Roshni knew what Lakshman was talking about.
‘How can anyone blame Dada for our defeat? Dada was just born on that day. We lost to Lanka because they fought better than us.’
‘Lakshman, you don’t have to…’
‘Inauspicious! Cursed! Unholy! Is there any insult that has not been heaped upon him? And yet, he stands strong and steadfast. He doesn’t hate, or even resent, anyone. He could have spent a lifetime being angry with the entire world. But he chooses to live a life of honour. He never lies. Did you know that? He never lies!’ Lakshman was crying now. ‘And yet, he lied once, just for me! I was out riding in the night, despite knowing that it wasn’t allowed. I fell and hurt myself pretty badly. My mother was so angry. But Dada lied to save me. He said I was in the stable with him and that the horse kicked me. My mother instantly believed him, for Dada never lies. In his mind, he tainted his soul, but he did it to save me from my mother’s wrath. And yet, people call him…’
Roshni stepped forward and gently touched Lakshman’s face, wiping away some of his tears.
He continued with fervent vigour, tears streaming down his cheeks, ‘There will come a time when the world will know what a great man he is. Dark clouds cannot hide the sun forever. One day, they will clear and true light will shine through. Everyone will know then, how great my dada is.’
‘I already know that,’ said Roshni, softly.
Manthara stood by the window in her office room, built at the far end of the official wing of her palatial residence. The exquisitely symmetrical garden, along with the estate, was appropriately smaller when compared to the emperor’s; a conscious choice. It was also perched on a hill, though lower than the one on which the royal palace stood. Her residence adequately reflected her social status.
She was a brilliant businesswoman, no doubt, and she was no fool. The anti-mercantile atmosphere of the Sapt Sindhu accorded her a low stature, notwithstanding her wealth. None had the courage to say it to her face, but she knew what she was called: a ‘profiteering lackey of the foreign-demon Raavan’. Truth was, all businessmen had no choice but to trade with Raavan’s Lankan traders as the demon-king held a monopoly over external trade with the Sapt Sindhu. This was not a treaty signed by the Sapt Sindhu traders but their kings. Yet, it was the traders who were reviled for playing by the rules of this agreement. Being the most successful businesswoman, Manthara was the prime recipient of the anti-trader prejudice.
But she had suffered enough abuse in her childhood to inure her from bigotry for many a lifetime. Born into a poor family, she was afflicted with smallpox when young, leaving her pallid face scarred for life. As if that wasn’t enough, she contracted polio at the age of eleven. The symptoms gradually abated but her right foot remained partially paralysed, giving her an odd limp. At age twenty, owing to her awkward gait, she slipped from the balcony at a friend’s house, leaving her back hideously disfigured. She was teased wretchedly when young, and looked at with disdain even today, except that nobody dared to say anything to her face. Her wealth could have easily financed the entire royal expenditure of Kosala, along with a few other kingdoms, without even having to draw on her credit. Needless to say, it brought her immense power and influence.
‘My Lady, what did you want to talk about?’ asked Druhyu, standing deferentially a few feet away from her.
Manthara limped to her desk and sat on the specially designed padded chair. Druhyu stood at the other end of the desk.
She crooked her finger and he immediately shuffled around the desk, going down on his knees as he reached her. They were alone in the office, and no one would have heard a word of what was exchanged between them. The assistants were on the ground floor in the secretarial annexe. But he understood her silences. And, he didn’t dare argue. So he waited.
‘I know all there is to know,’ declared Manthara. ‘My sweet Roshni has unwittingly revealed the character of the princes to me. I’ve thought hard about this and I’ve made up my mind. Bharat will be in charge of diplomatic affairs and Ram will look after the city police.’
Druhyu was surprised. ‘I thought you had begun to like Prince Ram, My Lady.’
Diplomatic affairs were a perfect opportunity for an Ayodhyan prince to build relations with other kingdoms; and thus, build his base for a future strong empire. Although Ayodhya was still the overlord of the Sapt Sindhu confederacy, it was nowhere near as powerful as it had once been. Building relations with other kings would prove to be advantageous.
The role of the city police chief, on the other hand, would not serve as a suitable training ground for a prince. Crime rates were high, law and order was abysmal, and most rich people maintained their own personal security set-up. The poor suffered terribly as a result. Simplistic explanations would not do justice to the complex picture, though. The people were, to a fairly large extent, themselves responsible for the chaotic state of affairs. Guru Vashishta had once remarked that it was possible for the system to maintain order if a small percentage of the people disobeyed the law, but no system could prevent upheaval and disruption if practically all the citizens had no respect for the law. And Ayodhyans broke every law with impunity.
If Bharat managed diplomatic relations well, he would be in a strong position to succeed Dashrath eventually, whereas Ram would be left with a thankless job. If he was tough and managed to control crime, people would resent him for his ruthlessness. If he was kind, crime rates would continue to soar and he would be blamed for it. Even if, by some miracle, he managed to control crime and be popular at the same time, then too it would not prove beneficial for him, for the opinion of the people did not matter in the selection of the next king.
‘Oh, I like Ram,’ said Manthara dismissively. ‘I just like profits more. It’ll be good for business if we back the right horse. This is not about choosing between Ram and Bharat, but Kaushalya and Kaikeyi. And, rest assured, Kaikeyi will win. That is a certainty. Ram may well be capable, but he does not have the ability to take on Kaikeyi.’
‘Yes, My Lady.’
‘Also, don’t forget, the nobility hates Ram. They blame him for the defeat at the Battle of Karachapa. So it would cost us more in bribes to secure a good position for Ram. We won’t have to pay that much to the nobility to get them to accept Bharat as the chief of diplomatic affairs.’
‘Our costs go down as well,’ said Druhyu, smiling.
‘Yes. That too is good for business.’
‘And, I think, Queen Kaikeyi will be grateful.’
‘Which will not hurt us either.’
‘I will take care of it, My Lady. Raj Guru Vashishta is away from Ayodhya, and that will make our task easier. He has been a strong supporter of Prince Ram.’
Druhyu regretted mentioning the raj guru as soon as the words escaped his lips.
‘You still haven’t discovered where Guruji is, have you?’ asked an irritated Manthara. ‘Where has he gone for such a long period? When is he returning? You know nothing!’
‘No, My Lady,’ said Druhyu, keeping his head bowed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sometimes I wonder why I pay you so much.’
Druhyu remained still, afraid of uttering another sound. Manthara dismissed him from her presence with a wave of the hand.
FlyLeaf.ORG
Chapter 11
FlyLeaf.ORG
‘You will make an excellent chief of police,’ said Roshni, her eyes glittering with childlike excitement. ‘Crime will decrease and that will be good for our beleaguered people.’
Roshni sat in the palace garden with a restrained but disappointed Ram, who’d been hoping for a greater responsibility, like the deputy chief of the army. But he wasn’t about to reveal this to her.
‘I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it,’ said Ram. ‘A good chief of police needs the support of the people.’
‘And, you imagine that you don’t have it?’
Ram smiled wanly. ‘Roshni, I know you don’t lie; do you really think the people will support me? Ev
eryone blames me for the defeat at the hands of Lanka. I am tainted by 7,032.’
Roshni leaned forward and spoke earnestly. ‘You have only interacted with the elite, the ones who were “born-right”, people like us. Yes, they do not like you. But there is another Ayodhya, Ram, where people who were “not born-right” exist. There’s no love lost between them and the elite. And remember, they will be sympathetic towards anyone the elite ostracise, even one from the nobility itself. The common folk will like you simply because the elite don’t like you. They might even follow you for the same reason.’
Ram had lived in the bubble of the royal experience. He was intrigued by this possibility.
‘People like us don’t step out into the real world. We don’t know what’s going on out there. I have interacted with the common people and I think I understand them to some extent. The elite have done you a favour by hating you. They have made it possible for you to endear yourself to the common man. I’m sure you can make them listen to you. I know you can bring crime under control in this city; dramatically so. You can do a lot of good. Believe in yourself as much as I believe in you, my brother.’
Within a year the reforms that Ram instituted began to have a visible effect. He tackled the main problem head on: most people were unaware of the laws. Some did not even know the names of the law books, called Smritis. This was because there were too many of them, containing contradictory laws that had accumulated over centuries. The Manu Smriti was well known, but most people were unaware that there were versions of it as well, for instance the BrihadManu Smriti. There were other popular ones too — the Yajnavalkya Smriti, Narad Smriti, Aapastamb Smriti, Atri Smriti, Yam Smriti and Vyas Smriti, to name a few. The police applied sections from the law that they were familiar with, in an ad hoc fashion. The court judges were sometimes aware of other Smritis, depending on the communities they were born into. Confusion was exacerbated when the police would arrest under a law of one Smriti, while the judge would base his judgement on a law from another Smriti. The result was almighty chaos. The guilty would escape by exploiting the loopholes and contradictions among the Smritis. Many innocents, however, languished in prisons due to ignorance, leading to horrific overcrowding.
Ram understood that he had to simplify and unify the law. He studied the Smritis and carefully selected laws that he felt were fair, coherent, simple and relevant to the times. Henceforth, this law code would govern Ayodhya; all the other Smritis would be rendered obsolete. The laws were inscribed on stone tablets and put up at all the temples in Ayodhya; the most important among them being engraved at the end: Ignorance of the law is not a legitimate excuse. Town criers were assigned the task of reading the code aloud every morning. It was only a matter of time before the laws were known to all.
Ram was soon given a respectful title by the common people: Ram, the Law Giver.
His second reform was even more revolutionary. He gave the police force the power to implement the law without any fear or favour. Ram understood a simple fact: policemen desired respect from society. They hadn’t been given the opportunity to earn it earlier. If they unhesitatingly took action against any law-breaker, high and mighty though he may be, they would be feared and respected. Ram himself repeatedly demonstrated that the law applied equally to him.
In an oft-quoted incident, Ram returned to the city after dusk, when the fort gates had been shut. The gatekeeper opened the gates for the prince. Ram upbraided him for breaking the law: the gates were not to be opened for anyone at night time. Ram slept outside the city walls that night and entered the city the next morning. The ordinary people of Ayodhya talked about it for months, though it was studiously ignored by the nobles.
What did get the elite into a tizzy was Ram’s intervention in cases where members of the nobility attempted to browbeat the police when the law caught up with them. They were aghast that they were being brought to book, but soon understood there would be no leniency. Their hatred of Ram increased manifold; they began to call him dictatorial and dangerous. But the people loved him more, this eldest prince of Ayodhya. Crime rates collapsed as criminals were either thrown in jail or speedily executed. Innocents were increasingly spared in a city that steadily became safer. Women began to venture out alone at night. Ram was rightfully credited with this dramatic improvement in their lives.
It would be decades before the name of Ram would transform into a splendid legend. But the journey had begun, for among the common folk, a star was slowly sputtering to life.
‘You are making too many enemies, my son,’ said Kaushalya. ‘You should not be so rigid about enforcing the law.’
Kaushalya had finally summoned Ram to her private chamber, having received too many complaints from nobles. She was worried that, in his zeal, her son was losing the few allies he still had in court.
‘The rule of law cannot be selective, Maa,’ said Ram. ‘The same law has to apply to everyone. If the nobles don’t like it, they should not break the law.’
‘I’m not discussing the law, Ram. If you think that penalising one of General Mrigasya’s key aides will please your father, you’re wrong. He’s completely under Kaikeyi’s spell.’
Mrigasya, the army chief, had become increasingly powerful as Dashrath sank into depression. He was the magnet around whom all those who opposed the powerful Queen Kaikeyi had coalesced. His reputation of fiercely defending his loyalists, even if they committed crimes or were thoroughly incompetent, ensured ferocious allegiance. Kaikeyi intensely disliked him for his wilful disregard of her wishes, which influenced Dashrath’s attitude towards the general.
Recently, Ram had used the law to recover land that one of Mrigasya’s aides had illegally appropriated from poor villagers. Ram had even had the temerity to enforce a penalty on the aide, something nobody had dared to do with the men who surrounded the powerful general.
‘General Mrigasya and Kaikeyi Maa’s politics do not interest me. His aide broke the law. That’s all there is to it.’
‘The nobility will do as they please, Ram.’
‘Not if I can help it!’
‘Ram…’
‘Nobility is about being noble, Maa. It’s about the way of the Arya. It’s not about your birth, but how you conduct yourself. Being a noble is a great responsibility, not a birthright.’
‘Ram, why don’t you understand?! General Mrigasya is our only ally. All the other powerful nobles are in Kaikeyi’s camp. He’s the only one who can stand up to her. We are safe for as long as we have Mrigasya and his coterie on our side.’
‘What does this have to do with the law?’
Kaushalya consciously made an effort to contain her irritation. ‘Do you know how difficult it is for me to build support for you? Everyone blames you for Lanka.’
When her comment was met with a stony silence, Kaushalya turned placatory. ‘I’m not suggesting that it was your fault, my child. But this is the reality. We must be pragmatic. Do you want to be king or not?’
‘I want to be a good king. Or else, believe me, I’d rather not be one.’
Kaushalya closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘Ram, you seem to live in your own theoretical world. You have to learn to be practical. Know that I love you and I’m only trying to help you.’
‘If you love me, Maa, then understand what I’m made of.’ Ram spoke calmly but there was steely determination in his eyes. ‘This is my janmabhoomi, my land of birth. I have to serve it by leaving it better than I found it. I can fulfil my karma as a king, a police chief or even a simple villager.’
‘Ram, you don’t—’
Kaushalya was interrupted by a loud announcement. ‘Her Highness Kaikeyi, queen of Ayodhya!’
Ram immediately got to his feet, as did Kaushalya. He discreetly glanced at his mother, noting the impotent anger in her eyes. Kaikeyi approached her with a smile on her lips, her hands folded in a namaste. ‘Namaste, Didi. Please accept my sincere apologies for disturbing you during your private time with your son.’
‘
That’s quite all right, Kaikeyi,’ remarked Kaushalya with studied affability. ‘I’m sure it’s something important.’
‘Yes, it is, actually,’ said Kaikeyi, turning to Ram. ‘Your father has decided to go on a hunting trip, Ram.’
‘A hunting trip?’ asked a surprised Ram.
Dashrath had not gone big game hunting in Ram’s living memory. His battle injury had precluded even such simple pleasures from the life of the once great hunter.
‘Yes. I would have sent Bharat along with him. I could do with some of my favourite deer meat. But as you know, Bharat is in Branga on a diplomatic mission. I was wondering if I could lay this onerous responsibility on your able shoulders.’
Ram smiled slightly. He knew Kaikeyi wanted him to accompany Dashrath in order to protect him, and not for any choice meats. But Kaikeyi never said anything derogatory about Dashrath in public; and the royal family was ‘public’ for her. Ram folded his hands into a namaste. ‘It will be my honour to serve you, Chhoti Maa.’
Kaikeyi smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Kaushalya looked at Ram quietly, her face inscrutable.
‘What is she doing here?’ asked Dashrath gruffly.
Kaushalya had just been announced by the doorman in Kaikeyi’s wing of the royal palace. Dashrath and Kaikeyi lay in bed. She reached out and tucked Dashrath’s long hair behind his ear. ‘Just finish whatever it is and come back quickly.’
‘You will also have to get up, my love,’ said Dashrath.
Kaikeyi sighed in irritation and rolled off the bed. She quickly picked up her angvastram and placed it across her shoulder, rolling the other end around her right wrist. She walked over to Dashrath and helped him off the bed. She went down on her knees and straightened his dhoti. Finally, she picked up Dashrath’s angvastram and placed it across his shoulder. She then helped him walk into the reception room and bade him wait.
‘Let Her Majesty in,’ ordered Kaikeyi.