Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘What do you want?’ I snapped, and my friends, hearing only a monkey growl addressed seemingly to empty air, stirred uneasily. Saira tugged at Abhay’s sleeve and began to whisper in his ear.

‘What do I want? What do I want?’ Yama gloated. ‘Surely you joke. Surely you felt the pain in your chest, the convulsing of your stomach. You were an old monkey, Sanjay, and even though the bullet was small, it was enough. You’ll notice I came for you myself. I, the very Lord of Death. No minions to be sent for you, an old and honoured adversary.’

‘Already?’

‘Already. You’ve had more than you should’ve already, this return to human consciousness. An accident which I must admit I don’t understand completely myself.’

‘To… to what?’

‘You mean, what next?’ he said, suddenly laughing uproariously, exposing great white teeth. ‘Where on the wheel is the next time around? Is it to be up a ladder or down the slippery back of a past misdeed, suddenly fanged? I don’t know, Sanjay. Karma and dharma, those are mechanical laws sewn into the great fabric of the cosmos, you understand, mysterious in their functioning; there’s no predicting the results of those deadly calculations, each deed producing a little burst of karma to be weighed in those inscrutable balances; who knows, who can understand the subtle ways of dharma? — but you’ve undoubtedly been a bad monkey, Sanjay. Instead of attending to monkey dharma, you’ve haunted the dwellings of humans, begging to be captured, to be reintroduced, in one way or another, to the society of these clumsy but admittedly lovable creatures. In one life you allowed yourself to be captured by a princeling’s hunters, and spent your time happily amusing spoilt young royalty, in another, you allied yourself with a blind holy-man, thus adding to his reputation as a miracle worker and enabling him to carry on a life of debauchery and dissolution. In all your monkey-lives, you’ve ignored your natural relatives and hidden by ventilators and windows, listening to the speech of another species; haven’t you noticed how easily you understood what these friends of yours were saying? Somewhere in your soul all those lives have left a sediment of the knowledge you acquired unknowingly, so now your speech is a curious mélange of living words, dead expressions and buried and forgotten phrases.’

As a rule, I am told by the ancient legends, Yama is shunned by inhabitants of the three worlds. It is hard to make light conversation with one who wears that deadly silver noose at the waist; consequently, when he gets a chance to talk, he tends to run on.

‘A monkey again, at best,’ he finished, frankly gloating (I had cheated him once too often). ‘At worst, who knows? A shrew? A happy crab at the bottom of some turbulent sea? What do you think?’

I saw, then, clearly what lay ahead of me — life after life of scuttling through murky waters filled with danger, aeons of mute desperation divided equally between the twin demons of hunger and fear, and, worst of all, eternities of what I had once wished for: incomprehension, unself-consciousness; with the last of my strength, I rolled out of the bed and onto the floor and quickly dragged myself into the dark recesses underneath it. I lay there panting, watching Yama’s gigantic gold-sandalled feet move closer to the bed to stand firm and immovable as pillars beside it; then, then a slim silver noose — so toy-like, you would think, so harmless — appeared to arc and weave like a living thing, nosing around under the bed, darting, snapping from side to side, seeking me, drawing closer, closer. I shut my eyes: Rama, help me; Vishnu, I seek your refuge; Shiva, Lord, I come to you with lowered head; I felt a swish of air across my cheek as the death-bringer snaked closer; Hanuman, best of monkeys, protector of poets, I am a member of your clan, bound to you by blood, help me; I felt a rough furry swipe across my right cheek, something long and thin — death, death, death. I awaited the beginning of the abstraction, the quick dropping-away from the flesh, but felt another rough furry slap across my left cheek. Rough? The noose is silver and soft, seductive in its silkiness, it comes to you gentle and pleasing like a lover; I opened my eyes.

An aged white monkey sat in front of me, swinging his tail back and forth. I moved my head just in time to avoid another encounter with his tail, and started to speak, but he held his finger to his lips. Reaching out towards the searching noose, he held his index finger out to it. Jumping forward eagerly, it wrapped itself around the skinny digit and tightened, already pulling back; I watched, appalled, and waited for the strange monkey to die. Nothing happened. I saw Yama’s feet move closer to the bed — I could well imagine the puzzlement on his face, for who can resist the silver noose? — and then his heels dug in as he exerted his enormous strength on the cord. The monkey, holding Yama down effortlessly, holding, you understand, the Lord of Death as you or I would hold a child, turned his head back to gaze at me with glittering eyes, and winked at me, laughing, laughing, and it was then that I understood. O Hanuman, you are the best of monkeys, the most loyal of friends, the protector of the weak, the refuge of poets — you are eternal, undying, O Son of the Wind, strongest of the strong. I praise you.

A long time ago, in the second age of the world, when men could speak to animals and the great sages still walked among us, Lord Rama fought a great war against Ravana, the demon king, and Hanuman, Son of the Wind, fought by Rama’s side. Long after the war was won, Rama felt the shadow of Kala sliding across his world, and bid good-bye to the grief-stricken citizens of Ayodhya. Hanuman too came to say good-bye, falling out of the sky like a thunderbolt, and it was then that Rama said to him: ‘As long as men and women tell your story, you will live, indestructible and invincible.’ And so Hanuman still lives on the green slopes of the Himalayas, his strength redoubling every decade as grandmothers while away long summer afternoons by telling children about his exploits, about Hanuman the loyal and the steadfast, this Hanuman who now leapt from beneath the bed, chattering with glee. He ripped the noose from his finger and jumped to the top of the doorway, down onto the desk, up again onto a bookshelf and then somersaulted down to squat on the ground, grinning.

‘Oh,’ said Yama, ‘it’s you.’

‘Me,’ answered Hanuman, and was lost in a fit of laughter. I crawled out to crouch behind him, still afraid of the moving silver circle swinging from Yama’s waist-band.

‘Not a very good jest,’ said Yama primly. ‘Stand aside. It is his time.’

‘Not yet, great prince,’ said Hanuman, lowering his head, suddenly obsequious. ‘Grant him a little more time in this harsh world; he has unfinished business.’

‘Can’t be done. Stand aside.’

‘He is my brother by blood.’

‘Even monkeys are mine, at the last. Move.’

‘He is a poet.’

‘They especially are travellers to my kingdom.’

‘He is a poet who called to me for protection.’

‘A perpetrator of mere doggerel calling to an ancient tree-dweller,’ snorted Yama. ‘Stand aside.’

‘Do you know who I am, Yama?’ hissed Hanuman, rising, and suddenly he towered above the sorrowful god, his red lips pulling back to reveal yellowed teeth, muscles shifting like cables beneath the white fur. ‘I am Hanuman; I live through the voices of men and women and the dreams of children; I defy you. I spit upon your clumsy ironies and your little indignities.’

Hanuman reached out, snarling, and Yama stepped back quickly. They faced each other silently for a moment, and I felt the very air come to a stand-still. Then Yama’s face twisted into a smile.