The Rise of Hastinapur (9 page)

Parashurama nodded. ‘Not just Devavrata. All the men in your life, my child,’ he said, turning to her. ‘All of them seemed to have wronged you in one way or another. Do you not fear, then, that I may fail you? For after all, I am a man too.’

Amba said, ‘No, your grace. You are said to be a learned man. You have studied the scriptures, you have taught the Vedas to the gods that live on the Ice Mountains. You are said to have trained Bhishma in the art of war when he was a young lad. You are the only man in North Country that I know of, my lord, who can stand up to Bhishma with a hope of winning.’

‘I am certain,’ said Parashurama. ‘I am certain of that. But I wonder if that is the right path for you to choose.’

‘I shall walk any path you direct me to, your grace.’

Parashurama smiled. ‘We shall see.’ He turned to Jarutha. ‘You can leave the maiden here with me. I have come to stay on Earth for at least six moons from now, so she will serve me here. Let her live the life of a priestess for some time.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Jarutha, getting up to his feet.

‘And tell Drupad that I understand his intentions very well,’ said Parashurama, his face clouding over suddenly. ‘Tell him that I do not like being manoeuvred this way, but I shall do it, this one time, for this maiden.’ The muscles of his wiry body tensed, all at once, and his lips fused together. ‘But tell him this is to be the last one – the
very
last.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Jarutha, retreating two steps.

‘You may go.’

After Jarutha had left, Parashurama said to Amba, ‘The life of a priestess is a tough one, my girl, but it gives you victory over the one thing men have always failed against – the self. Will you stay with me and serve me? I promise you a way out of your pain.’

Amba bent down so that her nose touched the ground, and she laid the very tips of her fingers on Parashurama’s feet. She heard the murmur of the sage’s blessing, and she felt a certain warmth enter her through her back and fill her, loosening her muscles and clearing her mind. She felt like she had come home.

SEVEN

AMBA SPEAKS

I
n Kasi, when I was four or five years old, we used to play a game with a wooden bow and a ball of flowers. The attendants would place the bow on top of a wheeled table, covered in drapes, and they would hide the ball underneath. Ambika, Ambalika, and I would then fight each other to push aside the table and retrieve the ball. Because I was the eldest, and because I always liked to win games of this sort, I generally emerged with the ball in hand, and my father, King Kasya, would arrive and gather me up in his arms to hug me and shower me with kisses while Ambika and Ambalika enviously looked on.

That, my father’s hug, is my oldest memory of warmth – not the kind that touches your outer self, but the kind that lights you from within. I felt the same warmth on that morning I knelt in front of High Sage Parashurama; my own father had discarded me, but it looked like I had found another.

I did not fully understand what the High Sage meant when he said the life of a priestess was tough. I did not quite comprehend what it meant to conquer the self, either. Some of the people in Panchala who now call me a witch would perhaps say that I have not yet conquered my self. They may be right. My father – that’s what I call him now – Sage Parashurama, never conquered his self, either; even today, he is given to losing his temper and admonishing his disciples for the smallest transgressions, and if a High Sage himself has not attained that state, I shall make no claims to it.

I have heard it said that happiness lies in the things that you already have, not in the things that you want. But I think not that people who say this have ever had their lives snatched away from them – not by nature or some such unseen foe – but by a living, laughing human being. If happiness indeed lies in the things that you have, what happens when so much is taken away from you that you have nothing?

My tale is a tale of despair and loss. Years from now, people writing down the tale of the Great War will make my life a mere appendage to the main event. They will look for purpose in my life, they will look for something within my character that is redeemable, they will look for those thin rays of hope every tale is said to possess, but they will not find any. And they will turn back and say this is a tale not worth telling, and they will confine it to perhaps two or three torn leaves.

But tales of despair have their place too, I think. When one is a child one may hanker after stories of heroes triumphing over villains, of good triumphing over evil, of all things coming together to end well.But as one grows, one finds in tales of despair a certain pull and solace, for these tales resemble life the most. It is only in these tales that you understand that happiness and hope are no virtues; and sorrow and despair are no vices. The universe knows of no vice and virtue. It is as it is. Only in our minds have we set up these opposite forces and declared they should forever be at war with each other.

This is perhaps the knowledge of self that High Sage Parashurama meant to teach me that morning when I knelt by his feet. He wanted me to look at my life from the outside. He wanted me to shrug at it. He wanted me to embrace it, to accept it, to admit that it was not ideal, but also to realize that nothing in the world was.

So I am no longer scarred by sorrow, or fearful of despair. They have been my companions for life, and I know they shall be with me in my final moments too. But on that bright morning when I touched the sage’s feet, I remember how my heart leapt when he said he promised me a way out of my pain.

That day, after lunch, the sage summoned me to his hut. He motioned me to the ground, and after I had taken my seat, said, ‘I will tell you the ways of a priestess now, my princess.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘A priestess is a woman that has given her life to the Goddess, the mother of all things that you see around you. We call her by the name of Bhagavati. She has no image, She has no form, She has no shape. But you see her everywhere you look – within you, without you. You know she is there, do you not?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘A priestess of the Goddess fasts during the first half of the day on the rising cycle of the moon, and during the second half of the day on the falling cycle. On full-moon days, she will have all three meals, and on no-moon days she will have none. This is to learn the first lesson in life: your bowl will be full on some days and empty on others. That is just how the universe is; the moon herself is not the same from one day to the next. Why should your life be so?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘A priestess of the Goddess sleeps on the floor with no pillow under her head. Three times in a day she will wash herself, but will change her clothing no more than once. She will look at all of life as her brethren, and that means she will not eat meat, nor will she kill any animal unless in self-defence.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘A priestess will look after herself at all times. She will make her own food, make arrangements for her own drinking and bathing water, and she will keep her house clean. She shall not depend on anyone else for her needs, be they related to food or water, no matter what period of her cycle she is in.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘A priestess of the Goddess shall at all times accept the gifts of nature with open arms. She will never be ashamed of her desires, because they are given to her by the Goddess; nor will she question the outcomes of her actions, because they too are given to her by the Goddess. She will train herself to always accept and never question. She will train herself to possess the wisdom to choose well, the strength to persevere in pursuit of her ambitions, and the detachment to accept the result.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘We shall begin with this,’ he then said, ‘and extend your training after a month. A priestess also studies the Mysteries, but for that you will need a good teacher.’

‘Are you not a good teacher, my lord?’

‘No, my dear, not for the Mysteries.’ He lifted both his legs onto the ledge so that he could sit cross-legged. He waved me away and instructed me to get my mind ready for the ordeal ahead. As I was about to leave to collect my things that Jarutha had left by the well, the High Sage called out to me and said the words that I would remember all my life.

‘Remember, Amba,’ he said, ‘a priestess is slave to no man. She only answers to the Goddess.’

EIGHT

A
mba woke up and tied her hair in a knot over her head, keeping it in place by means of a timber twig. She folded the mat and rested it against the corner. She picked up the broom and cleaned her room, humming to herself a chant she had heard on the lips of one of the sages the night before. Mentally she counted the days of the month so that she would not miss the fast of the
Amavaasya
. Four more days to go.

Picking up the leaves and fallen grains in a straw bowl she went out to the well to dump it by the fence. Squirrels and badgers would come by after sunrise and eat some of it. The rest of it would get blown away by the wind. She craned her neck to see if the baby doe had come today. She reminded herself to pluck an extra apple or two from the orchard for her, just in case she would return. Sage Parashurama had advised her against pets, but she told herself that this was not a pet, just a recurring visitor.

The last month – her first at the ashram – had not been as much a struggle for her that Parashurama (and she) had feared it would be. The first few days she had woken up with a rash on her waist and a catch in her back. Bending to sweep the floor of her little hut had hurt her thighs so much that she could not sleep at night. Without a mirror she had at first not been able to tie her hair, so she had wandered about the hermitage – to everyone’s amusement – in loose, undone locks. So what, she had thought. Did the sage not say that a priestess ought not to be concerned with vanity?

Gradually, the aches ebbed, and she taught herself to tie up her hair one morning when she went to the lake to get water. One of the sages in the hut adjoining hers had taught her how to cook, and she had begun to boil rice and vegetables to arrange for herself a decent meal. There were days when she had not adhered as religiously as she should have to the fasting rules, but ever since that day when Sage Parashurama had caught her munching away on a guava behind the hut, she had been steadfast.

The one thing she could not get her mind away from, even amid all this, was Bhishma.

Every now and then, she would either be on her way to the orchard or in the middle of a meal or at the well drawing water, and something would come over her suddenly and she would sit down and weep. At nights she would go down to the bank of the Yamuna, some three or four miles away, and sit there watching the ferry come and go, people stepping out, stopping for a moment to look at her, then passing on their way. She would sometimes lie down on the sand and look up at the moon floating by, and she would hug herself and think of her father in Kasi. Sage Parashurama had said that if you thought of someone with all your heart, you would make them think of you. She would hear her father’s voice in the river’s waves, and she would wonder if he ever thought of her.

Today Sage Parashurama had summoned her to his hut immediately after the morning prayer, which was one of the reasons for her good mood. She had not spoken to him in the last one week or so, and if he wanted to speak, it must be because he would tell her how he was going to show her a way out of her pain.

She walked back from the hut and stood by the door. She removed the stick holding her hair together and shook her head, letting her tresses fall over her shoulders. As she fingered the stick in her hand, her mind went back to Bhishma in the palace of Hastinapur, and Ambika and Ambalika seated on the throne. Her lips tightened. She snapped the twig in two.