Samsāra

Chapter Twenty-Four

Yuvaraju Bhallaladeva was five the first time he saw a lion. It was one of the tributes that came from Banumathi for the great Rajmata Sivagami, the lion stood out as the crown jewels of the tributes. Bhalla remembered the breathless awe he felt as he watched the great golden beast pace the length of the cage. He could feel the restless energy of the beast, he could hear it like the thrum of veena, its rippling vibrations. It threatened to unbalance Bhalla, he knew in his heart he had just met the most majestic of beasts. The lion had roared with challenge and rage.

Whether by ordinance or mere chance as a result of man's carelessness; the lion escaped its cage, right in the midst of the courtiers, officials and ministers. Its purpose was to vent rage and vengeance. Men fled in fear, stampeding to a safe place; Bhalla found himself being tugged away by his Dhai Ma, she had seized Bahu too and was leading the both of them to safety. He was annoyed with her actions and tried desperately to set himself free; to watch. Men in all their splendour trembled before it, even those who approached with spears to put it down were instantly cut down. It was a long bloody battle and men littered the floor, dying and dead, before the lion succumbed to its wounds. Its blood soaked the cobbled floor, along with twenty other men. Even then, they were afraid to approach it and poked at it from a long distance with the butt of a spear to ensure it was truly dead.

The Raja of Bahumathi wrote a letter of apology to the Rajmata after that day and sent a casket of silk clothes and gold. Bhalla wished it had been another lion. He wanted to see the great beast one last time. The gods granted his wish and the great tawny beast visited his dreams, it was even more awesome in the dreamscape. From then, Bhalla took a vow to model himself after the lion. He would be brave, ruthless, undaunted in the face of danger, unforgiving, and unyielding. He would be a lion.

When he was thirteen, he and his friends - drunk on asava (rum) that Bhima had stolen from his father's stores, and emboldened in their drunkenness had devised a plot to hunt a lion. They were young and silly and felt fortified in the drunken courage the liquor gave them. They would be honoured as men and given a place to sit by the sides of warriors as equals.

So, in the cover of the night they rode into the forests bellowing rowdy songs on top of their lungs. No one had dared to stop them, not after Bhalla promised to have a guard or two beheaded on his return for insubordination. Their hearts had been free of worries and fear, and all sense. They stumbled around in the darkness of the forest, making unimaginable noises and laughing at each other. One of them had the sense to light a torch but that hadn't mattered when they came face to face with the lion. Their bones liquefied and Bhima and Sethupathy promptly deserted Bhalla who was rooted with fear. No longer was he drunk, he felt terror knowing the end of his life was upon him but he was going to meet his end fighting.

It didn't matter. His bravery or the short knife he wielded. He managed to ward the lion off for a few moment, but at the end he was on his back shrieking with pain. Bhalla never knew why the lion backed off, but his life was spared. Help arrived later to find him on a bed of leaves and twigs, bleeding.

Apart from the gaping wounds on his thighs, back and arm, he was untouched. The rajvaidya did his best to patch the yuvaraju up. As Bhalla laid on the bed, he remembered the lion he had seen when he was just a little boy and the one he had tried to fight. Screaming on top of his lungs from the treatment, he reaffirmed his vow to be just like a lion.

Now, at the age of twenty one, Bhalla watched one die from a single arrow to the throat. The beast was majestic even in death; its coat of burnished gold was smooth and soft, only marred by the burst of blood from the puncture wound; the arrow had taken it in the throat just as it leapt out of the tall sun bleached grass that provided cover for it as it stalked the men that were stalking it. The arrow was buried deep in the throat only the green fletching showed.