The desert

The triangle of the Swan, the Eagle and the bright-eyed vulture had mountained the inky heavens. Seeing that it was late valsha decided to lay himself to rest on his litter. His body was racked with all manner of aches. The day that followed was not one to worry much about, so he unhurriedly lapsed into the hypogogic state. Most unexpectedly a beautiful woman appeared before him. She was not anyone whom he had ever seen in wakeful life. Nor had anyone like her every manifested in a dream nor in hypnogogia before. She had a long flowing black hair in a dense masses like the great bee-hive on the vast ashvattha tree near the pAShaNDa-gR^iha. Her eyes had a sparkle to them like heads of the asterism of the Twins. Her body was slim and shapely and wonderfully sculpted with breasts like the vessels that lustrate viShNupatnI. valsha was even more surprised when he heard her speak – it was in the gIrvANa bhAShA. valsha realized that in this tongue even the mundane sounded poetic. She introduced herself: “aham asmi paShupatAnAM pAtAla-rudrasya gahvare vAsA kukkuravati | asau gahvarasya samIpe eka uddhataH kedAro .asti | asmin kedAre vishAlo vaTavR^ikSho .asti | tasya adho .asti mama pIThikA |” Hearing her he wondered if she was a yakShiNI or a pishAchI or perhaps a shape-shifting rAkShasI. Neither her name nor her form was like any yakShiNI he had encountered before. Finally she directed him: “shayAyA uttiShTha, etasmin chaShake saMnihitaM rasaM piba, mama a~NgulyA mandaM chumba, mama upAnahanau gADhaM gR^ihNa! tvayA saha akAshe uDDayiShyamy ahaM hA hA! pashya pashya prakR^ites sarvAnAM niyamAnAM ati-la~nghanaM kariShyAmi | mama patham na j~nAtuM shaknoShi |”

She flew carrying valsha at a dizzying pace. Finally they landed in a place that looked strangely familiar to valsha; yet he was unable to make precisely identify it. It was a school building with an adjacent ground that looked like rat-nibbled roTikA. In the mid 1930s the Vatican had financed a bunch of German missionaries to go forth to the holy land of bhAratavarSha and convert the heathens. Uwe Christian led the operation with his fellows brothers and fathers. He was also a double agent for Das dritte Reich. He tried hard to entice some brAhmaNa-s to the fold of the preta, hoping that if he converted the brAhmaNa-s then he would gain easy control over the “superstitious lay”. With this intention he started a school named after one of the many dead pretAcharin-s who had been proclaimed to be a saint by the Vatican rulers due to performance of an even lamer miracle than those the unwashed Hindus were supposed to believe in. In this school he offered a proper western education that brAhmaNa parents were supposed to seek like a good bride for their dear sons. 1958 Christian was assassinated by an Israeli letter bomb. Shortly thereafter his school was bought by a Portuguese missionary group from Goa, who continued their operations in the service of the long decomposed corpse of Nazareth. But not long after that Goa was finally reconquered by the Hindus restoring the continuity of peninsular bhAratavarSha, which their old poet kAlidAsa had likened to a drawn bowstring. With that the school and the associated church declined into disuse. A few years later in a great monsoon storm the spire of the church was knocked down reminding the Hindus of might of the devaheti that strikes from above. The people in that part of the city were growing prosperous again after the dismal years that followed independence and felt the need for more schools for their children. So they decided to use the old school’s infrastructure for a new one. Having renovated it they reinitiated education in those premises in the form of a secular institution.

In the school, in the 9th class were studying students who went by the names saMpadA durnAmikA, satyo daridrasaMdha, harir babhru and mahAmada Agomado marusaMbhava. At that point kukkuravati briefly possessed their teacher. Their teacher then addressed the class indicating the topic for a small essay: “rAShTrIya dhvajasya pradhanaM arthavattvaM katamaM?”
Then valsha and kukkuravati unseen by the rest went to look at what those four students wrote.

saMpadA durnAmikA wrote: The national flag is symbol of India’s freedom. The length of the flag is 1.5 times that of its width. It is to be respected by all and never hoisted in peoples homes. No one should trod on it, burn it or defile it in any other way. It should be made by hand using cloth spun by the Gandhian wheel. If it is made using any other material then the person is liable to be interred in a jail for 3 years [Pointing to this sentence kukkuravati laughed and tapped valsha on his shoulder. valsha wondered if that was the real fate that awaited him for having flown a paper flag on some national day! saMpadA saw no one but heard the laugh of a woman. She wondered who could that be? May be it is my mind saying all this is so funny]. A real India flag is only be made in the state of karNATaka. People have to stand erect and sing the national anthem composed by shrI ravIndranAth when the flag is being hoisted.

satyo daridrasaMdha wrote: The flag was made by some Telugu guy [He had forgotten the guy's name. So he made it up: If there could be a Gandhi of the frontier in Afghanistan, why could we not have a Gandhi in Andhra. So let us call him the Andhra Gandhi]. At first B.G. Tilak had suggested a saffron flag with the picture of gaNesha. Aurobindo and Vankimchandra wanted the image to be that of a fierce kAlI with an upraised scimitar. Some other Hindu leaders wanted a cow on it. But the secularists wanted none of this. Eventually a flag was made to incorporate Gandhi’s wheel, a sign that the technology invented in the Indus valley civilization was still in unmodified use, the saffron color of the Hindus, the green color of the Mohammedans and the white for whatever other religions existed in the land.

mahAmada Agomado marusaMbhava wrote:

continued…