Read Online Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana by Edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh - Free Book Online
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, USA, israel, cyberpunk, Anthology, Women, UK, Magic Realism, India, gender, Feminism, Thailand, Holland, sri lanka, Surreal, ramayana, abha dawesar, rana dasgupta, priya sarukkai chabria, tabish khair, kuzhali manickavel, mary anne mohanraj, manjula padmanabhan
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blisteringly hot in there. He speaks to her just twice on the journey south, both apologies. Once for the kidnapping, and once for the “barrenness” of his city. They arrive at night and all she can see of his home are the lights in the houses and the gleam of thedomes.
Her servants (she has had none since her marriage) are automata, and her home is pink marble. She spends most of her time in the garden outside. There is no grass in Vishravan’s city, but the ground is paved with coloured stones. There are trees of dead wood and dull iron, and the leaves and flowers (she will learn that they were made for her by her captor’s wife) are tinted glass. Thestrange deer-like thing she saw in the forest is also here, though she doesn’t ask how.
Of necessity she spends a lot of time in the palace. Everyone is wary of her, all but Vishravan’s wife Mandodari. From hershe learns that her captor has many brothers (she never sees them while she’s there and all she really remembers is that one is particularly pious and one particularly sleepy), andthat the quiet, middle-aged lady who sits next to him on a throne is his sister, a widow and a clever craftswoman. She senses that Meenakshi avoids her on purpose, but even her new mentor doesn’t know why.
She learns that this palace (a wonder in crystal and coloured stone) was made by her protector’s father. In years to come he will make other celebrated palaces but this one, for his daughter,is his masterpiece.
So thoroughly has she been taken under Mandodari’s wing that she is safer in this city than anywhere else in the world. They even hear a story about how her new protector dramatically stepped in to save her from rape by a besotted kidnapper.
In Vishravan’s city the physically strong are called upon to build. They make bridges and monuments and roads from strong blocksof grey and pink stone. The king himself is among them, carrying massive quantities of rock effortlessly. His sister is there too, as strong as he. Mythili has grown up among farmer kings and the first sight of the vast engineering works of Vishravan’s city fills her with awe. The great turbines are constantly in motion on the shore. Water and steam power the city, and massive machines powered bysystems of toothed wheels. She will learn that Vishravan has war machines as well.
Those who do not build apply their skills elsewhere. Mandodari is teaching Mythili how to weave cloth from the thin metallic wires that she herself draws from her forge. They are so thin as to be as soft and pliant as thread. Mythili learns to make elaborate pictures in the resulting cloth, and hangs her homewith tapestries that gleam where the light touches them and make tiny chink-chink noises when the wind shifts them against the walls. Once she has become proficient their creator weavesfor herself a cloth to wear in the rich copper of Meenakshi’s beautiful hair.
She does not like the forges themselves. But the one time she enters Mandodari’s workshop she does make something—a thick ring ofpure gold. She presses her fingers into it to decorate it; the metal is still hot and it blisters her fingers but she is pleased with the result. Even when she learns (Mandodari laughs at her) that pure gold is so soft that she could have let it cool. She has had no ornaments since her marriage either.
She will give the gold ring to the first of her husband’s ambassadors along with a message:“Can he not rescue me himself?” By himself, for her, a personal act. Not some sort of cosmic war.
Word comes that her husband’s army has reached the mainland shore.
Ridiculous to imagine that it is outraged pride that propelled the long chase southward. He is hardly a jealous local king. Yet for some reason she has never quite understood he must act out these petty human performances,as if he could not merely think different circumstances into existence. So he performs rage, and standing on the edge of a sea he could part with
Her servants (she has had none since her marriage) are automata, and her home is pink marble. She spends most of her time in the garden outside. There is no grass in Vishravan’s city, but the ground is paved with coloured stones. There are trees of dead wood and dull iron, and the leaves and flowers (she will learn that they were made for her by her captor’s wife) are tinted glass. Thestrange deer-like thing she saw in the forest is also here, though she doesn’t ask how.
Of necessity she spends a lot of time in the palace. Everyone is wary of her, all but Vishravan’s wife Mandodari. From hershe learns that her captor has many brothers (she never sees them while she’s there and all she really remembers is that one is particularly pious and one particularly sleepy), andthat the quiet, middle-aged lady who sits next to him on a throne is his sister, a widow and a clever craftswoman. She senses that Meenakshi avoids her on purpose, but even her new mentor doesn’t know why.
She learns that this palace (a wonder in crystal and coloured stone) was made by her protector’s father. In years to come he will make other celebrated palaces but this one, for his daughter,is his masterpiece.
So thoroughly has she been taken under Mandodari’s wing that she is safer in this city than anywhere else in the world. They even hear a story about how her new protector dramatically stepped in to save her from rape by a besotted kidnapper.
In Vishravan’s city the physically strong are called upon to build. They make bridges and monuments and roads from strong blocksof grey and pink stone. The king himself is among them, carrying massive quantities of rock effortlessly. His sister is there too, as strong as he. Mythili has grown up among farmer kings and the first sight of the vast engineering works of Vishravan’s city fills her with awe. The great turbines are constantly in motion on the shore. Water and steam power the city, and massive machines powered bysystems of toothed wheels. She will learn that Vishravan has war machines as well.
Those who do not build apply their skills elsewhere. Mandodari is teaching Mythili how to weave cloth from the thin metallic wires that she herself draws from her forge. They are so thin as to be as soft and pliant as thread. Mythili learns to make elaborate pictures in the resulting cloth, and hangs her homewith tapestries that gleam where the light touches them and make tiny chink-chink noises when the wind shifts them against the walls. Once she has become proficient their creator weavesfor herself a cloth to wear in the rich copper of Meenakshi’s beautiful hair.
She does not like the forges themselves. But the one time she enters Mandodari’s workshop she does make something—a thick ring ofpure gold. She presses her fingers into it to decorate it; the metal is still hot and it blisters her fingers but she is pleased with the result. Even when she learns (Mandodari laughs at her) that pure gold is so soft that she could have let it cool. She has had no ornaments since her marriage either.
She will give the gold ring to the first of her husband’s ambassadors along with a message:“Can he not rescue me himself?” By himself, for her, a personal act. Not some sort of cosmic war.
Word comes that her husband’s army has reached the mainland shore.
Ridiculous to imagine that it is outraged pride that propelled the long chase southward. He is hardly a jealous local king. Yet for some reason she has never quite understood he must act out these petty human performances,as if he could not merely think different circumstances into existence. So he performs rage, and standing on the edge of a sea he could part with
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