Amit Chaudhuri - Real Time - Stories and a Reminiscence

After about six days had passed, and she’d gone unnoticed, hiding, frightened, and when she was glimpsed, frightening, behind the bush, she decided to approach him. She had grown tired of hovering there like an animal; even the animals had begun to watch her. Although she’d been taught to believe, since childhood, that rakkhoshes were better — braver, less selfish, more charitable, and better-natured — than human beings and gods, it was true the latter were prettier. They’d been blessed unfairly by creation; no one knew why. Long ago she’d been told that it was bad luck to fall in love with a god or a human being, but the possibility had seemed so remote that she’d never entertained it seriously. The feeling of longing, too, was relatively new for her, although she was in full maturity as a woman; but she was untried and untested, rakkhosh though she was, and un-courted; and this odd condition of restlessness was more solitary and inward, she found, than indigestion, and more painful.

She decided to change herself. She could take other forms at will, albeit temporarily; she decided to become someone else, at least for a while. She went to a clearing where she was sure no one would see her, where the only living things were some insects and a few birds on the trees, and the transformation took place. Now she went to the pond to look at the picture in the water. Her heart, like a girl’s upon glimpsing a bride, beat faster at what she saw; a woman with large eyes and long hair coming down to her waist, her body pliant. She wasn’t sure if this was her, or if the water was reflecting someone else.

Ram and his younger brother Lakshman had gone out into the forest to collect some wood; she saw them from a distance. Her mouth went dry, and she snorted with nervousness; then she recalled how she’d become more beautiful than she’d imagined, and tried to control these noises she inadvertently made. She thought, looking at Ram, “He is not a man; I’m sure he’s a god,” and was filled with longing. When they came nearer her, she lost her shyness and came out into the clearing.

“What’s this?” said Ram softly to his brother, pretending not to have seen her. Lakshman glanced back quickly and whispered, as he bent to pick up his axe:

“I don’t know — but this beautiful ‘maiden’ smells of rakkhoshi; look at the gawky and clumsy way she carries her body, as if it were an ornament she’d recently acquired.”

“Let’s have some fun with her,” whispered Ram. He’d been bored for days in the forest, and this overbearing, obstreperous creature of ethereal beauty, now approaching them with unusually heavy footsteps, promised entertainment.

“Lord…,” she stuttered, “… Lord … forgive me for intruding so shamelessly, but I saw you wandering alone and thought you might have lost your way.” Ram and Lakshman looked at each other; their faces were grave, but a smile glinted in their eyes. They’d noticed she’d ignored Lakshman altogether. It amused and flattered Ram to be on the receiving end of this attention, even if it came from a rakkhoshi who’d changed shape; and it also repelled him vaguely. He experienced, for the first time, the dubious and uncomfortable pleasure of being the object of pursuit. This didn’t bother him unduly, though; he was, like all members of the male sex, slightly vain. Lakshman cleared his throat and said:

“Who are you, maiden? Do you come from these parts?”

“Not far from here,” said the beautiful woman, while the covering on her bosom slipped a little without her noticing it. “Lord,” she said, going up to Ram and touching his arm, “let’s go a little way from here. There’s a place not far away where you can get some rest.” Within the beautiful body, the rakkhoshi’s heart beat fiercely, but with trepidation.

“I don’t mind,” said the godly one slowly. “But what’s a woman like you doing here alone? Aren’t you afraid of thieves?”

“I know no fear, Lord,” she said. “Besides, seeing you, whatever fear I might have had melts away.”

“Before I go with you,” conceded Ram, “I must consult my brother — and tell him what to do when I’ve gone.” Surpanakha said: “Whatever pleases you, Lord,” but thought, “I’ve won him over; I can’t believe it. My prayers are answered.”

Ram went to Lakshman and said: “This creature’s beginning to tire me. Do something.”

“Like what?” said Lakshman. He was sharpening the blade of his knife. Ram admired the back of his hand and said moodily:

“I don’t know. Something she’ll remember for days. Teach her a lesson for being so forward.” Lakshman got up wearily with the knife still in one hand, and Ram said under his breath:

“Don’t kill her, though.”

A little later, a howl was heard. Lakshman came back; there was some blood on the blade. “I cut her nose,” he said. “It”—he gestured towards the knife—“went through her nostril as if it were silk. She immediately changed back into the horrible creature she really is. She’s not worth describing,” he said, as he wiped his blade and Ram chuckled without smiling. “She was in some pain. She flapped her arms and screamed in pain and ran off into the forest like some agitated beast.”

Crying and screaming, Surpanakha circled around the shrubs and trees, dripping blood. The blood was mingled with the snot that came from her weeping, and she wiped these away from her disfigured face without thinking. Even when the pain had subsided a little, the bewilderment remained, that the one she’d worshipped should be so without compassion, so unlike what he looked like. It was from here, in this state, she went looking for Ravan.

SEVERAL MILLENNIA HAD PASSED,and Shiv was still meditating, now and then coming out of his trance to take a few long-drawn-out puffs of ganja, then returning, his eyes red, to the trance again. The tiger skin on his shoulder was dark and hung loosely. From the knots of his hair, which looked as if it hadn’t been washed for centuries, the Ganga poured out, a trickle. The crescent moon, like a cheap trinket you might buy at Kalighat, was also lodged in the matted hair. The forehead was covered with ash that hadn’t been wiped away in a long time; the only thing faintly resplendent was the third eye, which, whenever it opened, shone with more light than the moon.

Meanwhile, worlds ended, began; and the sun rose and set behind him, making the peaks of Kailash dazzle whitely and mutely during the day, casting a pale orange glow upon them at the time of its disappearance. Night came; and then it ebbed away after a few hours, and the sun rose again, slowly.

Vishnu muttered to a friend:

“Well, it’s time he woke up.”

The friend shuddered.

“There’s such a to-do when he does.”

Vishnu said:

“I wish our gods had, now and again, bouts of insomnia, and that their samadhis were a little less deep. Waking them means so much expenditure, that the three worlds are impoverished for years to come, and no living creature, with all the noise, can sleep for days…” He sighed, didn’t quite seem to be himself; then called out: “Kama!”

The god, suspended in air, about to release an arrow from his bow, heard the call. Distracted, abandoning his task, and leaving the couple below silent, he appeared before the Preserver of the Universe.

“You called, Lord,” he said. Vishnu nodded. He said something in his ear; Kama paled.

“N-not that,” he stammered. “I’d be undone!” Vishnu waved a hand casually. “You might be temporarily put out of action, no more,” he said calmingly. “Besides, you can’t die — remember? We need him; he has duties to attend to. All he does is meditate, play his damru a little, and smoke ganja with his cohorts. He’s become most unsociable in the ordinary sense of the word.”