Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust (16 page)

That she has had a love affair was quite clear. Such sin can never be concealed. I sent the other maids away and called Sharmishtha in. She came in and hung her head.

I asked harshly, ‘Is it true that you are expecting a baby?’ Her lips moved but no sound come. In the end, she nodded assent.

‘This illicit affair ...’

‘This has been nothing illicit; it was by the grace of a great sage ...’

‘By the grace of a sage? Who was the sage? Who conferred this boon on you? Was it Kacha?’

She said nothing. She did not smile nor was she frightened. She just stood there like a statue.

SHARMISHTHA

I
was stunned at Devayani’s question: ‘Are you expecting a baby?’ No, I was not only stunned, I was frightened. I was both abashed and terrified. I was trembling.

We were childhood friends. When such friends meet later in life they exchange their sweet secrets — what great joy there is in such a situation. But cruel fate had not ordained it for me.

On hearing the word illicit from her, my blood boiled. I could have silenced her with one word — just one. That one word would have raised hell at the palace. If I had told her the name of the father of the child I was bearing, she would have been crestfallen.

In doing so, I would have had the momentary pleasure of revenge; but that one word would have ruined the naming ceremony of her child Yadu. Gloom would immediately have descended on the palace. Devayani would have mauled His Majesty with bitter invective. There would have been permanent estrangement. God knows that more would have happened.

I do not know how, in the nick of time, I thought of saying, ‘I am not a wanton. It was by the grace of a sage ...!’ But those words gave me great courage. They enabled me to keep my face. They were both true and false.

‘Who conferred this boon on you? Was it Kacha?’ How poignant, how poisonous the words were in casting such an aspersion on the noble figure of Kacha.

Will anyone throw mud on the image which I worshipped with white lotus flowers? But the queen of beauty Devayani had dared do it.

I had only said, ‘By the Grace of a sage!’ If she wanted to indulge in cruel jest, she could
even have named Yati; that would not have hurt me so much.

In any case, at court that day Devayani had humiliated me not a little. It is as well that Yati was mad and the runaway brother of His Majesty, otherwise I would have had it. He asked for me and Devayani asked whether he wanted me for wife. Yati, however, was truly insane. I never understood the cause of his insanity. One night I was fast asleep. I woke up with a start. I felt a cold hand at my throat. In fact, someone was trying to strangle me with both hands. I was choking and terrified.

Trembling all over, I opened my eyes. Yati was sitting beside me. He was smiling to himself. What a grotesque smile it was! I screamed for fear of life. He quickly got up, bolted for the window, jumped out and disappeared. God knows where he went to.

I would not have minded if Devayani had said that my coming baby came from a madman. That would have been insulting to me only; but the malicious words she uttered about Kacha ...

Can one forget yesterday’s love? Yes, it is possible. How otherwise could Devayani have said such strange poisonous things about Kacha?

Devayani might have forgotten her love of yesterday, but Sharmishtha is not thus forgetful. She will not only not forget her love of yesterday, and tomorrow, for all time, she will not betray her love.

What would Kacha say if he heard Devayani’s malicious words? No. He will say nothing. He will only smile. When he came to bid farewell at leaving Ashokavan with the Queen Mother, I asked, ‘Kacha, when shall we meet again?’

He smiled saying, ‘Who knows? Fate is very wilful. It may bring me back here tomorrow. On the other hand, I may not come even in the next ten or twenty years.’

Kacha stayed so little at Ashokavan. Even in that short time, he was a pillar of strength. How much heart he put into me. It was as if my soul was reborn.

I asked him, ‘Where are you going for so long?’

‘To the Bhrigu Mountain for meditation.’

‘What is the penance for?’

‘If by my penance I could influence Devayani’s behaviour, I would undertake grave penance indefinitely for that alone.’

I had never envied Devayani even in my dreams, not even when she became Queen of Hastinapur. But hearing Kacha I thought to myself how fortunate Devayani was. What more does one need in this world if a sage like Kacha is prepared to stake all his penance for one? What is worth more than such selfless, great love in this world?

Kacha had said all this with a smile on his lips. But that very smile revealed to me his heartache. He was distressed at Devayani’s behaviour — at her maliciousness. But even so, his concern for her was no whit less. There is no greater unhappiness than the bleeding of a lovelorn heart. But who and how can anyone else alleviate the pangs of such hidden sorrow?

Seeing me quiet he said, ‘Maharishi Shukra is sitting in grave penance again. He will thereby achieve some mysterious power like Sanjeevani. That will again set off a war between gods and demons! Gods, demons, human beings and Dasyus ... all inhabit the world. But seeing this beautiful world forever torn with strife gives me sleepless nights. I wonder if this must continue from generation to generation. Does Lord Shiva truly wish that war, misery, strife and conflict should prevail in this world? I would like to do long penance to please Him, and then fall at His feet insisting that, “I want no other boon, but bless me with the power to establish peace and goodwill on earth!” It is because of this ardent wish that I said I may not return for ten or twenty years!’

As soon as the chariot bearing Kacha and the Queen Mother left for the Bhrigu Mountain, Ashokavan became lonely.

How promptly after arrival at Ashokavan he came from the guest rooms to my room at the far end of the building to enquire after me. I got up on seeing him. He insisted again and again that I sit down. In the end I said, ‘Kacha, Sharmishtha is no longer a princess who can sit in your presence; she is now a maid.’

He looked at me very affectionately and said, ‘Sharmishtha, the musk deer does not know that it secretes fragrant musk. You are the same. You maybe doing the menial duties of a maid but your soul is not slave to anybody or anything. It is only he whose soul is free that has the power to see God. The salvation which great sages fail to achieve after years of penance ...’

Blushing I hung my head. I said, ‘Kacha, I am one of Devayani’s least liked maids. Things like the soul are foreign to me.’

‘You are not a maid! You are a sister to me. Kacha has two sisters ... one is Devayani and the other Sharmishtha.’

Kacha added, ‘You
are not only my sister but my preceptor. I thought that I had done great sacrifice for my kind when setting out to acquire Sanjeevani; but you have a made a much bigger sacrifice. This humble disciple of yours begs of you not to brood on your being a maid. If in the eyes of the world you are a maid, to me you are a gracious queen. The slave is Devayani. She is slave to her splendour, dignity and ego. The man whose soul is prey to selfishness, desire and enjoyment is forever a slave in this world. You spurned self-interest and all your happiness in coming here. You adopted the most difficult but shortest cut available to man to attain God ... the path of sacrifice. You are truly an ascetic not a maid. Sharmishtha, I am aware that a younger sister would not like her elder brother to bow to her; but if you are younger in age, you are by far greater in sacrifice. Therefore ...’

While still talking, he folded his hands in a bow.

I lost all sense of where I was and what I was doing. I quickly went up to him and held his hands. The next moment, I thought he would resent the intimacy and shake my hands off. I remembered how particular he was in the cottage to avoid Devayani’s touch. I blushed and was confused. I tried to pull away my hands from his. He must have realised it. Without letting them go, he smiled and said, ‘Sister, there is a difference between one touch and another. If my mother was here today and wanted to stop me from going to the Himalayas, would she not have held me back just thus, with the authority of her love?’

Then he let my hands go and called me, ‘Sister!’

I kept looking foolishly at him. He had called me sister twice. Kacha calling me sister. I was Kacha’s sister. What reason was there to be unhappy?

Kacha added, ‘Sister, you have become a mother before being a wife. Mother to the whole demon kingdom! The inner strength which prompted you for this sacrifice, may it ever increase. That is my only blessing to you.’

Every word of his was engraved on my mind!

* * *

While Kacha had been in Ashokavan, a kind of spiritual intoxication, brought on by his earnest words had overflown in me. But as soon as he left I came down to earth.

I had revived my interest in drawing when at the palace. Even here in the first few days, I sketched every tree, every creeper and everything else I saw. But in a few days, even the variety in Nature ceased to inspire me.

Memories which I had deliberately discarded into the oblivion of the subconscious stealthily crept out and took possession of my conscious mind ... The red
tilak
that I had put on His Majesty’s forehead when he was setting out for the battlefield ... his passing touch ... I had also touched Kacha’s hands. But what a difference there was! Remembrance of Kacha’s touch was a reminder of some beautiful, serene hermitage of a sage in a forest. His Majesty’s touch reminded me of an enchanting bower in a lovely garden.

It was not as if that touch alone came back to me from the subconscious.

Every night was I reminded of that first night. It made me quite restless. I could not sleep long into the night. Something like the longing with which the river rushes to merge into the sea seared through my blood. And I was like a heady calf. Every part of the body was crying out for love.

All through one night, I just could not sleep a wink! So, I sat down to draw. I naturally remembered the story of Pururava and Urvashi. I wished to sketch one of the scenes in it. I concentrated on Pururava. The figure that stood before my eyes was that of His Majesty. I found a good model for Pururava. I then thought of Urvashi. All at once, Devayani appeared before my eyes. I was glad that I had found an angel of beauty to represent an angel. But then I visualised Devayani talking disparagingly to His Majesty, like Urvashi herself, ‘King, remember one thing. It is not possible to be friendly to women all the time. Because their hearts are like those of wolves!’ I imagined Devayani warning His Majesty in a similar tone.

I shrank from making that sketch. But I could not put away from my mind Pururava, in the figure of His Majesty. In the end I decided to sketch His Majesty alone. I spent some very happy days sketching. At last, the picture was finished. I placed it in a corner and looked at it from a distance. I was by no means a skilled artist, but how lifelike, how much like the original that figure of His Majesty looked.

When I was a child, Mother was so proud of my long jet black hair. No matter how busy she was, she took time off to plait it herself in a new pattern everyday.

When making up my hair, Mother always used to say, ‘Shama, how lucky you are. It is once in a million that girls have such long hair reaching to the knees. They say, such girls suddenly strike good luck.’

How foolish that belief of Mother’s was!

Hair-do was now a bore and I therefore lived like a mendicant with unkempt hair. Is there a girl who does not like to make herself up in finery and good clothes? But then girls make themselves up not for their own sakes!

In sleep when turning over from one side to another, the hands would naturally touch the hair. That would remind me of a poem I had read when I was sixteen.

The heroine in that poem was awake like me. The hero, however, was fast asleep. Across the window, the moon was shining. In
order to ward off the evil eye of the moon from her husband, she wished to cover the window. But her husband could not bear to draw even a thin covering. That day she had worn her hair in an attractive coiffure. Her love had admired it. She quickly undid it. Her ample hair was now loose. She bent over her husband with the hair loose. Naturally, the hair shielded the face from the moon. There was then no danger of the moon casting an evil eye.

After reading that poem, the sixteen-year old Sharmishtha often said to herself, ‘I shall also protect him in the same way.’ How tickled I used to be at the thought! Now, however, the memory of that poem gnawed at my heart. Where is a lover? Where is a husband and his face?

I tried to recall over and over again everyone of Kacha’s words. That would help occupy the day, but the night ...

In
the lonely solitude of the night, the picture of His Majesty now kept me company. I would sit in front of it, in meditation. With eyes closed, I would listen to the conversation between him and me.

One day I placed a garland round the picture. I felt that His Majesty was annoyed with me and was not speaking to me. To make up I kissed him on the lips — only to realise that it was his picture! I was ashamed of that kiss. What would Kacha say if he knew about it? Sharmishtha, his sister, his favourite little sister! That she should have no self control. It is difficult but not impossible to close one’s mind against all temptation. I had been particular to do so. But from some opening, temptation like moonlight, filtered in stealthily. My kissing the picture was one such stealthy ray of the moon.

I realised how difficult it must be to follow in the footsteps of Kacha, but he is a man. Sharmishtha is a woman. How different are a woman’s body and a man’s body. Her mind and his! Her life and his. What a world of difference there is between the two. Man naturally pursues the intangibles, fame, soul, meditation, heroism, God. Such things readily attract him. But not so easily does woman get caught in their lure. To her love, husband, children, service, household and such concrete things are a greater attraction. She will observe a rigorous code of conduct, make a sacrifice but only for something concrete. Unlike man, she is not drawn to the intangible. To worship with her whole being or to bathe in her tears, she needs an entity. Man is a natural worshipper of the abstract, woman prefers things earthly.

I could not make out how this boring life was going to end. Is it possible she hopes that I would get tired of it and commit suicide? I shuddered at the thought.