RAMAYANA

CHAPTER-6

                      V FOR VALMIKI

It was one of the quieter afternoons. I realised there were more

squirrels around than usual. Then I realised they were all looking at me.

What I didn’t realise was that there was an even larger number of them

on the neighbouring trees. Every one of them was looking at me.

Most of them were not even from any place nearby. I knew pretty

much all of the squirrels near my house. They usually sat on ledges and

waited for biscuit crumbs. And there were only two of them, a couple by

the looks of it.

One of the squirrels leapt at me. I instinctively moved my arm to

block it and felt something sting me just above the elbow. There was a

small white wooden cone stuck in my arm. I pulled it out and saw it was

hollow and was dripping thick orange goo. The one that had stabbed me

had leapt off and was standing in front of me.

“It won’t last long,” he said to the squirrel standing next to him.

“Let’s get this over with. We can’t afford another injection.”

I suppressed an idiotic gape. The injection was making me alert

and somehow also making all this believable. My surprise quickly

melted away.

“Who are you?” I asked.

I was answered by the one who had stabbed me. “I am Chimpu

Kumar. Captain of the Sundarvan Sabertooths.”

“Which Sundarvan are you talking about?” I asked.

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“Sundarvan is everywhere!” they all squeaked in chorus.

Apparently they were sentimental about this. I decide not to press the

point.

“Sage Valmiki will now talk to you,” Chimpu Kumar informed me

and backed away along with several others. A human-sized image

flickered into clarity in front of me.

It was an old man, ancient even, dressed in white like an ascetic.

If I didn’t know better (it was some kind of hallucinogen-induced

holographic projection), I could have sworn the image had been

photoshopped. The man looked too clean for comfort.

“You would be the one that has been stealing from my epic,” he

said, ancient and annoyed.

“Not really,” I said. “I… See it’s not really…”

“Silence!” he roared.

“Listen… O sage Valmiki… may I call you Val?” I suggested, trying

to break the ice.

“You most certainly may not,” said the sage sourly.

“Miki then?”

One of the squirrels came forward and stamped on my foot. It

didn’t hurt, but it was very insulting. Especially since several of them

pointed at me and laughed derisively after that.

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I kept my wits about me, “I am not the only one that did it. Your

work has inspired hundreds of others all over the world. And besides,

we write in different languages. You did verse, I do a blog.”

Valmiki raised an arm to silence the odd squeak from here and

there in the crowd around us. Then he said, “Everyone will be held

accountable. And you must stop any more of your retellings.”

The Sabertooths cheered. Already, my understanding of their talk

was failing. I didn’t like this at all. Nobody tells bloggers what to do.

Nobody!

But I knew I had little chance of bringing down Valmiki. He is

immortal. And he used to be a bandit. The thing to do would be to

distract him. Get him working on something that would keep him

occupied for long.

Chimpu Kumar moved forward and said something. I didn’t get

any of it. It couldn’t possibly have been anything nice, because they all

laughed immediately afterwards. An idea came flying into my head

from somewhere dark and nasty.

I lifted my leg and brought my foot down upon Chimpu Kumar,

pinning down his right hind paw under my heel. His face grew

contorted with pain and his eyes watered. I hated myself for doing this

and tore my eyes away from the squirrel.

The rest of the Sabertooths were frozen in shock. Partly because

they had not expected this from me, and partly because, murderous or

not, they were still little squirrels. And then I saw the sage. He was as

much in pain as Chimpu himself, perhaps more. His mouth was slightly

open and his eyes were brimming with tears.

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Then he started mumbling. I took a second or so to realise he was

mumbling in Sanskrit. And it rhymed. It was a pity I didn’t understand

a thing.

The sage faded, flickered and vanished. Chimpu Kumar was gone

from under my foot. Gone also was all of the Sundarvan Sabertooth

squad. With any luck, Valmiki would get to work on his next epic and

forget all about the Ramayan retellings. I imagined Lord Ganesh flexing

his fingers and packing his bags for Sundarvan.

As for Chimpu Kumar, he would thank me someday. He and I

would share footnote space in the new epic, like the Kraunchya bird and

the hunter.