Rama laughed, just as the little brahmacharya’s next throw caught him full on the neck, a sitaphal striking him wetly and bursting open to release its milky-white innards across his chest. Lakshman roared with laughter at that, while the young brahmacharya cried out in horror.
‘I’m so sorry, Rajkumar Rama! So sorry!’
Rama smiled encouragingly. ‘It’s okay. Just don’t throw any more sitaphal.’
The boy’s next throw was deadly accurate, the fruit flying straight to Rama’s outstretched hand.
He snatched it out of the air without missing a beat in his steady poling. He caught the rest of the fruit one-handed too, using the other hand to continue poling to keep them in mid-river, away from the rocks on the north side and the silt on the south. Dumma managed to toss him three oranges, two pears, an apple and three small kairees in quick succession before the raft picked up speed.
‘Watch out!’ Rama cried.
Dumma looked ahead just in time to see the fallen tree-trunk barring his way, and with a whoop leaped over the obstacle and landed in a pool of muddy water. His dhoti unwound itself at the impact, leaving him stark naked.
He clutched at his sacred thread as if it could cover his nakedness. The other brahmacharyas running behind him on the firmer earth of the upper bank broke into hysterical laughter at the sight of poor Dumma scrambling for his dhoti while belatedly trying to keep his groin covered with his other hand.
Rama and Lakshman laughed too, and Rama thought he even glimpsed a flicker of a smile pass briefly across Vishwamitra’s face. Dumma cried out in frustration as his dhoti floated out of his reach into the river, and splashed furiously in a futile attempt to grab it. The dhoti dodged his hand and went drifting slowly downstream, racing the raft. He spat out a most unbrahmacharya-like string of curses at the escaping garment, driving his fellow acolytes to another paroxysm of laughter. He realised that the raft was about to turn a bend and waved frantically to Rama, forgetting for a moment to keep his nascent manhood covered.
‘Visit us again on your way back, Lord Rama! I’ll keep more fruit ready for you! Sitaphals!’
Lakshman giggled as the brahmacharya stepped back, lost his footing, and splashed down on his bare bottom in the mud of the bank. The raft went around the bend, and that was their last sight of the little acolyte.
‘That boy,’ Rama said, shaking his head.
He lifted his pole out of the water and looked at the sage. Vishwamitra was standing with his legs apart, at a slight angle to the river, arms crossed across his chest. His eyes were open, yet he seemed to be looking at worlds beyond the one they were in right now. In the growing light of the new day, he made an impressive sight, his statuesque muscled body dappled by the shadows of overhanging boughs. A bird cry distracted him then and he looked across the river again, past Rama.
‘Look,’ Lakshman called. ‘Chini kulang.’
They were passing a marshy pond close by the river. The pond was filled with a number of immaculate white cranes with bright red beaks. They shuffled together, shoulder to shoulder in the water, plucking greedily at tubers and stalks.
‘Burmuch,’ Rama corrected, using the name he had heard his mother call the birds on a journey a long time ago.
‘Same thing,’ Lakshman replied. ‘They’re known as kare kare west of the Indus, tunhi up north, and in Kausalya-maa’s desh, burmuch. But Father and Guru Vashisata always call them chini kulang, because they fly south to our land every year from North Chinn, to escape the harsh winter snows.’
Vishwamitra said: ‘From the frozen tundraland of Siber, to be accurate. Much further north of Chinn. There the Russis name them whitecrane or sibercrane. Mostly they seek out the warmer climes of Marwar and Gujjar, but some grow weary of the long flight and settle here. They will return home to their snowlands in a few days.’
Lakshman raised his hand, cupping his mouth, and emitted a loud piercing bird call. Thousands of red beaks rose in unison, seeking out the source of sound but not a bird took wing.
Rama nodded in admiration at the immobility of the birds.
They have never known danger before; they live fearlessly under Shiva’s protection.
Lakshman grinned, proud of his imitation. ‘How was that, bhai?’
‘Pretty good,’ Rama replied, trying to keep a straight face. ‘Of course, it happened to be a jhilli’s mating call, rather than the chini kulang’s natural cry, but I’m sure they didn’t mind.’
Lakshman’s face fell. ‘A jhilli’s mating call?’
‘Yes. Right now, those snowcranes are probably wondering since when marsh crakes grew so tall and poled rafts downriver.’
‘Go catch long fish with your short beak,’ Lakshman retorted, then glanced at Vishwamitra. The seer seemed absorbed in his contemplation. They poled along in silence for a while.
The current flowed gently, just strong enough to keep them moving at a steady pace. After a while, the river grew much broader, wide enough for the raft to float smoothly along without needing constant correction. They sat then, keeping their poles ready beside them, with not much more to do than watch the countryside scrolling past. To their left the cliff face rolled by relentlessly, a blurring blackish-grey wall scarred by jagged red veins of ore. It blocked the rising sun for the first few yojanas, keeping it from falling directly on them, and the cool wind and moist spray from the river kept them refreshed and alert. To their right, the fruit thickets of Kama’s Grove fell behind after less than an hour, giving way to fertile marshlands, which in turn gave way to a succession of wood-thickets. These were populated by common animals who watched them boldly from the trees or banks without any sign of nervousness.
Rama and Lakshman called out the names of trees, birds and animals as they came into view, arguing over the varied nicknames used for the species in different parts of the continent. When they fell silent, unable to identify a bird or a plant, the seer supplied its name, reeling off a succession of alternatives in a multitude of languages.
After several yojanas, Rama began to realise that they hadn’t spotted a single predatory beast or heard any of the dreaded cries of the notorious forest hunters.
No wonder the herbivores are so numerous and so bold; even their natural predators aren’t around to hunt them. Shiva’s umbrella of protection must extend right up to here.
The sage remained standing the whole time, like a ship’s captain on his vessel’s prow, watching for signs of land.
Or dangerous reefs
. After the rajkumars tired of identifying species he fell silent too, and only the sounds of the river and the wildlife on its banks marked their passing.
As the sun rose and found the centre of the river, the day grew warmer, losing its dawn chill. The water was warmer too, when they trailed their hands in it, and flowed much faster. The sound of the river, the calling of the birds and animals in the woods, and the placid calm of the whole landscape began to lull them.
Finally, the landscape began to change. First to go were the woods, giving way to a strange semi-denuded habitat, neither wholly swamp, nor wholly forest. The trees here seemed malformed rather than destroyed, their trunks stunted, branches and leaves withered, flowers and fruit absent. The ground became marshland, but oddly brownish marshland, with no lichen or moss or reeds. As they rushed along, even these stunted waterlogged half-woods ended, followed by vast open patches where the aborted trunks of dead trees struggled to rise above an unnatural purplish-blackish undergrowth. The stink of these patches was awful, reminding Rama somewhat of the organic stench of fields filled with compost, but much worse. After another few yojanas, even these stench-patches gave way and a new phase began.
The riverbank became stony, jagged black lohit-stone boulders lining either side, some looming so high they obscured any view of the forest beyond.
The forest itself was dense, dark, impenetrable, the direct opposite of the benign profusion and fragrant calm of Kama’s Grove. The trees were enormously tall, their twisted, writhing shapes lunging out at one another like snarling beasts. Deep within their thick undergrowth, the glittering dark eyes of unseen creatures watched them pass, reminding Rama of a rksa he had once seen caught in a trapper’s pit. The great black bear had stared up at him with eyes as dark and fathomless as these hidden creatures.
He was so busy watching the woods that he didn’t see when the cliff ended. One moment it was there to their left, towering above them, capped by the late morning sun, then it was gone, falling rapidly behind. He looked back and glimpsed the fast-disappearing cliff between the clawing limbs. It veered away sharply then vanished from sight, their last link with the normal world.
The river slowed to a seeping sludge-flow, sluggish with thick undergrowth, covered with rotting logs, wormriddled limbs and mossy scum. The surface seethed with swarms of insects. The unnaturally sharp-edged boulders crowded in on either bank, and as the river grew narrower, they seemed to reach out to try and snag the travellers on the raft, looming above them like sullen elephants. The cries of predatory animals grew louder and more profuse around them: roars, howls, screams, maddened shouts and bestial yells. Angry screeches were countered by plaintive sounds of pain or fury; it was hard to tell which.
Somewhere, a lone wolf howled mournfully, and was drowned out by a pack of completely different beasts, threatening savagely rather than answering his solitary plea. A terrified animal screamed and thrashed around in a futile attempt at escape, its cries fading to a desolate whimper as its hunter caught up with it and ripped it apart with liquid shredding noises. There were stranger cries too, unknown species calling out questioningly to one another, as if communicating or seeking out their fellows.
The sky had vanished almost completely, glimpsed only in slices and sections viewed through the panoply of clawing limbs. They were enveloped in a twilight that was not quite night-dark; here and there, greenish-yellowish patches glowed faintly on the ground and on the bark of trees.
The raft ground to a halt with a grating that set their teeth on edge. Rama stopped poling at once, but Lakshman was slightly slower in following suit and the vessel’s momentum carried it a half-yard further. Rama felt the underside scraping over something yielding and fleshy, and a gut-churning stench rose from beneath the lashed logs: the water-swollen corpse of some unidentifiable creature.
Lakshman turned his head and spat several times into the water, clearing his throat hoarsely. Rama resisted the urge to retch. Vishwamitra bent and picked up his staff. Rama noticed for the first time that the seer had wound a succession of coloured threads around the top of the staff, at the place where it was gripped: they were red ochre, parrot green and lemon yellow, wound tightly enough to form a knob. The colours seemed to glow faintly in the gloom of the forest as he raised the staff. The forest sounds died down slowly, as if aware of their presence, waiting to see their next move.
In the stillness, the seer spoke softly, using the same calm tone with which he had named birds and trees earlier.
‘Rajkumars, welcome to Bhayanak-van.’
SIXTEEN
‘Rama!’
Dasaratha’s voice was hoarse but the panic in his tone was unmistakable. The maharaja sat up in bed, sweat pouring down his face, hands stretching out desperately as if trying to grasp someone just out of reach. ‘
Rama, be careful! The Bhayanak-van—
’
Kausalya was the first to reach his side, simply because she was closer. Bharat had snapped awake the instant Dasaratha uttered the first cry, but he was reclining in the baithak-sthan across the room and the comfortable nook had lulled him into a fitful doze. He blinked himself awake as he joined Kausalyamaa beside the maharaja’s bedside.
‘Rama!’
Dasaratha’s face contorted in a look of utter futility and despair. He clenched his fists tight and slammed them down weakly on his thighs. His body shuddered and he bent over, weeping.
Kausalya offered a cloth to catch his tears, and was shocked to find them searing hot. The maharaja was still burning with fever.
‘It was just a dream,’ she said, caressing his shoulder, trying to soothe him. ‘Just a bad dream.’
He turned jaundiced eyes on her. ‘A dream?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Bharat sat by Dasaratha’s feet, massaging them gently. ‘Just a fever dream.’
Dasaratha looked down at himself, then at his surroundings, as if becoming aware for the first time of where he was. ‘A dream,’ he repeated dully, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.
A cluster of serving girls appeared in a flurry at the doorway, alerted by the sound of the maharaja’s voice. Kausalya ordered one of them to fetch some freshly squeezed juice and fruits in case the maharaja was able to take some nourishment, and dismissed the rest. The room fell still and silent again, but after a moment or two, Bharat heard the distant sound of cheering from the avenue outside the palace. Word had reached the crowd: the maharaja had regained consciousness.