Paavai sighed, not knowing why she did so. She looked around her, trying to take in as much as she could. She knew that it would be a long time, if ever, she got to see this place again. From what her parents had been talking, they would be leaving soon for Thanjavur. News had reached all over the country about the great temple King Raja Raja was building for Lord Shiva. It was rumored to be seven palm trees tall and was to be built entirely of stone brought from a faraway place. How the huge stones were to be transported without breaking was a logistical mystery to be solved by the great builders who were building the temple. There was talk of using elephants and bullock-drawn carts to transport them over the road. And then talk turned to how the present carts were not strong enough to carry the enormous stones and how the roads would cave in under the enormous weight. And most important of all the questions that were being asked, how were the stones to be carried to such heights and placed securely to build the temple? Paavai had listened to all that the people of Natraazhi said about the temple and its building. She wasn’t a particularly religious girl, but listened keenly anyway, not because she was interested in the temple and its construction, but because it was happening in Thanjavur, a place she would be going to very soon.

Prince Rajendra had announced right then and there that Paavai had to be sent to Pon Nangai in Thanjavur as soon as Sembuli felt that she was ready, which Sembuli said she would be after her graduation in about a year. The Prince had then immediately had his order transcribed on to a palm leaf and had signed and sealed it with his personal seal. He ordered that the palm leaf was to be handed over to Pon Nangai upon Paavai’s arrival in Thanjavur.

Paavai smiled wryly to herself at the memory. No one had asked her what she wanted, whether she would like to go to Thanjavur or stay at Natraazhi or do something else. At that time, she had been angry. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go to Thanjavur. She just wanted to be the one who made that decision and not someone else making it for her, even if it was the Crown Prince of the country. But as the days went by, she understood that it was perhaps for the best that she had the instructions of the Prince. That meant that doors, that would otherwise remain closed tight, would open for her willingly and eagerly now.

Paavai sighed once again and got up. It was their turn that day, that night in fact. That thought brought about another rush of memories of the other part of the day of Prince Rajendra’s visit. After the exhibition was over and done with and the excitement had subsided, Prince Rajendra had been approached by the village elders. They aired the recent frequent troubles that they had been facing.

Natraazhi being on the north-western border of the Chozha Empire, was prone to enemy attacks from time to time. Usually they took the form of stealing a few cattle and crops. The people of Natraazhi knew and understood that this happened primarily, not as a form of attack but because the neighboring kingdom did not have the prosperity and resources of the Chozha kingdom. The stealing of crops and cattle was a sign of hunger and desperation and not a precursor to a full scale attack by an invading army. But of late, the attacks had changed flavor. The cattle were being stolen more frequently and the crops, instead of being stolen, were destroyed in the fields just when they were ripe enough for harvest. The cowherds, venturing out a little further from the village in search of green pastures, were being routinely beaten up, and sent back after having their cattle stolen. The loss of the cattle along with the pain and insult of a beating had become too much for the people of Natraazhi. When they had sent in a complaint to the nearest army base, a contingent had come in and went beyond Natraazhi, looking for the attackers. They had found no one. They even stayed for a few days in Natraazhi and went for surprise checks and patrols but still found no one. Everything was peaceful as long as they were there. The attacks resumed soon after they left and had been continuing with increasing frequency.  

Paavai, like the other children, had listened to the elders as they discussed these events and aired their frustration. Some of them had observed that the attacks had changed in nature after the destruction of the Kaanthazhoor Saalai[1] by King Raja Raja. ‘Of course he had to destroy it’, the people had said. ‘It had become a training center for martial arts. They were not supposed to practice martial arts’, they said. ‘And that too after having been graciously allowed to do so by the King’, they said. ‘Our King is too generous. He shouldn’t have allowed them to do that’, they said. ‘Especially in the light of what they did to his elder brother’, they said. ‘Murdering the heir to the throne …What a heinous crime!’ they said. ‘They should have been executed without mercy’, they said. ‘Yes, it was because they were exiled and not executed that they are alive to do these acts now’, they said. But no one talked of who ‘they’ were and even when some children ventured to ask who ‘they’ were, they were shushed and told not to ask about things that did not concern them.

Paavai had been listening to these stories right from her early childhood when she was old enough to understand spoken language. And even after all these years of listening to them she could not understand what happened when. But in the past year there were a few things that had become clear to her. King Raja Raja had exiled a whole clan of people who were the blood relatives and marriage relatives of the brothers who had plotted and killed his elder brother Adhiththa Karikalan, the rightful heir to the throne of the Chozha kingdom. This killing of the then Crown Prince was carried out as an act of revenge for the killing of the Pandya King Veerapandiyan. And the exiled people had lain low for a number of years, gathering strength and were now on the rise again, having sworn to bring down the Chozha Empire.

‘What mattered of all these royal intrigues?’ Paavai had thought. As the elders had said, they were of no concern to them, the children. But were they really, of no concern to the children? When the fathers, brothers, uncles and neighbors went away to fight their wars, was that not of any concern to the children? And when the news came of the death of these fathers, brothers, uncles and neighbors in those wars, was that not of any concern to the children? Yes, the royal exchequer paid a pension to the family of the deceased soldier. But was that the only matter of concern to a grieving family? It was an adult world where adult issues were sorted out using adult methods, the primary method being war and violence. Why should children be a part of such adult issues? When adult issues impinged upon the lives of children, then why shouldn’t they be a part of their lives? If these issues were not to be a part of the children’s lives, then shouldn’t they be shielded from them? But will these issues be really not a part of the children’s lives? If such issues are anyway going to determine the direction of the children’s lives, then would it not be better to equip them to be prepared to handle them?

All such questions that whirled inside Paavai’s head came to be answered rather gruesomely one day when the cowherds and the cattle that had gone grazing did not return to the village at the usual hour. When a search party went out in search of them, they had found them by the pond they usually drink from. Both the cowherds and the cattle were lying dead by the edge of the pond, their death obviously caused by the pond water that had been poisoned.

This had happened just a few days before the arrival of Prince Rajendra. And so when the elders went up to him and recounted what had happened, he flew into a silent rage. Having listened to all that they had to recount, he had sent them back promising them that he would stay there for as long as it was necessary to set right matters. The next morning he had called a village meeting and had announced his plan of action. He would personally survey the surroundings of Natraazhi and devise ways to safeguard and strengthen the defense of the village. And he did what he had promised he would do.

It took him and his general a few days to formulate a defense plan for the village. After surveying the surrounding areas and the geographic layouts, Prince Rajendra had gathered the village once again and had shown them the defense plan for the village drawn on the ground. He had pointed out where defense points would be set up and what sort of defense would go where. And he put his soldiers along with the people of the village in the construction of the defense structures, the main of which was the guard tower.

A tall tower was erected at a strategic location a little outside the perimeter of Natraazhi, on the north side, the only side from where the attacks and the attackers had approach. The tower was built tall enough and strong enough to withstand rain and shine. It was a covered tower, the top of which held a large cauldron of oil and the means to light the oil on fire in case of an attack. Though the roof meant that it would burn along with the oil when it was lit, there was no other way to keep it protected against the monsoon rains. It also had a huge bell that when rung could be heard by the people of Natraazhi, alerting them to an incoming attack. The tower was to be maintained by the village and the oil replenished regularly, the cost of which would be borne by the royal exchequer. Sentries had to be posted throughout the day and night, the duties of which were to be rotated among the families of the village. Each family had to send their representative to the tower to be the lookout. In case of an attack, the bell had to be rung and the oil had to be lit on fire so that the fire could be seen miles away by the sentries posted on exactly such a guard tower on the army base. Fires would be lit in a continuous chain across the length of Chozha kingdom so that the armies at each post and border would be ready to repulse the attack that was mounted by the enemy. Prince Rajendra had implemented this system along the southern and eastern borders successfully. And the same system was being introduced in the north-western border of Natraazhi.

Prince Rajendra commanded his general to train the people in handling the various defense mechanisms, right from maintaining the concealed pits dug along the approach roads to planting and cultivating bramble along a perimeter to act as a natural impenetrable barrier. And it was at that time that the Prince had issued the command that all the people of Natraazhi, irrespective of age, had to undergo basic fighting training. Sembuli was appointed as the teacher for this training as he was the only soldier residing at the village. Even the elders and women especially, were to be a part of it with interested and talented ones given a little more intense training. Paavai had been just a four-year-old child when she had taken a staff that her brothers used to train with and started imitating them after watching them being trained by her father. Her father had seen her one day and had started formal lessons for her. She found that she had a natural talent for it and had been quite happy to progress to whatever her father decided to train her in. 

So now almost everyone, except the new born and the very young, knew how to wield at least a staff to defend themselves a little, giving them each a fighting chance of not only saving their lives but also the lives of their families and their properties. And most importantly, they now had a means of warning the rest of the country of an attack, in effect acting like an alarm bell for that region of the Chozha kingdom.  

[1] Saalai – Training/Learning Center