The Ramayana (14 page)

 

6. The long night

It was late when he finished looking over the preparations for Rama's coronation. Then Dasaratha came to Kaikeyi's apartment; it was with her that he spent most of his nights. Tonight he came with news that he was sure would fill her with joy, because Dasaratha knew how much Kaikeyi loved Rama.

Usually she would be waiting for him. But tonight the guard said, “The queen is in the krodhagraha.”

It was the first time Kaikeyi had ever entered the chamber of anger. Dasaratha rushed to her. He threw open the door; the darkened room was lit by two oil lamps. He saw his lovely queen askew on the floor. She wore a gown made of coarse cloth; her long hair was loose and disheveled. Her ornaments and flowers lay where they had been flung, glimmering in the lamplight. And she lay with her face in a pool of tears, her kohl smeared across her cheeks. She crooned to herself, tracing patterns in her tears with a finger like a mad woman.

Dasaratha took her hand. “Kaikeyi, what happened? Are you ill?”

She pulled her hand away and gnashed her teeth. She did not speak.

“Who has hurt you, my love? I'll have his head! I cannot bear to see you like this. My life is made of your smiles and you know it. Kaikeyi, please talk to me.”

She lay where she was. Her eyes blazed briefly, when Dasaratha knelt on the floor beside her. “Anything you want from me you can have,” he cried. “Only tell me what it is.”

Now she spoke slowly, and her words were clear and full of a woman's wrath. She never turned her face to him, but said quietly, in a dangerous voice, “No one has hurt me, my lord. But there is something I do want like my very life, and only you can give it to me.”

The king smiled in relief; he would give her anything. “I love you more than I do anyone except Rama. I swear on Rama's life that I will give you whatever you want. Just ask me quickly, and put an end to this torment. Ask, Kaikeyi, ask me now!”

She uncoiled herself from the floor like a cobra. Dasaratha saw madness in her eyes and such evil that he recoiled from her. Like a serpent she spoke to him, in a terrible voice he did not know. “Let Indra and the Devas be my witnesses. Let the Sun and the Moon be my witnesses. You have sworn on your precious Rama's life that you will give me whatever I want.”

She drew a rasping breath and whispered, “Dasaratha, cast your mind back many years to when Indra called you and you went to war against Sambara. Do you remember the night you fell wounded with demons' arrows and I saved your life? That night you said to me that you gave me two boons, whatever I wanted. Do you remember?”

She raised herself and brought her face close to his. Sick to his heart that she was so distraught, Dasaratha nodded. He was anxious for this ordeal to be over. He saw she suffered, and he suffered with her. She paused to stare at him. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Still in her fell new voice, she said, “I said then there was nothing I wanted. But I would remember the boons and avail of them in a time of need. Dasaratha, tonight is the time of my need; tonight I want my two boons.”

With no inkling of what she might ask, the king nodded again. He would honor his word, let her ask him quickly. But she wanted to be sure. “If you break your word to me tonight, I will take my life.”

“I have said you can have whatever you want, Kaikeyi! Have I ever broken my word to you, or to anyone?”

She took a deep breath and said softly, “Listen then, my lord, to what I want. You have prepared Ayodhya for a coronation tomorrow, to crown Rama yuvaraja. The two boons I ask for are that Bharata be crowned in Rama's place, and that Rama be banished to the Dandaka vana for fourteen years.”

He saw the reflection of the oil lamps dancing in her dilated pupils. At first, he did not seem to realize what she had asked. She said, “Dasaratha, your dharma is a legend. Don't break your word to me and disgrace your ancestors and the House of Ikshvaku.”

Then it dawned on him. Dasaratha keeled over where he knelt.

*   *   *

When he regained his senses, he passed his hands over his eyes to see if he was dreaming. Kaikeyi made no move to help him up. She crouched in the lamplight, a beast of darkness, her eyes alight with the mania of her purpose.

The king whispered, “Am I dreaming or have I lost my mind? Is this a memory from another life, which has escaped into this one? What demon has entered my heart and makes me imagine I hear abominations from my Kaikeyi, things she cannot have said?”

He got up and stood bemused, looking down at his wife in disbelief. When he saw how balefully she glared back at him, he knew she meant every word she had said. His legs were weak and could not carry him; he sat down. Then he lay on the floor and merciful unconsciousness took him again.

She rose and stood coldly over him, waiting, her heart set on what she wanted, while the lamps burned down. Dasaratha awoke again, now in more anger than sorrow. He said to her, “You are the cruelest woman in the world. I did not know you at all during the years of love I lavished on you. You are evil, and you are determined to destroy me.

“Serpent, tell me how Rama has wronged you. He treats you as much like his mother as he does Kausalya. Then why do you hate him? Just a month ago, you said to me, ‘Rama is not only your first son, he is mine as well.' What happened to that love? Who poisoned your mind, Kaikeyi, so you now speak of sending your son into the forest for fourteen years?

“Why do you want to snatch my life from me, when not many years are left of it anyway? Perhaps your mind is afflicted with some passing madness tonight. Look Kaikeyi, I fall at your feet: think again of what you ask.”

He laid his head at her feet pale as lilies. She drew away in contempt and said, “For long years you have deceived me with honeyed talk. But tonight I hold you to your sacred word. You come from a line of which it was said of old that the ocean honored the bounds of his shores for the dharma of the Ikshvaku kings. Dasaratha, how will you tell your people that you granted me two boons for saving your life, only to break your word as soon as I asked you to keep it?”

Dasaratha wept like a child. But she raged on, “I know that once Rama is crowned you will go back to Kausalya's arms. But be warned: I will not live through this night if you refuse me what I ask. Here is the poison I will drink and end myself, in despair that my husband was a liar.”

She showed him a darkling vial. Dasaratha mumbled Rama's name over and over to himself, like some mantra.

He cried desperately, “You are not my Kaikeyi. You are a fiend that has possessed my innocent queen. Why else would you want Rama banished? But I tell you, whoever you are, Bharata will not accept the kingdom. He will not stand by and see his brother exiled.”

He moaned like a wounded animal and a sweat of shock shone on his face. “Just this morning, before all the people, I said I would crown Rama yuvaraja. What will I tell them he has done, that I now banish him to the forest instead? What will I tell Kausalya, whom I have neglected for so many years from my love for you? And Sita? What will I say to the flowerlike Sita?

“Monster, you mean to be the ruin of us all; and when we are dead, you can rule Ayodhya with your son. Ah, these are the sins of past lives being visited on me; I have not sinned in this one to deserve such punishment. You speak to me of killing yourself? Listen to me, Demon. The sun may not shine any more; Indra may not moisten the earth with rain, and still the world may continue. But Dasaratha's life will leave his body the moment Rama leaves for the forest.”

Again he fell at her feet. “Relent, Kaikeyi. It isn't you who wants this dreadful fate for us all. Know your own heart and relent, while there is still time.”

But she would not.

All night, Dasaratha hovered between a swoon of insupportable anguish and ravaged waking. He begged her, repeatedly, to relent. Again and again, she replied that she would see Bharata crowned and Rama exiled.

Unhinged, at times Dasaratha called out to the Gods never to let this terrible night end; for only at dawn could Rama be banished. But at others, he begged the sun to rise at once, in mercy, because he could not bear the company of this she-devil. He was tempted to seek out Kausalya and Sumitra to share his burden with them. But he said to himself, “No, tonight I will bear this grief alone. Let those who love me and love Rama sleep in peace for the last time.”

Finally, sobbing Rama's name, the wretched king fell into a long faint. Kaikeyi sat watching him, as a beast watches her prey. The lamps in the room burned out, and the night wore on in darkness.

 

7. At the palace

At crack of dawn, the sutas began to sing outside the door to wake the king. But the sky was overcast and the people of Ayodhya wondered that the morning Rama was to be crowned should be so forbidding. It seemed an evil omen on this auspicious day. Soon a gray drizzle began.

Kaikeyi prodded the king awake that morning of fate. He hoped to wake from his nightmare to find that was all it had been, and last night a dream. But ugly greed in her eye, his queen said to him, “Don't bring shame on yourself, Dasaratha, by breaking your sacred word.”

He groaned; he awoke trembling. His eyes darted around the room now filling with wan light. Dasaratha whispered, “Let Rama be prepared to perform tarpana for me with the water meant for the abhisheka.”

He looked imploringly at Kaikeyi. She wore finery once more; ornaments glittered on her body. She shook him roughly, and cried, “Enough! Day has dawned. Send for Bharata and have him crowned; let Rama leave for the forest.”

Meanwhile, Vasishta and his sishyas arrived in the palace for the coronation. Despite the drizzle, the streets of Ayodhya were filled to bursting. The people sang and chanted Rama's name. Vasishta said to Sumantra, “Go and tell Dasaratha the fire is kindled and the muhurta is near.”

Humming under his breath, Sumantra arrived in Kaikeyi's chambers. He said to Dasaratha, “My lord, everything is ready for Rama's investiture and the people await you.”

Dasaratha turned to face his sarathy. Sumantra was startled to see Dasaratha's eyes were red and swollen. In a voice that had aged years in a night, the king said, “You make my tears flow, Sumantra.”

Kaikeyi turned imperiously to the charioteer. “The king wishes to speak privately to Rama before the coronation. There is nothing to worry about; just that my husband spent a sleepless night. Go and fetch Rama here.”

Pleased to believe her rather than what his eyes saw on his master's face, Sumantra went to fetch Rama. Karkataka, the great Crab, would soon rise on the horizon, and the moon was already in Pushyami. Sumantra hurried on his way. People in the streets, the crowd that eddied around the palace like a muted sea, cried to him:

“Where is the king, why hasn't he come out yet?”

“It is almost time for the coronation.”

“Is he asleep on this great day?”

As he parted their tide with his chariot, Sumantra cried back to them, “Dasaratha wants to see Rama alone before the crowning. But I will tell him of your impatience.”

He was a popular figure, and waving to them, he came to Rama's palace. The tusker Shatrunjaya, beautifully caparisoned, raised his trunk to greet Sumantra within the flower-decked gates. Sumantra smiled to himself at the thought of Rama on the elephant's back, ambling through the ecstatic crowd to be crowned.

Sumantra was shown into Rama's presence. The prince sat in a finely carved chair, wearing white silk. Enchanting Sita sat beside him with a chamara whisk in her hand. Sumantra bowed deeply and said, “Rama, the king summons you to the Queen Kaikeyi's chambers.”

Rama said to Sita, “Mother Kaikeyi wants to bless me. You wait here, Sita, I will return shortly.”

She said nothing, but went with him to the door and watched him leave. Her lips moving soundlessly, she prayed, “Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera: O Lokapalas, watch over my husband on this day of his fortune.”

How the crowd roared his name when Rama came out into the streets. For the first time, the sun broke through from behind the clouds in broad golden shafts. The people allowed the chariot to pass, but slowly. They all wanted to see their prince clearly, and those that could reached out to touch him. The women of Ayodhya, wearing their best clothes and jewelry, sang out his name from their terraces. They threw armfuls of flowers down on the chariot as it made its way to Dasaratha's palace.

At last Sumantra cried to the people, “Time is short. We will miss the muhurta if you don't let us through.” They parted like an ocean at a prophet's command. The chariot passed through them and came to the king's palace.

 

8. The boons of Kaikeyi

Lakshmana stood waiting at the lofty palace doors. Rama linked arms with his brother and they hurried along to Kaikeyi's apartment. The princes were announced. Eager as he was to prostrate himself before his father and have his blessing, Rama checked himself when he sensed the tension in that silent chamber. He gasped when he saw Dasaratha's face. Kaikeyi stood beside him like an evil spirit. Her lips were set in a thin line and her eyes shone insanely.

Rama went forward, fell at his father's feet, and clasped them; then at Kaikeyi's, but she moved away. The king sat where he was, slumped in a chair. He spoke no word of blessing, nor did he stir. His eyes remained shut, as if he did not want to see the world any more. But he spoke his son's name in a broken voice, and tears escaped his eyelids clamped together in some great pain.

Rama was confused. He said to Kaikeyi, “Have I done something to annoy my father? Or is he unwell? Is there bad news of Bharata and Shatrughna? I should not ask this, but have you quarreled?”

He heard her speak in a strange, distant voice, which was scarcely her own. “You haven't annoyed him, nor is there bad news from your brothers. Your father has something to tell you, but the words don't leave his lips. But I will tell you what he dare not say. Once this king granted me two boons for saving his life, whatever I chose. Last night I asked him to keep his word; but he would rather break it now.”