Pregnant King, The (23 page)

‘Finally, we admit the truth,’ said Pulomi, pushing
her way into the corner room. ‘How long were we to continue this charade?’

Asanga covered the lump with a paste of turmeric. Then made an incision lengthwise with a sharp bronze knife. Blood oozed out. The bed was red in no time. He cut the layer of yellow tissue beneath. He dipped his hand in oil and pushed his fingers into the sides of the incision.

The queens watched keenly. Simantini placed the king’s head on her lap. Shilavati held his legs. Pulomi stood next to Asanga ready to offer him assistance. Keshini sat on the bed next to the king fanning him.

The king squirmed. ‘Pour some more of the potion in his mouth. He must sleep. If he awakens he will scream. The pain will be unbearable,’ said Asanga without looking up. He was negotiating his fingers around the ball of flesh located between the king’s skin and muscle. When he finally succeeded, he pulled it out. It was soft and wet and covered with slime. ‘There is an umbilical cord. Pull it, Keshini,’ he said.

Shilavati raised her eyebrows. The doctor had addressed the queen by her name. Such familiarity. Then her attention returned to her son. He was still. His feet were cold. ‘His limbs are limp.’

Keshini pulled out the cord. A small lotus-like placenta slipped out of the incision followed by a gush of dark red blood. ‘Quickly, hold this,’ said Asanga, handing the ball of flesh to Simantini. Simantini looked at it. It
was a tiny ball of flesh. It moved. Her hands trembled. She screamed. ‘Don’t drop it. It’s alive,’ shouted Asanga. Simantini froze. Pulomi dropped the bronze knife Asanga had handed her. Keshini dropped the placenta. They all looked at what was in Simantini’s hands.

Asanga ignored the queens. Blood was pouring from the incision. With the help of Shilavati he raised the king’s thigh and tied reams of medicated cloth round it like a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, bring the edges of the wound together and facilitate healing. He then put a layer of medicinal paste over the inner thigh.

He looked at what was in Simantini’s hands. It was no parasite. It was a baby. A boy. With tiny hands and tiny feet and tiny eyes. And tiny lips. It started to cry.

Like a horde of wild trumpeting elephants the rain clouds rushed in above Vallabhi. There was thunder. Lightning. A downpour. The children ran screaming down the streets. Men and women extended their arms to feel the rain.

But in the corner room of the palace, the king lay asleep, naked, spreadeagled on a blood-stained bed. His wives were staring at the little baby in their arms. Small enough to fit in a single palm. Crying softly. Like a cat purring.

‘The king consumed the potion six months ago. But that thing is fully formed,’ said Asanga.

‘It’s a baby boy. Don’t call it a thing,’ said Simantini.

‘I apologize, Devi,’ said Asanga.

Shilavati stepped out of the room and returned a few minutes later with a pot of milk. Keshini said, ‘Mother, the child cannot drink from a pot.’

‘That is not for the baby to drink,’ said Asanga. His face was grim. He knew what it was for. He wanted
to protest. But he was too shaken to speak.

‘Bring that thing here,’ ordered Shilavati.

Simantini did not like her mother-in-law’s tone of voice. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t ask questions. Bring it here.’

‘No. Not until you tell me,’ said Simantini.

Shilavati was not used to being questioned. She looked up and stared. Simantini shivered. Pulomi understood what was happening. She had seen this in her father’s palace, after her father’s favourite concubine gave birth to a baby boy. ‘The queen plans to drown the newborn in milk.’

Keshini let out a cry. Simantini drew back and held the baby close to her bosom. Outside, in the garden, hundreds of crows started cawing. Protesting.

The baby kept crying. ‘It’s a baby. For thirteen years the four of us have struggled to have a baby. And now you want to kill it. Have you no heart? What kind of a woman are you?’ asked Simantini.

Shilavati strode towards her, ignoring her words, determined to snatch the baby. It had to be done. Cruel or unjust, it had to be done. What would people say? Her son was pregnant with child. She would be the butt of jokes across Ila-vrita. ‘He could not make any woman pregnant so he got himself pregnant,’ they would say. She would not let them. This had to be done.

‘No, mother,’ said Pulomi, coming between Shilavati and Simantini. ‘You cannot do this. I will not let you. It’s a baby. It’s a life. You cannot do this.’

Keshini rushed and hugged Simantini, and covered the baby. ‘No, no, no, there has been too much death in this palace. Stop, mother. Stop.’

Shilavati stopped. She realized what she was about
to do. A child. Born of a man. A monster. A freak. An aberration. Her grandson, nevertheless.

The king awoke with a smile. He opened his eyes and found Asanga sitting next to him. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘The whole day, almost,’ said Asanga.

Yuvanashva looked outside the window. Water dripped from the leaves of the mango tree. ‘I feel light. Unburdened.’

‘We have removed the lump from your thigh.’

Yuvanashva saw the plasters round his thigh, the green and yellow paste of herbs. ‘I feel strangely content and fulfilled. I feel happy. I feel like crying. I cannot explain it.’ Asanga did not reply. ‘I feel a strange feeling in my heart. A longing, a yearning.’

‘I will tell the queens to join you,’ Asanga got up to call one of the servants.

Yuvanashva stopped him. ‘No, don’t. I cannot explain this. I feel as if my body is incomplete. It is crying out for fulfilment. My heart feels heavy. It beats slowly. As if tapping me to sleep. I feel a fullness in my chest. It is a strange feeling. A sweet suffering.’

Yuvanashva closed his eyes. He went back to sleep. Asanga left the room to check on the newborn.

The child would not stop crying. ‘It needs to suckle on a breast,’ said Simantini.

The three queens looked at each other. They felt useless.

Shilavati had given strict instructions that the child
not be taken to Yuvanashva. ‘It is not right. Keep them apart. They must not bond.’ So the king was taken out of the corner room and moved to his section of the palace. The door of the woman’s quarters was bolted shut. ‘Let motherhood remain with the women,’ said Shilavati.

The child kept crying. ‘Tell the servant to fetch a wet nurse,’ said Simantini. Pregnant women and nursing mothers avoided serving in the palace. They were afraid the unhappy glance of the barren queens would harm their child. So the servants had to go out into the city and look for nursing mothers.

They found six large-breasted women with a litter of children and ample milk in their bosoms. They placed the infant on their breasts. ‘He is so small. Like a baby rat,’ said one of the mothers, her smile full of affection. She touched the baby with her little finger tenderly. ‘His skin is so thin. Even the veins below are visible.’ But the baby refused to suckle. He just kept crying. The queens found it unbearable.

‘He is a prince, all right. Clings to life tenaciously. And rejects the milk of commoners,’ said Simantini softly.

‘What can we do?’ asked Pulomi.

The three queens and their handmaidens and the servants crowded around the little child. The walls leaned forward to hear him cry. The pillars wanted to hug him. The whole palace had been waiting for thirteen years to hear this sound of life.

‘Devi,’ said Shilavati’s maid. ‘The garden is full of wet crows. Hundreds of them. They are still and silent. They all look in the direction of the queen’s quarters. It is eerie. Should I tell the guards to shoo them away?’

‘No, don’t,’ said Shilavati.

The crying got louder and louder.

Yuvanashva woke up with a start. ‘My baby,’ he said.

Asanga, who had dozed off beside him, woke up too. ‘What did you say, Arya?’

‘My baby,’ he said. ‘You did not remove a lump from my thigh. You removed a baby. My baby. My son. I can feel him. Where is he?’

Asanga did not speak a word.

‘Where is the baby?’ demanded Yuvanashva.

Asanga lowered his head. Shilavati had given strict instructions not to say anything on the subject.

‘Where is the baby, Asanga? Tell me.’

Asanga looked at the king. Milk was oozing out of his chest. Yuvanashva followed the direction of Asanga’s eyes. ‘What is this?’ he asked. He wiped his chest with his hand and smelt the fluid. ‘It smells like milk.’ He tasted it. His eyes widened, ‘It is milk. Asanga, what is happening? Why is my body producing milk? It was a baby, was it not, Asanga, in my thigh? I felt it. I knew it. I just did not believe it. Where is it? Show me my child. Is it a boy or a girl?’

‘It’s a boy, Arya,’ Asanga confessed. ‘He is all right. He is safe with your mother and your wives in the women’s quarters.’

The cry reached his ears. ‘He is crying.’ Asanga could hear nothing.

‘I can feel it. I can hear it. Take me to him.’

‘Later, Arya. Your body has lost a lot of blood. You are drained of all energy. Your wound is still sore. Maybe tomorrow morning.’

The crying got louder. ‘No, now. Take me now,’ said Yuvanashva rising from his bed.

Asanga helped him up. Leaning on the doctor the king made his way to the courtyard of his wives.

The door was shut. One could hear the chattering of women inside. And the crying of a baby.

The guard announced the king, ‘The king is here. Open the door.’

The chattering of women stopped. No one replied. The child continued to cry.

The guard repeated, ‘The king is here. Open the door.’

Shilavati spoke from within, ‘Tell the king to go back to his bed. He is not well. The queens will come to him when he is better.’

The guard was about to speak. The king raised his hand and silenced him. ‘I come not for my wives. I come for my child. He is crying.’

After a long pause, Shilavati spoke, ‘There are women here who know what the child wants. They will calm him down. Go away, son. Let the women do what women know best.’

‘Then why is he crying?’ Yuvanashva felt his heart wrench. ‘He is miserable. He needs me. Let me see him. Please let me see him. I must see him.’

‘Go away, son. This is not for men.’

‘No,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘Bring him out. I must see him. I am his mother.’

There was silence. The baby continued to cry. Shilavati saw the look in the eyes of the servants and handmaidens. The shame. With a dismissive laugh she said, ‘He will say anything to see his son. Does he not know that after childbirth a woman is polluted? Fathers must see the child only after the thirteenth day.’

The servants and handmaidens nodded their heads in agreement.

The child kept crying. Shilavati told Simantini, ‘Take him inside. It took you thirteen years to produce this child. It should not take you thirteen years to nurse him.’

Simantini was taken by surprise. She looked at Shilavati. She had been declared mother by her mother-in-law. She lowered her eyes in obedience and started moving away from the door. ‘Please let me see my son,’ Yuvanashva cried from outside the door. ‘Please, please let me see my son. He cries for me.’

‘Don’t listen to him. He is delirious. The doctor’s potion has made him mad. He does not know what he is saying.’ The women started to follow Simantini. They all moved away from the door.

‘Bring him out now,’ Yuvanashva shouted from outside. ‘I, the king of Vallabhi, order you to do so.’

The women stopped in their tracks. They looked at Shilavati, then at the door. The order had been given. The king had spoken. He had to be obeyed.

The door was opened. The three queens stepped out. In Simantini’s hand was the little baby. Yuvanashva wept uncontrollably on seeing him. Simantini placed the child against the king’s chest. Instinctively, the child suckled the king.

‘I want him to be called Mandhata,’ said Yuvanashva. Mandhata meant ‘he who was nursed by me’.

Long ago, before the other two wives came to the palace, Simantini had gone to the shrine of the goddess Bahugami located on the outskirts of Vallabhi. The priestesses of this goddess were men who lived their lives as women. They castrated themselves, offered their genitals to the goddess, wore women’s clothes and adopted women’s mannerisms. It was said that the blessings of Bahugami’s priestesses always came true. They were known to bless childless couples. And so, on Simantini’s request, Yuvanashva had accompanied her to the shrine of Bahugami in the second year of their marriage. On the way to the shrine, the bards who accompanied the royal couple told them the story of the goddess:

‘A handsome prince once rode into Bahugami’s village on a great white horse and asked her father for her hand in marriage. Her father accepted the proposal and the prince took Bahugami to his palace on his horse. There she was welcomed by her husband’s family: her father-in-law, her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, her young brother-in-law and the many servants of the family. They blessed her and gave her many gifts. The wedding ceremony was a grand affair with a hundred priests invited to bless the newly-weds. Then came the
wedding night. Bahugami sat in the bridal chamber dressed in her finest robes. She waited for her husband to open the door and raise her veil and embrace her passionately. She waited and waited but the door did not open. He did not come. The night passed. At daybreak, she opened her window and found her husband in the courtyard below exercising his horse. She found that strange. The following night the same thing happened. She waited and waited. And he did not come. At daybreak she found him in the courtyard riding his horse. Days gave way to months and months to years. Every night she waited for her husband to come to her. He never did. But every morning he could be seen in the courtyard exercising his horse. Her mother- in-law who showered her with love at first slowly turned sour. “When are the children coming?” she asked. Too shy to tell the truth, she replied, “Soon.” But the children would never come. Not until her husband came to her. But he never did. She tried to speak to him. But he refused to speak of it. When she broached the subject, he changed the topic. He laughed and joked and bought her gifts. A gold nose-ring. Silver anklets with bells. A finely woven sari all the way from Kashi. The sister-in-law said, “My brother loves his wife so much and she does not bother to give him a child. The wicked woman.” The princess wept silently. She had no friends in her husband’s house. Whom could she tell the truth? Who would believe her? “Maybe she is barren,” said her mother-in-law. “Maybe we should send her back to her father like we did the first wife. It is time to get our son another wife. A fertile one.” She was asked not to show her face at dawn at the well. “Yours is an inauspicious face,” said the women. When she tried to
play with the children, the mothers took the children away. “The touch of a barren woman can make children sick,” they said. Tired by the taunts, unable to tell the truth, the princess decided to force her husband to come to her. After dinner, she followed her husband to the stables. “Go to your room. I shall come,” he said. “Don’t you believe me?” She did. She went to her room and waited and waited and waited. He did not come. The next evening she once again followed him. Once again he said, “Go to your room. I will come. Don’t you believe me?” “I do,” she replied. But this time she did not go to her room. She hid behind a pillar and watched what he was up to. She saw him mount his horse and ride out of the palace. She decided to follow him. But there was no other horse in the stable. How could she follow her husband? She looked around and found a rooster perched on the wall. “Can you serve as my mount and follow my husband?” “I will,” said the rooster, “but you are too big and I am too small.” The princess said, “If I have been faithful to my husband, your size will increase and you will carry me with ease.” Sure enough, the gods who knew she was chaste and pure heard her prayers. The rooster increased in size and became big enough to carry the princess. He followed the trail of the prince’s great white horse. After a long journey, they came to a clearing in the woods. There stood the horse. Next to the horse she found her husband’s clothes in a pile. The princess looked around. She saw a pond. Its waters shimmered in the moonlight. Next to it was a woman. She was crying. “Why are you crying, sister?” asked the princess. The woman jumped up in surprise. The princess looked at the woman’s face and gasped. This was no
woman. It was her husband dressed in a sari, complete with the sixteen love-charms of a married woman. “What is this?” she cried in disgust, “What are you doing? Why are you dressed as a woman?” The prince tried to run. She ran after him. “Tell me, what is this? Why are you dressed so? Why don’t you come to me at night? Why do you let everyone believe that I have not given you children?” The prince turned away, refusing to speak. “You owe me an explanation,” said the princess. “You ruined my life. Made me a barren woman when I am really a virgin. Tell me or I will tell the world your secret.” “You think the world does not know?” the prince retorted harshly, “You think my father does not know? You think my mother does not know? They know. They all do. They all know that I feel like a woman and that I only pretend to be a man.” “Are you not a man?” asked the princess. The prince shed his clothes. In the moonlight, the princess saw what she had never seen before. Her husband’s naked body. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, long lithe muscular limbs, covered with soft hair. And a manhood that rivalled a bull’s. She wanted to run her hand down his chest. “You are a man,” she said. “Come, make love to me, and all is forgiven.” “I can’t. I can’t,” he said. “My body is that of a man. But my heart is not. I think like a woman. I feel like a woman. That is the way it is. I have tried to change my mind. Spoken to Rishis and Yogis and Siddhas. But none have helped me. They tell me to accept reality. I can’t. I would like to be a man. Be your husband. But this cruel trick of fate prevents me.” The prince began to cry. Ashamed, he crouched like a child. Feeling sorry for him, the princess covered him with the sari. Then she was angry. “If you knew
this, why did you marry me? Why did you marry before me? And your parents planned another marriage after me?” “What can I do?” said the husband. “They do not, they cannot, understand the truth about me. They act out of love and in desperate hope.” “I can understand but I cannot forgive. What right do you have to ruin innocent lives. My life. The life of the woman who was your wife before me. And the life of the woman who would be your wife after me. I curse you. Should anyone like you dupe a woman they will never be able to cross the Vaitarni and enter the land of the dead. They will stay in the land of the living like Pisachas, wandering aimlessly forever like ghosts.” As she cursed her husband, the virgin princess-bride blazed like an inferno. She turned into a goddess. One whose fires remained unquenched. One who could never experience the joy of being a wife or mother. In her hand was a sharp sickle. With it she cut out her husband’s genitals. “You have no need for this,” she said. “You will never dupe women with this. You will serve me dressed as a woman. And only if you do that will you be allowed to cross the Vaitarni when you die.” Bahugami’s husband, dressed like a woman, became her priestess. And she started appearing in the dreams of all the men who were like the prince. She invited them to serve as her priestesses or accept her dreaded curse. Those who became priestesses were given the power to bless and curse. Whatever they said would come true.’

The priestesses of Bahugami blessed Simantini and Yuvanashva. They poured turmeric on the heads of the royal couple. The chief priestess, an old wrinkled man with a nose-ring made of silver, smeared their faces with
vermilion. ‘Will we have a child?’ asked Yuvanashva.

‘You will,’ said the chief priestess, looking at Yuvanashva with piercing eyes.

The other priestesses of Bahugami went into a trance. Waving branches of neem leaves, they kept repeating in shrill rasping voices, ‘He is fertile. Yes, he is fertile. Oh yes, he is fertile. The goddess smiles upon him. He is fertile and he will have a son.’

Simantini remembered the incident. The king did not give it much value but it troubled her greatly. She could not sleep for many nights after that. She did not understand it then. Now it all made sense.

While the palace was busy trying to make sense of Mandhata’s birth, Simantini slipped out and went to the shrine of Bahugami to ask the chief priestess, ‘Is my husband like you?’ The old priestess hugged the queen, made her sit on his lap and comforted her as a mother comforts a child. Simantini wept. ‘Please tell me, is he one of you?’

‘Does your husband desire you?’

‘Yes, he does. Very much.’

‘Does your husband desire his other wives?’

‘Yes, he does. He loves all of us in his own way.’

‘Then he is not one of us. We desire no women. Our flesh is that of a man but our hearts are that of a woman. Your husband’s heart is that of a man but his flesh seems to have turned into a woman’s.’

‘Has there ever been a man such as me?’ Yuvanashva asked Vipula.

Vipula could not answer. He did not want to answer. The whole incident disgusted him. And he was angry. Why was the king’s pregnancy kept a secret from him? ‘Rajan, do we have to talk about it? Let things be as they are. The answers you seek may not be pleasant. Their implications worse.’

But Yuvanashva could not let things be. He needed to know. Asanga understood. He visited the palace regularly, helping the king regain his strength. It was a while before Yuvanashva could walk. Longer still before he could attend court. Asanga told Yuvanashva, ‘Tell the bards to tell you story of Nara and Narayana who churned out a daughter from their thighs.’

The bards were called into the maha-sabha that night to entertain the king. Yuvanashva sat alone on the throne. Unseen by mortal eyes were two ghosts next to the king.

‘Two sages,’ sang the bards, ‘inseparable like the left and right half of a leaf, sat under the Badari tree determined to discover the truth that never changes. They shut their eyes and held back their senses. They did not eat. They did not breathe. They did not feel the termites gnaw into their flesh. Or the creepers grow round their arms. Nothing stimulated them. Nothing stirred them. The fire of life, which makes one react and respond, lay within them unspent. It transformed into the spiritual fire called tapa. Semen was its butter. The golden flames of this inner magical fire churned by these two Tapasvins made them glow scaring the gods because it had the power to invalidate them. Said Indra, king of the Devas, ‘Let us distract them. Make them shed this semen. Let us take away their glow.’ He instructed the lovely Apsaras to enchant the two men.
They rose from the rivers and walked towards the Badari tree. First a dozen. Then another. Rambha. Menaka. Ghrutachi. Their wet bodies gleamed like copper and bronze. Their loose wavy hair teased the eye covering one breast then the other. Each one knew how to seduce a Tapasvin. They had done it before. “We will draw the inner fire out and melt their unfeeling hearts,” they promised Indra. Nara and Narayana overheard this. In response they slapped their thigh. From it came a woman so beautiful that she seduced all the Apsaras and the Devas. “She is Uru-vashi, resident of our thighs. Our daughter. May she live with you, Indra, reminding you that in the realm of changing truths there always exists a greater pleasure. That is why no one is ever content in samsara. We seek moksha, liberation from samsara, a realm where nothing changes. To use your vulgar language, for you understand no other, we are residents of a realm that offers greater pleasure than the momentary orgasm that you seek. Let us be.”’