PRINCE IN EXILE (10 page)

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 movement, 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 possible. 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. 

As a rising murmur from the Ayodhyan procession turned into a roar of exultation, Ayodhya lay clothed in a garment of benign flame, blazing brightly enough to turn the night just fallen into gaudy day once more. A day created by the power of human song. 

Guru Vashishta, his voice fallen silent along with those of the other singers, turned to face the procession. His eyes sought out and found Sita in the forelines. 

‘I welcome all of you, Mithilans and Ayodhyans alike, to Ayodhya the beautiful, the unconquerable, the effulgent. Let this display of our passion and art be proof positive of this fact: that as long as we continue to light up this proud city’s name through adherence to karma and dharma, so shall mighty Ayodhya shine on eternally.’ 

FIVE 

When the sound of distant shouts and cheers woke Manthara, her first thought was that Ravana had arrived at last. Her lord and master had finally triumphed and taken Ayodhya. She was filled with vindictive triumph: now these stupid mortals would learn what it meant to challenge the Lord of Lanka! 

The next instant she was filled with bone-numbing, heart-chilling terror. Fear at the realisation that she had not completed the task Ravana had entrusted to her. And when it came to fools and failures, as Ravana had often remarked to her, he suffered neither gladly.