Radha: Love, War, and Renunciation

By Krishna Dharabasi

Radha, an award-winning novel by Krishna Dharabasi, is a mythopoetic fiction that relies on a subject drawn from the epic Mahabharata with a special focus on the lives and relations between Krishna and Radha. Written from Radhas perspective, the novel excavates those subtle and discursive social constructs of that era that barred a woman from exercising her free will and licensed a man for following his unrestrained desires. The novel peels out those myth-making endeavors that gave Krishna an aura of a godlike personality and left Radha waiting on the fringe of the society to see his return and fulfillment of her desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543470093

Krishna Dharabasi

About the Author Krishna Dharabasi (b. 1960) is a renowned Nepali novelist and poet. He made his debut in writing in 1975 and has since then published in a number of genres including poetry, criticism, and fictions, novel being his most dominant field of work. His Radha won Madan Puraskar, the most prestigious literary award in Nepal, which gave him an international repute. Since then, he has published more than a dozen novels. He usually chooses psychology of the lonely characters, womens struggle for equity, sentiments of the marginal population, and psychosexual world of the socially othered population as his theme.

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Copyright © 2017 by Krishna Dharabasi.

Translated from Nepali by Mahesh Paudyal

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5434-7010-9

                 eBook         978-1-5434-7009-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 12/08/2017

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CONTENTS

Dharabasi’s Radha: A Critical Introduction

The Prelude

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Endnotes

DHARABASI’S RADHA: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

Mahesh Paudyal

Radha, the award-winning novel by master novelist Krishna Dharabasi, presents a bottom-up perspective on Krishna, perhaps the most multifarious metaphoric figure from Hindu scriptures. The largest part of the novel is a diary entry by Radha, Krishna’s lifelong sweetheart, and it presents Krishna’s story from her perspective. In doing so, the novel dispenses with most of the eulogies and divination culturally accorded to Krishna. From the realm of God, Krishna is brought down to the realm of a human male, and by that very token, all his mortal weaknesses as a man are exposed.

The novel opens with the author visiting an excavation site after hearing rumors that some metallic plates with an ancient and almost obsolete script have just been excavated by the Department of Archaeology at Keechak Badh, a site of mythological importance in Jhapa, the easternmost district of Nepal. The novelist visits and does see the plates but is dismayed to find that there’s no one in that part of the world, who can decipher the script, which is evidently very old and is no longer in vogue at present. Finally, in the midst of utter confusion and loss, an old sage offers to read it, and the rest of the novel is the reading of the same, which is Radha’s account of her and Krishna’s life in fine details. Incidentally, the reader happens to be Aswatthama, the accursed and immortal sage, who was wronged and cursed by Krishna way back in Dwapar era, and left to wander around the world carrying festering wounds on his forehead. This sage, who’s the son of Guru Dronacharya, had sided with the Kauravas in the battle of the Mahabharata, and defeating him and his father was key to the Pandavas’ success. Dronacharya, the father, was the architect of the Kaurava’s war strategy, and so eliminating him was imminent for the Pandavas. Realizing this fact, the Pandavas created the rumor that Aswatthama was dead, following which his father, Guru Dronacharya, died of shock. Enraged, Aswatthama butchered the five sons of the Pandavas—while they were asleep—to take revenge of the intrigue the Pandavas had resorted to, to eliminate Dronacharya. His plan was to make the Pandavas feel what it feels like to bear the shock of the death of one’s own child. Krishna, on charge of this infanticide, planted a wound on Aswatthama’s forehead, never to be healed. He is thus doomed to hover around the world forever—as blessed with immortality he is—with the festering wound always bothering him. The same man incidentally appears here at the excavation site to read the ancient script, but his identity is revealed only at the end of the reading.

Radha’s diary entry calls for a non-normative reading, strewn with her discontentment at so many decisions that have been taken up at the cost of many feminine interests merely to groom Krishna for kingship. There was a prophecy that Kansa, the demon king of Mathura, would be killed by a male child born to Devaki, his own sister. So Kansa had jailed Devaki and her husband, Basudev, so that he would be able to grab and eliminate any child the moment it is born to Devaki. This happens with the first seven kids of the couple. Krishna would be the eighth child; so, they want to save him at all cost. According to an arrangement, Basudev sneaks out of the jail at the dead of the rain-drenched night of Krishna’s birth in August with just-born Krishna and reaches Braja, where a daughter has just been born to his friend Nanda. They exchange the kids, and Basudev returns to Mathura with the girl, where she could be eliminated at any time. Krishna grows in Braja as Nanda’s son. Radha, in her diary, attacks this act, flaying it as an act of belittling a girl child and offering her to be killed merely to save Krishna, the male child.

This exchange of kids takes place without the knowledge of Yashoda, Eknamsha’s mother. The fact is revealed years later when Sage Garga tells the story to Krishna and Krishna lets Yashoda know. Yashoda takes Nanda headlong for deceiving her all these years. She complains that people in the village had questioned her fidelity, as her son did not have his parents’ looks and did not resemble any of the Gopas living in Braja. Nanda is left speechless, though his act later proves a noble one, helping Krishna grow with safety to kill Kansa and free the kingdom from his reign of terror.

Strewn with such feministic entries, the novel criticizes every initiative taken to groom and educate Krishna for kingship and heroism. Krishna, as revealed by Radha’s diary entry, appears licensed to be willful, who could get any of his wishes fulfilled. His faith in love with Radha too is flayed on the grounds that he maintains relations with many concubines and marries eight queens one after another, barring Radha, whose claim for love is unconditional. Radha remains unmarried all her life, waiting for Krishna to come in person and take her to Dwarika, where he has established his new capital, but this does not happen. Krishna pretends to be ‘too busy’ in his state affairs and has no time to come back to Radha. Out of frustration, Radha chooses to be an ascetic and moves from place to place, preaching lessons of love, celibacy, and spiritualism.

The novel is set primarily in three locations: Braja, where Krishna and Radha pass much of their childhood; Dwarika, where Krishna establishes the new capital of this kingdom; and Himvatkhanda, the region south of the Himalayas—a long stretch of land strewn across hills and plains—where Radha visits as a pilgrim.

The story that is set in Braja prepares the readers for two important developments: love between Krishna and Radha, and myths circumscribing Krishna that propel him to become a warrior and political personage. The rural, cow-rearing, and sylvan landscape of Braja provides ample opportunities for boys and girls to meet and mix prodigally among themselves, swimming in Yamuna, moving after cattle in Gokul, and organizing group dance called Raas Leela, usually in the region demarcated as Raas Mandal—the dancing ring. This mixing culminates in enforced love between Krishna and Radha, which at times becomes scandalous, especially after a night picnic partaken by many Gopini maids and Krishna, the lone male member in the group. The entering of Radha and Krishna into the depth of the forest in the night and their passionate love sharing becomes viral among the participants. This leads to serious doubt and surveillance from the rest of the villagers. Radha and most of her girlfriends in Braja are kept under virtual house arrest, while conspiracies are made to send Krishna away from Braja so that he won’t be able to meet the girls anymore.

Krishna moves away on the pretext of higher studies but is in reality preparing a fighting squad to attack and kill Kansa, his nemesis. As the preparations get under way, many boys and girls from Braja, including Sushila, a girl who is silently in competition with Radha to win Krishna’s love, join Krishna and become his fighters, who attain martyrdom later. Radha, however, is left back in Braja to assist her ailing father to supervise the village activities as the king’s representative. She is thus barred from meeting Krishna. Too busy, Krishna does not return to Braja, and their love is left astray. Occasionally, Krishna sends messages to Radha, reassuring her of his untiring love, but Radha is smoldered by flames of doubt, as she is aware of the licentious character of Krishna.

War preparations continue. Krishna’s squad prepares for the final attack. They have the support and blessing of Sage Garga, a learned hermit, and Akroor, a minister in Kansa’s palace who is secretly plotting for the king’s elimination.

Back in Braja, Radha collects taxes and fetches it to Kansa merely to abide by the rules but sends a major portion of the same to Krishna to assist his war preparations. Radha herself walks out to Mathura and meets Kansa; she also meets Minister Akroor and Eknamsha, the girl with whom Krishna was exchanged in infancy. Radha is suddenly made aware of the violence that had been meted out to Eknamsha merely to save Krishna for the fact that he was a male child. This apparent infanticide moves Radha to utter distress considering how male-centered society considers girls as dispensable.

Back in Braja, Radha waits for Krishna to win the battle and return. Krishna does win it, kills Kansa, reinstates his jailed father, Ugrasen, to the throne of Mathura, and becomes his regent. However, instead of returning to Braja, he sets out on an educational mission. Soon there are rumors that Jarasandha, the father-in-law of Kansa, is making attacks on Mathura to avenge for the assassination of Kansa. So Krishna decides to shift the capital of his kingdom from Mathura to Dwarika. Thereafter, it is said that Krishna is now busy with his new missions—construction, embellishment, and fortification of Dwarika—and once again, his return to Braja is deferred. Instead, Krishna sends a message to the people of Braja, including his parents, to come to Dwarika and reap the harvest of its development and affluence there. Accordingly, most of the people, including close friends of Radha, move to Dwarika, but Radha decides to stay back, hurt and frustrated. She is unhappy that Krishna did not keep his promise; he did not come even once to meet her.

As time passes, Radha hears about Krishna’s marriage with Rukmini and then with seven other wives in a row. Soon, she hears that Krishna has 16,108 wives altogether. Her infatuation for Krishna finally breaks, and Radha decides to set out on a pilgrimage never to return to married life again. She urges her mother, Kalawati, to join Nanda and Yashoda—Krishna’s foster parents—and go to Dwarika, and she moves out of Braja together with her friend Vishakha on pilgrimage across unknown terrains, topographies, and kingdoms.

The only development on Krishna’s part during this period is that he is heard moving all over Bharatvarsha—the northern belt of India—to find Radha, whose locations are unknown once she moves away from her permanent location in Braja. Radha moves from place to place with Vishakha until the latter, tired of the painstaking and cumbersome journey, makes up her mind to settle at some place and abandon the absurd journey.

Radha and Vishakha, in the course of their journey, reach a hut where an old widow and her widowed daughter-in-law are living their poverty-stricken lives. After staying there for a few days, they move out together with Pilli, the daughter-in-law. Pilli comes in quite handy for her knowledge of the local dialect and her expertise in herbs that cure them of many ailments on the way.

At one of their stops, they come to a shrine where people have gathered in a huge number for a religious fair. There, they incidentally meet Krishna, who has come together with his eight wives. Krishna introduces all of them to Radha and reiterates his faith in her love, claiming that she is still the queen of his heart. Radha also holds a brief discussion with Rukmini, who confirms Krishna’s unflinching faith in and obsession for Radha. Convinced, Radha rinses herself of all the doubts she had against Krishna.

Radha yields to Krishna’s urge and gets ready to move to Dwarika. She is offered a seat on the same chariot where Krishna sits. Together, they ride toward Dwarika.

Radha is flabbergasted to see the affluence and radiance of the newfound city. The most striking thing for her is a mansion called Radha Bhavan, which Krishna has built in her name; the mansion is the spot where Krishna retires to his solitude and loses himself in memory of his soul mate, Radha. Radha is moved to the deepest crevices of her heart on seeing this rare dedication. But then, people in Dwarika, especially Eknamsha, remark that menfolk can never be relied upon—not even Krishna, who has so many wives and leaves them sexually unsatisfied, or spreads sexually transmitted disease, as he has sex with so many partners. Provoked, Radha decides to leave Dwarika and moves north toward the Himalayan Mountains. When Krishna knows that Radha is leaving, he is crestfallen; yet he cannot stop her. He offers her a ride up to Hastinapur, where he too is going on his chariot to try to make peace between Kuru princes Pandavas and Kauravas, who have had a row on land division issue. Radha accompanies Krishna up to Hastinapur.

By this time, the game of dice has been over, and the Pandavas have been living in the forest, exiled for twelve years of sylvan life and one year of life in disguise. Krishna rushes to the forest where the Pandavas are, while Radha passes her time with Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. Kunti and Radha engage in a passionate discussion about women’s plight and non-reliable nature of the menfolk; this further provokes Radha to loathe men, including Krishna, and strengthen her determination to be a celibate and a recluse. Kunti tells the circumstances under which she conceived before marriage and threw her firstborn baby Karna into the river; she tells how she later had to compromise her life with an impotent prince Pandu, who could never impregnate her but accused her of being barren instead. Later, under immense pressure to beget sons, she had to involve in extramarital sexual relations with Dharma, Vayu, and Indra, the fathers of her sons, Yudhisthir, Bhim, and Arjun, respectively.

A few days later, Radha visits the forest resort where the Pandavas have been passing their days. There, she meets Draupadi, who explicates her mind, complaining that she was divided and devoured by five brothers against her will, consent, and practice. She criticizes Yudhisthir—the so-called emblem of righteousness—for agreeing to marry the wife of his younger brother. She also criticizes Krishna, who, instead of offering himself as her suitor, allows Arjun—guised as a Brahman—to try for Draupadi’s hand, thereby making her life doomed forever. The two women share their distaste for men and shed tears of frustration in the secluded spot of the forest for a long time.

Moving out of Hastinapur, Radha moves north with Pilli. They accompany the Tibetan traders moving north and reach the Himalayas, where they come to see the Tibetan people’s social life and gender equation. They too are polygynous, ordained by the practice that the wife of the eldest brother is, by default, the wife of all his younger brothers as well.

Studying various facts about the Sherpas, Radha and Pilli reach Muktinath shrine and then return south. They pass through the plains of Nepal and move east, across the great river Koshi, and visit Bishnu Paduka and Danta Kali shrines, where they meet the Koch king Bir Singh, who offers them a ride to Biratnagar. They accept the offer because from Biratnagar, they would find the way to Dwarika shorter. Biratnagar is in turmoil, as Keechak, the king’s brother-in-law, has just been killed by an unknown Gandarva man who happens to be none other than Bhim, the second of the Pandava brothers. On that charge, even Draupadi, living there in disguise, is charged and punished. This incident moves Radha even more and is deeply pained to see how the male-centered society wrongs innocent women, who have, otherwise, no say in the men’s affairs.

Soon they meet toward Kochnagar, the kingdom of Bir Singh.

During her stay here in Kochnagar, Radha is offered metal sheets and pen to write her travel account. Instead of sticking to the experiences of her travel, she recounts her life right from her childhood days in Braja and reads the same to some of King Bir Singh’s queens and to Pilli. After she has finished her account, she bequeaths the sheets with one of the queens and decides to leave for Dwarika because she has regained her desire to meet Krishna again. In the meantime, she hears that Krishna is not in Dwarika but in Kurukshetra, helping the Pandavas in the great battle of Mahabharata against the Kauravas. King Bir Singh, who too has received a call from the Pandavas’ side to join the war, is preparing to move toward Kurukshetra with an army. Radha thinks going to Dwarika would be futile at a time when Krishna is away at Kurukshetra. So she too decides to accompany the army of King Bir Singh to go to Kurukshetra. Accordingly, they move.

On the way, they see deserting soldiers who have run away from war considering this mad game of killing and dying absurd. They also meet women urging the moving soldiers to hold back, as war is blind and kills their sons and husbands in vain while the gain goes to a few kings and princess. Such public revolt, once again, stirs Radha to emotionality, and she again dwells on the futility of masculine thinking that drives the world mad for petty gain. In spite of all these, they reach Kurukshetra only to find the war already over and the battlefield reeking with the smell of petrified human carcass being rummaged by vulture.

After reading this much account of Radha from the metal sheet, the sadhu continues the story from his memory. People in the audience question the authenticity of the story further, as he was not reading from Radha’s sheets but telling from his own memory. When the questions pour in, he confesses that he is the same Aswatthama who has seen the battle of Mahabharata and is convinced that the account written by Veda Vyas is wrong and lopsided, and he has his own version of the Mahabharata. The novel ends when the sadhu asks, "If you can endure, listen now to my version of the Mahabharata."

Though many think Radha is a feministic novel, it is more than that. The very act of telling Krishna’s tale from a woman’s perspective questions the traditional notions of truth-making and encourages a new historical, contrapuntal reading of a text against the grain. Second, by suggesting that the fact changes its color when one changes the vantage, Dharabasi is making use of the theory of leela. Leela, a Nepali school of critical thinking, claims life is a leela—a play of illusions—as is the life of Krishna himself. Take Krishna’s life, for example; his hectic political engagements are all justified. It therefore looks normal that Krishna does not find time to visit Radha at Braja. Radha’s complaints too are genuine; in a matter of so many years, Krishna’s inability to visit her even once and, instead, getting married to one wife after another in succession invites doubts from Radha. However, as the novel ends, both Radha and Krishna have understood the circumstances thoroughly, and they bear no grudge or complaint against each other. Therefore, it’s not a feministic approach; rather, it is a deconstructive approach that lays bare the paradoxes that underscore the formation of mythological truths; it questions the finalities of established truths—mythological, scriptural, religious, or historical—and proves they are constructs of a logo-centric mindset, which is always under eraser—to borrow Derridean term—and thus always prone to subversion.

Radha therefore offers an alternative reading of Krishna’s life from Radha’s point of view. The novel is the first of its kind in the world, making such an off-the-beat and subversive representative of Krishna perhaps the most popular mythological character in the Orient. At a time when the popularity of Krishna is still so high, the risk Dharabasi has taken is interesting. The appearance of this book in English, therefore, will have a lot of theoretical and literary implications, as it shall open a debate whether characters as popular as Krishna—who has been accorded a position of god—can be dragged down to the rank of an ordinary mortal and tried in a court of moral and social laws, citing evidences of his misogynist moves and gross political malpractices on one pretext or the other. The reading of the novel shall, therefore, incorporate feminism, new historicism, and deconstruction simultaneously, in the meantime offering a claim in favor of leela, a new perspective to look at the world as a play of illusions and functions of fleeting vantages that alter with the change of circumstances and points of view.

Central Department of English

Tribhuvan University

THE PRELUDE

AT FOUR IN the morning, I was already up and busy writing. I had, for quite a long time, cherished a dream to have a thorough study of the Puranas and write a novel on one of their subjects, but my knowledge of language had posed a hurdle. I knew no Sanskrit; these scriptures were not available in Nepali, and I had to rely solely on Hindi. More, the books in need were not easily available. There was information that Geeta Press, a publishing house in India, published and circulated low-price editions of the scriptures, but in our part of the world, they too were not available. For quite a long time, I had been hankering after the Puranas.

One day, I reached the Arjundhara Temple on foot. Oftentimes, if I had curiosities on any of the Puranic subjects, I used to knock on the door of the temple to meet Pandit Pushpalal Niraula, who supervised the rituals there. Meetings with him were always accompanied by discourses on scriptural subjects. That day, he was not available at the temple, yet I had compensations. Laxmi Prasad Kharel had constructed a library in the Arjundhara Temple premises in memory of his deceased father, Durga Prasad Kharel, and, along its side, had erected a statue of Late Kharel. The library solely consisted of religious books. This gave me untold happiness; I wasted no time before entering.

I scanned the library all through. Since they had not yet managed the racks, books wrapped in red clothes still lay linearly on tables. Since it was a gurukul¹ too, I had some tête-à-tête with the boy students there. We talked on matters related with studies and on the facilities of reading religious books available there. I was told one had no permission to take the books out of the library without the permission of Guru Pushpalal. I returned home without any book in hand in spite of deep interests.

Inclination toward historical and religious book was an interest I deeply cherished since childhood days. For two months, I had glued myself to a story I was trying to finish. The task of writing the story on the subject of sati² system was nearing its end. The story titled Jhola was making a tragic depiction of the system of sati prevalent in Nepal.

At six in the morning, the hawker flung in Vivechana daily through my window. I stopped my pen and flipped through the pages of the newspaper. The four-page daily usually carried local stories. I ran my eyes quickly through the headlines. The banner head on the first page read: Keechak Badh Utkhanan: Puratatvik Bastuharoo Prapta, meaning, there had been excavations at Keechak Badh, and from the site, objects of archeological importance had been retrieved. Though the news was an ordinary one, it drew my attention quite intensely. It informed me that in Jhapa, my own district, some excavation work was going on, and with it, an obscure history was being unearthed. The very thought gave me intense elations; it seemed as though facts about a society thousands of years old would be unveiled.

Whatever the fact, the news in Vivechana filled me with a sense of curiosity. The news detailed: A team of archeological experts coming from the capital started its work yesterday. The news didn’t just send waves down my spine; it also reminded me of a feature article Chintamani Dahal had written for the Kantipur daily the previous year. I rummaged through the stacks of old newspapers and retrieved Kantipur daily, dated February 2.

The newspaper had printed an article titled Keechak’s Murder Could Date Earlier than Twelfth Century. The write-up claimed: "The excavation conducted by the Department of Archeology at Keechak Badh, a site of historical and religious importance in Jhapa from the second week of January, has encouraged the speculation that the historicity of the site could date back to a time earlier than the twelfth century. The objects retrieved had suggested the place could be an important fort of the Middle Ages, and its historicity could go even further to the era of the Mahabharata. The estimations are based on the test excavations done by a team of four archeologists, led by archeological expert Uddhav Acharya, between January 11 and 25. Based on the hearsays from the Mahabharata days, a team from the Department of History at Mechi Multiple Campus, Bhadrapur, had started an excavation, but the same had been stopped after the intervention of the Department of Archeology, which thereafter took the site under its own patronage. Since that excavation lacked professional sophistication, nothing formidable was discovered, except a pond. The pond was later renovated by industrialist Mohan Lal Agrawal. This pond, extended over an area of three katthas³ of land, is believed to have come up in the crevice developed by a blow of bludgeon by Bhimsen, the second of the five Pandava brothers, as described in the Mahabharata. During Swasthani Poornima fair, worshippers and pilgrims come to take a bath there and have a holy view of the statues of Shiva and Vishnu and that of Bhimsen killing Keechak. The pilgrims believe that a holy bath at this pond treats them of all skin diseases and fulfills all of their wishes. Water fills the pond all year-round. However, this site of historical importance runs the risk of being cut away by the Deuniya River that is pushing inward every year.

"The locals of Prithvinagar-5, where this site is located, link the site with the Mahabharata era. It is believed that this was the site where Bhimsen killed Keechak, the brother of Matsya’s king Birat’s wife, for his licentious advances toward Draupadi, the common wife of the five Pandava brothers. With this hearsay as its basis, people throng the site on every Swasthani Poornima Day for a religious fair, and this has continued since for a long, long time.

"The excavation work, which started from the western end of this site, extended over an area of ten bighas,⁴ located on the bank of Deuniya River some twenty kilometers away from Bhadrapur, the headquarters of Jhapa District, has brought to light two corners of the six-foot-wide wall erected to circumscribe the fort. Three meters away from the wall, another two-and-a-half-meter-wide wall has been discovered, where a few pieces of roof tiles too are discovered. After studying them, archeological expert Uddhav Acharya speculates that they could be the pieces from a house from inside the fort. Bricks, pieces of mud terracotta, and roof tiles enforce the extension of the fort to Middle Ages, supported by the fact that the vastu—spatial orientation—of the site too conforms to the Middle Ages’ patterns. The bricks discovered there are two inches thick, ten inches wide, and twenty inches long. The latest excavation strongly suggests the construction could be twelve or sixteen-sided.

In the latest excavation, digging eight feet east of the newly discovered wall, seven layers to the west, and four-and-half-feet deep has sent strong suggestion that the history of Keechak Badh could go beyond the twelfth century in the past. On the other hand, the discovery of a single slightly heated bead of a coral necklace and two beads of an agate necklace by the villagers on a mound enclosed by the pond provides grounds to link the site with the ancient civilization of Sindhuli Valley. But since the site is now a part of Jay Bahadur Thapa’s registered land, the excavation has been presently halted. If the site is opened for excavation and if coral beads, as described by the villagers, are retrieved, it will be confirmed that the site had raised human civilization some five thousand years ago. If that happens, its historicity will coincide with the Mahabharata era. The discovery of the physical remains of human bones has raised more hopes. Religious beliefs may or may not be confirmed, but its historicity has strong grounds to be ancient. Since the bricks discovered here resemble the twelfth-century bricks of Simroungarh and sixth-century BCE bricks of Lumbini, its historicity has been established beyond doubt.

"Archeological expert Acharya informed that without detailed examination of the retrieved stuff, their dates could not be ascertained, and since the excavation work was going on and newer retrievals were in the offing, dates could be ascertained only after the accomplishment of the excavation work. Though Acharya didn’t brief in detail what kind of stuff was retrieved from the site, he informed that the team had gathered pieces of terracotta, roof tiles, and a few pieces of bones. Though the excavation work was halted in the middle this time, the work to be undertaken the following year might throw light on the site’s real history.

The people of Jhapa have willed that Keechak Badh be developed into a historical spot.

That week, most of the periodicals published from the capital carried reports about the excavations at Keechak Badh. After reading his feature article on the issue, I called Chintamani Dahal and said, I too was interested in witnessing the excavation work, but I got no information beforehand.

This time, it’s over. If they take it up next year again, do not miss. Newer things could also be retrieved then.

I said, It’s an extremely important thing. One can even think of writing a book on this issue, brother Chintamani.

If one could write, it would be a great thing. But many real facts are still awaited.

I was still bearing in my heart a sense of regret on having missed the earlier excavation. The report of the resumed excavation in Vivechana aroused high degree of curiosity inside me. At once, thousands of thoughts crisscrossed my mind.

I hurriedly pressed the numbers on my telephone set: 520662. Even after several rings, the call was not received. Since both brother and sister-in-law were college lecturers, I thought they were at work. So I decided to retry in the evening.

On my way to office, I ran across Lok Raj Dhakal outside the office of Jeevika Enterprises, Birtamode. A year back, he too had written a feature article on Keechak Badh for Gorkhaptra. I turned the table on him. He said, Since yesterday, Bhim Nembang and Laxmi Luitel of the Nepal Television have been shooting the excavation work.

Do take me along this time, I implored.

At daytime, I got a call from brother Chintamani in the office. He asked, Had you called in the morning?

Oh, yes.

Anything important?

"I read Vivechana this morning and came to know excavations have been resumed at Keechak Badh. When are you going, brother? I would love to accompany you this time."

Over the phone, we decided to go after a few days.

***

Every day, small details about the excavation were published in the newspapers. Reports about Keechak Badh were regularly published, sometimes under the byline of Mohan Kaji, and some other times under that of Dikman Birahi or Govinda Chandra Kshyatri. As for me, I had not managed to write anything on Keechak Badh. In the past too, when friends had written several pages about the Bhutanese refugees, I was yet to begin my first line. Much of the initial research about the refugees had been done by Madhav Bidrohi. He had even visited Bhutan and returned a couple of times. As for me, I had to console myself writing essays, stories, and novels. In regard to Keechak Badh too, I was lagging in a similar way.

In the first place, I was a jobholder. Obviously, therefore, there was little leisure. Moreover, since I didn’t own a vehicle of myself and provisions for public vehicle were not quite comfortable, going to Keechak Badh and coming back were quite a task. This was why I was seeking the help of Mr. Lok Raj and Mr. Chintamani. They owned motorbikes, so we could go as willed and return. In fact, Deepak Dhakal and Krishna Baral too owned bikes, but they were too busy to spare time. Moreover, they shared little interest in such stuff.

We had neck-tight assignments at the office; an inspection team had visited from the center. Every section was busy showing its functioning as efficient. I too was obliged to exhibit feigned alacrity.

In the meantime, my telephone rang. I received it; Lok Raj spoke from the other side: Brother Krishna, all friends are ready for Keechak Badh visit. There are rumors that today’s excavation has revealed a mysterious thing. Ram Nath Baskota, Krishna Dahal, Sir Chintamani, Raj Babu Shankar, and Rajesh Dhungana are already here. Laxman Dhakal, Leela Baral, and Tirtha Sigdel too are coming. Madhav Bidrohi and Dikman Birahi have left on the first bus this morning. Others have managed motorbikes for themselves. I have asked Krishna Humagain to take you. You come with him. We are on the move.

Lok Raj gave a long description on the phone.

Every friend had left; I was, at all cost, obliged to go now. Though our office had a lot of work, I handed over the key of my section to colleague Ram Basnet and hurried out. I met Krishna Humagain at the Press Union office, faxing news. As soon as I reached, we sped off.

By the time we reached the excavation site, all the friends had gathered. A crowd of thousands of people was thronging the site. Hundreds of motorcycles had been parked on the sides. A team of police stood alert for security. Cameramen were busy taking still pictures and videos.

Brother Chintamani waved from a distance and said, I was worried whether you would really reach. We had assigned Lok Rajji to bring you. Your interest in the site is impending since last year.

I expressed my happiness with a smile.

Krishna Humagain and I had a round scanning the excavation site. The work was in progress. We saw that it was a task that needed a lot of care; they had to remove the soil with extreme care with blades as used while shaving without making any damage. Apparently, it was a tedious task, quite slow too. A trivial retrieval would send currents of curiosity both to the excavators and to the onlookers. The onlookers were prohibited from laying their hand on any of the stuff dug out. Uddhav Acharya, the chief of the excavation team, observed the retrieved stuff with care and sorted them out systematically.

Somewhere deep in my heart, I felt that we were somehow treading back to an earlier era. I was experiencing deep contentment, imagining the connectivity of each of the retrieved objects with an antique society. At times, I felt the souls of the beauties of those epochs could be floating somewhere in the air nearby. The trebles of the songs they sang, the steps of the dances they performed, and the jingling of their bangles could all be rippling across the air around. This land, touched by the feet of courageous warriors, young men, old, and minors of those ages, is in fact quite historical.

Whenever a coral bead was retrieved, the onlookers imagined a complete necklace and fancied the bosoms and breasts of the maiden that wore it. When pieces of earthen potteries were found, they imagined a kitchen. As for me, an entire society was exerting its influence. I was lost, contemplating about the conditions of a time some five thousand years ago, as was being estimated.

Witnessing archeological stuff happened to send a sort of forlorn feelings down the spine. For example, a powerful civilization—however enduring and affluent—could be crushed on the anvil of time until it was reduced to a traceless history. Save a few broken pieces of potteries, bricks from the walls, and remnants of jewelries, no reminders of their users were left behind. Oh, how mighty they could have been! They could have been masters of untellable property. There perhaps were tales of poverty and pain alongside; there might have been looming hubris of vanity and self-conceit, ambitions to win by all means, and cravings for power. I was deeply contemplating about the beautiful heroines of that age and of the heroes, of their love and commitments, of sex, and of deliveries. With eyes stationed in the present, I envisioned all worldly affairs in an age removed from ours by thousands of years.

Could that antique society be as systematic and ornate as the ones films and televisions show these days? How close were they with the conscious time of today? I thought that age too was an age of physical necessities and human consciousness; but then, could its development be compared with its counterpart today?

Even more detestable was the fact that we were retrieving things that had stood weathering for years, and such stuff had nothing in them save some rooms for estimation and imagination. They did not contain any evidence or any formal messages that could communicate a fact.

People stood in groups, talking. The site had an aura of a fair. Jilebi and murai were considered Keechak Badh’s famous snacks. The temporary stalls erected there most commonly sold these stuff. There too were people who hunted for murai and pakauda. Their talks manifested their own speculations. Some opined it was the site where Kansa’s palace stood. Others refuted and said it was not the location of Kansa’s palace but of the fort of a Rajbanshi king. There too were people who thought it was the palace of a king of the Mahabharata era. Speculations were many; I was busy going around, listening to people’s myriads of opinions.

Though the speculations were many, all shared the same curiosity. Every face manifested a type of contentment. Among sounds, most pronounced were the sonorous voices of those who predicted that the place undoubtedly housed something quite formidable. Some were telling they heard murmurs as they walked past the site at night. A few claimed they even saw Keechak in their dreams. Though varied were the opinions, each of them added fascination to the air there.

Reporters had scattered in all directions. Bhim Nembang, Laxmi Luitel, and their friends were keenly moving their cameras everywhere. Some of the journalists thronged around the local inhabitants. The locals too were moving to the front lines with their make-believe tales, hoping for a photo to appear in the papers next morning.

On the corridor of the Durga Temple, a few yards away from the site, women and children sat, talking. The main door of the temple was open; every visitor paid his or her obeisance by offering a flower or two. The number of devotees offering cash too was on the rise. The temple that was seldom visited except on special occasions had come alive that day. The people seemed regretful of their neglect of the temple for such a long time.

At one corner of the temple’s veranda, there sat a sadhu lost in himself. His old stuff—a dilapidated bag and a pair of cymbals—were thrown helter-skelter. His gray hair suggested he