Our destination was a secret from all but Dhaumya. We knew that he would cut his tongue out and throw it into the sacrificial fire rather than betray us, and we asked him to seek refuge with Draupadi’s father and keep our daily agnihotra fire burning for us. Our good Dhaumya did not quite trust us to know how to dwell dependent on a king. He made what was, for him, a very long speech. He was afraid that we were far too used to behaving as kings and that we would be incapable of humility. He feared we would forget to take permission at the gate; we might take for granted that we could sit on chairs reserved for the favourites at the court. In our innocence we could easily provoke the malice of envious courtiers.
“One should be respectful and avoid friendship with the queen and with those in disgrace.” Rule by rule he reminded us of court etiquette. In brief, he counselled deception and humility. Trying not to look at Bheema, he reminded us that one should observe physical immobility and never explode into laughter like a maniac. One should not be over-solemn either, but smile modestly and show interest in all that the kings said, no matter what our feelings were. At that he avoided Draupadi’s eyes. We could see that he did not believe this kind of behaviour possible for us, but we were touched and Yudhishthira spoke for all of us when he said, taking Dhaumya’ hand, “Only our mother or Vidura could have spoken thus to us. Come, Dhaumya, with you to perform the rites for our departure, we are sure to come through this year safely.”
Yudhishthira instructed the cooks to go to Drupada and the charioteers to go to Krishna in Dwaraka. They were all to say that we had left them in the forest and that they had no idea where we had gone. Draupadi’s maid fell weeping at her feet and Draupadi lifted her and held her in her arms. With this parting we felt ourselves fall into action, but not the action that a Kshatriya could expect.
For the last time in the forest we watched the flames leap up and throw their light on Dhaumya’s noble features. Gravely, Dhaumya muttered the mantras and threw the ghee into the fire for our safety and success.
Dressed as hunters, our hands protected with iguana skin guards, we crossed the hills and forests and entered the kingdom of Matsya with our weapons. When we came down amongst fields and paths Draupadi flagged and Yudhishthira asked me to carry her on my shoulders until we came to the outskirts of the city. We had to settle the question of where to leave our arms and though I hated not having Gandiva with me, it was too well known and celebrated in song and legend not to be recognized: its very size attracted attention.
We were sitting in the twilight under a giant thorn tree which half hid a cemetery from our view. Such an inauspicious place was what we needed. No one would come there. I suggested we might wrap our weapons in canvas and string up a corpse to guard them. I loosened Gandiva’s string, it twanged softly. We all loosened our bowstrings and laid them beside our swords; they made a faint and melancholy music. It was Nakula, the most agile of us all, who climbed up and hid them in the thickest and thorniest part of the tree where the rain would not penetrate too much. Then I helped Sahadeva with the corpse. Hardly had we hung it up, in fact it was still swinging, when some kindly shepherds came to warn us that the place was infested with snakes. We could barely conceal our delight. The shepherds were staring up into the tree.
“She was very old,” said Nakula, still climbing down, “and her wish was that her last resting place would be this tree.”
“She was a hundred and eight years,” said Bheema and then turned his laughter into uncontrollable sobs, throwing his cloth over his head. The shepherds looked on in pity, but Yudhishthira regarded us so reprovingly that the twins and Draupadi, too, were forced into hysterical sobbing. Our final precaution before entering the city was to memorize our own and each other’s new names and to learn an additional set of code names in case of an emergency: Jaya, Jayanta, Vijaya, Jayatsena, and Jayadbala—all names suggesting victory.
From here on we heard Eldest intoning prayers to Durga, the supreme Goddess.
We salute you. Bestow your boons on us, O Maiden Goddess!
Rescuer of those afflicted and sole refuge of those in distress;
You are Fate, Prosperity, Success!
The wife you are, and the desired sons of men,
And you are knowledge; the sleep of night and the two twilights,
Compassion, Forgiveness and Loveliness.
There is nothing that you are not. I seek your protection.
We walked in silence into the deepening night and, after uncounted steps in darkness, heard Yudhishthira’s hushed voice telling us how he had seen the goddess. She had showed herself to him in light amongst the trees. She had promised that through her grace nobody would recognize us for the year that we were to reside in Virata’s kingdom. We had great need of this renewed assurance, for, as I had been realizing, every second man of Duryodhana’s would be out spying in all the kingdoms of Bharatavarsha. Even while we placed one foot before the other in solemn and grateful mood, Yudhishthira took out of a small leather pouch that he had about his person something that gleamed in the night. We crowded around to see, in the palm of his hand, exquisite golden dice set with lapis lazuli. He wrapped them in a scrap of silk which he strapped to his shoulder so that they nestled in his armpit.
We were to enter the court separately.
Next morning, Yudhishthira, dressed as a Brahmin, asked to be admitted in person to King Virata. Yudhishthira did not heed Dhaumya’s advice and the impoverished Brahmin addressed his humble words to King Virata as though the king were his loyal subject.
“Kanka the Brahmin, is it? You look more like a king to me. But so be it. You are welcome to my kingdom. I do not dislike a good gambler,” Virata had said, and Eldest hastened to add that the only favour he asked was not to be involved in gambling disputes with low people, nor would he keep the stakes won by him. No sooner had Virata got over the surprise and delight of having this lord of men in his palace than Bheema was admitted, walking with the playful gait of a lion. He carried a huge cooking ladle in his great fist and wore a black apron. At his waist was a carving knife and he also wore a sword unsheathed. Virata was delighted to have on his staff Yudhishthira’s cook Vallabha, who claimed to be a master of wrestling as well. When he was taken at his word there was no doubting Durga’s grace—Virata would hardly have been taken in—when two more king-like men entered, one after the other, both from Yudhishthira’s palace. They had come to ask for work: one as the head of the stables and the other as the keeper of the king’s chief wealth, the famous Matsya cattle.
It was Draupadi who had the most difficulty gaining admission, for Virata’s queen Sudeshna said after her first enthusiasm, “My dear, there is nothing I would like better than to have amongst my women your gently bred self with the sweet voice of a swan and your soft hands to tend me and dress my hair. You have as many auspicious marks as a Kashmira mare and, since you seem in distress, with tear tracks still on your cheeks, my heart yearns to help you. But, my dear, I dare not. I have never seen such a creature as yourself, with your face that rivals the moon and your cascade of shining hair which you try in vain to hide, and your hips which cry to be garlanded with pearls, and your breasts like twin mangoes, to say nothing of the slenderness of your waist with the four wrinkles drawn as though by the hand of a god, and such graceful thighs which touch each other…it would be madness. My Lord, the king, is a loving husband, but what man is there in this world who can resist joy?” Upon which Draupadi called to her aid the wit and perseverance which had saved us at the dice game. She said she was the wife of five powerful Gandharva kings who would not allow any mortal man to approach her. She pleaded that she had been in the service of Krishna’s favourite queen Satyabhama and also of Draupadi the Pandava queen, the greatest beauty of the Kuru race; she had caused no trouble in their household. All she asked for was decent food and dress.
That left only me, Brihannala, a handsome creature of not quite definable sex, dressed in the clothes of a woman, a red jacket, large feminine earrings, and a
jangling conch bracelet dipped in gold. My braided hair was bound with a golden ribbon and I walked as gracefully and bashfully as I knew how. I respected Virata; it was no hardship to be my most courteous and charming self toward him. He had bushy grey eyebrows that he drew together to hide unsuccessfully the great goodness in his eyes.
He himself showed the gentleness and courtesy of a true king. He asked me what he could do to help me and, above all, he hid any confusion that my ambiguity of sex may have caused him. For this delicacy alone I would have loved him, for it was not altogether a comfortable thing, even if it was a convenient one, this curse of Urvashi’s.
“I dance. I am a master of dance and of several instruments, and I sing. Allow me to be the dancing tutor to the royal ladies and none will excel them.”
Virata was charmed with my exhibition of dancing, but he was a man of sense and decided to have my alleged impotence tested by women. I was told he had a quick and terrible temper.
I had sweated cold drops when Urvashi had laid the curse on me. Now I turned to ice in case it had not properly taken effect.
But it had.
It was said that King Virata’s face lit up when he spoke of three things: cattle, his lovely daughter the princess Uttaraa, and a good game of dice; and it was best to respect them all. Now he could hardly believe his good fortune.
Never had his prized cattle thrived so well as under the care of their new keeper Tantripala—our Sahadeva. He knew each one and could tell the astonished Virata their past and their future and interpret their auspicious marks. Sahadeva had arrived in the dress of a cowherd and speaking in a country accent. It soon became apparent that he was a master of cattle breeding and could make a diagnosis and prognosis merely by smelling a bull’s urine. The cattle had never been so healthy, for indeed Sahadeva knew numerous Ayurvedic remedies, some of which he had learnt from Dronacharya. Granthika—Nakula—was no less a source of astonishment to Virata. Though the old chief groom had at first been jealous of Granthika, he ended up by being in awe of this extraordinary man who could break in the wildest horses with nothing but murmurs, clickings, and a lump of jaggery, who could correct the habits of the vicious ones and heal those that were ailing.
When Virata had seen the darling of his heart executing difficult dance steps in a most spirited manner in the several padams that I beat out with my wooden block, he gave me a purse of gold.
At the end of a day, which he had spent visiting his stables, and after eating an exquisite meal rounded off with a game of chess or dice, he would sigh, “Oh, that poor king in exile! That long-suffering and noble Yudhishthira, how does he manage without his servitors?” And he would shake his head and frown. “A dreadful fate for such a king.” Though he was as good a man as I had ever met, I cannot think that he looked forward to the day when Yudhishthira’s exile would be over and we would return to his service. I tried to guess whether his eyes twinkled or grieved under their brows. There was no indication that he suspected us of being the Pandavas, but if he had, he would have been the last to give us away. Never had he or his queen been so well served and entertained. Yudhishthira’s skill at the dice game increased enormously through sheer practice and soon the Brahmin Kanka had many of the young men around him in the dice hall listening to his moral discourses, as well as throwing the gold and lapis lazuli dice.
We shared with each other the benefits of our positions. I distributed the silks which the ladies presented to me. Sahadeva was always bringing us milk, curds, and ghee, though we were more than well fed by the new cook’s choice dishes. Nakula distributed his considerable wages. Draupadi supplied us with garlands and perfumes, so that though this should have been the most crucial year of our exile, it was almost easeful. We were all favourites at the court and much pampered. We revelled in calling each other by our new names and occasionally by our secret code ones and in meeting each other in the corridors and slipping tokens from hand to hand. We were like children in disguise and without responsibilities, playing a delightful game. We even forgot Duryodhana’s men combing the country to trace us.
At the end of the first month, a religious festival was celebrated lavishly in honour of Brahma, as it is done in the country of Matsya. Wrestling was one of the events which attracted a huge audience. Many of the competitors had been victorious in previous festivals. The greatest of them, in every way, was an enormous brutish-looking man, Jimuta, with hair as bristly as that of a bandicoot. It irked King Virata that none of his own wrestlers had ever beaten this champion and he suddenly turned to Yudhishthira, who was always beside him now.
“Cannot the cook Vallabha give him a try? There is a good purse to be won and it spoils the festival for me every time Jimuta carries it off.”
This was what we had all been afraid of.
Bheema was smaller than Jimuta and it was quite new for us to see somebody towering over him. But we suspected that he would be the more scientific of the two since nobody had learnt more from Balarama than he, unless it was Duryodhana. Bheema was even better than that other champion, the twins’ maternal uncle, Shalya. Still it would take all Bheema’s art to topple his opponent.
When Bheema appeared in his leather thongs the crowd cheered for him, but no more than they did for Jimuta.
As soon as the religious rites were completed the wrestlers started slapping their great thighs and armpits, challenging and calling out the usual provocations.
“This time, Jimuta, you will be carried senseless before King Virata.”
“And you, Vallabha the Cook, will not even be fit to be thrown into your own cooking pot. I doubt that the vultures will want you.”
“You are not going to be in a position to doubt anything in a minute or two. What little brain you have will be pushed into your shoulders with the rest of your head.” And all the time they were circling each other and slapping themselves. The crowd loved this, but I saw Yudhishthira’s long nose twitching with apprehension. The twins, too, were exchanging glances and in the queen’s retinue Draupadi stood frozen. The last thing we wanted was for it to be bruited around Bharatavarsha that the great Jimuta had had his head and limbs tucked into his body—for that was Bheema’s signature.
At last they dashed toward each other and Bheema threw Jimuta down immediately with a great thud, but Jimuta bounced back and threw Bheema down. Then Bheema, on his knees, caught Jimuta by the leg and threw him off balance. As Jimuta came crashing down he pounded Bheema on the head with his fists. Bheema shook his head and got his legs around Jimuta’s waist but found Jimuta’s fingers pressing into his eyeballs. They kicked and slapped and, if sheer strength had been everything, Jimuta might have carried the day, but Bheema had not been Balarama’s pupil for nothing. He twined his legs like creepers around the great beast and finally clamped him down while they shouted and grunted their contempt for each other. I thought it was all over, but Jimuta managed to extricate himself and it started again, the pulling and slapping and whirling and pushing and howling. And then, suddenly, Bheema did with this great giant exactly what he had done with Jarasandha. It was like watching him in the sacred Yuddhashala again. Bheema picked Jimuta up and held him aloft. He whirled and whirled and whirled him around and finally dashed him to his death. The crowd rose as though lifted by an unseen mechanism and the king embraced Yudhishthira. Since none of the other wrestlers were willing to challenge Bheema, Virata was obliged to ask Vallabha to tackle a tiger and then a lion. Draupadi collapsed and had to be carried away and, though Bheema did well with the tiger, I begged the king to allow me to contribute to the entertainment with my dancing and singing, which pleased the assembly and the lion was saved. Finally it was Nakula who stole the day with his trained horses who danced and whirled on their back legs at his command.
As for us, our thoughts were with Draupadi and we all concluded that, if not Virata, at least somebody must have put two and two together regarding Draupadi’s relations with Bheema—and in fact they had. The ladies all believed that the queen’s Sair
andhri had fallen in love with the cook and they teased her about it. Draupadi was not one to submit to teasing and her furious and fiery looks silenced the women, who then came to me, with whom they loved to gossip, and asked me if I did not think the Sairandhri was in love with Vallabha and meeting him in secret.
I said, “That one? Have you not seen how her eyes spit fire? Not even Vallabha is brave enough for her. Besides, she has five Gandharva husbands to protect her.” I pretended that my knees trembled at the thought and I did a mime of the angry Draupadi and her Gandharva husbands attacking me, which diverted the ladies.
Virata’s household was used to us now and we were accustomed to our roles and our duties. Ten months had passed and we no longer feared discovery. Many young courtiers had fallen in love with Draupadi, but the queen, and Virata himself, had helped her to avoid such complications. Her forbidding presence, combined with allusions to her five vengeful Gandharva husbands, soon quelled the ardour of all her prospective suitors.
At the beginning of the eleventh month Keechaka, Virata’s commanderin-chief who had extended the boundaries of Matsya and who was brother to Queen Sudeshna, returned with his victorious army to Matsya. Draupadi, with the ladies on the balcony, saw him arrive. She watched the road being perfumed in front of him and rose water sprinkled before his horse’s hooves. She herself had helped to weave the garlands that almost buried him.
Overcome by scents, the cries, and the memories of days when it had been her husbands riding in victorious like this to the joyful cries of the citizens, Draupadi fled to a concealed garden belonging to the queen where she could weep alone. She took to slipping into this shady garden whenever she had the chance and it was here that Keechaka found her.
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 30