Vengeance of Ravana: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series – on the path to publication
This is the almost final cover design for the Penguin India edition of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA: Book 7 of The Ramayana. I’m posting it here along with some good news. The first is that I have finally resolved the textual issues I had with the manuscripts of VoR and SoS and as a result I’ve finally (finally-finally-finally!) decided that both books ought to be published. This means that the series will end at eight books, not six or seven, and that I have finally been able to deal with the Sita banishment issue in a manner with which I feel satisfied. It’s only taken me six years – which is longer than it took me to write the first six books in the series! But it’s done. VoR will be released in a mass market edition by Penguin in a few months, followed within three months by the mass market edition of SoS. I’ll confirm publication dates once Penguin informs me of the same.
For those of you – “you few, you happy few!” – who’ve bought and read the exclusive limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of VoR and have ordered the exclusive limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of SoS, this may not be reason to jump up and down, which is bad for your joints anyway. But for the vast majority of Ramayana Series readers out there, I’m sure you will be happy to see why I chose to rescind my own earlier decision to end the series at six books and chose to continue it in these two additional volumes. I can’t promise that the answers I provide in these two books will please everyone. Indeed, they may please no one. Because the point of writing these books is not to please or displease, it’s simply to complete the mental journey I embarked upon when I began writing Prince of Ayodhya and finished that first book way back in the year 2000, long before any publisher was willing to even look at such a manuscript, let alone publish it. Today, I have journalists, readers, editors, booksellers, publishers and others who keep writing to me and telling me that I’m responsible for a wave of resurgence in Indian mythology. I really don’t give a damn about any resurgence or the commercial ramifications of making mythology “cool” as one editor put it. What I do care about is the wealth of great Indian literature that has been ignored by the world for so long in favour of other mythologies and legends of the western hemisphere and that deserves a wider readership and exposure.
As I’ve always said to anyone who praised me for the series: This is not about me. It’s not my story alone. It’s our story. Our history in fact. I’m proud and happy to have been the one to retell it in my humble and flawed attempt. But I’m not anyone special or talented for having done it, just a product of a great culture and people that share one of the world’s finest storytelling traditions. In my opinion, the finest.
Sons of Sita, Slayer of Kamsa, Dance of Govinda…and Mba: Book 1
Update: Corrected from 5 to 4 titles based on availability.
Just a reminder to use the AKB Books Request Form to book your limited signed copies of the above titles. This particular list of my next 4 titles will stay online until 31st August 2010. After that, a new list will be put up which will be valid for the next three or four months. And so on. Due to the number of my published titles and the high demand, I am not able to offer signed copies of previous books at present, just the titles listed above. Each of these will be limited signed (but not personalized) editions and once this limited stock is over, these titles will not be available again! So book your signed copy now and don’t miss your chance to be one of very few readers worldwide to own one!
And in case you were wondering, it doesn’t cost you a rupee (or even a paisa) to book these copies! 
News and Updates: The latest from the Bankerverse (again)
As with the last update on 11th June, those of you who’ve been keeping tabs on the right-hand News & Updates column may not find many surprises here. But there was one important announcement that wasn’t in that last update and a couple of minor ones, so here goes…
Waiting eagerly for my next books? Book your copies now!
AKB Books, the limited signed editions of a few select titles of my work, available exclusively via this website, are all currently sold out. However, if you wish to ensure your copy of any forthcoming AKB Books title, all you have to do is fill in the Request Form to book your copies! Don’t worry about payment – you will be contacted once the book is available and informed of the necessary details.
AKB MBA is on its way at last!
After all the ups and downs of the past several months (and years), I have finally found a way to share my Mahabharata retelling with all those of you interested in reading it. No, it still won’t be mass published and distributed in bookstores worldwide – I’ve already explained earlier why that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon – but it will be available from this website in a few months, before the end of this year. If you wish to ensure your copy, please fill in the Request Form now, and keep in touch with this website from time to time.
THE VALMIKI SYNDROME
Next in line for publication is THE VALMIKI SYNDROME, my first major non-fiction book being published by Random House India in a few months. As mentioned earlier, I have chosen not to offer any sneak peeks, previews or sample chapters from this book, unlike all my earlier titles. In fact, I’m not saying a word about this book until it’s released! You’ll just have to wait and see what it’s about.
SLAYER OF KAMSA
As outlined in my Epic India Library plan, my Mba Series will run in parallel with the Krishna Coriolis. While my Mba will be available exclusively via this website, the Krishna Coriolis series will be on bookshelves across India, thanks to HarperCollins India, the publishers! The first book, SLAYER OF KAMSA, will be out in stores before the end of 2010. The series is an action-packed retelling of the life and adventures of Lord Krishna from before his birth until after his death on the mortal plane, written in a narrative style suitable for Young Adult readers. The Krishna books will be much shorter than the Ramayana Series books and written in a far more compact and thrilling narrative style. SLAYER OF KAMSA will be followed soon after by DANCE OF GOVINDA. These first two books in the series will follow Krishna’s story from before his birth until the day he confronts and kills Kamsa. I’ll post excerpts as well as the cover design here sometime in August. So don’t forget to check back!
SONS OF SITA
Delayed but not forgotten! My seemingly interminable revisions are finally approaching an end. As I’ve mentioned earlier, after considerable thought, I decided to cancel mass market publication of Vengeance of Ravana, extract a substantial portion of that book (VoR) and add it to the manuscript of SoS. That required a fair amount of revision and rewriting, hence the delay. Many of you have pre-ordered copies of SoS and have been waiting eagerly for them. Once again, apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience. SONS OF SITA will be available in its signed limited AKB Books Edition in August. For those of you who have been asking, there will be a few copies of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA also available. Please note that I’m unable to inform each person individually by email, so you will have to keep in touch with this website for further updates.
PRINCE OF AYODHYA, the Graphic Novel
The first volume of my long-awaited graphic novel adaptation of my Ramayana Series, written by me and illustrated by Argentinian artist Enrique (Quique) Alcatena is ready to enter the publication pipeline. Those of you who have seen sample artwork from this comic or have been following its development for the past several years will be aware how much work and patience has gone into its creation. I will confirm publication dates in a month or two, once I know for sure.
TEN KINGS
My first historical battle epic, TEN KINGS based on the Dasarajna incident in the Rig Veda, has been bought by new imprint Amaryllis Books in a very good deal. Thanks to Jay and Priya of Jacaranda, and Sanjana Roy Choudhury, Chief Editor of Amaryllis! TEN KINGS will also be my first book published in Hindi and other Indian languages. The book is currently scheduled for mass market publication in January 2011. If you thought my Ramayana Series was good, and if you think my Krishna books are action-packed and fast-paced, then just wait until you read TEN KINGS. It’s by far my best book ever. A great story, a magnificent battle epic, and a historic saga of the founding of the Bharata nation.
THE KALI QUARTET
A BLOOD RED SAREE opens my first contemporary fiction series, The Kali Quartet. This is a global thriller featuring three strong women protagonists who are caught up in a major financial conspiracy involving financial institutions secretly profiting from human trafficking. This is likely to be my next internationally published series as well and currently, my agents are fielding offers from Indian publishers for subcontinental rights. I’ll update when I know more, but look at this as my next major work for the next few years, now that my Ramayana Series, Mba, Krishna Series are all complete and in the publication pipeline. It’s also, in my humble opinion, my best work ever!
More news and updates every month from now on…
News & Updates: The Latest from the Bankerverse
Those of you who’ve been keeping tabs on the right-hand News & Updates column may not find many surprises here. But I thought it was time to round up the most recent happenings and developments in the Bankerverse for those who haven’t.
THE VALMIKI SYNDROME
Next in line for publication is THE VALMIKI SYNDROME, my first major non-fiction book being published by Random House India in a few months. As mentioned earlier, I have chosen not to offer any sneak peeks, previews or sample chapters from this book, unlike all my earlier titles. In fact, I’m not saying a word about this book until it’s released! You’ll just have to wait and see what it’s about.
SLAYER OF KAMSA
Close on its heels comes Book 1 of The Krishna Coriolis, SLAYER OF KAMSA, published by HarperCollins India. The series is an action-packed retelling of the life and adventures of Lord Krishna from before his birth until after his death on the mortal plane, written in a narrative style suitable for Young Adult readers. The Krishna books will be much shorter than the Ramayana Series books and written in a far more compact and thrilling narrative style. SLAYER OF KAMSA will be followed soon after by DANCE OF GOVINDA. These first two books in the series will follow Krishna’s story from before his birth until the day he confronts and kills Kamsa. I’ll post excerpts as well as the cover design here sometime in August. So don’t forget to check back!
SONS OF SITA
Delayed but not forgotten! My seemingly interminable revisions are finally approaching an end. As I’ve mentioned earlier, after considerable thought, I decided to cancel mass market publication of Vengeance of Ravana, extract a substantial portion of that book (VoR) and add it to the manuscript of SoS. That required a fair amount of revision and rewriting, hence the delay. Many of you have pre-ordered copies of SoS and have been waiting eagerly for them. Once again, apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience. I can now confirm that SONS OF SITA, the 7th (not 8th, since VoR now stands cancelled) and final Book in the Ramayana Series, will be available in its signed limited AKB Books Edition in August.
PRINCE OF AYODHYA, the Graphic Novel
The first volume of my long-awaited graphic novel adaptation of my Ramayana Series, written by me and illustrated by Argentinian artist Enrique (Quique) Alcatena is ready to enter the publication pipeline. Those of you who have seen sample artwork from this comic or have been following its development for the past several years will be aware how much work and patience has gone into its creation. I will confirm publication dates in a month or two, once I know for sure.
TEN KINGS
My first historical battle epic, TEN KINGS based on the Dasarajna incident in the Rig Veda, has been bought by new imprint Amaryllis Books in a very good deal. Thanks to Jay and Priya of Jacaranda, and Sanjana Roy Choudhury, Chief Editor of Amaryllis! TEN KINGS will also be my first book published in Hindi and other Indian languages. The book is currently scheduled for mass market publication in January 2011. If you thought my Ramayana Series was good, and if you think my Krishna books are action-packed and fast-paced, then just wait until you read TEN KINGS. It’s by far my best book ever. A great story, a magnificent battle epic, and a historic saga of the founding of the Bharata nation.
More news and updates every month from now on…
7 not 8: Vor+SoS = Sons of Sita: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series
As those of you who have been in touch with me over the years know, I always share my works in progress online with readers and take into account their views and suggestions.
After considering reader feedback to the limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of Vengeance of Ravana I felt it was best to cancel mass market publication of the book and have requested my editors at Penguin accordingly. They have been supportive as always, and I’m very grateful for that.
I’ve taken a part of the text of Vengeance of Ravana and added it to the text of Sons of Sita, merging them into one final book, which I plan to submit to Penguin for publication.
This will be the 7th and final book of the Ramayana Series (R), and will most likely be called Sons of Sita: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series.
PS: Those of you who have ordered the AKB Books Limited Signed edition of Sons of Sita will receive this version, and this is the reason for its long delay. In my opinion, the book now rocks big-time and is a truly fitting end to the series…thanks to your input!
This is just to let you know what’s happening. I’ll post a longer explanation here once I’m done with the revisions, which, let me add, will not be for another month.
This also means that those of you who bought the AKB BOOKS limited signed editions, hardcover as well as paperback, of Vengeance of Ravana, now have the only copies of that version of the text in existence. That version will never be published and distributed in stores now, so hold on to your copies and who knows, they might actually be worth something someday!
The best book in Ashok K. Banker’s Ramayana Series?
The results pretty much speak for themselves. People’s enjoyment of the series seems to increase as they keep reading, rising steadily until, after the mid-point, it spirals upwards. What’s interesting is that not only did the 7th book, Vengeance of Ravana, virtually tie with the 8th book, Sons of Sita for the highest number of votes, even though only the limited edition of VoR has been released so far and SoS hasn’t even been published! I guess that means expectations are sky-high, and I finish better than I start.
Personally, I think that my approach to the retelling was so densely detailed, unexpected (“The Ramayana? Retold? WTF!”) at the time, and with so many quirky personal choices (the use of mixed-idiom, Urdu, Gujarati, slang, etc) that it was hard to take for most readers – almost a culture shock of sorts. Once the initial shock wore off and readers began to ‘get’ what I was reaching for, they could sit back and start to enjoy the story. And by the time they passed the third book and still went zipping along, they began to realize that the real fun was only just starting. I also know for a fact that as a writer, it was only by the third book that I really began proficient at my own chosen style and approach and really got going. That’s why the later books in the series are my own personal faves too.
What do you think?
TRRFIC 2SUM: Buy a signed VoR Hardcover and get a signed vortal:shockwave FREE!
OFFER OVER! THANKS, FOLKS! That’s it in one line: Buy a hardcover copy of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series and get a FREE copy of vortal:shockwave, my most fun, action-packed, fast-paced fantasy thriller! How’s that for a great twosome! Visit the AKB BOOKS ORDER PAGE.
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
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How to Pay
IMPORTANT: AKB BOOKS are currently sold out. If you have Ashok’s bank account details, please DO NOT deposit any payment towards future orders. The payment system is being revised and new details on How to Pay will be posted here on this page by mid-August, when the new AKB Books are ready for order.
IMPORTANT: Those who pre-ordered Sons of Sita in January-February 2010, please note that due to continued delays, your copies are now scheduled for delivery in the first week of September. If you do not wish to wait and desire a refund, please leave a comment below asking for the refund and it shall be sent to you within a week. Those who have ordered and received AKB Books without paying for them, please don’t worry: once the new payment system is in place, you can make the payment at your leisure. As always, this service is to offer you, my most loyal and supportive readers, a chance to get exclusive limited signed editions – it’s not about me making money!
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.
Thank you for reading these exclusive excerpts from SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series! Do take a moment to leave a comment below.
Click here to request a copy of the AKB BOOKS Limited Signed Edition of SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
(No Advance Payment Required!)
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 request a copy of the AKB BOOKS Limited Signed Edition of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series
(No Advance Payment Required!)
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.
Click here to read Excerpt#5 from SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
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 request a copy of the AKB BOOKS Limited Signed Edition of SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
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.
Click here to read Excerpt#4 from SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
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 request a copy of the AKB BOOKS Limited Signed Edition of SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
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.
Click here to read Excerpt#2 from SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
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 request a copy of the AKB BOOKS Limited Signed Edition of SONS OF SITA: Book 8 of The Ramayana Series
The Penguin Books mass market edition is expected to be in bookstores in early 2011.
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!
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Vengeance of Ravana: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#4
THREE
The traveller reached the top of the rise and paused.
The view was breathtaking. Ayodhya the unconquerable lay spread before him like a bagful of precious gems carelessly strewn across the lush green carpet of the Sarayu valley. The river herself wound her way sinously around the natural hillocks and rocky banks upon which the city’s architects had built their structures, integrating their city planning with the natural lay of the land.
At a glance, the city itself seemed as much a part of the vast valley, as if it had always existed, and always would. It was the Arya way to build and live in harmony with nature, for all things were the fruit of Prithvi Maa, and only by her gentle grace and forbearance could mortalkind survive on this realm. Yet even judged by that standard, Ayodhya’s city planning and architecture were a sight to behold; a melding of man-made aesthetic and natural beauty that made one want to gaze for hours.
The traveller did not have hours to spare.
Already he feared he might be too late. It had been several days since Rama and his entourage had returned to Ayodhya. He had set out within moments of the end of the war of Lanka, knowing full well that speed was of the essence, but the Ayodhyans had travelled by Pushpak, and even his swiftest walking stride could hardly match the blurring speed of the celestial vehicle. Now, he fretted that he might have arrived too late, that the fateful decision that he sought to prevent might already have been taken, and events set into motion that could not be undone. He prayed it was not so, that his long arduous trek had not been in vain. For the event he sought to prevent would alter not only the course of his own life, that of Rama and those near and dear to him, but the lives of all presently alive, mortal and otherwise. Its impact would be felt at the end of the farthest corridors of history, in unimaginable ways at inconceivable future times. He used the brief moment of respite that he had allowed himself now to send up one final prayer that he might yet be in time to prevent that terrible turn of events.
He took up his stout staff, worn and battered from the long walk, and numbed his mind to the ache and pain from his bruised feet. They were unaccustomed to such travel, for the past year had seen him engaged more in meditation and contemplation rather than physical activity, and his body, so long abused by harsh living and the numerous injuries, scars, old wounds and fresh marks of a violent existence, had only just begun to soften and grow accustomed to the peaceful ascetic life when he had risen to undertake this mission. He had pushed it hard these past several days, walking constantly with only the barest minimum of rest, sleep and frugal nourishment. Roots, herbs, a fruit or two…he had eaten little, grown even leaner than whip-thin, and he longed for a good hot meal and a pallet to rest his weary head.
But there was no time for eating or rest.
He had work to do. Vital work. A Queen to warn. A King to appeal to. And, if his foreboding was right, a kingdom to save–perhaps even an entire civilization.
And to achieve any of those, he had to reach on time. Before that fateful decision was made. Before the die was cast whose rattling echo would haunt the halls of itihasa for millennia to come.
If he reached even an instant too late, then this breathtaking view of great, noble Ayodhya would be worth no more than a mouthful of ash. Ayodhya herself, the unconquerable, would finally fall. Not to an army of asuras, or even mortal enemies. But to the greatest enemy of all. The enemy within.
He gripped the staff tightly, marked the progress of the narrow winding pathway down the side of the steep slope that led downwards to the raj-marg on the north bank of the river, and began to descend.
As he descended, the sun appeared over the eastern rim of the valley, sending blades of golden light across the perfectly blended amalgam of mortal and natural aesthetic achievement that the world knew as the capitol of the Kosala nation, home of the Ikshwaku Suryavansha dynasty, seat of the sunwood throne. Sunlight glittered on the tips of the Sarayu’s wash, caught the wings of butterflies traipsing through the North bank woods where a certain crown prince had once whiled away youthful hours in daydreaming and kairee-munching, blissfully unaware of the years of toil and violence that lay ahead. It caught the tips of blades of new grass shoots emerging from the rich alluvial soil of the valley where a nest of baby kachuaas swarmed blindly, tiny mottled shells clattering over one another as they sluggishly fought their way toward food, light, water, survival. With the new day, the struggle for life and survival had begun anew.
The traveller strode toward Ayodhya.
As the traveller completed his descent and reached the raj-marg, turning his aspect and his feet in the direction of the city’s looming first gate, a figure crouched upon a high branch on the far bank of the river watched him curiously. It had observed the stranger from the moment he had appeared over the rise and stood, contemplating the view, for if there was one thing that the being that crouched upon the tree did exceedingly well, it was to watch, to observe, to spot what most others might fail to notice, or notice too late. He knew that the sentries posted by the city did an exceedingly good job of patrolling and defending the outskirts of the city and its environs, and that they were especially alert in these warlike times, but even their garuda-sharp eyes could not cover every inch of terrain at once, and their disciplined quad-sweeps could be bypassed by a shrewd intruder or two–not for long, but it was possible. The watcher did not brook martial discipline much, particularly the variety favoured by humans; he had found that most conflicts were won by a combination of shrewdness, stealth, and ferocious explosive force applied at the least expected time and place. He had enough first-hand experience to know whereof he spoke. He also had enough first-hand knowledge of the wiley ways and methods of foe that fought not by the Arya rules of war nor cared for the kshatriya code of conduct. He did not know of any such foe still extant, but that was beside the point. He had made a vocation of watching and observing, and old habits died hard, especially among his species.
That was what found him here this morning, and every morning, routinely patrolling the outskirts of the city in a route so random and individualistic that it was perhaps more effective than the regularly timed quad-sweeps of the Ayodhyan defense system. It was this idiosyncractic loping through the trees–for that was his preferred method of ambulation–in a zigzag pattern completely unpredictable and unique to each new day, that had brought him this glimpse of the traveller on the rise. The traveller presently vanishing into the dusty haze that overhung the raj-marg in the wake of his swift progress. The watcher made no attempt to follow the traveller, or to seek out the nearest quad of PFs making their methodical sweeps of the area–he scented there was one not three hundred yards away, working their way through a thicket on the same rise the traveller had descended from only moments ago. He knew the traveller would be accosted in moments by either the PF regiment permanently stationed on the raj-marg or the bristling gate-watch who were ever-vigilant under the command of newly elevated General Drishti Kumar. It was not the traveller himself that concerned him now; it was the reason for the traveller’s visit.
As it so happened, he knew the traveller. Not personally, for he had never had occasion to meet the man face to face. But he had watched him fight alongside his lord and lady for years in the forests of Janasthana, during those harsh years of his lord’s exile, watched him risk life and limb countless times in the service of Rama’s war against the rakshasas of the region. Watched him fight fiercely, despatch any number of the brutal creatures that had plagued Rama and his companions since the feral cousin of Ravana, Supanakha, had maddened her cousins and their clans into declaring war against Rama after he spurned her. Yes, the watcher had watched as this man, this traveller now come to Ayodhya, had fought as fiercely, brutally, bestially, as any rakshasa himself, driving fear into the hearts of even his own exiled fellows. For while they fought to live, to survive, this one had fought as if driven by some inner demon, a rakshasa of his own making, and inflicted more violence and harm upon his foe than was necessary to simply survive: he fought to decimate, to destroy, to eliminate completely.
Of course, that was in the past. For the watcher knew that this man had parted ways with Rama after the battle of Janasthana, and had heard that he had dropped the sword and taken up the cloth, so to speak, turning from the physical rigors of warriorhood to the spiritual rigors of priesthood. He had heard of the immensely disciplined tapasya undertaken by this former bandit and bearkiller, of the enlightenment he had received while meditating within a nest of fire ants–a story that was fast becoming a minor legend in some parts–and of the life of peace and philosophy he had taken up with enthusiasm thereafter. But all this had been received in bits and pieces, and he had not paid much attention to it, being somewhat preoccupied with an war to wage, and a considerable army to manage, several armies as a matter of fact. And he had never liked and trusted the man himself back when he was a warrior in Rama’s camp of outlaws and exiles in Janasthana, had felt the intrinsic distrust and burning hatred of any human who had made a practise of slaying creatures of the land. Bearkiller, the traveller had been at one time, long before he joined Rama’s ragged band of exiles, and his face had borne permanent testimony of ravages wrought by a much earlier attack by one of the same species that had lent him his name and earlier reputation. The ugly face-altering scars that disfigured his visage were now mostly concealed under a dense growth of beard and an unruly head of hair. The muscular body that had displayed the scars of countless conflicts as well as earlier encounters with the furry nemesis that lent him his nickname was now covered with a red ochre garb that flowed from head to foot; along with the wildwood staff he gripped in one hand, it lent him the appearance of a tapasvi sadhu quite convincingly.
But the watcher was not convinced.
To him, the man that he had first heard called Bearface, later, Ratnakaran, and now Valmiki, was not one to be trusted entirely. He did not trust his motives, the extreme alteration in his appearance and vocation, or his reasons for coming here to Ayodhya now, at this particular juncture in time and history.
So, while he had chosen to let him pass, to be dealt with by the PFs and gate-watch, he intended to race back to the palace ahead of him. To alert his lord, Rama.
Yes, that was what he would do, must do.
His mind made up, the vanar named Hanuman uncurled his long muscular tail from the branch on which he had sat perched, contemplating, until now, and with one supple surge of his powerful muscles, propelled himself from that sala tree to the next. In moments, he was a blur loping and swinging through the trees, moving not unlike the smaller, less-muscled simians that his kind were often mistaken for by foreigners, yet with a sinuous grace and sheer power that no monkey could ever emulate, moving faster through the trees than most land animals across the ground.
As he raced through the trees, startling squirrels and confusing birds by flitting past them even before they were able to burst into flight, the sun crested the top of the craggy northeastern ranges and shone its golden beam into the valley of the Sarayu, sending its message of warmth and brightness into crannies and crevices, stirring sleeping reptiles and compelling creatures of the earth to emerge blinking sleepily in the light of a new day.
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Vengeance of Ravana: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#3
TWO
He fell up instead of down. It felt so natural, it took him a moment to realize what was happening. But his senses already knew what his mind had yet to comprehend.
The weight of the earth, the incessant loving tug of Prithvi maa, keeping her children close to herself, was gone. In its place was another pull, drawing him up to the sky. He looked down, and saw the courtyard far below, receding fast. He saw the balcony on which he had stood a moment ago, diminishing at astonishing speed, then the top of the palace, gleaming quietly resplendent in the moonlight, the Seer’s Tower beside it, then the palace complex whole, and then the entire royal enclave…soon the city itself was falling away far below, reduced to a sprinkling of fireflies upon a green patch surrounded by darkness. The speed at which he was falling–if falling was the right word–was astonishing. He felt the wind rushing past, drumming in his ears, felt the night grow colder around him, enveloping him in its dark embrace, his unclothed skin giving up its hard-won warmth reluctantly.
He looked up. And saw the sky. But it was not the sky he had seen above the palace only moments earlier. That had been dark in the usual natural way, a deep midnight blue, almost the exact shade the royal artists used to euphemistically portray the colour of his black skin, a smattering of cottony clouds drifting majestically, backlit by a resplendent moon. That had been placid, peaceful, almost langurously lazy.
This was something else altogether: a carpet of boiling, raging black smoke–an ocean, really, for it stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. He turned his head and saw that the moon, his other namesake, had been banished beneath the ocean of roiling cloudwaves. As Rama meant black, and Chandra meant moon, so Rama Chandra could be interpreted to mean black moon or dark moon. And so his mother had teased him as an infant in arms, singing lullabies to him of her own casual composition, weaving the words ‘dark moon’ into the homespun lyrics. He had carried those lullabies and the memory of her love and warmth and maternal perfume with him through some of the darkest nights of his life. Yet it was only now, for the first time, that he saw a true dark moon, submerged beneath the ocean of clouds, yet still blazing luminously, like a gleaming silver coin caught by a ray of sunlight at the bottom of a murky pool. It seemed to pulse sporadically, like a heart filling and emptying with pale white light instead of blood, and even through the raging cloudstorm-ocean, its light illuminated everything, searing through the dense frenzy of the smoke waves. As he looked directly at it, it blazed now, like a maddened jeweled eye set deep in the flesh of the forehead of some vengeful deva. The air, Himalaya-cold now, made his skin prickle apprehensively. He shivered and brought his arms closer to his body, clasping them to his bare chest. It made no difference to the pace of his falling–rising–which was so rapid now that he could barely look up without blinking, so great was the force of wind buffeting him. It roared in his ears like the ocean on the shores of Lanka.
He glanced down again, and saw that the lights of Ayodhya had vanished entirely, and the very bowl of the earth itself lay revealed beneath him now, like a dark ball veined with emerald and sapphire threads thickly intertwined. His breath, smoking now as it left his shivering lips, caught in his chest to see it so far removed. Surely even garudas never flew so high. Far in the north, he could glimpse the peaks of mountains as well, and he was much higher than the loftiest peak now…and still flying upwards at tremendous speed. Except, he was not actually flying. There was no conscious volition in the act, nor was he doing anything to make this miracle of flight possible. Unlike Hanuman, who could pound the ground, take a mighty leap skywards and shatter the protective shackles of Prithvi maa, he had no power to soar bird-like. He was simply falling, it was just that he was falling upwards instead of down.
He sensed a change in the pace of his falling, a slowing down. It felt like the opposite of falling now, for at the very end of a fall, the earth seemed to rush up to meet you, flying at you like a rushing mass. But as best as he could make out, the cloud-ocean, boiling and raging with purple and gold veins showing through the morass of smoky chaos, seemed to be approaching slower than before rather than faster. A moment later, he was certain of it–his pace had definitely slowed. Shutting his eyes momentarily from the wind, now cold enough that he could feel the prick of icy particles needling his naked skin, he heard it change from a roaring whirlwind to a growling giant, then fade out gradually to a numbing silence. He opened his eyes again to see the approaching closer as he reached the end of his descent–ascent? He felt himself slow until he was almost floating. He opened his arms, bracing himself for impact even though a part of him knew no impact was forthcoming. With an eeiry absence of sound or sensation, he saw his body execute a perfect somersault, feeling no pressure of the earth’s pull–or cloud’s pull, either–and as gently as a feather touching ground, he saw his bare feet come to rest upon the dark purple-black cottony surface of the cloud ocean.
He released a long deep breath and continued looking down for a moment. The substance beneath his feet had no substance to speak of. It was like standing on ground wreathed in dense ankle-depth fog, except that he could feel no ground beneath his bare soles, only a vague sensation of cold wetness. Like standing on dew-wettened grass? No. It was more like the sensation of placing one’s bare foot on the surface of a pond of cool water, feeling the water slap against the sole of the foot, yet holding the foot in mid air so it did not immerse itself into the water. Yes, that came closer to describing how this felt, except that he was standing with all his weight on both feet, and even so, he was not being pushed down through the skin of the water, was in fact, impossibly, able to stay suspended, standing on water–or a cloudbank filled with it.
He took a step or two, mentally bracing himself again, and confirmed it. He could even sense the upsurges and downsurges in the mass of smoke-wreathed fluid through the soles of his feet–for these were monsoon clouds, he felt certain, even though monsoon clouds this pregnant with rain should not have been able to rise this high above the land. Yet the whole thing was incredible. How was he able to walk upon the belly of a cloud? To traipse upside down on the underside of a monsoon cloud, looking up–down?–at the earth itself, far, far below, faintly illuminated by the light of the dark-shrouded moon, a silver-limned orb now hanging suspended in a vast pit of darkness. He had arrived here by falling up, like a wingless bird. Even the unbearable cold, for he could hardly imagine how frigid it must be at this height, had grown bearable somehow; he felt a chill wind wafting across his bare chest and limbs, but he was neither freezing nor severely inconvenienced. It was as if he had simply acclimatised. Even more curious, he was able to breath and move as normal, as if he was on any earthly surface. It was impossible, a dream surely…or a nightmare.
Then he looked around, and saw the shapes coalescing around him, across the seascape of cloud for as far as the eye could see, an army of writhing, threshing, frenetic forms locked in the ugliest dance of all. After a lifetime spent locked in the frenzy of that same mad dance, he knew at once what it was. He was looking at a theatre of war.
Not just any war.
The war of Lanka.
His war. Against the rakshasa hordes of the lord of asuras. The war he had fought to regain his abducted wife Sita.
He was standing on what seemed to be a hillock of cloudy mass, elevated over the rest of the cloud-field. Several yards below him, ranged on every side for as far as his eyes could see, ghostly shapes thrashed and writhed and engaged in mortal combat. His heart clenched as he recognized familiar companions, fallen foes, and identified enough familiar details to know that this was indeed the battle of Lanka taking place once more, this time fought by ghostly replicas of the original combatants but otherwise perfect in every detail. Rakshasas and vanars, bears and rakshasas, and in the distance, even a silhouetted Rama and Lakshman, arrows flying from their two bows as if from a single arrow-machine, raged in blood-lust. It was unnerving, unsettling, to see the carnage that had cost him so dearly repeated once more. The blood and gore and ichor might be vaporous, the figures mere simulacra, but the action and the memories it evoked were all-too real, and awoke terrible dread in his heart. He heard himself moan softly, agonized.
A soft chuckling reverberated in his left ear. He swung around, startled and ready to lash out, bare-handed if need be, prepared for anything except the apparition that appeared.
A man stood beside him. Not a rakshasa with ten heads and legendary sorcerous powers. Not the king of asuras, conqueror of devas and yaksas, terror of the three worlds. Not He Who Makes The Universe Scream.
Not Ravana.
The man who stood before him was no rakshasa or asura. He had two arms, two legs, two eyes, one head…he appeared normal and mortal in every way. He was well-built in a way that clearly indicated he was a kshatriya by profession, well-developed musculature and sharply indented angles that suggested an active and vigorous lifestyle. His bristling oiled moustache was matched by unruly long hair, tamed by a wooden clasp behind his head. He was clad in a simple yet well-woven dhoti and anga-vastra. Even at first glance, there was something about him that instantly caused Rama to associate him with the specific sub-varna of kshatriyas called rakshaks. A sense of coiled power in those heavily muscled limbs and torso, coupled with a relatively less developed lower body suggested that he was more suited to house guarding and site protection than the leaner, more wiry physique suited to the rigors of long travel required of any serving soldier. At best, he could be a mace-wielder, but he lacked the exaggerated shoulders and back muscles that macers were known for. No, Rama thought, all in the space of the time it took him to take in the stranger’s appearance, this was almost certainly a rakshak.
“Who are you?” he asked, on his guard, but not adopting a fighting or defensive stance. There was no sense of threat from the man, no suggestion of impending violence. Still, he was prepared for any sudden move, any sign of treachery. “Where is Ravana?”
The man smiled. There was something not unpleasant about his features, something vaguely familiar, like a family resemblance. He arched his thick eyebrow, his broad, high forehead creasing with a trio of horizontal lines. “After all we have been through together, do you still not know me?”
Rama frowned. He glanced down briefly at the war raging below–or above, depending on your perspective. It was still in furious progress. “I don’t understand. What is this place? How are we able to witness events that have gone before. Why have I been brought here? I heard a voice…Ravana’s voice…it summoned me…” He indicated the ghostly conflict raging around them. “What is this? Sorcery or illusion?” And, with a sudden ferocity that surprised even himself: “Who are you?”
The man’s face re-composed itself into a conciliatory expression. “Patience, Ayodhya-naresh. All will be revealed.”
The man turned and walked away, up the sloping side of the cloud-hillock on which Rama stood. Rama saw now that the hillock rose sharply behind him to ascend upwards into a mist-wreathed darkness. He looked upwards, where the convex bowl of the earth had been only moments earlier, and saw only darkness wreathed in mist. He looked back and saw that the ghostly images of warriors had vanished, leaving only an undulating ocean of dark monsoon cloud, pregnant and heavy with the promise of rain. Apparently, the stranger intended to take him someplace higher up, up some kind of cloud-mountain the top of which was obscured in the strange mist that had sprung up unexpectedly, that was curling around Rama’s ankles and feet now. Rama remained where he was, surprised, and more than a little chagrined. He did not like what he felt; did not want any of this. It felt strange, like a dream that was surreal, exotic, enticing, yet with a constant sense of dread, of mortal threat, lurking behind the strange exoticity. The man stopped when he realized Rama was not following him, and looked back. He was already several yards up the mountain.
“Come,” he said simply. “You do wish to know, don’t you?”
Rama hesitated. Then shrugged. He had awoken to a voice, the voice of his dead arch-enemy. It had summoned him. On the dead rakshasa’s command, he had leaped off the balustrade of his palace verandah. Instead of falling to his death on the tiled courtyard, he had fallen up, to a realm made entirely of clouds. He was looking over a re-enactment of the battle of Lanka, perfect in every detail to his eye. And now a strange man, a rakshak perhaps, was asking him to walk up the side of a cloud-mountain. He may as well follow this madness through to the end, go where this stranger took him and get to the bottom of this mysterious waking dream. He began walking.
The man waited for him to catch up, deferred to him when he approached, making it clear that he was not seeking superiority over Rama, was if anything, being suitably humble before the king of Ayodhya. They walked together across the impossibly solid cloud-field, the slope rising steadily above. They reached the place where the mist curled and clung, obscuring view of what lay beyond and above. He paused. The man paused beside him. He looked back, down, wondering at the battle scene he had seen. He hesitated, not afraid, for fear was a warrior’s most loyal companion, but considering. What sorcery was this? It was like nothing he had heard of or experienced before, there was something totally alien about its nature and deployment. What purpose had the ghostly vision of the Lanka war served?
He looked at the face of the rakshak. The man looked back impassively, yet not unkindly.
“We must go on.” His voice was deep and resonant, and pleasant to the ear. It was the voice of a man whose life had been spent in service to persons such as Rama, a raj-rakshak, a royal guard. Again that sense of maddening familiarity danced at the periphery of Rama’s memory, but he could not place the man, or why he seemed so familiar.
“What lies beyond?” Rama asked, the mist swirling around his feet. It felt neither cold nor wet, simply like a gentle breeze nipping at his ankles.
“The answers to all your questions,” said the man.
Rama stepped forward, into the mist. The man walked beside him.
Together, they passed through.
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Vengeance of Ravana: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#2
PRARAMBHA
ONE
Rama.
Blackness. As impenetrable as a caul over a newborn’s eyes. As dark as his name which meant black, and was given to male infants darker complected than the average dusky skinned Arya male. In his case, so dark that the royal artists often used a deep shade of midnight blue to distinguish his skin, back in the days when things such as portraits had been an insignificant yet inevitable part of his life. Back when he was still a prince, a yuvraj, carefree and happy in the first flush of youth. Before life had turned upon him like a hunting hawk upon its handler and ripped that casual innocence to shreds.
Awaken, Black Prince.
Crow feather. Night shade. Shyam rang. Or his favourite, Kisna. Although Kisna, or Krishna as it was pronounced in commonspeak by those unschooled in Sanskrit highspeech, was as likely to be used for a girl as a boy. Unlike Rama, which was always unquestionably a masculine name, he didn’t know why. Nor was he the first of his name: there were at least three previous Ramas in the Suryavansha Ikshwaku dynasty. And any number across the Arya nations, for dark complexions were common across the length and breadth of this land of the relentless sun.
Enough. I bid you rise…NOW.
A hand not made of flesh and bone grasped him in a vise and hauled him back to consciousness.
He woke, choking, gasping for breath, and leaped to the floor. Reached for his sword. Missing. His bow, arrow, rig. Likewise. His clothing, also gone. Weaponless, naked but for a langot, he spun on the balls of his feet, keenly honed warrior senses alert to attack from any front by any foe.
He was in his bed chamber, the king’s bed chamber, no less. For he was king now in all but name, and after the coronation on the morrow, the title would be his as well. Although it was and perhaps would always be, his father’s bed chamber. It was larger than he had recalled it, certainly far greater in span and length than his own princely chambers back when he had resided here. Although, after 14 years of forest exile, constant battle and rough living off the land, even a woodsman’s hut would seem comfortable. This…this was beyond luxurious; never a poet, he had no words to describe it now.
Marbled floors gleamed by the light of moonshafts falling through latticed windows. Alabaster columns marched down the length of the chamber like stolid sentries perpetually on guard. Statuary cast in ebony, ivory, jade and softwood depicted a variety of devas, auspicious animals, and Ikshwaku ancestors in a variety of postures, every detail precise and perfect. The fingers, arms and necks and anklets of the kings and queens among them glittered with real ornaments of precious metal and stone, kept polished and pristine over centuries. Immense portraits and epic landscapes adorned the vaulting walls, some aspiring to the ceiling a dozen yards above. Richly brocaded tapestries hung in cul de sacs. The lush carpetting yielded to his bare feet like a velvet invitation. Everywhere he turned, seeking, scanning, darkly majestic furnishing gleamed with exquisite artistry and lavish care. The entire vast chamber was redolent of the woody perfume of sandalwood, his favourite aroma.
Yet it was empty, every yard of it. He completed a full circuit of the chamber and stood, puzzled. He had not imagined it. That grasp that tore him away from his dreamy meanderings had been as real as any rough hand laid on his flesh. So had the voice. He stood there in the moonlight, breathing silently. A gust of night wind parted and raised the gossamer curtains, and dried the cooling sweat upon his muscled chest. And slowly, like a debt returned too slowly over too long, it came back to him.
There had been a dream much like this, on a night very similar, a long time ago. Before Lanka. Before the abduction of Sita. Before the rakshasa wars, the exile, the marriage, the battle of Bhayanak-van…before the day, that Holi day, when his life had changed forever, wrenched from its course like a river denied its pathway to the ocean.
A dream of Ravana. Warning him. Threatening. Mocking.
Abruptly, a terror rose in his blood. He spun on quicksilver feet, and in less than a breath’s span, was at the side of the bed he had left only moments ago.
Sita.
The bed raiments were strewn on the side where he had been sleeping. Unaccustomed as he had been to the caress of such fine cloth for so long, he had pushed them away impatiently before falling asleep. But on the side where she had laid herself down, they were gathered and overlapped, and now all he could see was the raiment itself.
A dark dread lay on his heart like a stone. He reached out, willing himself to be steady, and plucked a loose end of the gathered cloth in his hand. Gently, he lifted it, and pulled it away from the bed, bracing himself to find nothing more than a rumpled space where she had lain, still faintly warm with her heat. Gone. Again. Taken.
Instead, he found her. Lying curled beneath the bedclothes like a bird nursing a broken wing. He caught his breath at the sight of her, unable to believe his eyes alone. Still holding the blanket in one hand, he reached down with the other, and gently touched the crook of her arm. He could smell the musky odour of her body, feel the heat gathered beneath the blankets. She stirred in the throes of deep slumber, moaned softly, but did not turn over or rouse. Too exhausted, at the end of her tether. His heart went out to her. If only he could have reached Lanka sooner, if only the war had been less complicated, if only he had used his brahman shakti from the very outset…But he had done what had seemed right, and what had been had been.
He started to lower the cloth then stopped. He watched her a moment. His heart stuck in his throat to see how thin she had grown over the weeks of her captivity, how pale and bony. Bird like. Yet, watching her thus, her faced stripped of all self-control in the langour of sleep, there was something about her face and aspect, an inner glow that belied all the recent hardship, defied the preceding years of tortuous existence, the blood-smirched struggle for survival that had been their way of life for fourteen long years. A proud dignity that still shone on her features, which could not be hidden. It made him want to take her into his arms, to embrace and love forever. She was still the strong, indomitable woman he had fallen in love with and married, those many years past. Neither exile, nor hardship, nor war, nor Ravana had broken her. Nothing could. A bird with a broken wing…indeed. But a Garuda among birds.
He lowered the raiments, replacing the blanket as nearly as he had found them. She had always liked to cover her head while she slept, a habit he could not brook. He would feel suffocated to sleep thus, yet she could not sleep otherwise. And now, he thought with a faint smile as he stepped back from the bed, she could certainly afford to cover herself and sleep thusly; in the finest silks and velvet coverings in the whole wide world.
But not for long.
He spun around, scouring the chamber. After the life he had lived, the things he had seen, there was little that could unnerve him, and yet, some part of him could not accept that this was happening. Ravana is dead. I killed him on the battlefield of Lanka, in full view of both our armies. He sliced the air with his open hand, in the manner he had learned from a dark-skinned fighter from the Kerall waterlands who had fought with him in the wilderness of Janasthana. He could leap twice his own height in the air, and strike with a sword in a full circle before touching ground again. But there was nothing to strike here, no foe to defend against.
“Show yourself,” he snarled, almost beneath his breath.
Where I am now, your weapons and fists can no longer harm me. Yet I can do to you and your’s as I desire. Perhaps I shall start with your wife…
“Craven!” He started to cry out but choked back the shout. He did not want to wake Sita if he could help it. He must draw the bodiless intruder away from her. He drew upon the steel-edged self-discipline that had earned him his formidable reputation, using a pranayam breathing pattern to calm his ragged nerves and soothe his battle-weary muscles. Old guru Vashishta had taught him that yogic breathing pattern; in another lifetime, it now seemed. A happier, youthful time.
Coward, he hissed silently, knowing that he did not need audible speech to be heard by his tormentor. Why do you hide from my sight and seek to taunt me with words? Face me like a warrior if you dare.
A sound in his head, like a chuckle with a hundred echoes.
No.
Not a hundred.
Ten.
Only ten.
If he listened closely with his now fully attentive mind, he could even catch the nuances of those ten different voices, voices he knew so well now from hearing them up close on the field in the crystalline hyper-awareness of battle.
At that moment, the saliva in his mouth began to taste of the coppery tang of blood and he knew then that this was no nightmare; it was indeed Ravana speaking. But how? And more importantly, why?
Why do you think, King of Ayodhya? We have unfinished business.
He spun around on the balls of his feet: This time the voice had seemed to come from just behind his left shoulder. He had even felt the faint heat of voice-breath upon his bare skin. But there was still no one there. No one that could be seen by mortal eyes.
But even the invisible one could be cut by steel if struck at a certain moment, when a particular one of those ten voices was speaking. He did not know how he knew this; he just did. If only he had his sword. He missed it, his constant companion through all his struggles. How could he have let himself be parted from it? Then he recalled. Sumantra had insisted on taking it away, and when he had protested, the aging minister had simply held up the sword in both palms, showing it to Rama. And he had seen, really seen, what a state it was in: blood and gore and bodily fluids and materials had dried and encrusted themselves along its length so many times over that they formed a scabby coating. The hilt was cracked and bent, its jewels long lost in the heat of one of a thousand encounters. The blade was chipped and marred in a hundred places, barely retaining any vestige of its former honed perfection–the once-lethal blade was now little more than a macabre souvenir. That sword, he had realized in an onrush of commingled pride and sadness as he met Sumantra’s heart-rending gaze again, told the history of his struggles more eloquently than any court poet. But now its work was done; it needed to be repaired, and rested, perhaps retired. Not unlike himself.
Except that, unlike the sword, he was still on call, still required to serve. He breathed, drawing energy from the air, in the way that tapasvi sadhus in the deep aranya drew sustenance from the air alone. Breathed and waited.
Finally, as if realizing that he would not be baited into leaping and flailing about, the voice spoke again, and this time, because he was listening intently, he heard the unmistakable inflection: that doubling of tones, like ten men speaking at once yet not quite precisely in unison.
Outside.
He needed no further explanation or command. He moved toward the verandah and exitted the royal chamber to find himself upon a patio lined with flowering plants and stone statuary intertwined with vines and creepers. Here beneath the open sky, the nightwind caressed his naked skin, a vetaal’s lifeless breath. From the vantage point of a royal view, he scanned the sleeping capitol city with a glance. Countless house lights still flickered, even though it was long past the midnight watch, and faint sounds echoed and carried even from the farthest reaches of the great city-state: his people, Ayodhyans, all working to prepare for the grand coronation tomorrow, a few perhaps still celebrating the return of their king.
There was nobody in sight.
Jump.
“What?” he asked, startled. His voice would not carry inside to Sita from here.
Do you still wish to face me like a man? Like a warrior? Then do as I command. Leap from the balustrade.
He let his teeth show, flashing white in his wine-dark face. Do you mistake me for a fool now, Lanka-naresh? Have you forgotten that I brought you down upon the field of battle? Do you really think I will leap to my death at your bidding?
A sound of impatience clicked in his mind.
Mortal unbeliever. If I wanted to kill you by stealth I would have done so at any time I chose. The fact that you yet live is proof enough that I have bigger plans for you than a quick blade in the dark–or a short fall to a brain-crushing end.
Now it was his turn to chuckle scornfully. “Why should I–?” he began then stopped. Why should I trust you? he was about to say. But the question was an absurd one. He could not trust the lord of rakshasas at all, of course. And yet. And yet. He sensed the asura spoke truly; what he said was beyond dispute. Simply luring Rama to a suicidal fall might serve a lesser being’s thirst for revenge. It was not Ravana’s way.
And yet, there was some game here that he could not fathom. Starting with the most startling question of all: How could Ravana be speaking to him if Ravana was dead?
There was only one way to find out.
He leaped up to the balustrade, the action as lithe and easy as it had been in his youth, despite his wounds and aches, despite his hardships, despite everything. What he had lost in age and agility, he had made up for in experience, skill, and the constant relentless use of his body and mind, like a well-used bow grew easier to string and draw over time.
He looked down. The king’s chambers were at the top of the main palace complex, and the drop that lay below him now measured easily a hundred feet. At the bottom lay the closely set flagstones of the innermost courtyard, each a quarter ton of solid rock hauled by elephants all the way from the Karakoram principality. The lights of mashaals gleamed dully on the buffed stone, and he glimpsed sentries patrolling diligently, in larger numbers than was usual owing to the presence of so many high personages tonight, most of all, their long-awaited king and queen. The night wind carried the scents of the city, sometimes pungent, sometimes intriguing. The perfumes of Ayodhya, dressing to celebrate her king’s return.
“Jump?” he asked. But it was a rhetorical question. He knew the voice that gave the command would not explain or provide reasons: it was a voice accustomed to being obeyed by armies, that spoke to devas and asuras in the same level tone. Jump, it had said. And he grinned wolfishly and decided he would obey. Whatever mystery lay here, it was clear he would not resolve it without taking bold action. As the moments passed and the voice did not speak again, he knew that he had no other choice, no other means of learning what Ravana meant, except to do as he bade and follow this nightmare through to its very end. He resisted the urge to glance back into the chamber where Sita lay asleep. He would not weaken his resolve. Better to draw the asura away from her. Reaching a decision, he nodded once to his invisible foe, inhaled sharply, spread his arms like a bird about to take wing, and sprang out from the balustrade, his strong legs carrying him yards out into the empty darkness, high above the solid ground, his body arching like a diver leaping into oceanic depths.
He hung suspended in the air a moment, then slowly, inevitably, began the long quick fall to the courtyard.
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Vengeance of Ravana: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series – Excerpt#1
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA
Book 7 of The Ramayana Series
by Ashok K. Banker
//Raghupati Raghava raja Ram//
//pattita pavan Sita Ram//
//Sita Ram Sita Ram//
//bhaj pyare tu Sita Ram//
Traditional Folk Song (Favourite bhajan of Mahatma Gandhi)
SAMAPTAM
Raghupati.
Through the haze of smoke from the burning towers of Lanka, dimly glimpsed. Upon that battlefield, carelessly littered with the corpses of friends and foes alike, he stood, grieving. For even in victory had he lost so much; such were the bitter fruits of war. The shouts of his jubilant soldiers rang out all round him, yet to his ears they were overwhelmed by the remembered cries of anguish and torment of those that had fallen upon this field. Vanars, bears, rakshasas…it mattered not if they were his enemy or his ally. All who had died had died for him, one way or another. That was all that mattered. All this, this brutal hacking of limbs and sundering of bones, this mad dance of soldiers, this epic bloodshed, this immense decimation of life, was on his command, and therefore, on his conscience.
Raghava.
He walked the battlefield, taking stock of the fallen. All these lives cut short, some in their prime, all before their time. All these…so many, too many…brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, blood-kith and blood-kin. His siblings at arms. For no less were these fallen united to him than were his own brothers back home, Bharat and Shatrugan. No less were they related to him by blood than Lakshman himself, partner in all his travails and exile, shoulder that stood beside his shoulder through thick and thin. So what if these vanars and bears and rakshasas had not been born of the same mother as he, or of the same father, or even of the same species? Born apart, they had come together to die today for him, and in dying, bonded with him in the eternal brotherhood of blood. These mangled and broken bodies had been living, hoping, longing, loving creatures, with homes and families of their own, which they had left, to dedicate themselves to his cause, to travel long yojanas to this foreign land across a hostile sea, and now this alien soil was soaked through with their honest blood. And this blood was upon his conscience.
Raja.
Now, he would return to his homeland, proud and triumphant, lauded in victory, to be crowned king of Ayodhya. No more a prince in exile, or at war. A king in name and deed and title. His name added to the long list of Suryavansha Ikshwakus, his portrait hung beside those others in the hall of ancestors, his statue carved and polished and raised in the public avenues and places of honour, his name given to a thousand thousand newborn whose mothers would pray for them to be as Rama was, do as Rama did, to become…
Ram.
Yet, was he deserving of this victory, this pride, this praise? This kingship, even? The tales that would be woven around his exploits, the poems composed and sung of his adventures in exile, his feats as a warrior, his triumphs against the evil rakshasas, his incomparable accomplishments and wondrous feats of chivalry? Like so many other warriors before him, reluctant and unwilling to embrace celebrityhood, his story would grow larger than his life itself, in time would come to seem more real than the sordid gritty reality, and eventually, would march firmly into the annals of legend, then myth, and finally, into race-memory.
“Raghupati Raghava Raja Rama…pattita pavana Sita Ram!”
The sound rose to a roaring, counterpointing the numbing silence in his veins. He came out of his reverie like a traveller emerging from mist and saw the entire host of his army’s survivors assembled before him, before the walls of Lanka, still a formidable mass, their ragged voices joined in this new chant, something he had never heard before, yet seemed so oddly familiar. Vanars and bears, and rakshasas even…not all of the rakshasas, for he could see several kneeling sullenly or glumly by, driven to their knees by their vanar or bear captors, unrepentant and hostile in their failure…but those brothers of Vibhisena in spirit who were jubilant in their relief at being rid of Ravana’s yoke at long last. A great multitude of voices raised in ragged, heart-rendingly cheerful harmony, filling the smoky skies above Lanka with this hypnotic chant, this near fanatical hymn of praise…
“Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, pattita pavana Sita Ram,
Sita Ram, Sita Ram, bhaj pyare tu Sitaram.”
The same two lines over and over again, as if the poet had been so overwhelmed by adoration that he had no motive left to seek lyrics to follow, or inclination to compose those lyrics.
Hail to thee, Rama, Lord of the House of Raghu, Savior of the fallen, Hail to the divine union of Sita and Rama, Beloved are you both, Sita and Rama.
The lilt of the lyrics and the monotony of the melody gave it the quality of a bhajan, a couplet chanted in praise to a god. Was that how they percieved him? As a god? He scanned the sea of upturned faces, bloody snouts and furry heads, and saw wet adoration in those animal eyes, mirrored and repeated in every single visage, vanar and bear alike. To the periphery of his host, huddled before the crumbled walls of Lanka, the survivors of Ravana’s army stood herded together. He saw even their bestial aspects raised towards him. The expression on most rakshasa snouts was a sullen, morose, even hostile aspect. Yet there was a certain grudging admiration visible even in that mottled and beaten crowd, an awe that went beyond any mere fear of captivity. And sweeping the vast assemblage again with battle-weary eyes, he saw that what he euphemistically referred to as adoration or admiration was no less than an acknowledgement of godliness. It was the same look one saw on the faces of devotees at a great teerth-sthan, one of the sacred pilgrimage spots. Yes, many of those assembled saw him as something akin to a god. It would be ingenuous of him not to see that; not to recognize the glistening admiration in those grape-dark eyes for what it truly was: the awe of a crowd of believers given sight of their deity. Even as this realization seeped into his tired senses, the vast host, their numbers so great as to make the vast field resemble nothing so much as a field of kusa lavya grass, swaying gently in an autumn breeze, reached a peak in their chanting.
He scanned the landscape from left to right, attempting to take in the sheer vastness of the multitudes assembled–a great host, despite their terrible losses in battle–carpetting the hills and valleys and fields of Lanka for miles in every direction, a veritable ocean of waves dipping their crests to show respect for the approaching shore, and as they sensed him responding at last, looking upon them, their haunting chant yielded to a moment of such utter silence that he thought his heart itself had ceased beating.
As one, in drill-perfect unison, they straightened their battered bodies to stand on their hind legs, a measure of supreme respect among both vanars and bears, and raised their snouted, furred and dusty faces to him, their dark wet eyes glistening in the slanting evening light. On straightened knees with lowered brows, hoarse voices stilled at last after days of yelling war cries and crying havoc, they observed him, and waited.
In the silence that fell, he heard a bird twittering somewhere, calling the end of day. He felt the benediction of a soft cool ocean breeze wafting in from the west, redolent of salt and the exotic odours of a thousand yojanas of open sea. He felt a strange absence of feeling spread through his being, like the sensation one experienced just before falling fast asleep, when the body and mind hovered momentarily between wakefulness and deep unconsciousness. He stood on that precipice, and teeming multitudes waited to hear his words.
A great hand fell upon his shoulder. Gently, despite its great strength. The voice that spoke in his ear was as quiet as that hand was gentle.
“Command them, they are your’s. As are the earth, sky and sea, and everything in it. You are the master of the world now. Rule it as you see fit.”
The voice of the bear king Jambavan was sonorous and gruff as ever. But the tone of sad wisdom was new. Perhaps, he thought, the war had taken its toll on the ancient one too, dimming his penchant for eccentric proclamations and whimsical asides. Or perhaps it was the gravity of the moment that the bear lord tempered his speech to suit.
He turned to look up into the eyes of the lord of rksaas. During the time of battle, he had seen those same eyes blazing like coals in obsidian, promising fire and delivering death. Earlier, in their numerous counsels, he had seen grace, wisdom, empathy and a sense of knowledge so deep and infinite, he had felt he could ask any question and the answer would be there, in those eyes. Now, he saw in them a mirror image of the same adoration he saw in all those lakhs of vanar and bear and rakshasa eyes staring up at him from the field of battle. A look of fierce admiration and pride, an almost deifying adoration. It was the look a soldier gave a king after a successful end to war, as well as the look that a worshipper gave to his deity after a lifetime’s wish was fulfilled.
He wondered if he deserved such a look, such adoration, such deification.
“Lord bear,” he said softly. “I barely know how to console myself. How do I console these who have sacrificed so much for my cause? What do I say to explain the terrible cost of this great conflict?”
Jambavan’s face fur rippled in a diagonal pattern that began somewhere east of his left ear and traversed across the top of his mountainous head ending somewhere in the vicinity of his nape. The effect resembled nothing so much as a strong wind ruffling thick elephant grass on plainsland. The berry dark eyes glistened with sympathy, but the parted jaws promised no mercy. “Heed well my words, youngun. I will say this only once, so treasure it and scroll it and do not make me repeat it. The price of war is the prize of war.”
And the bear stepped back, silent, turning his snout away to gaze at a flight of geese flying overhead as if they had suddenly grown more interesting than anything transpiring on earth. Rama blinked, taking in the words so eccentrically given, tersely spoken, yet so dense and rich with meaning.
The price of war is the prize of war.
He blinked again, this time to dispell the sudden wetness that plagued his vision. And suddenly found the courage to speak. He found a little strength to straighten his stiff back, to raise his head and put his chin forward, to return their show of respect with a gesture of his own, for among vanars and bears, actions counted more than words. Yet words he gave them as well. Words that carried to the furry ears of even the farthest vanar or bear, through the whispering relay system that they had perfected under Nala’s supervision. The only effect, to his ears, was a faint sussuration following on each of his words, like a wind blowing through a leafy grove.
“Comrades,” he said. “All we have accomplished, all we have achieved, all we have endeavoured towards, all we have struggled, and fought, and strategized, and maneuvered, and battled, and bled, and sacrificed for, is upon this field. It is our dignity, our honour, our pride, and our dharma. At this hour of battle, with the tide turned, with the enemy vanquished, the master of the land fallen, the siege broken, the fortress overrun, any army could be expected to wreak havoc, to ravage and forage, rape and pillage, partake of the spoils of war. But we did not fight this war for spoils. At this time, any army in history would be forgiven a few transgressions, a few excesses, a few just rewards for the bitter struggle we have all endured these past days and weeks. The rules of war condone such excesses, overlook such transgressions, forgiven such acts. Yet that is not why you fought this war. At this point in a war, any invading conqueror would be expected to slice up and divide the territories he has conquered, to parcel them out to his generals, his comrades, to any he pleases who may have pleased him before. Yet that is not why I fought this war. You and I, we made a pact. To come to these shores and plead for peace. To sue for a quick and bloodless resolution to this needless conflict. To beg for the safe return of my beloved Sita. It was Ravana’s choice to deny us that peace, to abjure a resolution, to mock our pleas. We could all be forgiven, you and I, if we razed his kingdom to the ground, if we put every last one of his citizens to the sword, if we ravaged his queens and his concubines, if we speared every rakshasa cub in Lanka, if we cleansed the world of the rakshasa race forever. We could do all these things, and indeed, I am sure that after the grevious losses we all suffered this day, there are many of you who desire this end, who crave it…I will not deny that a part of me craves it as well…The basest, most vengeful part of me…”
He paused, looking at the snouted faces of the Lankans by the broken walls.
Their faces were filled with dismay and terror now. Gone was all hostility, all sullenness, all reluctant admiration. In their place was naked terror, panic at the thought that what he had just said might actually come to pass. He sensed the vanar and bear armies swivel their heads and eyes, looking towards Lanka, towards those walls, those bestial warriors, those towers that had caused them so much pain and death and suffering these past days. And he knew from the very stench of their rage that he had spoken their heart’s deepest emotions aloud.
“Yet we shall do none of these things,” he said quietly. The relay took his words like the wind and passed them down the lines, rippling miles North to the far reaches of the vast assemblage.
“For these are not the reasons why we came here to fight this war.”
He paused again, straightened his head, and took a step forward. He raised his arms to either side, palms upwards. The interlacing of myriad cuts and nicks and wounds across his weary muscles screamed in response, for the blood had long since dried over them, and some of the caked wounds and hundreds of tiny scabs tore open as he flexed those overused muscles again. He ignored the pain, which was as much his brother too. And held the stance. The setting sun caught his body in its embrace, and its soft saffron warmth was like a careless blessing from a gruff god.
“We came here for a reason, and that reason is accomplished. Our work here is done. Now, it is time to show Lanka, the world, indeed, to show generations to come that while war itself is undesirable, warriors can still adhere to dharma. Let us pledge here and now, with our Lankan enemies present beside us, that we shall work together to rebuild every loosed brick, every shattered beam, every broken palace, hovel or hut, and to raise a new Lanka from the ashes of this tragedy, a Lanka that will put war behind it forever, and turn her face towards the new sun of peace. Let us pledge this now. Let our pledge and the execution of it be a testament to our pride and honour and dharma. And a monument to all those of our beloved ones who fell here on this soil. I do not command this of now, for with this war done, I have no authority to command you anymore. I merely ask this, request it, beg it if you will…Join me in showing Lanka, and all the ages to come, that yes, we came, we fought, we conquered…And then we rebuilt. We restored. We rehabilitated. We took nothing, but we gave everything. And by so doing, we gained the greatest riches possible, the most precious spoils of war, that which every soldier secretly craves but rarely hopes to ever acquire…the love and forgiveness and admiration of our enemies. I ask you this in honour of my fallen foe, Ravana. I ask you this in the memory of everyone fallen in this conflict. I ask you this in the name of dharma.
“What say you?”
The silence that followed after the last whispering passage of his last words had been transmitted through verbal relay through the seemingly endless ranks was deafening. He could heard his heart pounding steadily, like a drum beaten by a drummer tolling a dirge. He could hear the distant high-pitched lowing of greybacks far out at sea. He could hear birds in the skies wailing for the lost day. And the sun slipped one final time to touch the rim of the horizon, hanging there as if reluctant to take its sight off him, as if waiting to hear the response of his armies, as eager to know the effect of his words upon them as he himself was.
The answer came with a roar so resounding it shook his body and caused his very bones to tremble. It was accompanied by a stamping of their feet that made the earth beneath tremble as well, the grasy knoll reverberating as if stricken by a repitition of the earth-moving wrought by Ravana’s asura maya on the first night of their landing. The wind of their shouting made the hairs of his hands and his nape stand on end. It was greater than the war chants they had yelled in battle, greater than the screams of the dying, more determined than the shout of fealty they had pledged to him back at Mount Mahendra when the armies of Hanuman had first assembled before his sight. Hail Rama Husband of Sita.
“JAI SIYARAM.”
The sun slipped beneath the rim. He thought he felt it smile one final time before it passed from that part of the world. He smiled as well.
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SLAYER OF KAMSA: Book 1 of The Krishna Coriolis will be out next month (October). Written in a pacier style than my Ramayana Series, this short impactful book details the rise to power of the monstrous Kamsa and his brutal campaign to thwart the birth of the prophesied 8th Child. 