The Great War of Hind

RAMM

SRISHTI PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS

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First published by

Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2015

Copyright © Vaibhav Anand, 2015

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. The characters, places, events and kingdoms described in this book are either a work of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to historical figures, battles or places is purely coincidental.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.

To CA & HK, thanks.

For everything.

The future of this great land was once forged on the anvils of battlefields, lit afire by the blaze of war.

—Sanjaay Mahaato, official chronicler of General Ramm 12015 BC

CONTENTS

Prologue

The Great War of Hind

Epilogue

Words for the wise

Afterword

Recommended Reading

The Thugs & a Courtesan

Prologue

In the beginning, there was no such thing as heaven or hell. All that there was then, was earth.

I speak of a land far before time – far before the concept of time. When men and gods coexisted – lived and died and fought and loved. People thought of time in breaths and moonrises and winters; and if they missed one – say a breath or a moonrise or a winter – time simply ceased to exist. But, for the sake of chroniclers and people who shall doubt my story, I shall state that we were of twelve thousand winters before the coming of that messiah many call Yesus.

It is unclear how everything, our world as we saw it, came to be. There were only stories and songs and poems passed down from generation to generation; hymns sung at festivals or lullabies that put children to sleep.

It was said that God created man. I shall not dwell on this story for I do not know how or why or when and I will not submit myself to conjecture. All that I know is that once God created man – whichever God this was – He could no longer bear his creation. So He created a new race to destroy humankind. Having set this race upon men, God retreated to the mountains, far away from his creations. Men came to know this race by many names. In our kingdom, we called them demons.

My name is Sanjaay and I shall tell you the story of how our world came to be. There are raconteurs and mischief-mongers in our ranks and I have no doubt they shall pervert the truth with their self serving versions. The events of history – this history of our land– shall thus inevitably have many versions, doubtless. I was there with General Ramm, I fought by his side and at the very end when I left his service, he confided in me everything – even his deepest, darkest secrets. I began to write this book, this memoir of the great man that once was, when my body was no longer fit for soldiering, but my mind was still robust. I travelled far and wide. I met gods and demons alike; sons and wives of men long gone – just so the world may know full well the truth about our times.

And so it was that thousands of winters ago, that earth as we knew it – as I knew it – came to be, with man and Gods at absolute odds.

In my time, we called our land ‘Hind’.

A land of gods and men and everything in between.

Ramm held his stance for twenty breaths, rock steady. His right bicep glistened with sweat in the sun, swollen to twice its size as it held the bow string taut and still.

A pigeon cooed in the distance. A butterfly flapped its wings not ten paces from him. Ramm looked at them without looking at them. He understood the rhythm of the butterfly’s flapping wings, the space between the pigeon’s cries, the pace at which glistening drops of dew slunk to the ground and became nothing. He measured his heartbeat with them, felt the coos, the flaps and the dewfall synchronize with his heartbeat. His breathing slowed and as his sight became vision, he saw his target as the tip of his arrow saw it.

He saw the blades of grass arch slightly to the left and pegged the wind at half a horse-length per breath. Gentle enough but at fifty horse-lengths from the target, enough to make his arrow miss by one horse. He coaxed his aim off the mark – one horse to the right and half-a-horse above his mark. All that remained now was to ease his breath to the point of being barely alive.

Then, with an extreme effort of resolve, Ramm shut off his senses as every Snipera tribesman worth his salt had been taught to. He felt every sense slowly become one. The smell, the touch, the hearing, the sight, even taste became one giant many-weaponed soldier as they focused on his mark for him (a phenomenon of focus the Snipera called ‘awakening of the all-sense’). And finally, he held his breath – almost like those fish-baiters did under water; except for the fact that he still inhaled one breath savored in lieu of twenty. He saw the dew now fall ten times in a single breath, the wings flap five times as much, the coos punctuated by a gap that was one tenth as big as the original and with his all-sense, he saw the wind and felt the gentle curves in the path that he was to take through his arrow. He saw what the men of science called gravitas – a mysterious force that pulled all arrows, once released, to the ground eventually. His heart beat slowly, almost languidly – one beat for twenty – and between heartbeats, he released his arrow.

He did not so much as fire his arrow as entrust it to the care of the wind and the earth. Because were it not for the gentle care of both, it would land a horse to the right and half-a-horse above the target. But the wind carried it gently and gravitas tugged at it until it curved and bent and hit with a gentle, almost polite thud. The arrow made a tiny hole in the exact centre of the target.

It took a few breaths for his all-sense to disperse and his breath to un-submerge from their underwater like bearings. When he came to, he heard raucous applause from all round. His senses returned to their full and normal use and he turned to see his king, Vikramadetya giving him a standing ovation. To the king’s right, the princess sat expressionless, unmoved by the archer’s brilliance. The five other kings from all the other kingdoms of Hind applauded politely while choosing to stay seated.

Ramm raised his bow to his king and bowed slightly. He smiled gently, perhaps amused by the princess’ indifference and stood still, waiting for the court jester to announce him off the range. Instead, Vikramadetya raised his hands to the crowd in a gesture that asked for the applause to cede. And then in a majestic booming voice that kings somehow come to acquire, he addressed his audience.

In the six winters that our war games have been held, not once has a soldier from Ayodh been defeated! he paused theatrically for applause and the crowd did not disappoint – applauding and cheering and howling in equal measure.

…And now I give you the victor of the sword fighting, wrestling and archery games. Our very own General… Ramm, Vikramadetya announced waving his hands theatrically towards Ramm, as if directing all the applause back at him again.

Ramm smiled and bowed to the crowd and then raised his bow to acknowledge the galleries. As he raised his bow, Ramm looked at the six kings seated together. He thought of a particular skill the Snipera had taught him. A knot rose in his chest, an inexplicable burst of anger and his mind slipped back into the archer’s mode.

He began measuring the wind and gravitas again, spacing out the arrows in his mind. It would take two breaths to dispense six arrows and half-a-breath for each to hit its target. He saw himself starting from the left – hitting his targets in order of nimbleness and expected reaction time. He would hit the particularly fit Sheikh Muhumud from Persis first, move on to the slightly less agile King Talib of Kurd, followed by the plump Emperor Trystan of Nipalaya; then Lord Garman of Ga, on Garman’s left his own king, the adequately rotund Vikramadetya and finish the task with Russ – the cow king of the kingdom of Sur. He calculated his zig-zag movements in his head and saw himself taking three breaths, maybe four to accomplish his task. In his head, he saw how miserable death would be, particularly for Vikramadetya and Russ who would be paralyzed by both shock and their respective bulks, as his arrows would hit them in their throats after they had hit the rest.

And then his eyes met those of Princess Jankee’s. Her eyes held his in a trance – a hypnotic fugue – till the six simultaneous impending assassinations dissolved into a liquid faraway dream. After what seemed like a century, but was not more than a moment, Ramm turned his eyes away from her and began his long walk off the range. He felt tired, sick and miserable. His anger dissolved and hid itself somewhere in the dark corners of his head once again.

He wanted to be far away; far away from all humanity.

•

A thousand winters ago, God created man… Kaikesi said.

Not demon? Raavan asked.

Kaikesi smiled at the young boy. Not more than twelve winters old and he was already beginning to show the sharp mind of and – if his sword-master was to be believed – the astute weapon handling skills of a demon-king.

No, man came first. The first man on earth was called Adum…

Which god was this? Raavan interjected again.

There were many versions of the same story – every story with its own god, but Kaikesi told him the answer she liked to believe. No one really knows but I like to think it was Vishnu…

…the king of the gods, Raavan filled in.

Kaikesi nodded. There was no difference between God and the race of man except that man was meant to be mortal… to live and to die, just like we demons do, Kaikesi added quickly, pre-empting another question taking shape in those big round inquisitive young eyes. It is said that God wanted to understand how a living being would cope with mortality.

It was an egg-priment? the boy asked.

Experiment, Kaikesi corrected her son, smiling. Yes, an experiment.

She made a mental note to tell Raul that their son had picked up the word. God was afraid what would happen if He and the race of gods were to lose their immortality. So he created a race that was a mirror image of His own, except for the fact that it lived for a number of breaths and then died.

How long was man to live?

A hundred winters, no more and no less, Kaikesi answered. God then created a mate for Adum – a beautiful young maiden called Evah. Adum and Evah had merely to look at each other once and they were both in love. God sent the couple down from Parbat to a beautiful little corner of Hind, somewhere in today’s kingdom of Ayodh where the couple made a small cozy house by the side of a pristine stream.

Kaikesi paused to take a sip from her cup.

The couple was happy and content in their little piece of earth. They farmed a small patch of land by the stream where apples and oranges and wheat and apricot grew. It was a beautiful existence, she said wistfully seeing the happy couple like the young boy was with her mind’s eyes. In time, the couple had children.

And they lived happily ever after? the boy pipped.

Well, happily yes, but not ever after, she replied. For in twenty winters, the effects of mortality began to show. As Adum began to age, his pace grew slower, his back began to hurt from the efforts of farming and his mind began to grow dark…

Like grandmother’s mind? Raavan interjected.

Yes, exactly like grandmother’s mind, Kaikesi replied smiling. So Adum, his mind clouded by the darkness that age wrought upon him, set out for Parbat to meet his maker and challenge his fate. But Vishnu, busy with matters of running the world or perhaps agitated with his creation attempting to challenge Him, refused to grant him an audience. Kaikesi paused to take another sip.

So Adum began his journey back towards his home; enraged and flustered with Vishnu and vowing revenge. Luck was to provide him with this very chance on his road back, when he came upon a river in which bathed one of the wives of Vishnu. He gestured for her and asked for her to join him.

And then?

Given that man was created in the mirror image of god, Adum looked very much like Vishnu himself except for the fact that his hair had begun to whiten and skin wrinkle, Kaikesi continued. "The darkness of the mind is, of course, never visible to others. A loving wife would notice the minutest of details but it is never the manner of a woman to question her