Sanjaya dropped his face into his hands and wept. I felt for Sanjaya and even for my uncle. After all, like the rest of us, Uncle Dhritarashtra was shaken in the tempests of Duryodhana’s wilfulness.
It was not Uncle Vidura’s style to make apologetic speeches and he knew that we knew he must go. In a few hours his elder bother would sit him on his lap and, taking the perfume from his hair, would say: “Forgive me, Sinless One, without you I cannot eat or sleep, I cannot even live.”
The loyalty of Sanjaya and Uncle Vidura never failed to respond to the good that was in Uncle Dhritarashtra. Nor could I, entirely. As for the bad, we would have to wait thirteen years to kill Duryodhana.
Uncle Vidura, thoughtful as always, sent us a messenger to give us tidings of his safe arrival and of our uncle’s recovery. We also learnt that Duryodhana had gone into a rage at Uncle Vidura’s return and had then threatened to take poison or hang himself if Uncle Vidura persuaded his father to bring us back. The devoted Karna had sweetly offered to relieve him of the burden of our existence; he, Duhshasana, and Shakuni had been on their way to kill us when Grandfather Vyasa had blocked their path. No one else could have checked them… except my Gandiva bow which I would have preferred. Uncle Vidura’s messenger was too young for discretion, or perhaps he had never had such an audience; Grandfather Vyasa and the sage Maitreya had tried to reason with Duryodhana, but Duryodhana, beyond advice, beyond even elementary caution, had insultingly slapped his thigh and, smiling sideways, had paved the ground with his feet.
At this Maitreya, in silent fury, had touched water and cursed his cousin: “In thirteen years Bheema, with a single stroke of his mace, will smash that thigh of which you are so proud.”
We were preparing our third big meal in the forest and Eldest was supervising the peeling of roots and sorting of herbs. The twins put their ears to the ground and soon we all felt the vibrations of many horses and chariots. So Duryodhana had raised a whole army to send us on the unknown journey? And here we were with a handful of servants and armed with our kitchen knives. Bheema had already thrown his down to run for his weapons and my ears were full of the awesome twang of Gandiva. But Eldest, without haste, held the copper vessel full of roots and fruits up to the sun and moved his lips in a silent invocation as though we had time for a last meal—with chariot wheels thundering towards us! Forest elephants trumpeted in alarm and peacocks screeched and flew into the highest branches. The twins, following Eldest, stood reverently.
As I stood, trying to remember the hymn to Yama, there was a flash of gold and Krishna’s chariot reined into the clearing. I stared and stared, but it was not until Krishna’s charioteer, Daruka clucked the horses Sugriva and Saibya to a halt that I believed we were not having a collective vision. My heart bounded towards Krishna and I followed it. The next thing I was aware of was Krishna drawing me up by the elbows and clasping me in his arms and repeatedly inhaling the perfume from my hair. Behind him were the Bhojas, the Vrishnis, and the Andhakas who had been fighting Salva with him. How had we ever thought ourselves friendless and alone in the forest when Krishna walked the earth? There were Draupadi’s brothers stroking the hair that Duhshasana had dragged her by and there was the young king of the Chedis, Dhrishtaketu, son of Shishupala, now our ally, and also the five Kekaya brothers.
At length we were all seated around Eldest. Krishna, cool when he had himself been threatened and insulted at the Rajasuya, now spoke with such passion and anger against Duryodhana that I found myself trying to calm him.
Krishna said, “You are mine and I am yours. If anyone hates you, he hates me, and anyone who follows you follows me. Never forget who we are, our purpose, our origin. Nara and Narayana are going to cleanse this corrupt world.”
His words took me by the heart. The kings that Krishna had brought with him said not a word.
“Krishna!” It was Draupadi. She ran through a circle of men and flung herself at Krishna’s feet. She sobbed uncontrollably, and I looked away. She stuttered out the story of her disgrace. She had not wept in the past few days, but now I knew, if I had ever doubted it, that she was constantly living and re-living the horror of the Sabha. Krishna raised her, stroking her hair.
“By this hair I was dragged to the court, stained with blood and trembling, while the cousins of my husbands laughed at me. With the Pandavas and the Panchalas and the Vrishnis alive, they dared say they would use me as a slave. They made lewd gestures and offered themselves. My husbands saw and heard all this without stirring a finger. What is the use of being a saint like Yudhishthira—or of Arjuna’s Gandiva? These noble Pandavas who have never refused the most humble their protection, refused to give it to me who begged for it.”
There was such bitter pain in her voice that I do not know how we were not shrivelled by it. Krishna listened without moving a muscle, but tears ran down his own cheeks as he wiped hers.
“How is it that Duryodhana is still alive, Krishna, the same Duryodhana who drove the Pandavas from their kingdom, who tried to poison Bheema and drown him? O Krishna, Karna’s mockery is a knife turning and turning in my heart. Who will pull it out? You would not have allowed the game, Krishna.”
“Draupadi, you have my solemn promise that you will be once more the queen of kings. It is the wives of your foes who shall weep for their dead husbands.”
Draupadi looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. Dhrishtadyumna too began to stroke her hair.
“Sister,” he said, “I promise I shall kill Drona, and our brother Shikhandin will kill Greatfather. Bheema will kill Duryodhana and Arjuna will kill Karna.”
Warriors’ vows are cold comfort when you have to wait thirteen years in the forest.
While Krishna was with us I was unwavering in my faith. It was when he left that the exile truly began. The most difficult thing to bear was the constant distress of Draupadi and Bheema, and the knowledge that Abhimanyu, who was with Subhadra in Dwaraka, would be a man when I saw him again. And none of us would be able to watch Draupadi’s sons grow up, for they were with their uncles Dhrishtadyumna and Shikhandin.
I was sure that I had been in this part of the forest before. My eyes remembered it and the coolness of a breeze helped to lead me to the lake nearby. On the banks of this sacred lake I had rested on my pilgrimage. Holy men came to its waters and it was surrounded by mango and palm groves where kokilas and chakoras sang sweetly. Here I had seen great elephants in their season when their temples burst and the juices came running out. I had seen white peacocks parading and deer in pairs under the trees. Something fluttered behind me. I turned in time to see a peacock alight on a branch. The rishis here would surely understand Eldest; he would be at peace with them amidst the beauty of the forest. I could only hope that each one of us would find some comfort in it.
Near the lake under two huge sweet-smelling champak trees of the green variety we built our dwelling. From ashrams nearby we could hear the chanting of the Vedas. Here in the forest this constant theme, the evanescence of material goods, eventually drove the past from the forefront of Eldest’s mind. I think that in time he might have learned to live happily in the forest and would have forgotten about Indraprastha or thought of it as something from a past incarnation.
But it was not as immediate nor as easy as I had thought even for Eldest to find constant peace, because he could not give vent to his anger. He was bruised and wounded inside. Perhaps by Greatfather’s silence, most of all. The silence of the Acharyas and Ashwatthama weighed on him even though he was one with them in their need to keep the peace. Nonetheless, who could forget that they had not spoken out for him?
I might myself have found temporary respite from the traps and betrayals of our cousins in Hastinapura if my heart had not been torn by the suffering of the others. Draupadi and Bheema would not leave Eldest alone. Over and over again, Draupadi would say that it distressed her to see Yudhishthira lying on a straw mat instead of on a snow-white bed. Eldest was unable to console Draupadi.
“Why should
I not weep? You were like Indra, the King of Heaven himself, in the midst of lesser gods. The other kings were as dust beneath your chariot wheels. Do you not remember these hands of mine preparing sandal paste to perfume your arms, these arms now covered by dust and ashes? And this scratchy bark… If I could only dress you again in your soft white bordered silk.”
When this brought no response other than a musing smile from Eldest, Draupadi nodded in Bheema’s direction. Not even the discourses of holy men could make Yudhishthira look on Bheema with detachment. Bheema spoke to no one and spent his days skimming flat stones across the lake. For hours on end he sat at the water’s edge, his eyes red with anger. Suddenly, he would gnash his teeth and make growling noises in his throat, reaching for his mace and muttering violent threats. I feared he would lose his reason. I found myself caught in the middle. Eldest allowed Draupadi her grief, but even this infuriated her.
“You are lucky, Yudhishthira. You can smile. You can smile even as Bheema sits like a ghost looking into nothingness. I wish I could. Can you not see the flesh melting from his bones? Do you think his body will last these thirteen years that you endure so patiently? Without Bheema, who will avenge me?” Draupadi knew exactly how to torment Eldest. “Look at Sahadeva, bending under that load of roots and fruits. We promised your mother to look after him. Is this the diet for a Kshatriya? Are these the tasks for skilled archers and swordsmen? O lucky Madri.”
Yudhishthira said calmly, “Now is the time for patience.” His calm drove Draupadi to desperation. “Yes. There is a time for everything and now is the time for revenge. The proper virtue of the Kshatriyas is wrath. Patience may sometimes be the order of the day, but it should always be blended with determination and wrath. A man who is always patient will be taken, even by his servants, to be without spirit.” Draupadi’s tirades always ended in tears and anger. “You begin to look like a rishi. You know what? You do not care about any of us.”
Eldest stroked her head and wiped her tears. “Our Dharma…” But the word Dharma drove Draupadi to further heights of fury. She could no longer abide it and ran away. She told me she would have struck Eldest otherwise.
And another time, “I cannot understand a Dharma that weighs more heavily in the scales than the five of us. I hate your talk of patience. It is like a poisonous rival to me.”
Yudhishthira answered, “Lady Patience has chosen me and I cannot drive her out. It is not my fault she has chosen me.”
Bheema joined forces with Draupadi. “Eldest, I like your talk of Dharma as little as your talk of peace. Your Dharma has brought us insult, humiliation, and starvation in the forest, and you know what our Dharma has gained for them? Our kingdom. Come, let us re-establish true Dharma in the Kuru House. Draupadi is right. You are a Kshatriya. Act like one.”
Yudhishthira was as unshakeable as Greatfather in keeping his vow. He would stay away from Indraprastha for thirteen years and he would make us stay away. Had he promised to stay away for thirty-three years, he would have made us stay away for thirty-three thousand and one. He spoke of the thirteen years as though they were thirteen days. Only when we had lived them would he take our kingdom back. It was not that Yudhishthira believed any more than any of us that Duryodhana would ever part with Indraprastha willingly, but until the thirteen years were over, nobody was going to induce Yudhishthira to make war on the Kauravas. For the present there were the songs of forest birds and the chanting of the Vedas. Men like Greatfather and Yudhishthira cannot be moved from their truth—they protect Dharma.
It sometimes seems on looking back that we spent that whole year in the Dwaitavana forest arguing Dharma. Late summer had turned into autumn; still the twins and I listened helplessly as we huddled around the coal braziers. Even during the monsoon, Draupadi, with a tray held above her head, directing the servants on how to keep the stores dry, continued her argument. She and Bheema had to shout to make themselves heard above the drumming rain. Spring relieved us of the necessity of being so much together, but the twins and I would often be dragged into the argument as audience or supporters the moment we returned from the hunt or a walk. And then, when the days grew shorter and the sun touched the western hills sooner and sooner each day and nothing I could do or say would assuage the sufferings of those I loved, I began to long for something to do and I would almost have supported Bheema, not from conviction but because I could no longer bear the sound of discourse.
One cold evening, when winter had set in and we were waiting for the servants to bring the evening meal and there was no excuse to get up and walk out, Draupadi burst out: “Yudhishthira, the king who is too easily appeased becomes unpopular and is destroyed both in this world and in the next. Forgiveness should be shown on proper occasions, but those who know how to be harsh at the right time gain happiness both in this world and the next.” We were all used to Draupadi’s scriptural enumeration of the occasions on which one should forgive and one should not, which ended with, “So, since your enemies deserve no forgiveness, the time has come to put forth your strength and your anger.” She threw the rice onto Eldest’s leaf plate.
“You try to arouse my anger, my Queen, but you forget that an angry man can kill even those who do not deserve death. A man may acquire more energy by forsaking anger and may use that energy at the right time. Forgiveness is Brahma the All-Creator, forgiveness is truth, forgiveness is the Vedas, it is sacrifice, it is virtue.” Yudhishthira always spoke like this now.
“O my King,” Draupadi lashed out, “I bow to the gods who have clouded your wisdom. Virtue is dearer to you than life, yet you have lost your kingdom by dint of virtue, gentleness, forgiveness. You have performed all the great sacrifices. The All-Creator thus seems to look on viciously while the forgiving and virtuous are shivering in exile, and he gives Duryodhana our kingdom and snowy white beds and jewelled thrones and the choicest morsels. If God is responsible for this, then he himself is stained with sin.”
Draupadi’s voice rang out with such accusation that it rose through the flimsy roof, through the winter air, to reach the stars. There was a stunned silence and the servants, who had been hovering with dishes cooked with the wild boar I had shot, withdrew.
For a moment I thought from the lightning in Yudhishthira’s eyes that Draupadi had finally goaded him to anger. But still his faith was proof against provocation. He took a deep breath and with closed eyes said, “That is the language of atheism. Whoever looks for the fruits of virtue and forgiveness is a trader and has no virtue. The Vedas, the highest authority, enjoin us never to doubt virtue. Even though the fruits of virtue are invisible, why doubt God?”
Bheema jumped up and began striding back and forth.
“For the sake of the gods, Yudhishthira, walk the traditional path of good men, of good kings. What are we doing here in this asylum for ascetics? We are kings and it was not by virtue nor strength but by cheating that Duryodhana snatched our kingdom from us. Surely, clinging to a promise is nonsense when it loses for us the way of life ordained for a king by the Shastras. That we allowed the kingdom to be torn from us to the delight of our enemies was sheer folly, your folly. That we live in the forest like any wild animal is none of our doing and to nobody’s taste. Everyone hates it except you. Religion! Your cry is religion.” Bheema thrust his face close to Yudhishthira’s and ground his teeth. I prepared to pull him back as at the dice game, but he resisted me with a gesture. “Have you lost your manliness? You don’t really believe that our cousins are sitting in Hastinapura saying, ‘Oh how good and forgiving the Pandavas are?’ They see us as incompetent fools, which to me is worse than death in battle. We are Kshatriyas whose bounden duty is to achieve magnificence and to avenge our wrongs. How can you call something which tortures us a virtue? Virtue can be a weakness and an indulgence. To practise virtue for virtue’s sake calls forth suffering. The shastras say, ‘Seek virtue in the morning, wealth at noon, and pleasure in the evening, and the proper division consists of the pursuit of all three.’ At last Bheema withdre
w his face from Yudhishthira’s. “But you want to make an eternal morning of our lives.” He had started pacing again and kicked over a brazier. We set it straight. “And so our lives are wretched. You are not a Brahmin. You are born into an order whose deeds are warlike and cruel and which cause pain. But that is no reproach, they are the virtues of our order and you become ridiculous by avoiding them. Even the gods used stratagems to conquer demons. Are you above the gods that you despise stratagem? Without our might we are as useless as the shade of a tree in winter.” Bheema paced as he spoke and flung himself into angry gestures. “And in any case, Eldest, whatever sin you consider that we commit by re-establishing ourselves can be consumed in the fire of our sacrifices. We will emerge like the moon from behind clouds by bestowing villages on Brahmins and giving them kine. You know what even the children say about Duryodhana? That kinghood is as wasted on him as milk in a dogskin bag, while you…you are an adornment to it. Come, Eldest, what are we waiting for?”
Bheema stood before Eldest with arms crossed. I looked from one to the other of my elder brothers who faced each other, Eldest visibly moved and loving, Bheema inflamed; there was no reconciling them any more than I could reconcile the two parts of my nature which supported one and the other.
“You wanted to burn my hands at the dice game.” I knew then how much Yudhishthira’s restraint had cost him. “Kingdom, sons, fame, and prosperity do not add up to a sixteenth part of Truth.”
Bheema in his search for arguments spoke of the year of incognito: we had avoided speaking about it. “Even if we live like fools for twelve years in the forest, how will the beauty of the twins and Draupadi go unrecognized at the end of it all when we must skulk like thieves? What of the bowstring scars on both of Arjuna’s arms? How can you unlearn to sit and walk like a king! Strike now!” Bheema yelled.
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 25