PRINCE IN EXILE Read online

  With an involuntary whoop of joy, he spurred Marut forward and downward, negotiating the winding path that would connect up soon with the raj-marg, the king’s highway that led straight to Ayodhya. Now, as the procession descended the far side of the mountain range, he found himself longing with all his heart to see the familiar spires and marbled domes of Ayodhya once more. Could Rama and he have been away only a mere fortnight? Surely it was longer than that! It felt like an eternity now.

  Behind him came the chanting legions of the First Akshohini, raising a new round of jubilation as they spied the familiar vista too. For hours now the Ayodhyans had shouted themselves hoarse, cheering and chanting praises to their prince and saviour. If any of them had felt some disappointment at not staying in Mithila for the full duration of the wedding feast days, it was more than made up for by the extraordinary encounter on the mountain. Already riders were splitting away from the main company, setting off towards Ayodhya at double speed, dispatched by the captains to carry the news of Rama’s historic duel with Parsurama to the capital city before their arrival. One more legend to add to Rama’s growing list of achievements.

  Lakshman rode towards the head of the long procession, to join his family and share with them the glorious thrill of returning home to Ayodhya once more.

  As they came on to the last straight stretch of the king’s highway, Sita braced herself, her mind swirling with long-remembered images of towering spires, vaulting arches, looming domes, and, most of all, the lights, the fabled jewelled lights of Ayodhya. That was what she remembered best from her childhood visits to Mithila’s sister city: that breathtaking panorama of lights glittering like a regal crown astride the roaring Sarayu.

  If anything, she expected to be regaled by an even more fabulous view than the one from her childhood memories. Coming here after eight long years, she expected to find the Kosalan capital even more resplendent and regal. The years of peace had been good to all the Arya nations, and most of all to Ayodhya. She had heard so much about the richness of Ayodhyan fashion, jewellery, lifestyle, architecture, culture and goods. She had grown up hearing the glowing accolades paid to the growing prosperity of the Kosalan nation by the many diplomats and delegates who returned to her father’s court with chests overflowing with gifts and samples; had read about it in the travelogues of scholars and sadhus who made the long trek to study the wisdom of Ayodhyan seers; had been discreetly shown the advances in military technology and technique by the weapons masters and few veterans who still clung to the old ways even in peaceful Mithila. Except for spiritual and philosophical learning, the capital of the Kosalan nation had clearly outstripped even its neighbouring Vaidehan sister in its accumulation of wealth and magnificence. As Mithila had progressed spiritually and culturally, Ayodhya had enriched itself literally. And while she had been her father’s good daughter, taught to respect Vedic learning as being more important than the garnering of wealth and fine things, she had been made naturally curious by those tales of Ayodhyan luxury. And of course, there had always been her sister and cousins, ever eagerly gossiping about wildly exagerated tales of the decadent Ayodhyan lifestyle.

  But in her heart, it was still that first clear sight of the lights that she sought. To measure the now against the then, complete the long circle of time, pin past with the present, and see with her newly matured eyes if the fabled city could truly measure up to the one of her childhood memories.

  All that cumulative expectation came to a head as she brought her horse in line with Rama’s as they took that last turn together and came into the straight.

  From the elephant palanquin she heard Rajkumar Bharat shout proudly: ‘Princesses of Mithila, behold the jewel in the Arya crown … Ayodhya!’

  ‘Ayodhya!’ echoed Shatrugan.

  A chorus of excited squeals rose from Sita’s sister and cousins and their maids. Normally Sita would have felt irritation at such a show of girlish giddiness, but now, after all that had transpired, she couldn’t help but feel a certain surge of excitement too. The air was thick with anticipation; the soldiers had stopped their singing a moment ago, growing silent all of a sudden as they came around that last bend. Now she could feel the hastening rhythm of fifty thousand hearts beating faster as they came within sight of their beloved capital. She found her own breath caught in her throat and reached out without realising she was doing so, catching hold of Rama’s sleeve.

  He glanced at her, allowing himself a small smile, brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it gently.

  ‘Su-swagatam,’ she heard him say. Welcome. ‘Welcome to your new home.’

  Airavata, the lead elephant, raised his trunk and bellowed a loud tribute of his own, answered down the mile-long procession by his close to two hundred fellow elephants. After travelling tens of yojanas to Mithila and back these past two days, and losing a dozen-odd fellows in the avalanches and earthquake on Mount Mahendra during the skirmish with Parsurama, even the bigfoot were pleased to be coming home. As the last elephant bellows faded away, echoing off the high rises of the dense woods that flanked the Sarayu Valley, the entire procession fell silent, marching in perfect step along the last stretch of the raj-marg.

  The front line came into the straight, and were immediately buffeted by a cool wind blowing down the length of the Sarayu. The voice of the river, ever present since Mithila Bridge, now became a resounding roar, dimmed only by the height of the king’s highway above the bed of the river. To her right, Sita saw the road fall away sharply to the river twenty yards below. The far bank was a good thirty yards or more distant, heavily wooded with a profusion of trees. The glacial tang of the river filled her nostrils, assailing her senses with its powerful perfume redolent of Himalayan ice-glaciers and a mineral content so rich that the royal vaids in Mithila claimed that simply drinking Sarayu water would cure all minor ailments. Unlike the gentle oceanic swelling and ebbing of the Ganga in her own kingdom, the Sarayu was a potent force of nature, wild and robust, crashing and shattering its white glacial waters upon the splintered dark rocks that lined its lower banks. Far ahead, she could hear angry rapids and cascading waterfalls. The very air blowing off the river was so sharp and sudden that she knew her delicate sister must be shivering at the abrupt drop in temperature.

  But while her ears and other senses absorbed all these thrilling observations about the river, it was her sense of sight that was commanding her attention.

  She peered ahead, at the glittering light-bejewelled city of her childhood memories.

  And was shocked to see …

  Nothing.

  Nothing more than the dim dominating silhouette of the Seer’s Tower, twin to the Sage’s Brow in her own home city, limned by the soft red glow of the just-set sun. The sky above was a painter’s mad flourish of colour: bright robin’s-egg blue shot through with startling streaks of scarlet and crimson and fiery orange. In the far northern distance loomed the foothills of the north-western Himalayas. The thin, tapering, swordlike tip of the Seer’s Tower interesected these three vistas, the distant mountain ranges, the sky and the lush growth of the Sarayu Valley itself. Below that, where there should have been lakhs of blazing fireflies, hundreds of thousands of city-illuminating lights clustered in a river-striding span, there were only the dim crouching shadows of darkened structures.

  Ayodhya lay in darkness. Not a single wall-light, not one mashaal, not even a tiny diya–the clay lamps used as traditional lights of greeting–shone out from the city. Like an Arya widow veiled by a white shroud of mourning, Ayodhya lay still and dark upon the banks of the Sarayu, its lofty ivory towers and gleaming white structures devoid of any illumination.

  The ensuing silence in the ranks of the procession was deafening. The roar of the Sarayu, the cries of the large flocks of wheeling birds in the darkening sky, the cricking of a particularly persistent cricket: these sounds filled the silence, accentuating the shock and disbelief.

  Pradhan-mantri Sumantra broke the spell. The prime minister spurred into movemen
t, riding a few yards ahead, then turning the head of his horse around to enable himself to look up at the palanquin of Maharaja Dasaratha.

  ‘Maha-dev,’ he said anxiously, ‘perhaps I should send ahead to see what the matter is. We have had no word from Ayodhya since yesterday after all.’ He gestured at the darkened city, lying gloomily beneath the pallor of dusk. ‘This does not bode well.’

  Sita glanced up at the ponderous form of her father-in-law, peering down at his prime minister. Even in this dim light she could read his anxiety in the slowness of his response and the doubtfulness of his tone.

  ‘Guru-dev,’ Dasaratha said hoarsely. ‘What do you advise?’

  Guru Vashishta’s voice sounded unconcerned. ‘Ride on regardless, raje. All is well at Ayodhya. You need fear nothing.’

  There was a brief moment of silence, then Pradhanmantri Sumantra said hesitantly, ‘Parantu, maha-dev, there must be a reason for this unusual phenomenon. Word must surely have reached of our homecoming. It’s inconceivable that the city lights should be so extinguished. Why, let alone the homecoming effulgence, even the routine wall-lights are not lit. Surely something is amiss. Not even during the Last asura War—’

  ‘Shantam,’ the guru broke in. Peace. ‘Be not alarmed, good Sumantra. Take my word for it. Ayodhya is safe and well. We shall all be welcomed home with due pomp and ceremony as merits our maharaja’s return, and as befits the triumphant homecoming of our two brave young champions. Mark my words, this homecoming shall be recorded in the annals of Suryavansha history for millennia to come.’

  ‘Guru-dev?’ Even Sita could tell that Dasaratha’s voice sounded more suspicious than anxious now, as if the maharaja, like herself, had heard the unmistakably playful undertone in the great seer’s voice. ‘Do you have anything to do with this … unusual welcome?’

  Even in the dimness of the dusky evening, the smile on the guru’s white-bearded face was unmissable. ‘Pride is not considered a virtue amongst us seers, raje. Yet it would be immodest of me to deny my part in this. Yes, indeed it was I who asked that the lights of Ayodhya not be lit at sunfall this evening, for I knew that our return would be at this exact moment.’ The guru gestured toward Sumantra. ‘I chose not to tell you either, good Sumantra, as I wished it to be a surprise.’

  Sumantra was still riding at the same awkward angle, trying to keep his face to his king and the royal seer. His horse whinnied as he forced her to ride virtually sideways and backwards. Sita resisted the urge to giggle at the ludicruous sight. Even the pradhan-mantri’s perplexity was amusing to behold. ‘But, great one, what possible reason could you have to issue such a command? What kind of greeting would it be for the king and the princes and their new brides to come home to a city shrouded in such inauspicious darkness?’

  Guru Vashishta raised his hand. ‘Not darkness, Sumantra. A show of light, the likes of which you have never witnessed before. And most blessedly auspicious. It shall be our tribute to the Lord of Light himself, our great god Vishnu the Preserver. For as one entrusted with the sustenance and continuance of all life upon this mortal realm, it is He who ensures that life-giving light bathes us constantly. And so, it is to His great grace that I dedicate the spectacle you are about to witness.’

  The guru then raised his hand, indicating a halt to the entourage. Word was passed on swiftly down the ranks, elephants, chariots, cavalry, foot-soldiers, bullock-carts all coming to an orderly halt within moments. It was not difficult: since the sighting of Ayodhya, shrouded in shocking dullness, progress had slowed to a virtual crawl anyway.

  When the procession had halted successfully, Guru Vashishta uttered a mantra to enhance his voice. Sita recognised it as the same mantra used by her father when declaiming his daily pravachans to the populace, those religious sermons that were so renowned throughout the Vaideha kingdom. By the time the two-line mantra was ended, the guru’s voice could be heard clearly by even the nethermost riders in the Ayodhyan procession.

  ‘Ayodhyans, listen well, and hear the music of Rama’s achievements, chanted aloud by the citizens of our proud city. The gayakas of our great capital, pride of the Kosala nation, have assembled today on the first wall to regale us with the richness of their talent, as well as to demonstrate the shakti of a people united in their common love for a liege who loves them just as much in return. In honour of our princes’ homecoming, I present the music of Ayodhya.’

  As if on cue–and, Sita reflected astutely, that was probably the precise cue decided upon by prior arrangement–the sound of sonorous chanting rose from the first wall of defence of moated Ayodhya. Through the dim gloamy light of darkening dusk, she could just make out the tiny silhouettes of figures on the high first wall, holding what seemed to be musical instruments in their hands. It was an unusual sight. She had expected to see lances and longbows on the walls of Ayodhya, not tanpuras and sitars. As the opening chant of the sacred syllables of Aum rose in harmony, even the procession behind her joined their voices to the utterance. She heard Rama add his own voice to hers, intoning the trisyllabic word that was the essence and core of all Arya worship.

  ‘Aum.’

  The melodious trisyllable rose to the darkening sky. The vivid colours of sunset were fading fast, giving way to the dull grey tones of nightfall. Even the birds wheeling across the sky and calling from the thickets on either bank seemed to grow quiet, as if in awareness of what was to come. The roar of the river itself seemed to die down. The insect sounds and twilight noises faded away. The persistent cricket made one final stubborn call, then fell silent.

  The muscians of Ayodhya began to sing.

  At first Sita heard only the musical alphabet in which the music was being intoned, the sweet-sad, heart-tugging harmonies of the evening raag. The voices from the first wall rose in perfect harmony, carrying across the magically hushed Sarayu Valley like a kusalavya bard’s ballad in a respectfully quiet crowded tavern hall on a winter’s night. The voices rose and fell in cadence, the beautiful notes blending one into the other in a wave of harmony that flowed like a constant-running river rather than separate waves. It became impossible to tell one voice apart from the others, male from female, sweet from sad, bass from tenor, high-pitched from low. They all fused into one enormous orchestra of rhythm and melody, a Sarayu of music that washed through the valley, filling every living heart with the blessed grace of human art.

  And then, as the voices rose to a peak, climbing the high intertwining notes of the raag’s mid-point, Guru Vashishta spoke softly, his voice somehow audible, despite the music, to every last person in the long procession.

  ‘In honour of Prince Rama’s return after his victorious mission, on behalf of the citizens of Ayodhya I present this new pinnacle of Arya talent and artistic achievement: Raag Deepak.

  ‘Behold,’ the guru went on, his voice harmonising and blending with the voices of the distant singers. Our brilliant tribute to the Lord of Light.’

  And Vashishta joined his own voice to the others, raising the entire performance to a new level, a pinnacle–to use his own word–of musical epiphany, the effect profoundly moving, like the sound of a million human souls reaching for something long denied, a touch of the bleeding, thorn-encrusted foot of a martyred saint, a brush of the lips of a devi whose trishul delivered life and death together in the same paroxysm of ecstasy, a quest for a boon from a dark three-eyed deva who sat on a stone ledge high atop Mount Kailasa and from whose brow the mighty Ganga eternally flowed. The voices rose until it seemed they must surely touch the belly of the sky, bring down a shower of fragrant blossoms, or a terribly beautiful blizzard of blood-ice, or at the very least prise open the long-locked doors of Swarga-lok, that realm of the gods long denied to mortals.

  With a sensation akin to stepping under a waterfall of near-freezing white water, Sita realised that the lyric of the song was but a single word repeated over and over, stretched in the Arya musical fashion into a thousand and eight syllables and more, intoned in more different ways than one could imagine po
ssible. The word was Rama. And the raag, as the guru had stressed so significantly, was no ordinary evening raag. Deepak. Literally, Light.

  And in the instant that she realised these two things, all across Ayodhya the lights began to come on.

  It began with a single clay lamp–diya–atop the first wall, held upon the outstretched palm of a little girl. The flame came into being at the tip of the wick of the tapered clay lamp, and even at this distance it was evident that no hand had lit that flame. A fraction of a moment after, a row of diyas lit up, perched atop the palms of a hundred little girls, standing upon the first wall. Then a row of mashaals ignited at the first gate, blazing up as fiercely as if struck by a bolt from the bow of Indra, lord of thunder and lightning. Two large fires, placed at either side of the first gate, roared into life, illuminating row upon row of young men and women lined up, awaiting the return of their victorious princes and their companions, gleaming steel thalis piled high with pooja articles, diyas–which also lit up–and sacred prasadam, sacramental foods consecrated by priests at poojas conducted earlier. Now the entire first wall, stretching to either side as far as Sita’s eye could see, was illuminated with light, and she could see and admire the intimidating fortifications of the most militarised nation in the Arya world.

  Lights began flaring into life across the city. Atop buildings, on the six inner walls of the city, set in concentric circles, and set off by three enormous moats filled with Sarayu water and teeming wild carnivores (or so Sita had heard and read so often before). Mashaals blazed into brilliance, storm lanterns clutched in the hands of tens of thousands of waiting citizens, enormous lamps specially mounted for the occasion atop towers and spires, streetlights raised high on poles, even the bonfires of rakshaks on the hills and rises around the city; and towering above all these countless fires, at the very peak of the spire of the Seer’s Eye, a great blueish-orange ball of flame sprang into being with a sound like a thunderbolt cracking, coinciding with the final syllable of the Raag Deepak, sung by the assembled gayakas of Ayodhya with passionate fervour. For this was not Brahman magic at work: this was the result of pure musical prowess. The lights of Ayodhya had been brought to life by the succession of notes in a certain order, performed with enough sincerity and devotion to please Agni himself, god of fire. In other words, these lights were living proof of Ayodhya’s intense love for its prince-heir. Rama. The final syllables faded into a blessed awe-struck silence.