by Kavita Kane
‘Why do you keep going over it?’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t be so harsh on yourself; you are making your health worse. You are killing yourself!’
He pushed her hand away. ‘I would rather die than live with what I have to . . . you. Oh I wish I had never met you!’
‘If you can’t live with your shame, don’t blame me for it,’ she replied, hurt.
‘Don’t you, for even a moment, feel remorse?’ he cried. ‘You shall pay for this; you shall have to answer for your sins!’ he closed his eyes but not before she saw hatred and sorrow in them.
Shantanu saw her in his fermenting mind; she was abhorrent. He opened his eyes and they were clouded with disgust. Moving his gaze over her body—young, lithe and strong—he thought, I met a woman and she lit a carnal response in me. I could think of nothing else but her: not my Ganga, not my grown-up son, not my throne, not my kingdom. I thought there was no one like her in this world. And then something happened . . . and it was all over. Finished. She meant less to him now than a used glass of wine after a good drink. How little was that? How little had he been. . . ?
‘A debauched moralist telling me about my sins?’ she smiled sadly, standing up wearily. ‘You men are so selfish, it’s revolting! I have heard enough stories about you, my dear husband. And they are not all flattering. Had I not demanded marriage, I would have been your whore, not your wife, and never a queen!’ she sneered. ‘I don’t know how you can pretend to be so grand and noble when you are the one who started and ended it all,’ she paused, looking at the deathly pale face of her husband, his eyes glittering with loathing. ‘Of course, you are right, Shantanu,’ she said, bending over to gently wipe his mouth. ‘It makes me miserable to see you so miserable,’ she added sardonically. ‘But remember, dear, it was you who chased me, you who wanted to marry me despite my conditions. I never fooled you, Shantanu; you fooled yourself, your son and your people!’ she said, her lips curling in a mirthless smile. ‘You made me queen just as you dethroned your son. It was you, Shantanu, who took all the decisions. It was your choice; never my decisions.’
Shantanu could not help marvelling at her cold logic. But she was right. He had undone himself, his son and the fate of Hastinapur. He found it despicable, just as he found her despicable. How could he have fallen for such a cold woman? She was the most alluring woman he had ever seen, even though she had been nothing like Ganga. She was her opposite: dark, beautiful with big, marvellous eyes and a body that he could not keep his hands off. Even now, with two children, she was still heavy-breasted, with a slim waist, flaring hips and long, tapering legs, which she had the habit of wrapping around him when they made love. He clenched his jaw, desire rushing through him at the very thought. How could he hate her yet lust for her still? He had been besotted by her, putting at stake everything for her. He was now sure she had never loved him.
Besides his brother’s furious words, their wedding night should have warned him. There was no passion, no love. She had given of herself, and he was hopeful that he could rouse her if he was patient, but he never could. He then discovered that her only obsession was power; all she wanted was to be queen. He had been so hopelessly smitten with her that he let her do all that she wanted. I allowed her to expropriate even my son’s rights, an inner voice reminded him. He could never rid himself of that guilt. He sensed he was walking on the edge of a familiar abyss, the one he had been peering into for the last couple of months. It had become wider and deeper, waiting for him to jump into it someday. How much longer, he wondered, could he evade its deadly pull?
He had loved her, trying hard to please her in every way. And she was devoted to him, patiently nursing him in his sickness, but he always had the feeling that she was not his. She did everything efficiently, even made love to him, coming into his arms and bed dutifully. But he had not been able to touch her soul. Or even her cold heart.
‘How beautifully you cover up your evil by coating it with my inadequacies, my weaknesses,’ he said, his voice trembling.
‘You fooled me, and you fooled Dev, making both of us think that you loved me. Dev did it for me!’ he spluttered with renewed rage.
She nodded. ‘And what did you do for him?’
Shantanu flushed. ‘I gave him nothing but grief,’ he said tonelessly. ‘But you haven’t fooled anyone, Matsyagandha. The people still hate you, they see through you. They may call me a weak king, but they call you the wicked queen! For all your pretence and subterfuge, you used me, Matsyagandha. You know that and so does the world!’
‘You are my world, Shantanu,’ she said bitterly. ‘And the world is one which we create. I created my own, Shantanu, with you, in this palace, this city, this kingdom, far away from the squalor I was born in.’
‘Through me, through my unsuspecting son!’ he roared, which made him collapse in a bout of dry, violent coughing.
She gently pushed him back against the pillows. He thrust her hand away as if her touch contaminated him.
‘You may call yourself Matsyagandha, dear, but the stink will never leave you!’ he spat. ‘The stench of your past, your wickedness, shall smother you one day. You stink, Daseyi,’ he mouthed maliciously. ‘And, I fear, it will pervade my family, my Hastinapur!’ he closed his eyes, defeated and surrendering to a fate he could see in his mind’s eye. This woman. And that woman whom he could never forget, who left him adrift . . . Ganga.
He recalled how he had met Ganga on the river banks, just as he had met Matsyagandha. Were both river nymphs? One he had found near the Ganga, the other near the Yamuna, the sister rivers; one plentiful and generous, the other dark and dry. Both had remained a mystery to him. Who had they been? They had seemed like goddesses to him, without any flaws. Ganga was a goddess, but not Matsyagandha. She was just a fragrant fisher girl, and she had ensnared him. Or had it been his lust for her? Shantanu felt a wave of shame flood over him.
He was ranting, venting his fury on her, but it was he who had brought this day about, this fate upon his son and his kingdom. Bahlik’s words rang louder and clearer in his churning mind. Dev did not need a Vasu’s curse to live his life on earth; his father had been the curse. He was his son’s worst enemy. Shantanu’s shrunken body shuddered with sobs, the tears flowing unchecked, in despair about what was to come.
He whimpered. ‘I am still the king; I can throw you out . . . if not from this palace then from this chamber. I can’t bear to look at you!’
‘We keep going around this every day. The reality is that you made a mistake, and you won’t acknowledge it,’ she said. ‘You prefer blaming me for your foolishness, your guilt. You put me on a pedestal, and it has turned out that I am a most ordinary woman, not fit to be in your court, palace or room!’ she twisted her lips in bitter contempt. ‘I symbolize all that is rotten for you; a world in which you lived once, but now find revolting in its triviality and emptiness. Recognize it and be just: don’t be angry with me, but with yourself, as it is your mistake, and not mine.’
‘I wish I had never met you!’ he said venomously.
‘Really? You wanted me, you got me but it is not what you wanted from me, is it?’ she asked pityingly. ‘For you, now it is all tears, wailing, cursing. You are wretched, and you make me wretched.’
Shantanu pressed his head against the pillows. ‘I wish I could leave you and get back what I lost—my son, my kingdom, and oh, my peace!’ he cried in an agonized whisper.
She smiled thinly. ‘Yes, dear; except, you would come out worse, having first dethroned your son and then thrown out your wife and two infants,’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Ever heard of a brave, virtuous king committing such a dastardly act? Especially one from your famed dynasty?’ she added, placing the cup of medicine against his mouth. He refused to open his lips.
‘Have it, please,’ she implored. ‘Don’t hate yourself so. Live to hate me instead.’
‘I know you would rather have me dead! Because I have served my purpose—you are queen and I have given you the heirs you wanted. I a
m of no use to you now!’ he tried to shout but his voice came out as a gurgled hiss.
‘I would still prefer to be queen, rather than queen mother,’ she retorted dryly.
‘I am dying,’ he said simply, shutting his eyes. That abyss beckoned him but each time he saw his son, at the crest, restraining him. ‘I want to die. But not without your forgiveness, my son. Please!’ he buried his face in his shaking hands.
‘He has already forgiven you, Shantanu; you need to forgive yourself,’ she said sadly. ‘Can you do that?’ She pulled up the sheets, tucking him in more comfortably.
He did not answer, holding his breath and turning suddenly ashen. Finally his eyes closed. She looked at the deathly wan face, her own face thoughtful. He had lapsed into an uneasy sleep again. The medicine had worked; the seeds of the herb were soporific, inducing sleep, however fitful.
She could scarcely think, so consumed was she with anger. She felt miserable, bitter, as she listened to her husband’s heavy breathing. She tried to think of the most offensive, biting and venomous word she could hurl at her husband, and at the same time she was fully aware that nothing could penetrate the deep sleep he was in. What did he care for her wretched words? Her most bitter enemy could not have contrived for her a more helpless position. She was her own enemy; she had created her own battlefield.
Taking a deep breath to calm down, she began to nurse the baby. He was pale and thin, sickly from the time he had been born, unlike Chitrangad, who was tall and strapping for a five-year-old, she thought as she watched her elder son practicing the mace with Bhishm on the terrace below. Bhishm had started his training early, and she had been sceptical; but Kripacharya had assured her that her son was in the best hands. She knew that. She knew Dev . . . she could not think of him as Bhishm ever. . .
She watched them from above. Dev was bare-chested as he held out a small mace for the boy to use. His usual hard, cold mask slipped and she glimpsed another man—smiling and loving, his fine-boned, handsome face softened in tender lines, his lock of hair falling over his eyes as he sharply instructed her son, diminutive yet fighting furiously. He loved him; there was no doubt about it. He is like a father to him, just as I am his mother, a voice pierced her. She was their mother, his, and her two sons’, she told herself, her lips twisting, a sharp pain tugging at her heart.
The reminder jolted her back to her senses. She felt her mouth go dry, her hands sweaty, closed into tight fists, her nails biting into her skin. She pulled her eyes away from him, but she could not remove the image of his stunned face, so tender and troubled, when he had guessed the truth of her parentage. His eyes had held a strange softness and uncharacteristic concern, not the usual glacial look he reserved for her. He had tried to console her, his beautifully shaped full lips moving, but not a word slipped through them, his molten eyes as helpless as the hand which had stretched out to comfort her. He had stopped. As had her hammering heart. She felt herself flush, still feeling the heat of that moment, and it warmed her with a certain reassurance, with a sense of belonging and connectedness that now linked the two of them in an undecipherable churn of emotions.
Her eyes had glazed over, the two figures now blurs, and yet she was thinking of them. She felt the slight weight of the sleeping baby. Dev had named the younger one Virya. More likely Vichitravirya, she grimaced, worried about the baby’s chronic sickliness. She sighed and gently put him back into the cradle. Would she need to have another child to strengthen the bloodline? The thought made her shudder, recalling each night spent with Shantanu. She thought of Dev instead. . .
She glanced at her husband. He was motionless, in deep sleep. There was something amiss, she thought, frowning. His skin appeared more sallow, the hollow of his cheeks caving in and his jaw slack, dropping at a grotesque angle. Her breath caught in her throat, a flicker of fear unfurling within her. She quickly touched his forehead. It was ice cold. She checked his pulse, but felt nothing. He is dead! her mind screamed in a silent whisper.
She stared down at him for a long time, recollecting their time together. It had been brief but momentous, almost fateful from the day he had seen her at the river banks. He had come to her as a saviour, lifting her from destitution and insignificance, giving her the life she had always dreamed of. As his wife. As his queen. As the mother of his heirs. And now he was dead . . . the king was dead.
The Panchals
As he stared into the still waters of the Ganga, Bhishm recalled it was that very spot where he had met his father for the first time. His father was dead, then why was he still in Hastinapur? He had no further wish to be in this city. What was it to him now?
He walked slowly towards the River Ganga, his mother. He sat on the banks, on a rock, his hands resting slackly on his lap. He was alone. He thought of all the years ahead of him. What would he do with the kingdom anyway? It was not his. It only meant long years of slavery. He couldn’t go back there. He wanted to live decently.
He was a prince without a crown, with nothing left here now—not his home, his land, his father. Bhishm had not allowed himself to bow down to excessive, self-absorbed sorrow, but today he felt bereft, an orphan, as if the cloak of family and belongingness had been ripped off from him. All he had left now was the terrible vow he had to live with. And the self-desired death wish, his father’s gift. He could use it right here, right now, and die in the arms of his mother—in her warm, welcoming waters—and go back to her.
It was this cowardice that made him angry with himself. The dispassionate face of Satyavati floated before his wide, open eyes, taunting him of his pusillanimity. Her soundless laugh followed the guffaw of the two small boys, their faces turned up to him in open adoration, their eyes bright with trust.
Bhishm turned away from the dying embers of the funeral pyre, but not from the ashes of reality. He had nowhere to run; he had to stay here, in Hastinapur, in the palace, bound by the chains of obedience and obligation. Not that she needed him. Satyavati had taken his father’s death stoically. No tears, no histrionics, just a quiet acceptance. He never ceased to wonder at her calmness. No situation ever seemed to throw her off her stride. Not even the death of her husband. He knew he could not leave the two young boys in good hands but . . .
But I can’t let Hastinapur down, whispered a voice within him. I can’t forsake the widow and those two small boys now. I can’t let my father down either. He will never forgive me if I turned away now. No, I have to go back. He put his hands on his head and groaned. My people trust me. She trusts me. If I run away, I will no longer be a man of truth. He lifted his heavy shoulders in a despairing shrug, mounted his chariot, and drove back towards the palace.
The flames of the pyre had barely died down when an unexpected conflagration flared up in the court of Hastinapur. Bhishm had not expected the nobles to start pushing him to accept the throne.
‘How does this issue even arise?’ he said, his voice dangerously restrained. ‘I have been appointed the regent, and so I shall be,’ he added curtly, his tone warning that he would brook no further argument.
‘The Crown Prince is too young, and with you around, how can we think of another king but you?’ argued Kripa. ‘Your vow is no excuse. Your uncle was right. You need to see to the throne first . . . not your family, not your father. The kingdom is especially vulnerable now that the king is dead, you know that.’
‘And I am here to protect it; I don’t need to be crowned the king to do that,’ said Bhishm briefly, laconically.
He noticed the restlessness in his friend’s silence. ‘You are like my brother, Kripa; what I do now is especially important,’ he said, his tone softening slightly to alleviate the reproof. ‘There is a young widow with two young sons; one of them is heir to the throne. My duty is to protect them. If I do otherwise, I shall forever carry the stigma of a traitor. The world is watching us. Especially me.’
‘You were always so bothered about what the world thinks of you,’ snapped Kripi, her tone sharp. ‘You were the perfect prince,
the perfect son; now you will rule as what? The perfect regent and the perfect brother?’
Bhishm smiled at her indulgently, his eyes weary.
‘That is the way of the world now; call it politics. But I say it is conscience. How can I act against a widow and her sons? What you are suggesting is treason, Kripa . . . a coup, a posthumous defiance against my father.’
Something in his tone made Kripi give him a second look. They had not given Bhishm the space and time to grieve for his father.
‘My father died a bitter man,’ he sighed. ‘Let him rest in peace now; he trusted me to look after his family. I can never betray that trust, Kripa.’
‘Your uncle won’t leave Hastinapur till you are king,’ Kripa reminded him.
‘Then he need never leave Hastinapur,’ smiled Bhishm mirthlessly.
‘Agreed,’ interposed a voice.
Bhishm turned and saw a mountain of a man sitting in the shadow of the heavy curtains. His uncle was getting on in years, but he was still in good physical shape, he thought; there was not much fat on him. His thinning grey hair was swept up away from his forehead, making him look distinguished; but his face was still massive, leathery and brutal. He rested two enormous hairy hands on the arms of his chair and glared at his nephew.
It had been six years since he had visited Hastinapur. He had stuck to his word that he would never return, but his brother’s death led him to break his pledge. He looked pallid under his tanned skin, his face drawn with grief, but masked by a brisk demeanour. Bhishm knew better, though.
‘The funeral is over and many attending kings are returning today,’ cut in Kripa brusquely. ‘Bhishm, I think you should attend to that for now. The king of Panchal is especially impatient to meet you.’