Draupadi
By Manasa
Episode 5
The rays of the bright round moon slant across the beams of the narrow room. I lie on the best blanket they have to offer me, next to Kunti stretched out on my side. She is fast asleep, snoring, slightly flatulent. She’s the noisy kind, not the noisome one. That’s a relief.
Let me mention here that this is the first time in my life that I have slept next to someone; slept in a room with six people rather. Back in the palace, Shaktima used to sleep with me till I was 6, but then I insisted of a room of my own. No one minded. I was never afraid of the dark like some kids. I was not afraid of ghosts and monsters under the bed. I am not afraid of many things, actually.
But here I am now, unable to sleep on the first night in my new surroundings. My husbands snore lightly, sometimes in rhythm. That’s right, you heard me right, my husbands. Every one of the five of them.
I guess I should fill you in on what happened this evening.
Our makeshift chariot rolled up outside a row of mud huts. Each of the huts in the row was indistinguishable from the next. I could sense people in the huts peering out; their eyes on me, but no one actually stepped out. I wondered if I was still in Panchala, whether I was these people’s princess, whether they knew me, whether they knew that their princess was to marry the mighty Arjuna.
Arjuna held out a hand to me and helped me down from the chariot. Bhima made to go into the house, but Arjuan stopped him. “Let’s wait for them,” he said. ‘It would be unfair if we showed her to mother without all of us being there. After all they helped us win her.”
“Us?” Bhima laughed. “Brother, you won her. Next, you would be saying let’s marry her together,” he winked at me.
I laughed. I was growing to like Bhima already, that rough and ready face, the twinkle in his eye, the wide smile. He went and sat under on a boulder, tore a piece of grass and chewed on it.
I stretched my arms and walked around aimlessly, looking at nothing in particular. Arjuna was solicitous. “Would you like to sit down a bit?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry you have to wait here so. We want our brothers there when we introduce you to mother. It has always been that the five of us stick together, no matter what. That was the only way we have survived.” Arjuna paused. “After father died, mother raised us single handedly. And it has always been because we have stayed together, under her wise guidance.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want some water from the well, maybe?”
“Well?”
“Yes, there is a common well that all of us draw water from. Mother will show you tomorrow and you can learn to work the pulley. Are you sure that you are not tired?”
There was something about the offhand way he mentioned the well, mother and my being tired in the same sentence that was a little disturbing. Why show me the well? So that I could draw water from the well? Don’t take me wrong, I am not a stuck up princess who thinks doing chores is beneath her dignity. Considering that I had never done such things, and considering that I was marrying, but you would never know it, a prince. But it was the offhand way that he said it that irked me. “Oh, you are the woman, you must work for us now.” Somehow, drawing water from wells had never been a part of the picture of my marital life.
As we stood there, we heard hooves, and in a moment we were joined by two horses. Yud rode the first one, the twins were on the second. The horses were evidently from my father’s stable.
“Good that you waited for us,” said Yudhistra, as he dismounted. He was a man of fair height, a pencil thin mustache gracing his upper lip, a riot of boyish curls on his head. Yet it was the eyes which gave away the maturity of his person; sad owl’s eyes.
Nakula and Sahadeva jumped down to, and Sahadeva rubbed down the horses lovingly. “Gifts of your brother,” he said to me, with a wide grin.
“Really?”
“Yes, it was becoming a bigger fight than we expected. Drishtadymna told us that he would take care and told us to get away,” said Nakula. ‘So here we are!”
‘Good, now we can go in and tell mother,” said Yud. Sahadeva was at the back of the house, putting away the horses and the chariot, but he did not seem to miss Sahadeva. Moreover, the horses were neighing and whinnying, so that alerted Kunti to our arrival.
“Who’s there?” we heard a female voice sound from the interiors of the house.
“Mother, it’s us!” shouted back Bhima. “Look at what we have brought home today!”
Mother Kunti’s voice sounded from inside the house again. “Whatever it is, share it among yourselves equally, children!”
Bhima and Arjuna started laughing convulsively. Nakula joined in too and even Yud was smiling. “No, mother,” said Yudhistra, and motioned me to follow him. “This is what we got home,” and opened the door. I walked in first, followed by all the brothers.
A thick haze of smoke by the fireplace parted to reveal a woman, old, yet beautiful. The elegance of her youth had not left her; the lines under her neck were the only indication of her age. She was frail boned and pale skinned, with her certain haughty air about her eyes. This woman, trying to make a fire in a mud kitchen and cook for five sons (and a daughter-in-law), was no doubt a queen.
“A woman?” she laughed. “What’s your name, child?”
“Draupadi”
“Ah, the daughter of Drupada, the Panchala princess. I knew your mother, Draupadi, a fine woman she was.” She turned to her sons. “A fine alliance, boys. So was that were you went when you said you went hunting?”
“Yes mother, though Arjuna was the one who hunted her,” said Bhima, grinning.
“No matter, what I hold still stands. Arjuna, you do understand, don’t you?” She turned her face to his and gave him The Look. “Share her with your brothers, I will arrange for all the five of you to be married to her soon.”
I stood there, dumbstruck.
There were discussions before the decision was made final. Kunti and Yud went outside and talked first. I could hear Bhima’s voice when it was his turn. “But Arjuna won him. It is not fair to him.”
Nobody asked me if it was fair to me.
Arjuna refused to look at me, and I sat silently in a corner, taking in my surroundings. Five husbands! How would that work anyway? Who was she, Kunti, to impose all of her sons on me when it was one of them who had won me by right, and when, indeed, it was one of them that I was interested in?
While Kunti spoke to Bhima, I waled over to Yudhistra and Arjuna sitting at the back of the house, talking. How would I get to tell him what I wanted to? I cleared my throat.
The two men looked at me, Yud almost embarrassed, casting his eyes to the ground almost and Arjuna giving me a weak smile. “I’m sorry it’s so confusing,” he said, always the well bred cavalier.
The words rushed out of me before I had the time to think.
“Do you think I could talk to you for a second?”
They were addressed to Arjuna. But Yud sprang forward first. “Yes, mylady, please feel free to be open with us. We shall not do anything against your wishes.”
I hesitated for a minute, not sure what to say. I fixed my gaze on Arjuna steadfastly. Never have I seen a man’s face fall so fast; that was Yud. ‘Go on,” Yud murmured, and left us in the shadow of the big tree.
“It’s not fair. Why don’t you talk to your mother?”
“I can’t,” said Arjuna. “You don’t know my mother. She always has her will. I can’t go against her. Bhima went against her and married that forest girl. She made him leave her behind. I can’t leave you behind.”
The last few words caused my head to reel for a minute, but I gained my composure. “But I can’t be a wife to you and all your brothers as well!”
“Well, if mother wills it so, then it can’t be any other way. We will see what we can make of the situation.”
This man, this warrior that men from the tips of the Himalayas all through the spread of the Ganges were afraid to duel with, the son of the legendary Indra, was this the man who stands before me so, wishy-washy, not able to make up his mind? Afraid of standing up to his mother? Indeed why did he even need to have allegiance to her? Was he not a grown man? Could he not, with his prowess, carve a kingdom for himself anywhere on earth as he saw fit? Would he rather share me with his brothers to maintain the integrity of their family rather than give his woman her due and assert his own independence? Did he even care for me, or (for the first time doubt started creeping in) was I just another trophy?
It was at that moment that I felt my most helpless and vulnerable. There was nobody that I could turn to, nobody else in the house that I trusted. My father or brother would not care; I was the wife of the Pandavas. More strength for them when my father would attack Drona.
But I was wrong, of course. I saw the strutting peacock feather first and knew from the jaunty walk who was around the corner. Kanha, of course.
“I saw the feather walk into the house through the doorway, and talk to Kunti. Poor boy, how tired he must be! There were no horses or hooves, he must have walked all the way over. I ran to the back of the house to get him some water from the despised well.
Sahadeva stood next to the well, looking at his own reflection, or at least trying to. He started when I called his name. ‘Sahadeva, Krishna is here. Could you please show me how to draw water from the well?”
“Certainly, Draupadi,” he said. I liked the way he used my name, without the averted eyes and inhibitions of his brothers. He was a boy, closer to my age than the rest of them, very conversational. “I don’t like this business one bit, Draupadi. Really, why is no one asking what you think? Do you want to marry all of us?”
This frank youth, drawing water for me, certainly pleased me. I warmed to him at once. “No, Sahadeva. Much as I like and respect all of you, I don’t know if I can find it in me to treat you all with equal fervor were I to be the wife of you all.” I hesitated.
“I will take up your case with mother, Draupadi,” said the boy to me. “She does these things at times, and I am sure she has her reasons. But your desires cannot be blown away just like that. Besides would we be happy with a wife who is not happy with us?”
I said nothing, but smiled, and took the pot of water into the house, struggling under its weight. Sahadeva taught me the correct way to hold the pot. As I walked inot the house, I noticed Yud standing by the door, lost to the world.
To be Continued ….
Draupadi
Driver’s son
Episode-3
Kanha was not present on the day I got married. I am not sure what kept him away, but he was not there. That’s the thing with Kanha – he is there on the days it really matters, but never all the time. It may seem surprising to you that the day I got married did not matter much to me, but to tell you the truth, it was only a relief to me. I was getting away from my father,after all this time. I knew that only one man on the planet could win the kind of test my father had set- and that was Arjun. To be won this way,as the greatest feather in a cap for his ability – he should feel lucky to have a woman such as me for his wife!
I spent hours before the mirror, watching Shakti-ma do my hair, making her undo it,and redo it, coiling its lengths about my body and watching it fall back like a sheer waterfall. My burnished skin glowed, my eyes sparkled. My eyebrows, thick and arched, were like battle-flags. I could feel the thin, short hair on my arms and the nape of my neck rise with the chilly north-easterly winds blowing through the windows early that morning. I lifted my skirts to admire my legs, and my eyes followed the curves of my body in the mirror. The dangling bits of metal in my ears clinked, my anklets jangled like conches. I walked out to my father’s quarters like a woman going out to battle, like a ship in full sail, like the rising full moon. I was sixteen.
Shakti-ma, I remember, bade me to fall at my father’s feet and seek his blessings. I eagerly walked up to him, and stood before him, in all my bridal finery, looking, I knew, more beautiful than I had ever looked before. More radiant. More womanly. More alive.
He, of course, saw none of those things. He merely asked me if I was ready and when I nodded, asked Shakti-ma to escort me to the pavilion.It was a flat stretch of bare land, with chairs and seats arranged circularly around it for all the gathered kings and princes and their attendants.At the centre of the circle, which was open to the bright blue sky and the struggling sunlight, there was a vat of oil.Directly over that, there was a revolving disc, with a huge dead fish on its circumference. A gigantic bow sat a few yard away. I wondered how they had brought it there.
I was not veiled. I was clothed in yellow and green, and my hair hair hung braided behind me. My eyes were kohled, but my hands were white. Directly opposite the bow, there was a raised platform shaded with thick cloth. We sat by ourselves, waiting for the proceedings to begin. My brother stood guard at the base of the platform, but he looked so funny standing there that I almost laughed. I hated my brother, almost as much as I hated my father.
I was busy scanning the crowd. I had seen likenesses of Arjun, but he was nowhere tobe seen. ‘Arjun isn’t here,” I muttered to Shakti-ma.
“Haven’t you heard? The Pandavas are in hiding.”
“Why?”
“Their cousins tried to kill them.”
“Who?”
“Their cousins. Duryodhana and his brothers. You see that man over there?”
I saw where she pointed. Duryodhana was a bespectacled pimply person, taller than average, but thin as a reed. He wore an expression of boredom, but he had bright, keen, intelligent eyes that roved around.He was the kind of man you would underestimate, and then grow to respect, and then realize he was too dangerous to be respected. This was something I realized later – that he had a charm about him. He could make people play into his hands. His parents believed he was capable of no wrong.His brothers believed that his cause was just. Even the Pandavas tought him a misguided youth – Yudhistra always fought for his conversion. But Yudhistra believed that everyone was innately good. In fact, except Bheem and Kanha, everybody fell under Duryodhana’s spell at some level.
I realized that I had been staring too long at Duryodhana when he stared at me and smiled. It was not contemptuous or leering, as one of expect of the notorious Duryodhana. It was almost respectful, a smile of recognition, nothing more. He nudged the man sitting next to him, who turned to look at me as well.
I stared back, not smiling. I did not care about Duryodhana, but who was this man who next to him?He was a stranger as far as I was concerned. He looked, not like a king, but like a God of some kind.The man was dark, darker than any man I had seen in these parts, with a sharp nose, fleshy lips and a stubble on his cheeks. His eyes, butthose were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. As he kept looking at me, a look both arrogant and compassionate, in equal parts giving and receiving, as the half struggling sun burst out into full flame and lit up his eyes even more, if that was even possible, I knew with all the surety of a girl who was an almost-woman, a girl sure of her own beauty and the effect that it had on a man such as this one, that this man wanted me.
The moment this realization hit me, I turned away from him.
“Shakti-ma, who is that?”
“Who?”
“That man, next to Duryodhana, the one who is still looking at me.”
“Oh, that’s the Driver’s Son.”
“Who?”
“Don’t you know? This Duryodhan, he made his driver’s son a king. Apparently they are bosom friends. If you ask me it is all hogwash – friendship and suchlike.All Duryodhan wants are his skills. Haven’t you heard? If there is one man on earth who can wield an arrow and kill Arjun, it is this man. His name is Karnan.”
“Duryodhan wants to kill Arjun?”
I was a very unworldly girl then. I had heard of Arjun, only because Kanha talked about his favourite cousin all the time. They were like blood brothers, Kanha and Arjun. I did not care about politics or the feuds between the men. The men were all like my father, always plotting, always out for somebody’s throat. Though I spoke to Kanha as if I enjoyed duels and fights and men pulping one another, it was only to tease him.
it was only to tease him. I liked bravery and courage in men, but for the life of me, I could not stand the sight of blood. I could not watch something suffer, even if it was a rabbit hit by an arrow. I had, and have suffered too much to know that I’m right. It is sort of ironic that my hand was won by a man because he could shoot straighter and fancier than all the other men gathered there. The same kind of shots that killed uncles and teachers and men they had loved and respected all their lives. The bloody war they were obligated to fight for my obstinacy, my honour, their honour.
It now seems to me that everything is, at some level, a farce. What was the meaning of the war they fought? They sure as hell did not fight it for me. I was but an excuse for the flare-up.Like a fool, I fanned their passions. Bheem’s devotion to me that made him swear that he would rip Duryodhana’s thigh, Kanha’s monologue that Arjun heard, Duryodhana’s promise of eternal friendship, each one was a farce, a farce with someone’s ego at the end of it.Lying here in the sun, waiting for the boy to come, I remember what Karna told me at one point.
“You and I, Draupadi, you and I, if there are two people that this war is being fought for, it is you and I. It is the sins against us which are being avenged. This war is not a duty, Draupadi, like Krishna preaches and Yudhistra believes. It is not a necessary evil. It is a purge. We were exploited, and we shall be redeemed.” Karna always spoke that way, with bitterness and passion and detachment and a sardonic, ironic twist of a smile. Every word he spoke was a tussle with fate, for he was right. He had been wronged against, and I had been wronged against. That day, the day I got married, the day I saw Karan for the first time and loathed him at first sight, I did not know what was in store for either me or him.
My attentions were soon fixated on each of the princes who came forth to try to win my hand, and I watched in amusement, as they tried to lift the heavy bow and flopped back to the ground. Duryodhana tried perfunctorily,but failed. Then, he motioned Karna to try.
I watched as he walked confidently towards the bow, looked at me in the eye and lifted the bow easily and strung it with a resonating twang. There was a half-smile on his face. I did not want him to win, because he wanted to win me so badly. I turned my face away, but could not help watching from the corner of my eye, lest he should win.
A voice rang across the field. “Stop him.”
(To be Continued…)
January 2010 Issue
Hello There,
Here we are with a new issue on the new year. Our Jan issue is themed “Sibyl” and we are all set to take you on a journey in to 2010 and beyond. Filled with short stories, poems, book reviews, movie reviews and our usual columns, we are sure you will gobble this up.
Dont forget to tell us what you think. Leave a comment or email us at editor@thebanyantrees.com
Draupadi – Episode 2
How hot the sun is! The pitcher of water next to me is open, and the water is heating up fast and disappearing as I lie here, famished and thirsty. The five figures have long left, and I can see only the horizon shimmer where I saw their receding backs. The rock that I’m lying on is heating up too…Bheem, as usual, could never think for longer than the moment. Though he had moved my bed-rock out of the way of the sun when he left, he had failed to account for the progress of the day. Bheem. My bed-rock.
There were five of them, but Bheem was noticeable, always. He stood out, like Arjun. Like the other one. Sahadeva, my good Sahadeva, my almost-brother, he was unobtrusive. He never stood out. But Bheem and Arjun, they stood out like the sun and the moon. The first time I saw all the five of them together, I had eyes only for Arjun…but I knew, with the instinct of a woman, the two pairs of eyes that watched me, my every movement. One of the two pairs belonged to Bheem. The other…but wait. Let me tell the story in sequence and order.
I ran past the fountain and the hall of the songbirds, around the flower garden into the inner chambers, looking to my left and to my right. When I saw her, relief bubbled over me and I said, “Shakti-ma’ with the same bliss on my face as a thirsty man’s in an oasis. The veiled face that looked back at me with a smile was my wet-nurse’s.
My father had never really wanted a daughter. He is lame in one leg – I have heard people say that the only reason he ever became king was because there was no one else in the family to take over. I hate my father. He is a vicious man – has got a nasty, foul temper. For example, he quarreled with his best friend, a revered sage called Drona, because he was a poor man who asked for my father’s help.
My father can never be kind to people who love him – maybe that is why he hates me. I would love to love him like a father should be loved, and I was another pillar in the palace as far as he was concerned. All he wanted was a son – you see, Drona was a greater warrior than my lame father. When my father insulted
Drona, he avenged the insult by declaring war on my father, and winning it single handed. Now, my father wanted to continue the cycle by getting back at Drona – he wanted a warrior son who could finish off Drona for him.
I have heard Shakti-ma say how joyful he was when he heard my mother was pregnant – he was almost human then. He had, however, miscalculated – he got the warrior son he wanted, but the son also had a twin-sister, me, who by tearing out of the fragile mother, had killed her.
After my mother had died giving birth to me, a fact that my father never let me forget, Shakti-ma had fed me and clothed me and changed the cloth when she had to, and had told me stories and kept me from my father’s wrath and away from my bullying brother and his friends. was the unwanted daughter, and she was the wet-nurse who had stayed on to mother me. It was more than a year since the time Kanha had visited me in the forest. He had gone on to do what he had said he would – he had married Rukmini and brought her to our palace to show off his new bride (I later heard that he did not stand to fight her brother– yet the brother never showed his face in public again. Kanha has style!) However, since then, I had not seen him. We wrote to each other all the time, never long missives with elaborate wordplay or any useful information to convey, but mostly short teasing notes, riddles or limericks.
“You forget the face of the old friend in the face of the new wife?” went one piece of parchment in mock anger, fastened to the feet of a pet pigeon.
“Fine question to ask the one with many wives, but one friend” – the reply.
And today, after a long year, I heard the servants talk – that Kanha was coming!
“Shakti-ma, I heard father say that Kanha is coming today. Is that true?”
My breathless question to Shakti-ma made her smile again. “Why, yes, Draupadi. Come here. I have been meaning to talk to you.”
She reached out for me and smoothed my wild hair over my shoulders. “How would you like to be married?”
I looked at Shakti-ma incomprehensibly.
“Listen to me, and listen to all that I have to say before you react. Your father thinks that it is time that you get married. He has arranged for princes from all over the world – strong, handsome, able, wealthy ones, to come here tomorrow…there would be tests of strength and ability and the winner would win you as the prize! And who on earth would not want my beautiful Draupadi?” Shakti-ma was smiling fondly at me as she stroked my hair.
“My father actually wants me to be married?” I could not believe my ears. Did he care? Really?
“Well, yes, of course. Which father would not want to see his daughter married?”
“Not my father. He scarcely speaks to me. Come, on, why this sudden interest in my welfare?”
“Why, my dear, why can’t it be the simplest truth, that your father wants to finish his duties by you?”
“So why this elaborate test? Why not hand me over to the first man who walks in through the door?” I cried out.
“Which would be me,” said Kanha walking in through the door, smiling. “Draupadi, Draupadi, why so much bitterness?”
I was torn between the delight of meeting Kanha and my suspicions of my father’s motivations.
‘Kanha,” I said, running to him. “You know everything. Why does my father want me married all of a sudden?”
“Plainly put, my dear, so that he can defeat Drona.”
“Drona. Is that all he cares about? And how would getting me married help him defeat Drona?’
Kanha reclined on the elaborately carved chair and put me on the arm-rest beside him.
“How old are you, Draupadi?”
Sixteen.”
“So is your brother. And when you are sixteen, you become a woman, like he is a man. He is now ready to fight, but he is no match to the mighty Drona.Moreover, you forget Drona’s greatest strength – he is the best teacher that there is
The last time he battled with your father, it was not Drona, but his young fledgling of a pupil…”
‘Arjuna?”
Kanha rocked the chair as if he had not heard the tremor in my voice. “Yes, it was Arjuna who brought down the chariot of your lame father. And your father wants Arjuna on his side.”
“How?”
“My innocent, by making him his daughter’s husband, so that he can have Drona’s right arm working for him.”
“But it is going to be a test! What makes him so sure that only Arjuna can win the competition?”
“Why, who else can string that huge bow that resides in your palace, the one that needs twenty servants to even lift, and shoot the eye of a revolving fish by looking at its reflection?”
“Sounds just like my father to cook up such a fiendishly difficult match for the suitors. Then maybe nobody will win and he need not bother getting me married at all. What makes him so sure Arjuna will pass it?”
“Ah, but that’s where your father’s so diabolical. He devised a test so that only Arjuna could pass it and nobody else.”
“Why do I think you had something to do with all this?”
Kanha laughed and eyed me, but refused to give me an answer.
“So shall I get the preparations started?” asked Shakti-ma. She knew that she could not put a foot forward without my explicit approval!
“Of course,” Kanha answered for me. “If Arjuna is coming, that is.”
“So, what makes you sure that Arjuna would be able to do it? No doubt, no one else would be able to get through, but how do you know Arjuna won’t fail as well? Is he some kind of super-human God who can lift a bow that no one else can, and string it and do the rest of that absurd task?”
“You want him to be able to do it. Isn’t that enough?”
I blushed furiously and moved to run away. “No, I do not. Why would I want him to win me? Just a pawn in my father’s scheme.”
“Well, you know best about it. All I know is that if a man can win you by performing the task your father has set, it is Arjuna, and none other.
He is not God, he is just a man.”
“And I suppose you are the God?”
“Why, yes, I am. If he is Nara, the man, I am
Narayana, the God.”
When Kanha speaks in that tone of self assuredness, it is impossible to not believe him, even if he mouths absurdities.
And yet, the God, the self same God who had decided to make a make a match of me and the most human of men, is gone too. They say that men show God-like tendencies – but what of the opposite? What if the God start behaving like humans? My Kanha, my God, now lost to me. I am no atheist, but something worse, for my God is dead to me now. To have a God die is bad enough but to have one’s faith in that God dead too? Isn’t that worse? But I have not lost all faith. My faith lives on, in Sahadeva’s secret, in every moment that I wait looking at the dusty path, awaiting Death, awaiting him. ….
( To be Continued…)
By Manasa
Picture Credit :http://vyakulam.blogspot.com/2009/07/shri-draupadi-jis-realization.html
Draupadi
Disclaimer:
Writing ‘Draupadi’ has been something that’s been on my mind for almost two years now. The time and the opportunity comes now, and so I am doing this on this space. Most of the research I do for this piece is on the internet, and today, I came across this link: http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/books/palace_of_illusions
It is kind of strange because, it was only yesterday that I bought the book ‘Sisters of the Heart’ by the same author, a book that I am finding a rather engrossing read. The Palace of Illusions
(possibly the same palace where Draupadi laughed at Duryodhana for stumbling, setting off the war) seems to be along the same lines as what I envision writing. Though it is very tempting to pick the book up and read it right away, I am not going to, until I complete Draupadi. This disclaimer is just to put across the fact that Draupadi is wholly mine, and not influenced by The Palace of Illusions or any other feminist/feminine perspectives on the Mahabharata that are out there.
The beginning.
We had walked for what seemed like ages. But in reality, it was three weeks and three days. I know exactly because I kept count of how many sunrises I saw since that morning we had left. I knew that my days were numbered, and these were the last, or almost the last ones I would see. You probably have to have the experience of almost dying to know what I mean – when every day ends, every sunset might be potentially your last, and you stop by to take it all in. The color. The warmth. The cool northern winds. The distant white peaks glistening pink for a tiny fraction of a moment before everything goes dark. The walk was killing me; I was hardly fit to walk the way these people with me wanted me to. We set out every morning at sunrise, and walked on and on and on till sunset. We stopped near brooks for water, and ate fruits and leaves, if we could find any. They are men, they are strong, but it is not surprising they expected me to be equally strong too. After all, I had lived with them for most part of my life.
How did we know the way? It was all characteristic. Yudhistra, as usual, knew where we were headed. ‘Over the valley,’ he would say or ‘over the mountains’. What was there over the valley or over the mountains, or over the stars for that matter, he could not say, or maybe he would not say. We had to walk. He had said so, and we would walk. But we could not have walked without Bheem. He moved boulders and removed thorns and cleared paths and uprooted trees, like he had always done. ‘Please,’ he would say, extending his hand in front of him, waiting for me to pass, and like a shadow, would walk behind me. Nakul, charming, suave, Nakul, always the dandy, I saw him walk three weeks and three days without combing his hair, his eyes vacant, his legs following his brothers’. Sahadev, walking behind me and Bheem, the only one of us walking with his eyes roving all around, eyes with life still in it while the spectre of death still haunted us. He did not care whether we walked or rested, whether we fought or we lay down, whether we were in the palace or in the woods, or whether he lived or died. He was the only one not affected by everything, I guess. But Sahadev was special. He was not of this world. One should be born to die…maybe Sahadev was never born, so he could never die.
I am nothing like that. I cared, and I cared far too much about everything. I lived, so by decree, I should die. And there’s where I am, on my death-bed, though my ‘bed’ is a flat rock that Bheem placed for me away from the glare of the sun. I have some water beside me, but that is it. The mountainside might get colder as the night comes up, there may be wild animals which may frequent this place. I am not too fond of the idea of becoming some tiger’s meal for the day. Lying here, I can see their receding backs…Yudhistra, who is already looking ahead, beyond his mountain, beyond his stars, Bheem, who turns back with a last lingering look, but turns ahead right away, Nakul, not even noticing that one of the number has dwindled, Sahadev, the thoughtful one, who put the water near me and leaned to my ear and told me a final secret before he left.
And, of course, if you are already not wondering, Arjun. Playing with his bow, following his brother, empty of thought, receding away, a speck in the distance, but no, not looking back, not even an instant…
They say that when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes.
All I can remember right now, though, is a diffuse glow of green. I am in my father’s mango grove, running around in my petticoat, bringing down the first green mangoes with my catapult. It is noon; I have been up for almost six hours. First I went swimming in the river, then I was talking to Lala the goatherd for sometime, stroking their big, horny heads and drinking their milk straight from the udder. Nobody back in the Panchala palace knows where I am. My nanny knows I have woken up, she must have seen my empty bed. She does not care, not as long as I am not around to annoy her, or do naughty things like open the cages and set all the parrots free, or bring the calf from the cowshed into my room. So it is surprising when I hear the sound of my name being spoken over and over again, and I look up, to see my most favourite person in the world with his swarthy face and big nose perched comfortably on the big branch of the tree. I gape, and he grins back at me, his white teeth cheshire cat grin.
“Kanha!”
“Hi, Draupadi!”
“How did you get up there? I mean, I was here all this while?”
‘It’s a secret.”
“Come on down!”
“No, you come on up.”
“I won’t,” I start shaking the branch, at least whichever part of it I can reach.
He laughs at my childish efforts – I was but fifteen then – and seats himself more comfortably.
“Oh, come on up, it’s much more fun here. I can pick the mangoes and eat it, see?”
The proximity to the mangoes lures me. I try climbing up the tree, though I am scared of heights. I slip once, twice, but I try climbing again. Kanha just sits atop the branch, and watches me struggle. I finally make it, and once I get the hang of it, I climb a little higher than him, and settle down firmly on a branch.
My legs dangling, I ask him, “So, how did you climb up here without me noticing?”
“Secret. How have you been?”
I shrug my shoulders and bite into a sharp mango. “The usual. Where are you now? Mathura? With your parents?”
“Just for a bit now, yes. But I am going back to Dwaraka again, maybe in a couple of months.”
“You are going to get married before that, aren’t you?”
My question was uncommonly sweet. I had heard the news a few days back…people at the Panchala palace often tended to talk things in front of me like I was not there. I was a non-entity for most part. So nobody had told me that Krishna (Kanha to me) was going to marry shortly. But because it was all discussed in front of me, I knew. And I wanted to tease him about it and wheedle all the details out of him.
“Yes, who told you?”
“It was supposed to be a secret, wasn’t it?”
“Not really. The whole world knows that I am going to bring Rukmini home next week, though her brother does not approve. I even sent her brother a letter with the date and time on it so that he can expect me.”
“Are you going to fight him? Will you take me along if you are going to fight?” I was interested in all the details. After all, this was the first time Kanha was going to get married. I was interested in everything from the girl to her trousseau to her brother getting bashed up.
Kanha laughed, amused. “You know me. I never fight!”
“What about the time you beat up Kamsa, then? He was your uncle and everything.”
“That was different. He was mean to my parents. And I did not hit him, Balram did, and just once.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “You coward! And you go around telling everybody that you beat him up, and it was your brother who did it.”
“If you go and ask Balram who did it, he would swear it was me. But on my honour, I did not inflict a single blow on him. I was just there.”
“And what did you do? Glare at him or something? And Kamsa just wilted?”
‘Yes, something like that.” Kanha smiled again.
“Liar,” I chewed on a piece of mango skin. “Besides, men should know to fight. It is fun to watch them pitch into each other. My brother, for example. It is fun to watch him when he gets into a rage…but he does not have control. He goes berserk. Shoots arrows everywhere…what a waste, don’t you think?”
“Anger is always wasteful, Draupadi. And you are right, that brother of yours is a hothead. But I would still say, it takes more courage not to pick up a fight than to spill blood the way your father and brother do.”
“Coward.”
“So be it, Draupadi, I will be the coward! I just do not find war injuries cool. I hate to see horses and elephants and men die because I have a disagreement with somebody who also happens to have elephants, horses and men.”
“But it is manly to fight!”
Kanha was laughing again. “How old are you, Draupadi?”
“Fifteen”
“Too young. You will grow out of this sort of a thing.”
I threw my mango’s seed at him. He ducked.
“Just because you are eighty-seven does not mean you can look down upon the rest of us.”
“I am not eighty-seven, I am only twenty-nine. And no matter how old I am, I will always look down upon you.”
“OK, OK, so tell me about this girl, Rukmini. How come I have never heard about her before this?”
I asked him this because he had always told me about all those girls…he would narrate each amusing episode to me and describe every girl. He had even told me about Radha, his first love. So the fact that I had not heard of this girl was very surprising to me.
“Well, there’s nothing very special to say. I liked her, she liked me, but her brother does not like me. I asked her if she minded it, and she said she would choose me over her brother anytime . So I am going to bring her home next week. That is all.”
It amuses me, now, lying to die, how nonchalant he could be. There is no other word for it, Kanha was cool.
“I wonder whom I shall marry.” My words were more of an unconscious muse than a statement to Kanha.
“Why, who do you want to marry?” Kanha sounded amused again.”Some wrestler? Or a bullfighter?”
“Don’t be silly now. He should be strong, yes, should know to fight, yes, and he should be dark and handsome, with a nice nose…”
“A nice nose?”
“Yes, a nice nose, and he should be a prince, and allow me to stay in the forest as long as I want to…”
It was ironic, I thought, lying down to die, that those five husbands I had eventually married, had let me stay in the forest for a long, long time. It was also ironic that Kanha, Kanha who was always with me, no matter where I was or what I did, had forsaken me as well. They say he’s dead.
As I ruminate on my story, I continue to look, not at the upward path where my five husbands had disappeared, but at the path leading downhill, expectantly. Sahadev’s last message, the secret, still weighs on me.
