arrow that thunked into the tree branch between Kush’s big toe and its neighbour.
Then, as fierce fights usually did, this one dissipated like a puddle evaporating under a mid-day sun, and suddenly the captain of the PFs was waving his arms in surrender.
Kush grinned and dropped down from his perch, making his way cautiously towards the halted wagons. He had his eye on some men at the back who might, if still feisty enough, try to fling a javelin or two as he approached. But every one of them and all the others as well had at least one arrow in their arm, leg or back, and one massively built chap who had refused to settle down with just two or even three arrows had four bristling from his extremities, lying on his back and cursing the sky roundly with a raised fist, turning the air blue with his choice of profanities. Kush grinned even wider, making a note of several for future reference. Living in an ashram community as they did, good curses were hard to come by!
Luv had leaped up to the tall broken lohitstone boulder, keeping his weapon trained on the PFs as his brother approached. Kush winked at him as he came and saw Luv shake his head in mock-disgust – complaining about the moments when Kush had disappeared from sight earlier. The PFs quietened as he reached them, holding down their moaning and grunting and cursing as they saw the ‘men’ who had bested them up close for the first time.
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT: Pre-orders closed.
Overseas orders currently unavailable.
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#4
THREE
Luv knew Kush was in trouble even before he heard the whinnying of horses and shouting of hoarse voices from beyond the outcrop. He wasn’t startled in the least but the old PF with the scar probably assumed he would be and made his move. He leaped off the wagon with surprising speed and ought to have rolled to the right, behind the cover of the wagon; instead he rolled left, grabbing the team’s rig, using the horses as a shield. Luv’s first arrow whizzed harmlessly through the gap where he had expected the man to be and his second remained notched and ready but unloosed. Firing under the team’s bellies would certainly startle them and with that lead roan stallion already impatient and restless to be on his way again, that would only result in a runaway wagon. Not part of the plan. He didn’t bother to call out to the man either: the fellow knew what he was doing and obviously still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Instead, Luv aimed at a new target, a slender leathery one, and fired off three quick arrows in succession. Then he grinned, pleased at the result, and loosed a fourth one directly behind the lead roan’s rump, close enough that were he to go collect that arrow it would probably smell of horse’s droppings!
The roan stallion snorted in response, kicked out once, then suddenly realized what had just happened. Somehow, by some miracle, he and his equestrian companions had been set free of their burdensome load. Without further ado, he lowered his head like a charging bull and started down the path. Startled, the rest of the team had no choice but to follow, and with the burden of the wagon gone, they broke instantly into a canter that turned quickly into a cheerful gallop as they went around the last abutment and disappeared from sight.
In the trail of dust left by their passing, the aging wagon driver lay sprawled on the ground, staring in dazed surprise after the fleeing horses. Before he could get back to his feet, Luv had leaped off the boulder, using a series of lesser stones to hop, skip, jump to the path. He aimed the bow at the man again, who started, convinced he was about to be killed.
“Easy,” Luv said. “We never hurt anyone unless he tries to hurt us first.”
The man showed Luv his open palms. “I’m not looking for a fight, yuvraj. Just an old wagon driver. I leave the fighting to the grama-rakshaks.” He jerked his head backwards, indicating the path behind the stranded wagon.
Almost on cue, a fresh burst of yells and horse sounds came to them from beyond the outcrop. Judging by the sounds, Luv estimated that it wasn’t the second wagon Kush was having trouble with but the rest of the grama. I should go to him, there might be too many for him to handle.
He saw the old driver watching him closely during the few moments it took him to think this and consider the options. Old man may not want to fight, but he’s still a shrewd one.
“What’s your name, oldun?” he asked.
The old driver frowned, his forehead wrinkling in a way that reminded Luv of the bed of the Sona river when it had dried up in last year’s drought. “Why do you need to know that?” he asked.
Luv raised the arrow a fraction.
The man shrugged. “All right. It’s Bejoo. Used to be Captain Bejoo of the Vajra—”
Luv cut him off. “Bejoo. I don’t need your atmakatha. Listen carefully. I’m leaving you alone here for a moment. I could tell you that I have companions watching you from the woods but I won’t do that because you seem like a sharp man. So I’m just going to ask you to stay here till I get back, and not run away. You do that and I’ll let you walk away unharmed. Run and I won’t. Clear?”
The man looked at him suddenly with a peculiar expression.
Luv raised the arrow another fraction. “Clear?” He couldn’t keep the tone of impatience out of his voice. Kush was definitely in trouble by now, or he would have been back.
The man swallowed, then nodded. “Aye. Ayuh, youngun. Clear as the Sarayu in spring.”
Luv looked at him sharply. “Remember. I know these woods like the back of my hand. Run and you die.”
The man nodded again. Again that same peculiar look. He looks like he’s just recognized me and we were long-lost friends. But Luv had never seen the man before in his life.
Luv turned and sprinted up the path.
“Kush!” he yelled as he went. “I’m coming!”
Kush heard the men laughing even over the thundering of the horse’s hooves and the racket of the wagon. They meant to run me down! By kshatriya code, that meant he was free to use mortal violence against them. When someone openly attempted to kill a warrior, he in turn was justified in killing the aggressors to defend his life. Even so, Kush scornfully discarded the idea: men who used a wagon to run down a solitary boy were not worthy adversaries. What was the phrase Maatr used? ‘Don’t soil your arrowheads with cowardly blood!’ He grinned. Maatr was always saying things like that, Vishnu bless her.
He whispered affectionately to both the horses whose rigging he was clinging to, their warm breath on his neck and face tickling him and making him giggle involuntarily. He had been ridden over before and had learned at an early age how to let the horse take you rather than resist and fight the onward-rushing force. Flesh, sinew and bone could be destroyed by that onrushing weight as easily as a footfall would snap a twig. But if a kshatriya was trained and prepared, it was like a wayward puddle being collected by an onflowing stream of water and just as effortless. He had simply let the pounding horses bear down on him, crouched down at just the right angle, and grabbed hold of the rigging between the two lead horses at precisely the right moment: the warrior’s moment, as he and Luv liked to call it. On the raj-marg, one either moved aside – often at breakneck speed to avoid some of those hot-riding royal contingents – or got crushed under pounding hooves and chariot or wagon wheels. Ever since they could remember, they had seen people killed thusly, often old folk too weak or slow to move aside in time, poor unfortunate carrying too heavy a load to toss aside in time and most heartrending of all, children as small as themselves, tiny bodies mangled from the hooves into a shapeless heap of shattered bones and oozing flesh. After viewing one particularly nasty aftermath of a visiting royal procession with an armed escort, Luv and he had begun to teach themselves how to survive such encounters without ending up as battered blood-mash. By the age of 5, when they were old enough to reach the rigging of the tall horses that thundered down the king’s road, they had mastered the art of letting the horse take them. Now, it was easy as clinging to Maatr’s breast.
He had began working his way down the length of the rigging almost immediately after being picked up. Now he looked up between a crack in the floorboards of the driver’s seat at the two men riding there. The one with the arrow in his shoulder was still cursing, but his indignation at his own pain was outweighed by his amusement at having run over the ‘brigand’. They were tough grizzled old veterans, probably ex-PFs like the one in the lead wagon. Luv didn’t waste more time on them. He was more interested in finding out what cargo they carried that had made them too nervous to halt. It was the work of only another moment to haul himself under the wagon itself, then up the side where he found enough space under the flap covering to slip into the vehicle itself without those in the following wagon seeing him.
Inside the wagon, the noise of the grama oddly muted by the heavy canvas covering, he stared around at the consignment for a long silent moment, stunned.
Of all the possible cargoes he had expected, this was not on the list.
Just then he heard the men shouting and the wagon slowing and knew that could only mean one thing: They had reached the stranded second wagon. And most likely, Luv as well.
Now, the fun would begin.
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT: Pre-orders closed.
Overseas orders currently unavailable.
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#3
TWO
Luv fixed a bead on the lead wagon driver and kept his aim steady. The man looked like he had seen violence before, judging from the scar running down the side of his head and neck, and the way he had yielded without argument. Another veteran, for sure. What did they call them, those fellows who dressed up in those funny purple and black dhotis and vastras?
“PF,” Kush said softly beside him. “Tough old men willing to die rather than surrender. Keep your eye on that one. He looks like trouble.”
“I have him,” Luv replied. “You do what you have to.”
Kush disappeared.
Luv was watching the wagon driver’s eyes. They were looking downwards, at the ground, apparently not looking at anything in particular. Yet Luv clearly saw them widen as Kush vanished. Smart fellow, using his peripheral vision.
Yes, this one bore watching closely. Luv would have bet his straightest arrow on the grizzled old fellow being the head of the wagon train’s security force. An old ex-PF, retired, making a few cross-border trips like this one to keep busy and earn a little to keep up his sense of pride. There would be others in the remaining wagons, younger stronger men, more eager and less sensible, but this one was the head. Cut off the head and the body would flail uselessly. Or so it went in theory. He watched the old driver without staring directly at him – that was a sure way to ruin your focus and tire your eyes quickly – and didn’t miss the veteran’s veiled glances back up the path.
He’s expecting the next wagon to come around that curve any moment, hoping to use its appearance as a distraction to leap down to the right, roll quickly and use the wagon to shield himself.
Luv resisted the urge to grin. The man probably thought he could move pretty fast, even at this age.
And he probably can. But not faster than an arrow. Watch out, old uncle.
But it told him the man was an honourable fellow, willing to risk life and limb to earn his coin. And that made him dangerous.
Kush stood in the center of the path, directly in the way of the second wagon. Heavily laden like the first, it had taken a few moments to maneuver around the rock-strewn path. Two men rode in front of this one; an older man handling the reins, a younger one riding beside him with a shortbow laid on his lap. On catching sight of him, this man swore and raised the bow, fitting an arrow to the string. Should have held it loosely in one hand, ready to shoot. Before he could draw, Kush’s first arrow knocked the bow out of his hands. It struck the wooden frame of the wagon, bounced off and fell under the rear wheel of the wagon. Kush heard the sound of cured wood splintering. Waste of a good weapon.
The man swore again as he snatched up a javelin lying discreetly in a recessed groove beside his seat. He had the upper body bulk of a thrower and Kush had no doubt he had probably won many melas in his day.
He called out as the man raised the metal tipped wooden pole to shoulder height: “Drop the weapon. Keep your arm.”
The man showed his teeth and continued without so much as a sideward glance or hesitation. Kush sighed inwardly and wondered why they never listened. The javelin clattered back onto the wagon’s boards as the man stared uncomprehendingly at the arrow that had sprouted from his bicep, disabling his arm. To his credit, he didn’t scream or cry out. At least he’s a professional. He hated it when at times the vaisya traders too cheap to hire good protectors enlisted their own over-enthusiastic relatives to guard the trains. Someone always got badly hurt at those times.
Kush had already turned the bow back to the wagon driver, another arrow already strung and ready to be loosed. The older man didn’t need to have the basics of life explained to him. He was already clucking and prodding and yanking frantically at the reins. With an effort he managed to stop the wagon barely inches from Kush. The breath of the lead horses puffed warmly on Kush’s bare hairless chest.
He bent his head forward and nuzzled the dripping snout of the lead horse, a roan stallion with a white leaf-shaped patch on his forehead, whispering a few words of endearment, while keeping the bow cocked and aimed at the wagon driver. If the man jerked the team forward at that moment…Kush would have to dance merrily to somersault out of the way of the pounding hooves in time. But he trusted horses more than men. The roan’s eyes would flare the instant that happened, giving him the fraction of a second he needed to act.
He kissed the roan one last time: “Someday, I’ll own a herd of beauties just like you.” The roan whinnied in approval as he walked away.
He jerked his head sideways at the wagon driver and the protector, indicating to them to get off. When both men were on the ground, the younger one glaring balefully at Kush, ignoring the arrow stuck in the meat of his arm, Kush pointed the arrow at each one in turn, making sure they looked into his eyes and saw he was serious. The younger one still looked rebellious, so Kush shot an arrow past his head, nicking his scalp with the fletch as it hissed past, just enough to open a cut that would bleed without actually harming the man. The man cursed again, tried to clap his injured hand to the head cut, slapped his own cheek instead, then got busy trying to keep the blood out of his eyes. Head wounds never stopped bleeding on their own, and the man would need patching and herbs to staunch the small but troublesome trickle. That, along with the arrow still in his arm would keep him distracted enough. The driver would give Kush no trouble: he could see it in the man’s eyes. He probably had grandchildren in Ayodhya he wanted to get home to and fighting to protect some rich vaisya trader’s summer’s earning did not seem motivation enough to risk his life.
“Keep your arrows on them, brothers,” Kush called out as he ran past them. “I shall halt the rest of the grama.”
Their eyes flicked one way then another, attempting to seek out where Kush’s fictitious companions might be placed. Kush grinned as he turned the corner. Good. That would keep them well-behaved till he returned.
He rounded the corner just as the rest of the wagon train trundled into sight. He wondered what the Sanskrit highspeech word was for a train carrying only produce and goods for barter and sale. A grama was strictly speaking a travelling clan or extended tribe. These wagon trains that rolled through this neck of the woods were purely carrying loads of trade items guarded and ferried by hired hands from one market town to another. There were no families here, no kith or kin. Just male kshatriyas of every background possible, all armed to defend these goods. A vaisya-grama, it should be called, he thought scornfully. Not because there was anything wrong with the vaisya merchant class, but because a grama so wholly devoted to naught but the pursuit of wealth and individual profit was unnatural, an abomination. Then again, these were city gramas, and cities were corrupt places, breeding grounds of venial vices. These men probably thought they were merely fulfilling their dharma; not that they even knew what dharma truly meant.
“Halt!” he shouted in a voice far greater than seemed possible for one of his small frame and slender torso. His voice carried the conviction of a man who would enforce his own command with the unleashing of weapons if need be. Never mind that he was less than 10 years of age. It took more than years or kilos of muscle to make a man a man.
The line of laden wagons continued to approach without slowing down. The riders had to have seen Kush but they were urging their teams on regardless, chins tucked low, eyes narrowed. From the hunched, tensed way they sat, Kush sensed that they had either expected something like this to happen or were prepared for it. He also knew what they intended to do: ride over him. The foremost wagon rumbled at a steady pace towards him, just about twenty yards away now. He could see the colours of the eyes of the men riding on the rider’s bench. They looked grizzled and tougher than the ones on the front two wagons. Grama-rakshaks. Luve and he had heard of them, kshatriyas who travelled with gramas like this one, guarding them for a fee. It was the first time he was facing one.
He raised his bow, aiming it at them. They seemed to hunch a little lower but made no other move. The man beside the driver already had a bow in his hand with an arrow fitted to the string, stretched and pointed downwards. As Kush raised his bow, the grama-rakshak raised his own, both arrows ready to loose now. Other than that, there was no reaction to his shouted command.
He didn’t entirely blame them. A single bowman barring their way, that too one of his obvious physical appearance, probably seemed unworthy of any response.
He would just have to prove them wrong.
“Halt or I shoot!” he called again. The wagon was barely fifteen yards away now.
In response, the man beside the driver loosed his own arrow. It was well aimed and Kush felt the heated wind of its passing tickle his chest as he swung his body just enough to make space for the arrow to go by. His arrow was already loosed before he swung around, a fraction of a second after the grama-rakshak’s arrow.
The man cursed once, and stared down at the arrow sprouting from his muscled shoulder. It was not a serious wound but it rendered him incapable of using a bow for the time being, which was all Kush had intended.
The wagon driver cracked his whip and the team of horses lurched forward, breaking into a steady canter. The speed at which they moved startled Kush. It could only mean the wagon was not as heavily laden as Luv and he had thought. They covered the remaining ten yards to him in a trice and he barely had time to sling his bow before the towering Kambhoja stallions thundered down on him, fully twice his height and each weighing a half ton. More than two tons of horse and wagon pounded over him relentlessly.
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT: Pre-orders closed.
Overseas orders currently unavailable.
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#2
KAAND 1
ONE
The heavily laden wagon train trundled noisily through the woods. Sunlight fell in beams through the high leafy branches of the sala trees, some towering twenty yards or higher, illuminating the dust motes thrown up in the wake of the rattling wheels. The forest was rife with the colours of spring, bright bursts of saffron, vermillion, scarlet, russet, mustard decorating the sloping hillsides across which the old trading path wound its way. Smaller animals paused in their foraging and raised slender necks or cocked furry heads to listen as the wagons rumbled past then continued their nibbling unabated, accustomed to the passing of mortals through this neck of the woods. A leopard stretched out upon a high tree branch snarled and bared her fangs silently as she paused in the act of sharpening her claws; long furrows of stripped bark and gouged slashes marked her chosen spot. After she had satisfied herself the mortal noisemakers were only passing through, not stopping, she resumed her energetic grooming, purring with pleasure as the soft crumbly bark yielded to her razor-sharp tips. Below and only a few dozen yards to the side, a mongoose ignored the sound and continued to burrow into a hollow trunk rich with the scent of cobra, disappointed to find only cracked egg shells and old sheaths discarded at the turn of the season. Suspended on the trunk of another tree, a wasp stuck in a drip of oozing sap struggled hopelessly one last time before succumbing to the treacly golden glue that sealed in its life. Cicadas kept rhythm as the forest went about its daily business of killing, eating, defecating, urinating, dying and living. Higher up the sloping hillside, a tribe of langurs dozed in the shade, dopey in the late afternoon heat; from time to time, a squabble or mating duel provoked a babble which then quickly subsided. It was too hot to fight, mate, or do much except wait for the coolness of dusk and the night when the forest truly came alive.
The wagon wheel rims deepened the ruts in the oft used path as they rolled along. Most of the occupants appeared to be coddled within the covered carts, sleeping or dozing. Even the drivers were still and silent, moving only the minimum they had to in order to keep the teams of horses in line. There were almost no arms in view, and those that were visible were tucked away in rust-rimmed sheaths and carelessly kept swaddles. At first glance, it appeared to be a traditional grama – literally, a travelling tribe, for a wagon-train was the traditional collective in which the Arya hunter-gatherer tribes of yore had moved from place to place before the relatively recent era of fixed townships and city-states. But the absence of any women, the complete lack of children, and the heavily laden carts, as evidenced from the exertion expdended by the horses drawing the wagons, as well as the covered wagons and oddly quiet procession, suggested something else altogether. There were none of the usual entourage of brahmins trudging doggedly behind the wagons chanting their shlokas either, which ruled out a religious procession. Vaisya traders returning from Videha to Ayodhya, laden with the spoils of a good season of barter? Perhaps.
At one point the path curved sharply, almost doubling upon itself as it skirted a jagged outcrop of rock protruding from the hillside. At the same time, the trees at the bottom of this little outcrop drew back, providing a roughly semicircular clearing. At some time in the not-too-distant past, two old trees had somehow been uprooted and fallen, cutting this clearing in half in a pattern that roughly resembled an arrow fitted to a curved bow. The trees were rotting and overgrown and intersected the original path in a manner which compelled all travellers to slow and maneuver their way in a zigzag fashion for a few dozen yards. Each wagon and horse rider had to slow down and turn left then right then left again, go around the edge of the outcrop where a particularly enormous boulder jutted out like the fist of the bowman preparing to loose the arrow that was the fallen trees, and then turn inwards one last time, riding in the shade of a brief valley-like enclosure between the sharp rise of the hillside here to the left and the tree line to the right, before coming back upon the original path and settling back into familiar ruts. This slowed the entire train and necessitated some concentration of driverly resources, apart from separating each wagon from the one before and after for a moment or two at each turning point.
When the first wagon completed this minor obstacle course and turned the sharp final left, the driver’s attention was immediately diverted to two figures standing upon the large boulder. The angle of the sun and the high positions taken by the two men made it impossible to look directly at them. They were little more than silhouetted male figures clad in simple dhotis, that much he could see. Both held bows loosely by their sides and bore quivers on their backs, each bristling with a goodly supply of fletched arrows. They wore no swords or other weapons that the wagon driver could make out, nor did they appear to have any other companions anywhere in sight. They stood together, facing outwards in an insolent casual posture that suggested they simply happened to be there on this fine spring day, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, and the arrows fitted loosely to the bows held in the lowered arms were simply things they happened to be carrying.
The driver raised his brows, but neither slowed nor sought to stop the wagon. For one thing, it was very heavily laden, overburdened in fact, and stopping and starting required far too much effort and energy, both on the part of the weary team as well as himself. He did not see anything that occasioned risking that much effort here. The two figures standing upon the outcropping boulder appeared to be simply…standing. If not for their oddly intense faces, he would have raised a gnarled hand and hailed them pleasantly. But there was something in their curiously identical features and stillness that reminded him of a duo of young lionesses he had seen once in the Gir woods, in the moment before they had both pounced from diagonal points, converging upon a magnificent but age-bowed stag. This pair put him in mind of that same relaxed yet powerfully gathered predatory stance. He was an old PF whose ancient war injuries had proved too restrictive for him to continue active service. He had retired on the king’s pension and now hired himself out to lead wagon trains like this one to help earn a little extra from time to time. Like all old soldiers who had seen violence explode, he knew how even the most innocuous gesture could sometimes seem provocative or hostile to a person of another culture. He lowered his half-raised hand and stilled his voice. Better to simply ride past and on. These were strange times and there were strange people afoot.
He clicked his tongue softly and completed the turn with deft ease, the wagon swinging around, rear wheels creaking noisily as it rounded the curve. The stallioni on the fore right of the team, a healthy young brute in his prime who was given to covering every female in sight if given the chance, tossed his head and shortened his steps reluctantly to compensate for the sharpness of the curve, nudged and coerced expertly by the driver. The curve done, he lowered his head and pulled hard, drawing lows of protest from his companions who were in no particular hurry to reach Ayodhya. The young stud moved as if he had an appointment with a female waiting eagerly for him in the capitol, straining at the yoke. The old driver admired his strength and youth without envying him; he had been somewhat of a bull himself in his youth; in retrospect, he preferred the quiet wisdom of age and experience over the brash virility of youth anyday. He was distracted for just a fraction of an instant by the young horses’s antics – long enough for everything to change.
Movement caught his eye on the boulder. He glanced up just in time to see the two figures that had been standing still as statues suddenly stir to action. Both bows were raised, cords taut, and the old wagon rider looked up to see the lethal metal points of two long arrows aimed directly at him. He had a brief instant to think of his great-grandchildren back in Ayodhya and of the toys he had bought for them from the toy mandi in Mithila. He had been looking forward to seeing their faces dance with delight as he drew each new treat out of the jute sack. Those little tykes were his greatest source of pleasure in these last years. But then again, he had seen his share of happy faces. He was not unafraid of dying, nor foolish enough to risk it just to save some rich vaisya trader’s season’s stock.
He clucked the team to a halt, yanking hard twice on the young stud’s reins for emphasis – the fellow was thick-headed enough to ram into the outcrop if not corrected firmly – then dropped his hands, shaking his head to indicate he meant to take no aggressive action.
One of the figures standing upon the boulder spoke. And it was then that the driver had his first real surprise in a very long time. At his age, with his war record and lifetime of experience, he had seen a fair share of unusual situations. But it had been a long time since he had been genuinely surprised as he was now.
Because when the person on the boulder began to speak, he realized what he hadn’t been able to see before due to the angle of the sunlight.
The two bowmen were just boys.
Little more than children.
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT: Pre-orders closed.
Overseas orders currently unavailable.
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series – Except#1
arvaci subhaghe bhava site vandamahe tva |
yatha nah subhaghasasi yatha nah suphalasasi ||
Auspicious Sita, come thou near: we venerate and worship thee |
That thou mayst bless and prosper us and bring us fruits abundantly ||
Rig-Veda, Mandala 4, Sukta 57, rca 6
PRARAMBHA
Sita…
Sweet whisper in her ear, myrtle breath upon her cheek. She started awake with a lurch and a gasp. In the hut’s impenetrable darkness, her hands sought out by instinct the looming mound of her belly. Her palms gently massaged the sweat-slicked pot, soothing both herself as well as her sleeping sons. Slowly, by degrees, the nightmarish visions of ten-headed rakshasas, moon-swords and three-eyed devas faded away reluctantly, retreated hissing and snapping to the far corners of the humble hut. She was too middle-heavy to sit up easily; instead, she leaned upon one elbow, head throbbing, throat hoarse from shouting forgotten prayers to uncaring gods. The darbha grass pallet was dampened by her own exudations. She listened idly, hearing only the absence of human sounds. The ashram was asleep around her. The night was peaceful, the forest quiet – or as quiet as a forest could be at night. The very music of the woods told her that all was well, no menace lurked in the dark recesses of the surrounding wilderness, no rakshasas approached stealthily, no mortal or un-mortal foes threatened. Within the center of her being, the twin lives growing steadily – greedily, it seemed somedays – seemed barely to have stirred. She trusted their instincts more than her own now; for they seemed to sense better than she when true danger loomed. One kicked, the other kicked back instinctively, and she felt them both settling back into deep repose. The rhythmic cricketing of insects, droning of cicadas, and hooting of owls lulled her back to sleep. Darkness embraced her like a lover returned from a long war. She fell into sleep and nothingness caught her and began to tug her insistently down towards oblivion…
Sitey.
Her eyes opened, staring up into darkness. That name. Nobody called her by that name, in that tone. Her name Sita modified to the third-person plural, the tense used for royalty or formal addresses. Simultaneously affectionate as well as excessively formal. A name only a lover would use. Nay, not even a lover. Only a husband.
Janaki.
She swallowed, willing her heart to slow, feeling a fresh bead of sweat coagulating upon her brow – she had always had a tendency to sweat a great deal from the crown of her scalp – and it took great restraint to stifle the urge she felt to speak out. Quiet and serene as the ashram was, its occupants were light sleepers, accustomed to living in woods populated by the fiercest predators. Rousing them would take little more than a raised voice, a tone of alarm, or even a strange sound that did not belong: Maharishi Valmiki would be up and at the ready in a trice, broadstaff in hand, a mantra on his lips. Then the devas help any intruder, human or otherwise. So she kept her voice stilled and emotions under control. There were also the twins to consider. At this advanced stage of her confinement, waking them would make sleep impossible the rest of the night, for they would be kicking and ready for action no less quicker than the maharishi. The very fact that they still slept so soundly told her that whatever presence swirled around her this night, it was not a force of evil that intended harm to her. Just as the Maharishi was sensitive to sound, the twins were sensitive to all else.
And that name and that tone. Janaki. Daughter of Janak. Again, an appellation used by one who cared about her.
Rama, she mouthed silently, her heart turning at the use of his name. Is that you?
Maithili.
This one was less intimate, more generic. Woman of Mithila. Yet coming as it did after the other familiar terms of endearment, it was more touching, not less, for its formal generality. She shuddered and covered her face with the crook of her arm, feeling hot tears spill carelessly down her cheeks. The appellation, uttered in the most affectionate of tones, caused her mind to resonate with a deep ringing that issued outwards in concentric waves, seeming to reach to the very ends of creation.
Vaidehi.
Woman of the Videha nation. This last was so generic, so formal, yet spoken in a tone so familiar, intimate, caressing, sincere, that it broke the last reserves of her endurance. The dam burst and she turned her head and cried into the straw, cut ends digging uncomfortably into her neck and arms and cheek; not caring. She heard her own sobs in the stillness and thought with a sense of wonder: Who is that woman weeping so bitterly? Poor thing. She must have suffered some great loss.
My love, forgive me. I did what I had to for our sakes. For the sake of our sons. For the sake of our future.
No! She cried silently in her mind’s echoing chamber. You did it for dharma. As you do everything. That’s all you really care about. Nothing else matters so long as you fulfill your dharma. It’s the way it’s always been with you!
A moment of silence, as if he did not debate her accusation. Then, gently, soothingly:
Yes. But you serve dharma too. In your own way. Surely you see that?
She raised her face at last and screamed into the darkness with the true voice of her heart, audible only to phantoms and miasmas: I don’t want to serve dharma. I don’t want dharma. I just want you.
She waited. But this time no reply came. Only the silent darkness pressing upon her from all sides like an invisible cage shrinking by degrees every passing moment. She felt a sudden rush of remorse then. Regret at having spoken so harshly to her beloved – or to his phantom presence, or memory, or whatever it was that had come to her in the deep watches of the night.
Rama? She asked anxiously. Are you there?
But only the darkness remained. The darkness and the silence.
She lay awake the remaining hours to dawn, till the ashram stirred and the brahmacharyas rose and the daily round of chores and duties began anew. Within the swollen mound of her belly, the twins slept as peacefully as cubs in a den.
He never came to her again, that night, or any other night.
Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in quiet tapasya in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, even as her sons Luv and Kush grow ever more proficient at the arts of war. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama’s growing ambitions and his war-mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yojana. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable…until a pair of improbable obstacles arise. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama’s chagrin the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the sons of Sita! Don’t miss the epic conclusion to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Ramayana Series!
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
300 Pages/Limited Signed Trade Paperback Edition/Rs 400
Click here to pre-order Sons of Sita within India. SOLD OUT: Pre-orders closed.
Overseas orders currently unavailable.
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series limited paperback edition sold out on pre-orders!
The limited signed AKB Books edition of SONS OF SITA: BOOK 8 OF THE RAMAYANA SERIES, the long-awaited conclusion to my Ramayana Series, was available for pre-order only via this website. (Don’t waste your time looking for the book elsewhere online or in bookstores as the Penguin mass market edition will only be published in 2011.) The pre-orders closed early due to an unprecedented rush – over 7 times more orders were received than the number of copies being printed! Pre-orders are now officially closed. Thanks to all those who ordered. Please pay the money via cash deposit or online transfer to the ICICI A/c (no cheques please). Please note that this is a Pre-Order: SoS will be despatched via courier only after 15th February.
Excerpts and further information about the book will be added soon. International orders and the limited collector’s edition hardcover will go on sale in mid-Feb when the AKB Books edition is officially released.
A few copies of the limited edition of VoR, GoW and V:S are still available but they’re selling out fast. Visit the AKB Books Order Page.
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series limited edition almost sold out!
The 2nd Limited Edition of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series has sold out! Due to the number of orders continuing to pour in, I’ve ordered and now have copies of a 3rd Limited Edition. However, due to copyright restrictions, I can’t promise there will be further editions. So if you or anyone else you know wants to read the long-awaited seventh part in my Ramayana Series, now’s the time to order a copy.
The only way to get the book now is to order it online right here via this website. The mass market edition by Penguin is expected to be in bookstores sometime before end-2010. HURRY! COPIES SELLING FAST!
Click here to know more about Vengeance of Ravana.
Click here to read excerpts from Vengeance of Ravana.
Click here to order Vengeance of Ravana within India.
Click here to order Vengeance of Ravana outside India.
Available only from me directly. 
Available only from me directly. 