The Dancing Boat from Meluha

By Vijay Kumar ‘Victor’

Ensconced in Mature Harappan period 4400 years before present, the novel draws life-breath from archaeological research and personal travels by the author to Lothal, Khirsara and Dholavira. The story unfolds in the life of a young village girl Rura who is on the threshold of puberty and resplendent with desire—physical and mental. As she utters,
I am a tree at the onset of spring waiting/or the first flowers to bloom on me and render me into a world of fragrant and colourful ecstasies. I am awakening winds from mount Himvan.I am the singing voice of resurging joys of pubescent beautiful girl.
She nourishes a dream of earning her place under Sun as an ace dancer in the great city of Mala (Mohenjodaro). In the village fair held to honour Ma Muna—the Mother Goddess, an old merchant Guggal proffers extraordinary lapis-lazuli bracelets and an equally fascinating story of daring sea adventure. His journey is peppered with love of a woman, fear, curiosity, mishaps, and godsend people of different civilizations. The two scintillating dream stories of the dancing girl and of Guggal—the daring sea-fairing trader are inter- twined. For Guggal proclaims, "I wanted to touch the sky, nay I wanted to create a new sky with my imprints." This novel is about dreams and daring, be it Rura or Guggal or still you and me and like all dreams they have no end!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamond Books
• Release date: Dec 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9789359641171

Book preview

Chapter 1

Song of Krandhu

A new day is waking up from its night’s sweet sleep. The birds are singing the morning joys of the mother goddess. The sun god is spreading his golden aura on our beautiful village in the serene foothills not far from the river Krandhu. Its landscape of blooming flowers and proud tall trees in which dwell lovely birds of various colours and the holy spirits who protect us. I am the sixth child of my parents--a girl and the priest named me Rura, which means a cuckoo. But the only surviving child—my other siblings did not get the grace and blessings of the mother goddess and she took them with her. One lives or dies as the great mother wishes. Our village is west of Krandhu River and you have to walk up the small hills and through the green forest to arrive to it. We have fields where we grow wheat and barley in winter and cotton and sesame in summer.

The sun turned east into a soft crimson song. The trees yonder in the forest and the river nearby were softly kissed by the rising passion of the sun. The village was slowly stirring. The birds gave a call to the oncoming day by singing an ode to the nature. It is a village stuck like a diamond in the fertile life-giving valley of Krandhu. The river flows from the great mountains of Himavan. It is the river we worship as the mother who gave us life. Our village houses twenty families. There are beautiful cows, their black eyes looked at you with affection and familiarity. The head of the village has more cattle than any other villager. We are farmers and artisans. Though sometimes, we find some nomadic tribes steal our animals in the night. We catch fish from the river with the nets we make from tree bark. We dry the tree bark and twist it into thin ropes and the women weave nice fine nets. We worship in the temple in the village. We offer corn, peepal leaves and flowers to the deities. We make a fireplace from the clay and offer fragrant leaves, butter and twigs of trees to pray to mother goddess Muna.

I woke up to the singing of the birds in the morning. I looked out to the new virgin day. The fragrance of fresh morning wind brought great joys to my soul and my body that had just entered the door to puberty. I looked at my body –it was taut and shiny like the snail shells women use for ornaments. I touched myself all over, feeling my breasts that had turned into hard pomegranates in a short period. I had seen them grow from tiny berries to the size of succulent fruit. I had touched them, caressed them, and talked to them as if I had found a new friend. As I softly rubbed them, moving my fingers and palm over them circularly, I felt a wonderfully pleasant sensation. I touched the pink nipples that stood erect like the all-seeing eyes of god Inda; I felt honeyed joys run through me. I moved my hands further down my body; I felt the intoxication of Kona building up in me. A small hive of brown fuzz had been growing above the triangular Goddess cave that stood out in splendour and pride of a resplendent flowery alcove. It is the magical cave, the seat of joy, the home of life and in the purity of the image of the great Mother. We have in the temple the vagina symbols of all creating mother goddesses whom we worship. I felt that I was the Mother Goddess and my vagina had the power to win the temporal. I softly whispered incantation to the goddess, moving my fingers and feeling the warmth. Out of curiosity, I moved my finger in the temple. It felt nice. I explored it further; it was intoxicating. Just then, my mother called out to me to wake up.

I put on my cloak above my skirt. I went out and climbed the tree to pluck the twig for brushing my teeth. I walked down to the pond near the fields. I hummed to myself the song of the gods that we learn. I arrived to the pond it was beautiful. The crimson sun’s soft light had turned the pond into its own colour. I removed my cloak and withdrew my smooth legs from the skirt. I felt the cool wind touch each pore of my resurgent body. I felt an unknown joy surge through me. I entered the pond slowly, splashing water on my sun-kissed curves. As I waded in the water, it felt cold, my body stiffened, and my nipples stood taut. My breasts were taut and I looked up to the gods. I felt a tightening feeling below my navel. It was exhilarating. It felt like my body woke up to the new unknown joys offered by the goddess of Dawn. I hummed to myself. I slowly rubbed myself all over, using the bark of tree to clean my awakening body. I swam around in the pond, enjoying the freshness that the morning brought in its wake. I played with myself as I used to as a small girl. My hands reached different nooks and crannies of my body and it felt beautiful. I touched and explored the forbidden of my body. The more I explored inner reaches, the more I awoke to a new joy –the joy of my lovely body. I rubbed and massaged my body and still, it did not seem enough to reach the temple of magical joys. It felt so nice. I enjoyed this for a long time. I swam around in the pond and picked some blooming white lotuses. Then I decided to come out of the pond. I dried myself in the wind and put on the skirt and the blouse. I walked back home.

I arrived home and combed my hair with the ivory comb that my father had fashioned from elephant tusk that was hunted by the villagers and the ivory shared among the hunters. I was fresh and glowing with my special toilet that I had in the pond.

At home, my father prepared for offerings to the gods and put the twigs from the peepal tree in the special fireplace. He asked for their benevolence for the family and the whole tribe. The fire and the violet smoke rose above and I felt I saw the great mother goddess give her blessings. I folded my hands in obeisance. We prayed-- my father and mother together for a greater wealth of cattle and grains and fish catches from Krandhu, more children to be born to the womb, and the crops to be luxuriant. My mother worked in the kitchen to prepare food for the family. It comprised wheat grains toasted on fire, dates, milk, vegetables, lemons and fruits. We all ate together. After a brief noon nap, my father went out to the fields with his oxen to plough for a new crop of wheat. My mother got busy with her weaving. She spun cotton, which grew in fields and would later weave cloth for the family. I took some wheat and worked on the grinding wheels to get flour which we stored in a narrow-mouthed pot. My mother cooked and I helped her. The stove was made of fired bricks. The village potter worked on his potter’s wheel to give all of us beautiful pots. He also knew the art not known to many of firing the pots, thus making them last longer. He also painted them with the juices from the bark of trees.

Later I put grass for the cattle. Affectionately I ran my hand over the head of the new calf born to Sana, our cow. She was white in colour and was so named by the priest. We had oxen, cows, sheep, dogs and fowls. My father would tether the oxen in his ura—a wagon made of wood shafts from the trees in the forest and the village carpenter used his skill to carve such beautiful vehicles from the logs of wood. My father would use the wagon to go to other villages if he had some work there. Sometimes the family will go to meet families on festive occasions or for a marriage and I would be overjoyed to ride in beautifully decorated bullock cart.

After finishing the chores, I went out to meet friends. The boys and girls were playing in the grove. We used flat circular tiles or stones, each successively smaller. Seven of them we arranged one over the other—bigger and smaller successively. We had a ball made from wood wrapped in tree leaves and tied with the twig twine. We marked out a specified distance from the arranged stones. One girl or boy would try to hit and dislodge the stones and the other group would try to hit with the ball the members of the first group. The first group members would try to put back the stones in the original order. This game is called Pishthu. Thus we played many games.

Life is beautiful. The singing river Krandhu rushes with the impatience of a resurging youthful girl out to meet her lover, the trees and plants in the landscape are drenched in the golden sunshine while the mountains beyond beckon me with their curving smoky sensuality. It’s the season of autumn. My body feels to unwind in the recesses of some deep love, someone to hold me and crush me with the power and energy, the fragrance of flowers and the intoxication of the drink that my father brews from plants. It’s the drink of gods and we drink it when we pray to the mother goddess. The wind is cool pleasant and enticing. The body seems to transmute into an instrument of love. I feel soft and pliant willing to give in to the first caresses that could drop my way from a man. I wish to let my body go into the waiting arms of a strong sinewy man.

My joy drips and the desire burns like fire. I am the offering to the gods. I wish to arrive transformed through the golden lustre of the fire-god to higher realms of my being. I desire to be metamorphosed from my body into the magical ether where I exist as energy pure and dazzling. I feel to be the soul united with everything living and non-living. No, not united, but to become one with it and subsume in all existent. My desire is the tongue of glistening, consuming fire that takes the offerings to Mother Goddess. I see myself transformed as the holy smoke that rises to heaven as offerings to gods. In the prayers that are performed in our village, the priest recites beautiful verses. I remember one verse that is nearer to my feelings at the moment.

May you be united in your feelings soft

Your hearts promenade on golden raft

May sun-kissed corn flourish in your land

May mother Muna forever hold your hand

I pine like winter wind for the warmth of an alcove, like the Krandhu water for reaching the infinite blue ocean, like the cravings of beautiful women for the ornaments, like the soul fluttering to reach the eternal Inda. I am a tree at the onset of spring, waiting for the first flowers to bloom on me and render me into a world of fragrant and colourful ecstasies. I am awakening winds from Mount Himvan. I am the singing voice of the resurging joys of a pubescent beautiful girl. After spending some time in games, I walked towards the banks of the river Krandhu. I walked the verdant river plains that were spread out imbued with the warm ecstasy. The golden sun rays softly caressed the yellowed and brown bushes, shrubs and trees. The tall pipal trees singing as the wind blew while the dancing leaves elbowed each other in the autumn pleasantness. The vast expanse of valley flourished with large fields and grazing grounds that are extensively dotted by thick foliaged trees. I walked my joys in the resurgent singing spirit of the fragrant autumn air. This is the land of my forefathers who as I heard from the old priest of our tribe, came from the distant lands away from Malhakush, walking their families and bullock carts for months to find a new land where their cattle could graze in the green grass and also to find a new home. But for me, this is the land I know as my home. I walked the dirt track; cattle were grazing in the nascent sun softened landscape. I thought how the life as a special script of gods flourished in this lovely land.

The pleasant warm sun, diluted with the cool whiffs of wind, touched my joys that were ascendant. It was some time that I had arrived in pitu as I entered the door of puberty. Pitu is the cycle of seasons. Nature’s hide and seek with earth. The seasons are the gestures of gods to the eternal cycle of change in constancy. Pitu is also the cycle of a woman’s life as she enters the mother goddess through her puberty. The pre-pubescent girls are worshipped in the form of virgin worship. It’s the hymn to womanhood as she enters the domain of the fecund powers of gods. She inherits the power to create akin to gods. Only a woman can create a life that is the gift of Muna—all creating Mother Goddess.

When a girl enters the period of menstruation, it too is called pitu—the cyclical power synonymous with the mother goddess to create and change. When I entered pitu there were elaborate rites—using flowers, butter, dry tree leaves, cereals and fruits. I was given a vermillion-coloured dress to wear to celebrate the new power of creativity that I was to be bestowed now by the gods. The red vermillion—the sanctified colour of blood, is used to give dimensions to the everlasting cycle of existence and annihilation. I remember the sweet feeling of fear imbued with joy peppered with curiosity as I felt the first liquid flows—warm and scintillating from the dark cavities of my being. It was the eternal magical cave—that hid inside it the secrets of life. It held the future blooms of existence that would be the cycle of continuity of life on earth. It was the cave where great mother resided. In our village and other villages of our clan, women have all the authority to run the family and are in dominant positions in the matters of running the big town administration. They are also priestesses along with men. Men fear the magical powers that Mother Muna has gifted women.

The entire village had gathered for the ceremony when I stepped into puberty. There was a singing recitation of sacred life hymns to gods. A sheep was sacrificed and offered to gods to grant a boon of joys and prosperity to me as I walked a new path of fecund power to create life. A big feast was prepared; the sheep roasted on the fire and all sat around to share the feast. At that moment, I felt transformed inside me; it was a different me that was born. All the festivities made me feel that it was a celebration of my acquiring a new magical power. All the gathering was offered the delicious aromatic drink, Kona. I picked up my earthen cup and drank the brew of the gods. It was aromatic and joy-giving. The drums started to play. My body and soul were released into the new cosmos of a magical world. I was ecstatic and I danced with gay abandon along with others. My cheeks were flushed and my body was impatient for the new rhythm that I felt overtaking me.

Thinking all these thoughts, I walked. I picked up some flowers from the trees and put them in my long shiny black hair. Their fragrance invaded me and I broke into a song. I had in my feet a new pair of sandals that the village shoemaker had made for me from the leather that he had got from a bull that had died of old age. I walked, I rested, and I ran. The cuckoo was singing her joys in the forest. I was now a woman –young and in spring. I am like the mother goddess, she who is cultivated by god with his furrow. He impregnates her in the form of rain from the skies and she grows jubilant, bringing life from his seed. She gives life to all. She is the mother of all existent—my mother, our mother, everyone’s mother. I had entered the circle—the spoked wheel that resembles the cartwheel but is the wheel of seasons, of time of eternity, of earth, of sky, of water and of air is this endless cycle.

I neared dense trees in the forest, where the music of winds and of birds played incessantly raising my soul to higher joys. The golden sun rays were sieved through the shiny leaves that sat on sturdy serpentine branches of the trees. The earth had the lovely play of sunshine and shadows, creating a soft light and shadow cameo of romantic musicality. There was the sweet elegiac smell of the forest. The moisture retained by the trees created a damp green smell mixing with the fragrance of wild flowers that bloomed there. I walked, holding my pubescent joys and dreams closer to my palpitating hard breasts. The spirits in the trees whispered to me the eternal songs of goddess. A rabbit jumped in its white milky glory. I prayed to the Mother Goddess that my womanhood that had just emerged from the long hibernation of adolescence, find the sturdy arms of a hunting god.

When I entered puberty, the special rituals and incantations lasted the whole night. The first flow of virginal blood was sanctified by offering it to the goddess. Part of it was mixed with Kona—the holy drink of gods. Then all the gathering partook of this offering of gods that would bring fecundity to our whole tribe. This ritual offering to gods is to seek their bounty in the prosperity of luxuriant crops, more children to be born, more wealth of cattle and fish catches from Krandhu, the trades and crafts of bronze and coppersmiths, bead and necklace makers, carpenters, clay idol makers, mercantile seal makers, pot makers to flourish for the entire tribe. The menstrual first blood from me mixed with Kona was sprinkled over all the fields where wheat, barley, mustard, sesame, and cotton were grown. The power and fecundity of the Mother Goddess is transferred to the girl entering puberty. She has a magical power equal to the goddess and, through her goddess, grants bounties to the whole tribe. The people from the village brought me gifts—bead necklaces, earrings, bracelets, melons, and clothes. I was given a ceremonial bath with herbs and aromatic leaves. The women sang songs in honour of the Great Mother. The song goes--

O great Mother Muna we bow to thee,

You are the bearer of life we see

The earth is your womb eternal

From which flows all life infernal

This girl in your blessings grows

Her pubescent blood to new life flows

O great Mother may her fecundity flourish

Bless her with children and life’s relish.

All the neighbours had decorated our baked brick house with mango leaves needled together on a thread. After the women had given me the ceremonial bath, they combed my long black hair with an ivory comb and applied aromatic oil extracted from the herbs that grow in plenty in our neighbourhood. I was decorated—they applied the juice of a tree to my feet and they looked beautiful soft red; on my lips, they put the juice of the bark of a walnut tree called dandaasa and in my eyes, kohl which they created by holding a reversed clay pot over the lighted mustard oil lamp. The collected kohl they put in my eyes and they looked like the eyes of a doe—black and long. My hair—fragrant and shiny-- was plated in two buns after the custom of our people, both for women and men. Of course, there were a great variety of hairstyles which women liked to create to look beautiful. My friends, Uni and Runi, were by my side all the time and helping to do the errands for the occasion. Both of them were older than me by a couple of years and had a similar ritual ceremony some years back. The priest invoked the phallic god Hura and powered the clay amulet carrying the shape of god Hura in his meditative stance and his erect phallus—the harbinger of the creative energy of the cosmos as it meets the Mother goddess. The amulet that I wear all the time around my left arm has the figure of the holy bull deity and nature spirits reflected in the pipal tree. God Hura guards over all animals, especially our cattle. He is called the lord of the animals. Hura wears a headgear of bull horns on his head. He is a god who has to be appeased with Kona so that his anger does not harm our cattle and crops.

We make bricks and fire them with the wood logs cut from the plentiful forests. Our houses are made from these bricks. But we also sunbake our raw bricks sometimes. All the villagers help to make the houses or repair them. All work is community-shared. The roofs of the houses are flat. Wood shafts are arranged and then on top, we fix the bricks with clay mortar. The windows are small and normally face an inner courtyard. The sun is very hot in summer and the small windows keep off the heat and the hot wind blows.

I remembered the celebratory dance in honour of the Mother Goddess as we all sought her blessings as I put my feet on the door to puberty. All men and women gathered around the holy fire and formed a circle. Women and girls looked beautiful in the soft orange light of the fire. The crackling sound of wood and the smoke rising from the fire created a magical aura. They had ornaments—bead necklaces earrings and girdles around their slender delicate waists. The women wear no clothes other than the ornaments and so do the terra cotta figurines of mother goddess. Mother goddess has large milk-filled breasts and she is heavy bottomed—like a matronly all filled life-giving mother. The figurines of mother goddess are small and all of us have them in our houses. We worship her every day after the ritual bath. All houses have a small alcove in the walls where the mother goddess is established to grant us her bounties. What joy it is to be a woman to create life and to make the human race flourish over a long time. Mother Goddess exists much before the sun and the sky stars and the moon earth and water. Rather it is she who created all that exist—visible or hidden from human eye.

Everyone danced before the Mother Goddess to please her, for she likes dance and music. Women do not wear clothes for the goddess is the purity of the heavens. The magical power of mother enters the women when they ritually dance in nude. The body is but the manifestation of her inner spiritual energy. The creative energy of the mother goddess permeates all that exists. She is the creator; she nurtures through her fecundity which is manifested when a girl attains puberty. Through the human power to replicate an iota of mother’s power, a girl symbolically enters her domain. The menstrual blood symbolises life as well as annihilation and degeneration. The flow of blood is life and death. The red is the magic. When the menstrual blood is added to Kona and the people drink it, symbolically we partake of mother’s great creative energy. To look for the hidden symbols is the way to reach the mystery of the great creation. Only women can create life, nurture it and keep the great cycle which the