Nasteya Page 15

  ‘So these men have finally vowed to serve the Resistance. Having a man like Nasteya on our side might prove valuable,’ Eshana’s father said making me and Nasteya exchange confused looks. I wanted to contradict the old man, but remained quiet as per Eshana’s previous instructions. Eshana further baffled us when she said, ‘Oh yes father, and they have chosen to be on our side.’

  But we had never chosen any side!

  ‘What…’ I had hardly spoken when Eshana butted in and said, ‘Father, may we leave now? I must familiarise them about some of the dos and don’ts.’

  The old man nodded and she pulled us out of the cabin. No sooner did we step out of the cabin, than I asked, ‘What was all that? What made you lie to your father? What are these sides you mentioned? We never chose any side!’

  ‘Let me first tell you that I know what you’ve been doing. I know what you bartered with Rudra.’ That was when we realised that Rudra was the name of the priest-king. She continued, ‘Let me warn you that he’s never going to give you your freedom.’

  ‘And what makes you say that?’ I asked in a sour tone.

  ‘You ask too much, but you know nothing! You don’t know what shadow of a devil Rudra is! You don’t know why this place came into existence! You don’t know what made all of us live here in such conditions—you don’t know how dark Mehrgarh’s days have been ever since Rudra sat on the throne. You don’t even know what trap you’ve put your feet in!’ she said breathlessly.

  After a pause, Nasteya said politely, ‘Then you must tell us everything, about the priest-king as well.’

  ‘The cloak of a priest veils the devil inside him, I must say!’ she exclaimed with all the hatred in her heart and continued, ‘The whips and chains of his despotic rule is what the citizens of Mehrgarh are suffering. They live like slaves each day, driven by fear of death, fear of being fed to a rakshasa.’

  ‘But it’s been two days and I never saw anybody suffer due to Rudra,’ Nasteya said.

  ‘It’s been just two days and two days aren’t enough. And like I said before, what you see up there is merely an illusion that masks the ugly truth,’ she said while we walked across the main bridge.

  ‘What truth?’ I asked.

  ‘Rudra is a devil whose treasures are multiplying due to the hard work of others. He imposes high taxes on everyone, for everything. Even if somebody plays games or if their children do, they have to pay the entertainment tax and if they don’t and get caught in the act, the punishment is death. Such taxes are imposed on every single thing. This is how he’s been sucking the blood of thousands of innocent citizens, for years. If someone tries to stand against Rudra, death is gifted in return. This is how the Resistance came into being. All the men and women who are fed up of Rudra’s torturous kingship come and join the Resistance with a hope of one day declaring war against Rudra and overthrowing. We need many men before we stand a chance of outnumbering Rudra’s army,’ Eshana said.

  ‘Does Rudra know about the Resistance?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes he does, but he doesn’t know where we live. This place is unknown to him,’ she answered.

  All of this truth, if it was the truth, had come so fast that I couldn’t take it all in at once. Moreover, I still didn’t trust her. What if she had cooked up the whole story?

  ‘So you brought us here to compel us to be on your side?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought that I must make you aware of what’s the truth and what potential peril lies ahead of you,’ Eshana said.

  ‘There is no peril. We’re travellers and someday we’ll be off from here after the deal we made with Rudra is over,’ I said.

  ‘Then you’re sadly mistaken,’ Eshana said.

  ‘How are we mistaken?’ Nasteya asked and she looked at us with an expression on her face that I couldn’t bear.

  TWENTY-THREE

  FRIENDS ‘FOR-NEVER’

  ‘Looks may deceive, Nasteya. What do you know about Rudra except that he is Mehrgarh’s emperor? Rudra has made a deal with you just because he saw how adeptly you defeated his men. He knows it is not every day that the bravest warrior in all of Aryavarta, Nasteya, owes him. Your skills are all he wants and when the deal is over, he won’t ever let you go. He is a poisonous snake and he is just preserving his venom until he spits it out after the deal is over. I know him more than any other man or woman,’ Eshana said in a bitter voice.

  This conversation was making me uneasy. I did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. So I had to react.

  ‘Give us one good reason to believe you,’ I asked.

  ‘I do not ask you to believe me. I want to make you choose between what’s right and what’s wrong before it’s too late,’ she answered. ‘Take it as a warning, you do not know what peril is at hand,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. I was panicking when I thought that if things were truly the way she described them, then we were in for some wearisome days in Mehrgarh.

  ‘Come on Nasteya, let’s go,’ I said pulling him by his arm but he didn’t move.

  ‘Do not take me wrong and forgive me for this rudeness but I want you to know that we just need some time to think. We’ll connect soon,’ Nasteya said to her. ‘It’s not as easy as buying fruits from the market. I hope you understand. Just a night is all we need.’

  She nodded. She accompanied us towards the same passage we had entered from and right when we were about to step out, Nasteya said with a grin, ‘Aren’t you afraid that we might disclose the secret of this place to Rudra?’

  ‘If I had feared that, I would have never brought you here in the first place,’ she replied with a smile.

  It was quite dark when we left. We discussed everything that had happened all the way home. Everyone else but Vedang was asleep when we entered the house.

  ‘Finally, met her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes!’ Nasteya replied.

  ‘You look concerned when you should be contented,’ he said, observing us with his sharp eyes.

  ‘Vedang, everything she told us about the Resistance and about Rudra. Is it true?’ Nasteya asked.

  ‘I would think so…’ Vedang answered.

  ‘Then why aren’t you a part of them? Why aren’t others a part of them?’ I asked.

  He was serving us dinner when he said, ‘If you talk about me, my bones have become old and almost all of my strength has withered away. The rest is used in bearing the load of my body. I can’t even kill a rat so being there is useless. Moreover, I’m a pacifist and I have enough to earn my peace. I pay all my taxes and I have saved enough from my youth to spend the rest of my life peacefully.’

  ‘What about the others?’ Nasteya asked.

  ‘The real cost of war is the same everywhere,’ he said, and continued, ‘Some people like you are brave enough to face them while others are scared of losing their loved ones and even their own lives. They just feel that peace should prevail at any cost.’

  ‘What about Rudra? Have we misjudged him?’ Nasteya asked.

  ‘He’s good to you maybe because you serve his needs,’ Vedang said, ‘but a devil remains a devil and after all, a devil is nobody’s friend.’

  ‘Why did you not try to warn us before?’ I asked, exasperated at this slow-talking old man.

  ‘I just thought that it wouldn’t be good to make you spend your days in worry,’ he said.

  ‘I told you she’s not trying to trick us!’ Nasteya said to me, triumphantly.

  ‘I never said she was tricking us. I just said it was none of our business to get involved in this internal war,’ I clarified.

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Nasteya countered in an insistent voice, looking into my eyes. ‘We are supposed to choose a side even if we don’t want to and I prefer to be on the right one. Rudra won’t let us go.’

  ‘Then we yet have a choice—escape,’ I said.

  ‘We can’t! Haven’t we already talked about it?’ Nasteya said.

  ‘You’re scared of the odds that we might get caught
and you don’t want to risk our lives. But isn’t it a bigger risk to become a part of the Resistance?’

  ‘Look, Vasu, it is not just about risking our lives… When we were trained, we were taught that a warrior never breathes for himself. All the possible elements of self-centredness and self-interest were pulled out of our hearts and minds. The utmost duty of a warrior is to give away his today for a better tomorrow for others, help those in need and uproot evil wherever he sees it. He does not fear death but dreads to see a weaker person die of suffering and live the rest of his life in regret that he could have saved that person when he had the chance. We’ve pledged with our blood dripping down the sword’s tip to protect humanity.’

  ‘After what those White Demons did to Saarah you still think there’s some humanity left in this world? What about our very own purpose?’ I said in an incensed tone.

  ‘The purpose will be fulfilled. But I’m not a coward to close my eyes to what’s going on here,’ Nasteya said and I could sense that he was getting angry as well.

  ‘Then why not fulfill our purpose first and then come back later to help the Resistance?’

  ‘Why are you overlooking the fact that there is no guarantee of our getting out of Mehrgarh safe and sound?’ Nasteya hissed in an exasperated tone, wanting to shout but forced to keep his voice low.

  ‘The Resistance will be crushed like an ant; after all, Rudra is an emperor and I’m never going to underrate a person of his status,’ I said. ‘There must be a reason why they couldn’t defeat him up till now.’

  ‘We have Kushya’s sword,’ Nasteya said.

  ‘Oh! Now you have it. Where was it when I suggested we use it to escape?’ I said bitterly.

  ‘The power of the sword is immense and it is supposed to be used when it is needed the most,’ Nasteya said.

  ‘If it is as much needed for an escape then why not use it for that purpose?’ I reacted at once.

  ‘Escape is beneficial just to us. Why are you comparing the lives of a few with the lives of many? You were never this selfish, Vasu, what has gone wrong with you?’ Nasteya said.

  ‘Is it about being selfish or is it the effective influence of that poor little face she faked up to gain all of your empathy?’ And somewhere inside me, I knew that I had crossed a line

  Nasteya’s eyes were cold and flat. His mouth tightened. ‘Choose your words carefully next time,’ he said pointing his finger at me. I didn’t like that at all and was about to tell him so when Savaan woke up, rubbing his eyes, and said, ‘What’s going on? Who’s shouting? Is it morning?’

  ‘Shut up and sleep,’ Nasteya snapped at him.

  ‘But I…’ before Savaan could say something, I snapped at him too, ‘Shut up… go back to sleep.’

  ‘I will, if you continue this drama outside,’ he said, lying down again.

  I rushed outside. After a moment I heard the door open from inside and Nasteya said, ‘Vasu, it is of no use to argue. Right now you’re quite disturbed by whatever happened today. But deep down, we too have hearts, big ones.’

  ‘You may have one but I no longer have a heart that big,’ I said.

  ‘All right then, it is time we choose between what’s right and what’s wrong, between the Resistance and Rudra,’ he said.

  ‘Let me give you a better choice of options. We’re going to choose between Saarah’s revenge and Mehrgarh’s trouble,’ I said stubbornly.

  ‘I can never be selfish,’ Nasteya said in a stern voice. I turned to him and gathered all my might to say something that was immeasurably hard for me. I said, ‘Then with or without you, with or without the aid of Kushya’s sword, I will resume this journey and avenge Saarah’s fall.’ I said turning my back on my best friend.

  He walked inside slamming the door behind him. I kept standing there, icy on the outside and a burning inside me that was a flare of resentment whose smoke curtained my eyes—which was the reason that I almost forgot that the person I had been arguing with was my best friend. But the flare was deep and high and I kept standing there spending the cold, dark night outside and thinking. I was too furious to accept the fact that I was jealous of Eshana for stealing my best friend. Or was I just being stubborn? By dawn, I had made a decision to escape from Mehrgarh, alone.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ABHUVA – NATURE’S MONSTROUS ABBERATION

  Ididn’t know if I was doing the right thing, yet I walked on and each step led me further away from them, away from the rising sun, towards the west. In fact, I was too furious to be logical and to judge what was right and wrong. I walked alone, fuelled by annoyance and exasperation, cussing at stones and logs of wood or anything else that blocked my way. I was upset with Nasteya for not keeping to our purpose and kept blaming him in my mind for getting distracted by that girl. I even accused him of insulting the cause for which we had set off on our journey. But how legitimate were all these allegations? Anger veiled my mind at that time and they say that when a person is angry, even God appears to be a selfish devil. The shadows of evening fell like a curtain. I was still on the outskirts of Mehrgarh, trying to find shelter for the night. On the horizon before me, dark smoke rose in thin curling threads. I walked along a footway when I heard a sound that I recognised. It was that of a horse carriage. As the sound came nearer, I threw myself into a patch of thick bush behind a tree that overshadowed the road. Then I lifted my head and peered cautiously through the thick foliage. Soon, the carriage came into sight.

  The horse’s reins were held by one of Rudra’s guards who was whipping it ruthlessly. I stooped down as it went past me. I heaved a sigh of relief as it passed me by—for some reason, I felt it would be better to not be noticed. And then I saw the rear of the carriage.

  The wooden cubicle was barred from behind and on the other side of those bars; I saw children, a lady and a middle-aged man, all of them badly wounded. Almost unconscious, they hung their arms out through the bars in a desperate last attempt to escape. Their almost lifeless bodies swayed with the sharp turns of the carriage. I crawled to the edge of the road and followed the cart with my eyes until it had dwindled into the distance. Who were those poor souls? And where were they being taken? I had to know! I started to chase the carriage, crouching low and hidden behind the trees to keep myself out of anyone’s sight. Luckily, the carriage slowed down after some time and I managed to draw closer to it, close enough to see the scarred face of a little child of Ayaan’s age who lifted his swollen eyelids up and saw me as well. Blood flowed down from the edge of his eyelid on to the mud-spattered pathway. I felt that he was trying to say something. His lips moved soundlessly and then my hair stood up when I deciphered that he was saying, ‘HELP!’

  I inched closer and saw that all of them were shackled. The carriage had now stopped and so did I. The two soldiers jumped off the cart. I immediately slipped off the path and ran into the deeper shade of the trees. It seemed to be a checkpoint. The guards exchanged a few words and then the carriage took off again. It was hard for me to resist seeing where they were being taken, but it wasn’t possible for me to go straight—I had to take a detour around the checkpoint, following the sound of the carriage. Soon, I was confronted by a wall that extended on my right and left, and I had no option but climbing to the top of it. What I saw on the other side made my heart stop.

  The wall encircled a vast and deep crater which appeared as if it had once been a battleground of the Gods. I watched as a huge gate opened towards the east. It was Rudra’s guards. They were releasing the horse from the carriage and then they simply pushed the cubicle down the crater’s slope. It rumbled down clumsily, the people inside it screaming until it stopped in the middle of the crater. I saw them panicking and shaking the bars of their wooden cage, trying hard to break out. The gate was now closed—even if they had broken out of the cage, there was no escape.

  Soon, trumpets were blown. Fierce and shrill rose the screams of those people and then the trumpets ceased. Suddenly, the screams stopped. My gaze was fixed on the cart.
I saw that the people inside the cart were hugging each other and staring in terror at a large opening on the slope right under me. The guards seemed to have left. The cart was left unattended in the middle of the arena— should I go to them and free them, I wondered. Just as I made a move to go towards the other side of the wall, a loud thud stopped me. Another thud made the ground shake. Loose stones and pebbles rolled down the slope of the crater. Even the carriage trembled. On the road behind me, I heard the departing hooves as Rudra’s men rode away in speed. Then the thuds became louder and the crater trembled with each one. Even the wall I was lying on started to vibrate. I realised that the thuds were coming from inside the cave beneath me.

  In horror, I watched the monster that emerged.

  First came a huge mouth, like that of a lizard. He walked towards the cubicle and its screaming, wailing captives on his six huge limbs. My mouth was dry and my heart thumped in fear. This monstrous aberration of nature was large enough to carry a hundred horses on its back. It crawled slowly towards the wooden carriage, bent down and roared at it so forcefully that the blast tore the wooden cubicle apart. The captives shrank away from the monster, tumbling to the ground and trying desperately to escape their fate. The enraged monster smashed the remains of the wooden cart, splintering it into bits. The captives no longer struggled, just stared in silence as if they had accepted their fate. I watched helplessly. Then the monster picked them up in one of its giant paws and stood upright on two of its limbs. He was almost a hundred feet tall and his tail was so long that its end was still inside the cave, so muscular that its support helped the monster to stand erect. I now saw the monster from the front for the first time—it had three eyes on either side of its face and pointed canines projecting out of its lizard-like jaws. Its shadow spread along and beyond the crater when he stood against the bright moon, his greenish-grey skin cracked and creased… I watched as the beast crammed the victims into his mouth, chewing and drooling horribly, making me nauseous and dizzy. I confess, brave warrior that I was, I was frozen with terror. My clothes were dripping with sweat and I was shivering uncontrollably. I jumped off the wall and hid myself in the bushes until the sounds of the monster’s retreating footsteps diminished into silence. Then I ran away from that place as fast as I could. I sped along the road without bothering if someone could see me. Who were those people? Why were they sent to such a dreadful death? Why were children killed? Why did those guards do this to them? These questions tossed and turned inside my head. ‘Calm down, Vasu, it was nothing but a nightmare, a frightful turn of the imagination,’ I said to myself, but I knew it wasn’t anything like that. I had seen what I had seen. I realised I was making my way back Mehrgarh with trembling legs and shaking hands. The piteous faces of those poor beings haunted me so much that the only one I wanted to be with at that time was Nasteya. By midnight, I had reached home. I hammered at the door and Nasteya responded from inside, ‘Who is it?’ I couldn’t reply and just kept knocking. He opened the door and upon seeing me, he said with relief, ‘Ah! I knew you’d come back,’ but when I kept standing there, motionless, he asked, ‘What happened? You look distressed…’ I walked inside, threw myself on my bed and covered myself with the blanket. I fell into a swoon, not a slumber, and lost consciousness. The feel of a hand on my forehead woke me up in the morning. It was Vedang and he was saying, ‘He’s burning.’