CHAPTER 32

… AND A LOTUS BLOOMS

A beautiful lotus bud rose above the surface of the water, waving gently in the breeze. Fragrance filled its delicate little petals, caught within. All through the long, long night, the scent had tried to find release, some means of escape from its soft and constricting prison, bubbling and writhing in desperation; its ache not assuaged by its fragile constraints, fighting and thudding against the petals. The soft little bud suffered in agony, as the pain increased with each passing hour.

The fragrance fought within the bud even more as the hour of sunrise approached, with a force that was borne of a desperate need.

The pale fingers of dawn touched the darkness of the horizon. The rays of the morning sun meandered through the tall trees in the forest, and touched the bud with all the gentleness of a feather-soft brush.

The bud shivered with pleasure and delight. The petals burst forth, blooming, blooming with a beauty unseen, in the forest. And the fragrance, the lotus’s scent that had been imprisoned all those hours within, spilled into the open. It filled the pond, the banks, swirling through the crevices in the air, enriching the sky and the earth.

Sivakami’s heart too, experienced such a glorious liberation.

Her thoughts and fantasies, worries and fears and surging emotions, that had lain within, fighting and seeking a way out, now burst forth, secure in the thought that Mamallar was a willing audience to her hopes and dreams – like a lake that has broken its banks, tearing through the constraints that held its fury all this while. It was only when the narration reached the part of Mamallar’s first visit to the forest dwelling did the flow and rush of words abate, somewhat.

Mamallar was quick to seize upon this lull in her speech. “Yes, I do remember that particular day very well. When I and the Emperor visited your home for the first time, you were among those divine sculptures of your father – dancing. Ayanar was singing notes, beating a taalam as he sang. He stopped when he saw us … and so did you. Your beautiful, large eyes widened even more as you stared at us. My father waved his hand, saying, “Don’t let the recital stop on our account; please continue.” He insisted on it, and Ayanar began to sing again. You began to dance, once more. When you came to the end of your performance, I applauded like anything! And you looked at me, your face and eyes brimming with delight and joy.” He paused. “There wasn’t a jot of bashfulness in that forthright gaze of yours, I remember …”

“All that you say is true, My lord. I was twelve years old, then – I had no idea about the world outside, or even of life. I forgot – I didn’t know … that you were the sun that lights the heavens so brilliantly, and I, just a humble little dewdrop, shivering at the tip of a blade of grass. My ignorance was bliss – and that is why I could look up at you so fearlessly. I didn’t know that soon, I would be forced to lower my head, not having the strength to gaze at a sun’s radiance …”

“Sivakami, I’m no sun, and you’re certainly not a simple dewdrop, hanging for dear life onto grass. You’re a beautiful lamp that illumines the dark; I’m just a blind insect, fluttering around you, desperate …”

“My lord, it was presumptuous of me to talk about something else, instead of what I began to say. Forgive me. You applauded me when I’d finished dancing. I was so happy I could hardly stand still. Your father turned to you and he said, “Play with Sivakami for a while; I shall come for after I’ve spoken with Ayanar.” You walked up to me. We linked our hands together and skipped away into the forest.

"I took you on a tour of all the places I loved to visit; all the little hideouts and plants and shrubs and trees I’d marked as my own favourite. Then I took you inside and showed you my pet parrots and doves. I began to show you around the stone figurines my father had sculpted. You looked at the various dancing statuettes and you said, “I want to learn dancing too!” and then you tried to strike a pose like one of those figurines. I laughed out loud at your performance. Our fathers smiled at our antics. “The children have grown fast friends,” they commented.

"From that day on, I began to look forward to your visits eagerly. My heart leapt with joy whenever I heard the sound of a chariot’s wheels or horse hooves – I thought you’d come to see me. I met you, I spoke to you, and when I was with you, I experienced the same joy I’d known when I saw the brilliant sun in the sky, the beautiful moon, soft flowers, the chirping birds and fluttering butterflies. I couldn’t speak to the sun and moon and the butterflies … but you, I could speak to. And so, whenever I met you, I would chatter on and on and on, without a pause …”

“Very true, Sivakami. When I met you, during those days, you seemed very much like one of those beautiful, perfectly lifelike figurines your father sculpted – I was delighted with your company. Stone statues couldn’t talk; but you could and did. There was as much sense in your words as any you could find in a bird’s prattle – that was what I thought, then. I couldn’t really understand what you said, but I was prepared to listen to anything you said …”

“Our friendship was like my prattle too – there wasn’t much sense in it. Soon, you left with your father on a long journey … and for three long years, you were absent. Sometimes, I wondered if I’d ever see you again. I wished desperately, that I would. I consoled myself that you would certainly come to see me here, in my forest dwelling. I resolved to myself that I would master every nuance that classical dance had to offer; I would astonish you with my superb performance when you returned. I tried to imagine what you’d look like when you did come back, finally – but everything was very vague, and try as I might, I could never see any form in my mind’s eyes.

And then, one day, you came! And you were a person I’d never imagined you to be …”

“You were changed too, Sivakami! You weren’t the girl I’d left behind all those years ago. You’d changed in appearance – even in character. You didn’t run to meet me with arms outstretched, when you saw me, didn’t pull me into your home with your usual eagerness. You concealed yourself behind a pillar, and peeped out at me shyly. Instead of your laughter ringing in a merry peal, all I received was a bashful smile of welcome.

And oh, Sivakami – those looks and smiles of yours tortured me to death …”

“I couldn’t run out to you and give you the welcome I’d once given … something stopped me. I couldn’t move forward – I simply stood where I was. I wanted to speak … but my tongue wouldn’t obey me either. I chided myself; I asked, “Sivakami, what’s come over you?” And at that exact moment, Appa too, turned towards me. “Sivakami, why do you hide behind the pillar that way? Step up here and make your respects to the Emperor. See, the Pallava prince is here too and oh, how he’s grown!” I came up to you , hesitating all the while and paid my respects. And then the Emperor took a look at me. “Ayanar, Sivakami has grown as well,” he said. “I didn’t know it was her, at first – I thought you’d taken to sculpting gold figurines, along with your stone ones!” I positively cringed with shyness. I stood there for awhile, wondering what to say, and hardly daring to say anything even if I thought of something. Then, I slipped away from the house into the forest. I sat down on the banks of the lotus pond, and wondered what had come over me.

A few moments later, I heard the sound of stealthy footsteps behind me. I didn’t turn to see who was approaching, though. You came up, and closed my eyes. Had you done this three years ago – and you often did – I would scream out your name, push your hands away and look at you, laughing. But now … now, when your hands closed my eyes, my body froze. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. My senses stilled … but my heart shivered and tossed. Thousands and thousands of thoughts and feelings rose and swept away, within me.

“You came closer. You sat down by me, and pulled my hand into yours, like the olden days. I sat still, unable to move an inch. “Sivakami, are you very angry with me?” you asked. I turned to look at you silently. “Very angry, I think,” you smiled. And then you began to talk about your journey, all the places you’d visited, the cities you’d seen … oh, so many things. Things I heard nothing about. I heard nothing at all. All I knew what that you were beside me, and that our hands were linked together. That was all I knew. That was all I understood. And I … I flew up into the heavens, with just that thought. I floated on a sea of bliss. Among the wispy clouds that sped through the skies. So light was I, that I could walk onto the slender lotus leaves that skimmed the surface of the pond. I was consumed by feelings of such intensity that I was pulled into the dark, seething waters, down, down and down where I couldn’t breathe …”

“You made a fool of me, it seems. Here was I, rattling on, and on, firmly entrenched in the belief that you were a willing and wonderful audience to all my tales of travel – but you didn’t listen to a word, did you?”

“Finally, when you took your leave, you said that you’d come back soon. And after that … well, for days after that, my feet hardly touched the sordid earth – I was walking on air. On a cushion that shielded me from every kind of unhappiness. I was in a state of pure, sheer ecstasy. I believed I’d received a marvelous gift – a wonderful, rare gift that no girl on this earth had ever been privileged to receive. The world changed in front of my eyes. The sky and earth showed me a myriad of miracles – miracles I’d never seen before, in all my life. Jasmine and shenbaga flowers – I’d known them all my life, but now … now, they seemed filled with such a rich, luscious scent that it sent me into a spiral of delight. The sky was a piercing, brilliant blue; the birds sang in sweet tunes that set my senses tingling. I thought, once, that the sound of bamboo trees nuzzling in the wind was the most mournful sound in the universe … now, they were music to my ears. All the shrubs and plants and trees in the forest, all my friends who’d known me for years, seemed to whisper, in a kind voice: “Sivakami, there’s no girl in the whole world who’s as fortunate as you are!”

The stars of the night sky seemed to twinkle more lustrously than ever, these days. And on nights when the moon’s rays bathed the earth, when I ventured out on my journeys among the stars, gently wending my way as I rode on the moon … I wasn’t alone. Not anymore. For … you were with me! When I wandered on my journeys through life, cradled in the boat that was my heart, caught in the tangled web of emotions that was my mind – you were beside me. A song was always on my lips. Enthusiasm coloured every minute of my dance rehearsals. My father was struck dumb with my remarkably swift progress …”

“So were the Emperor and I. My father often marveled at your extraordinary mastery over dance – he would exclaim that you excelled in the subtlest nuances that even Bharatha Munivar, the enlightened one who wrote the Bharatha Shastra, couldn’t have thought of. My father was the one who insisted on holding your Arangetram in Kanchi’s Royal Palace.”

“I’m amazed when I think of the change that had come over me by then – for changed I had, by the time the Arangetram was held. All the happiness and exhilaration of your return had worn off, within a few days of your arrival. These days, memories of you made my heart twist in misery, instead of bringing joy. Hate and dislike began to take root in me – everything I saw pushed me into a mire of depression. The stars and moon did not delight me anymore. When the sun cast its first rays over the sky, I loathed it; I wondered why there was such a thing as dawn at all. I couldn’t see why night fell. I crushed flowers when In saw them. Sleep left me forever. Hate consumed me when I saw my pets, my deer and parrot. I lost interest in dance too. What was the point of pursuing such things, I wondered. And that was when the Arangetram happened. When it was halted so suddenly, as inauspicious as that was, it only brought me a sense of satisfaction …”

“I remember … when I met you on the banks of the lotus pond after the Arangetram, you seemed listless and depressed. Your words were puzzling – you even asked me to pledge my devotion! I was perplexed by the change in you.”

“News about your marriage fell on my ears, My lord. I was already unhappy; this was like adding oil to a blazing inferno. I believed you to be my very own in every way possible … I couldn’t bear to be away from you an instant. My father came to Kanchi for an audience with Navukkarasar because I plagued him to go. And you know what happened there …”

“It wasn’t just what occurred in the monastery, Sivakami … that was the day I learnt what was truly concealed in your heart of hearts. And that was why I sent Kannabiraan with that olai to your home, the very next day.”

“I learnt from your olai that you hadn’t liked my visit to Kanchi at all. Oh those, eight months that I lived through, without once seeing you … those were eight, long aeons. My spirits sank with every day. My heart was sore with pain. I would perk up for two or three days after your latest olai … and then I would sink into depression again. I knew that I would never see you again. I knew that all my hopes and dreams for the future were going to be razed to the ground. I wondered why I must live at all. Far better, I thought, to end this miserable, hateful existence … I really believed, during those days, that I was going slowly, but surely, mad. Now, do you understand? Do you see why I came away from my forest home? Do you see why I disobeyed your express instructions and started on a journey?”

“Yes, I do. I see it all very clearly indeed. We had to get caught in these swirling floodwaters, hadn’t we? And we ought to be marooned on a perfect little island that hasn’t a soul about. Oh, don’t I see the reason for whatever’s happened?” At that very instant, as though to prove Mamallar’s words wrong, the blaring sound of trumpets and conches roared through the foliage, mingling with a chorus of loud human voices.

Mamallar and Sivakami stood up hastily, concern and worry writ large on their faces.