It was a special sort of pilgrimage to Indraprastha. Krishna was Krishna, and we were together. As for me, my wounds were healing, but as I was to learn, flesh healed quicker than mind.
I was stretching the sleep out of my muscles and so was Krishna.
“I will race you,” he said. And we were off. At first, my wounds tugged and tightened and held me back. My body seemed surprised: I had not run for pleasure since before our year of incognito in Virata, and in the battle in a state of terror to catch Krishna, which is no way to run. Then like a well oiled axle, it all went smoothly and we ran like cheetahs. Krishna reached the river first. We flung into the water and when I scooped it up to offer to Lord Surya, I offered it from Karna and myself. After the funeral rites I never offered it again but for the both of us.
As we were nearing Indraprastha, we heard the pounding of many hooves. It was a six-horse chariot. We tried to hail the charioteer but as he thundered forward, we saw that he was but a boy and almost lying on his back to hold the bolting horses. Their mouths were wide and foaming. As they galloped on I caught a sense of Duryodhana or Duhshasana in the frightened boy. He must have whipped the horses into a frenzy. We turned our horses and raced after him, one on each side. Krishna jumped into the chariot from the left and a moment later I had leapt in from the right. The boy was in such panic his fingers could not loose the straps. Krishna gathered them in front while I pulled the boy away. His fear had maddened him and lent him strength. He bit my knuckles. My charioteer was in command and the horses knew it as though they had been with him for a century; and none too soon, for just ahead the road turned and a fence came into view. Krishna swerved us sharply through a hedge into a field. It was the only thing to do. The horses stormed across it, trampling wheat and kicking up the water channels. We crashed through still more hedges into a neighbouring field, chariot wheels clattering over boundary stones, the horses trampling wheat again. We were across but had staved in another wooden fence. We bumped and lurched over plowed land before the horses slowed. We heard the twittering of frightened birds and the fearful bellowing of disturbed cattle.
At last we halted. Krishna leapt down and walked calmly to their heads while I stayed with the reins. The horses heaved and panted, their eyes rolled and they tongued the bits. Suddenly, the one upfront reared and tried to bolt again. But I held firm and Krishna gentled him with soothing sounds. We turned our gaze upon the boy. He sat on the platform looking sullen as well as frightened now, as though awaiting an unwelcome lesson. His eyes looked sideways from us, the way Duryodhana’s would when he was reprimanded.
Krishna said: “You must be strong not to have let them get away completely.” The boy’s eyes shifted to the other side but still away from us, running the fingers of his mind through Krishna’s words to find the barb in them. His eyes swerved back again avoiding us.
“Nice horses you drive,” I said with great understatement for they were six perfectly matched bays, each one with a golden plaited mane gleaming as though oiled. “Were you not in Hastina for the funeral rites?” I asked.
“No,” he said rudely.
I smiled and said, “Do you know who this is?” pointing at Krishna.
“Yes, Krishna Vasudeva,” he said sneering.
Krishna said, “So you know who I am. Then you must know that this is Prince Arjuna, one of the famous Pandavas and foremost archer in the world. But we do not have the pleasure of knowing who you are. Though we can see you are a Kshatriya.” The boy did not respond.
“You are a Kshatriya, are you not?” said Krishna, picking his diadem up and handing it to him. “No Brahmin drives a six-horse chariot thus, nor does a Shudra.”
“I have heard about you, Krishna Vasudeva,” the boy said hotly.
“What have you heard of him?” I asked.
“That if he opens his mouth to show a miracle, I should not look but put my finger in.” Krishna laughed; I laughed until I had to stamp my feet. Through my tears of laughter I saw the boy look worried. He kept his eyes from Krishna’s laughing mouth, and tried to concentrate on mine.
“You do not tell us,” said Krishna, “so perhaps now we should try to guess. We must surely be related.” Krishna went into a long family history, taking us all back to the Emperor Puru. The boy at times had looked with interest but now he blurted out: “My name is also Puru. I am the king of Indraprastha.”
“Oh but how fortunate we are, that is just whom we came to meet,” said Krishna. “Is it not providential? We can drive back together. It is always better to have an extra hand in case the horses want their heads again.”
“Let us go in by the Eastern Gate,” I said. “Is there still the row of goldsmiths beyond it?”
“How do you know?”
“We were here before,” I said.
“Then you must know that it has the best sabha in all of Bharatavarsha.” Had no one told him Maya built it for us?
“It is the best,” I said.
“There are those who like the crystal palace in Hastinapura. But I do not.” He made a face.
“I agree with you,” I said.
“There is no fun in it.”
“That is just how I feel. Your sabha here is full of light and fun.”
“My grandfather is blind and my grandmother wears a blindfold on her eyes so I suppose they do not mind. But I think I would dislike it with a hundred blindfolds on my eyes. I do not like Hastina compared to Indraprastha.”
“Do you know who built Indraprastha?” Krishna asked.
“Of course I do. My father did. But Uncle Bheema killed him. He killed Uncle Duryodhana adharmically and all my other uncles too. He is a brute.” There was silence. Krishna found some cloths under the seat and threw one to the boy. “I have never done this work,” he said.
“Never mind, I shall show you,” Krishna said. “There is a first time for everything.” The boy looked at the cloths and after a pause of indecision imitated Krishna. While they rubbed the horses down Krishna said: “After such a gallop you have to see they cool off slowly, especially as they are frightened. Tell me, Puru, what would you do if someone tried to take the sabha and the town of Indraprastha from you?”
He looked up with wide and angry eyes and said, with slow determination, “I am a Kshatriya and I would kill that man! That is a Kshatriya’s sacred duty.” He looked at us defiantly.
“That is what your father and his brothers did to the Pandavas,” Krishna said.
“That is a lie the Pandavas invented.”
“Have you heard the saying, “Where there is a flying arrow there is a bow behind it?” Krishna asked. “But nobody will take Indraprastha from you, Prince Puru.”
Krishna let the chariot horses walk him and the boy back. I mounted my own stallion and leading Krishna’s I rode behind them, and though the wind carried their voices forward, I guessed that Krishna told the story of the dice game. The boy was listening. From time to time he glanced back at me. I smiled and nodded. As we neared the Eastern Gate the high white walls sprang out to greet me as though they had been waiting. My heart was pounding.
Without warning, tears streamed down my cheeks. The banners fluttered from palace roofs. It did not matter whose they were. What mattered was the beauty of this city that Krishna helped to build. Krishna slowed the chariot so we could enter through the gate together. The guards looked at the boy. I heard him say as in a dream: “It is all right, Baruni, these are my friends.”
The guard looked hard at us, at Krishna’s smiling face and then at my weeping one. He let us in. And now the memories I had shut away battled for pride of place. This was the gate that we had used to leave our city for the dice game. Draupadi had looked back and keened as though someone had died. I saw the rows of shops, the sculpted stone of the great houses; the broad streets through which we passed were lined with trees that we had planted, Flames of the Forest, Ashoka trees, Parijata, Neem, Peepal, and Banyan. We turned into what we had called the Flower Street. The perfumes of jasmine and champa caught in
my throat. It was all there like yesterday and waited with its memories. When we approached my military academy, I knew the god that kept it never left. This was where Satyaki had come to me one day and put his head upon my feet, silently asking me to be his guru.
When we first came with Krishna he had been bitter at the desolation of the ruined city; trees grew through palace roofs and burst the walls. The ruins had been full of creepers that spiralled up to draw the life out from man-made things. With help from Dwaraka and with Bheema and his teams wielding the axe from dawn to midnight, we had cleared the town of jungle in a single summer. We levelled the land so that the sun looked on it for the first time in a cycle of a hundred years.
To build something wholly new is to reach towards the All-Creator. We had the sense of that with Krishna there beside us. And in the end we were happier in the making of our city than if we had been given ten Hastinapuras ready-made. We knew then, as we felled timber and hewed stone, that there was something dark and rotten in Hastina. We did not try to copy it. Krishna inspired artisans from Dwaraka to build a city that was full of light. No one should feel fear in it.
“Renewal,” he said, “was to omit that which no longer served.” The day we laid the cornerstone for my Yuddhashala had been the happiest of my life. Nakula and Sahadeva built the stables. And the forest horses, knowing that a home awaited them, came to us, one by one at first, and then in tens; then in their many hundreds.
Had they heard what Krishna said of freedom?
They learned to draw the chariots as though born to it. And the chariots, made from the wood of our acacia trees and designed by Maya, were more glorious than any we had seen. Soon we had twice as many vehicles as Hastina ever had.
It was not that we had built Indraprastha higher than Hastina but the sky was freer here. The clouds sailed heaven joyously and today they moved like dancers on light feet and showered benedictions on us. Indraprastha could be soiled by nothing and nobody. It had been built on Krishna’s courage and faith and indomitable will. There were no place for intrigue and suspicion, and there was no poison in it. When I set foot in Hastina’s crystal palace the thousand pillars bulged with evil. Each pillar held a different menace. Its light was dimmed by man himself.
Now vendors recognized us and raised a mighty cheer while others, laughing, rushed to us with offerings of fruit and cloth, silver, gold, and jewels. Young Puru looked on this obliquely in pondering silence. For the first time I thought that there was something other than bad blood in him.
“Mahatma Krishna,” came the cries. “It is Prince Arjuna!” The crowd became so thick we could not pass. The boy looked around. He said: “Shall we tell them we are going to the palace?” Krishna cupped his hands and called loudly: “Dear Citizens of Indraprastha! We thank you for your welcome. Your Yuvaraj invites us to the palace. Can you step aside? We shall be coming back.” For all his pains Krishna got pelted with more flowers. People climbed into the chariot to garland us and put their foreheads on our feet. Mothers pushed their children’s heads onto our laps for blessings. Two men frayed a path towards us.
“Prince Arjuna,” cried one, weeping. “Mahatma Krishna, we knew you would return one day, we have counted each month for thirteen years.” He was our master chariot-maker; the other was Satyajit, our swordsmith. “We knew you would come back,” they kept on saying, as I embraced the one and Krishna raised the other to the chariot. I mingled tears with Satyajit. Over and over we embraced and took the scent from each other’s heads. It was as if the thirteen years had never been.
The crowd began to chant, “Long live, Prince Arjuna! Victory to Mahatma Krishna!”
There were cries of: “Victory to Dharmaraj!” “We knew you would come back!”
A lusty voice called out, “You will live a hundred years for your name is even now upon our tongues!”
Women came out on their balconies and sprinkled rosewater on us. From all sides came testimonies of love and loyalty. We caught flowers and then rode through it all with folded hands trying to convey our own emotions. Devavrata, the chariot-maker, took the reins from Krishna.
“Victory to Dharmaraj! Victory to Dharmaraj!”
“Victory to King Yudhishthira!”
Long before the town was ready they had come flocking to us: master-bowmakers, the wood-carvers, the silversmiths and goldsmiths, master-builders, bards, and the dreamers of all castes who had heard of the Pandavas who walked in truth and could not be defeated; of Prince Bheema who could uproot trees; of Prince Arjuna who in disguise had won Draupadi when no one else could lift the bow. Krishna put an arm around the shoulders of young Puru. The gesture was not lost on Puru; and I saw that Krishna had decided to proclaim him.
His fate had sent his horses hurtling out towards us. It might not be my fate to live in either Dwaraka or Indraprastha, but I had lived this day with Krishna, and nothing mattered. The balconies were so crowded that they looked imperilled. Long strands of flowers were let down to us and when I reached for them I felt their tug as though the citizens would have pulled us up into their houses if they could. The press was such we could not move so Krishna turned us off into a narrow street but people ran behind us and encircled us once more. The horses were embraced and garlanded and people touched their hooves as though each horse were an Ashwin come straight from heaven to carry us. Girls braided flowers into their manes. They pushed against the carriage so that it rocked. It trembled gently like a boat lapped by ocean waves. The street was narrow and the balconies so low that a girl’s hair swept my face, as I caught the scent of cloves and cardamom from an old man’s breath. Love palpitated like a pulse; it washed through us and our souls basked in it.
It was well past midday. The sun was moving west by the time we reached the palace. Word had gone ahead of us and Puru’s mother waited at the gate with her ladies and counsellors. We saw at once that she was frightened…half frightened, half defiant. There were embers of resentment in her eyes, though she took the dust from our feet respectfully enough. And when she ushered us into the council room, the water from many sacred rivers waited in a golden jar to wash our feet.
“It is a weighty responsibilty to guard a kingdom for your son,” said Krishna. It would have put me at my ease at once but she was plainly used to wiles and intrigue, and it took the story from young Puru of how he had been saved to soften her. But the next day, when the purohits were called and the coronation trappings gathered, she came to Krishna and prostrated herself before him. Puru was set upon the throne, and with his hair still dripping sacred water, he placed his head at Krishna’s feet.
Krishna announced that I stood there in lieu of Dharmaraj, now once more to be Emperor of Bharatavarsha, who would perform the Ashwamedha. At this, the old courtiers drew their breath in sharply. The young king placed his head upon my feet. He was to be as true to us as Sahadeva of Magadha whom Krishna put upon the throne after we had killed his tyrant father Jarasandha. For this he lost his life. When the boy arose he looked into my eyes; man to man and king to king, he asked me: “Will I make a ruler?”
“If you can control your horses.” He searched my face and, when he understood, he held back a smile.
“King Yudhishthira will have to conquer many rulers for the Ashwamedha. It will not be so easy this time.” It was an old and toothless courtier who smiled at us. He looked and spoke like Kanika. His name was Jhillin.
“Every kingdom has one,” Krishna muttered under his breath.
“It will not be as pretty as your Rajasuya campaign. Have you thought of that?” He showed us all his gums as he spoke. “There are the sons and brothers of Avanti and Gandhara and Sindhu and the heirs and friends of Bhagadatta, to name a few. I greatly fear that they will give you trouble, Prince Arjuna.” His voice was smooth as oiled wood and oh-so-fatherly. “I congratulate you indeed. Most warriors would hardly have the courage.” He had the gift of making words both poisonous and sweet, his voice rising and falling like an instrument. “Most heroes would be content to
sit at home and rule their kingdom.”
“Which one?” said Krishna. “Hastinapura or Indraprastha?” which set his gums together though his lips still tried to smile. The queen mother gave him a warning look of anger. She was more cordial after that, inviting us to see the academy I had built. Out of courtesy we let her guides accompany us as though we could not find our way. Puru joined us at the entrance. Indeed, he would not let us out of sight and wished to hear the story of each place that we had built: the wrestling pit, the elephant stables, the shooting gallery.
At the Mayasabha I waited on the threshold pierced by a thousand memories so poignant I hardly dared go further in. There was a clap of thunder without sound. The apsaras of Indra’s heaven sang in my breast. Within this hall a lake of peace had waited, untainted by any other hand or foot or thought. It said to me that purity can never be disturbed. This was a work of love and gratitude, sprung from my act of saving Maya. Krishna had asked him to build for us a hall such as men had never seen. A thousand memories returned: of Maya treading air as he and his helpers hoisted the beams high; I saw the glitter of the gems he spilt before us like a firmament of many coloured stars. At last I stepped inside. The light was caught and flung against the gloom, and it was dense with its presence. There was a thud against my heart as when a thing cannot be borne entirely, and a door that had been locked for fourteen years gave way.
Swimming in the sabha’s light I saw the eyes of Maya as they had been when he had said, “I would make something beautiful for you, Arjuna.” I lost myself and found myself again. I wandered in and out of life and once more Matali took me somewhere in Lord Indra’s chariot. It was a higher heaven. The mother of our race, Urvashi, smiled at me. I knew that she had never cursed me.
There was a healing of all wounds. The blood that we had shed would have more than filled this hall. Sometimes a small thing done in true compassion weighs in the scales against the crimes of man, because the heart’s capacity to soar is greater than man’s hunger to destroy. He could lay waste the earth if that were possible but what the All-Creator has put into his spirit leads him back and makes it whole again, and him.
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 68