A Chola Adventure Read online

  ANU KUMAR

  Girls of India A Chola Adventure

  Illustrated by Hemant Kumar

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Map

  Prologue

  1 A Dancer Exiled

  2 The Two Boys

  3 A Chinese Sailor

  4 The Missing Prince

  5 The Nataraja

  6 Chasing Suspicions

  7 Liu’s Secret

  8 The Physician Who Went Away

  9 The Unfortunate Astrologer

  10 Inside the Royal Tank

  11 A Jeweller from Afar

  12 Grand Voyages

  13 City in the Sea

  Epilogue

  The Great Cholas of South India

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  A CHOLA ADVENTURE

  Anu Kumar lives in Singapore and has written historical fiction for both older and younger readers. She studied at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and at the XLRI School of Business, Jamshedpur. Her books for children include the Atisa and the Seven Wonders (2008), Atisa and his Time Machine: Adventures with Hiuen Tsang (2010), and In the Country of Gold-digging Ants (2009) all published by Puffin. She was awarded the Commonwealth Prize for her stories in 2004 and 2010. She loves writing stories set back in time and through them wants to make children believe that history can be interesting, have loads of possibilities and be fun too.

  Other Books in the Girls of India Series

  A Harappan Adventure by Sunila Gupte

  A Mauryan Adventure by Subhadra Sen Gupta

  Prologue

  For Raji, the nightmare always began the same way.

  It was the season of unending dull heat. A time when the weather was still and birds dropped from the sky in exhaustion. Some flew listlessly towards the shore, over the rocks where only a few days ago, Raji had found a barn swallow dead. These were migratory birds, making the journey across the seas from the north and east every winter. She remembered even in her dream how the heat had proved too much for one swallow and he had simply crashed down from the skies. He had a tuft of white hair on his forehead and a long black tail. A tired feather had brushed against her cheek as she held the bird close and she decided to carry him to Ananta, the king’s nephew. Every injured bird was always brought to him and he nursed them back to health. He had a way with them.

  But as often happened in dreams, the heat turned to rain too quickly, and in moments the slow, gentle drizzle became something more terrifying. A storm that howled, shrieked, thumped on the roof and banged on the door, demanding to be let in.

  Every time the sound dimmed, Raji heard a woman’s voice begging to be rescued. But the waters washed over her small boat, the grey swirling waves which were carrying her farther and farther away, and soon Raji couldn’t see a thing. The wall of water, dark blue, white, grey and then black, rose higher and higher. This was what the fishermen feared the most, the waves rising fast, turning into a raging tsunami. The kind of natural disaster their village of Nagapattinam was familiar with, in its history. Everyone knew the stories that came from long ago of huge waves rising from the sea, rushing in with a terrifying roar and destroying everything within reach. It could happen again. With that frightening thought, Raji woke up.

  1

  A Dancer Exiled

  The nightmare was different on other nights but there was always the sea in it. The sea that stretched beyond their village. On some nights there was only the woman crying. A low piteous sobbing that nothing could ever console or comfort. And one night, in the middle of the nightmare, Raji awoke to the sound of hammer beating on stone. In that state of half-awakening she knew at once that her father was finally back. The door to the outhouse was open, and a man was working on a piece of stone, while a fire sizzled beside him. It had to be her father though she remembered him only vaguely; he had been gone such a long time ago.

  ‘This hasn’t been lit for a while.’

  He looked at her, and Raji hoped she didn’t look so lost. She didn’t want her father to see how unhappy she had been.

  He looked away and said in a low voice, ‘You have grown.’

  ‘So have you,’ she replied, ‘much older.’

  He smiled, and his tired brown eyes crinkled up. That was not the way Raji had imagined him.

  She walked to the corner and rummaged among things there. Her clay colouring pots, her brushes, and the toy mud figurines she made. At last she found what she was looking for. A scroll, carefully folded and placed at the far end, so that it would remain unspoiled and she could find it easily. Still it had taken her time to locate it and she smiled wryly at her overcaution.

  ‘This is how you looked. Aji told me, and I made it.

  ‘You missed the rainfall last season—the water overflowed and rushed over the canals,’ she went on, ‘and the men didn’t go out to sea for days.’

  ‘I missed the old king’s death too,’ he said.

  Already there had been four rice crops on the delta and two seasons when the merchants had left for lands across the sea. There was a new headman assisted by a council formed by village elders, for the new king, Rajaraja, wanted to reach out to every small village of his kingdom. He had even provided funds to Nagapattinam for building a new tank and had encouraged the villagers to rebuild the dykes in order to keep the seawaters at bay.

  Her father grimaced, as if he had somehow missed all this, and Raji told herself she must save her questions for later, when he was more rested.

  Within days of his return, he started working again, in the manner just like Aji, her grandmother, had predicted. Her father, one of the kingdom’s best sculptors couldn’t stay away long from creating something new, something that would make the world even more beautiful. Now his moves were fast and insistent, as if he had missed the sound of the chisel, as if he was trying very hard to forget something.

  Tuk tuk, tuk

  ‘Why did Father go away?’ she had asked Aji often.

  She had been a child of five when she had first put forward this question before Aji, and several times later. Her grandmother’s reply rarely varied, ‘There are some things you want to run away from, and some things bring you back, no matter how far you run. He will come back, you wait and see.’

  Still, Raji couldn’t bring herself to ask her father why he had gone away, to find out his version of it. She knew the other accounts that their neighbours had always told her. Her mother had been sent away first; exiled for attempting to murder a prince. Then her father, too, had gone away leaving everything behind. He was completely besotted with ‘that woman’, said her neighbours, for that was how they now referred to Menaka. Neighbours, who she knew were well-intentioned, but their explanations could be cruel too.

  Yet Raji had always believed her father would return, and now he had.

  Every morning was different now. The sound of her father working, chisel hitting stone, comforted Raji as she lay still, those few moments before the sun came in, and the long black palm-leaf shadows outside lengthened and moved towards her, prodding her fully awake. The hammering mingled with the other sounds of her morning. Aji jingling a small bell as she said her prayers, her voice breaking out in a hymn that she sang in her old, cracked voice. The sea was a low rumble, and there was the sound of cowbells too. The boys were taking the cattle out to graze in the pastures outside. She heard the sweep of brooms, the sound of water being poured on the streets and she waited for the smell of damp earth to reach her. Every other house would be waking up now, in rhythm to the sounds of the temple bells. The Shiva temple lay at the very heart of the village, and all houses were built in the square around it.

  Sunlight came in through the slatted windows, with its blinds made of coir, and Raji heard the crackle of firewood and knew she was late. She had to help Aji in every way she could, now that her grandmother was getting old.

  At the time of his going away, her father Keshavan had been one of the most sought-after sculptors in the Chola kingdom. It was rumoured that the Chalukyas on the other side of the Krishna River wanted to invade Thanjavur simply because of him. Across the seas, the king of Java had also expressly asked for Keshavan. The statues he made, it was said, were as magnificent as the famed Pallava statues of Mahabalipuram, and those other statues now part of the lost Pallava city, which had long been claimed by the sea. A storm terrifying in its force that had happened so long ago that even Aji had only heard about it when she was a little girl.

  ‘It was a time when things should have gone right for your father and mother,’ said Aji whenever she recounted the incident of Raji’s mother going away. However tragedy had struck, a prince was almost fatally poisoned and Raji’s mother, Menaka, was blamed for it all. It was the magic she created with her dance that was supposed to have poisoned the prince. Everyone soon believed that. Menaka had once been the kingdom’s most famous dancer, and people from other realms came in secret to watch her perform. Then on one terrible day, the prince Madurantaka had watched her perform, mesmerized like everyone else in the audience, and soon he had collapsed right in the special enclosure where he sat with the other royal guests. In moments he had rolled off the cushions, his face crimson and purple, and lay writhing on the floor. It was his uncle, who in open court, had accused the dancer Menaka of hypnotizing him. Menaka had been condemned and sent away to her death.

  Madurantaka was the son of King Uttama Chola, but the throne h ad been promised to the king’s nephew, the very popular Rajaraja. He was now in line to the throne after the mysterious death of his older brother, Aditya Karikala. Everyone said the king, the queen, and Prince Madurantaka resented this intended ascension and wanted to do everything in their power to stop Rajaraja from becoming king.

  Madurantaka’s uncle, Veeramani, the queen’s brother and a chieftain from the Malabar region, was the first to rush towards where his nephew lay stricken across silken cushions, already unconscious. A moment later, Veeramani had pointed a finger at Menaka, and in tones dripping with venom had said, ‘It is her evil magic. The prince is dying.’

  His words fell like thunder on the already stunned audience. King Uttama Chola looked shocked, and it was again Veeramani who clapped for the attendants. The old physician too stepped forward, alarm and disbelief in his eyes, but he made no immediate comment.

  ‘It is too late, too late,’ wailed Veeramani.

  ‘It seems to be poison of some kind,’ finally said the physician but he could only mumble the words. No one heard him clearly.

  It was Veeramani who mocked him as the prince was taken away by the palace attendants. ‘Poison?’ he said viciously. ‘Poison from her glance,’ he added, pointing at the dancer. ‘She has used her black magic on him.’

  No one could say anything to refute him, and the dancer’s fate was sealed forever.

  Raji thought again of the story she had heard, about things that had happened when she was a mere child. The humiliation of the royal physician and of how her father had pleaded for mercy; how the old queen mother had finally relented.

  Mahadev, the royal physician, was an old man, who had been in the king’s service for decades. He had examined Madurantaka as he lay feverish and moaning, and noted the steady foam of saliva as the prince gasped for breath.

  There was the entire royal family standing by, and Mahadev suddenly froze, as if he was staring a terrible truth in the face. It was said he aged in those long seconds. He dropped his gaze. His hand slipped away from the stricken prince.

  Uttama Chola’s mocking voice rang out, ‘You are the greatest doctor the world knows. The king of China has even extended an invitation to you. Where has all your wisdom vanished now?’

  It was said Mahadev shook his head in deepest sorrow and spoke not a word, as the king mocked him over and over again.

  Mahadev then left the kingdom. He left no trace behind. His house remained just like he had lived in it. People now said it was haunted. Numerous voices could be heard inside, the clinking of bottles, the sound of stone as herbs were ground into powder, the hiss of smoke leaping out of fire. But no one was ever seen inside.

  ‘Oh king,’ said Veeramani, ‘save us from a great calamity; there have been too many deaths already. Punish Menaka. Punish her in the harshest way possible.’

  A gasp went through the court at this demand. The sculptor Keshavan rushed forward and threw himself at the feet of the queen mother, Sembiya Mahadevi.

  He was pleading for Menaka’s life. Those condemned to death were thrown off the high walls that surrounded Thanjavur. ‘Oh great queen, have mercy.’ He lay with his head on the floor before her.

  The queen spoke up, her voice loud and clear. ‘Menaka cannot be treated like some devious criminal, King of all kings. She is a dancer unparalleled in the world. Kingdoms and dynasties have vied for her. We cannot do this. It will spoil the fair name of our empire.’ She pointed a finger at the prince, who lay shaking and drooling but at least still alive.

  The king, Uttama Chola, listened. He stared impassively at the dancer and Keshavan, her husband, the sculptor, standing near, his hands folded, his eyes brimming with tears. The dancer gazed down, her face impassive. She appeared like a perfect piece of art.

  ‘Very well,’ the king finally said in a low, rumbling voice, almost as if he were grudgingly giving in. ‘But an attempt to murder could well have succeeded, don’t you think, Mahadevi?’

  There was a long silence before the queen spoke again. ‘Send her away then. Banish her.’

  The court was stunned into silence. No one noticed the sly look flit across the king’s face. He was not very old but there were tired lines all over his face, and jewellery glistened on his well oiled chest.

  ‘Take her out to sea. Abandon her to her fate there. It is as she deserves.’

  ‘But . . .’

  No one heard Keshavan’s horrified whisper. Menaka still looked down at the ground. But the court had burst into applause, thanking the king for his mercy.

  The guards swept in then. Menaka glanced at Keshavan just once. That was the last time Raji’s parents saw each other. A crowd had gathered, as the boat took her out to sea. Once in deeper waters, Menaka would be placed in a smaller boat and left on her own. Keshavan was not on the beach, though. He had climbed the highest hill to watch her go. He stood there in silence long after the sun had set.

  All this had happened when Raji was very young. She could well imagine how her father had looked, standing there lost and alone.

  It was a flimsy boat, and soon a fierce storm descended. The storm that kept returning in Raji’s dreams.

  ‘Your mother,’ said Aji, ‘perhaps became a pawn in the terrible politics that had already seen the death of other Chola princes, such as Aditya, and no one knows how he died too. The queen mother, rather than suspect her own, had believed in Menaka’s guilt.’

  Every painting and sculpture of Menaka was destroyed soon after the banishment, following a royal proclamation, read out by drummers on every street. Even Keshavan, was ordered to have his own statues destroyed, the ones he had sculpted, inspired by her.

  Keshavan simply lost heart after this. He was brought down from the cliff and he refused to work for the king anymore. Uttama Chola couldn’t make him change his mind. If the king had Keshavan put to death for his refusal, he was afraid of incurring the wrath of the gods, for you could not kill a true man of art. If the sculptor was exiled, any of the other kingdoms would gladly welcome him. But Keshavan made things easier for the king when he left the kingdom soon after, leaving his young daughter behind with his mother. He did not leave behind a note either.

  But now her father was back, and wouldn’t explain to anyone where he had been. He was thinner, Aji said, his face had a narrow, haunted look, he was a man lost in himself. But still he had told Raji about the statue he was now working on. The dancing Shiva or Nataraja as he performed the great dance of destruction and preservation; the image that had appeared to him in a vision. ‘He is angry and abandoned. Have you seen anyone dancing like that?’ Keshavan asked.

  Raji looked at the half-finished statue. A slender figure with the thin, elongated features that, as her father told her, had first appeared on cave paintings done on walls long ago. He had seen them deep inside a forest as he had wandered afar in the company of monks. The caves were located in the Ajanta hills, in the kingdom up north across the Krishna and beyond. Monks like those he had travelled with, devoted to spreading the message of the Buddha, had painted figures and scenes on walls using colours made with special herbs that would last a thousand years and more.

  Shiva stood four-armed, holding a drum in his upper right hand. Her father had worked on every little finger, the way they clasped the drum. There was the thin sinuous frame of the snake that lay coiled along Shiva’s upper right arm. She looked at the hair, the locks with the river Ganga caught in it. There was fire in his right hand, and Raji wanted to ask, why, if he was performing such an angry dance, his eyes were were closed in such serenity.

  Her eyes ran down and saw the dwarf-like creature at his feet.

  Who was that . . . ? It was a tiny creature, and quite similar to the dwarves she had seen once, in the camp of the circus performers from Sinhala, the kingdom to the south of their own, across the narrow strait. But those had been agile creatures, capable of climbing ropes and cracking jokes with straight faces who made the audience laugh. This creature at the feet of the great god looked altogether different. Raji turned questioning eyes to her father.