Shakti: The Feminine Divine (28 page)

‘You did not take innocent lives? That would be funny if it were not positively sickening. What is the criterion for determining innocence or guilt? It seems to me that convenience and bias seem to be the predominant factors, coupled with a pathological horror of all things deviant.

‘Can you tell me honestly that killing Vritra and all the
others—the former for daring to go against traditional beliefs and the latter for having active sex lives, which you yourself purportedly used to have—has made the three worlds a more beautiful place to live in? Has violent conflict helped you achieve your high-flown aims or has it flagrantly flouted the fundamental laws of common decency?’

With every word, Kali’s intensity levels soared and the very air around them was electric with her mounting fury. But Indra would not flinch and the more she pushed him to admit he was wrong, the more firmly he dug in his heels, allowing his temper to rise and meet hers.

‘You can keep asking me your dumb questions on ethics for the rest of time, but my answers will never change,’ Indra said, with obstinate defiance. ‘What would you know about establishing parameters when you choose to exist outside the bounds of polite society? As a pleasure-seeker yourself, naturally your sympathy would be with a rabble-rouser like Vritra and women of loose morals, who, by attempting to assuage the constant demands of their concupiscence, have let themselves wander away into the realms of damnation, from which there is no coming back. You tell me… Can you honestly say that the need of the hour is for wild women such as yourself and your flesh-eating toadies? What would happen if every single female out there chose to emulate you, refusing to bear children and raise them, preferring to sink into a quagmire of selfishness, allowing their creative energies to build within them till they explode?’

‘How do you make yourself swallow so much unadulterated nonsense? Women who opt not to marry and become broodmares do not blow up. There are so many other ways to channelize your natural gifts that don’t involve
the womb, which myopic males such as yourself would know little about. Besides, all I am saying is that men and women should have free will—the choice to do what they wish. Just because you wound up with a wife, who I suspect has made you feel emasculated, is no reason to target the rest of her sex and impose your will on them to feel like a big boy again.’

‘That was a cheap shot! Hitting a man where it hurts the most, especially when he is down! It is not at all what I expected of one possessed of such decorum and delicacy. Having said that, you can heap all the insults you want on me, but I am still not going to agree with you. And I’ll thank you to leave my wife out of this.’

‘Fine by me! But just so you know, my flesh-eating toadies, as you called them, are more your handiwork than mine.’ She noticed with satisfaction that she had got to him. His brows were knitted together in puzzlement as he pondered over her last utterance.

‘They are from the future…’ Kali informed him helpfully, ‘After your notorious witch hunt, the laws formulated by the brotherhood were enforced. The dakinis and sakinis, as they are known, were your average mortal women. They all have colourful histories, but the common thread they share is that each of them was born on earth and driven away from the protective sphere of male influence, as deemed fitting and proper by you and the rest of your ilk, into the inhospitable realms without. All were accused of having their honour sullied for various reasons. Most were thrown out because they were unable to bear children, or because they had given birth only to daughters.

‘A few did not care for the embrace of their husbands and were replaced with younger, lustier models of the so-
called auspicious woman. Some were a little too amorous and branded as adulterous whores because they could not moderate their sexual desires to suit their husbands’.

‘Then there were those widowed before they could pop out sons who would ensure that they had a male to care for them. They were all regarded as inconveniences in the society you built, and it was decided that they ought to join their husbands on the funeral pyre. If they refused to do so, their heads were shaved and they were forced into white saris to prevent unsuspecting males from being trapped into their honey pots. Despite this, it was suspected that their ravenous libidos would make them turn to prostitution, and they were unfit to mingle with their betters, who had clearly defined roles. Too many were raped, but naturally the blame lay at their door. Surely it was their innate harlotry that made them a magnet for those whose wives had failed to satisfy them in bed, or the ones with mothers who had raised their sons improperly!

‘Cast away and on the fringes of civilization, they were subjected to all manner of ill-usage. They had to beg for food, were beaten with sticks, pelted with stones, buried alive, strung up from trees or simply torched. Having departed the world of the living in abject pain and misery, their spirits turned malevolent and haunted those very places, which had caused them so much unhappiness.

‘Those who did not get to enjoy conjugal bliss, the joys of motherhood or the perks of respectability attacked virgin brides or invaded the wombs of expectant mothers, causing miscarriages. They preyed on children, both male and female, because they saw no reason for the little monsters to grow up and abide by the norms of this inhospitable world.

‘I rounded them up to channel their frustrations towards
more constructive purposes. Naturally, they prefer being feared to abhorred. They will serve me until they have worked off all their rage and frustration. Is this the sort of thing you had in mind when you set about creating a new world order that caters exclusively to the male ego, under the false pretence that you were doing it to promote the safety and well-being of the female of the species?’

Indra was chafing by the time Kali concluded her speech, as he had been dying to get a word in from the time she mentioned that her pets were from the future. ‘Was that sorrowful rendition supposed to touch my heart? Perhaps my detractors, who have long maintained that I am a heartless bastard, were right after all, for all your pathos has not had the intended effect. It may be because I have had the misfortune to get acquainted with them that I know they deserved everything they got and more. Feel free to be a bleeding heart, but whores do not deserve happiness. And the part about how you dredged them out from the future was a charming touch, even if it is not convincing in the least.’

Indra stopped when he saw Kali’s expression. He had expected her to be apoplectic with rage, but her customary fierceness was gone. She just looked really sad. It made him far more uncomfortable than her manipulative attempts to tug on his heartstrings.

Hurriedly he resumed talking. ‘Shall we move on from events that are yet to come to pass and discuss the present? Would you do me the courtesy of telling me what happened after you sent your poor little lost souls after me? My family, guru and loyal subjects must be out of their minds with worry.’

‘The city of Amaravathi is in turmoil. The lokapalas searched high and low for you, but their worst fears seem to
have come true and they believe they have lost their king, who was the slayer of the mighty Vritra. Amidst all the confusion and speculation, one theory has risen to prominence. It is believed that since you have killed not one but two Brahmins, Brahma’s curse has come into effect.

‘They say that you are pursued by a demonic fiend whose job it is to make you repent sorely for making a habit of killing the thrice-born. Word is that Indra is too busy running his legs off, trying to stop his unwelcome companion from tearing body and soul apart, to care about wielding the reins of his power. Rumour has it that the fiend has drained you of your vitality and only a fraction of the mighty god of thunder remains. Having decided to offer prayers for your safe return to them, they are currently looking for a replacement. As for that indefatigable wife of yours, she has not given up on your return, but seems a little torn about whether to find you or avenge you!’

Listening to her recital, Indra felt a moment’s relief that he was no longer an active participant in the game of absolute power. But it evaporated when he heard that his subjects were looking for a replacement. Now he had to figure out a way to escape Kali’s clutches and oust the latest claimant to his throne. Exhaustion crept over him and he almost wished Kali would kill him and get it over with, so that he may know a moment’s blessed peace.

But then the thought passed and he said instead, ‘Knowing Sachi as I do, she will do both. If there is anyone who can turn this setback into a roaring triumph, it is she.’

‘I agree that she has always been more than capable of handling those who have earned her displeasure, but Shakti thinks that Sachi will eventually prove to be too much for
herself,’ the dark goddess intoned solemnly, without her customary mockery.

Indra understood. Her words had thrown a shard of light on an uncertain future, and the glimpse he caught had been sufficiently revealing. Death was approaching the imperishable Sachi and he knew that there was little time left for him as well. One way or another, the end was near. Indra realized that he owed her enough to ascertain her fate, even if it proved to be his own undoing. Besides, he was curious to see who had finally got one over his wife, notorious as she was for her adeptness when it came to crushing balls.

In gory anticipation, he raised his eyes to meet Kali’s and just had time to note that she was testing him before he was pulled into those swirling depths. He spun round and round in the blackness as his self-control was stripped away from him. Terror gripped him as he was propelled out of Kali’s deathly domain to a ghastlier place that looked even more suited to be Kali and her ghoulish attendants’ natural habitat.

Indra then saw Sachi, hooded and climbing a steep incline, mindless of the physical discomfort, so intent was she on getting to her destination—a natural cave, propped precariously on the cliff face, hundreds of feet above sea level. She did not even pause when the waves dashed themselves against the rocks below, sending up furious sprays that defied the laws of physics to soak her, a clear warning that she retrace her steps if she wanted to survive. Chewed-up carcasses of all manner of creatures—birds, animals, humans and even human infants— cropped up all over the place, but still she walked on, looking only at the entrance to the cave where her hope for revenge against the Goddess, who had taken so much from her, awaited.

It was said that a monster haunted the cave. The creature
nourished itself with the flesh of dead bodies teeming with maggots. He ate animal faeces and washed it down with his own urine. It was said that he would pour his seed only into the womb of a menstruating woman, flooding her with it and then drawing it back into himself, charged with the essence of her pulsating life energy. He had grown so powerful that even the wolves gave him a wide berth.

People came from far and wide to leave the dead bodies of their loved ones with him, in great secrecy and at risk to life and limb, compelled by a bizarre impulse that they could explain to no one. Driven by the same inexplicable force, women left everything behind so that they could serve him, lie with him and be consumed in every sense of the word. Many worshipped him as a god and begged him to take them as his disciples, wanting to be free of attachments like him and ascend to a loftier plane of holiness.

The cave was the lair of Rakhtabija, the bloody seed. Following the disappearance of Mahisha, which he had been helpless to prevent as he could hardly begin to comprehend all that had happened, the terrible demon had retreated to this hideout. The worst of it was that he did not know what happened to Mahisha or his mighty army, which had overrun the world. They were all gone; he alone remained, for no apparent reason. The world, as he knew it, had vanished, so he repaired to the wilderness, filled with questions to which there would never be answers.

With Mahisha gone, the demon supposed he ought to have been angry, except that there was no stirring up of dormant passion. While the buffalo demon had been alive, Rakhtabija could always divine his intentions and carry out his orders before they were issued. In the vast desolation of his
solitude, he opened himself up to the primeval elements of nature, guided by an unseen hand whose presence felt familiar. He could have sworn that his charge had not wandered too far from him. Mahisha had been taken by the Goddess but somehow, Rakhtabija knew with his unfailing instinct that Mahisha did not hate her who had finished him off for good. And so Rakhtabija bore no ill-will towards her either. In fact, he felt a certain kinship towards her.

Sachi had found out about him because she had gone looking. Not many knew about the savage cave-dweller, let alone the fact that he was the former trusted aide of the deceased buffalo demon. But Sachi alone had made the connection and successfully tracked him down. Indra was not dead; of that she was certain. But he had been neutralized and was useless to her. It had become a disturbing pattern. Every time he regained his throne, he found a way to lose it, and Sachi felt that it was time to break away from the disruptive cycle that held Indra, and by extension her, captive.

Now that her spouse no longer featured in the scheme of things, it was imperative that she build a more suitable future for herself. But to do that, her past as well as her intolerable present had to be dealt with. She would need an ally and Rakhtabija was the most appealing candidate. The things that had been whispered in her ear about his predilection for defilement should have chilled her blood, yet she had been drawn to him.

After that momentous discovery, the rest of what she needed to do fell into place. She decided to get herself impregnated with Rakhtabija’s potent seed. She would have two sons and their purpose would be to see what her husband had started to the very end. Indra and Dadichi had foolishly
excluded her from their plans, or she would have told them that Vritra was merely a tool. Killing him or the bitches in his service would not deter the potent sorceress whom they all revered as Mahadevi. Her sons would not fail her like her husband had. Together, they would obliterate all traces of the false Goddess, for which invaluable service they would be lauded. She, of course, would be content to bask in their reflected glory, like the good mother and chaste woman she always had been. Placing them on the throne of heaven, she would guide them as they steered the course the three worlds would hitherto take.