Chapter 20: Ghar Wapsi (Coming Home)

The wagons were recovered on a Tuesday.

Not by the Rakshak — by the Chitrakoot goatherds, who had found three abandoned wagons by a tributary river and who had, with the particular pragmatism of hill people, used the wagons as storage for three weeks before a message reached them (through the informal network that connected every Nat family in the Vasishtha Rajya, the network that was older than the postal system and faster than the courier service and that functioned on the principle that every Nat knew every other Nat or knew someone who did) that the wagons belonged to the Natraj Natak Mandali and that the Natraj Natak Mandali would like them back.

Motu and Chhotu were alive. The oxen — patient, uncomprehending, the animals who had stood in their harnesses while the family fled into the hills — had been unharnessed by the goatherds and had been grazing on Chitrakoot grass for three weeks and were, if anything, fatter than before. The particular resilience of oxen, the resilience that said: the humans may panic but the grass is the grass and the grass does not panic.

Devraj cried when he saw the wagons. Not the dramatic tears — not the performer's tears that he could summon on command. The real tears. The tears of a man who had inherited these wagons from his father and whose father had inherited from his father and who had, in the flight from Chitrakoot, accepted that the inheritance was lost and who was now, unexpectedly, receiving it back. The receiving was — the receiving was grace. The particular grace of things that return when you have stopped expecting them to return.

NATRAJ NATAK MANDALI. The painted letters on the side. Faded now — the three weeks of Chitrakoot weather (rain, sun, the particular atmospheric assault that hill climates inflicted on paint) had softened the letters. But present. Readable. The identity that was not gone but weathered, the identity that was — like the family itself — damaged but intact.

*

The choosing happened on the same day.

The group had gathered in the Rajnagar dharamshala — the new one, the one with Leela's tulsi plant in the courtyard, the one that was becoming, by the daily accumulation of presence, something that approximated home. The wagons were parked outside. The oxen were tethered. The choosing was the thing that had been approaching since the agreement was signed and that could not be avoided any longer.

"The Saptam Rajya needs people," Ritu said. "The kingdom is empty. The buildings are intact, the gardens are maintained, the library is full — but the kingdom has no people. The people who lived there before the sealing are scattered across the six kingdoms. Some will come back. Eventually. But the kingdom needs a guardian. The kingdom needs — me."

"You're staying," Amba said. Not a question. The statement of a mother who had known — who had known since the Grand Plaza, since the agreement, since the moment when her daughter had signed a document on behalf of an autonomous territory — that the staying was coming. The staying was the consequence of the opening. The door was open. The Door-Keeper stayed with the door.

"I'm staying. In the Saptam Rajya. For now. Not forever — not permanently. The Mahadwar is open. I can come and go. The door is mine. But the kingdom needs a presence. The kingdom needs someone to begin the work — the reopening, the rebuilding. Not the physical rebuilding (the kingdom is intact) but the social rebuilding. The inviting. The welcoming back of the people who were scattered."

"And the training?"

"The library has everything. The Shakti manuals, the Dwar Shakti methodology, the old way. The collaborative way. I don't need the Academy. I don't need Guru Markandeya. I have the original knowledge. The knowledge that was preserved with the kingdom."

Amba was — Amba was quiet. The particular quiet of a mother who was processing the departure of a daughter and who was processing it not with the dramatic grief of a stage mother (the wailing, the clutching, the theatrical expression of loss that Nat culture had ritualized) but with the practical grief of a real mother, the grief that was not about the losing but about the changing, the changing of the relationship from proximity to distance, from the same wagon to the different kingdoms.

"You'll need supplies," Amba said. Because Amba was Amba and Amba's grief expressed itself as logistics. "The preserved stores in the Saptam Rajya won't last forever. You'll need fresh grain. Fresh spices. Fresh—"

"Mama."

"—and chai. Proper chai. Not the preserved chai that's been sitting in a Saptam Rajya storehouse for sixteen years. That chai is probably dust by now. You'll need fresh ginger, fresh cardamom, fresh milk from an actual cow, not a preserved cow — do they have preserved cows? I don't want to know about preserved cows."

"Mama."

"The Mahadwar is open. I can bring supplies. I can bring chai. I can bring—"

"Mama. I'll be fine."

"You'll be sixteen. In an empty kingdom. With no mother. No father. No—"

"I'll have Leela."

Leela had already decided. The deciding had been — not a decision, really. The deciding had been an understanding, the understanding that the Vanaspati Shakti and the Dwar Shakti were connected and that the connection was not incidental but essential and that the Saptam Rajya — the kingdom that integrated architecture with nature, that grew trees through buildings, that practiced the collaborative Shakti — was the place where Leela's Shakti belonged. The Saptam Rajya was not just Ritu's inheritance. The Saptam Rajya was, for a Vanvasi healer, home in a way that no other place had ever been home.

"The soil," Leela said. Simply. "The soil in the Saptam Rajya is the most alive soil I've ever touched. I can grow anything there. I can heal anything there. The Vanaspati Shakti and the Saptam Rajya's earth — they're — they're the same thing. The kingdom was built on the collaborative Shakti. The Vanvasi way. It's my way."

"And Omi?" Mata asked. Mata, who was present — Mata who had been released from Rakshak custody on the second day after the agreement, the release being the first exercise of Ritu's new leverage, the leverage that said: release the healer or the Mahadwar closes and the autonomous territory becomes inaccessible and the agreement becomes waste paper. The release had been — swift. The Rakshak Commander had calculated the cost-benefit and the calculation had produced: release her. The cost of one healer was less than the cost of a closed door.

"Omi goes where Leela goes," Omi said. From beside Leela. The statement that was not bravado but fact, the fact of a man whose life's purpose had been articulated by Mata in a single sentence — protect Leela — and whose articulation had become his identity. "The forest trained me. The kingdom needs a hunter. A builder. Someone who understands wood. The stage I built for the Grand Plaza — I can build more. Better. The Saptam Rajya's architecture uses living wood. I understand living wood."

"And Karan?" Ritu asked.

Karan was — Karan was sitting apart from the group. The apart-ness that was not exclusion but uncertainty, the uncertainty of a man who had betrayed his master and his institution and who had, in the betraying, lost the framework that had defined his life for three years. The Academy was — not gone, but changed. Guru Markandeya was removed. The Academy was still the Academy, but Karan's place in it was — unclear. The apprentice whose master had been removed for betrayal. The student whose education had been interrupted by revolution.

"The Saptam Rajya has a library," Karan said. Slowly. The slowness of a man who was choosing his words with the particular care of a man who was also choosing his life. "The library has the original Shakti research. The research that the Academy doesn't have. The research that Guru Markandeya spent thirty years trying to access." He paused. "I spent three years studying Dwar Shakti through secondhand sources and institutional interpretations. The primary sources are in the Saptam Rajya. The scholarship I wanted to do — the real scholarship, not the report-filing, not the military-application justification — the real scholarship is there."

"That's a scholarly reason."

"It's one reason."

"What's the other reason?"

"You know the other reason."

"I'd like to hear it."

"The other reason is that I spent three weeks watching you open doors and I would like to continue watching you open doors. The watching is — the watching is the most interesting thing I have ever done. And the interest is not scholarly."

The almost-smile. Ritu's almost-smile that had been reserved since the Chitrakoot forest and that was now — the smile. The actual smile. The earning that had happened. The earning that was not a single moment but the accumulation of moments: the unsigned report, the confession in the courtyard, the tearing of the form, the legal argument in the Grand Plaza, the watching. The earning that was trust, built piece by piece, the trust that produced — the smile.

"You can come," Ritu said. "But you have to learn to juggle."

"I have learned to juggle. I can keep two stones in the air for three seconds."

"Two stones for three seconds is not juggling. Two stones for three seconds is dropping with extra steps."

"It's a work in progress."

"Everything is a work in progress."

*

The departure was not dramatic. The departure was — the departure was Nat. The particular way that Nat families departed: with the understanding that departure was temporary, that the road was the home and the road went everywhere, and that everywhere included the place you were leaving and the place you were going and every place in between.

Devraj hitched Motu and Chhotu. The hitching was — muscle-memory. The hands that had hitched these oxen ten thousand times before, the harness-buckles known by touch, the straps adjusted by feel. The hitching that said: the wagons are back. The road is back. The performing is back.

Noor packed the wagon — the main wagon, the family wagon, the wagon that would carry Noor and Lakku and the baby-to-come (the baby that was, by now, very close, the pregnancy in its final weeks, the baby who would be born on the road because Nat babies were born on the road and the road was the birthplace and the birthplace was the road).

The cousins organized the props. The green trunk — the green trunk that had held the letter and that was now empty of the letter (the letter was with Ritu, both letters, the birth-letter and the homecoming-letter, the two letters that were Ritu's inheritance from Meghna) — the green trunk that still held the costumes and the swords and the masks and the particular collection of theatrical equipment that was the Natraj Natak Mandali's life's work and that was, with the wagons' recovery, returned.

Amba made chai. Of course Amba made chai. The departure-chai, the particular chai that was made for the road, the chai that was stronger than the sitting-chai because the road required strength and the strength came from the ginger and the ginger came from the crushing and the crushing came from the spoon-back rhythm that was Amba's particular music, the music that was not performed but lived.

"You'll come to us," Amba said. Handing Ritu the tumbler. "Through the Mahadwar. Every month. Minimum."

"Every month."

"And you'll eat. The Saptam Rajya's preserved food is not food. Preserved food is a memory of food. You need real food. Cooked food. Amba-cooked food."

"The Saptam Rajya has a kitchen."

"The Saptam Rajya has a kitchen that hasn't been used in sixteen years. That kitchen needs — it needs me. Temporarily. To set it up. To teach you how to—"

"Mama, I know how to cook."

"You know how to burn things and call them cooked. That is not cooking. That is destruction with seasonings."

The laughter — the family laughter, the laughter that was specific to this family and that was produced by this particular dynamic: Amba's insistence and Ritu's resistance and the resistance being the love and the insistence being the love and the love being the laughter.

Devraj hugged Ritu. The hug was — the hug of a father who was releasing a daughter and who was doing the releasing with the particular grace of a man who understood that the releasing was not loss but continuation, the continuation of the story that had begun on a road in the Vasishtha Rajya sixteen years ago when a man with a moustache had found a basket and had chosen to pick it up.

"The wagons are yours when you want them," Devraj said. "The troupe is yours. The stage is yours. Whenever you want to perform — wherever you want to perform — the Natraj Natak Mandali is your troupe."

"Always?"

"Always. The troupe was mine. Before that, it was my father's. Before that, his father's. Now it's yours. Not because you're the best performer — although you are the best performer, don't tell Lakku I said that — but because the troupe goes where the Door-Keeper goes. And the Door-Keeper goes everywhere."

The parting. Devraj and Amba in the wagon — the lead wagon, NATRAJ NATAK MANDALI on the side, the paint faded but readable. Lakku and Noor in the second wagon (Noor sewing even as the wagon moved, the needle not stopping for departures, the needle having its own schedule and the schedule not including pauses for emotion). The cousins and children in the third wagon. Mata Ashwini in the third wagon too — Mata, whose knees had, against all evidence and medical probability, survived the ventilation shaft and the running and the custody and who was now sitting on a cushion in the wagon with the particular posture of a woman who had decided that wagons were, despite everything, more comfortable than ventilation shafts.

The wagons moved. Down the Rajnagar road. Toward the next town. Toward the next performance. Toward the road that was the home.

Ritu watched them go. From the dharamshala courtyard — the courtyard with the tulsi plant, the courtyard that had been temporary and that was, now, concluded. The wagons shrinking on the road. The NATRAJ NATAK MANDALI letters shrinking with them. Motu and Chhotu's patient plodding shrinking to a rhythm and then to a suggestion and then to a memory.

Beside her: Leela. Omi. Karan.

The four. The unit. The Door-Keeper, the Healer, the Archer, and the Mage. The team that had been formed in a Chitrakoot forest and that had been tested in a Rajnagar prison and that had been proven in a Grand Plaza and that was now — the beginning. The beginning of the Saptam Rajya's reopening. The beginning of the work.

"Ready?" Ritu asked.

"The stage is built," Omi said. "Literally."

"The soil is calling," Leela said. "Literally."

"The library is waiting," Karan said. "And I have approximately ten thousand manuscripts to read. So — literally."

Ritu raised her hands. The gold light — the Dwar Shakti, the Door-Power, the inheritance. The light that was hers. The light that was her mother's. The light that was the door.

The Mahadwar opened. The Great Door — the door to the Saptam Rajya, the door to the kingdom that had been sealed and that was now open, the door that led to the sunflower fields and the amber light and the buildings of stone and wood and light and the library and the gardens and the home.

The four stepped through.

And behind them, on the Rajnagar road, the wagons moved. The Natraj Natak Mandali heading for the next town. The next performance. The next audience.

Two journeys. One family. The door between them: always open.