THE CURSE OF BRAHMA (11 page)

‘Come back, my child,’ Brahma spoke with all the warmth that he could muster. ‘You shall be granted all your lost glory…I promise you!’

Lost glory? Lost GLORY
? the voice screamed in silent rage.
You imagine that I want any glory! I want justice. For having my soul damned for eternity into the depths of despair. For becoming what you made me…a demon
! There was a moment of silence, and then the voice was back again.
No, Gurudev! I shall return you the favour you granted me. I shall convert the entire Mrityulok into a wasteland of demons, and then… I shall come for you
…

The voice in Brahma’s head disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Brahma felt exhausted, as if the mere presence of the voice in his head had depleted him of all his vital energy. He willed his mind to dwell on the purifying aspect of the force of Brahman. Among its various powers, the force of Brahman was capable of lending its wielders instant energy and vital force, allowing them to continue for months without food or water or sleep. As soon as he focused on this vital force, Brahma felt his body grow stronger and his mind revitalized with renewed energy source.

He knew what he had to do, and it wasn’t going to be easy. He commanded himself to take all thoughts of compassion for his former student out of his mind. The boy was no longer what he had been. Pain and the desire for revenge had made him evil. Evil had to be destroyed, and there was only one person who could be relied upon for it. He would need to seek out that person.

Vasudev exchanged a quick glance with Devki. Both of them were worried about Kansa. The handsome and affable prince of Madhuvan seemed to have crawled into a shell of his own, and looked nothing like his old self. Kansa had shared the conversation he had had with Ugrasena with Devki and Vasudev. Both of them were taken aback, but more than anything else, they were concerned for Kansa’s emotional well being. He sat there with them as a broken man.

‘Bhaiyya, don’t think this way,’ Devki implored Kansa, calling him by the term she reserved only for her eldest brother. ‘Father loves you…more than he loves any of us.’

Kansa looked through Devki. His eyes were glassy with untold pain. ‘All my life I thought Mother hated me for some reason. But I was content knowing that father loved me more than anything else.’

He paused to look at Devki. ‘Did you know Father, too, wanted me to be killed when I was a just a child?’ His voice broke into a sob as he finally voiced the thought he had been hiding in his mind since the meeting with Ugrasena the previous day.

‘That’s not true, Bhaiyya. Father would never have wanted that,’ Devki said emphatically. She felt Kansa’s pain but even then, she couldn’t bear to hear anything against the king who was her surrogate father.

Kansa smiled sadly at his sister. Her trust in his father—
I can’t even think of him as my father any more
, he thought—was laudable.

‘He did, Devki…he did. I looked into his eyes when I asked him if he too wanted me to be killed in my childhood. He lowered his eyes when he answered. And I knew that he was lying.’

Vasudev looked on helplessly as he saw one of his closest friends battling with his inner demons. But he knew it wasn’t right for him to interfere. Kansa would have to figure this out for himself. The most important thing for a child was to know that his parents loved him unconditionally. It was the chain that bound a child’s mind to its roots. To have found out that he was hated by his own mother and that the man he had looked upon as his father all these years was not his father at all, and had perhaps, even sought to have him killed at some point in his life, could destroy a man’s belief in everything, including himself. Vasudev could understand what Kansa was going through. It didn’t matter that Ugrasena had got over his initial hatred for the child and loved him as his own. The fact remained that he had once thought of killing him. Kansa had to decide for himself which side of the coin he was willing to give more importance to—that his father wanted him killed once upon a time, or that he had loved Kansa more than any of his other children. Vasudev hoped Kansa would give more importance to the latter; but he had no way of knowing what was going on in his friend’s mind.

Devki was persistent, ‘Even if I agree that he wanted to harm you as a child, hasn’t he done enough after that, Bhaiyya? Hasn’t he loved you more than any of us?’

‘He couldn’t look into my eyes Devki….even after all these years, he couldn’t see into my eyes and tell me that he had wanted to kill me back then.’ Kansa’s voice broke as he continued. ‘After all these years, knowing how much Mother hated me, he couldn’t tell me the truth even now!’

‘He could…’ Devki started to say something but was interrupted by Kansa.

‘When Mother died, he still didn’t tell me the truth. You know he didn’t allow me to touch her feet even as she lay on her bed, her praana having left her body forever…I always wondered why he wouldn’t allow me to touch her then…I know now…he thought I would defile her body with my touch just as that Gandharva had done so many years ago.’

Devki’s eyes filled with tears as she felt Kansa’s pain. She hugged him tight, as Kansa’s body shivered with a barely controlled emotional outburst.

‘I love you, Bhaiyya. Vasudev, too, loves you like a brother,’ Devki sobbed, her eyes mirroring Kansa’s inner turmoil and pain. She continued to hold Kansa close to her, till she felt his breathing grow calmer and regular.

‘My friend, you can’t change the past,’ Vasudev said gently, coming close to Kansa and Devki, becoming part of their circle of grief. ‘But you can shape your future. And I will be with you all through.’

Kansa looked at his friend, next to his sister. He saw unadulterated affection on Vasudev’s face. Devki’s expression also showed her deep love for him. He drew strength from them and composed himself.

‘I have only the two of you now. I love Father, but I can never be the same with him again. Being with him brings back too many memories of the past…recollections that I want to forget forever.’

He put one arm around Devki’s shoulders and with his other hand he clasped Vasudev’s arm. ‘The two of you are the only reason I can carry on after what has happened,’ he said quietly.

Suddenly he was reminded of the dream he had had a few days back—Devki’s son stabbing him…Devki stopping Kansa from hurting the child…Devki laughing and thanking the child after he had killed Kansa—and his expression grew hard and grim.

‘If the two of you forsake me too, I won’t be able to handle it…you understand?’ he whispered, his voice a confused mix of pleading and threatening.

Vasudev and Devki nodded mutely, both their expressions reflecting their confusion at what Kansa had just said and the manner in which he had said it. But they put it down to his current state of mind.

‘I will never abandon you, Bhaiyya,’ Devki said, putting her palm against Kansa’s face. ‘Nor shall I, Kansa,’ Vasudev said looking his friend in the eye.

The three people, bound together by destiny, embraced even as the skies thundered with a promise of untold events. Kansa felt a tremour go up his spine as he heard the clap of thunder and the crack of lightning. Only he knew that the thunder would be followed by a raucous laugh. He was not wrong; but this time, it was the sound of an enraged shriek carried on the back of the thunder that raised the hair on the nape of his neck. Kansa trembled involuntarily as he felt the heat of anger in the sound that only he seemed to hear over the past few days.

The Pisaca wriggled his body in excitement. The massive tentacles that served as his head shook of their own accord and were fearful to look at. The bonara and the kalakanja stood to one side, silently awaiting the latest instructions that the Dark Lord had sent through the pisaca. Both were miffed that the Dark Lord had chosen the pisaca to lead the attack on the mortal woman Devki. They were accomplished assassins with several celebrated kills to their credit. The pisaca had been newly inducted into the clan of the Zataka Upanshughataks (the acclaimed hundred assassins) of Pataal Lok. The bonara and kalakanja were taken aback that despite being amongst the most dreaded upanshughataks (assassins), they had been commanded to follow this new entrant to the clan. But they knew better than to go against the wishes of the Dark Lord.

‘The Lord commands that Devki should die tomorrow,’ hissed the pisaca. His voice betrayed the thrill he felt at the prospect of a kill. The tiny orifices that served as his mouth in each of the eight tentacles, dripped with putrid-smelling saliva.

‘He wishes to see her decapitated head as evidence of her death, by end of the day, tomorrow,’ he continued, filled with the importance of the task given to him by the most feared being in Pataal Lok.

The kalakanja shifted his feet uneasily. His intuition told him that this kill was of particular importance to their master. He found it difficult to understand why then, the relatively unknown pisaca was chosen to lead the mission. The other thing that bothered him was the urgency. Any upanshughatak worth his name knew that you had to stalk your prey and wait patiently for the right time to strike. Yet the pisaca said that they had been commanded to do the deed by the end of the next day. What’s the urgency? he wondered.

The bonara felt the same way. But he was made differently. He could hide his feelings far better than any of the other upanshughataks and focus on what had to be done. This was one of the reasons he had survived more contract killings than any of the other members of the Zataka Upanshughatak tribe. He spoke softly to the pisaca. ‘What is the plan?’ he asked. The pisaca turned one of his tentacles towards the bonara, while with another one, kept the kalakanja in his sight. The other six tentacles looked around, scouring the area for any possible eavesdropper.

‘I have observed Devki’s movements over the past few days,’ he said. ‘She never steps out of the palace without her companions, and there are always a few guards close at hand.’

The kalakanja sneered as he interrupted the pisaca. ‘Afraid, are we?’

One of the tentacles of the pisaca turned menacingly towards the kalakanja, but the other seven tentacles restrained the maverick limb. ‘Not afraid!’ he hissed. ‘Just smart!’

‘What’s so smart about this? Can’t we kill a couple of dozen guards and a few female attendants?’ The kalakanja spat out the words.

‘Of course we can,’ the pisaca replied, a little more patiently now, as if he was explaining the basics of an assassination to a five-year-old. ‘But when the three of us kill Devki in front of so many witnesses, there are bound to a be a couple of them who may escape in the middle of the bloodbath. Do you think the Dark Lord would be pleased to show his hand so soon?’

The mention of the Dark Lord subdued the kalakanja to some extent. Seeing him vacillate, the pisaca pressed his point. ‘If anyone sees us and escapes, Ugrasena and everyone else in the kingdom will know that Pataal Lok has sent assassins. This is bound to come to the notice of Shukra. Once he knows of the Zataka Upanshughatak’s involvement, how much time do you think he will take to connect the Dark Lord to us? Whatever the Dark Lord is planning, he was clear on one thing—Shukra should have no whiff of his involvement till the Dark Lord himself reveals it.’

The bonara looked at the pisaca with grudging respect.
The Dark Lord had chosen the right person to lead them in the plot to assassinate Devki
. he thought. ‘Which is why we need to wait for Devki to be alone to kill her? Is that right?’ he said aloud.

The pisaca nodded, glad that at least the bonara was in sync with him.

‘But if Devki never comes out alone, how are we going to kill her without anyone else seeing us do it?’

The pisaca’s body seemed to wriggle again; it seemed that he was laughing but there was no way to be certain, since the eight tentacles representing his face were almost impossible to read. ‘Tomorrow she will be going to the Shiva temple to pray for her brother’s peace of mind. The temple is on the top of a hill, a quarter of a yojana (one yojana being equal to eight miles) away from the main palace compound. If she is accompanied by any attendants, they will wait for her at the base of the hill since only the royal family goes to this particular temple. The soldiers, too, will wait there as the hill is supposed to be a holy zone. No mortal would dare to carry weapons on that hill, as a mark of respect for Lord Shiva.’