Read Online Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana by Edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh - Free Book Online Page A
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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the mere flick of a hand sends mortal creatures to do his work instead. A vanar is crushed to death when he strays into the path of a boulder that is being rolled into the sea. Her husband has already shot one vanar in the back for the sake of his story.He reaches out a hand to stroke a passing squirrel whose only contribution to this huge enterprise is a handful of pebbles.
Everybody knows the war is coming.
It is while her husband and his motley army are throwing stones into the sea that Mandodari leads her into the forges for a second time. Around them everyone who can be spared fromtheir regular duties has been drafted into makingmore weapons of iron and bronze; Mandodari is the only one to use gold. Mythili watches as her friend crafts first a necklace and then a thick belt of linked panels of gold.
“To remember us by,” she says, and Mythili realises that she knows how this is going to end. This is the worst moment of all.
The belt is a story. She sees the birth of Vishravan in one panel, and she sees him prayingfor ten years for his city. And she learns what everyone in the city knows, no matter how hard Vishravan tries to escape it. And she learns that when he crouched in the bushes with his sister, he wasn’t looking at her.
When the city catches fire molten bronze flows through the cracks in the paving into the forges below. She does not know if her friend has escaped.
On the day thatshe is to be tested Mythili arms herself in metals as an act of defiance. She wears the copper cloth that she wove for herself as a sari, and covers her head. She wears Mandodari’s necklace and belt and covers her arms in bangles.
When she moves forward the heat blisters her skin. She can feel molten copper and gold running down her arms and legs. The ground has already begun to rumble evenbefore she steps into the fire. And then she does, and the earth shatters.
The Good King
Abha Dawesar
The new barbers had yet to master the sequence Ravana had given them. One finished his work even as the other started shaving the last of Ravana’s faces. Ravana was irritated, he was a stickler for timing and symmetry. The idiots were out of sync and as if that weren’t badenough the last of his faces had an itch. It was the only one he couldn’t reach without curving his contiguous heads. He should never have let his regular barbers go on their annual holiday at the same time.
But this is Lanka, he reminded himself. Whatever the index, Lanka, his Lanka, came out tops—GDP, GNP, health, female literacy, retirement services, child welfare. The quality of life wasexcellent not just for him, but for every one of his subjects. That brought a smile to his face.
“Anything else, Your Majesty?”
Ravana looked at the eight-foot long mirror in his bathroom.
“I have an itch on that far face just above my moustache on the left side,” he rolled his eyes in the direction of his five heads.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The barber gingerly ran his fingertips onthe few centimeters of ex posed skin beside Ravana’s thick tangle of whiskers.
“Majesties itch like other people, use some force, Barber. And your nails!”
The barber scratched him harder.
Ravana grunted. He knew the man’s name. He never forgot any name but when he was angry he preferred addressing people by their titles.
“Your Majesty, there is an emergency. Your sister is here,”a sentry broke into Ravana’s chambers.
His sisters followed on the guard’s heels. As Ravana opened a mouth to say something she bawled.
Fine-tuned by modern science and amplified by his twenty ears, her cry seemed a lot louder to Ravana than it was. He interrupted it quickly.
“I get it, I get it! Your rhinoplasty has gone wrong again. I told you not to get another nose job. They’re redundantthese days. I can configure any form for your face and when you tire of it you can get an other. I don’t have ten brains for nothing. How do you think Lanka got to where it is?
Everybody knows the war is coming.
It is while her husband and his motley army are throwing stones into the sea that Mandodari leads her into the forges for a second time. Around them everyone who can be spared fromtheir regular duties has been drafted into makingmore weapons of iron and bronze; Mandodari is the only one to use gold. Mythili watches as her friend crafts first a necklace and then a thick belt of linked panels of gold.
“To remember us by,” she says, and Mythili realises that she knows how this is going to end. This is the worst moment of all.
The belt is a story. She sees the birth of Vishravan in one panel, and she sees him prayingfor ten years for his city. And she learns what everyone in the city knows, no matter how hard Vishravan tries to escape it. And she learns that when he crouched in the bushes with his sister, he wasn’t looking at her.
When the city catches fire molten bronze flows through the cracks in the paving into the forges below. She does not know if her friend has escaped.
On the day thatshe is to be tested Mythili arms herself in metals as an act of defiance. She wears the copper cloth that she wove for herself as a sari, and covers her head. She wears Mandodari’s necklace and belt and covers her arms in bangles.
When she moves forward the heat blisters her skin. She can feel molten copper and gold running down her arms and legs. The ground has already begun to rumble evenbefore she steps into the fire. And then she does, and the earth shatters.
The Good King
Abha Dawesar
The new barbers had yet to master the sequence Ravana had given them. One finished his work even as the other started shaving the last of Ravana’s faces. Ravana was irritated, he was a stickler for timing and symmetry. The idiots were out of sync and as if that weren’t badenough the last of his faces had an itch. It was the only one he couldn’t reach without curving his contiguous heads. He should never have let his regular barbers go on their annual holiday at the same time.
But this is Lanka, he reminded himself. Whatever the index, Lanka, his Lanka, came out tops—GDP, GNP, health, female literacy, retirement services, child welfare. The quality of life wasexcellent not just for him, but for every one of his subjects. That brought a smile to his face.
“Anything else, Your Majesty?”
Ravana looked at the eight-foot long mirror in his bathroom.
“I have an itch on that far face just above my moustache on the left side,” he rolled his eyes in the direction of his five heads.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The barber gingerly ran his fingertips onthe few centimeters of ex posed skin beside Ravana’s thick tangle of whiskers.
“Majesties itch like other people, use some force, Barber. And your nails!”
The barber scratched him harder.
Ravana grunted. He knew the man’s name. He never forgot any name but when he was angry he preferred addressing people by their titles.
“Your Majesty, there is an emergency. Your sister is here,”a sentry broke into Ravana’s chambers.
His sisters followed on the guard’s heels. As Ravana opened a mouth to say something she bawled.
Fine-tuned by modern science and amplified by his twenty ears, her cry seemed a lot louder to Ravana than it was. He interrupted it quickly.
“I get it, I get it! Your rhinoplasty has gone wrong again. I told you not to get another nose job. They’re redundantthese days. I can configure any form for your face and when you tire of it you can get an other. I don’t have ten brains for nothing. How do you think Lanka got to where it is?
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