I hear her come in. She is humming under her breath.
I glance at the clock on the wall. It is a quarter past eleven. Did she walk here by herself? Or did Chris walk with her? Which is worse? I don’t know. Shyam will hear about this. He has eyes everywhere. Informants who keep their lord and master posted about all that goes on in his absence. My poor Radha. Does she realize what she is taking on with this new love she has found?
All day yesterday I worried about Radha. I was disturbed by what I had seen just before we went to the kathakali performance—Radha and Chris in each other’s arms.
The next evening, Radha and Shyam had come to see me. Radha looked tired and wan. Her limbs dragged and her face was wiped
clean of all animation. Could this be my Radha?
On the night of the performance, Radha had blazed with a thousand suns lighting her from within. She had been resplendent in her silks and new-found love. But the Radha before me was a woman crouching in a shell. A woman suffering. What could it be? Guilt or hopelessness? I felt anxiety cloud my eyes. Daylight had a way of leaching magic away.
Then I saw Shyam. He was smiling. It was a smile filled with arrogance and triumph. It was the smile of a conqueror.
He was Ravana in Bali Vadham. The ultimate picture of haughtiness. Ravana assesses his own success by asking himself: Why shouldn’t I be happy with myself? I appeased the Lord Creator Brahma and made him offer me boons that I needed. I defeated kings and gods and founded an empire. I wrested away the heavenly chariot Pushpak from my half-brother Kubera, the god of wealth, and I amused the supreme destroyer, easy-to-anger Shiva by flinging the mountain Kailash down. My fame has spread everywhere and in all three worlds, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know me or my powers.
The arrogance on Shyam’s face worried me. It was Ravana’s face reproduced: the face of a man who takes what he wants. Every fibre of his body pulsed with the measure of conquest. What had he done? What had he done to Radha?
Shyam flung himself into a chair. ‘We met some of your comrades this morning,’ he said.
I stared at him. Comrades. I had forgotten all about that period of my life. My brothers had hunted in the forests and drunk illicit liquor and experimented with marijuana; I experimented with communism. I wasn’t a card-carrying member, but I was a sympathizer who believed enough in the movement to transport pamphlets and posters and other ‘inflammatory materials’ as the government called them. It was a risk, but I was willing enough.
No one suspected me, a dancer, of being connected with the movement and we had even evolved a password. A comrade would come backstage and ask, ‘Is there a chuvanna-thaadi vesham tonight?’
Chuvanna-thaadi was red-beard and signified the vilest of characters, but the password worked, and it was only when I moved to Madras for a while that my comrades and I parted ways.
‘Why do you look as if you have seen a ghost?’ Shyam asked. ‘I
was referring to Kesavan. Didn’t he perform with you?’
I nodded. ‘How is he?’ I asked.
‘Well enough. His son is in Muscat, he told us.’
Shyam rose to leave. He looked at the table on the veranda, on which a few magazines were strewn about. He tidied the table and stacked the magazines into a pile. I watched him. I knew that sense of disquiet again. Why did he feel the need to lay his imprint on everything? Was he the same with Radha? What would he do if he ever found out about Radha and Chris?
When Shyam left, I asked Radha, ‘Are you unwell? Or did Shyam and you quarrel? You look wrung out.’
‘Shyam never quarrels. He has other ways of making his point,’ she said. ‘No, it’s nothing.’ Even her voice bore the fatigue that was in her eyes. I wondered again if it was fatigue or hopelessness.
I saw her eyes dart to the gate. I heard her start at every footstep. I knew she was waiting for Chris.
Then Chris lifted the latch of the gate and walked in. I saw Radha emerge again. Radha, alive and aware.
Their eyes met and locked. I saw the burden of waiting rise and dissipate.
I rise and walk to the window. I cannot sleep. I feel too wound up. In the morning, Maya will be here. I am not sure if I am prepared to cope with all the emotions that will rise to the surface when I see her again.
I hear a long-drawn yawn. Radha. She can’t sleep either, I think. Should I go and talk to her? Perhaps it is best that I leave her with her thoughts. She is a woman in love again. I can see that. I think of what I said to her earlier. Of how there is only now.
What I failed to tell her was that the walls of ‘now’, her ‘now’, demand that they be built on deceit. The reality of deceit is that it has a way of sneaking into the past and the future. Will Radha be able to cope?
The curse of deception is that we can never erase it from our minds. I haven’t led an exemplary life. It isn’t as if I have a clear conscience. I have been deceitful. And I know the price I have had to pay for it.
I think of the only vesham in kathakali I have never been
enthusiastic about. That of Rama in Bali Vadham. It isn’t an important role, nevertheless the degree of deception that the role demands unnerves me. In fact, the whole episode makes me uncomfortable. There is nothing inspiring or redeeming about it. Frankly, this is a section that ought never to have been made so much of. Everything in it reeks of chicanery and connivance.
I close my eyes and think of the chapter that is drawn from the Ramayana. Bali, the monkey-king, ruled Kishkindhya, a kingdom in the southern part of India. When Bali was very young, his father Indra, the king of gods, blessed his son that no matter who battled with Bali, the opponent’s powers would be reduced by half and would shift to Bali during the battle. That was the first deception.
Soon, no one could vanquish Bali. Once, the demon Dundupi challenged Bali to a duel. Furious at the demon’s effrontery, Bali decided to teach him a lesson. He began to wrestle with Dundupi. But the demon managed to free himself from Bali’s clutches and flee. Bali, not about to let him go, chased the demon into a cave. He stood at the mouth of the cave and called to Sugriva, his younger brother, ‘I am going after the demon and when I get him in my hands, I will break every bone in his body. I want you to wait here till I come back. If milk flows out, you will know that I have succeeded. But if blood flows out, you must leave immediately and protect our families and kinsmen.’
Sugriva waited outside the mouth of the cave. Some time later he heard Bali yelling, ‘Help! Help! I’m being killed!’ Then, to Sugriva’s horror, he saw a rivulet of blood flowing out of the cave and he knew that his brother had been vanquished. What had really transpired was that the demon, realizing he was about to die, had played a final trick. As he struggled, he called out in a voice like Bali’s, and when he saw Bali invoke a rivulet of milk, he conjured it to look like blood. That was the second act of deception.
In anger and grief, Sugriva sealed the mouth of the cave with a mighty rock. Then he went back to the kingdom and assumed the role of the king.
Bali was unaware of the trick and set about beating the life out of Dundupi. After killing the demon, he came to the mouth of the cave and found a huge rock blocking his way. He stared at the rock in surprise and then pushed it aside. ‘Where are you, Sugriva, my dear
brother?’ he called. But there was no one there. Bali began to get anxious. He rushed to his palace and there he found his brother seated on the throne.
Suddenly Bali knew what had happened. His brother Sugriva had wanted to kill him and had sealed the mouth of the cave to ensure this. He stared at his brother angrily. ‘So this is what you wanted. All this while you were pretending to be a loving brother and in your head you were plotting my downfall. You are a traitor!’ he said. Bali must have nurtured a secret fear of his brother wanting the throne for himself. Isn’t that why he was so easily deceived into thinking that his fear had come true? What then was the reality of the love he had for his brother? That was the third deception.
Bali banished Sugriva from the kingdom and Sugriva went to the forest with a band of faithful followers, which included Hanuman, the son of Vayu.
Later, when Rama and Lakshmana passed through the forests seeking Sita, they met Sugriva, who told them the story of his banishment. He narrated how Bali had seized the throne back and, to make matters worse, had married Sugriva’s wife, thereby depriving him of his home and family.
‘Everything I have is yours. But I have nothing to offer you,’ Sugriva told Rama.
‘Do not lose heart. I shall ensure that you find justice,’ Rama said.
‘No one can defeat Bali, he is so powerful,’ Sugriva said. ‘Besides, his father’s boon ensures that in a battle his opponent’s powers will be reduced by half.’
‘Listen to me. I have a plan. This will not be a battle in the conventional sense,’ Rama said.
The fourth scene of deception. It is here that I feel ashes coat my tongue. This righteous man, the epitome of all that is good and noble, wasn’t above deceit.
Sugriva went to the palace doors and challenged Bali to a fight.
Bali looked up from what he was doing and said, ‘What is wrong with that fool, Sugriva? Has he gone mad? Does he think he can defeat me?’
Bali screamed, ‘Go away!’
But Sugriva continued to holler challenges. Bali lost his temper and stepped out of the palace and they began to wrestle. Rama, who
was hiding behind a tree, shot an arrow which pierced Bali’s heart and killed him. The fifth act of deception.
Thus Sugriva became king again, and his monkey army helped Rama in his battle against Ravana.
In the story there is no mention of the remorse Sugriva and Rama should have felt. How did they reconcile themselves to the deception they had carried out? That is the sixth and never discussed act of deception. Did they put it out of their minds and carry on as if nothing had happened? If so, they were without even the trace of a conscience. And these are the gods we have venerated for centuries. It frightens me to even think about it.
How do you live with such deceit for the rest of your life? How do you not let it haunt you? How do you balance all the acts of goodness you may do against that one act of deceit?
This is what worries me. How will Radha be able to live with herself? Or, for that matter, I?
Tomorrow morning I will begin my pilgrimage of deceit. Maya and I will seek stolen moments concocted with lies and complicity, and compromises we make with our conscience.
As I lie in bed, eyes wide open to darkness and deception, I think it is time I introduced reality into the fairytale world of Sethu and Saadiya.
Only then will Radha and Chris, and my Maya—for she too will hear this story—understand the gravity of what they have chosen for themselves.