‘He is the sole heir to the Kuru throne! You must save him!’ Subadra screamed.
‘Don’t you see? That is precisely why I can’t.’
Subadra stared at him, open-mouthed. She was suddenly unsteady on her feet, but Dhaumya grabbed her in time, holding her up. Panchali took the infant, cradling him in one arm. She turned to Govinda, her large, dark eyes willing him to understand her silent plea.
‘Mih!’ Govinda swore and sat down on the edge of a chair. Unable to face any of them, he buried his head in his hands. With a burst of energy, Subadra flew at her brother, punching and swatting him in a pathetic, ineffective rage. Govinda did not move, did not squirm. Finally, Subadra gave up and fell at his feet, sobbing. Govinda made to place a consoling hand on her, but she pushed him away.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she snapped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said and turned away, only to meet Panchali’s gaze. He waited for her outburst, but it did not come.
‘Save him, Govinda,’ Panchali said.
He shook his head.
‘Save him.’
‘It’s no use, Panchali,’ Subadra began.
Panchali ignored her and continued to address Govinda. ‘I understand why you refuse, Govinda. It amazes me that any man can have the conviction that you do, to look beyond himself, his family … I understand you and that’s why I say this: Save him, Govinda. Don’t deny him life, as his ancestors denied millions their humanity…’
‘Panchali…’
‘You are life, Govinda.’ Panchali placed the unmoving child on Govinda’s lap. She took Govinda’s hands and guided them to the child’s body. ‘I do not remember clearly,’ she said, ‘but I think we once spoke of the magic in the human heart….’
Govinda closed his eyes. His thoughts he kept to himself but at length he looked up, first at Panchali and then, with unrestrained affection, at the child.
‘This isn’t magic,’ Govinda began, ‘no more than the life-force that runs within us is magical, no more than life itself is magical. Blood, flesh and organs driven by the heart, mind and soul – the power of the creator…perhaps that feels magical. But the true magic here is the hope that this newborn feels his will to live, to laugh and love… I am but an instrument. Like us all, this child is the essence of the Eternal. He must decide for himself whether he will live.’
Using his fingers, Govinda measured down from the child’s neck, to a precise point on the infant’s chest. Frowning with concentration, he placed his hands over the child’s heart. Panchali knelt down in front of him, adding her palms over his. She did not know who spoke, her or Govinda, or neither, but the words seemed to come from within her ears, not fall on them. A gentle chant:
A fist-length below the neck
lies a budding lotus-bloom,
inverted, inward-looking,
This is the human heart.
It beats incessant,
fed by life-giving blood.
It is the corporeal home of
the incorporeal soul,
the core of the divine
light within us.
Govinda’s hands pressed down in a clear rhythmic sequence.
Panchali’s eyes widened with fear. ‘There is no beat…’ she said, desolate. Subadra began to whimper.
‘Our hearts beat,’ Govinda said, ‘because we are alive. But that beat isn’t life itself. Nara-ayana, the same endless potential, is life. If the fire of life burns within this boy, his heart will beat.’
The words made sense in a way that Panchali did not understand, but knew to be true. She felt herself growing calmer by the moment, joyful even. It was as though Govinda held the throbbing energy of the Universe in his power. She imagined she saw a dazzling flash, the spark so flippantly referred to as life. As she watched, the glow, this throbbing pulse of energy grew into a fiery orb, illuminating her from within.
We are not slaves to a soulless, mechanical system of life and death. We are the creators, the golden womb of all life and energy.
An explosion of knowing cut through everything. Panchali watched as the cloak of ignorance and death that surrounded the infant in Govinda’s lap was shattered. The pieces flew around her, spinning in a rainbow of colours, before settling into the golden flame that emanated from her, from them. All darkness dissolved into that all-encompassing light.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed out loud, as she felt a faint tremor, a throb under her fingers. ‘Oh Rudra!’ she gasped again. The child remained still under her touch, but now Panchali had no doubt. A tiny but strong pulse beat against her palm. ‘Govinda…’
Govinda leant down over the child to blow into his tiny mouth. Panchali could feel the boy’s chest heave as air filled his lungs.
‘Breathe, my son,’ Govinda urged. ‘Breathe and you’ll see that life and death are but illusions. You are eternal, a part all existence. Look around you and feel the joy of Oneness. Look, my son! Breathe!’
With a loud, hearty cry, the boy complied.
Dharma and his brothers were welcomed at Indr-prastha by the newborn crown prince, whom Govinda had named Parikshith – the effulgence of life. That night, no one slept, except for Govinda and the newborn. The others sat as they were, watching the boy and the man in deep slumber next to each other. None could bear to be away from either of them for an instant.
The days passed in content, companionable togetherness till it was time for Dharma’s coronation, once again, as the Emperor of Aryavarta, a title he took on knowing full well that it was a transient one, a precursor to a formal rule of the people. Suka, Dwaipayana’s son, performed the rites as a frail Dwaipayana watched from his seat of honour.
Govinda spoke once during the entire ceremony, when Yuyudhana hoarsely observed, ‘Shikandin and Dhrstyadymn would have been delighted…’
‘Yes,’ was all Govinda said.
And then it was time to go home.
Govinda chose a fine summer’s day to leave Indr-prastha. Dawn brought the glorious promise of a golden future, the red warmth of plenty and the clean, fresh smell of freedom. Yet those who had travelled the long road to this point in time went forth with heavy hearts.
Subadra cried like a child, begging Govinda and Balabadra to take her with them. She relented after Partha promised her that they would soon visit Dwaraka.
‘Truth be told, Govinda,’ Partha confessed, ‘I’m just as unwilling to let you go. Can’t you stay longer? Please? We all need you, especially little Parikshith here.’
Govinda said, ‘I can’t, Partha. There is one last loose end to tie up before this tale of the Kurus comes to an end, and we can unleash this little rascal on all Aryavarta,’ he said, stroking Parikshith with his finger.
The child wriggled with glee and wrapped his tiny fist around Govinda’s finger.
‘See?’ Partha pointed out. ‘Even he tells you to stay. And you plan to run off to who knows which corner of the world…’
‘I plan to go nowhere, Partha. This loose end will come looking for me, and soon.’
Tearful, they said their final goodbyes. Panchali did not cry. After all these years, all the meetings and partings, she felt numb. Instinct told her that it would be a long time before she saw Govinda again, if she ever did, but it did not matter. She felt too full, too saturated with emotion, to feel anything anymore.
‘Goodbye, Govinda.’
‘Goodbye, Empress.’ Govinda gazed long at her, drinking deep from her dark eyes. He left Indr-prastha without looking back.
Dharma and the others waited till the departing company could no longer be seen in the distance, and then began to disperse. Some left alone, tearful, while others wandered off in twos and threes, with wistful talks of the good old times. Panchali remained with him. They were finally alone, and it was time.
‘That day,’ Dharma began, ‘that day, at the dice game…Panchali, I need to know – why did you call out to Govinda? Why did you call out his name?’
Panchali felt a storm of sentiments well up inside her, b
ut it died, defeated by her tired numbness. For so long now, this matter had stood between her and Dharma; it had been the reason why so much had happened. She had lost count of the times she had longed to explain, or prayed that Dharma would ask her the question and so set her free of the burden of guilt he had implicitly laid on her. To the Emperor, it had little to do with fidelity and trust, and everything to do with duty. The duty that had been destined to her as daughter, as wife, princess and queen.
As Arya.
She turned to face Dharma. Age showed on him, in the lines of his face, his rounded back. A lifetime spent defending this system, and even now he doesn’t understand that it has crumbled to nothing around him. Dharma, Emperor of Aryavarta.
Panchali felt her heart go out to her husband, and she thought to explain, to tell him that beyond his tiny, constricted notions of duty and destiny was a greater cause – humanity. She wanted to shout out loud that to call out Govinda’s name had been to reach out for that spark of humanity within her, to find herself, not him, for such was their relationship – nameless, formless and beyond judgements of propriety and purity, forged in the fire of sacrifice and burnt to cinders in those same flames.
But, Panchali realized, Dharma would not understand. He had accepted that it was his task now to pass on the reins of power to the people, to change the world as he knew it, but he would never fully comprehend why he did it all. In its own way, that was his redemption.
With a sad smile, Panchali gave him the only answer he could accept.
‘Destiny, Dharma. It was destiny.’
6
ALL THESE YEARS, AND IT STILL DOES NOT END.
Balabadra Rauhineya, leader of the Federation of Yadu Nations at Dwaraka, was a veteran of numerous battles, a man who had gazed on the carnage at Kuru’s Fields with sadness and disgust, but without fear. Yet, as he stared at the smouldering rubble of what had, not too long ago, been the Yadu garrison of Prabhasa, he felt too old, too tired and too broken to find courage or acceptance within. He was also too weary to deny the singular fact that he had either failed to notice, or had not needed to see, that Govinda Shauri too was now an old man.
Balabadra took a step towards his brother, glancing down as something squelched underfoot. He cried out, the sound becoming halfway an instinctive retch. Entrails coated his toes; the smell of human waste and precious flesh mingled in an indiscernible reek to reach his nose. Balabadra was glad that the man’s face had been crushed to nothingness, and he did not know whose corpse it was he had trampled on.
Can curses come true, he wondered, his mind searching for a grip on the unacceptable reality around him. Govinda had told him of the words Gandhari spoke when he had met her after the battle of Kurukshetra. Many years had passed; Dharma Yudhisthir held, in trust for the people, the title of Emperor of Aryavarta. His grandson, Parikshith, was now a young man. Gandhari, Dhritarastra, Vidur and Pritha were dead, Sanjaya had settled into quiet seclusion at Dwaipayana’s hermitage, and Devala had not been seen or heard of again in all Aryavarta. Kritavarman – the only Yadu to have fought for Syoddhan and survived – seemed to have forgotten his wounds, physical and emotional, from the war. But as Balabadra saw the bodies of his kinsmen, slain in the thousands and in so heinous a manner, he could not help but think that some wounds could not be healed after all. In a way, the Queen’s enraged words had indeed borne true.
‘Govinda…’ Balabadra called out. He needed the sanity that his brother alone could provide, though it was a madness of its own kind.
Govinda said, ‘It was a trap, Agraja. They were brought here and ambushed. I told Yuyudhana that I had misgivings, but it is my fault that I did not insist. I suppose a part of me hoped that Kritavarman had truly got over the past, both the events of our youth as well as all that happened during the Great War.’
‘Kritavarman never forgave Yuyudhana for taking your side during the Great War; nor could he forget the death of his friends and kinsmen at Yuyudhana’s hands. But why kill so many, just for vengeance against one man?’
‘That is what I want to know…and I think I’ve found the answer,’ Govinda said, bending down to turn over a partly crushed body. ‘Kritavarman lies here with the rest of them. Either he failed to get away in time or he was led into the very trap he had set by one who wants vengeance against us all…’
‘Devala!’ Balabadra spat out.
‘Yes. Devala. It would have also been a simple plan to suggest to Kritavarman, yet one that Devala could twist to his own needs. Already the garrison housed the men on armed forces duty; the leaders alone had been missing. Kritavarman’s invitation brought them and their personal guard here, right into Devala’s grasp. What men he didn’t kill with his explosions would have probably died fighting each other.’ With that he picked up a blood-stained sword.
‘No!’ Balabadra cried out, recognizing it as Pradymna’s. He began looking around for his nephew, holding an untenable hope that he was alive.
Govinda ignored him, lost in thought. Out loud he said, ‘But why here, why at Prabhasa and not Dwaraka? Unless…’
‘What…?’ Balabadra spun around.
Govinda moved swiftly to recover a bow and a partly damaged quiver of arrows from the dead grasp of a Narayaniya commander. He pulled out a vellum-wrapped coil of bowstring from his waist sash and proceeded to string the weapon.
‘Are you mad?’ Balabadra said. Still Govinda did not respond. It soon became clear why.
The incessant sea-breeze had cleared the smoke and Balabadra saw men pouring out of the woods. ‘Mercenaries!’ he growled, but renewed his objection nevertheless. ‘There’s not enough time, Govinda! Let it be…’
Rummaging around on the ground at his feet, Balabadra found a bar of hard iron – a pestle that had been used, in all probability, to pound spices to flavour wine. He picked it up. The mercenaries were closer now, advancing without hesitation. Two badly armed men against fifty or so were hardly reason to pause.
‘Govinda!’ Balabadra shouted. His brother was still engaged in fitting the string without hurry, as though he were on a pleasant hunt. Balabadra’s grip on the rod tightened and he swung with all his might as the first of the enemy attacked. He fought like a demon and soon had four men down, but two had already got past him and were almost upon Govinda. Balabadra was too far away to stop them.
‘No!’ he yelled, as one of the mercenaries raised his sword to strike. Govinda had not even glanced up.
The bow sang twice, two arrows flying from it in quick succession. Govinda did not wait. He advanced as the two dead soldiers hit the ground, taking aim at those further away. With unerring precision, he swatted down the enemy, arrow after arrow flying off the string. A reassured Balabadra continued to swing his weapon, bringing down every man within his reach, till he heard the enemy sound a retreat.
It was again just the two of them, surrounded by blood and ruin.
‘They will strike again,’ Govinda said. ‘We’ve hardly killed a fourth of their numbers; they are simply being cautious.’
‘Let them come. We’ll kill them all!’
‘No, Agraja, we don’t have much time…’ Govinda’s even tone belied the urgency in his eyes. ‘We’ve got to get back. Dwaraka is in terrible danger…’
Balabadra stood where he was, stunned senseless.
‘Agraja, please,’ Govinda was now firm. ‘We must go now. The target was not the armies alone.’
Balabadra slowly stirred as he heard a shrill horn. More soldiers emerged from the woods for an offensive, their depleted numbers now replenished by a waiting rearguard. This time, it would be a battle to the end. ‘Go,’ he said.
It was Govinda’s turn to be astonished. ‘What?’
‘Go, brother. Ride fast.’
Govinda did not move. Balabadra glared at him, willing him to understand. He had lost the will to live, the will to fight. He finally saw what they had become, driven by their pride, the intoxication of victory and success. In his own way, Balabadra accepted, h
e was a tyrant – a benevolent one possibly, but a tyrant all the same. From the pinnacles of Dwaraka he had looked down over land and sea, dictating what he thought was fair and good. He had not been wrong, he had not been cruel. But that was irrelevant. Like all those Govinda had destroyed, Balabadra too was a part of the decaying system that had to be uprooted to make way for change. Someday, Govinda had said, I may even ask you to spill the blood of those you love the most, to destroy everything… Trust me, brother…
It was time.
If only, he noted, it were that easy. Balabadra looked at Govinda with unfettered affection. ‘Once more, you must run, isn’t it? Once more, you will place the lives of others before your honour. Poor Govinda! Have I failed to protect you, as I ought to have, little one? How many times I have wondered what my role in all this has been. Does your victory lie as blame on my head? Or have I been so selfish that I thought of myself alone, and not of you and your pain…’
Govinda turned, wide-eyed, to his brother. ‘Agraja…’ he began, but he had no words to go on.
‘Go,’ Balabadra repeated, this time gentle.
Govinda nodded. And then he was gone.
Alone, the burly wrestler got set to face the advancing soldiers. His mind was now at ease and the thrill of battle was upon him as he poised himself, feet firm on the ground, the iron pestle ready and swinging from his hand. Seeing that he was alone, the mercenaries rushed at him as one. With a blood-curdling yell Balabadra fell upon them, swinging the pestle right into the face of his attackers; grunting in satisfaction as the heavy rod smashed into the men’s skulls. His brute strength was enough to allow him to kill with a single blow. But for each man who went down, three more seemed to spring out of the earth. He was surrounded, outnumbered beyond hope. No matter, he told himself, he was ready to die.
It was as if someone had heard him speak the words aloud. A long-tipped spear ran through his gut with a searing pain. Balabadra staggered back only to receive a heavy blow from a mace. He could taste blood and bile in his mouth, and his vision blurred. This was it. With a soft smile, he let the pestle fall from his hand. He felt no pain as more blows rained on him nor did he feel the sword as it cleaved off his right arm.
The Aryavarta Chronicles Book 03: Kurukshetra Page 46