It was a morning of sullen and lucid beauty. The Gambhiree was a festering gold rupture in the plains below Chittor. Someone had plucked the sunflower in the sky and torn off the petals and smashed the glowering bulb at the centre. The light was angry pollen scattered from horizon to horizon. It was in a state of constant flux but refused to rise or descend. Soon I would be covered in a patina of yellow dust. It would enter my lungs, burnish them and fill up the holes in my bronchi till all the air had been forced out and I would stand petrified forever in gold in honour of my ancestor, the Sun-god. Gangs of peacocks were out, celebrating the sudden break in the monsoons, fanning out their one-eyed feathers in shimmering waves. The peahens with their acrid scent of sex flew for short bursts and cawed mercilessly while pretending indifference to the frenzied attentions of their future mates.
It had looked as if the rains would never come. The granaries were half empty and the Gambhiree was a cracked bed of stones, pebbles, rusting coins and other detritus of life, an abandoned and shrunken skeleton with the occasional puddle and a ragged trickle of water. They had already started rationing the water and food in the fort. Two and a half months after everybody had given up on the rains, the sky was tarred over, the Sun-god was shut out, the moon and the stars banished and a final darkness closed in on the earth. There was no air to breathe, the birds disappeared and babies choked silently. No rain. The displeasure of the gods with Mewar was obvious. There was only one remedy. Appeasement. A propitious day was chosen by the priests to conduct a mahayagnya for mercy and rains. It took a week of frantic preparations. When the wood, ghee, milk, coconuts, turmeric powder, camphor and kumkum were in place and the fires about to be lit and the darkness lifted, it started to rain. It continued for a month and a half. What were the gods trying to tell us?
It was a beautiful morning if you could hold your breath, or better still, never breathe again for Chittor was in the grip of cholera and the stench of death, debris and excreta was unbearable. I had been in exile in my own home for over seven months. Father was right, people have short memories. I was not ignored, I was forgotten. I’m not quite sure which is more insulting. Those who could afford to, have left Chittor, among them His Majesty, Queen Karmavati and Vikramaditya and most of the court. In a sense I have the run of the capital once again.
The roads are slush, a wild and exuberant mix of rainwater and shit that races along open gutters, clogs them and leaps out with abandon. Nothing new, this. In the summer, the heat cakes and disinfects everything instantly. In the winter, lips chap, the skin cracks and the drainage and sewage waters dry up. In the rains, mud, earth, water and faeces are one gurgling, churning mess. And yet seventeen monsoons have gone by, albeit there were two years of drought, without the visitation of cholera. Why do epidemics occur in some years and not in others? Where do they come from and why do they vanish after they’ve killed half, sometimes three-fourths of the populace? Three thousand seven hundred and eighteen dead so far. How many more to go before the cholera dies out?
All night long there were cries and screams and moans. It was Vikramaditya’s parting gift to me: the cholera, the rumour went, was retribution for what I had done to the Gujarati soldiers in an early dawn attack. The story took hold. The people of Chittor had found their scapegoat. The hostility that Father had spoken of had come to pass. At first they went inside and banged the doors shut if I rode down a street. On two occasions they attacked me. The first time I defended myself with my sword till Mangal joined me and beat them back. The next time, I got off Befikir. Mangal was aghast and told me to get back into saddle, ride home and send reinforcements while he took care of the mob. It had been barely six or seven men when I was spotted. There were at least twenty-five now, a murmuring, maleficent lot waiting for someone to make the first move. ‘Only blood will quench the thirst of blood,’ a short man shouted and drew his sword. A boy of twelve threw a stone which hit me in the chest. They were milling around me now. A treasonous and criminal act needs to gather momentum before it can be executed. Mangal’s sword was about to come down on the man closest to him to divert attention when I raised my hand. He stopped but did not sheathe the sword.
‘Kill me,’ I said, ‘kill me now if it will rid Chittor of cholera. You will do the country a great favour.’
They waited. They had not expected me to be a party to their decision. A white-haired woman with at least fifteen of her thirty-two teeth missing came forward and spoke up.
‘Just because there are fifty fools here who are willing to believe any nonsense they are told, it does not mean that you have to follow their example and make an ass of yourself, Your Highness. With your permission, Highness, I want to ask these gentlemen gathered here one question,’ the old woman wasn’t finished with my would-be assailants or me. ‘They are obviously wiser than you are, Maharaj Kumar, so you’ll forgive me if I ask them and not you. How should we deal with an enemy? Should we breast-feed the vipers so that they can bury their poisonous fangs in our flesh and wipe us out? I was a wife once who lost her husband. I was a mother who lost her nine sons. I was a grandmother who lost seventeen grandsons, all of them in wars. I had one great-grandson left. When he marched to Gujarat with you, I thought now I’m truly orphaned. But you brought him back, Highness. You got back Idar and you avenged the deaths of three thousand soldiers and Rajendra Simha. Now, if that is not honourable, will these fine gentlemen tell me what is? As for you Maharaj Kumar,’ it was my turn to get a dressing down, ‘the trouble with you is that you are tough abroad and soft on the people at home. Don’t take shelter behind your shyness. In your position, it is no virtue. Get yourself a trumpet and blow it. Where have all the charans and poets who sing of the exploits of heroes gone? If someone’s silenced them for their own ends, a little greasing of the palms will unloosen their tongues.’ She smiled slyly, and toothlessly. ‘How about hiring Joharibai, that’s me?’ There was a pregnant pause here. ‘As of today?’ She was a terrific actress with a pungent turn of phrase and was obviously enjoying herself. The audience loved her and burst out laughing.
She laid her forehead on my feet. As I picked her up she looked around at the crowd that was at least four times the earlier group. ‘Now bend your head, Maharaj Kumar, so that an old, old crone, so old as a matter of fact that I may just decide never to die, can bless you.’ She took my face in her hands. Her palms felt like crumpled paper that was about to disintegrate. ‘God bless you, Your Highness.’
The Gambhiree is downgrading its currency from gold to silver as the sun ascends and gets a tighter grip on the day. Will the respite from the rains last? There are few sights as beautiful as the Gambhiree in spate. There’s a violence to her that is both terrifying and exhilarating. She’s untamed, out of control and lethal. The monsoons are her favourite season. It’s easy to see why, the engorged sky bruising and bloodying her, spilling its sperm into her. But enough is enough. If only it will stop raining for a week or ten days, the earth may dry and perhaps the cholera ease a bit.
It’s always the same. The first two days the men, women and grown-up children make it to the toilet outside. Thirty, forty times. They spurt and squirt like a fist of fury. They pour out everything they’ve got, bewildered by the discovery of this raging and writhing python they had thought of as their stomach and intestines. For a couple more days they’ll crawl out of the house to defecate. After that they can’t move and their shit is thinner than pee. They lie in a stupor of exhaustion, mouths dry and open, the unseeing eyes scanning the ceiling with this thin ribbon of diarrhoea, their only sign of life. Their breathing gets so attenuated, the cart drivers have loaded still-living bodies on four or five occasions.
Following the carts are the scavenger birds. Why did the gods make vultures and their ilk – take hyenas – so grotesquely ugly and repugnant? Is it because they live off death? There is, however, one exception. Have you observed a crow? It is sharp and sly and its black coat is shining and slick. You may not like it but it’s a compact hustler, a bird of the world. The vulture now is an altogether different story. Difficult to find a more bedraggled, seedy and uncouth creature. Nothing arouses it except the sight of food. Then too it gets up grudgingly and eats with an expression of extreme distaste. It must be hard work to consume against its will. But this is one task it will not shirk. Even with a full and bursting belly, it continues to work its way through whatever carrion there is, never mind if it takes another hour or a full day.
The sun is on the run again. Dirty, smudged clouds the colour of ash are blowing in from the east and a slow, warm and sticky rain has begun to fall. The raindrops are bloated leeches reluctant to move. They cling to the skin and when they are pulled off forcibly, they leave behind a powdery charcoal film. This is not a rain that washes you clean. It fogs your mind and leaves you feeling soiled.
The peahens must have grown weary of play-acting or they’ve realized that if they play demure any longer, the cocks will walk away and they’ll have to wait till next year to have a good time. Suddenly there’s a flurry of activity. The petulance, shyness, mincing and don’t-touch-me are forsaken for an instant and the males are all over, atop their partners. I watch their frantic goings-on from the window of the palace. Do they not know the gravity of the occasion? Do they not see death stalking the land?
‘Lakshman Simhaji sends you his greetings. Would you do him the favour of going to his office immediately?’ the servant’s voice was apologetic.
The peacocks had an expression of smug and brimming fulfillment as they rested deep inside their womenfolk. I turned back from the window and followed the man to the Defence Minister’s office.
‘I want you and the Princess to leave Chittor immediately,’ Lakshman Simhaji came straight to the point.
‘On what grounds, Uncle?’
‘On what grounds?’ He was puzzled and a little irritated by my question. ‘Isn’t that obvious? Your lives are at risk, that’s why.’
‘From whom?’
‘What’s come over you, Maharaj Kumar? I always thought of you as one of our most sensible young men who would never put his or anybody else’s life in unnecessary danger.’ I still didn’t get his drift. ‘From the cholera, what else?’ He saw the look of relief on my face and laughed. ‘What did you think?’
‘I don’t know what to think anymore, Uncle.’
‘You’ve begun to see red everywhere which is not unreasonable, considering ...’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘Somebody else in your position would most likely have done something thoughtless and wild. Now, is it settled that you and your wife will leave tomorrow morning?’
‘I cannot vouch for my wife, you’ll have to talk to her and see what she has to say. But I have work here.’
‘If you don’t go, you know very well the Princess won’t go either.’
‘She may not go even if I do which I have no intention of doing. She has commitments here.’
‘There’s no work here that the health officers cannot manage.’
‘Which health officers, Uncle? We don’t even have a secretariat of health, let alone a ministry. The five officers appointed were transferred from the ministries of revenue and agriculture. They are not trained or motivated and have neither enough powers nor money.’
‘That’s not true. I’ve blocked off five percent of this year’s defence budget to combat this epidemic.’
‘I’m not finished yet, Uncle. Two of the officers are dead.’
‘That’s precisely it. I cannot in all conscience permit the same fate to overtake the heir apparent. It took me three weeks to persuade His Majesty to leave Chittor. I’m not going to spend another three weeks trying to cajole you into leaving.’ He was out of breath and those soft baby jowls on his face were in a tizzy with anger.
‘I do not underestimate your concern for our well-being. I’m grateful to you for having forced Father to go away. Had I been His Majesty’s only son, I would have considered it my duty to preserve my life and secure the future of Mewar. But the line of succession has, in the event of my demise, six princes of the blood. Someone from the royal family must be in Chittor if our people are not to feel abandoned and lose morale and heart altogether.’
‘I am of the royal family,’ his voice was a dangerous rumble. He had drawn himself up straight and was in full possession of his dignity.
‘So you are, Uncle. If the capital is still running, it is because of your presence and leadership. But I am the son of His Majesty, for better or worse, the eldest one and I would like to stay with our people. And if you’ll permit me, to work under you.’ Lest I compromise his relationship with Father, I immediately added, ‘Only in an unofficial capacity.’
I think my uncle was genuinely touched and so became even gruffer than normal. ‘You were always obstinate as a mule. No point trying to din some sense into you at this late age.’
Perhaps every crisis needs a saviour. My wife fitted the role perfectly in this time of pestilence. She had begun to have a substantial following. And it was not just women who flocked around her. The survivors in town including patients who had the strength to move, joined her at the Brindabani Temple at seven in the morning and at night for arati. She and I hardly saw each other since she camped out most of the day and sometimes part of the night in front of the Flautist and prayed to him to come to the succour of Chittor.
Kausalya had requisitioned an old property close to the Brindabani Temple and converted it into a children’s orphanage. She named it Nandanvan. Never one for light talk, she became more and more silent. Sometimes she would come home and bury her head in my shoulder. That was the only way I would know that there had been an unusual number of deaths at the children’s home or that one of the children she had grown attached to or worked round-the-clock to save, had not made it. We made love at times. She never said no. Perhaps it gave her something else to think about as it did for me. The peacocks, I realized, were not alone. We make love regardless of grief, indifference, death, happiness, pain.
One Thursday evening I took the civil engineer to Nandanvan. Kausalya had told me a few nights before that the roof of the orphanage had sprung many leaks and in some places it was merely a matter of time before the rafters, supports and tiles came crashing down. We were late and riding at a good clip because the roads were almost empty. Who would venture out after seven these days? So I thought. I was wrong. The deserted roads, at least in this one instance, had nothing to do with the epidemic. Everybody in Chittor, dead or alive, young or old, civilian and soldier, whores, pimps, men, women and children, everybody was at the Brindabani Temple. Was it the Flautist’s feast? Had the idols been stolen, was there an accident? There wasn’t room to move. The Temple and the wide Maharana Kumbha Path were filled to overflowing. Some of the people were shivering but being drenched or ill with fever did not bother them. The crowds saw me and took hold of Befikir’s reins. No Joharibai to the rescue this time, not even the intrepid and loyal Mangal to defend me against a mob of thousands. My companion too was made to dismount.
‘Leave him alone. Only I’m accountable.’ Nobody paid me any heed. They merely parted to make way for me. I did not know that the cycle of birth and death can take place in the same life. Hell is not some other place and some other life. It is going through the same, terrible experiences again and again. I was at the steps. I had heard that voice years ago, I had heard it today as we turned into the Maharana Kumbha avenue and rode down at a gallop but my mind would not admit its reality. Was it the same song? Frankly, I don’t recall. Yes, you do, every word of it and you know damn well, this one’s different. One step at a time, Maharaj Kumar, one step and one more and you’ll be on top of Mount Kailash. There she was strumming the ektara with her fingers, her eyes closed and her body whirling and rotating in a trance. When she came to the refrain, all those thousands of people picked it up and lifted it heavenwards. They repeated it lustily again and again till at some predetermined signal, she went on to the next verse.
What is a flower, if it cannot bloom?
What is air if it cannot fill the lungs?
What is water if it cannot quench thirst?
What is the sun if it cannot give the body heat?
What is a body if it cannot give pleasure?
(Trust her, trust her to treat the sensual and the spiritual as one and the same.)
What is a prayer if it cannot rise to heaven?
What is a saviour if he will not save?
Oh Lord, save us, save us, save us.
It took a hundred crimes for you to act against Shishupal.
We’ve committed a hundred and one. Where are you?
It took the disrobing of Draupadi for you to show up.
We were born naked. Where are you, where are you?
When the wrath of Indra, the king of gods, started the deluge,
You lifted a little finger and saved Brindaban. Where are you now?
Oh Lord, save us, save us, save us.
Save us from cholera, save us from the plague, save us from harm.
What is a saviour if he will not save?
She had worked herself to such a pitch and frenzy in the midst of the last ‘save us, save us’ refrain, she collapsed and fell in a heap. No one moved, then one by one they went and touched her feet. There should have been a scramble but they formed a queue. How the times had changed. Nautch girl, slut, the royal whore, the people of Chittor had called her every dirty name in the language. When they ran out of them, they invented new ones. Finally her name itself became synonymous with the faithless wife as mine became interchangeable with cuckold. Now she was called Chhoti Sant Mai. If you are exposed long enough, time will get you inured to anything. The distance between a full stomach and starvation, the normal and the abnormal, the done and the forbidden, affluence and poverty is nothing but habit. I had blushed and raged and kicked the plate of food from her hands when she sang and danced. The last time I was here, the acid in my belly had burned a hole in my head. I had given orders that she be confined to her rooms in the palace. Now when she sings, I don’t get into a rage or even shrug my shoulders. I shut my ears and shut up. Frankly, I’ve ceased to be bothered. She goes her way and I mine.
She came to. She cringed. She sat up, then stood up. She tried to cover her feet with her ghagra, then with her hands, it was no use. They put a coin in the plate and touched her feet with their hands or their foreheads.
‘Not mine, not mine, it’s his feet, the Lord’s feet you must pray at.’
They smiled and moved on. If her feet were inaccessible, they touched the ground she had stood on. If only, I thought, if only Queen Karmavati and Vikramaditya could have been here. Who, after all, had loved her more and wished her better? The priests alone had not changed. They had thought her conduct shameless that fateful Janmashtami day. They had smirked and sneered at her then. They hated her now. I looked at the head priest of the temple. There was loathing and fear in his eyes.
The Little Saint as everyone called my wife now, had usurped their temple and their importance. The Chief Mahant raised his hands. The crowds inside, and as the word was passed around, the people outside, fell silent. ‘The priesthood of Chittor has decided to initiate a month-long Sankat-Vighna Yagnya to rid our capital city of the terrible pestilence that has wrought unimaginable havoc,’ the priest’s voice rang out like a challenge, daring any one, especially the Princess to contradict him. ‘The community of priests will take turns round the clock and invoke the gods, appease them and ask for their blessings. We will not rest till they lend a favourable ear to our prayers. The Sankat-Vighna Yagnya is the most powerful antidote available to man against the evil spirits. We give you our word.’
A small voice from the crowds outside piped up, ‘The Little Saint is our Yagnya. She is the fire that will cleanse this land ... and all of you.’
It’s a wonder that little wiseacre did not bring the Brindabani Temple crashing down. The people laughed as they hadn’t for months.
‘We will vanquish,’ the Chief Mahant’s voice rose above the din, ‘this evil force that is amongst us.’
Who did he mean? Who was he referring to? The cholera? The little man who had got a laugh out of the public? Or my wife who it would appear did not need the mediation of priests to approach
God and was on a first-name basis with Him? Few royal couples had the kind and number of enemies that my wife and I had. We could now count the priests of Chittor amongst them.
‘Long Live the Little Saint,’ a woman shouted and the cry was taken up by everybody. There was no stopping them.
When the civil engineer and I had examined the orphanage at length, he said, ‘This is going to cost a lot of money.’
‘That’s all right. The children need a roof over their heads not just during the crisis but on a permanent basis. Will you give me an estimate by tomorrow?’
‘Yes, the building’s in bad shape and needs immediate attention.’
‘Kausalya, will you ask the Princess to see Lakshman Simhaji with the estimate? Tell her to suggest that the money could come from the plate at her aratis at the Brindabani Temple.’
I may not have had a smile on my face as I said that but deep down I had a feeling of poetic justice and gloating, that for once the temple priests would be paying out of their own coffers for something worthwhile. My pleasures, as you can see, come cheap. But what an enormous price Chittor and I would have to pay for that, the small change of satisfaction. Do you have any idea how many thousands of tons of milk, butter, ghee, fruits and food were poured over the gods and into the fires of the Yagnya, how much wood was consumed, how many lambs sacrificed, how much saffron ground, how many coconuts cracked, how many cooks kept busy night and day? Who are we appeasing and why? Tell me the charge first, sirs, prove it and then declare the punishment. Everything is conjecture, speculation and suspicion. Droughts, famines, floods, epidemics, too much and too little, defeat, deprivation, whether it’s personal or universal suffering, the explanation’s always the same: we must have done something wrong, terribly wrong. Nobody knows what the crime is, your guess is as good as mine. If we don’t know the wrong, how can we correct it? What did my sister Sumitra do, what did Sunheria die for, what is Leelawati’s crime?
The notion that the gods can be bought has always seemed dubious and abhorrent to me. There’s nothing novel about that thought, I’m sure the sages have said it often and far better. But we continue to pacify the divinities regardless.
The people of Chittor attended the Little Saint’s overwrought prayer sessions. She sang and danced and they could join in and she didn’t ask for a copper tanka and they could follow her words and the songs were simple and striking and sharp with barbs and insights and the turn of phrase was familiar yet surprising in its juxtapositions and sincerity and emotion and the tunes she set them to were on everybody’s lips. But they also went to the Yagnya. They couldn’t understand a word of the Sanskrit and even if they could, most of the priests concatenated three or four lines, sometimes an entire verse of a sutra in one breath, so it came out garbled and rushed, maybe even the gods would have a problem deciphering it but the good people of Chittor attended the Yagnya off and on, dropped some money and felt good. It was a great spectacle, this ritual, and besides, it was best to play it safe.
All things come to pass. (Give a pregnant and substantial pause here, then move to the next sentence.) In time. A lovely, ambiguous word that: pass. All things come to be? Or is it that all things that are, are ephemeral, they disappear and vanish? Or are both interpretations right?
In due time the fury of the cholera abated. People were still dying but the numbers were going down. What had broken the back of the epidemic? Do these vile things also have life cycles? Had the Sankat-Vighna Yagnya which went on for a full thirty days as promised by the priests forced the hand of the gods? Or was it my wife’s prayers which did it? The people of Chittor, whoever’s left that is, certainly think it’s the latter. The gods may have recalled the curse and saved us but they did so only because the Little Saint asked them, especially the Flautist, to intervene. Whoever or whatever it was who had put an end to the disease, I was willing to go on my knees and thank the powers that be that the nightmare was over.
It was almost at the end, in the very last stages of the epidemic that the Maharaj Kumar’s consort caught the infection. She didn’t let on the first few days. Maybe it was her time of the month, Kausalya thought. Or she was exhausted, so were they all, except that she had always been so delicate. Soon it was no longer possible to conceal it and the Raj Vaidya was called to treat her. Frankly, as far as her husband was concerned, that was a mere formality. After all, her lover and her god wasn’t going to allow her to die. He had, if one was to believe the claims made on his behalf, put a halt to the rampant death in Chittor because the Little Saint had asked him to. The days passed and the rotting thin watery smell seeped from her apartment into the Maharaj Kumar’s suite of rooms. He could hear her retching. The sound was almost inaudible now, but there was no cause for worry. Unless they appear at the eleventh hour, the Prince thought, they won’t be taken for gods. If you recall, the Flautist didn’t turn up to rescue Draupadi till the Kauravas were well into disrobing her. The Blue One had been, there’s no question about it, fully cognizant of the disgraceful behaviour of the villains and the silence of all the elders in the assembly hall while they watched the undressing of Draupadi patiently. But if you are to make a lasting impression, the timing of your entry is of the essence. The Flautist would arrive all right ... but only in the very nick of time.
In the meantime the town was rife with rumours. Actually it was the same rumour with a number of variations. The Little Saint had made a deal with the gods: her life in return for the lives of the people at Chittor. Within a couple of days it was no longer a rumour, it was the absolute, certified truth. Crowds of people stood outside the main palace walls at all hours waiting for half-hourly bulletins about her health. The rains had stopped and the vultures had almost disappeared but when the Prince looked out of the window, he was sure that the birds had congregated outside the palace. The fact was that the Little Saint’s devotees were not really waiting. They knew for certain that his wife would die. Like good carrion-eaters, they wanted to be there in time for the big event.
That night Kausalya knocked and asked permission to come into his suite. He was impatient with her formality.
‘What is it?’
‘Your Highness, would you care to come and see her just this once? She has been in a coma for more than twenty-four hours. She’s come to for a minute. I think she would be happy to see you.’
He would have sniggered mirthlessly but for the fact that Kausalya would not look him in the eye.
‘What do you expect me to do?’
‘I doubt it if she’ll make it till morrow.’
He was about to say don’t exaggerate when Kausalya said, ‘Please.’ There was something in that voice, something in that word that sounded alien on Kausalya’s tongue. He strode past her, perhaps ran, he didn’t recall and was at his wife’s bedside. She looked younger than the day he first saw her. She had lost so much weight, she was, he had no doubt in his mind about it, an apparition. A wraith-like figure that would flicker a few more times and then withdraw into wherever orphaned waifs disappear. She smiled or did he imagine it? Her hand rose a millimetre, he was daydreaming. He went to her bed and knelt down. He picked up her hand and cradled it. Her lips moved. Did it matter that he was hallucinating? He drew close to her till his left ear was almost touching her lips.
‘Forgive me, Highness. No man and no god could have borne the pain and suffering I have inflicted upon you. No man and no god has your fortitude or your dignity. You did not deserve someone as cold and ungrateful as I. But that is fate. You did not disown me or your fate. I will not forget your kindness. This may sound like a bad joke but to the very limits of my soul and beyond it, I have loved you. A strange love, but love nevertheless. Thank you.’
Her voice petered out. Her eyes clouded. He felt her pulse. If he imagined hard enough he could feel it once every fifteen or twenty seconds. He felt nothing. In all those vast spaces in the whorls of his fingers, in the tiny honeycomb holes of his lungs, in the chambers of his heart, and in the cosmos which was too small to fit into a tiny wedge of his head, there was silence and nothingness. And then the first tiny glimmer of a wave rose. It was followed by another and another, till it became a tidal wave. And it was nothing but one superstructure of anger toppling the one before. How could her lover, the one for whom she had made a cuckold and laughing-stock of him, how could he have abandoned her? Where was his miracle? The time for a theatrical entry was well past. Where was that god, that shameless, cavalier Flautist who had ditched thousands of women and was now, true to form and legend, ditching his wife? What difference did it make to him, one woman less or more?
All the difference in the world to me, though, the Maharaj Kumar thought. Because whatever your peeve and however great your grievance, you don’t abandon the people who are yours.
‘Water, lemon, salt, honey. Three blankets.’ Did he whisper, did he scream? Within minutes the retainers had brought the things he had asked for. He covered her cold body and forced a few teaspoons of fresh lime juice into her mouth.
‘The Raj Vaidya has said that she’s not to be fed under any circumstances,’ one of the maids ventured to tell him.
‘Leave me. No one will enter these rooms without my orders. Tell Kausalya Mai to make kanji every four hours and a quarter glass of fruit juice every two hours. I want one more bed in the room. Leave two buckets of water here, one with hot water and the other with khas grass, mind you, not the attar of khas. And bring plenty of soft towels.’
Whenever she was fed, she threw up what seemed like twice the quantity. Every hour or so her bedsheet and mattress were wet with a few drops of faeces. Which is why the school of medicine to which the Raj Vaidya and almost all other doctors belonged, believed that any liquids aggravated the condition and hastened death. The only time a patient was force-fed with liquids was when the medicinal powders had to be given either with water or honey. As to food, semisolid and solid, the patient usually didn’t want it and the doctors advised against it even during a routine fever. The other school, whose followers could be counted on the fingers of one hand, thought that at the best of times, life without fluids and semi-solids was impossible. In a severely debilitated condition, they believed, a zero-diet would be suicidal. The disease seemed to kill either way, but the Maharaj Kumar was inclined to think that if you didn’t give fuel to the body how would it have the wherewithal to fight the disease?
It had been a highly contentious issue not just between the two sets of doctors, but between His Highness and the proponents of the starvation diet. Fortunately, the poor could not afford doctors most of the time and were blissfully unaware of the controversy. They drank water or refrained from doing so depending on their frame of mind and energy levels.
Though she was semi-comatose and listless, the Princess resisted all offers of sustenance but the Maharaj Kumar was firm and persistent. Often she refused to open her mouth. He held the teaspoon of juice at her lips for minutes on end. When she continued in her obstinacy, he blackmailed her.
‘I’ve no objection to your suffering but I don’t see why I should be made to hold a spoon till my hand falls off.’
If she could, she opened her eyes and looked at him piteously or with anger and loathing. It was pointless. He was willing to stoop to any means to force that damned juice and honey down her throat. One thing was certain, the only reason she survived that first night was because she had to wake up to retch and puke everything he fed her. He turned her on her side, wiped her mouth and body with a wet cloth when the vomit dribbled down her blouse and cleaned the cleavage between her buttocks gently when she had soiled herself. He changed her clothes and picked her up. This was when he realized that she would not require a change of clothes again. She was so weightless and her breathing so laboured, it was a matter of an hour or two before she receded into everlasting oblivion. He felt discouraged and hopeless. It was his pathological hatred of the Flautist that kept him going. Because if he didn’t, it would mean that her lover had once again beaten him. He put her on the other bed, so that the bedsheet and the jute cloth under the first could be removed.
For days she hovered in a twilight zone.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘please let go of me.’
He smiled to himself. How could he, for years now her betrayal of him was the only thing that had kept him going. What would he do without her?
‘Get up. Stop stalling. Is there no end to your selfishness? I haven’t done any work since you decided to indulge yourself. The children from the orphanage are dying and so are all the other sick people. Don’t you think it’s about time you got up and took care of them?’
She closed her eyes. Why had he gone out of his mind when she had spurned him on their wedding night? She had the same bulges or projections that Sunheria, Kausalya or any woman had. They might be higher or lower, bigger or smaller, loose and dangling or firm and steady, but they were all breasts with a springy centrepiece and the same went for the slit in the middle. Wasn’t Kausalya good enough for him? Under normal circumstances he would have married two or three other princesses by now anyway. There had been more than enough offers and on two occasions the Maharana had been genuinely upset with him because not only were these important political alliances, the girls were supposed to be exceptionally attractive and talented. Even Rao Viramdev had suggested that he marry Rao Ganga’s granddaughter after the Rao’s death. It would be a gesture of appreciation of the services of the deceased to Mewar and strengthen the bonds between the two kingdoms. Besides, his wife’s uncle assured him that the girl did not have an iota of malice in her; just an inexhaustible supply of sweetness and vivacity.
No, the Maharaj Kumar still couldn’t fathom what all the fuss was about. Once you had discounted extremes of caricature like buck teeth, squint eyes and exaggerated tics, why were some men and women more desirable and in demand than others? What was so special about his wife except that she had said no to him? Look at her now. She had shrivelled and her legendary transparent complexion was the colour of the slate he had used as a child. There wasn’t enough skin to go around and it seemed as if it was about to split open. Those breasts which had driven him to a voyeuristic sexual frenzy the night he had caught her in flagrante delicto were dry and creased and pitiably small.
A phosphorescent green and mouldy syrup oozed out of her mouth. He wiped it with a piece of cloth. It smelled sour and looked poisonous enough to bore a hole through the palace floor. Was this the cholera or were these the final remains in her stomach? Was the Flautist watching? Would he want to make love to this woman again? Down below beyond the tall security wall of the palace, the crowds were singing one of her songs.
In death and in life, I’m yours, yours alone.
Take me. Do what you will with me.
As stone or stray dog, as roach or rose, as fish or fowl,
Whatever the shape of reincarnation, I’m yours, yours alone.
You are free to reject me: I will never deny you.
Beware, my beloved, of the pleasures of my body and soul.
You are mine, mine alone,
I’m your bride, your mistress, your slave.
Has it occurred to you, my Lord,
that you can only take and I can only give?
You’ve had your day. Time to listen to me now.
A god is but a stone till a devotee comes along
and paints it vermillion.
In death and in life, I’m yours, yours alone.
Take me. Do what you will with me.
The irony of the situation made him smile. There was a time when it would have made him run his sword through her and himself. She was in his arms and even as she was breathing her last, she was embracing someone else. Kausalya brought the rice broth, more like rice soup with a bit of chicken stock for nourishment. His hand shook as he took the bowl from her.
‘Sleep a little, Highness, I’ll feed her.’
‘I’m more pigheaded than you are. I don’t give in to her pleas to drink the kanji some other time.’
He took a tablespoon of the translucent broth and tilted it in his wife’s mouth which was always half-open these days so she could get as much air as possible. She gagged and it trickled down. When she had settled down, he started again.
‘I’ll be firm with her. You’ve been here for seven days and nursed her night and day. If you should fall ill, I’ll not be able to look after two patients.’
He ran his hand over his chin and face. There was a good growth of stubble there. Should he grow a beard? He looked at Kausalya. She was not about to give in and she was right. He gave her the bowl and went and lay down on the other bed. His wife was dead. She was fortunate to die before her husband, so Kausalya bathed her and draped her wedding ghagra around her. He walked ahead of the bier, the clay pot of agni in his hand. The whole of Chittor, even the priests from the Brindabani Temple had come to say goodbye to her. All the way down to the banks of the river, they sang the songs they had learnt from her. They placed her gently on the logs. She lay silent and serene as if waiting expectantly. He remembered his wedding day. It was the first time he had seen her and he had promised her many things. He had not fulfilled any of those vows. He had no business letting her go. He lit the torch from the fire in the earthen pot and touched the edge of her ghagra and then the logs. The flames caught instantly and surged upwards. The Flautist rose from them. He smiled. ‘The time for miracles, my friend, may I call you that,’ he asked the Maharaj Kumar superciliously, ‘is not the eleventh hour. It is the twelfth.’ He passed his hand over the flames and they retreated and died down. He kissed her lips. ‘Wake up, dearest.’ She opened her eyes. They were suffused with an infinite love. He picked her up in his arms and they ascended to the sky.
‘She hasn’t thrown up the last three times I’ve fed her,’ Kausalya told him.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘Eleven hours, no, more like twelve.’
The razor slipped out of his hand at least three times and nicked him badly.
‘I should let it slit your throat.’ There was nobody in the room but he knew who it was. Bhootani Mata was slashing his body, long clean gashes from which the blood welled up eagerly. ‘I warned you it was no easy task. What you wanted me to do was to overturn the very scheme of the universe, interfere with the private affairs of the gods themselves.’ The razor was going for his face now. ‘But you wouldn’t listen. You said you didn’t give a damn about the costs or the consequences. You wanted the job done and quote, “no excuses, please”. I tried for years but anything and everything I attempted misfired. She got away. This time around I didn’t take any chances. I don’t want any more wrong blood on my hands. I planned for months, I worked out every single detail. Nothing could go wrong. I gave her cholera. And what do you do on the night that she’s supposed to breathe her last? You suddenly enter the picture. You countermand the doctor’s instructions, you force-feed her, you wipe her mouth and clean her arse, you sit in that room with its noxious fumes and you nurse her. You fuck up all my efforts and you bring her back from the dead. I should have given you the shits, not her. That way I would have got rid of all my problems once and for all.’
‘Didn’t want the wrong blood on your hands, you said and you killed half of Chittor to get at one little defenceless woman? Nine and half thousand dead as of last count and you call that a surefire hit? Even the gods won’t be able to save us from your precision.’ ‘She may have those thugs up there in heaven taking care of her, but I’ve got you, you little twerp. Nobody here or in the heavens wants to protect you. Frankly almost everybody would give his right arm, including His Majesty who’s already lost his other, to be rid of you. But that would be too easy. You are so clever and smart, nobody, not even an army of your worst enemies could wish you the kind of troubles you bring upon your own head. I’m going to sit in the wings and savour every setback, every humiliation you invent for yourself.’
