‘A heart attack,’ continued Ajay Singh as he stood before his brother.

Did it really matter, the cause of death, Abhimanyu wondered. She might as well have died of a sword wound – the result would have been the same. His mother, queen Kaushalya Devi, was no more.

He spent the night in a curious trance, questioning the little arrangements in the theatre of death. Why was a diya placed by her dead body? He wondered the placement of her body – aligned to the north-south direction, with her head facing the North Pole. A last-ditch attempt, as the shastras prescribed, to bring back the dead. He ridiculed the shastras over such wishful thinking. Could the earth’s magnetic fields really spark up her heart again and bring back his beloved mother? Had that ever happened in the history of mankind? Why raise your hopes with such cruel practices? He watched the rudali – three women beating their chests and sobbing aloud and inconsolably, forcing tears to roll down their cheeks as the royal family members watched in stoic silence. Were the tears really fake or had Kaushalya Devi touched the hired mourners’ hearts in some way? Abhimanyu questioned the incredulousness of getting his mother’s body cremated within eight hours of her death. What’s with the urgency? What about her loved ones getting a chance to travel from distant towns to see her one last time. For him to look at her, feel close to her in some way? His objections were overruled by the pandit as the royal procession started at the break of dawn from the palace grounds, and headed to the royal burial grounds to reinforce the finality of death in embers of the pyre.

With the intimate rituals of bathing and wrapping the body carried out behind closed doors, it was time for the pageantry. Abhimanyu’s beloved mother became the queen of all people again. Her subjects lined the streets of Ranakpour to watch the procession and pay their respects. Were they also hired mourners, Abhimanyu wondered, as they stood teary-eyed, swaying to the sombre tone of the royal mourning band. The street urchins, though, were giddy at the sight of the golden funeral chariot, and they bobbed and weaved through the crowd to get a closer, longer look at the spectacle. They were right, Abhimanyu thought, it was a spectacle. No, a travelling circus. A beeline of large, imported open-top cars followed the chariot, each carrying one member of the royal family, each dressed to the nines. Abhimanyu was in a Rolls Royce, third behind the chariot. Behind him was his sister, Avantika, in a white custom-made JW Brooke swan car, with a swan head at the front and water primrose embroidered in gold at the back. Their uncles and other relatives followed Avantika, and behind them were the drab military motor vehicles of state visitors making their presence known through their guttural engines. A spectacle. Abhimanyu detested the show of power and pomp of the royal, even in death.