Janak cried out happily, falling to his knees before the sage. ‘Maha-dev, may your words be heard by the devas themselves!
If it is so then I shall undertake a pilgrimage to every holy site in the world to offer thanks to every deity. I shall give my worldly possessions to the needy and less fortunate. I shall grant the Brahmins of Mithila any gurudakshina their hearts desire.’
Vishwamitra held up a hand. ‘All this and more you may do. But first, the rajkumars and I have important matters to discuss with you. Matters that exceed the vexing concern of a loving father for his daughters’ future welfare. We must discuss these matters at once that you may prepare yourself and your beautiful city for the approaching crisis.’
Janak frowned. ‘Crisis, maha-dev? What crisis do you foretell? Pray, do not speak inauspicious words on this most excellent of days. I have forsworn all material joys and pleasures for over twenty years. The only ambition I retain for this lifetime is to see my daughters married and settled happily in good houses. Tell me not that some ugly shadow shall darken this hope. I beg of you, do not deprive this father of the only pleasurable dream he has left.
‘When my wife passed away, I took not another woman as wife or even as mistress, not for a single night. When my brother passed away, I raised his daughters under my own roof, counting my daughters as four, not two. I have performed every yagna, every sacrifice, every ritual, every obeisance to the devas, asking only two things: peace on earth to all men; and the happiness of my daughters. They are the jewels in my crown. Just now when you spoke those beautiful words, predicting marriage and happy lives for all of them, I felt the greatest pleasure of my life.
‘I pray to you, maha-dev, do not cast any shadow over this happy day. Whatever threat approaches me or my people, I shall confront it gladly and with open arms. But let this swayamvara be completed successfully and my daughters be well placed in their lives. This boon I beg of you.’
Maharaja Janak prostrated himself on the ground before Vishwamitra, clutching and kissing the seer’s feet, tears pouring from his eyes.
Vishwamitra was silent for a long moment. When he spoke at last his voice betrayed neither anger nor impatience. Instead, he said affectionately, ‘Rise up, good Janak. You have lived a pious and honourable life. This boon you ask is within my power. I shall grant it to you in recognition of your great devoutness and adherence to the twofold path of dharma and karma. We shall talk of other matters afterwards. Come now, walk with me. Lead the way to the hall where this auspicious swayamvara is being held. Let us go and see for ourselves as your daughter Sita selects her mate for life.’
THREE
Sita entered the packed and silent assembly hall with her head covered and eyes lowered as befitted an Arya princess at her swayamvara. Given the freedom to survey, interview, test and finally judge her suitors at this ritual event, it was nonetheless considered unseemly for a woman to simply strut about and look boldly at the men on display. She would have time to gaze at them at the right moment. Right now, it was she who was presenting herself before them. And tradition required that she present herself as a princess and a potential bride. Even though, right now, she thought of herself as neither.
Sita’s mind was still preoccupied with the events of the previous day and night. At several moments during that short span of time, she had actually doubted if she would be back home in time for this swayamvara. Not that it would have mattered much to her, but her father would have been bitterly anguished.
He would also have discovered her absence. Her sisters had covered up for her from the night before last, when she had slipped away incognito, making excuses and pleading a variety of different feminine and princessly reasons for her non-appearances at meals and other family occasions. It hadn’t been difficult for them to convince her father that she was fraught with anxiety over the swayamvara; it had made him think that if she was this anxious, perhaps she was finally going to choose a husband! On all the three previous swayamvaras, she had been so nonchalant and disinterested, he had known even before the event began that he would not be finding a son-in-law on that particular day. Any emotional response on her part would have given him hope.
But he would have been heartbroken if she had failed to show up at the event itself. He would assume that she had deliberately missed it to avoid finding a husband. And there was more than a little truth in that assumption. One of the reasons she had left Mithila incognito had been because she wanted space and time to think. The mission to Dandakavan had been an excuse. Now that she knew how grave the asura menace really was, her little escapade seemed foolish and ineffectual. But at the time it had seemed to her that this was her one last chance to enjoy the freedom of being just herself, a person and not a princess.
Now that freedom was in danger of being stolen from her for ever. She walked slowly, with cautious steps–she had always been uncomfortable in these complicated garments and heavy ornaments–as she traversed the rows upon rows of seated men, presenting herself for the ritual viewing.
For the first time in the past year, she actually peeped out occasionally from beneath the pallo hanging over her forehead, glancing curiously at the faces she passed.
A few were middle-aged and sagging, one or two aged and decrepit, there was even a fat red-faced Brahmin grinning idiotically at her as he chewed noisily on a paan, but the vast majority were young, handsome, robust looking men, bursting with youthful confidence and the glow of good health. Very few were nervous or less than good-looking. She guessed that these must be sons of rich fathers, pushed forward by their parents, eager to make a match with the biggest house in all Videha.
Sita knew the realities of her situation. She wasn’t a coy nymphet toying with the power given to her by this age-old Arya ritual. A swayamvara wasn’t an opportunity to see the handsomest and wealthiest men jump through burning hoops to provide a day’s entertainment. It was a serious affair. An opportunity for a woman to carefully select the very best mate available. She considered herself lucky in one way: at least she didn’t have a father who believed that it was a parent’s right to make every important choice for his child; or worse, a chauvinist who refused a daughter her right to choose while letting his sons marry as they pleased. There were parts of the Arya nations where such practices were traditional and swayamvaras were unheard of. Mithila was not one of those places and she was grateful for it.
But that didn’t mean that she had to be pressured into marrying if she wasn’t ready. Or into marrying at all.
She reached the far end of the hall and was guided across the width of the aisle to the other side by her sakshis–her bridesmaids, if she chose to marry today. Starting with the first suitor seated on that side, nearest the door, she began working her way up the hall.
As she walked, and occasionally glanced at the men seated on the comfortable thrones designed to make every suitor feel like a prince, she thought back to the moment at the Pit of Vasuki.
After they had driven the vetaals into the water and watched them all melt away, they had nothing to do but wait for Rama’s return. Even the seer had descended to solid ground again and sat with them by the edge of the pool.
As the minutes passed, then turned into hours, Lakshman had grown anxious and agitated, becoming convinced that Rama had encountered some obstacle or opponent that he could not overcome. He wanted to dive into the pool and go to his brother’s aid. Each time, Brahmarishi Vishwamitra restrained him with a firm command.
Finally, when Sita herself had begun to think they should all leap into the pool and go to Rama’s rescue, Rama had returned. And with him had been a woman of the most astonishing beauty Sita had ever seen. She was like an effigy made out of fine bonewood, or porcelain. In contrast to Sita’s own dusky complexion and sharp features, the legendary Ahilya was the epitome of classical Arya beauty.
White as a summer rose, she was delicately boned and featured, full breasts and wide hips divided by a waist a wasp would have envied, with a smile that could have melted the snows on Mount Kailasa and eyes so mesmerising, even Sita found herself unable to look away. When she and Rama had stepped ashore, Rama had wanted to tell them about his experience finding and then freeing Ahilya, but the brahmarishi had insisted that they proceed to the next stop on their route.
So they had gone to Gautama-ashrama on the outskirts of Visala. And there, standing before the statue-like maharishi frozen in his meditative state for two thousand years, the sage had chanted mantras that cleared away the vines and creepers and detritus of the centuries, then issued an incantation that had caused a blinding flash of lightning, and when they were able to see again, the sage Gautama—
‘Rajkumari, you have already finished that side! It’s now time to take your seat.’
Sita returned to the here and now with a start. Lost in her recollections, she had traversed the entire left side of the hall as well, and had been about to walk down the right side for the second time. How embarrassing! Luckily for her, Sundari, her first sakshi and childhood friend, had stopped her in time.
She let her sakshis guide her, giggling softly at her near-mistake, and took her seat on the raised dais at the head of the hall. Her father was already seated in the seat to her left. Beside him, preferring to stand, was the brahmarishi Vishwamitra.
But there was still no sign of Rama and Lakshman. Where were they? Surely they would at least do her the courtesy of attending the swayamvara. It wasn’t as if she was expecting them to participate in it! Just to attend and give her some moral support. Was that too much to ask?
Nakhudi and Bejoo were standing at opposite ends of the dais, watching the assembled suitors with grim, forbidding eyes. The Vajra captain had volunteered to share Nakhudi’s duty for the event, just before Sita and her bodyguard had parted from the rest of the company at the gates of Mithila this morning. Sita had hoped Rama would say something about her swayamvara, or at least promise to call on her in her apartments. After all, she knew the rajkumars and the seer were here to meet her father and discuss the imminent asura invasion.
She had been so consumed by thoughts of that approaching storm and their adventures these past two days that it had been very hard for her to say goodbye to them and return to her role as princess. This was the kind of thing she had always dreaded about marriage. Although Arya law and social custom dictated that men and women had equal status, it was a well-known fact that unless checked, men invariably tended to treat their women, be they wives, daughters or sisters, as wards to be protected and watched over at all times. Sita found it humiliating to have men think she was in need of their protection when she could probably knock them flat on their rear ends in a fighting contest. But she wanted Rama and Lakshman here as friends, not brothers-inwaiting. Or as cousins—which was tenuous since they were only vaguely and distantly related through marriage and couldn’t technically be considered to be family.
The past two days had been by far the most exciting and exhilarating of her life. And a large part of that was due to Rama. She had been unsure of him at their first meeting, especially when he had come flying into the clearing in the hills like some kind of vanar-king. Hanuman indeed!
But when they parted this morning at the city gates, she felt as if she had just met and lost the best friend she had ever known. Could that be possible after just a day and a night and a morning? Certainly. She had been attached to Nakhudi from the first instant the hulking Jat had been introduced to her.
And those hours with Rama when he still thought she was a man, that had been an extraordinary experience. She had gone incognito before, and had met and spent time with many Kshatriyas and other castes. But Rama had been different by far. One test she always applied was how men spoke of women when they were in the company of other men - or so they thought. Every last one of them ended up making at least one or two chauvinistic remarks that made her want to throw something at their faces - on one occasion, she had done just that, flinging a leaf-full of fried beans and potatoes, still steaming from the cookfire, straight in the face of one obnoxious oaf! And some were so outright misogynistic that it was all she could do to keep from having at them with her sword.
But Rama really was different.
Not only did he seem to genuinely not see any difference between men and women, he also didn’t regard women as sexual objects. Even Lakshman, in a good-natured, adolescent way, made ribald jokes and observations so natural and normal that Nakhudi herself sniggered at a few. Rama smiled distractedly at them, as if acknowledging that they were clever and had humorous appeal, but he never truly seemed to relish such banter. As if, to him, there were more important matters to talk about.
It wasn’t even that he was totally humourless. She herself had tested that by making him laugh out loud several times. It was that he had such a healthy, open, unprejudiced mind that the concept of attaching himself to one group—the male of the species—and regarding the world from that limited perspective simply didn’t occur to him. He was a free thinker in the truest sense of the word.
And that, she had realised with a lightning burst of insight at one point last night, was why he took orders from the brahmarishi so well. Where other men would need to prove their masculinity, or at least their princely stature, Rama was content to simply do the job at hand and let people perceive him as they would. Totally unselfconcious, even after he knew she was a woman.