Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust (20 page)

That night also I was unable to sleep. First I kept thinking of Mukulika. What a great difference there was between the Mukulika of Ashokavan and the person she was now. That infatuated Mukulika and this one dedicated to service. I must see the sage for whom she is working. Who knows? He maybe omniscient. If I can find out from him about Sharmishtha and Puroo ...

I wondered where could Sharmishtha be? What could Puroo be doing? Would she return to her parents? Where would she go? Or would she, in her disappointment, hurl herself down a precipice clutching Puroo to her breast?

I began to see before my eyes the mangled bodies of Sharmishtha and Puroo. The kites were tearing at them. I closed my eyes to keep out the ghastly scene and yet I saw it. From the mangled bodies seemed to arise flames of fire, dancing weirdly as much as to say, ‘Where is that treacherous lover? Where is that passionate sex-ridden husband? Where is that irresponsible father? Where is that irresponsible drunkard?’

That picture of flames oppressed me all day and even at night. I did not get to sleep till midnight. In the end I took a little more wine than yesterday. I wanted to take even more but I controlled myself with great difficulty.

But restrained in one direction thus, the mind ran amuck in another. I spent all that night thus tormented. I desired to go to Devayani but dared not.

I went to Madhav everyday to enquire after him and returned depressed and dejected.

The royal physician did his best. Madhav’s mother kept a sharp vigil to keep off death hovering round the corner like a snake poised to bite. Mukulika was ever in attendance on him without a moment’s rest. Poor innocent Taraka was sitting at his feet, comforting him and staring at everybody around, like a frightened deer.

On the fifth day, it looked as if Madhav was regaining consciousness. He was groaning. There was a shade of satisfaction in the royal physician’s face. Mukulika was happy and I was heartened. I sat near him at his head. He muttered groaning, ‘Your Majesty, those are the King’s orders.’

That day for the first time, he had spoken a whole sentence. But that seared through my heart like a saw. I knew Madhav’s gentle nature. As he was physically unable to weather the storm, he was also unable to bear my abandoning Sharmishtha.

And I felt nothing in giving up that guileless emblem of love, Sharmishtha, who found bliss in laying her head on my shoulder, who had boundless faith that in my arms even death could be defied.

That night I was reminded again of the two voices. They were scrapping loudly. I woke up with a start and picked up the jar of wine near my bed. It was not a jar. It was the sea. The fire in my heart could only be drowned in that sea.

A week had passed and yet there was no sign of Madhav recovering. But no one had any inkling, not even the royal physician, that he would pass away the next day.

That day, he perspired profusely. There was now hope that the fever would come down. He regained consciousness and asked, ‘Shall I recover?’

The physician said, ‘It will take time but you will definitely get well.’ Madhav asked ‘Where is she?’ I realised that he was referring to Sharmishtha, but his mother thought he wanted to see his betrothed and sent for Madhavi.

‘Your Majesty, I do not want to die yet. Who will look after Taraka if I do? If I die now it would mean that I have betrayed Madhavi and her love. Your Majesty, shall I live? Promise me that you will save me at any cost.’

What he said was not irrelevant. But I thought he was in delirium. For his consolation I gave him my word, ‘I shall save you at any cost.’ That moment the physician looked at me with queer dejection. He took out some medicine from his bag and asked Mukulika to give them to Madhav.

Madhav, uttering broken words in his delirium, was now talking fluently to Madhavi, ‘Have we not agreed that if our first child is a girl, I shall have the privilege of choosing the name and if a boy you will name him. Do you agree? Make up your mind. Otherwise you will quarrel later.’

What could the poor thing say? The music of that ethereal dream of privacy sounded like a terrible nightmare in the face of death.

Mukulika brought the medicine. But he refused to take it. The physician beckoned to Madhavi to give it to him. She took it to his mouth. He clasped her hand tightly and said, ‘We are married, are we not?’ He talked in that strain for two or three hours and suddenly stopped. He was gasping. The physician kept trying one remedy and another. Nothing availed. No one even knew when life left him.

Madhav who had taken his Madhavi’s hand and said, ‘We are married’ earlier in the day was now lying on the funeral pyre. I could not bear to see his lifeless body. Where was that cheering smile of his?

The pyre was lit. Madhav’s body slowly burnt to ashes. I was looking, first with tears in my eyes, then I stood still like a statue.

Life and death. What a cruel game it is! Is man born only to take part in that game? What does he live for? Why does he die?

Death. What a great mystery it is. Children build castles in the sand on the seashore. One sweep of the tide and the castle disappears. Is life any different from such a castle? What is man whom we glorify as the image of God on earth and whose achievements we worship? A tiny leaf on the huge tree of the world.

A tiny leaf which may fall at anytime with one gust of the wind. And I,
Yayati, the King of Hastinapur, who am I? A mere human, a tiny leaf which may fall anytime.

I paid my last homage to Madhav and returned. That night. No, it was not a night but a hissing black cobra setting at me every few minutes. I kept thinking of death. I could not emerge from the whirlpool of thought.

I stood looking out into the darkness with a blank mind for a long time:

In that darkness, I suddenly saw a chariot on the road. The chariot was headed straight towards me But the wheels made no sound, neither did the hooves of the black horses yoked to it. I could distinctly see the horses even in the darkness. I gazed intently at them. I could not believe my eyes. The chariot advanced straight across and over the trees and bushes in the garden, trampling them down and came and stood directly under my window. The charioteer softly said, ‘Are you not coming, Your Majesty?’

I said, ‘The queen is sleeping and so is little Yadu. Without taking their leave ...’

I myself could not hear what I said after that. Before I knew what was happening, the charioteer stretched his hand, reached the window, picked me up as one plucks a flower off a plant and put me in his chariot.

The chariot was on the way. We were leaving the marks of Hastinapur behind. The temple, the dance academy, Madhav’s house, the sports stadium where in my youth I had tamed a wild horse.

The chariot was flying like the wind. There was Ashokavan going by.

I could no longer contain myself. When I asked the charioteer, where we going and when we would return, he said he knew naught except only two names. ‘First, Your Majesty’s. And the second my own.’

‘What may that be?’

‘Death!’

What a terrible nightmare it was. I clutched at the window bars with both hands and still felt that I might fall to the ground, shivering with fright.

With difficulty I walked to the bed and sat down. But my heart was palpitating and my legs were trembling. I could not calm myself, even for a moment.

I drank wine, glass after glass. After an hour or so, I felt better. Gradually I dozed off.

But in that disturbed state, I had a terrible dream:

In it, a funeral pyre was burning in front of me. In that blazing fire, one after another, my limbs were being reduced to ashes. Before my eyes, the ears, the lips, the hands and feet were burnt to ashes. As I would never again experience the fragrance of the green
champak
[2]
and the ripe pineapple, I would never enjoy the fragrance of the abundant hair of the beloved.

With these visions, I came to. I sat up in bed. My heart was palpitating as if death was hammering away at it and I was hearing the echo of those blows.

Like the deer running for life with the hunter on its trail, my mind ran amuck. Wine was now its only recourse.

For many years now, I had not taken so much wine. Gradually it made me intoxicated. I was now being put in mind of another kind of intoxication. Mukulika, Alaka, Devayani and Sharmishtha in their desirable forms passed before me, rousing my desire.

I stretched my hands to take Alaka in my arms. But I opened my eyes and looked again and again. I was alone. ‘Alaka, Alaka,’ I shouted.

Someone responded but it was not Alaka. It was Mukulika. I was kissing her. But what is this cold feeling against my lips? Was this something cold against my lips the hand of death?

I opened my eyes again. I was alone. Maybe death was hovering round me — invisible. Maybe this is the last night of my life. Who knows? Let me make the best of it, let me enjoy it to the full. This draining cup of life — once, only once, let it be filled to the brim with the wine of a woman’s beauty. The last cup — this very last cup.

‘Sharmishtha ... Shama ... Shama!’

I got up on shaky legs. I was unsteady, yet I got up, opened the door and strolled out.

The maid outside Devayani’s door was dozing. She was taken aback on seeing me and got up with a start.

She almost ran in. I thought I would wait until she came out. It was only proper that I should go in only after the queen had sent me word. I realised it but the body would brook no delay.

Excessive liquor had made me very unsteady. Even so, I went in. I do not remember what exactly transpired. I was walking as if in a deep fog.

One thing I remember though. I wanted Devayani. But she knew at once that I had taken wine. She lost her temper. She was angry, furious. I also was annoyed, angry. One word led to another. Once, by mistake, I mentioned Sharmishtha. In the end, she made me swear to one thing, by Maharishi Shukra ...

‘I shall never touch you.’

Defeated and unrequited, I came out of her room. I would never see Devayani’s face again. I would spend my days thinking of Sharmishtha.

I took a chariot to Ashokavan. Devayani and Sharmishtha were alternately before my eyes. I wanted both but one had discarded me. And the other? I had sent her away.

Mukulika. Her preceptor, the sage. He was staying in a
serai
[3]
near the dance academy, I remembered. I thought instead of spending a restless night at Ashokavan, I would go and see him. See if he could bring me peace of mind.

Mukulika was startled at seeing me there at an odd hour. Blushing, she took me to the sage.

He looked a great sage. I thought I had seen him somewhere before, but only for a moment. I could not remember where.

I told him of my unhappiness. I begged him to forgive me for having come to his sacred place drunk. He smiled and said, ‘Your Majesty, you have already gone half the way to achieve peace of mind. Life here is beset with much unhappiness. There are only two remedies to counter it on earth’.

I eagerly asked: ‘Which are they?’

‘Wine and women!’

I was stunned. I took courage to ask, ‘Drinking wine is a great sin ...’

The sage intervened. ‘Good and evil are imaginary concepts put out by clever men and fools. In this world, only happiness and misery are real. Everything else is delusion. Good and bad are appearances ... the play of the mind. To my disciples I always give wine as sacrament.’

I wondered if I was dreaming. The sage said, ‘Your Majesty, you seek peace of mind? There are many deities at my command who can bring peace of mind to you. Pray for anyone of your choice.’

He got up and walked away. I followed him like one hypnotised. But all the time I could not help feeling that I was falling off a mountain peak, hurtling down an endless dark precipice, which light had never penetrated.

SHARMISHTHA

I
was returning to Hastinapur after eighteen years. The same way I had fled. In a similar troubled state of mind. Nothing has changed in the last eighteen years. Am I the same Sharmishtha of eighteen years ago? No, this is a different Sharmishtha.

Sharmishtha then was a wife and a lover, even though she was a mother. Today, only the mother in her survives with only one care, ‘Is my Puroo safe?’ She has no thought for anything else.

Sages like Kacha, Yati and Angiras are haunted by the fear of the penance undertaken by Maharishi Shukra. But such fears do not touch her. She is obsessed only with one fear. Where will Puroo be? Will he go to Hastinapur with the victorious Yadu? He looks so much like His Majesty. If Devayani recognises him ...

There are guards with me and Alaka also is there. That golden-haired girl has fallen in love with Puroo though she never shows it. But flowers in bloom, even hidden from the eye, give themselves away by their fragrance. She insisted on coming with me. But when the brave girl loses her nerve at the fall of night and wipes her eyes I am moved. Then I cannot sleep till after midnight. All the memories of the last eighteen years come to life. Right from that terrible night ...

That night, the night Madhav went away. I was all alone in the blinding darkness and pouring rain. Alone? No, my Puroo was with me. But Puroo was dripping wet. What if he got ill ...? I was angry with the elements. This biting wind, this black sky, the lightning, the thunder — why should they have mercy on me?