The magnificent Partishiver temple stood majestically on the bank of Bhawan spring. A wide expanse of glistening blue water took on a golden hue as the first rays of the sun kissed the glittering pinnacle of the temple. The birds nesting in the trees around the place suddenly woke up from their slumber and began to chirp in unison. The door of the nearby dwelling was thrown open and two sadhus dressed in saffron, both carrying a trishul in one hand and a kashkol in another, appeared on the scene. Their long flowing beards and shoulder length hair gleamed in the morning sun. At first glance, they appeared to be twins, though a closer look brought out some differences in their features. Walking with all piety and humbleness, their wooden sandles made a murmuring clatter on the green stone tiles of the temple compound. As they appeared, birds chirping joyously in the nearby trees descended and waited like duty bound guards all around the place. By and by, the two reached the temple door, which they opened and proceeded straight away and headed for the sanctum sanctorium in the beautifully decorated temple hall. Once in front of the deity, both of them prostrated on the ground.
The jingling bells were heard all around and the people came out of their homes. This had been the practice through ages. Every man, woman and child would begin his day with salutations to the deity at the temple. The congregation grew in numbers and the routine rituals, which the two sadhus conducted with grace, got underway.
The day’s routine puja was still underway, when a tall lean man in sadhu’s attire appeared at the temple doorway. One of the two sadhus conducting the puja saw him and immediately stood up. This shifted the attention of the congregation to the visitor at the door. Eventually, the entire congregation stood up and with bowed heads and hands folded with great reverence, waited in silence. Seeing this, the man took big strides across the hall, even as the people made way for him. He reached the deity and prostrated himself in front of it. After a few moments on the floor, he stood up and moved towards the two sadhus. The entire congregation watched as the sadhus blessed the man. Then, looking at the crowd, the man in a commanding voice declared, “Today, have I seventy-nine years of my reign and hundred years of my life. Today, this kingdom do I renounce and to spend the rest of my life in the service of the lord, do I resolve. I hope and do beseech my gurus, Maruswamy and Haruswamy, to approve of this and also that Biasdeva, my own son, now ascend the throne.”
Saying this, the great monarch, the warrior who had never tasted defeat and who had even followed his adversaries in hot pursuit beyond the seas, relinquished his monarchy. Raja Ram Deva sat alongside his two gurus in front of the deity and the congregation followed suit. They completed the morning rituals and people began to leave. Raja Ram Dev, escorted by his two gurus, left for the guru’s cottage in the temple yard.
The Raja had decided to renounce the world and he had arrived at this decision after reasoning out every detail in his mind. It was not a momentary decision, taken in a flash of temper, or frustration. He had ruled for seventy-nine years. Brought up as a prince and having lived the life of an absolute monarch, could he shun this world and the luxuries that he was used to, so easily? Could he live without power as a humble servant of the lord? He had debated these questions for months before taking the final plunge. Squatting on bare ground in the guru’s cottage and flanked by Haruswamy and Maruswami the new convert to a sadhu’s life was lost in his chequered past.
Away from the raja’s palace, an old man with an arched back walked barefoot. His sole companion was a staff he held in his right hand. Shrouded by an ordinary cloak, the man seemed lost in deep thought. His march to the central square in the heart of the city was slow and painful. His body was so frail and weak that for each step that he took he had to lean on his wooden staff and rest a while. But the determination of his mind and spirit ensured that he finally reached his destination—the city square. This city square was the open-air harem, where games of the flesh began each evening at sunset. Men, women, of all ages, shapes, sizes and inclinations gathered here each evening to engage and revel in the vilest and most carnal of games emanating from an imagination that passion could ever inculcate. And all of it was by a single royal decree.
When Nand Gupt finally reached the city square, he was shocked out of his wits. He had not in his wildest dreams imagined that man could be so vile, and so mean. The square was bursting with all kinds of human shapes. Drunk they were and yet kept drinking; not an inch of flesh was covered. It was a nightmare that the old and pious Nand Gupt found himself in, a scene from hell. He had never seen human flesh paraded so shamelessly, the human spirit descended to such depths, morality evaporated so easily in an orgy; orgy of banal creed. The very foundations on which humankind stood seemed to have been removed.
Men and women, in pairs, in groups, men with men, women with women, youngsters with those old enough to be their parents and grand-parents, the stench of perversion overwhelmed Nand Gupt. He felt he had entered the kingdom of Satan. He could see Satan busy in his lustful dance. Suddenly, Nand Gupt became still and a gleam appeared in his eyes. Slowly, he summouned up the last ounces of energy still left in his old and worn out frame and perched himself on top of a raised platform in the middle of the city chowk. He looked like an elongated island, surrounded by a sea of human flesh. He cast a longing glance over this mass of nakedness and in a choked voice addressed the deaf.
“Oh, people of my city! Listen to me! Listen to me! You are heading for disaster. You are heading for a catastrophe! If only you could see. Listen to me. Death and destruction shall visit thee. Listen to me. You will all vanish, not a trace shall remain. Thus, as I say it shall be. Listen to me.”
Nand Gupt knew that he was addressing the deaf. His rhetoric was lost in the noise that emanated from the crowd. Grunting sounds, animal cries, piercing shrieks, words of mirth and wild laughter. No one bothered about him for no one existed there. He descended from his pulpit. But he was still determined to reach his people. He tried to shake every being into wakefulness but the entire crowd had become insensitive to his touch. A heavy curtain seemed to separate Nand Gupt from his people. For a long time, he tried—tried everything. But when he heard the distant roar of a thunder in the skies, he ran for his life, away from the twisted and mangled mass of flesh, away from the city square and away from the city itself.
An excerpt from Ayaz Rasool Nazki’s book SATISAR, THE VALLEY OF DEMONS published by Vitasta Publishing and the book is available on www.vitastapublishing.com
