Part – III

Rise of luminous gods

Section 2: Wounds of the present

Grief of Dansatim

Cry of the charred mass

Dansatim as a medium of Swati had left no stone unturned to harass and kill me between her arrival in 1995   and my lucky vernal equinox of 2007. However, there was a moment before the active spirit now when she disowned the mantle of her deity and acted like a simple spirit – a human being crying in pain at the moment of her death.  Weeping and sobbing mass of the charred married girl Dansatim could do nothing more than this in her depressing helplessness.  I could feel on March 24 ‘07 the hatred   and condemnation for me pouring out of her heart and getting into mine. There were no words but an unhindered flow of grief continued between the two hearts – both dead long ago. She was dead as am I; we didn’t need words.

“You are a wolf, sly and deceitful. You alone could kill and eat the flesh your wife to satisfy your hunger. You are a liar and coward both. Recount what you said when you were sending me home with five brave men after our marriage.  You said ‘Let elders of community sit and decide if I shall be in Tanrev according to Swati tradition or Dansatim will come to our town following tradition of Tanri’. You simply kept silent over the issue of my coming to you or your coming to me. What was wrong in coming to our town? You would have ruled it after my father as his successor. That’s what my father had told me. But if you were so reluctant to come to me, elders of your land could have come to us and requested my father to send me to you. My mother had told me that she will surely send me to you when you came to us or sent persons to escort me for coming to your town. It would have made no difference for me. I was a ruling Swati parsina in my land. I would have done the same in your land too because I was your wife. Neither you fought to win the brave men of Tam, Daman Trit and Trasan in my town to occupy it and let me rule over them as an honorable wife of yours nor did you beg my father his daughter after showing due honor to our gods so that I would have moved with you and lived in your village, even if unhappy of leaving my throne.

I was ruling my land with the power of leopard throne. You people have no throne and none on the throne. You do not like that people should fear and obey command. You people are funny and strange. You don’t rule through strength of intimidation, fear or torture. Can a person obey command without fear of punishment and severe retribution?

I know why you were so afraid of the brave warriors of Tam and dared not to send your people here.  You people were driven out of your old town forcibly once we entered and occupied. But so is also the condition the people living here. They fear me and respect my command. They dare not have touched you or your elders visiting us to negotiate my going to you. When I was with you it was the longest day of the year. Neither you nor your men turned up in our town till the second longest day after our marriage. My father had told me that you will surely come to join me.  If you were unable to settle in our town and take part in the worship of Tam, my loving father would have sent me to you.

Ungrateful serpents like you eat away their mates after mating; but, they mate and kill after conjugation. You’ve killed me even without my sleeping with you. You are not even a respectable snake. You are just a spider, hungry to kill and suck the blood of the dead insects. 

You can throw away your promises with the ease of a stone to hit a bird.  Had you come to my father, he would have kept his promise; you could have been the next Tam. How considerate my father is, you don’t know. He started from our town for my marriage with many men. But he stopped them at a quarter-day-distance away from your village, thinking that you are poor people; you cannot feed them. I also saw that you hardly offered any food to us. I was very hungry after reaching home from your village after our marriage.

You are a coward of the cowards. Instead of coming to us to be the ruler of our land, you were scared of loneliness in my company and dared not to move away from your people. Equal was your scare from   my father who could have ransacked your village if you did not reach me before the second  longest day after our marriage.  So you acted like a typical coward. You ran away farthest from your home to the lowly land of seven-ground-fires. You were the husband of great and commanding fire goddess Swati parsina. Yet, in the fear of punishment for abandoning me you ran away from me. You became the slave of the little ground-fire at seashore. A lowly mean man like you found a lowly fire to marry.

I used to hear taunts everyday of being a coward’s wife when the news of your running away from home and marrying a girl of lowly fire reached us. I could not continue indefinitely hearing the vulgar jokes from Swasti – the married daughter of Daman. Her jokes about our marriage and no chance of meeting you in life were beyond my nerves.  I jumped in community fire to become all powerful Swati parsina so that I see you after my death for punishing you in the name and dignity of Swati on the leopard throne. I died but I could not reach you. I was stuck at the place I died.

 I died but my anger upon you did not die; it stuck with my half-burnt body. I could not move away with my soul from the place of my death. My anger was tenfold more on Swasti than you. She had humbled, humiliated and drove me to the community fire. Swasti had killed me by pumping dejection and depression in me. She was my first object for killing; revenge with you turned secondary after my death.

Strange was my foolish mind. I loved you and was just hoping that you will be backing home someday deserting the goddess little fire or Saab at the sea coast. Some day her grip will loosen upon you, she will fight with you and you come to Dansatim abandoning her. I wanted to live and see such a day.  But Swasti did not let me live that long. She killed me by agitating me on your deserting Dansatim and pouring salt of shame on my inability to attract husband to my bed. Dansatim must wait for her retribution upon you till she has killed Swasti was my wish while I was dying half roasted in the community fire. 

Swati parsina did her justice as  you deserve. You do not know that your mother-in-law was a potential Swati in the image of my own before I jumped in the fire. I have been not only Swati parsina but also the famed whore of Vaishali associated with Siddharth or Buddha. The man was none other than the priestess of mine when I was Swati parsina.  You also do not know that the girl you married in your present life was the same Saab whom you had married after running away from me and insulting Swati parsina. Goddess Saab or Sapt-tap was a lowly lowland fire at sea coast, never matching with great Swati, sending out fire balls from the mouth of mountain. I showed you these balls in vision when you did not die after Malun killed you.

  Saab had dared to marry the husband of Swati.  Our town sent curses everyday to her for her act.  I too cursed her everyday as she had married you even after knowing that you are my husband – husband of great fire Swati. Suffering on Saab was a must for her arrogance of marrying the husband of Swati parsina. “Claws of her leopards must rip open her belly and drink her blood”, I used to curse Saab before I jumped in fire.

How funny, husband of Swati parsina had dared to marry the same lowly Saab once again in his present life, that too right before her eyes; and, the goddess parsina of Tam people delivered her justice without delay. Swati in your mother-in-law killed your wife in this life within months of your marriage, very rightly in her revenge upon her hated little fire Saab. Sadly, killing of Saab did not materialize wholly. Soul of Saab had left but she was alive the way you kept living after Malun killed you. It suited Swati also, however. She usurped Saab’s psyche and body to settle the insult pocketed by her among her Tam people.

 If you are a sly wolf, Swati parsina is a wolf eating leopardess. She did punish you for insulting her even if she had to wait for long.

 You did not live with Saab whole life, as you feel. You have lived with Swati occupying the body of your past Saab. Swati parsina has   also given you the harassment and intimidation due to you on account of inflicting it upon Dansatim.

Swati, the goddess of night and daughter of god Tam or darkness, has only one agenda for Tanrinnar, the Sunman of Tyruttar: it is to kill him. She had learnt a hard lesson, however. Shameless men like you who kill their wife don’t die so easily. You manage to escape physical death somehow. Malun killed you driving your soul out, but shameless people like you keep living to the grief of Dansatim and unhappiness of Swati parsina. Even the great goddess of dark night, dreaded by all, finds it difficult to kill and finish you for ever. Swati has felt disturbed at your escapements of her death traps.

You survived after the murder of Malun only to fail the plans of Dansatim to see you as a miserable motherless child in my land. Swati had seen you as an infant in the arms of a mother. She must kill her besides your father in new life for her revenge upon Sunman who had deserted Dansatim. You named the mother of the baby as Sunglow in the present life.  Swati could not kill you as a new born till you crossed five but she must see you an orphaned child at the earliest.

 Tam gods are prohibited to kill a suckling mother and son in revenge till the child crosses five years. Sunglow and her son Augandh, or fragrance of Aum as you christened him, both availed protection under our law of gods. Swati parsina too had to spare the child and his mother till you were five as a child. Father of the child died soon after his birth, however, to keep the other two miserable. I saw and joined you as a spirit of Dansatim when you visited my site of death. I wished to kill you immediately but I did not do so because Swasti was to die first on my agenda.

You returned to the land of Swati once again on your way to the land of Saab. You met Sunglow and Augandh just a month before he was to turn five, and he and his mother were to die. I saw the shameless widow weeping before you, as if she is your wife. Swati knows the widow as representing goddess Tyrut of Sun people of Tyruttar, who were proud of their penance. You also revered  Sun and were a man of penance. But you broke godly discipline of penance and caressed the back of Sunglow when the woman was waling in grief. She did the drama on command of our hated goddess Tyrut to save the life of the woman and you as her son. Tyrut turned the woman into your wife by your affectionate touch and her son turned into your son. Your past goddess also ensured that Swati parsina could not touch the mother and her son, living by your energy, till Swati succeeds in killing you.   Tyrut gave them protection through you.

Your action disappointed me. I could do nothing except watching my shameless husband with Sunglow. He did not come to sleep with me but turned emotional to usurp the woman of another man – the father of Augandh. Remember, what your wife told you when you narrated to her the incidence of touching Sunglow. I was as much your wife watching you and Sunglow helplessly as your own wife of this life – half Swati and half Saab.  Our reactions were no different towards your conduct. It was despicable.  

Dansatim learnt as a spirit after seeing the virgin mirror image of Sunglow transacting with you near your present home that the widow was the newly wed wife of Tanrinnar in past, carrying a baby in her womb. I also realized by the powers of Swati at this point that the sons of Tam, Daman and Daman’s elder brother killed her for facilitating my marriage with you. Gods don’t do vile act of killing a pregnant woman in revenge. Only men do it in their selfishness.

 In the rule of gods, goddess Tyrut is entitled to punish the three vile killers of your young pregnant wife of past. I have seen Tyrut settling her account with them in the very town of yours and your past wife, now a virgin. She will not stop before killing her culprits.

You killed me by driving me into community hearth and made me live the life of this charred body for so many years. A day has arrived for me ultimately for soothing me, and for relieving my heart after communicating with you the pain and agony I have lived after jumping into fire. How nice, I could get you to tell my story.

My priority was not to tell you my story, anyway. First thing for me was to kill the girl who taunted me everyday and made my head droop down in shame for your cowardice. I must kill her first, I resolved in pain while dying. I took too long a time to kill her after I came with you from the place of my death. I communicated to you a week before I scorched her to death, and your wife registered my presence behind you a week before the vile tongued died.

Your wife was scared to see me as a charred skeleton. But that is my look since I embraced fire and people pulled me out as half burnt mass. I have lived from that roasting day till today in the same form.

Ritual of curse at midday meal and its force continued to keep me alive as a spirit till I fulfilled my revenge upon you – the man who pushed Dansatim in the community fire. I ever loved you and ever hated you because you married me and left me to die. Cursing ritual of Swati people in the retaliation of my death binds me with hatred of my people for you. I have only one of the two ends for me as a spirit: first, I must continue as a charred skeleton bound by hate and curse for you till Swati finishes you; and, second,   you free me from the powerful force of curse upon me to hate you so that I love you as your wife even as a spirit.

I’m your wife but cannot love you bound by obligation of discharging the punishment due upon you owing to the curse.

You escaped last attempt of Swati to kill you in your car. You have now made Swati helpless and inane, I see today. But I see no end of my tragedy of continuing as a charred spirit in the fight between you two. Neither Swati is able to kill you nor can you finish Swati because you are man and she is goddess.