This is an English translation of Puthumai Pithan’s iconic short story “Saaba Vimosanam”. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.
Translator's note: I have avoided commonly accepted anglicised spellings of Puranic characters and used Tamil names instead in this translation. For example, it is Akalikai, not Akalya. It is Raman and Laxmanan, not Ram and Laxman.
***
REDEMPTION
(Those who are familiar with Ramayanam may not understand and
may not even like this story. I am not bothered about it.
Part 1
A stone statue on the road— Aesthetically sculpted, capable
of inspiring vitality even in the weakened, aging muscle groups, and making one
feel exalted to an extent that a brilliant sculptor had taken his birth on this
earth just to sculpt all his dreams into a stone such as this one. But there is
a grief in her eyes—an inexplicable one—floating around, killing the carnal
desire of lust of those who see it and making them poignant too. It is not a
splendid dream of the sculptor; it is a result of a curse; she is Akalikai.
Like a misery sculpted in stone on the path in the wild, she
is lying on the lap of nature, which has been witnessing her misery like a sage
with its indifferent eyes. The sun shines. The snow falls down. The rain
descends. Dust, grunge, sparrows, and owls sit upon it and fly away. She is
standing like an unconscious penitent, as a stone.
There is a termite mound nearby. Immersed in meditation,
oblivious of his consciousness and misery, Gautaman is sitting in penance.
Nature treats him too with the same indifference.
Just like their family that fell off without support, the
roof of their hut, which had given them shelter, too, fell off without pillars,
lying moth-eaten, becoming nothing, and merged with the wind. Walls too are on
their last legs. Remnants are only the sand mounds looking like a scar of
distress that has crept into their heart.
At a distance, heard the burbling sound of the Ganga River.
Mother Ganga, she doesn’t know about their boundless sorrow. Does she?
Many such ions passed by for the couple.
One day….
The pre-noon sunlight was slightly harsher, though. However,
the green creepers, their shadow, and the tenderly blowing wind delicately
presented a sort of icy touch to the heart, like a religious philosophy that
tried to obstruct the miseries of this world and offered hope and strength.
Pondering over the happiness at the completion of the task he
had undertaken, the sage Viswamitrar walked around majestically like a lion.
The whereabouts of Mareesan and Shubaagu were not known. Thadaakai, the aged
torment had been eliminated. He found solace in being an instrument of giving
peace to the people who were involved in the inquiry of righteousness through
meditation and performing Yagnas.
Frequently he turns back. What sort of kindness in his eyes!
Two children are playing around. They are no one else; they are Raman and
Laxmanan—the children of incarnation. After initiating the decimation of
Asuras, they are now playing around without understanding the responsibility it
carries.
Their running springs up the dust. Laxmanan is running in the
front. The one who chases him is Raman. The layer of dust falls upon the
sculpture….
What a blissfulness could it be?— Viswamitrar turns back
enthrallingly and looks at. He is standing still and still looking at…
The layer of dust falls upon the sculpture.
The heart, which had once stopped and turned into a stone,
starts palpitating again inside the sculpture. The blood, which once stopped
abruptly at one point and clotted to become stone, starts flowing once again.
The warmth of life spreads across the stone, and it turns into a ball of flesh.
Consciousness is regained.
Akalikai closes her eyes and then opens them. She became
conscious. Redemption! Redemption!
O God! This polluted group of flesh has got consecrated.
Who is the divine being who has come over to offer me a new
lease on life again? Is it that child?
She lies prostrate in front of him. Raman, looking
astonished, looks up to the sage.
Viswamitrar could understand everything. She is Akalikai—the
innocent girl cheated by the Lord Indran, who came in impersonation, the one
who had defiled her body after being cheated by his impersonation due to her
insurmountable love for her husband. She is the wife of Gautaman. He tells
everything to Raman. There stands a termite mound. Gautaman is still sitting
there in meditation, completely oblivious of self, like a maggot in silent
penance inside the egg of web. Ahh…here he is… He has gotten up!!
The eyes that have just opened after penance are rolling like
a sharpened knife. Indurated body full of strength as if being toned by arduous
exercises. Majestically, yet hesitatingly, he comes near, like a person who is
still unable to release himself from the clutches of disgrace done to a woman.
The same web of misery again? The mind doesn’t think about
how life will be after redemption. Now it has encircled his life like a mammoth
fortification. Her mind too becomes feeble with fear.
Raman’s upbringing looked at the things with the eyes of
righteousness. It wore the light of clarity. But it hadn’t yet been sharpened
at the pedestal of experiences. Vashishtar’s preaching had ensured every thread
of life’s complexities interlaced with each other intact from breaking down,
and yet he was unaware of meanness. It is the one that offered strength to
one’s intellect to walk through a new path.
The nature of this world unfairly gets one-sided and troubles
us! Why has the punishment been meted out only to the character when the action
was not under the control of the mind and energy of carnal impulse? O! Mother…!
cries Raman, falling on her feet.
Both the sages (the first one who considered courage as
knowledge and the other who considered compassion as the basis of
righteousness) were delighted with the opinions expressed by the boy from his
angle of thought. How much light, full of love and courageous truth, it was!
“It is apt for you to accept her, for she has not committed
any sin from her heart,” tells Viswamitrar softly.
His coarseness of argument shows a tinge of difference in
savor in the damp air.
Gautaman, his wife, and the sand mound without pillars had
not gone away from the place. The signs of life tried to set in where there was
no life once.
All the forces that came to change the course of affairs,
like the flog of a whip, had disappeared. Should they not go to Mithila at
least by evening? Nuptial bonds invited them to extend both its hands!
Gautaman could not speak to her as normally as he used to do
earlier without being cagey. The way he had burnt her with the word ‘whore’
that day seems to have burnt his tongue too. What to speak? What to speak?
“You need anything?” asked Gautaman. The power of all his
intellect that had been discarded in the swirl of emotions ejected that
meaningless word.
“I am hungry,” replied Akalikai, like a child.
Gautaman brought some fruits from the orchard nearby. The
desire and compassion in his actions found at the time of his marriage were,
nevertheless, reflected now in the actions and hesitations of his fingers.
“Even though that marital bond blossomed after the inner
compassion had sprung out, it is still based on cheating anyway. The one
plucked out after making a sacred round of holy cow” – Gautama’s mind again burnt
itself by shifting its thought.
Akalikai was relieved of hunger.
There was a complete kindness in their heart. Yet they were
struggling in their respective domain of thoughts.
Whether she was any longer fit to be Gautaman’s wife—this was
Akalikai’s concern.
Whether he was any longer fit to be Akalikai’s husband—this
was Gautaman’s concern.
The flowers blossomed on the roadside and smiled at
them.
Part 2
As wanted, desired by Akalikai, Gautaman constructed a hut
shortly away from the ramparts of Ayothya fort on the banks of the Sarayu
River, at a distance where the intervention of human beings was non-existent,
and involved himself in the inquiry of righteousness. Now Gautaman fully
believed Akalikai. Even if she was lying on the lap of Indran, he would not
suspect her fidelity. He believed that she was chaste. He was fully aware that
his inquiry of righteousness would be in serious trouble without her
errands.
Akalikai nurtured him with the love that could not be
fathomed by the heart. The moment she thought about him, her mind and parts of
her body would brim with the kindness of a newly married bride. But the stone
that had descended on her heart had not yet been removed. She wanted to behave
in such a manner so that others would not suspect her; she would not give space
for others to gaze at her even inadvertently. Due to this, her natural
behaviour disappeared and temperament changed. Everyone around her appeared as
Indran. Fear had entered Akalikai’s heart. The way she spoke and her
playfulness were nowhere to be found. She would speak a word only after
repeatedly practicing it for a thousand times, memorizing it, and scrutinizing
it from different angles. She would get anxious even when Gautama uttered
ordinary words that there might be some inherent meaning in it.
Life became a hell for her.
One day Mareesi came. A day before, Thatheesi came. On his
way to Varanasi, sage Madhankar also came to meet Gautaman. Despite their talk
full of compassion and kindness, Akalikai’s body was lacking pride; her mind
felt inferior. It seemed that even hospitality to be extended to the guests
would go out of her hand due to this. Her eyes were ashamed of looking people
in the face even if they looked at her normally. She hid herself inside the
hut.
The philosophical inquiry of Gautaman took a new turn
now. The barriers of righteousness are meant only for those who are
conscious of their misdeeds; even if the entire human race faces extinction due
to some mistakes committed without self-consciousness, it is not a sin at all;
attachment of mind and the actions with conscious involvement are the only
factors of impurity’. Sitting again in the hut, which was once flattened,
Gautaman turned his thoughts in this direction, being in a state of mind
instilled by others in him. Akalya was wandering as a pure soul in his mind. He
was only no longer fit; the fire of curse from his anger had just made him
defiled, he thought.
Sometimes, Raman and Seethai used to come by that way in a
chariot for their merriment. The child of incarnation, he had grown into a
youth of aspiration in the mind of Gautaman. His smile and playfulness became
the perennially lighted lamps of Dharma Sastra. What was the relationship
between these young couples? It reminded Gautaman of his earlier life.
Seethai was just like a pigeon for Akalikai, who came to
Akalikai to bring down the heaviness of miseries from her mind. It seemed to
Akalikai that the speech and smile of Seethai were cleansing the dirt from her.
Only when Seethai came would Akalikai’s lips move with a smile. Rapture in eyes
would show an emerging light.
They were the regal aspirations brought up under the aegis of
Vashistar! Weren’t they? On the banks of the Sarayu River, they were nurturing
an earlier happiness in two persons who had lived in two different
worlds.
Akalikai did not like to go out to see various places. The
proximity of Seethai only gave her a bit of strength and reduced the worries
from her heart.
She agreed to participate in the coronation ceremony at
Ayothya. But what a power that the swirl of emotions she experienced at the
palace had in itself! In a single breath, Dhasarathan’s life was taken away;
Raman was chased away into the forest; and Bharathan was pushed into Nandigram
village with tears and distress.
Everything happened and came to an end just like an
indomitable force, which could not be fathomed by human ability, with all its
magnificent speed, played its game of chess to its fullest.
Vashishtar, with all his alertness, just to establish an
empire as a sign of human righteousness, brought them up under his closest
supervision. All his calculations were shattered and got reduced to a dim light
from a lamp burning at Nandigram Village.
It can well be said that the hut on the banks of the Saryu
River was flattened once again. All the inquiry of the righteousness of
Gautaman was also pillaged in the devilish wind that blew across. The mind was
emptied as the hope had dried up.
For Akalikai? If her grief was measured, it would not be
confined in words. She could not understand anything. She became frail and
tired. Raman left for the forest. His younger brother too followed him. Seethai
too had gone. Akalikai felt as if the darkness that once occupied her heart
when she was a stone had filled in the heart again now. The heaviness of
consciousness in her heart was simply unbearable for her.
At dawn, after completing his morning chores of chanting
mantras, Gautaman came out of the river and entered the hut.
Akalikai moved her lips as she went to him with a bowl of
water to wash his feet.
“I could no longer stay at this place. We can go to
Mithilai.”
“O.K. Get ready. It has been long since we met Sathanandan,
told Gautaman, and he went out.
Both of them started walking towards Mithilai. A heaviness
descended on their heart. Gautaman stood for a while.
He grasped Akalikai’s hands, who was coming behind him, and
then resumed his walk. “Fear not,” he said.
Both of them walked together towards Mithilai.
Part 3
It was dawn. Both of them were walking along the banks of the
River Ganga.
Someone was standing in the river and chanting the
Gayatri Mantra with his sonorous voice.
Until the chanting was over, the couple was waiting on the
bank.
“Sadhanantha….” Gautaman called him out.
“O Father…Mother,” Sadhanandan outpoured the delight of his
heart and lay prostrate.
Akalya embraced him with her pouncing heart. This
child, Sadhanantha, had become an outsider now. Hadn’t he? Looking like a sage
with his beard and mustache?
The divine daintiness of his son comforted Gautaman.
Sadhananthan took both of them inside the hut.
After arranging facilities for their refreshment, he set out
for Janaka’s palace of philosophical discourse.
Gautama too set out, accompanying him. His son also liked to
take his father along with him. His blood relationship with them got him
anxious about the arduous nature of the long journey. Would the muscle group
that did not weaken even after being subjected to an ion long meditation be
weakened by this simple walk? He started his journey, following him. His son
wanted to taste the new course of his father’s philosophical inquiry.
While walking along the streets of Mithilai, Gautaman
understood that the same mental fatigue and grief felt at Ayothya had spread
its influence here too. His repressed sigh got itself merged with the wind.
People passed by. Came by. Looked after their works.
Everything went on like a well-designed scheme. Neither a hold nor attachment
was felt over stately affairs.
The walk of an elephant carrying the holy water was void of
spirit. The face of the priest accompanying it did not show any sign of
gladness of divinity.
Both of them entered the king’s debate hall. An ocean of
people has filled in the court. Gautama wondered how philosophical research was
possible at this place looking like a market. What he thought was wrong,
though.
Janakan saw these two at once.
He came down running and attended to the sage with all
hospitality and asked him to sit beside him.
There was an indication of grief in Janakan’s face as well.
However, there was no heaviness in his speech. It showed that his mind had not
lost its balance.
Gautama hesitated slightly as to what else to speak.
“Vashishtar did not erect an outlet to emotions when he built
the kingdom,” said Janakan, stroking his beard.
The words of Janakan touched the nerves.
“Truth is born only out of the swirl of emotions,” told
Gautaman.
“Even misery is also born if one does not know how to use
emotions. When you desire to build a kingdom, you should spare a place for that
too. Otherwise, there will be no kingdom,” Janakan told.
“Is it yours?” Gautaman raised his doubt.
“I am not ruling. I am just trying to understand the rule,
Janakan replied.
Both of them were silent for a while.
“What kind of philosophical discourse is yours?” asked
Janakan gently.
“I haven’t even yet started. I have to try to understand it
only after this. Riddles obstruct all the senses with obscurity,” Gautaman told
and rose.
From the next day onwards, he did not go to Janakan’s hall.
Many a riddle stood as high as the Himalayas in his realization. He sought
loneliness. But he did not go after it. Akalikai’s heart should not break
anyway.
The next day, Janakan asked with curiosity, “Where is
Muneeswar?”
“He is just spending his time under the Ashoka tree standing
in front of our hut,” Sadhananthan replied.
“In meditation?”
“No. Just in ruminating”
“Waves haven’t yet subsided,” Janakan murmured to himself
calmly.
**
Akalya was very fond of taking baths in the river. She used
to go with a pot at dawn as she had thought that there would be peace on the
banks of Ganga.
She used to bring water after taking a bath in the river with
a sort of solace by letting the tender creepers of her heart spread themselves
on their own for a couple of days in tranquillity.
It did not last for long.
After taking a bath, she was coming back contemplatively with
her head bent down.
The sound of toe rings was heard in the front. Might be the
wives of some sages! They were also coming down to the river to bathe. They ran
away after seeing her as if she was an outcast. They just stared at her sternly
and left.
“She is the one… Akalikai”—words” were audible even from the
distance. Those words burnt her more than the fire of curse that furiously
flared up in Gautaman’s abdomen that day.
Her heart was all at once burning like a cremation ground.
Her thought process got dissembled. “O my God! Even if there is redemption from
the curse, there won’t be redemption from sins. Will there be?” Akalikai
thought and wept.
She served food to Gautaman and Sadhananthan like a woman
made of machine. “Son has become an outsider; outsiders too have become
enemies; for what the hell should we be here?” This was the question that hit
her heart repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Gautaman too suddenly put a morsel of food in his
mouth and delved into thoughts as if he had attained his consciousness
intermittently.
The heaviness caused by their restless mind had got
Sadhananthan suffocated as well.
In order to reduce the burden, Sadhananthan said, “Athiri
Rishi has come to see Janakan. He is coming here after meeting Akasthiya Rishi.
He is on his way to the Himalayas. Raman and Seethai paid regards to
Akasthiyar. Akasthiyar told the couple to stay there as it is a good hermitage.
It is understood that they are staying only there.”
“Why can’t we undertake a pilgrimage?” asked Akalikai
slowly.
“Let’s go.” Gautaman rose, tossing his hands.
“Now itself?” asked Sadhananthan.
“Does the time of leaving matter anyway?” Gautaman collected
his ‘Kamandals’ and looked up to the entrance.
Akalya followed him.
Sadhanantha’s heart sank in fire.
Part 4
It was dusk, and the signs of the day had faded. Along the
banks of the Sarayu River, both of them were walking towards Ayodhya.
Fourteen years had just passed and merged with the time flown
like a flood. There were no sages who they had failed to meet. There were no
sacred places that they had missed visiting. But they did not have peace of
mind yet.
They worshipped Mount Kailash, standing upon the snow-clad
peaks, which were not accessible to the legs of people lacking strength, like
the temple of thought of Shiva, which was not accessible to the intellect of
weak people.
They passed the desert that looked like a metaphor for their
burden of misery, utter hopelessness.
They came around magma-spewing volcanoes and went past them,
which were burning just like their hearts.
They returned from the ocean, of which waves were tirelessly
ebbing on its shore, just like their restless mind.
They went past undulated landscapes that were just looking
similar to their path of life.
“Raman would return in a few days. At least after this, our
life will have a new birth"—this longing only drew the couple to this
place.
They reached the place where their hut was lying down,
trampled, which they once constructed fourteen years ago.
Gautaman somehow repaired the hut and made it fit for staying
overnight. When the work was completed, the Star of Dawn was visible in the
sky.
Both of them returned from the Sarayu River after bathing in
it.
Akalikai started attending to her husband. Both of their
hearts greeted the day in advance when Raman and Seethai were expected to
arrive in. However, is it possible to cross the rules designed by the
scope of time other than one’s mind?
One day Akalikai had gone to bathe in the early
morning.
Before her, a widow was returning after taking a bath. She
could not identify who it was. But the one that came in the opposite direction
identified Akalikai. She came to her running and lay prostrate in front of
Akalikai.
It was none other than Queen Kaikeyi. She had become a lonely
saint without any of her entourage anymore!!
Placing her pot down, she lifted Kaikeyi and made her stand.
She could not understand Kaikeyi’s actions.
“At the frenzy of righteousness, Bharathan had forgotten to
give me a place in his heart,” Kaikeyi told her.
Her voice did not show signs of anger expressively. There was
no soaring fury either. The Kaikeyi she was thinking of was different from the
one she saw now. Akalikai saw only the heart, which was suffering without a
supportive creeper.
Both of them walked towards the Sarayu River without even
removing their hands from their embrace.
“Who is responsible for the Bharathans’ obdurate
righteousness?” asked Akalikai. A beam of a kind smile appeared at the corner
of her lips and quietly vanished.
“If an accidental fire caused by a child burns up a village,
can we afford to kill the child?” replied Kaikeyi.
Akalikai thought that it was necessary to put a fence in
between the child and fire. “But whatever is burnt is burnt anyway,” Akalikai
told. “Is it right to sit beside the heap of ashes without cleaning the place
burnt with” fire?”—Kaikeyi asked.
“The one who removes the ashes is going to arrive in a couple
of days. Is it not?” Akalikai said.
“Yes, Kaikeyi replied. There was a complete contentment in
her voice. Bharathan was not the one who was expecting Raman. It was Kaikeyi
who was expecting him.
The next day when she met Akalikai, she was pale. Her heart
was broken.
“We have sent spies to search for Raman in all directions. No
signs of Raman. How would they come within forty ‘Nazhigai’?
Bharathan is going to jump into the fire. He is preparing ‘Akni kund’—Kaikeyi
said.
Her speech showed her conviction of belief that Bharathan
prepared himself to be burnt just to expiate the sins of desire for the kingdom
that befell upon him.
Keeping silence for a while, Kaikeyi said, “I will also fall
into the fire. But alone, secretly. Her mind sparkled with the
determination.
Even after fourteen years, the same swirl of emotions again!
Hasn’t the curse that fell upon Ayothya been redeemed yet?
Akalikai’s heart ran at a loose end. She started suspecting
that it was all because of her curse.
“Can’t we ask Vashishtar to stop him?” asked Akalikai.
“Bharathan obeys only righteousness. Not Vashishtar,” replied
Kaikeyi.
“The righteousness that doesn’t obey human beings is nothing
but an enemy to the human race itself,” Akalikai bounced with anger.
A tinge of desire that Bharathan might obey her husband’s
words. Her fear was that the wheels of misery should not start rolling again in
Ayothya.
Gautama agreed. But nothing happened with his words either.
The God of fire (Akni) did not like to swallow Bharathan.
Hanuman arrived in. The fire got extinguished. The sorrows from all directions
became a momentous, rapturous frenzy. Righteousness ruled everywhere.
An invisible smile at the back of Vashishtar’s moustache
danced at the fact that even after fourteen years his dream would come true.
In the background of this frenzy of pleasure, Gautaman
returned, thinking that he didn’t have anything more to do there.
Akalikai was at the peak of her happiness that Raman and
Seethai would come to meet her. Raman and Seethai came to her without their entourage
after the commotion caused by enticement was over.
The forehead of Raman, who alighted from the chariot, bore
the signs of experience. Seethai’s shine was due to experience that had
blossomed. Harmonization of both of their smiles proffered the taste of heaven.
Gautaman took Raman for a stroll.
Akalikai led Seethai inside the hut with the compassion
sprung out for a child who was reared up inside her womb. They were
sitting with a grin, facing each other.
Sita told her everything—how Ravanan abducted her, the
miseries, and the rescue that ensued after that—without making it overtly
melancholic. After coming to Raman, how can she be miserable?
She narrated ‘Akni Pravesh’ (Jumping into the
fire). Akalikai grew enraged.
“Did he ask for it? Why did you do it?” she asked Seethai.
“He asked me. I did it,” Seethai replied calmly.
“Did he ask?” Akalikai screamed. Kannaki’s frenzy danced
in her mind.
One type of justice for Akalikai, and for him a different
one?
Isn’t it cheating? Is the Gautaman’s curse a birthright?
Both of them remained silent for a long time.
“I must prove myself to the world. Mustn’t I? – Sita smiled
vaguely telling this.
“If the heart knows about it, I will be enough. Won’t it? Can
we ever prove truth to the world? Akalikai retaliated. Words dried up.
“Even if you prove it, will it become truth if it doesn’t
touch the core of your heart? Anyway, stop it. Where is the world anyway?”
asked Akalya.
Voices from outside were heard. They came back.
Seethai came out to go to the palace. Akalikai didn’t go out
with her.
Raman’s heart was burnt. The dust fell upon his feet and
burnt him.
The chariot rolled away. The sounds of wheels grew
thinner.
Gautaman delved into thoughts, standing. He saw a “zone
of Tirisanku” hanging without being able to fix itself anywhere.
A new lightning idea came over from the depths of his mind
and died instantly. To bring back their earlier intimacy by reducing the burden
of heart, why can’t we beget a baby? Won’t the tender fingers of the child
bring down the burden of her heart?
He entered in.
Akalikai was in a state of lost consciousness. Again, the
stage for Indran, Indra’s drama, must be forgotten. It was running on her mind.
Gautama embraced her.
It seemed to her that it was Indra’s impersonation in the
form of Gautaman. Her heart grew indurated further. What a piece!
A stone statue was now lying on the hands of Gautaman.
Akalikai became stone once again.
The burden of heart thus finally died.
****
A man was walking towards Mount Kailash, traversing fast the
desert of ice. His heels were hardened with the callousness of dejection.
He was Gautaman.
He had become a saint.
***Ended***
