A Suitable Boy(547)

Maan turned and stared at the effigies. Along the western edge of the square of Shahi Darvaza stood three huge figures – fierce and flammable – of wood, cane, and coloured paper, with red light-bulbs for their eyes. The ten-headed Ravana required twenty bulbs, which flickered more menacingly than those of his lieutenants. He was the embodiment of armed evil: each of his twenty hands carried a weapon: bows made of cane, maces made of silver paper, wooden swords and discuses, bamboo spears, even a mock-pistol. To one side of Ravana stood his vile brother Kumbhkaran, fat, vicious, idle and gluttonous; and to his other side stood Meghnad, his courageous and arrogant son who just the previous day had struck Lakshman with a javelin in the breast and almost killed him. Everyone was comparing the effigies with those of earlier years, and excitedly anticipating their conflagration as the climax of the evening: the destruction of evil, the triumph of good.

But before that could happen, the actors playing the parts of these figures had to meet their fates in due order before the public eye.

At seven o’clock the loudspeakers overhead belched forth a sudden cacophony of drumbeats, and the little red-faced monkeys, made up to look fierce and martial with all that art, indigo and zinc oxide could contrive, swarmed out of the temple building in search of the enemy, whom they quickly found and noisily engaged with. Screams were heard, together with pious shouts of ‘Jai Siyaram!’ and demonic cries of ‘Jai Shankar!’ Even the vowels in the name of Lord Shiva, the great patron of Ravana, had been extended in a mocking and sinister manner, so that the sound that emerged was more like ‘Jai Shenker!’ This was followed each time by Ravana’s bizarre and grisly laugh that chilled the blood of most of the spectators, even if it made the actor’s friends laugh.

Two khaki policemen of the local constabulary wandered along here and there to ensure that the monkey and demon hordes kept to the agreed geographical limits, but since the monkeys and demons were far swifter than the forces of the law, they gave up after a while, stopped at a paan-shop, and demanded free paans instead. Round and round the policemen, in and out of the square, past their own parents who could barely recognize them, and through the lanes ran the monkeys and demons, past the small general store, the two temples, the small mosque, the bakery, the astrologer’s house, the public urinal, the electrical junction, and the doorways of the houses; sometimes they were chased into the open courtyards of houses, and chased out again by the Ramlila organizers. Their swords and lances and arrows got stuck in the coloured streamers overhanging the lane, and ripped the overhead banner that read in Hindi: The Ramlila Welfare Committee heartily welcomes you. Finally, exhausted, the two armies gathered in the square and glared and growled at each other.

The army of monkeys (with a few bears thrown in) was led by Rama, Lakshman and Hanuman. They had tried to hunt down Ravana, while the twelve-year-old boy playing the beautiful, abducted Sita watched from a balcony above with – so it appeared from his expression – supreme indifference. Ravana, pestered and harried by the monkeys and shot at by his arch-enemy Rama, was on the run and demanded to know where his brother Kumbhkaran had got to – why was he not defending Lanka? When he heard that Kumbhkaran was still sunk in a gluttonous stupor, he demanded that he be woken. The demons and imps did their best, passing food and sweets over the huge, supine form until the scent aroused him from his sleep. He roared, stretched, and gobbled up what was offered to him. Several demons polished off some of the sweets themselves. Then the battle began in earnest.

In the rhyming verse of Tulsidas, which could hardly be heard on the pandit’s megaphone above the clamour:

‘Having feasted on the buffaloes and drunk off the wine, Kumbhkaran roared like a crash of lightning… The moment the mighty monkeys heard this, they rushed forth crying with joy. They plucked up trees and mountains and hurled them against Kumbhkaran, gnashing their teeth all the while. The bears and monkeys threw myriads of mountain-peaks at him each time. But neither did he feel daunted in spirit nor did he stir from his position in spite of the best efforts on the part of the monkeys to push him back, even like an elephant pelted with the fruits of the sun-plant. Thereupon Hanuman struck him with his fist and he fell to the earth, beating his head in great confusion. Rising again, he hit Hanuman back and the latter whirled round and immediately dropped to the ground… The monkey host stampeded; in utter dismay none dared face him.’



Even Bhaskar, who was playing Angad, was knocked down by the mighty Kumbhkaran and lay groaning piteously underneath the pipal tree where he used to play cricket.