CHAPTER 5- River talk/SL

Krishna River, 1538.

It had been an hour since the boat had left the village. There were a total of three people in the boat including Rudra. The other two were the owner of the boat, Sethupathi, and an Oarsman who was hired for this long trip by Sethupathi.

Rudra initially tried conversing with the oarsman but was stumped by the fact that there was no response from him. After seeing Rudra struggle with the oarsman for a few minutes, Sethupathi mentioned that the Oarsman, Bashir, was mentally challenged. 

'Damn. This guy is born at the wrong time. It is good that he is still employed in the village for odd jobs.' Rudra thought. It was easy to be deemed an outcast in this period, anywhere in the world. It was even more difficult for a mentally challenged person.

They were currently traveling at a speed of approximately 5 kilometers an hour. The river in this area was also traveling very slowly. It was about 500 to 600m wide from one shore to another at this point and the boat was traveling at about 100m from the shore. The distance from Nadhipalle to Macherla was about 50km, and the trip would take nearly 10 hours.

The only light source was the two lanterns and the celestial bodies. The view was spectacular. Traveling under the moonlight on a boat, the water reflecting the unpolluted sky of the sixteenth century, anyone would agree it was beautiful, except for maybe people suffering from thallasophobia.

The boat itself was nothing new to Rudra. It was a wooden clinker-built boat, designed for holding cargo and was more focused on stability than speed. Well, as designed as it can be for a village in the 16th century. It was held together by rope and wood joints.

When he initially saw the boat, Rudra contemplated ditching the plan and just walking to Machela. After all, Krishna River is a Crocodile zone with a good Mugger Croc population. He only calmed down after Sethupathi bragged about it being built by a popular Boatwright from Macherla, confusing Rudra's apprehension of the boat for interest.

At least the boat was a lot better than the others in the village.

"Hey Sethupathi. Can I ask you something? If you don't mind of course." Rudra asked the man, being sure to call him by his name. People appreciate it when you remember their names. It shows that you value them and their presence. It was one of the tricks he picked up from his old memories.

"Go ahead." the boat owner replied. He was currently in his resting phase. Bashir and Sethupahi were rowing the boat alternatively to cover the distance without being tired, switching approximately every 30 minutes. This way, the boat doesn't have to stop midway because the oarsmen are tired.

"Why are you even bothered with fishing? Your family looks rich enough that, I am sure you own at least some farmland." what he left unmentioned was that Sethupathi's father, Ramaiah was a Village chief. It was difficult in some parts of the sub-continent to even achieve that role without being either from an upper caste or relatively wealthy.

As Sethupathi's son had mentioned, their family was not from an upper caste. That only left the other option. Either that or Rudra's guess was completely wrong, and the village had no caste bias at all, which he doubted.

"You seem strangely interested," noted Sethupathi with a raised eyebrow. " My father purchased farmland from his employer when they moved away and made good money growing rice and cotton. Now My brother and I manage the crops. It is not yet time to plant this year, and fishing is as good of a way to spend time as any other method. Besides fish sells well in the village." finished the man.

His tone indicated that he didn't want to talk about it further. So, Rudra switched the topic. 

"What about this taxation issue I heard about from your father? Doesn't your village come under Dharanikota's purview? Why are you even bothered by the Sultanate's tax officials?" he asked the older man. He needed to know more about these issues if he had any plans to rule the area in the future.

The mention of taxes riled up the older man, as it usually does for everyone else. "Those goddamn thieves. Both of the kingdoms are the same. Both of them pretend it's their territory when collecting taxes. Not even one of them ever bothers to solve any issues. I am sure that the local officials of both kingdoms are colluding with each other to screw us over common people." The man ranted.

'Seems like an issue of systematic corruption. Another problem to solve.' Rudra analyzed.

"Those people are thieves alright. They can't even do their jobs properly. What about the Royal family? Is the king not doing anything to help?" he questioned Sethupathi. He figured it would be better to get a feel of the public's opinion of his father's rule.

"What about them? It's all the same with those folk. They sit on their asses all their life and go to war, when their fragile egos get hurt, at the cost of us common folk. I heard that the Drunk king of Dharanikota hadn't left his palace in the last year. The Prince is hated by his own family, so that rules him out to be the next in line. Who knows what kind of freaky things he is into to be hated by his own family? There are other nasty rumors I don't wish to talk about about that lad and his birth." The man continued to vent.

'Ouch. I guess I have a bad PR among the people. Another issue.' Rudra thought to himself. He knew of the rumors, of course. He didn't want to spoil his mood by thinking about them.

"The options left are that the king's brother either overthrows the king or the Vijayanagara Empire or the Golkonda Sultanate invade and annex this poor excuse of a kingdom. The second option seems likely anyway, the Vijayanagara Empire is pressuring the king to join back as a part of the empire since the war with the Sultanate." the man would have ranted further, if not for the interruption of Bashir, who wanted Sethupathi to row the boats for now, as he takes rest.

'Huh. How convenient, and just when the talk was getting to the juicy part.' the prince thought to himself. If anyone from the capital had heard of the conversation, Sethupathi could be hanged. Criticizing the King, even if he was a corrupt drunkard, was considered treasonous. As a prince, Rudra could have executed Sethupathi for that and no one would have cared. Not that he had any intention of using that power of course.

'You are not just a mindless brute, huh.' Rudra speculated. Bashir stopped Sethupathi when the talk started getting deep into the head-chopping territory. The relationship between the boat owner and the temporary oarsman is limited. Sethupathi and his father, Ramaih usually employ Bashir for odd jobs around the village. At least that was what he gathered.

As Rudra started observing Bashir, he noticed that he was also being observed in return. The guy was built like a truck. He didn't know what height the guy was, as he had not seen him standing at full height yet. Bashir was in the boat when Rudra returned after having a meal. If he had to guess from the oarsman's stature, he would guess at least 6ft 5in or above.

He tried to start the conversation with the man once again and held out a hand for him to shake.

"I am Rudra," he said. No response from the man. Just the same stare, that was trying to analyze him as much as possible.

He tried again but with a different method. "My. name. is. Rudra." He spoke out each word individually while signaling using basic sign language. Bashir tilted his head, as if either amused or intrigued by what Rudra was doing.

"Hahaha!!" laughed Sethupathi, who had been silent since the conversation with him. " Hey, kid. You do know that Bashir can listen to you right? He is just dumb as a rock. He can't understand what you are saying half the time, and won't care about it the rest of the time." he guffawed.

'There!' although it was subtle and not very visible under the lighting conditions, Rudra saw it. A slight frown of disapproval. Bashir was upset by the words of Sethupathi. 

He decided to go ahead with his little experiment. "My. name. is. Rudra. Your. Name. is. Bashir." He signed while speaking each word individually.

"What is this handshaking you are doing, kid?" the boat owner asked. The man, of course, doesn't have any clue what Rudra is doing. Sign language was not yet invented, in this world. Sign language was also not what Rudra had thought he would use first, from the vast dumps of knowledge in his old memories.

"It is a language for those who can't hear or speak," he told Sethupathi while signing each word slowly for Bashir to see. The version of the language he was using with Bashir was the IPSL– Indo-Pakistani Sign language, the most used sign language in the world, according to his old memories.

Still, Bashir does not know the language. Whatever he signed now will seem like random handshaking, as Sethupathi has put it. But, those hawk-like eyes were observing him and Rudra decided to give those eyes something to observe.

Over the next few hours, when Bashir was resting from the rowing, Rudra explained the basics of ISPL to him, but it was a difficult process as it was based on a completely different language. He can't even explain to him the alphabet, as they were English.

Still, he showed him some basic phrases and a few commonly used words. The entire time Bashir just stared at him with those sharp eyes and did not respond to a single thing. Rudra wondered what he was doing, wasting his time teaching a language, to a poor guy who probably would not even understand it.

He remembered the boredom he felt in the first hour of the boat trip after he was more used to beautiful sceneries caused by the reflections. This was the reason he was doing it. To not get bored. 

Then Rudra realized that he would probably be bored most of his life from now on. It would have been fine if the old memories hadn't come back. But after experiencing the wonders of the modern world, everything will be more mellowed.

'There is nothing I can do about it now' he thought, as he looked at the horizon.

The sun was slowly starting to peek out from the east. The dock of Macherla is fast approaching, and so is Rudra's first step towards Vengeance.