Raavan- Enemy of Aryavarta Read online

  Samichi shot him a sharp look and he fell silent. Even torturers had a code of conduct. At least in India. But clearly, Samichi had no qualms about flouting it.

  The Malayaputra’s eyes were wide open in panic. Almost as if he could anticipate the pain that was to follow.

  Samichi picked up a sickle lying nearby. It was dangerously sharp on one side, serrated on the other. A cruel design crafted to inflict maximum pain. She moved towards the torture rack, the sickle in her hand. She held it up, felt its sharp edge, letting it prick her finger and draw blood. ‘You will talk. Trust me. You will talk,’ she snarled as she poised the sickle between the Malayaputra’s legs. Dangerously close.

  She moved the sickle slowly, deliberately. It sliced through the soft epidermis and cut deeper. Deeper into the scrotum. Inflicting the maximum pain possible at a point that had an almost sadistic concentration of nerve endings.

  The Malayaputra screamed.

  He cried, he pleaded for it to stop.

  It wasn’t his Gods he cried to. This was beyond them now. He was calling out to his mother.

  Khara knew then. The Malayaputra would talk. It was only a matter of time. He would break. And he would talk.

  Raavan and his younger brother Kumbhakarna sat comfortably inside the Pushpak Vimaan, the legendary flying vehicle, as it flew over the dense jungle.

  The king of Lanka was quiet, his body tense. He clutched his pendant tightly—the pendant that always hung from a gold chain around his neck. It was made of the bones of two human fingers, the phalanges of which were carefully fastened with gold links.

  Many Indians believed in the existence of tribes of demonic warriors that adorned themselves with relics from the bodies of their bravest adversaries. In doing so, they were said to transfer to themselves the strength of the dead men. The Lankan soldiers, thoroughly loyal to Raavan, believed and propagated the legend that the pendant around his neck was made from the remains of an archenemy’s hand. Only Kumbhakarna knew the truth. Only he knew what it meant when Raavan held the pendant tight, the way he was gripping it now.

  Leaving his elder brother to his silent ruminations, Kumbhakarna looked around the Pushpak Vimaan. The gargantuan flying vehicle was shaped like a cone that gently tapered upwards. Its many portholes, close to the base, were sealed with thick glass, but the metallic window shades had been drawn back. The diffused light of the early morning sun streamed in, lighting up the interiors. Though the vehicle was reasonably soundproof, the loud sound of the main rotor at the top of the vimaan could be heard. Added to that was the noise of the many smaller rotors, close to the base of the aircraft, which helped control the directional and lateral movements of the flying machine.

  The craft’s interiors, while spacious and comfortable, were done in a simple, minimalist style. As Kumbhakarna looked up, his eyes fell on the only embellishment inside the vimaan—a large painting of a single rudraaksh, near the inner summit of the vimaan. A brown, elliptical seed, the rudraaksh literally meant the ‘teardrop of Rudra’. All those who were loyal to the God of Gods, the Mahadev, Lord Rudra, wore threaded rudraaksh seeds on their body or placed it in their puja rooms. The painting depicted a particular type of rudraaksh that had a single groove running across it. The original, much smaller seed, which was the model for the painting, was known as an ekmukhi. A rare kind of rudraaksh, it was difficult to find and extremely expensive. A specimen impaled on a gold thread was kept in Raavan’s private temple in his palace.

  Apart from the painting, the vimaan was mostly bare—more of a military vehicle than one designed for luxury. Because it placed function over form, it was able to accommodate more than a hundred passengers.

  Kumbhakarna noticed with satisfaction that the soldiers sat silently, in disciplined arcs that fanned out across the vimaan. They had just finished eating. Fed and rested, they were ready for action. It was a matter of a few hours before they would descend on Salsette Island. There, Kumbhakarna had been told, Samichi awaited them with crucial information about the exiled Ayodhya royals—Ram, Sita, his wife, Lakshman, his younger brother—and their band of Malayaputra supporters.

  The Lankan soldiers believed they were on their way to avenge the insult to their mighty king’s sister, Shurpanakha, who had been injured by Prince Lakshman. While cosmetic surgery would take away the physical marks of the injury to her nose, the metaphorical loss of face could only be avenged with blood. The soldiers knew that. They understood that.

  But few of them stopped to wonder exactly what Princess Shurpanakha and Prince Vibhishan, the younger half-siblings of Raavan, had been doing so far away, deep in the Dandakaranya, with the exiled and relatively powerless royals of Ayodhya.

  ‘They are complete idiots,’ said Raavan gruffly, keeping his voice low. A curtain draped on an overhanging rod partially screened Raavan’s and Kumbhakarna’s chairs from the rest. ‘I should never have trusted them with this mission.’

  After a botched encounter and the resultant skirmish with Ram and the others, Vibhishan had taken Shurpanakha and the Lankan soldiers on a quick march back to Salsette, on the west coast of India. From there, led by Raavan’s son Indrajit, they had taken a ship back to Lanka. Upon hearing of their failed mission, Raavan had left his capital city immediately, with as many soldiers as could be accommodated in the Pushpak Vimaan.

  Kumbhakarna took a deep breath and looked at his elder brother. ‘It’s in the past now, Dada,’ he said.

  ‘Such fools! Vibhishan and Shurpanakha have taken after their stupid barbarian mother. They can’t even handle a simple job.’

  Raavan and Kumbhakarna were the sons of Rishi Vishrava and his first wife, Kaikesi. Vibhishan and Shurpanakha were also the sage’s children, but by his second wife, Crataeis, a Greek princess from the island of Knossos in the Mediterranean Sea. Raavan abhorred his half-siblings, but had been forced to accept them, by his mother, after their father’s death.

  ‘Every family has its idiots, Dada,’ said Kumbhakarna with a smile, trying to calm his brother down. ‘But they’re still family.’

  ‘I should have listened to you. I should never have sent them.’

  ‘Forget it, Dada.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel like—’

  ‘We’ll handle it, Dada,’ Kumbhakarna interrupted him. ‘We’ll kidnap the Vishnu, and the Malayaputras will be left with no choice but to give us what we want. What we need.’

  Raavan took his brother’s hand. ‘I’ve given you nothing but trouble, Kumbha. Thank you for always sticking by me.’

  ‘No, Dada. I am the one who has given you nothing but trouble since my birth. I am alive because of you. And I will die for you,’ Kumbhakarna said, his voice edged with emotion.

  ‘Nonsense! You will not die anytime soon. Not for me. Not for anybody. You will die of old age, many many years from now, when you have bedded every woman you want to and drunk as much wine as your heart desires!’

  Kumbhakarna, who had been celibate and a teetotaller for several years now, laughed. ‘You do enough of that for both of us, Dada!’

  Strong winds buffeted the Pushpak Vimaan. The vehicle lurched and juddered, like a toy in the hands of a giant demonic child. The rain was coming down hard. They watched it fall in sheets, past the thick glass of the portholes.

  ‘By the great Lord Rudra, it can’t be my fate to die in a stupid air crash.’

  Raavan double-checked the body grip that held him securely in his chair. As did Kumbhakarna. These grips had been specially designed to evenly distribute the force of restraint over the torso of the seated passengers. Even their thighs were restrained.

  The Lankan soldiers, meanwhile, had attached themselves to the standard grips fixed to the floor and walls of the vimaan. Most of them were managing to keep calm, and the contents of their stomach within. Some of them, however, being first-time travellers in the vimaan, were vomiting copiously.

  Kumbhakarna turned to Raavan. ‘It’s an unseasonal storm.’

  ‘You think?’ said Raavan, grinn
ing. Nothing brought out his competitive spirit like adversity.

  Kumbhakarna turned to look at the four pilots, who were struggling with the levers, trying to direct the craft against the wind with the sheer force of their bodies against the controls.

  ‘Not too hard!’ shouted Kumbhakarna, making his voice carry over the howling wind. ‘If the levers break, we are done for.’

  All four men turned towards Kumbhakarna, who was probably the best vimaan pilot alive.

  ‘Don’t fight the wind so hard that the controls break,’ ordered Kumbhakarna. ‘Let it flow. But not too loose either. Just keep the vimaan upright and we’ll be fine.’

  As the pilots gave the levers some slack, the vimaan lurched and swung even more vigorously.

  ‘Are you trying to make me throw up?’ asked Raavan, grimacing.

  ‘Puking never killed anyone,’ said Kumbhakarna. ‘But an air crash would do the job most efficiently.’

  Raavan scowled, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He gripped his hand brace even tighter.

  ‘Plus, there is a positive side to this storm,’ said Kumbhakarna. ‘These loud winds will drown out the noise of the rotors. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side when we attack them.’

  Raavan opened his eyes and looked at Kumbhakarna, his eyebrows furrowed. ‘Are you crazy? We outnumber them five to one. We don’t need an element of surprise. We just need to land safely.’

  The battle was short and decisive.

  There were no Lankan casualties. All the Malayaputras, save their captain Jatayu, and two of his soldiers, were dead or critically injured. But Ram, Lakshman and Sita were missing.

  While Kumbhakarna set about organising the efforts to find the trio, Raavan stood staring at a Malayaputra soldier who lay flat on his back on the ground. The man was still alive, but barely. Moving rapidly towards his death with every raspy breath.

  Thick blood was pooling around his body, soaking into the wet mud and discolouring the green grass. The vastus muscles on his thighs had been slashed through. Almost down to the bone. Blood gushed out in torrents from the many severed arteries.

  Raavan stared. As always, he was fascinated by the sight of a slow death.

  He could hear Kumbhakarna.

  ‘Jatayu is a traitor. He was one of us before he defected to the Malayaputras. I don’t care what you do to him. Get the information, Khara.’

  ‘Yes, Lord Kumbhakarna,’ said Khara. He sounded relieved. Samichi and he had proven their worth, with information and muscle. He saluted and marched away towards his quarry.

  Raavan focused on the dying Malayaputra. He was losing blood fast. It seemed to be spurting out from what appeared to be a small incision on his abdomen. But Raavan could see that the wound was deep. The kidneys, liver, stomach, had all been cut through. The man’s body was twitching and shivering as the blood drained out of it.

  Kumbhakarna’s words pierced his consciousness again.

  ‘I want seven teams. Two men in each team. Spread out. They can’t have gone far. If you find the princes, or the princess, do not engage. One of you should come back and inform us while the other continues to track them.’

  Raavan’s attention was still on the Malayaputra. His left eye had been gouged out. Perhaps by a Lankan soldier wearing hidden tiger claws on his hand. The partially severed eyeball hung out of the eye socket, held tenuously by the optic nerve. Blood dripped weakly from the bloody, discoloured white ball.

  The Malayaputra’s mouth was open, his chest heaving. Trying to swallow air and pump oxygen through his body. Desperately trying to stay alive.

  Why does the soul insist on hanging on to the body until the absolute last minute? Even when death is clearly the better alternative?

  ‘Dada.’ Kumbhakarna’s voice broke his reverie. Raavan raised a hand for silence and his brother obeyed. Raavan looked on as the Malayaputra’s life slowly ebbed away. His breathing grew more and more ragged. The harder he breathed, the more quickly the blood flowed out of his numerous wounds.

  Let go …

  Finally, there was a deep convulsion. The last, shallow breath escaped out of the dying man’s mouth. For a moment, all was still. He lay with his eyes wide open, as if in panic. Both fists clenched tight. Toes bent at an ungainly angle. Body rigid.

  And then, slowly, he went limp.

  A few moments passed before Raavan turned away from the corpse in front of him. ‘You were saying?’ he asked Kumbhakarna.

  ‘They can’t have gone far,’ said Kumbhakarna. ‘Khara will get the information out of Jatayu soon. We’ll find the Vishnu. We’ll get her alive.’

  ‘What about Ram and Lakshman?’

  ‘We’ll do our best not to hurt them. And make them think that this is revenge for what was done to Shurpanakha. Do you want to go back to the vimaan and wait?’

  Raavan shook his head. No.

  ‘Let me see Sita,’ said Raavan.

  ‘Dada, there’s no time. King Ram and Prince Lakshman are close by, they might reach soon. I don’t want to be forced to kill them. This is perfect. We’ve got the Vishnu, and Ayodhya’s so-called king has not been injured. Let’s leave now. You can see her once we are back in the vimaan.’

  The Lankans were in a small clearing where the Malayaputras had set up their temporary camp. They were surrounded by dense forest, with almost nothing visible beyond the tree line. Kumbhakarna was understandably eager to leave before the princes arrived on the spot.

  Raavan nodded, and started walking towards the vimaan. His advance guard marched ahead, while Kumbhakarna strode alongside. The main body of soldiers followed, bearing the stretcher that carried a bound and unconscious Sita. The rear guard brought up the end.

  Knowing that Ram and Lakshman were free and armed, the Lankans were on their guard. They did not want to be surprised by a hail of arrows.

  Periodically, a voice sounded in the distance. Getting louder, and closer, with every repetition.

  ‘Sitaaaaaaa!’

  It was Ram, the eldest son of the late King Dashrath of Ayodhya. Since Ayodhya was the supreme power in the region, Dashrath was also the emperor of the Sapt Sindhu, the Land of the Seven Rivers. When Ram was banished for fourteen years for the unauthorised use of a daivi astra, a divine weapon, during the Battle of Mithila, Dashrath had nominated Bharat to be the crown prince instead. However, when it was time for Bharat to be crowned emperor after Dashrath’s passing, he had, against all expectations, placed Ram’s slippers on the throne and begun ruling the empire as his elder brother’s representative.

  Technically then, despite being in exile, Ram was the reigning king of Ayodhya and the emperor of the Sapt Sindhu. In absentia. Even though he had never formally been crowned king. Treaty obligations on other kingdoms within the Sapt Sindhu would be triggered if he was hurt or killed. These kingdoms would then be forced to mobilise for war against those who had harmed their emperor. And Raavan knew Lanka could not afford a war. Not right now.

  But there was no such obligation with regard to the wife of the emperor.

  The anguished voice was heard again. ‘Sitaaaaaaa…’

  Raavan turned towards Kumbhakarna. ‘What do you think he’ll do? Can he rally the armies of the Sapt Sindhu?’

  Kumbhakarna, surprisingly sprightly despite his massive size, kept pace alongside Raavan. He said thoughtfully, ‘It depends on how we play it. There are many who oppose Ram and his family in the Sapt Sindhu. If we can make it known that Sita was kidnapped to avenge the attack on Shurpanakha, it will give the kingdoms that don’t want to go to war an excuse to back out. Also, there are no treaty obligations that refer to the eventuality of any Ayodhya royal, other than the emperor, being hurt. So they are not treaty-bound to march just because we’ve kidnapped the emperor’s wife. Those who want to stay away can choose to stay away. I don’t think he’ll be able to rally a large army.’

  ‘So those idiots, Shurpanakha and Vibhishan, have proved to be of some use after all.’

  ‘Useful id
iots,’ offered Kumbhakarna, with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Hey, I have the copyright on that term!’ said Raavan, laughing and playfully slapping Kumbhakarna’s massive belly.

  The brothers had reached the Pushpak Vimaan and now quickly stepped in.

  The soldiers followed and started taking their positions inside the craft. Raavan and Kumbhakarna were soon bracing themselves in preparation for take-off. The doors of the vimaan closed slowly with a hydraulic hiss.

  ‘She’s a fighter!’ said Kumbhakarna with an appreciative grin, nodding in Sita’s direction. The Lankan soldiers hovered around her, fastening straps around her unconscious body.

  It had been a struggle to capture the brave warrior princess.

  Thirty days had passed since the botched encounter between Shurpanakha and the princes, and the Ayodhyan royals had eased their guard, presuming that the Lankans had lost track of them. That day, they had decided to step out and get themselves a proper meal. Sita had gone to cut banana leaves with a Malayaputra soldier called Makrant. Ram and Lakshman had gone hunting in a separate direction.

  The two Lankan soldiers who had discovered Sita had managed to kill Makrant, but were, in turn, killed by Sita. She had then stolen to the devastated Malayaputra camp and picked off several Lankans from behind the tree line, using a bow and a quiverful of arrows very effectively, moving quickly from one hiding place to another. But she had not been able to get to either Raavan or Kumbhakarna, who had been sealed off behind protective flanks of Lankan soldiers. Finally, she had been forced to come forward to save her loyal follower, Captain Jatayu. It was then that she was overpowered and rendered unconscious with a toxin, before being tied up and hauled to the vimaan.

  ‘The Malayaputras believe she is the Vishnu,’ said Raavan, laughing softly. ‘She’d better be a good fighter!’

  According to an ancient Indian tradition, towering leaders, the greatest among greats, who could become the propagators of goodness and harbingers of a new way of life, were recognised with the title ‘Vishnu’. There had been six Vishnus till now, and the tribe of the Malayaputras had been founded by the sixth Vishnu, Lord Parshu Ram. Now the Malayaputras had recognised a seventh, one who would establish a new way of life in India: Sita. And Raavan had just kidnapped her.