MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#2: The Seeds of War (Mba) (18 page)

He floated for what seemed to be an eon, his body curling up instinctively into a foetal fist. Finally, when all resistence was gone from him, the water around him began to swirl in strange currents, pushing him upriver. It was not the gentle, cushiony way his mother always moved him; these gestures were brisk, matter of fact, designed simply to shift him from this place to that. Still overwhelmed by the shock of the event, he slipped in and out of consciousness, and in his moments of relative lucidity, saw that he was being moved upriver steadily, until, shortly after, he knew he was approaching the basin where the cataracts broke their fall. The very bubbles of air in the water danced with the reverberation of that mighty mass of icy water shattering on granite. 

Here, a remarkable thing occurred—the first of many remarkable things that were in store for him on this extraordinary adventure, although of course, he had no way of knowing that just then. 

The waterfall paused. 

One moment its deep dull pounding filled the swirling underwater world he inhabited, a sound as relentless and eternal as water and air itself, the next moment, it had fallen silent. There was no interval between the first and the second; it was as if a giant hammer had frozen in mid air, poised above the anvil. He blinked, trying to wake his brain up. It was hard; yet he sensed, despite the frigidity enveloping his body, the force that had abducted him desired that he stay awake and alert. That he be aware of what was occuring and where he was going. He felt the cold ease its hold upon his skull. It still felt as if crystals of ice were lodged in his head, but he could think, and see, and know, although his emotional responses seemed suspended, frozen. Perhaps that was not caused by the cold, though; perhaps that was his own survival instinct, pushing away fear and outrage and self-pity to a deep pocket where it could not interfere with the vital functions of watching and waiting. Naïve and ingenuous as he was, he had not lost hope; indeed, he was only conserving energy until a suitable time came. A time for what, he had no idea, but he must be ready when the opportune time came, and emotion would only confuse and obfuscate. He did not think these things through in any methodical fashion, simply glimpsed the sense of this course of action through an instinct more ancient than logic, wiser than philosophy. 

The force that had brought him upriver now began to move him up the frozen waterfall. He saw the body of water part, moving aside with a peculiar slowness that suggested neither liquid nor solid movement. He felt nothing except the intense cold and the sensation of being moved, but he thought he heard a faint groaning of protest from the unnaturally frozen body of water as he was pushed through it, upwards. At the top there was a sensation of pressure, then he was bouncing along the surface of the river again, and the water was gushing below him, past him, rushing headlong towards the waterfall. The transition was instantaneous. One moment the water was still, the next instant it was hurtling as it had hurtled for eons. His progress upstream continued thus, the force that governed him pausing waterfalls to enable it to push him up with least resistence, then releasing the falls as he gained the top. More than once on this long journey, sleep found him and flicked him into unconsciousness with the careless ease of the very young and very innocent. From time to time he would open his eyes and gaze out from his protective bubble and see only the river flowing downstream past him, and would sink back into the clutches of sleep again. He was aware of the fauna of the river all around, but every tadpole, newt, fish, wetback, stoneback, and longtooth steered clear of his path, avoiding him. He had seen them behave thus only once before, when his mother, fat and engorged with a monsoon flood, had borne him upriver to a safe pool to wait out the stormy weather. On that occasion they had ignored him because they were too busy saving their own lives. This time it was different: it was as if they feared him. Later, while he dozed, it came to him. It wasn’t he they were scared of, it was the force taking him upriver. A force that could halt waterfalls in mid-flow, and override even the goddess river herself. A force that could abduct the river’s only son and not meet any resistence. 

A time came when it seemed that the cold was too great to bear. The first time, he thought he would surely freeze now, as even his spittle began to crackle icily. But even as temperature of the surrounding water dropped, his bubble warmed ever so slightly, just enough to offset the drop. He still remained much colder than he had been accustomed to, but he never froze. So the force was benign, he knew. It abducted him, controlled him, transported him, but would not permit him to come to harm. What was it? Why was it doing this to him? He tried once to flail out in impotent anger, fisting and kicking uselessly. He could not even penetrate the protective bubble. Instead, for one heart-stopping instant, his tiny sphere was permitted to absorb the temperature of the glacial waters he was passing through: the sudden shock of the cold stilled his rebellion at once. He curled in upon himself at once, trying to cover his little near-bald head with his tiny fists, gasping in indignation. After that, he lay quiet and still and let himself be taken upriver. He slept more now. 

Finally, he came out of one of his fitful dozes and found the landscape changed. Everything was white and glassy. He had been near these parts before, but rarely, and only in his mother’s presence. Now, despite his misery and fear, he found himself fascinated by the pristine beauty of the world, at rocks turned into chunks of raw ice, water frozen in place in strange formations, exotic shapes. And all of it reflecting the high, cold sun. He uncurled himself slightly, eyes widening in understanding. He knew where he was. He had heard it spoken of so often before by his mother, and whispered of  reverentially by his friends of the river. He was in that place he had heard his mother call…
Himavat?

Indeed. 

Himavat it is. 

Young’un.
 

He gasped. The voice emanated from around him, within him, from the white glacial rocks flanking the river, from the heights of the towering peaks that he glimpsed rising high above, from the very bedrock itself. It vibrated, thrummed, boomed, echoed, and reverberated in the bone-cage of his chest, its baritone tremors overriding even the tinny thudding of his infant heartbeat, absorbing and drowning out his baby pulse. It was infinite in its power, majestic, supreme. It was the voice of the mountain range itself, the world entire.

His little hand shot out in that gesture that exasperated his mother. 

???

It was his universal question:
Why? How? Who? Where? When? Pick any, or all. 

A deep rumbling chuckle. The watery world he inhabited was given more to gentler, liquid sounds. Never having heard such a sound as he heard now, he recoiled, not knowing what it might indicate. The rumbling reverberated through his being. 

Yes.

You desire. 

Answers.

Knowledge.

You shall have them. 

It is the reason you were brought here. 

But first. 

Let us be properly introduced. 

You are. 

Young Devavrata. 

I am. 

HIMAVAT.

Your pramaataamaha. 

And now.

Grandson.

It is time. 

For your education.

To begin. 

He felt a surge of power. The chill water curled around him like a liquid fist, bearing him up. He felt himself being rushed forward, the icy current deflected to either side as by the prow of a man-vessel, the force cutting through the sluggish frost-heavy flow to bear him upward, onward. The pressure of the water was nigh unbearable, the cold bitter, a maw filled with jagged sawteeth and talons. He glimpsed icicles and ominous white blocks of waterrock, more dangerous than any living creature in his mother’s realm, sensed their battering impact and savage thrusts at his protective caul; never had he experienced such a direct assault upon his person. Even worse, he sensed that these attackers did not fear his mother’s power, that they could not fear her, for they were inanimate, devoid of intelligence, filled only with the casual malevolence of all natural objects. He recalled a young wetback he had loved and played with, speared by one such shard of waterrock, mewling and thrashing in a cloud of her own redfluid, finally surrendering to the river’s relentless carriage, borne away by his mother’s susurrating wash, her eyes fixed and lifeless. 

He knew then that he too could suffer such a fate, his hide, so tender and soft and unprotected without his mother’s power, could be pierced and torn and ripped, his own redfluids could bleed into her streaming flow, his own life end as suddenly and unexpectedly and senselessly as that wetback youngun. He wept for her now, only now understanding that she was truly gone, lost. He wept and scrunched himself tighter, shutting his senses to the overwhelming savagery of the assault, and burrowed within himself for succour. He fell into and out of consciousness, and knew not how much time elapsed. Time became a river and the river roared into and through his consciousness until he and the stream were one and he was time itself. 

4

Shantanu dismounted from the small one-horse chariot he used for hunting and strode towards the river. The Ganga usually roared around this curve in full force at this time of year. Even at its lowest ebb during one drought-ridden summer, the river still flowed steadily, filling its concourse from shore to shore. Never had he seen a sight such as this before nor heard tell of it. 

The river’s flow had dwindled to a trickle. A gurgling brook dammed by logs of wood flowed with more force than this measly sluggish worm that gurgled along throatily. He could see fish flopping in their death throes, dolphins beached, and turtles laying on their backs, rotating their green stubby legs in dismay. These signs suggested that the damming had only just happened moments ago: those fish were all still alive. How was this possible? How could such a mighty river, as wide across as a lake, be slowed? Even if a few hundred logs were dropped into its concourse upstream, they would only flow downriver – indeed, this was how fresh timber meant for building was transported downriver from the Himalayan step hills to the cities and towns along the Ganga’s enormous length. What then? An avalanche in the Himalayas? 

He could think of nothing that could explain this sudden staying of the most powerful river in this part of the world. 

The fish were starting to thrash desperately, clearly on the brink of death. 

He looked around in helpless dismay, wishing there was something he could do to help. It was one thing to hunt down creatures for sport and food; it was wholly another to see countless innocent lives being squandered needlessly. A new thought struck him like a physical blow: the lives that would be squandered downriver would not be fish alone but human lives as well, for countless people depended on the river for their daily needs. His entire kingdom depended on her grace to survive. 

Deva, help us,
he prayed silently. 

Almost at once, a great roar filled his ears, louder than anything he had heard before. He looked up from his joined palms to see an astonishing sight: the river unleashed again, roaring downstream! So great was its force that it was exceeding its banks. If he did not move aside in a moment, he would be swept away! 

He ran then, up the bank, reaching the safety of the ridge on which he had left his chariot and horse just in time to escape the lashing whips of the raging water. Even so, he was partially drenched by the flood and as he sat on the bank beside his grazing horse, staring at the river roaring by in full spate once more, he shook his head in frustration, wondering what force could cause the river to cease and then restart its flow thus, within moments? 

In any case, the fauna of the river would survive now, he saw. The waters had reached them just in time to save their gasping lives. 

His horse nuzzled his dripping hair and neck curiously, as if asking, what were you doing, great king, were you swimming in the river? 

He smiled at the memory of the way he had scampered up the ridge. That flash flood had come by so suddenly, he had been genuinely afraid he would be washed away. So afraid, he had forgotten that he shared a deep bond with the river, especially at this place. 

‘You would never let your own waters harm me, would you, my love?’ he asked quietly, not really expecting an answer. 

As if in response to his query, the river’s flow slowed, reduced by degrees, then returned to the sluggish muddy crawl he had seen earlier. It happened so abruptly, he blinked and rubbed his eyes to confirm that what he was seeing was real and not some illusion. 

He rose to his feet and started down the ridge – the flood had dampened the soil, turning it slushy, and he slipped and slid the last yard or so, but regained his balance. Even before he reached the edge of the bank, he could hear the sounds of thousands of fish of all sizes, thrashing and flopping about on the wet muddy floor of the river. Dolphins cried out pitifully. There were creatures he knew no names for and did not recognize, creatures that spent their entire lives at the bottom of the river without being seen by human eyes, monstrosities with clicking claws and eyes extended on stalks, but he felt sorry for them as well, for they were clearly suffering and would die as well as their brethren if the river remained dry.