by
Vrishchikan Raj
“The stone is worth more than you can imagine, young sir, for its charm gives you immense wealth and prosperity,” the villager reassured Yogi.
“And you are all too ready to sell it for only a two hundred rupees?”
Now the villager's face changed and he nodded helplessly. Two hundred was so meager that the deal seemed utterly suspicious.
Yogi continued staring at him. Part of him wanted to believe the old man, but the old goat looked somewhat unreliable; although he looked starving since eras, his eyes were laughing at him just the same, the glitter of peasant cunning all too present in them. Or perhaps Yogi's over suspicious mind was making up all of it, he never knew.
Being looked upon as a town guy most of the time, the forest officer couldn't completely blend with the villagers ever since he took the job. It was amazing that these people believed, without a doubt ever as well, in night-roaming gods and fire-spitting ghosts, and of course snakestones. They expected him to believe in them too, which was really, really funny.
Tharman the watcher sat on the other side of the table, and he was smiling gleefully down at the old guy. Kindred spirits recognized each other, may be. They both were of same village and shared same facts.
The watcher turned to the officer and said hesitantly, “It may be hard to believe, sir, and to a city guy like you it may look impossible. But the talk of those precious stones has been prevailing for centuries down here. People have seen the stones and they always talked about it. The snakestone exists and it's nothing but truth.”
“Do you own one as well?”
“Ah, no, sir. Yet I have seen it, more than once. The ancient snake temple upon the hills had one when I was a little kid and then it vanished out of thin air someday.”
“Vanished…”
“Of course sir,” Tharman didn't bat an eye, “there was a lot of talk about how it vanished from the temple.”
The old man nodded all along.
The stone could be worth a value however, had it been a ruby or a diamond, Yogi mused. The villagers had their own perky vocabulary for most of the things, which was one certain thing he learned through his years in middle of these hillside villages. He remembered also, of a notable frenzy that took place in the land only a few months ago. A group of farmers found the rocks on the north side hills showing grains of golden substance when they broke a mound for a construction. The specimen collected by the officials showed only a scrap of weak gold, nothing worthy to jump and holler about anyway.
But what if he is telling a truth?
No, Yogi rebuked himself, that's just your wishful thinking, even though that is very engaging to ponder on to. But he could not go on fantasizing. Simply he could not afford it.
“All right old father, your stone may of interest to me, and may be I buy that too. What's your plan with that two hundred?” Yogi asked.
Bright stirrings of hope flickered inside the old man's eyes. “I am actually on a pilgrimage toward my Lord Shiva's temple, which is, you know, in the city. It is a walking pilgrimage that could take a week utmost and the money shall help me to stay there for a while, if the Lord allows it of course.”
It was not clear if he indicated the officer or Lord himself as he said the word, ‘the lord.' He seemed wise enough to earn his two hundred after all, Yogi had to give him that. He laughed inwardly. The man looks the age to get a bit pious however, and the thing that the old guy's telling about the pilgrimage to his Lord Shiva may not be a lie anyway.
The old man's immediate needs seemed not hard to guess as well. While working on the forest-road journey toward the temple, his needs would be as humble as ever; a meal for a day, with his usual evening cup of country-spirit, and a bunch of cheap beedies he used to smoke since from his early yet prosperous days.
Recently, times had not been favorable to the farmers around here, and that changed things invariably. Most of them migrated to town. And as for some old ones, who literally reined these places not so long ago, it turned far worse. Isn't it a pity that they have to lie uncomprehendingly for a few hundred rupees of money? With a sigh, Yogi decided he could afford to sacrifice a little money for an old man's scanty needs.
“Let him show his precious stone,” he said to Tharman, knowing where the heart and the spirit of the old man lay.
The watcher turned his smiling face at the old man, and the old man responded appropriately, “It is better we wait till the nightfall, sir, for the stone would look so ordinary in the daylight!”
“Is it so? What would it look like in the dark, then?”
It was Tharman's turn to reply, “The stone will burn like an electric torch, a tiny, cool sliver of lightening. Ha! A real sight to see. When I was just a twelve-year-old kid, the snake temple over the hills had one of those stones sitting radiant upon the shrine. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. It stayed there until some city men stole it,” he paused and expected a response from the officer and received none. He continued on hopefully, “And it didn't end with that. It was said that they were chased and killed eventually by the Ichathari itself, the special kind of snake that produces the stone. The thieves' bodies were found dead nearby the temple, from where they had seized the snakestone of course.”
“And the stone…?”
“The Ichathari had grasped it back. It grasped its own stone back, as the legend goes.”
“Oh,” was all Yogi could manage.
“The thieves sell the stone to the sorcerers mostly, who needs it to use in their own evil ways and they usually sell the stone for a fortune. But Ichathari snakes would not bear it ever. They allow no evil performed on their holy stones. The stones are given as a boon by the gods indeed, for their patient devotion and for living through a many centuries without killing a human ever in their lifetime. And once the Ichathari comes to know its stone is used inappropriately, it goes kills the culprits at once. And aren't they special? The clan of Ichathari is such formidable creatures as well as they are very special in many ways.”
“Well, then, how could one possess such a stone without getting himself killed? You took the stone and survived out of your sheer bravery?” Yogi's smile was sarcastic.
“Karma decides those things, sir.”
Yogi couldn't argue against Karma, while almost half of the country rather reveled in that.
"If the taker of the stone was one of those gifted people who really deserved it through their Karma, the snakes let him have the stone along with their blessings. But since I didn't know I deserve that stone through my Karma, we can say it was sheer tomfoolery indeed that made me go steal the stone.”
“So, from the way things have turned out, you are gifted through your Karma?”
“Yes, if a man is fated to possess the stone, he will certainly come to possess it. That's a sure thing.”
“According to legend.”
“Of course, sir, according to legend. But in my case, as I myself have come to possess one of the stones, it's more true than a simple legend. People here believe these things with all our hearts. Because snakes are godly things to us villagers, there is no doubt about that, ” Tharman's voice was firm, “Gods! The snakes are gods, the Ichathari the best of all.”
Now, Yogi turned his full attention to the old man, “ What's your name old father?”
“Murugan.”
“Tell me Murugan, since the stone is so precious, why selling it? I can't understand.”
"Again, I shall give you the same answer, young sir, Karma in a word.” Murugan took a beedi from his dirty shirt pocket, gave an enquiring look at the officer and received no prohibition. He lit it with unhurried fingers, drew a bundle of smoke and sighed out all of it. His face had turned graver now. The eyes that stared back at Yogi had lost some of the glitter in them, and deep melancholy replaced it. “I'm selling it because I am no longer eligible to possess the stone any more.
“I have to get rid of it because I stained my soul and body to an extent that has brought up the curse within the stone.
“Yes, one first thing the keeper of the stone must indulge himself with is self-discipline,” Thurman paused for a breath, then carried on in a voice that got more and more hoarse. “ Yes, he should take the word to its utmost sense. He better do, if he really likes to stay put; he better do, if he wants to be spared of the danger the stone has in its hold,” he puffed more at the beedi, “ _almost _ a curse, you can say.”
“For instance, only a few months ago, I have married a woman twenty years younger than me, giving my loneliness as the excuse; the loneliness I have endured for decades yet failed to conquer since my first wife died so early. Yes, what you think is correct; marrying is not a sin after all. But the thing is the woman I have recently married has known nothing about prayers and not much about virtue either. Moreover even in this old age, I found that my new wife was not enough for me and I helped myself with the services of paid women as well, which is a fatal sin I should not have done while the stone is in my hold.”
“Of course in my earlier decades, the stone gave me a considerable amount of wealth, which I could never have earned without its lucky charm. I started business with only a little money, which multiplied itself since I had it my habit to place the money near the stone and prayed a whole night before the investment days. The stone works that way. Perhaps the time made me aloof or simple want itself was the culprit I don't know, my determination deterred eventually. Whoring around is a greatest sin indeed. And now the curse has taken effect. Ravages have already begun.
“Misfortunes upon misfortunes are getting loaded upon my slight back. I think I need not trouble you with further details of how I lost all my fortune through sudden pitfalls in my businesses. So, I leave them out now. Moreover I have suffered enough already, getting reminded of it again and again, even through my dreams as well.”
Murugan paused for a breath, then carried on.
“You can't escape Karma in any form. Anyhow, as if waiting for the moment all along, the stone has revenged me, as well as it has reduced me almost to a beggar's status,” he sighed. His face looked as if choking in his own sorrow, as he said, “And the sooner I get rid of it, the better would be the chance I escape from the Ichathari's curse, and the better my breast would breath.”
As if reminding himself with something he should not forget, he shook his head in swift nods, “And you- the buyer of the stone- need not fear of this curse young sir, for the intensity of the curse decreases considerably as it changes hands. All you have to keep the stone busy is to put it beneath the idol of Shiva and pray often in front of it. No need to stay as clean as I have to.”
The people before him, Yogi mused, could have been an appealing combination of innocence and piety or altogether a radiant bunch of humbugs. “You've not told us of how you got hold of the stone yet, old man.”
“I'll explain it to you, although it shall take a little of your precious time.” Murugan gave a dry smile.
Yogi wanted to hear it, even if the guy made it all from his imagination. Hearing the story might help him to decide if any fabrication involved here, although its presence seemed too obvious straight from the beginning.
The officer knew he only had to ask, which he did anyway. “One thing a forest officer really affords, old man, is time itself. You can take your own time. And moreover since the evening is still far away from now, we can finish up appropriately before we go observing the stone, right?”
The old man looked gratified. He drew deep in his beedi, and paused for a moment looking musingly at the cloud of his smoke. His eyes made the expression as if they were staring back into the past. He drew again in his beedi and began, “The man who prepares himself for the task finds that it is not an easy task at all.” The old man's tone was filled with the pride of, unmistakably, an achiever; whatever he had achieved, that was.
First of all, I had turned my senses into a strict shut-off to the alluring calls of vices, for that was what the old legend told to do if you want to get hold of the stone. I tried hard and managed at last to keep a wide distance from the spirit, the smoke and more strictly, those annoyances concerning women.
“And one other thing of the disciplines required is about food. Yes, the diet during the expedition should contain only of vegetables, and the passion -inducing ingredients like pepper should be used only within a limit. I maintained my diet like this for forty-eight days, which was the time limit the ritual required before I started for the hunt. And soon, without the usual treat of mutton and fish, I felt myself as weightless as a dried-out leaf and began to stride with an air of divine-adventurer.
“Then, the forty eighth night arrived. I went wandering alone to the wastelands across the Westside hills since that was where the Ichathari was said to be dwelling in one of the numerous holes. People used to farm nearby had seen the snake come and go at night times, always disappearing at the moment they set their eyes upon it.
Those people told me that the snake had been covered by an aura of lime colored light that flowed out from the stone itself, which was actually an appendage above its head, poking out in the air as if a tiny horn. With this light helping it to see the preys, it roamed through the nights it needed to feed. The light alone identified the creature's presence apart from the ordinary snakes.
“ Of course, what they were talking was true, for the species of Ichathari snakes had this habit of spitting out the stone at night time, which was their hunting time too. After the hunt was over it would swallow back its stone on its way to the hole. This is just before the dawn comes, they say.
“For almost the entire night, I waited, sitting upon the crude surface of a rock. It was the tallest one in the area and I chose that rock because I couldn't afford to get my bottom getting chewed off by the snakes, no matter it was an Ichathari or one of the ordinary ones, could I?
Throughout the wait, my heartbeat got its speed messed up with the anticipation and growing terror of things to come, but soon it decreased into normal rhythm as the time slithered on and on. I sat like this, chewing unaware the stick of veppa tree we use as toothbrush, for the dawn was nearly at hand.
“Already the thought of a very somber quality started to sulk its way into my head, which warned me the rigid discipline I had inflicted to my young body had yielded to nothing.
“I was on the verge of quitting the quest unfinished right away, and then my eyes began to discern the light that appeared out of nowhere.
I found the snake stone and it swallowed up all my being.”
All during the narration, Yogi's eyes never left the old man's face. The old man seemed not so aloof to show any indication of ever disbelieving his own story. Yogi knew it might not be pretty easy even to the craftier of liars. A sparkle of secret glee, amused at their prey's belief upon the hoax they wove, happened to show in their eyes sooner or later. Yogi hoped that the old fox would do precisely that mistake and he waited for it to show up.
Murugan's beedi had burnt off to its tip, and he lit another as he continued on with his story, “From the moment I saw the snake, I lost myself in a speed of motions, of which I came to doubt after hand, considering the nerve needed to do those things. Yes, I had felt as if I had been in my most agitated dream.
For this long dreamt occasion, I had brought the heap of cow-dung in a bag, the only weapon against the invincible snake, had the old hunters of the stone been correct in their details.
“Considering the hunts that had been made continuously generation after generation, they could not afford lying. And the dung, as it had turned out, was no less than a powerful weapon anyway.
“Without allowing the worst fear of doubt and failure engulfing me again, I cupped two handfuls of dung, and threw it across the direction of the glimmering stone. I drew no special attention to my coward mind that scared me that the throw could not reach the target, for I thought it was telling the truth, and the tremors I felt all among my nerves only intensified that fear.
"The one image that was smoking through from my out-cold brain was that of the flying Ichathari with its wide-opened incisors intended for my tender fleshed eyes. Yes, the Ichathari was a snake that could fly like an arrow as well.
“The dung hit the stone, and diminished the whole light. I waited a longtime for the inevitable to happen. And exactly as the hunters of the Ichatharis had told through their stories, it just stung the rocky ground three times and fell down to its side at once. It lay there motionless as if dead. Without its stone-light to see through, it was almost powerless. The creature had obviously swooned out in shock, which would stretch for a twenty-four hours.
“Until the gloom of the dawn got itself cleared, I had not dared to approach the dung-covered stone, not only because of the possibility that the other snakes, ordinary clan but not less poisonous in any case, would be waiting along there to take the revengeful leap at me- the snakes are a revengeful lot, you know-but also for the fear of approaching the snakestone itself was chewing me to pieces.
“Really it was well past noon that I jumped out from the rock I had been frozen upon and with shivering fingers I grabbed the stone, involuntarily warning myself not to glance at the fainted snake, not even to be sure if the snake had been really dead at all, which at any moment now could leap up high in the air.
“So I ran towards my home, and into the room where I kept the idol of my Lord Shiva. I put the stone in front of the idol. I prayed on and on through a total of ten hours flat out. Only after then that I slept, clearly because of the exhaustion.”
The air of the storytelling was cut off by the waspish reality when the phone rang suddenly in the office room.
For a fleeting moment, before Yogi took the receiver, he noted a beseeching look in the old man's eyes and face. Being aware of this appraisal, the old man rearranged his expression in hast. That instant, Yogi decided to buy the stone for sure, no matter it was valuable, or just a piece of junk.
At least the old man could obtain his pilgrimage to the temple, the only wish that sounded to have a deeper sense than his any other immediate ones, he thought.
He listened to the phone. The senior officer in the town ordered him to get out from the office in a hurry, simply because there was a bunch of villagers seen trying to decrease the eco-system's balance by cutting trees.
Yogi set the watcher ahead to get the jeep ready. He glanced at the old man thoughtfully. He had no intention wasting time in bargaining with the old man, but wanted a good view over the thing at least.
It was not dark yet, and so he thought for a moment.
Then he gestured at the old man. “Let me see it, Murugan.”
Murugan's uneasy fingers went into the inner pocket of his shirt, and the next moment they almost dribbled the stone in to the officer's out stretched palm.
Yogi looked and sighed. It had not had the slightest look of an in-built torch for any form of reptiles. It looked more like a little piece of common bull's broken horn, all dull and dirty.
The officer felt sorry for the old man. He was not as much of a liar as he had seemed at first; a whole marching joker he might have sounded in other much more cheerful surroundings.
Without making any contact with the old man's eyes, he gave him his two hundred. The old man could not afford being looked at. The look could shatter the man to pieces, if not killing him. He saw the last of him as he walked back through his way towards the city.
Well before dark, they managed to shoo away the tree robbers, which had turned out easier than expected. And halfway towards home, Tharman reminded him, “Sir, you have left the stone back in the office.”
“Oh, yeah,” Yogi said absentmindedly.
“It is not safe to leave it in the office, sir. You know how fragile the lock is?”
Yogi laughed.“Do you think that I believed in that story? For all I care, Tharman, you can take the stone yourself, if you need it.”
Tharman couldn't believe his luck. “Ah! Thank you sir, I shall take it from the office first thing in the morning.” He was all smiles.
Yogi had an important task to do other than practicing zest with a villager. These people are ridiculous. They think the diamonds grew on the trees and on the slithering bodies of reptiles, and they fill their eyes full of easy dreams; of getting everything too easy.
He jumped out from the jeep, and waved back to the watcher's farewell.
He waited, till the jeep receded to a point of dust soaked far-going ball.
He opened the door of his quarters, which was nested beside a huge signboard that indicated the beginning of the forests. It was just his luck that his residence stood alone from the others'.
Yogi had always made certain that no visitor saw his private room, for in there he kept the mumbo jumbo of both the sorcery and the godly he had collected since decades, a treasure indeed to a believer of occult sciences; things like the mantra-written copper plates, the idols of various pagan gods, the ancient Palmyra leaves in which the mystic prophecies were written, and the sticks of numerous incenses to intensify the incantations he had been working on for years and more and more others.
Most of his interest in occult science, which was almost obsessive, had been an inborn quality or so the Palmyra leaves prophesied. To seek the lost treasure of his past incarnation that had ended so shortly (which was only a few decades ago), was the mission of this new life he had taken now, or so the prophecy told.
The sufferings he had treaded on as an orphan child raised in charity homes was nothing compared to the pain caused by his shame. Yes, throughout his entire _ this_ life he had suffered with that shameful feeling of his true identity misplaced. He had lost his true identity by a moment of carelessness and he could not forgive himself for that.
He took out the stone from his trouser pocket. He had not left it in the office, no, for the sake of gods, he was not that careless to do that.
The feeling the stone aroused in him was just plain, placid calmness; so natural, so positive that it was not surprising, nor particularly exciting, but one of very satisfying. The hunt was over here and he knew it.
It was already dark.
He put the stone before the idol of Lord Shiva and leaned over, his face eagerly down toward the snakestone for it began to emit its glittering gleam.
He could not use his somewhat transforming hands, a transformation alike his body had been getting in to. And so, he reached with his tongue, the split tongue.
After all these years of separation, the taste of the stone was almost nectarous between his incisors. His transforming, scaly body shuddered, as he swallowed the stone, the transformation complete.
And slithered the Ichathari, out of the room.
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