‘More god, less goddess,’ replied Mandhata.
Yuvanashva smiled. ‘A king cannot confuse his subjects. Tell me this or that. Nothing in between.’
Mandhata’s mind raced back to his journey from the hermitage through the streets to the palace. The markets were full of pearly white dhatura flowers. ‘A god,’ he replied.
‘Is that the truth?’
Mandhata shut his eyes, thought for a moment and then replied with absolute clarity, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Today, the moon has started to wane. The moustache of Shiva has been removed by the Pujaris and replaced by the unbound hair of Shakti. Do you still consider Ileshwara to be a god?’ repeated Yuvanashva.
Mandhata was silent for some moments. Then he said, ‘It is not what I consider that matters, father. This is the truth of the temple, expressed in rituals, told to us through flowers in the markets. Today there are dhatura flowers in the market and so a god resides in the temple. So it has been since the days of Ila.’
‘Why do you value the temple’s truth over your own feelings?’
‘How else will there be order father? Everybody perceives the world differently. We have to agree somewhere. The world is full of ambiguities and confounding, even contradicting, details. Vishnu created kings to organize, identify and evaluate things, so that there is clarity in life. In every society therefore, social truths matter over personal truths.’
‘What if Ileshwara wanted to be treated as a goddess today?’ asked Yuvanashva.
‘Only you, the king of Vallabhi, supreme custodian of the temple’s rites, can change the rules,’ replied Mandhata.
‘Should I?’
‘If a good king wants to be great, he must be fair to all: those here, those there and all those in between.’
Yuvanashva laughed. There was hope. Mandhata understood the amorphous nature of the world and the limitations of language and the law. He was proud of his son. He truly had all the hallmarks of becoming a Chakra-varti.
Mandahta remembered the long discussions he had with his teacher on the confining nature of words, how they fail to capture all emotions. Vipula had said, ‘That is why words are not enough. We need grammar to string words into sentences, put everything in context. Sometimes even sentences fail to capture what we are trying to say. Prose is useless when speaking to the beloved. We need poetry.’
Jayanta had interjected then, ‘Words don’t matter, only feelings do.’
‘And how do we communicate feelings without words?’ Mandhata had asked.
In response, Jayanta had smiled and touched his brother, his eyes full of tenderness. Vipula watched Jayanta take his brother by the hand into the garden, and show him blue butterflies hovering over yellow flowers. Beauty of the world. Love between brothers. The affection of a teacher. All experienced without anything being spoken.
But surely the king had not called him to the mahasabha to discuss the conundrums of language or the identity of Ileshwara? ‘Why have you really called me here, father?’ Mandhata asked, unable to contain his curiosity any further. ‘Is it to solve riddles or has it something to do with the princess of Panchala?’ Mandhata knew his father was not pleased by his decision not to go.
He is just like mother, thought Yuvanashva, impatient, wants to come straight to the point. ‘I could order you to go,’ he said looking straight into his son’s eyes.
Lowering his head in deference, Mandhata said, ‘If you order, father, I would obey. Do you want me to go?’
‘Only if you want to be her Gandharva.’
‘She is not fit to be queen of Vallabhi.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Her reputation is tainted. Her father was not quite a man.’
‘Forget reputation for a moment. What about her? Is she fit to be a wife?’ asked Yuvanashva.
‘I have heard she does not shy away from the truth of her father. That makes her strong. She will make a good wife. But will one such as her be allowed to sit beside me when I perform a yagna, as my mother sits beside you when you perform yagna?’
‘If a chief queen is barren, the second queen must sit beside the king.’ Another sentence that had slipped out without prior thought; Yuvanashva was convinced that Yama, or Kama, or Prajapati himself, was controlling his tongue.
‘Yes, I know the rules, father. But my mother is not barren. I am her son,’ replied Mandhata, smiling, suddenly uncomfortable.
‘How do you know?’ asked Yuvanashva.
Mandhata did not like this question. ‘She told me so. Everybody knows that the chief queen, Simantini, is my mother,’ he said, suddenly feeling unsure of what he had said. Mandhata remembered the lullabies his mother sang him. How they comforted him. Then he remembered the lullabies he had overheard his father sing, at night, as he walked in the corridor outside the queen’s courtyard. These were always sweeter. That deep unexplored yearning from the well of childhood dreams sprang up again. A strange feeling rose in the pit of his stomach. What was the real reason his father had called him here, he wondered. Where were the riddles?
Yuvanashva’s heart ached for his son. He saw the confusion in his eyes. The racing thoughts. He knows, Yuvanashva deciphered. Somehow he knows.
Yuvanashva changed the topic, ‘Your teacher says you are brilliant. Your understanding of dharma matches your grandmother’s.’ Mandhata beamed at the compliment. ‘But I will agree with Vipula only if you answer three of my riddles.’
‘I will try my best, father.’
Yuvanashva asked the first question. ‘A magician once beheaded a newly-wed couple. He then put the man’s head on the woman’s body. And the woman’s head on a man’s body. Who is the husband now? Who is the wife?’
‘The one with a man’s body is the husband. The one with a woman’s body is the wife.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘The husband creates life outside his body. The wife creates life inside hers. In time, the woman’s head will accept the man’s body and think like a man. And the man’s head will accept the woman’s body and think like a woman. But at no time will the man’s body behave like a woman or the woman’s body behave like a man.’
‘Very good logic,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘Very good indeed. Now, here is a second one. Two boys. Both orphans. The best of friends. A god’s curse makes one of them a woman. Now the two of them want to marry. Live as husband and wife. But the ancestors of the boy who became a girl object. Who will raft us across the Vaitarni, they ask. How must a king treat the boy who now has a girl’s body, as a man to the satisfaction of his ancestors or as a woman to the satisfaction of his friend?’
‘As a man. To treat him as a woman is to submit to desire. Desire is the greatest threat to dharma. It changes over time and can never be trusted. What does not change over time and what can always be trusted is duty. Our duty, what we are supposed to do, how we are supposed to behave, is fixed at the time of birth. For birth reveals our biology and our lineage, the two cornerstones of dharma.’
‘So, by your definition, Shikhandi is a woman even though later in life he acquired a man’s body.’
‘Yes, I do. If, like the Pandavas, we accepted the truth of the moment, rather than the truth of birth, then nothing will be predictable in society. A man today may have been a woman yesterday. And a woman today may become a man tomorrow. Husbands will never know if there is a wife waiting for him when he returns home. Children will never be sure if yesterday’s father is father even today. The Pandavas may have won the war at Kuru-kshetra by treating Shikhandi as a man. But all the kings of Ila-vrita reject their version of dharma. They believe Bhisma was right. Shikhandi was and remains a woman in their eyes. He should not have entered the battlefield. Shikhandi’s daughter embodies an aberration, a disruption of order. She has therefore been rejected by all the kings of Ila-vrita.’
Yuvanashva raised his eyebrows, ‘Impressive. Just to let you know that your grandmother believes the Pandavas were right.’
‘What?’ said
Mandhata in disbelief.
Yuvanashva was escatic that his son thought like him, not like his mother. ‘Now for the third story. A king accidentally drank a magic potion that was meant to make his wife pregnant. It made him pregnant. The gods delivered the child from his left side. What should the child call the king?’
Yuvanashva’s heart beat fast. ‘Mother,’ said Mandhata.
Yuvanashva smiled. A warmth filled his heart. He wanted to hug his son and kiss him. Make him feel his love.
Mandhata saw the glow on his father’s face. He felt relieved.
But the riddle was not complete. ‘And can the child be king?’ asked Yuvanashva.
‘No, he cannot,’ replied Mandhata. ‘A child follows his father’s footsteps, not his mother’s. The king is the child’s mother. So he cannot pass the crown to his son.’
‘Oh my son,’ Yuvanashva blurted out, his face crumpling, ‘you have just judged yourself. Called me a mother and denied yourself your crown.’
‘What?’ Mandhata did not understand his father’s words.
‘My son. I am the king who accidentally drank the magic potion. You were the child born of my body. You have just declared me your mother and denied yourself the crown. You are as much an aberration as Shikhandi’s daughter whom you have rejected so contemptuously.’ Yuvanashva parted his dhoti and showed him the scar on his inner thigh, ‘This is where Asanga made the incision and drew you out prematurely. You clung to life. My mother said we should kill you. I stopped her. I had given you life. Held you in my body for seven moons. How could I let them take you away?’
‘This is some test, is it not?’ said Mandhata, his head spinning.
‘No Mandhata, this is the truth. I, your father, am actually your mother. My thigh was your womb. You grew up drinking the milk of my body.’ Mandhata felt nauseous. The images that floated before his eyes made him sick. Yuvanashva continued, ‘When you were a child, you called me “ma”. But then they trained you to call me “da”. Simantini became your mother. And I was reduced to be your father.’
Mandhata lowered his head and did not speak. The rumours were true. Those glances of the Kshatriya and Brahmana boys in the hermitage did hide something. And there was truth in those dreams of a man in a green sari putting him to sleep which his mother always dismissed.
The silence weighed heavily. ‘Say something,’ said Yuvanashva softly.
Mandhata lowered his head and spoke softly, ‘Does everyone know? Am I the only one who does not know? The last fool to learn the truth.’
‘It is a palace secret. The three queens know it. Your grandmother knows it. The doctor and your teacher knows this. Now you do too. I am glad it is out. I feel that I have been relieved of a great burden.’
Mandhata kept quiet. His mind was racing. The implications of what he had just learnt made him insecure. Restless. Then he spoke, ‘Let us keep this within the family, father, as it has always been. Why tell the world what it does not want to know? To me you will always be father and Simantini will always be mother. Nothing has changed. Let us leave this room and forget this conversation.’
This was not what Yuvanashva wanted to hear from his son. All his hopes collapsed. ‘No, son. You cannot just forget this conversation. Now that it is out, it is no longer my truth. Now it is your truth too. You cannot run away from it.’
‘I am not running away from it, father. I am giving it its due place. I was raised believing that my father was a king, that my mother was his first queen, and that I was his firstborn, his heir. I will not let anything shake this belief.’
‘You yourself said that a man born of a man’s body cannot be king.’
‘That was a riddle. This is my life.’
‘So you change your decision because you are a victim of your own verdict? Would it not be better to change your verdict—say that the child conceived in and delivered from a king’s body has the right to inherit his mother’s crown.’
‘I will say no such thing. To me this conversation has not happened. I am the king’s firstborn. This is the only truth Vallabhi has known. This social truth matters more than personal truths.’
‘To whom, son? Don’t forsake a truth because it is convenient,’ Yuvanashva appealed. He bent forward to touch Mandhata. Mandhata pulled back. ‘I gave birth to you, son. I nursed you on these breasts. I held you in my arms and put you to sleep. This is your truth. Accept it like a man. Accept it like a king.’
‘Why did it take you sixteen years to declare this? Have you had your fill of kingship? You let silence uphold your kingship. Why do you not let it uphold mine?’
‘I submitted to this lie so that none would challenge your right to the throne. I wanted my son, not Pulomi’s, to be king. I did what any good royal mother would do. I secured your inheritance,’ said an anguished Yuvanashva.
Mandhata lowered his head to the floor and then rose to his feet. ‘I think it is time for me to leave.’
Yuvanashva remained seated. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘What?’
‘There is no one here. Just you and me. Will you, just once, just this once, call me “mother”?’ Mandhata stiffened. ‘Just once,’ pleaded Yuvanashva, ‘I so long to hear it.’
‘No,’ said Mandhata. He stormed out of the mahasabha. Out of the palace. Out of Vallabhi. To the banks of the Kalindi. To bathe. To wash away the filth of his father’s words. To be alone.
He returned late at night to the palace. He went straight to Simantini’s chamber. She was sleeping. He slid into bed next to her. Simantini woke up. ‘Where were you?’ she asked making more room for him, covering him with her quilt. ‘I was worried.’ She felt him tremble. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You are my mother, are you not?’
‘Yes, I am. Why do you ask? What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
Nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. The conversation in the maha-sabha had not taken place. He tried hard to forget it. In his dream, he saw the sixty-four Yoginis. They were all laughing.
mandhata’s insecurity
Mandhata woke up with a throbbing headache. He remembered the events of the previous day. The riddles. The truth. ‘You are as much an aberration as Shikhandi’s daughter,’ he had said. Mandhata became nervous.
Jayanta found his elder brother sitting on the edge of the bathing tank throwing pebbles in the water, not noticing the beautiful ripples they created. This is what Mandhata did whenever something bothered him. Jayanta came and sat next to his brother but spoke not a word.
‘Go away,’ said Mandhata.
But Jayanta did not leave. He did not believe in leaving people alone, especially when they were unhappy. ‘What happened?’ he asked genuinely concerned.
‘Father may not want me to be king,’ said Mandhata finally.
Jayanta found that hard to believe. Mandhata was a natural king. Everyone said so: the astrologers, the Acharyas. As children, during games, he always took the role of the leader, giving orders, commanding respect, inspiring everyone to follow him.
‘Guess he will make you king now. I shall be Vallabhi’s Dhritarashtra, bypassed in favour of the younger brother,’ said Mandhata looking at his brother briefly, then turning away.
Jayanta could not help smiling. ‘Not everybody wants to be king, brother. I am no contender to the throne,’ he said, holding his brother’s hand.
‘But father wants it so,’ said Mandhata without looking at Jayanta.
‘Has he said it?’ asked Jayanta.
‘No. But I know so.’
‘So all this brooding is because of your imagination.’
‘He told me how I was born.’
‘Oh,’ said Jayanta. So that’s what it was. The truth was finally out in the open.
‘Did you know about it?’ asked Mandhata.
Jayanta nodded his head. Of course he knew about it. His mother reminded him of it almost everyday. ‘He is not normal. That is why you must be king,’ she would say. And he would re
ply, ‘How can I be king, mother? How can I manage a kingdom when I cannot even manage my bowels? Imagine me sitting on the throne. Just when the priests are about to hand me the golden bow, I will break wind. The mallika flowers will wither. The handmaidens will faint. The priest will choke on his mantras as he refuses to inhale. It will be worse when I lead our army into the battlefield. They will not know if I am blowing the conch-shell trumpet of war or breaking wind. There will be confusion. Enemies will overrun our city. No mother, don’t even consider me to be king.’ Through humour, Jayanta curtailed Pulomi’s ambitions. Kingship did not matter to Jayanta. Love did.
‘I am the last one to know,’ said Mandhata mournfully.
‘That should change nothing. You are still the firstborn. And your understanding of dharma is unmatched.’
‘Apparently it does. I feel so helpless.’
Jayanta saw his brother’s shoulders droop. ‘If it bothers you so much maybe you should seek grandmother’s advice,’ he suggested.
‘Whose?’ asked Mandhata, surprised by Jayanta’s suggestion.
‘Grandmother’s,’ Jayanta repeated. ‘She always knows what must be done.’
‘She wanted to kill me at birth. She would be more than happy that I will not be king, that her son has finally seen sense.’ Mandhata got up and started walking back toward Simantini’s courtyard. Jayanta followed him too.
shilavati’s advice
Every morning Shilavati would get up earlier than everyone else, impatient to see her son, who, despite their differences, always began his day after he had placed his forehead at her feet. But every time Yuvanashva entered her room she would maintain a stony face and feign indifference. Yuvanashva would not respond to her indifference. He would bow and leave without saying a word. So it had been, for sixteen years. Sixteen years of pride and anger and frustration. Sixteen years of silence. Sixteen years of waiting for the other to let go.
After he left, Shilavati would follow a routine—a set of rituals to fill the day and pass the time. Prayers to the sky-gods, then prayers to the earth-goddesses, then prayers to the ancestors represented usually by a lone crow who visited her courtyard to eat rice. Then she would go to her kitchen garden and water the plants and watch the vegetables grow around the image of Lajja-gauri. Then she would go to her stables and feed her horses, her cows, her elephants and her dogs. She would talk to the animals, give them all her advice that was actually meant for her son: the things he did right and the things he could improve upon. They were silent witnesses to her sense of rejection.