The Rise of Hastinapur (8 page)

The fisherman laid a plank of wood to bridge the gap between the boat and the bank. Jarutha stepped on it, tested its strength with two light skips, and then turned to give Amba his hand. Once they had both seated themselves, Jarutha said, ‘There are two reasons why His Majesty has asked you to see Sage Parashurama, my lady. The first of them is that the sage is said to have trained Bhishma in the craft of weaponry when he was being fostered atop the Meru.’

‘Jarutha!’ Amba said. ‘Surely you do not believe in such tall legends.’

Jarutha’s voice was grave. ‘If you had seen Bhishma fight, my lady, you would find it difficult
not
to believe in tall legends such as this.’

‘So you really think, then, that he was fostered on the Meru, along with the gods?’

Jarutha signalled to the ferryman to be careful as they lurched into the water. Turning back to her, he said, ‘They say that Sage Vasishta himself tutored him about the Vedas.’

‘Yes, and Brihaspati taught him about the tenets of justice,’ she said. ‘I know the tale.’

‘Then you know the reason why we are on our way to see Parashurama. If, indeed, the sage tutored Bhishma when he was young, he may have a certain way with him to make him obey his command.’

‘Ah,’ said Amba, ‘are we not being foolish to assume that Bhishma would put aside his vow just to honour his old teacher?’

Jarutha shrugged and rubbed his beard. ‘What can anyone say? If he does not succeed in making him marry you, he may at least ask him to let you back into the city. Would that not be agreeable to you?’

‘No,’ said Amba, ‘it would not.’ She turned her gaze northward, where the river turned a sharp bend and disappeared. Mother Satyavati’s village would be on the same bank a few hundred leagues upstream, she thought, and when they passed an island she wondered if it were the same one on which she had given birth to the man who had taken to dividing the Vedas. They said the boy sprung from her womb fully grown, and that Mother Satyavati had only to spend a few minutes in labour.

How nice it would be, Amba thought, if it were truly that easy to bear a child.

‘Are these islands ever covered by mist?’ she asked the ferryman.

‘Only in the winters, madam,’ said the ferryman without looking in her direction, using his hefty arms to twist and turn the paddle. ‘At midwinter we do not ferry people across until it is a good time past noon, for the morning fog has often caused many a boat to crash against the bank and break in two.’

They finished the remainder of the journey in silence. When they got off, Jarutha paid both the ferrymen with a silver coin each and helped her back on top of her saddle. Jarutha tied together the reins of both horses and took them into one hand. He then drew his sword and said in a whisper to Amba: ‘We shall not confront any wild animals as long as we keep to the eastern edge of the forest, my lady. But if fate would place one before us, and if I were to be conquered by it, I bid you to ride northwest of here in a straight line for four miles. That will take you to the hermitage of Parashurama.’

Amba said, ‘I shall not leave you to the beast, Jarutha. I know my way around a dagger and a sword; in fact, in Kasi the princesses are trained in hand weapons. So if you have one on you, give it to me and I shall stay on the alert too.’

Jarutha looked back at her for a moment, then turned around and resumed walking. ‘My lady, if a beast gets past my sword and reaches you, I doubt if your hand knife will prevail.’

As the two made their way through the forest, Amba heard lizards and squirrels among the leaves strewn around her. Her horse was undecided too, only stepping forward after he had tested the ground first with his hoof. Jarutha grunted commands at both animals, but they pulled away resolutely and snorted every time he tugged at their bridles. Amba had never been in the woods on horseback, and though she had once dreamed of being carried away by a prince on a white horse to the waterfalls that lay in the middle of a forest far away, in her dream there were no wild beasts and lizards and spiders; only koels and peacocks and prancing fawns.

After they had gone some distance, Amba said to Jarutha, ‘You spoke of two reasons why we are seeking out Sage Parashurama. What is the second?’

‘The second reason why we seek the sage,’ said Jarutha at length,‘is because he has a natural enmity toward the Kshatriyas. They say he has obliterated their clan twenty-one times.’

‘Twenty-one times?’

‘That is so. The Haihayas killed his father, and his mother struck herself twenty-one times in grief. So Parashurama took an oath to kill all Kshatriyas in the world twenty-one times.’

Amba asked, ‘But each time he killed the clan, how did they replenish themselves again?’

‘The blood of the Kshatriyas runs down the line of the women, my lady. If the sage wanted to wipe out all Kshatriyas from the planet, he should have killed the women.’

Amba’s dislike for this sage grew sharper. ‘But I suppose some vow or the other stopped him from doing so?’

‘Yes, my lady. Raising a hand on a woman is a grave sin.’

She wanted to ask if sending her away on horseback to fend for herself was not, and even as she considered the question, anger welled up inside her. But what was the use? Jarutha was just a nobleman, no more than a slave that could fight.

The hermitage was a clutch of five huts surrounding a well and two banyan trees. As they made their way to the clearing in the middle, Amba noticed there were no mythical animals about. She saw a group of squirrels gorging themselves on a heap of nuts by the well, and two or three crows hopping over discarded plantain leaves dotted with grains of cooked rice. She heard the occasional screeching of monkeys and the call of a nightingale, but that was it. No golden deer or a talking tortoise was to be seen.

The central hut was built of mud and it had a large, sturdy teak front door with a latch fashioned out of metal wire. Jasmine and chrysanthemum garlands hung from one corner of the doorway to the other in an inverted arch. At each end of the doorstep sat half a coconut, spotted with vermillion and turmeric. Somewhere near its middle, the word ‘Aum’ had been written in white chalk.

Amba opened her mouth to say something, but Jarutha turned back and gestured at her to remain silent.Once she got off her horse, he pointed towards the door and nodded. Leaning on its side was an axe, with a dark wooden handle so large that it appeared as thick as the frame of the door. Both its heads were of the same size, and the silver blades gleamed in the morning light. For a moment Amba thought she saw them dripping with blood, but when she shook her head and looked again, they were stainless.

The presence of the axe meant, of course, that Sage Parashurama was in the hut.

Parashurama took a pinch of brown powder from his palm, placed it on the tip of each of his nostrils, and took a deep breath. Then he squeezed the tip of his nose, shook his head, and closed his eyes. He was seated cross-legged on the porch of his hut, with his staff underneath his right elbow. He addressed Jarutha first.

‘Your king is doing well, Jarutha. The rain gods have not been unkind to Panchala this year.’

‘By your grace,’ said Jarutha, bowing.

‘Ah!’ Parashurama waved him away. ‘I never prayed for your kind, and I never will. If I ever think of Kshatriyas in my prayers, Lord knows I only ask for their destruction. What did you bring for us from Panchala?’

‘I beg your pardon, Sage. We have not yet harvested our crops. My master pledged you a tenth share of the kingdom’s corn.’

‘Tenth share!’ said Parashurama. ‘What shall I do with so much corn, Jarutha? If you could get us some sesame seeds to plant in our garden, and some peanuts for our squirrels and monkeys, we shall be more than grateful. Did you know that Shurasena only grows paddy?’

‘That is true, my lord. They have the biggest stretch of land along the Great River among all the Kingdoms. They have to make use of it to grow paddy.’

‘I sent Bhargava last week to Shurasena to get some nuts and pulses, and they said they did not have enough to give away. They offered us elephants loaded with sacks of rice, but what shall I do with them?’

‘Your grace,’ said Jarutha.

Parashurama took another sniff of the substance in his hand. As he inhaled it fully, his nose and head shivered with what Amba could only call ecstasy, and his eyes, when they reopened, looked at peace with the world.

He looked at her, and the brow again creased with a frown. ‘I do not care for your like either, princess. Oh, how much simpler life would be if the world was populated just by Brahmins?’ He looked up at the sky and said, as though he were speaking to someone, ‘Lord, give me strength.’ He picked up the tiny painted container by his side and fingered the contents. He applied it to the edges of his nose, inhaled again, and reopened his eyes, peaceful and happy.

‘I know who you are,’ he told her. ‘You are the princess of Kasi who got married into the royal family of Hastinapur.’

‘I did not, your grace,’ said Amba, inclining her head. ‘I got sent away to Saubala where King Salva rules.’

‘Is that by the foothills of the Western Mountains, where River Saraswati is said to flow?’

‘Indeed, my lord.’

‘I have not been there in a long time. The last time I passed by, the mountains were not as high as they are now, and the land beyond them was greener than it now is.’ His mouth twisted, and his face turned grim. ‘I see hard times ahead for the kingdoms in the far west. River Saraswati will dry up completely in the years to come, and the land will crack and be covered with sand.’

Amba said, ‘What do you see in my future, your grace?’

Irritation spread on Parashurama’s face. ‘Do you mistake me for an astrologer on the streets of Hastinapur, Princess? I do not tell people’s futures, because I do not see them. No one can see the future, not even the people on the Meru that we call gods.’

‘But you just saw the future of the Western Kingdoms.’

‘One can predict the futures of kingdoms with certainty, girl, because one knows the factors that will come to pass. But the fortune of a single person has too many things entwined with it. It cannot be foretold.’

‘But your grace,’ said Amba, joining her hands and falling to her knees, ‘King Drupad said you will be able to help me.’

‘Help, I can offer, yes,’ said Parashurama, raising his hand to bless her. At once his voice became kind. ‘I sense in you a great anger, my girl, and I see in you my own self when I was your age. Even now, my anger triumphs over me too often for my liking.’

Amba bent her head. ‘That is so, my lord. I feel my anger is so strong that it can burn me alive.’

‘Then you know what you must do, child. You must conquer your anger first. For that you must first conquer your vanity.’

‘My vanity?’

Parashurama turned to Jarutha and said, ‘Tell me, Jarutha. Tell me this maiden’s tale, and we shall see what we can do to assuage her fury.’

Jarutha sat down at the sage’s feet, by Amba’s side, and began to narrate. Amba corrected him whenever he went wrong, and all the while Parashurama listened, now stroking his beard, now frowning.

After Jarutha had stopped, Parashurama said to Amba, ‘You have suffered in the hands of men, have you not, my child?’

Amba bent her head and said nothing. She thought of Salva, who had seduced her, taken her, and left her to the whims of Hastinapur. She thought of her father, who first raised no murmur of protest when Bhishma abducted her and her sisters, then spinelessly attended the wedding to bless his daughters, and then made his displeasure felt at
her
for choosing her own path. She thought of Vichitraveerya, who failed in sowing in her his seed in spite of one whole year of amour. And last of all she thought of Bhishma himself, the lynchpin, the one man who was the sole reason for everything that her life had become today. And over all these thoughts Mother Satyavati’s voice spoke again and again: ‘You do not understand the ways of men, my dear.’

Tears flowed down her cheeks.

‘Yes,’ said Parashurama with a sigh, ‘that is the lot of women in our world.’

Jarutha said, ‘It seems to me, your grace, that lady Amba here was particularly wronged by Bhishma, who abducted her and then failed to provide her the home she deserves.’