The Queens of Hastinapur

by Sharath Komarraju

  ‘Yes, High Sage.’

  ‘For ten days and nights you and the younger queen shall hold the fast of Bhagawati and accompany the ladies of the hermitage about their daily chores. You shall clean the courtyard, and through the night you shall keep the vow of silence.’

  Pritha looked at Madri’s scowling face. So this was a duty both the wives of the king ought to perform, she thought. Even if she was not to blame for any of this, as first queen she would shoulder part of the burden of her husband’s sins, would walk with him on his path to redemption. She did not ask Kindama why this had to be so, why Pandu’s wives should undergo penances to wash away the stains of his deeds. Would the king hold the fast of Bhagawati too, she wanted to ask. But she did not, for she knew what the answer would be.

  ‘What of me, High Sage?’ said Pandu, looking up.

  ‘Send back your messenger to your camp, Pandu,’ said Kindama, ‘and tell them that you shall not return for a fortnight. You shall go with the men on their foraging walks, and you shall sit with them by the fire as they recite from the scriptures. Every evening, before the sun goes down, you shall come here, to my chamber, and we shall speak of whatever it is that ails your spirit.’

  ‘My spirit?’ said Pandu. ‘Nothing ails my spirit, High Sage.’

  Kindama caressed his grey beard. ‘Your eyes search for something, boy. A king who likes to hunt more than to rule is a man who knows not where he is bound. Come to my hut at sundown and speak to me.’

  ‘Yes, High Sage.’

  ‘Your queens are welcome to join us too, if it does not hinder their activities.’

  Pritha joined her hands and bowed. ‘I shall come, High Sage.’

  ‘And I shall too,’ said Madri.

  Kindama removed the staff from under his arm and set it aside. Pritha noticed that the air in the hut had become stickier. Her armpits had become cold and wet, and a thin film of sweat had gathered on her forehead.

  ‘Adhyasi!’ said Kindama.

  Pritha heard a jingle of anklets, and the main door darkened with the shadow of a slender woman with her hair tied back over her head in a bun. She bowed to the sage.

  ‘Give these two ladies clothes to wear,’ said Kindama, ‘and tell the others that they are to hold the fast for ten days, as of this moment.’

  ‘Yes, High Sage,’ said Adhyasi.

  Kindama looked into Pritha’s eyes for a moment. She looked back at him, unflinching. He gave her a small nod. ‘The gods have blessed you, my child,’ he said, softly. Then he got to his feet and dusted the cloth on which he had sat all this while.

  ‘Come, Pandu,’ he said, walking out of the hut. ‘I shall ask Bharadwaja to look after you while the ladies acquaint themselves with one another.’

  As the day wore on and the heat built up, the knot in Pritha’s stomach tightened. Her hands were covered in dust from carrying the deer’s body all the way to the edge of the stream. On the way back, she had stepped on a thorn the size of a big nail, and it had drawn blood from the pink, tender portion of the arch on her left foot. Adhyasi had dressed it with some herbs and a piece of linen.

  Her mouth was parched. She had not known that the fast of the Goddess required one to go without water too. Her throat ached when she had to speak. Holding a vow of silence would not be too hard, she thought wryly, and wished fervently for the day to pass.

  They sat on the mud floor of the hut, she and Madri. The girl had her legs folded under her, in the proper manner of a lady. She was picking out specks of mud from the soil with a small wooden twig.

  ‘I never thought my life would come to this,’ she said to Pritha. ‘I am the princess of Madra, and I am fasting in a forest with no servant to call upon. Ah, if only I had known I would be treated thus.’

  ‘What would you have done?’ asked Pritha.

  ‘I would never have wedded Lord Pandu, of course. There had been rumours then, too, that the prince was too pale, that he was not man enough. But Bhishma brought all those elephants and horses, and my father could not see past the wealth.’

  ‘Your life is fine now,’ Pritha told Madri. ‘You are still the wife of the king of Hastinapur.’

  ‘The king of Hastinapur. Have you sat on the throne in the court even once, sister? I know I have not. Not once.’

  Pritha thought back to the first few short weeks after her wedding to Pandu, when Bhishma and Vidur had made them sit on their thrones. But then he had been wedded to Madri, and he had to ride away on his expedition of North Country. Of the full one year, Lady Gandhari and Dhritarashtra had held court for much longer than they.

  ‘Our time shall come,’ she said.

  ‘You look away, sister,’ said Madri. ‘You do not truly believe it shall come. First, our king is sent away on a mission, and then he is sent away to the forest. We follow him wherever he goes, for what else must dutiful wives do? And all this while the blind king tightens his hold on the throne.’

  ‘You shall not speak of Lord Dhritarashtra that way,’ said Pritha. ‘You are young still, and I know that hunger has perhaps angered you. But we must not sully our own names with our words, Madri. Here they know us as the queens of Hastinapur. Let us uphold that honour.’

  ‘It is easy for you to say this, sister.’ Madri flashed her black eyes at Pritha and dug deeper into the earth with the twig. ‘You are after all the first wife, the elder queen, the one they all worship and respect. Why, even Sage Kindama had to summon you before he pronounced his punishment.’

  ‘Let us not fight, Madri,’ said Pritha. ‘Come, I shall braid your hair. It has become mangled and unruly, quite unbefitting a queen.’

  ‘I can braid my own hair!’ Madri snatched at some locks of her hair and tucked them behind her ear. ‘Ah, I would that I had been the first queen of a smaller kingdom. Then perhaps I would have been spared all this disgrace.’

  Pritha tightened her lips. The wound in her foot sent a shard of pain up her body, through the thighs, hips and chest. ‘Why did you accompany the king on his hunt today?’ she asked. ‘He rarely ventures so deep into the forest.’

  ‘Are you saying, then, that it is I who caused this all?’

  ‘I am saying nothing. I trust that you are not a young child any more, Madri, and that you possess a conscience too. Perhaps you should use it now and then.’

  Madri’s mouth twisted into a pout. ‘The king asked me to accompany him, and I did. Perhaps you are jealous that he did not ask you, sister.’

  ‘My jealousy is not what we are talking about!’ said Pritha. ‘Did you or did you not exhort the king to shoot at the deer today?’

  ‘I … I did not!’ Madri looked away defiantly for a moment and dug into the earth with more force. ‘The … the king chased them on his own, and he asked if I would like the golden coat of the deer to adorn my wall.’

  ‘And you said yes, of course.’

  ‘I did! What would you have said if he had asked you? I trust you would have been the pious elder queen and said, “Oh, my lord, I would love to have deerskin on my wall, but must we kill the poor things to satiate our base cravings? Let us leave them alone, and let them prance around the bushes while we watch and smile.” Lest you forget, sister, the purpose of a hunt is to kill animals.’

  Anger welled up inside Pritha, more than anything because Madri had imitated her voice and tone to perfection. She could now imagine the king and the girl riding together in a chariot, and Madri sending Pandu into raptures of laughter with her impression of Pritha. Colour rushed to her face when the thought struck her that this could be a habit between the two. Perhaps Madri was in the habit of mocking Pritha behind her back to evoke the king’s mirth. How humiliating to be made fun of by a younger queen. Would any other queen in any other kingdom stand for this?

  Her voice came out low and deep, like the blue flame on burning coals. ‘The killing of animals in heat is prohibited by every scripture that has ever been written, girl. Do they not teach the Veda to princesses in Madra? Is the royal family of that kingdom
so devoid of culture that it does not train its maidens in the ways of womanhood?’

  ‘The ways of womanhood!’ said Madri, chuckling. ‘You speak of the ways of womanhood, and yet look at how you sit!’

  Pritha looked down at her stretched-out legs, the dirty white linen wrapped around her feet, her ugly toes splayed apart. She raised her hands and turned them over. The hard, thick fingers of a farmhand. Flattened square fingernails.

  ‘You look like a man dressed as a maiden,’ said Madri. ‘You walk like a man, you speak like one. Sometimes I wonder if I should strip you naked just to ascertain that you are indeed a woman. And you tell me the ways of womanhood?’

  ‘Perhaps … perhaps we must not fight. They will hear, all of them—’

  ‘Let them!’ said Madri, raising her voice. ‘It is you who threw the first insult, you who do not know that a true woman quenches her husband’s thirst in bed, that a true woman keeps him coming back every night. Between you and I, sister, who does King Pandu want by his side when he goes to bed?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Who, then, is the true woman?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Let me promise you one more thing, then. I shall do all that is in my power to bear King Pandu his first child. It is I who shall become the queen mother of Hastinapur.’

  Pritha dropped her hands and looked up at Madri. ‘But … I am the elder queen.’

  ‘An elder queen who is barren!’ said Madri. ‘An elder queen who is not woman enough to sire a child worthy of being a king.’

  ‘I … I am not barren.’

  ‘You are, sister. I am the fertile one, and King Pandu knows it too.’

  ‘The king has promised me … that I shall be the first mother.’

  ‘Has he, now?’ said Madri, and Pritha thought she heard a note of doubt in the girl’s voice. ‘What else would he say? Better the comforting lie than the harsh truth.’

  The door to the hut squeaked open. Pritha narrowed her eyes to shield them against the sudden light. Adhyasi came to her and knelt by her injured foot, tilting her head to one side to examine it closely. ‘It has stopped bleeding, Pritha,’ she said. ‘It is not a deep wound. The sage said that you can walk from tomorrow.’

  Pritha nodded.

  Adhyasi said, ‘The best way to get through a fast is to busy oneself in tasks. I know how hard it must be, but do not fret. The first day is often the hardest.’ She took Pritha’s hand in hers and squeezed it.

  Pritha nodded again.

  Adhyasi got up and said to Madri, ‘The people of the hermitage have finished their lunch. The plantain leaves need to be picked up and food morsels cleaned. Will you please help me, Madri?’

  In the hermitage, no one was above anyone else, Adhyasi had told them. Here they were not queens of Hastinapur, not even princesses. Just Pritha and Madri and Pandu. Only the sages were addressed with respect, with the highest form reserved for Kindama.

  Madri glanced at Pritha. ‘What about Sister Pritha? Is she not coming with us?’

  ‘Pritha needs to rest because she has injured her foot,’ said Adhyasi. ‘From tomorrow she will help us with all the tasks.’

  Madri got up reluctantly and followed Adhyasi out of the hut. On their way out, they closed the door, plunging the room back into heavy darkness. Pritha looked at her hands again. Madri was absolutely right. If womanhood was measured by the ability to satisfy the desire of a man, what chance had she? Madri was younger, more buxom, more nubile. She was more of a woman than Pritha would ever be.

  One need not be angry at the truth, she told herself. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could see the shape of her hands better now. She slid further down along the wall and tried to sleep. Madri did not mean what she had said. This was perhaps the longest she had had to remain hungry, and this was perhaps the dirtiest hut she had ever seen. She had spoken out of that passion, and Pritha felt certain if Madri were given the opportunity to take back her words, she would.

  She closed her eyes and willed her mind to stay still, to forget it all. Why should a silly girl’s rambling affect her so?

  Perhaps because she was right.

  Despite Pandu’s promises, he loved Madri more. He visited her more often, even when it was not her turn. He invited her on hunting trips and walks. He brought her flowers. Perhaps this was what womanhood meant – pulling a man utterly into the ring of love until he could neither see not hear anything else.

  She realized she was panting, and with four or five deep breaths, brought it under control. Just forget it all, she told herself. Just go to sleep, and wake up with a foot that does not ache and a throat that does not burn.

  But sleep did not come.

  That evening, they went as a group to the bank of the stream. At the head of the procession, four of the children Pritha had seen playing that morning carried the body of Dileepa on their shoulders. In front, a young sage with a full black beard swung a smoking brass vessel in wide arcs with one hand while snapping overhanging twigs in his path with the other. Adhyasi walked with Pritha a few paces behind them all, stopping whenever the pain in the foot pierced a bit too deeply, whenever the hand holding the walking stick got tired and had to be rested.

  By and by they fell further and further behind. Now when Pritha looked up she could just see the dust of their footfalls smudging the evening sun. ‘You must go with them,’ she told Adhyasi.

  ‘What Madri said today is not true,’ Adhsyasi said instead. ‘You are not ugly.’

  ‘But I am not much of a woman either,’ said Pritha.

  ‘You are more of a woman than she can ever be,’ said Adhyasi. ‘And she knows that too. How she must burn with envy that she will forever be the younger queen.’

  Pritha shook her head, swallowing the pain. ‘Are you certain the wound is a small one? It pains me to even place it on the ground.’ She held out her arm to Adhyasi, who took it and allowed Pritha’s full weight to lean on her side. ‘Madri was right. Lord Pandu does love her more than he does me.’

  ‘I do not doubt that, my lady. I am merely entreating you to stop thinking that it is somehow your fault.’

  ‘Yes, one could say that I was blessed with this body.’

  Adhyasi stopped and turned Pritha around to face her. Even at her full height she only stood up to Pritha’s shoulders, so she had to crane her neck to look into her eyes. Pritha thought that for a girl of her age, she had stern, hard eyes – eyes that seemed to have loved and lost.

  ‘Listen to me, my lady, queen,’ she said. ‘Men will forever make you feel that the fault for all circumstances must lie at your feet. If you refuse to accept it, they shall mount it on your shoulders and demand that you carry it. There is but one way out, and that is to reject it fully, with all your heart and mind and soul.’

  For a moment, the two women looked into each other’s eyes.

  Then Adhyasi said, ‘Do you understand?’

  Pritha nodded and gulped back a wave of tears that threatened to wash over her. They proceeded to walk together again on the path, toward the bend shrouded with overhanging green shoots. As they approached, the smell of water lilies – the same one she had detected in the morning – assailed her nose again, this time with a passionate fervour.

  ‘You said the rule of the hermitage was to not use a title for anyone but the High Sage,’ said Pritha. Why did you call me “my lady” just now?’

  ‘Well,’ said Adhyasi, ‘we are no longer in the hermitage, are we?’

  The golden coat of the deer went grey first, then black, like the sky beyond the pyre. Pritha leaned against a sturdy guava tree away from the gathering and watched the flames reduce the body to dust. Kindama stood by the water’s edge, straight as a lifeless pole, his wooden staff clutched in a tight grip. As the sun set and the lilies drooped to one side all around them, Pritha caught sight of Pandu and Madri.

  They stood closest to the burning pile of firewood, their hands joined at their chests, their heads bent. The loose ends of Madri’s br
own garment fluttered behind her in the breeze.

  They make a suitable couple, she told herself, without a hint of sadness. One just had to look at them speak to one another, give each other a sidelong glance of love while seated together, or just the way they stood next to one another. They looked like two petals of the same flower, blooming and drooping in step.

  ‘Do not worry, my lady,’ said Adhyasi in a whisper. ‘It is you who is the elder queen. It is you who shall give the king his first sons.’

  ‘I do not worry, Adhyasi,’ she said, looking at the gathering ash on the pyre, smelling the burned ghee and oil and sandal paste. ‘I have come to realize that the words Madri has spoken to me this afternoon are true. Whatever one thinks of the truth, one must first accept it.’

  The sages gathered around the charred remains of the animal. They bathed it with more ghee, even as young men flitted about, fanning the flames for one last burst of smoke. Then, one by one, they began to bring flowers and laid them in a large circle around the ashes. Kindama still stood unmoving, but Pritha felt that his gaze was now fastened upon her.

  ‘Perhaps it is wrong of me to burn with ambition so,’ she said at last. ‘After all, all our lives must end in the same manner as that of Dileepa, mounted on a pile of dry wood, set aflame and covered in soot. Does it matter, then, whether I become queen mother or whether I spend my life in the shadow cast by Madri and Pandu?’

  Adhyasi did not reply at once. She placed a hand under Pritha’s chin and turned it to look into her eyes. ‘It shall not matter after you are dead, my lady. But while you draw breath, while you can still stare with defiance into the eyes of death, the most important question is how you live.’

  ‘I live well, today,’ said Pritha. ‘I live a better life than many other maidens my age. I am queen to a king, to a kind man, to a kingdom that is perhaps the strongest in North Country. What more could I wish for? Must I not be thankful for what I have been given?’