Bhumika

by Aditya Iyengar

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

What could Sita have been without Rama? Spending her last days in a remote ashram, a tired and greying Sita can’t help but wonder, ‘What if…?’ What if she hadn’t married Rama? What if she hadn’t gone into exile with him? What if she hadn’t been kidnapped by Ravana, and waited patiently for Rama to rescue her, ever the dutiful wife? What if she hadn’t returned with him to Ayodhya, only to be later discarded to ‘preserve his honour’? Until one day Sage Vishwamitra arrives and shows her who she might have been had she not met Rama – Bhumika, a queen who defies convention. Aditya Iyengar’s latest novel is an original tale of two enigmatic women, Sita and Bhumika, secure in their choices but not defined by them. Provocative, layered and moving, this is a narrative that will resonate with generations to come.

Release date: July 25, 2019

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 200

Sample

ACT  1





The minstrel and his troupe arrived unexpectedly.

‘We’re travelling to Ayodhya,’ he said in a voice that boomed through the forest. ‘To sing the praises of our king, Shri Rama!

Guru Valmiki greeted them with a nod. The other members of our ashrama looked curiously at them, dressed in their colourful clothes, carrying all kinds of musical instruments.

‘You may stay here the night,’ said Guruji, ‘and perhaps you can regale us old folk with stories of the world outside.’

‘That we shall, that we shall! We shall sing the story of Shri Rama to you tonight,’ said the minstrel cheerfully, his energy immediately lifting the spirits of some of the older members of our ashrama, who looked at each other excitedly at the prospect of a katha.

I was less enthusiastic. We had entered the ashrama in the forest to escape the world and, in the process, prepare for our ends.

Guru Valmiki came up to me and chuckled. ‘Let’s hear their tale. Since we have the queen of Ayodhya amongst us to separate truth from fiction.’

For a moment, I did not know who he was referring to. But the merry glint in his eyes reminded me of my life before I entered the forest. I gave him a wry smile and rolled my eyes. There was little humour to be found in the forest, and Guruji was determined to extract every bit he could.

Even I had to admit that the idea of the queen of Ayodhya seeing her life story being performed by storytellers was funny.

‘But we will not reveal your identity till the very end,’ he said, giggling.

He went off like an excited child to speak to the other members of the ashrama. Possibly to tell them to hold their tongues in front of the minstrel until the evening.

Sita: queen of Ayodhya; ruler, alongside her husband, of lands that could not be measured, of people who could not be counted, of mountains that could not be crossed, of rivers that never dried, of crops that would never cease to grow, and of praise for which there never seemed to be enough words.

Sita, now an inhabitant of the forest, in this ashrama situated deep in its heart. So deep that even the animals didn’t bother coming here. Visitors were rare. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time we entertained a guest. How a troupe of wandering minstrels got so lost that they bumbled into this part of the forest was a miracle of misdirection.

I imagined the troupe was frightened. In the city, several stories were told of the forest being inhabited by rakshasas that feasted on human flesh and sucked the marrow from your bones while you still lived. It was only after I arrived at the ashrama that I learnt there was little substance to these tales, but they served as a fortress protecting us from the world outside.

The forest itself did little to allay these fears. It was dark with tall trees that hid the sunlight. The leaves of the trees would rustle violently, when shaken by the wind, almost as if warning visitors to go away. The other inhabitants of the forest were not very welcoming either. Wolves howled at the moon, owls hooted at one another, and jungle cats growled angrily, adding to the air of menace.

And in the midst of all of this lay Valmiki’s ashrama.

It was not so much an ashrama – more a small group of huts made of stone, mud, straw and bamboo, arranged in a circle. A low wooden fence around the perimeter acted as a barrier to humans and animals alike, although more in spirit than in reality. A determined robber could probably kill us and make away with everything we possessed, which would not even fill the palm of his hand. A rampaging elephant could destroy the whole ashrama without breaking stride. The huts, like their inhabitants, were old. Some of them were built more than twenty years ago. They needed some patchwork, especially during the monsoons, but held together for the most part.

There were fourteen of us here. All old and physically weak, living out our time. Most of us spent our days in prayer and reflection. Valmiki, as our guru, presided over our ashrama, and ensured there was enough physical activity to prevent us from getting too immersed in ourselves.

The scriptures called this stage of life, when one had enjoyed the pleasures of youth and entered the threshold of old age, vanaprastha. During this phase, it was prescribed that one needed to stop seeking material gain and begin to look for spiritual succour. People would then move to ashramas like Guru Valmiki’s to spend their days contemplating the divine. The ashrama was like a halfway house between the motion of life and the stillness of death. It required its inhabitants to give up their former lives, and embrace a new one with less physical demands but more intellectual and emotional ones. The bustle and variety of the life of a householder was replaced with the calming uniformity of forest life.

For the most part, we were able to adhere to its requirements, but this infusion of colour and music in our lives was a jarring intrusion.

At least to me.

On a regular day, we woke up before dawn and were required to assemble in the centre of the ashrama with our pots and vessels. From there, we all walked together to the nearest stream, filled our pots up and brought them back to the ashrama. Then, two hours of prayer for half of the ashrama residents, while the other half prepared the morning meal using the fruits and vegetables we grew ourselves. In the afternoon, Valmiki would tell us a story or explain a complex shloka, and we debated its interpretation until the evening, after which the roles were reversed and the residents who had prayed in the morning now prepared dinner, and those who had prepared the morning meal prayed. After dinner, we could do what we pleased. For the most part, we all went to our huts and lay down, exhausted from the physical labour.

I went about my duties for the rest of the day, without thinking much about the evening’s performance.



It was dark when the troupe began. The minstrel stood with two accompanists on either side of him. One sat with a flute, while the other sat with a ghatam, a large clay pot that served as his percussion instrument, perched on his lap. A small area had been set apart with stones, acting as his ‘stage’.

‘In Ayodhya, there lived a king – nay, a king of kings!’ began the minstrel, his voice booming through the forest, unsettling a bird from its tree.

‘And he had a queen; a most beauteous, virtuous queen!’

A snigger was heard from behind that stopped the minstrel in his tracks.

‘Only a single pair of lips may work during this performance. So please give yours some rest,’ he said sharply.

We all drew in our breaths. Guru Valmiki had a temper, and an extensive knowledge of curses. He would not tolerate rudeness and could reduce this singer to ashes without so much as a blink of his eyes. What was this man thinking? He was either supremely brave or ignorant.

To everyone’s relief, Guruji chuckled.

‘Sorry, son. Some members of this audience seem to have forgotten their place.’ He turned to me with a big grin.

I looked down, embarrassed. The minstrel was mollified. He did not seem to have seen the exchange between Guruji and me, and resumed his song.

Ramayana, was what he called it. The story of Rama. Rama the Just. Rama the Wise. Rama the Strong. Rama the Ideal Man. Maryada Purushottam.

I had heard the story before. Rama’s story; the story that also was mine. This wasn’t unusual. Many minstrels had been singing the story of our adventures in exile and in Lanka for some time. This one was particularly good at acting, if not very accurate in his retelling. He would puff up his cheeks and square his chest while playing Hanuman. He would twirl his moustache and roar with laughter when he played Ravana. He added more stories to the tale than I remembered being part of. No one told him that the heroine of his story was sitting in front of him, judging his story as he narrated it. It was a joke that would only be enjoyed by the residents of the ashrama.

The story had been oversimplified and pruned to appeal to less perceptive audiences. Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, son of King Dasharatha, married Sita, the princess of Mithila. They were forced to go into exile owing to the scheming by his stepmother Kaikeyi. Over the course of their exile, they experienced many adventures until finally Sita was kidnapped by the demon king Ravana, and taken across the seas to Lanka. Sita did not give up her chastity to Ravana, and Rama came after her with the help of an army of ape warriors, the vanarasena. In the great battle that ensued, Rama slew Ravana and rescued Sita.

‘Sita then proved that her chastity was intact with a trial by fire! Agnipariksha!’ he said, his voice shrill with excitement. ‘Agnipariksha! Only a person who is chaste and pure of heart can walk through fire without being burned. The God of Fire himself would not burn her. This was Sita! Pure and chaste as when she left Rama.’

He became Sita in an instant – he took the poise of a woman, and walked demurely across the stage, even as the ghatam mimicked the crackle of fire and the music from the flute heightened the drama.

Perhaps it was his performance that stung me.

Yes, I had walked through the fire, but not the way he described it. There had been no trace of demureness when I walked. I had simply accepted the situation for what it was, gritted my teeth, and gone ahead with determination, just as I had with many other situations in my life. Sita was no shrinking maiden placing her trust in the God of Fire.

I found myself annoyed with this telling and reminded myself that this was not Rama’s fault, but the storyteller’s, lest I felt more bitter than I already did.

The story did not dwell on what happened later. A convenient ploy of storytellers who find certain details too complex to put within the seamless tapestry a tale must possess. Who really cares about a hero (much less the heroine) after he has slain the monster and returned home?

I had loved Rama and followed him into exile for fourteen. . .