Warriors Of Dandaka: Kaand 1 "Night Has A Thousand Eyes" Chapter Twelve
Pushpak Karnick
7 July 2007, 16:21It was almost dark when she reached the foot of the mountain. She was alone, dressed in the simplest of garbs, unaccompanied by her usual retinue of guards and sakhis. She brought Meghdoot, her horse to a stop near the dark corner where the surrounding forest tried to claw its way up the stark, barren slopes of the mountain.
She walked up a broken path, littered with the bones and rotting carcasses, tossed away by the vultures who had made the mountain their home. She hurried on, casting a scornful glance on the rotting remains. Fools, laying waste the beautiful, bountiful land of Lanka!! They will pay, they will all pay for it.
The path curved and twisted along the treacherous cliffs, but she had come here often to know the way. She walked with a purpose, and never looked back to the way she had come, which is why she never noticed how the mountain swallowed the path after she had walked on it. When she reached the cave on the top, she would have found it impossible to guess how she had come up. But then, so would anyone who dared to follow her.
The cave was lit by a few mashaals, and in the center lay a tiger-skin, which looked as if it was only used occasionally. She sat down on the skin in the lotus-position, and began whispering a soft mantra. Her face glowed as the mantra progressed, and when she was done, there appeared a faint oval of golden light a few feet from where she sat.
The oval of light shimmered like a flame in the wind, and through the portal stepped out a child. The child wore ochre robes on his body, and was hardly twelve years of age. In his right hand, he carried a short walking staff, and in his left, a wooden begging bowl. He stepped forward and extended the bowl towards her. Mandodari was quite surprised to see the young acolyte, and quite perplexed as to the next course of action that was expected of her. She had travelled incognito, and hence had no jewels or gold to offer. She looked helplessly at the acolyte, who just stood there, smiling and expecting something to fall into the bowl.
It was a while before she realized what was happening. This was probably a test, or a trick. Just like him, she thought. She knew now, that to reach her destination, she had to pass through the young acolyte. Just as she realized this, she found a solution to the problem.
She walked up to the acolyte and placed her right hand in the bowl, and the left hand on her heart. She closed her eyes and said “Since I have no gold, nor grains, I offer you my heart, my devotion, and my abode to rest. Young brahmin, please accept my hospitality and bless my land with your presence.” She then bowed low to touch the feet of the child who seemed happy to hear her reply. As she rose up, the child disappeared and in his place stood a man.
He was naked to the waist and only had a few tattered rags around his body. Thin and bony, he carried the weight of million lives since the birth of Time. He carried a wooden staff, towards the top of which was attached a small drum, the dumroo, with beads strung on leather chords. Every step he took, the beads beat against the drum skin in a faint rhythm, much like the tinkling of the anklets of a belle. But his was not the physique of a belle.
His body was the witness to the millennia that he had seen. Smeared with mud and ash, the rudraksha beads around his neck stood a testament to his yogic talents, some of which Mandodari had just witnessed. His matted hair rested on his shoulders, giving his disheveled persona an eerie touch. But his face, his face was unlike anything one would have seen, not just on Lanka, but across all the three realms of Swarga, Prithvi and Patal.His face was painted chalk-white, barring a bushy black moustache. His eyebrows were dotted with yellow ochre, and his eyes still shone with the same childlike expression. His smile aptly reciprocated that innocence, but the truth could not be any farther. He looked every inch a jester, a clown — and in some ways, he was. The innocent clown prancing on the cosmic playground, life and death, both paltry practical jokes to him.
“Father!! What have you done to yourself?” In spite of the situation, she allowed herself some laughter.
His smile was a smile of slightly amused indulgence. “Do you find anything funny, my child?”
Mandodari had composed herself by now. Though her father had brought her up as his son, there were limits to her demeanor, especially in his presence.
“This,” she indicated his face with her eyebrows, “was most unexpected.” And as an afterthought, in a low voice, “and yes, funny!”
His smile grew broader as he placed his hands on her shoulders and gazed at his loving daughter after a gap of centuries, certainly turbulent centuries.
“And pray what is NOT funny, my child? Life and death, life and death …” he spun the staff so that the beads beat on the drum with his words. “So the cycle goes!” he smiled. Suddenly, he turned away from her, walking a few steps as he spoke. “And isn’t ‘Maya’ the ultimate joke of the Creator himself?” She was about to answer when she realized that he did not expect her to answer at all. It was not as if he was asking her a question, he was merely proving his point. Just like the good old days.
“And if that is so,” he turned back to her and spread out his arms, like an ace thespian at the culmination of his master act. “And if that is so” he paused. “Isn’t Mayasura, the Supreme Illusionist, also the Greatest Jester in all of Cosmos?” His face lit up with a paternal smile, and he walked towards his daughter, now the wife of the most dreaded Rakshasa in the whole Universe.
“Is there a particular reason that you have called me here?”
“I need your help, father. I need your help in redefining Lanka, in changing her from the barren desolate haven of Darkness, to the rich, sumptuous land that it once was.”
“Sujalaam, Sufalaam, Malayaja Sheetalam.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Something I have heard the Aryans describe their land as — The land of bountiful resources, the land where the soft breeze glides unendingly…” he stopped mid-sentence. It did not escape his attention that the mention of the northerly neighbors caused her some discomfort.
“I had hoped that when you referred to the Darkness surrounding Lanka, you also included the one in your heart.”
Mandodari bowed her head at the reproach from her father.
“Your heart is pure, my child, but a pure heart is often tainted with imperfect actions. Such is the influence of Maya, that Dharma and Karma are often at odds with each other. Only one with a perfect control of mind and matter can achieve this delicate balance, as you will no doubt learn in the future.” he paused. “But I am digressing from the purpose of this meeting. Wait, this should help you.”
He whispered a mantra into the staff, and at once it changed from a weathered, beaten stick to a shining white scepter, the dumroo on the top replaced by a crystal sphere.
“Use this, my child,” he presented the scepter to her. “Though I am no match for Lanka-naresh, this should help you in your cause. Use it wisely. Once your task is done, it will return back to me.”
Mandodari accepted the scepter with both hands and touched it reverently to her forehead. “Father, bless me that I can make Lanka into a land that you will be proud of. Bless me that I can wash away the sins of yesteryears, and make Lanka a shining beacon of the Asuras.”
“Tathaastu!” Mayasura blessed his daughter. So be it.
Mandodari bowed low and touched her father’s feet. When she looked up, he was already gone, disappearing into the darkness that was Him. She felt a dose of renewed confidence in her task, now that her father had pledged his support to the rebuilding, nay, the birth of Lanka – for she was sure that in the millennia to come, it was her Lanka that would be remembered as the only mental image of the island kingdom. The Emerald Isle. She had also coined a term for it.
She closed her eyes and began her ritual of meditation. Om Namah Shivay. The words filled the expanse of the cavern and their reverberations set off an eerie sequence of echoes, reiterating the sacred chant over and over again.
Her meditation was broken by a disturbance, a shock wave that she felt pass by with tremendous force. The entire mountain trembled as if witnessing the taandav of the three-eyed-one. She picked up the ivory staff and held it aloft. The staff seemed to be attuned with her thoughts themselves. It formed a translucent shield around her. Rocks and splinters broke off from the roof, only to be deflected by the force shield surrounding her.
Ravana, her first thoughts were confusion … and fear. Had her almost dead husband found a way to cheat Yama himself? She was certain that it was something not beyond his powers, even in his present state.
Mandodari had recently looked up some old and arcane texts herself, and she was pretty sure that the only substance that could restore Ravana to his former self was something that could not be found in Lanka. The custodian of the documents, her loyal servant, had informed her that Vibhishana had also taken a look the very same documents almost after she had ordered them to be destroyed. It could only mean one thing — Vibhishana, her foolish brother-in-law, had managed to break her security spell and had reached the cavern where her comatose husband slept.
