The Cloud Of The Princess Part I - Chapter 4

Sembaruthi was not very happy with the way things had turned out in the morning. She knew that her husband was not the sort of man who would very easily grant permission to go and meet kumudhini. He was a stubborn man and the whole world knew it. But what the world did not know was the magic to melt the stubbornness and to make him fall on his feet. And she had just intended to use that magic weapon against him this morning. But it had not worked. Everything was shattered into pieces. The aim was achieved comfortably - the aim of getting permission to meet kumudhni. But she would have been the happiest woman in pavazhanaadu if only the permission had been granted without the additional message that maithreyan had slowly spoken into her ears. Every word of it brought a strange chill to her spine. She was almost shivering when he had finished telling it. And he was as solid as a rock even after having conveyed such a dreadful message. He had slowly taken his head off her and said in a voice that literally shook the ground below her foot ‘sembaruthi… if you can do this successfully, the whole of pavazhanaadu would be grateful to you… but if you don’t, my dear sembaruthi… at least save your precious life–for I don’t want me to be called as the creature who showed his own wife the way to the grave’ and a drop of tear lost balance and fell down from his eyes. Today was the first day she had seen tears on the mighty man’s eyes. But strangely, she had not broken down at that instant. ‘Politics makes men stranger…and my husband is the perfect example’ she told herself.

‘akka’ she heard a voice from opposite and suddenly realized that she had spoken the last sentence louder than she had intended to.

She lifted up her face to see one of her maids looking at her surprisingly. The maid bent her face towards her and with a smile that escaped out through her lips, said “akka… you are dreaming about dhalapadhiyaar I guess...aren't you?’ . She did not even complete the sentence as the three other maids who were sitting around started to laugh together. Sembaruthi could not understand what was happening at the first instant. only after a few seconds she realized that the maids must have heard only the words ‘my husband is the perfect example’ and not what she had told before that.... ‘May be I did not even tell the first sentence loud…strange enough’ she thought. And the thought of how the words the maids had heard would have sounded to them made her uncomfortable. She swiftly turned her face to the side where no one was sitting and spoke in a angry tone ‘look imayaazh…neither did I dream about your honorable dhalapadhiyaar nor was I sleeping in the first place…. I was just thinking about something…. please don’t imagine things’ .There was silence for a second.

And she turned to the three maids who were still laughing without making noise and said angrily ‘look here girls… if you are not going to stop laughing, we are not going to meet kumudini…we stop our pallakku right here and I shall ask the sevagars to immediately turn the pallakku towards the palace ..What do you want me to do?’

Imayaazh immediately replied ‘ why akka… are you not able to let dhalapadhiyar alone in the palace even for a single day?… don’t worry akka… no goat or dog will eat our honorable dhalapadhiyar off…. and we will be back next budhan….which is not a very long time from now’ . And at the moment she completed saying it, all four including sembaruthi burst into laughter. And on seeing sembaruthi laugh at the joke, imayaazh commented ‘I know what you were thinking about akka…. was it not the hill temple incident that happened three years ago?’

Well… sembaruthi was not thinking about the hill temple incident that happened three years ago, but now that incident came into her mind at tremendous pace like a powerful arrow that was just let go of the vibrating string of a bow.

Sembaruthi, iniyaazh, kumudhini devaki and thamarai were young girls then and they all gathered daily without fail at the bottom of the hill madiyamalai. They spoke about anything and everything that girls whom the fragrance of maturity had started to tie its first knot around would discuss. Though the practice of meeting below the hill had been around for more then five years, the girl’s topics these days had changed considerably from what it was five years back. These days, it was always regarding men. And most of these men would be fictious characters… men whom the girls would have heard in stories or men whom their imagination would have given a pair of sparkling eyes, a heavy broad chest , a pair of tight shoulders and a dynamic voice. Sometimes they even discussed about men whom they had seen in their houses or in the temple or near the lakeside or wherever. But irrespective of the geography, the content was the same. And that particular day was no different. Except that kumudini had an entirely new approach.

Kumudhini was the first to speak and she was excited.

“Listen, my dear girls… “, she said in a high voice with both hands held towards the sky and all four girls turned towards her. iniyaazh was quick to respond

“oh my dear kumudhini…. from the way you look and the way you command us, it seems you have found a daring soldier as your soul mate… how bad of you not to inform us before your marriage….we would not have grabbed your husband off you ….we are not arakkis…we are your thozhis”. And the group started to laugh.

kumudhini waited for a second for the buzz to settle down and continued

“Girls… I have not found my soul mate yet… but I have a medicine which if you eat, will show you your soulmate immediately…”

There was silence in the group for a second at the end of which everybody started to speak at the same instant. Kumudhini somehow understanding that everyone in the group was asking the same question ‘how’ but phrasing it differently, clapped her hands thrice as hard as possible and everybody’s attention turned towards her.

‘As you all know, my father is a vaithiyar… and yesterday I saw him give this medicine to a girl from lakshanur. She had come with her father and it seems she had not got married for a long time. My father gave her this medicine and told her father, ‘ayya… this medicine if taken with the sincere thought of getting a soulmate, will immediately show your daughter her husband in the moolavar sannidhi of the next temple that she visits… and make sure neither this medicine nor your visit to me is told to anybody else. ‘ kumudhini stopped to look at the group. The group was watching her without even battling their eyelids. thamarai spoke ‘ and do you think this really works kumudhini?’ . kumudhini’s response was sharp and quick . ‘The whole of this town and the twenty four villages that surround the town respects my father and the medicines he makes.. so it is purely your choice to believe it or not…if you people are so very interested, may be one of you should try it once…and here we have a temple ready for us to visit…' and she increased her voice a bit to say 'who is now ready among you to eat this and test it out immediately?’

The whole group fell silent. kumudhini’s eyes went from one girl to another in the group. Normally sembaruthi would have been the most silent in the group. But strangely enough, she spoke breaking the silence. ‘I shall try it kumudhini’

Everybody was shocked to see sembaruthi respond. But they recovered quickly and kumudhini without wasting much time took a small round ball of medicine and gave it to sembaruthi. Sembaruthi closed her eyes, prayed for a second and swallowed the medicine. And even before anyone expected, se was half way climbing up the hill to reach the temple.

The Cloud Of The Princess Part I - Chapter 3

"None of the kings in history has had such a wonderful architectural masterpiece in his court" the painter had explained with a voice overflowing with enthusiasm. It was a masterpiece and it was indeed a bold attempt by the chief painter. It had taken him three and a half months to complete the painting, a month more than the estimate he had given the king initially. And since the huge piece of work had to be done exactly in the middle of the magnificently large court of the king, the king had to move his court temporarily to another palace of his. And after three and a half months of astonishing calculations and perfection in work, the painting had been completed. It was something that no painter had ever imagined before in pavazhanaadu and every moment somebody saw it, it reflected the painter's skill and execution and the amount of hard work and precision that had gone into it.

It was a royal painting.
The painting itself consisted of two parts which was the major reason that had made it different from any other painting. One part of it was painted on the floor exactly in front of the king’s throne. Another part was painted on the ceiling, exactly above the part painted on the floor. It was like two semicircles of a huge circle such that the lower semicircle was painted on the ground and the upper semicircle was painted on the ceiling. Ideally both the semicircles would seem to be a part of the same circle only when viewed from a considerable height above the ceiling which was not possible with the closed ceiling. Hence to achieve this effect, the painter had carefully pasted huge semicircular pieces of glass on the upper semicircle in the floor and the lower one on the ceiling. This way the corresponding portions got reflected and the entire painting could be seen both on the floor and the ceiling of the emperor's court.
The technique used to paint was special. But what was painted was even more special. The upper semicircle on the ceiling was painted with the shining crown that the king wore. And the lower semicircle on the floor was painted with the King's face. Thus when someone looked at it for the first time, he would not be able to figure out the fact that the painting was of two parts but could see the whole face of the king along with the crown.
It was a huge achievement by the painter and the accuracy of positioning the glass and the effort taken to provide an illusion were highly appreciated all across the kingdom. Common men who had never entered the king's palace before and who had only heard about this marvelous painting that the chief painter had created would listen in awe to stories of how much hard work was put in to create this excellent piece of art. It was also rumored that the king initially wanted to paint his queen rather than himself but later decided against it. Rumors about the land and gold that the king had offered the chief painter in appreciation of the work had also spread like wildfire. The painting was popularly known as 'kannadi oviyam' and there was not even a single day that passed without it's mention somehow or the other. A painting of the size of a huge tank was unimaginable for the common man and that too in two parts , one on the ceiling and one on the floor was just not comprehendible by the mind.
'How did the painter draw the painting on the ceiling father?' a boy would ask now and then his farmer father and every time the farmer father would reply something like this.
'It is god's gift to pavazhanaadu! People born here are born with extreme talent... and you must one day grow up like that’. And the boy would forget the logical reasoning behind his question but start dreaming about becoming a painter one day.

But then it was two long years ago.

The king was now sitting in his throne in silence surrounded by no one, not even the queen. Even the soldiers had been ordered to leave the palace. The king was staring at the stupendous piece of art that his chief painter had created two years back but it did not seem to give him as much pleasure it had given him then. He was deeply lost in thought and though his eyes were watching his own painting, brain seemed not to register anything at all. There was a stream of thoughts that had formed in his mind for sometime now and he was too involved in that, that he did not even sense that somebody had come in front of him.

Suddenly the silence was broken by somebody clearing the throat and the king looked up as if he had broken a spell. Maithreyan was standing in front bowing down.
"My sincere greetings to the Lord almighty. Hope I find him in best of spirits" He said in a voice which was hundred times softer than how he spoke to sembaruthi in the morning.
"Thanks a lot for your greetings dhalapadhi maitreyanaar...Hope you are in the best of spirits too “. The voice was dynamic, bold, clear and succinct. It had the right modulation and right stress on the right syllable.
"Oh...Yes My lord.... am as good as any other day....and as good as any other citizen under the almighty's rule... I heard that something important had come up and so almighty wanted to see me..."
"Dhalapadhi... I wonder if you got my message or not....You only heard that something important has come up?... didn't you get my message of what it was?" There was a bit of concern in the king's voice.
"I rarely see almighty , the king of pavazhanaadu, kunjidhapaadhanaar make mistakes... and the message that i had to receive was one among them" The dhalapadhi maithreyan looked straight into the king's eyes as he said this. The king was taken aback.
"Mistake... what was the mistake you found in my message dhalapadhi.... i know you never talk nonsense.... was there anything that was wrong in the message you received?"

"Well a number of things ayyaa.... first of all, I would not have expected such a message from you at all...especially when i was not in the capital"
This gave a shock to the king. He seemed to get angered a bit. His raised his voice and spoke "Dhalapadhi.... don't test my patience... this is not the time to play around.... we are in a very critical situation and i did not dare to go further without your advice....and when i tried to find you, i understood that you were out of the capital for reasons i don't know and don't wish to know....and so i had to send you the message"

the dhalapadhi's reply came in soft manner.
"ayya...I understand the situation that you were in.... but people tend to make mistakes only when they are nervous.... and you have just proved that the king is no exception to the rule..... When you wanted to send me an important message and wanted to send it immediately, you could have just send me a message asking me to meet you immediately ...and that would have been urgent enough for me to rush to ponvialyur... rather you insisted on sending the message of importance itself ...and that ayya is the mistake you made.... just imagine what would have happened if the messenger had run away with the message...."

"Aah...where could he escape at all.... he has to be somewhere in pavazhanaadu and most probably in ponvilayur.... i have full faith that your soldiers would have caught him in a matter of hours.... and once he gets caught, his future is as pathetic as the life of a mouse under the elephant's legs"

"Even i don't doubt the skills of my soldiers to the extent of the smallest of grains my lord....but... there is one assumption that you have made...that the messenger would be roaming somewhere in pavazhannadu....but the message you sent me suggests otherwise"

Maitryan gave a pause at this moment and it seemed to be deliberate. He watched the king's face change like a fear struck cat in the dark.The eyes of the king glowed like diamonds but the glow depicted more fear than flair.The king cleared his throat and spoke as if the words were coming from deep below his heart

"Maitreya.... i don't trust anybody on this account..... i don't even completely trust the message that i have received yesterday.... i only trust you.... " He paused for a second and continued with a slightly higher but more cautious tone
"Do you really think pavazhanaadu is safe from the outer world at all?"

There was silence in the room for a minute. The air in-between the two seemed to have taken a dense form and it was as if nobody had the guts to speak.Both the men present there had lost eye contact. It was either that none of them wanted to answer the question or that theydid not know the answer for it. Both of them were now starring down at the majestic painting of king kunjidhapaadhanaar and both their minds suggested that the king was not as majestic as he looked two years before.
Finally after two minutes, maithreyan broke the silence. The words came out slowly but with a sense of authority.
"Iam not sure my lord... but i have made arrangements to find out"

The Cloud Of The Princess Part I- Chapter 2

Pavazhanadu was being ruled by kunjidhapaadhanar. Surrounded by mountains on all four sides, it was the safest place a king could ever rule. The kingdom spread over hundreds of miles and was inhabited by lakhs of common people most of whom were involved in agriculture. There were also artisans, painters, sculptors, doctors, astronomers, poets and people in almost all spheres of life. Group of men ploughing the field as they talked of the next harvest, Group of ladies carrying woods as they sang a rhythmic tune together, gang of girls playing with mud making imaginary figures, couple of children running around the huts with long pine sticks in their hands, old men and women sitting in front of the houses and teaching their grandchildren ethics and morals were common sights. But nobody claimed to be aborigines of this land. It was only some hundred and fifty years before which a prince called Aadhirayan from northern tamilnadu along with soldier friends successfully climbed up the so called highest mountain of tamilnadu-asuragiri on his third attempt after having sworn to his father that he would not return back to the kingdom without knowing what was on the other side of it. It had taken him almost three months to climb to the apex of the mountain and when he finally managed to do that his heart started to leap. What he saw when he reached the top of the mountain was a breathtaking sight. He saw a huge empty field spread out till his eyes could reach which appeared as if a beautiful brown blanket was spread over mother earth. He also saw an equally high mountain as that of asuragiri on the horizon and he could see that the empty field stretched till that. Right on the center of the huge empty field ran a slender curved blue twinkling line of water that nature had gifted to that place. The serene river was exactly dividing the empty landscape into two equal parts. There were no trees to be seen anywhere but only thorny bushes all along the river on either side.

Chill air hit aadhirayan's face and his hair started to float up and down as he majestically stood on the top of asuragiri witnessing this breathtaking scenery. Suddenly the clouds started to turn black and drops of rain fell on his face . The sun went down the skies swiftly and it looked as if it raced to an unknown place to inform somebody that one of the most guarded secret of her's had been found out. It was romantic and the brown landscape that opened up in infinite directions in front of him appeared like a virgin who could not control blushing because it was the first time a man had seen her. More clouds gathered together at tremendous pace and in a few seconds a roaring thunder accompanied with a bright lightning broke the eardrums of aadhirayan. It was that moment when he decided that he would rule from this god's own land and will name it pavazhanadu after his queen pavazhamozhiyaal .

The immediate problem he faced was to being people into pavazhanaadu. He thought hard and after discussing with a few handpicked men of astute political and architectural knowledge, laid a huge plan. A secret tunnel was made through the basement of mount asuragiri into pavazhanaadu with the help of ten thousand soldiers who worked tirelessly for a period of seven years. The whole process was kept in utmost secrecy and it was made sure that it did not spread through word of mouth into other kingdoms. After its successful completion, people were slowly asked to move to pavazhanaadu through the tunnel. Aadhirayan was not inclined towards war and so he wanted to rule this land that god had gifted him in isolation and wanted to develop it as one of the most advanced kingdom that mankind has ever seen - be it in architecture, science, engineering , medicine or astronomy. He did not want his enemies to know about this remarkable discovery he had made and so closed the secret tunnel that he had built after three years before which bulk of the population had already moved from his kingdom into pavazhanaadu. The public knew that there was no way now to go back to the other side of asuragiri but they did not have a need to. They had all their families here and this dream land their king had found was more fertile and prpsperous than where they came from. So they never complained- rather they sang kavi's in praise of their king and inscribed his excellence on stones. Aadhirayan did have a part of the tunnel open for over thirty years up till a few years before his death but this was known only to a bunch of politically closely knit people. Though pavazhanaadu had become self sufficient in almost everything, it lacked what aadhiryan dreamt of. 'A powerful knowledge base'. And Aadhirayan tactfully used this part of the tunnel to kidnap eminent scholars from other side of asuragiri into his land. The kidnapped men were handcuffed and their eyes tied tight and so they never realized where they were brought to. Aadhirayan did not believe that these scholars would really teach students of his kingdom anything useful. He knew they would oppose and would be stubborn not to teach and may even get to know about the tunnel that was closed years ago and start to doubt the fact that whole of pavazhanaadu believed. So he threw all these scholars into deadly dark prisons underground his palace and forced them to write down whatever they had learnt and when they were done, mercilessly killed them. Once he had gained expert knowledge on several branches of science that he hoped for, he called in the best guru's in his kingdom and asked them to read and understand what the kidnapped scholars had left behind and teach those to the students of his land. Some of the bunch of ministers who knew all these happenings would even ask aadhirayan why he was doing all this when he wanted to rule alone and who was he trying to prove greater than when he had no competition at all. All of aadhirayan's reply would be a gentle smile and the words 'ellam iraivan viruppam' which translates as 'Every happening is god almighty's desire'

Hundred and fifty years later , the seventh generation after aadhirayan, thiru kunjidhapaadhanaar took over as the king of pavazhanaadu and along with his climb to the throne came mysterious problems from various unexpected quarters.

The Cloud Of The Princess Part I -Chapter 1

Sembaruthi was becoming tenser every second as she was watching her husband walking swiftly across the huge mandabam with his hands tied behind, thinking hard on something. His head was bent and was starring at the marble flooring and when he occasionally lifted it up, his eyes looked blood red and the edge of his mush vibrated and it sent a chill down sembaruthi's spine. She had never seen her husband like this and she knew that he was not a person who got lost in thought very easily. 'Something really important must have come up' she told herself. She dared not to ask what it was as she had strictly made up her mind not to involve in matters concerning the kingdom. She neither had the wit to understand complex political moves nor did she want to be seen as a joker in the pack. Moreover 'girls and politics are not pieces of the same puzzle' was her theory. She was contempt with the fact that her husband was regarded as the greatest mastermind pavazhanaadu had ever seen and even the king did not make critical decisions concerning the kingdom without consulting him.
'Wrong time to have come to meet him' she thought. But she knew if she let this chance slip away, she could never again ask him what she wanted to. So she waited patiently for him to look at her and ask her why she had come to meet him. The reason was this. She wanted to go and meet one of her old friend’s kumudini, the daughter of vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar who lived in araimedu. Kumudini had just got married to sendhaamarai, a sailor and she was very soon moving with him to eezham. It was initially hard for sembaruthi to imagine missing kumudhini and she had cried alone curling in her bed for two days but then she slowly overcame it. Both of them had been very close right from childhood and the fact that she might never see her again in her lifetime was pricking her innocent heart like a thorn tearing apart a rosé. It was still hard to miss her and she had just got the news that kumudhini was leaving to eezham in another week. It would take her two days to reach araimaedu from ponvilayur,the capital of pavazhanaadu where she was staying and if she started today she would reach araimedu before sevvai and could at least spend a few days with kumudhini. But all that depended on the erstwhile, the most respected and the most powerful man in the whole of pavazhandu- maithreyan, her husband. He had to give her permission and from the way he was walking across the mandabam, she was sure he wouldn't even care to talk to her now. She tried to indirectly signal her presence to him by clearing her throat, by moving certain objects here and there but nothing seemed to grab his attention.
'Men folk are all the same. when they are in love, they talk to you as if they have no other reason to live but to be in your presence...but when they are in this complex political mood, they don't even seem to care for you' she bit her lips in frustration and without her knowledge let out a scream in pain. The scream was louder than she expected and it stopped maithreyan's walk. He raised his head slowly and looked up towards her and his blood red eyes were starring at her. It looked as if a cheetah was getting ready to pounce on a innocent deer. She started to shiver in fear as she began to search for words
" Oh my lord... hope you are in the best of your spirits today"
He seemed to be irritated at this.
"Sembaruthi.... can't you see I am busy with something?"
The words came out sharp like arrows from a bow aimed at her throat. She swallowed something and continued to speak.
" Lord... i can understand that there is something very important that has come up and so I do not wish to take up much of your time", she managed.
"So you DO plan to take some of my time....don't you?" he roared and she felt as if the ceiling started to crack. She did not want to give up at any cost. If she remained silent now, she could never get a chance to see kumudini again. She had to speak now.
"I wish i would not have to but it is something I could not do without your permission.... I would want to tell you what it is, if you can lend your ears for a moment"
He had now started walking across the room as he had been doing before and she was not very sure if he was listening to her at all.
"Tell me the matter" he said and she was excited. She decided to explain the matter in one go.
"Vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar's daughter and my best friend kumudini is moving to eezham with her husband and so I would love to go and meet them once before they leave. They are supposed to leave next thingal and so if i can start today, i shall be back by next budhan"
There was a long pause. None of them spoke for a minute. Sembaruthi slowly started to lose hope. She was eagerly looking at the mighty shoulders of maithreyan when he turned and looked straight into her eyes and asked.
"Are you going to araimedu?"
She was startled. She remembered rarely mentioning to him about kumudhini once or twice but it was really surprising how he had still remembered the place where she was staying. 'No wonder why the world calls my husband the mastermind' she told herself.
"Yes" she responded. She did not have the courage to ask him how he had remembered the place. But his next question was even more surprising.
"Will you get a chance to meet vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar?"
Now something seemed fishy to her. There was no reason on earth that she could think of why he would be interested in vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar. But she did not give it more thought and bluntly said
"Yes"
She could see he was relaxed now. His pace had slowed down considerably and his face had shed that terrified expression. It seemed as if some master plan was slowly forming inside his brain.
He stopped walking, went up to his chair and sat. He ordered the girls waving to leave the room. He clapped his hands hard twice and two soldiers came rushing in and bowed before him.
" No one shall stay in the palace for the next hour or so. Ask everybody to leave to the sirpa mandapa or wherever they wish to but not to stay back. And after everybody leaves, you two shall also quit the place. Make sure you close the door when you leave" he roared like a lion.
The soldiers replied "idho" and left running.
He turned his head towards sembaruthi and smiled. He asked in a pretty low voice
" How is your friend kumudhini doing? And what is her husband doing at eezham? Is he a sailor or what?"
Sembaruthi knew the exact reason why these questions were asked to her. She started to think.'He has asked everybody to leave the palace which means he is going to discuss something very important with me. And since it is going to take the soldiers a few minutes to execute his orders, he wants to kill the time and at the same time does not want to keep me in confusion. So he is trying to calm me down. But what could be the reason he mentioned about vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar? Does he know him already? Is there something wrong with the vaithiyar?'

She suddenly realized that he was waiting for an answer and managed to tell him something
"Oh kumudhini is fine...but i haven’t seen her after marriage.... and her husband as you guessed is a sailor. His family lives in eezham. ' she continued 'and my lord, how do you know vaithiyar elanchezhiyanaar at all?"
"So you may not be able to see kumudhini at all after she goes to eezham...is that so?"
'Now this means that matter really concerns the vaithiyar' she decided. 'So it won't do any good to speak about the vaithiyar till he starts himself; let me drag this conversation as he takes it along'
"Oh yes... that is what worries me a lot... I even start to cry when i think that i may not be able to see kumudhini again... those were wonderful days that we spent together in the lakeside gathering flowers of different colors and intoxicating fragrance and making them into a beautiful garland for our imaginary husbands. we would then laugh at ourselves seeing what we had done and remove all the flowers back from the garland and throw them into the skies.kumudhini-she is a beautiful friend,the best that a girl can have. Oh...what a sweet voice she has.Her husband is lucky to have her as his wife...he can spend all days and nights listening to her mesmerizing voice....i have been very lucky to have..."
He cleared his throat and that meant she had to stop.
She stopped immediately and looked at him. The look showed both anticipation and fear in equal proportions.
He bent his face closer towards her and said in a voice as low as his vocal chords would permit.
"Sembaruthi....i want you to do something really important.....and something really really dangerous...."