‘But even now Gandhari is marrying into the royal family of Hastinapur, my lady.’
‘She is,’ said Ganga, ‘but she does so out of revenge. She does so with the sole ambition of plotting the downfall of the Kuru race, and it is vital for this purpose that she is married to the more docile prince, Kubera, and that she does not become queen, because now she will have a lot of time to think about the wrongs done to her. And the longer you think of your misfortunes, the bigger they seem to grow, and the more they begin to trouble you.’
He nodded, but his face still looked pained. ‘And what about Kunti, my lady?’
‘She is the second strand, and perhaps the most important. We did not plan for her; indeed, when Surya came to me on the day before he was to set out for Earth, his sole purpose was to find out what was happening in the town of Mathura, and he only saw her as the easiest way into the city. Without her help, we would not have taken the black stones from that city, and we would not have weakened it like we did, for if Mathura had continued on its path of studying the Mystery of the stone, I suspect it would have become a close rival to Hastinapur by now.’
‘And we did not want that.’
‘No,’ said Ganga. ‘We wished for Hastinapur to be the strongest kingdom. Also, the black stone is a marvellous Mystery, and it will do for us a great amount of good. If we use it right, we may never have to fight a war with any kingdom again.’
‘About Kunti–’
‘Yes, Surya was smitten with Kunti, and he thought she would make a great queen to Hastinapur. She would be the other half, with Gandhari being the first. She would bear the powerful sons, the sons of the Celestials, and she would arrive at Hastinapur expecting to rule it, expecting to be the Queen Mother in time. So you have ambition on one side, and entitlement on the other.’
‘But there was another son, my lady,’ said Kubera, ‘the one that Kunti bore Surya.’
Ganga’s mouth twisted at this. The sun had begun to sink in the sky now, with only half of its shape visible over the horizon. She had the feeling that the Celestial was hiding his face from her anger. For he had been strictly forbidden from bearing any Earthly maidens children, and yet he had gone ahead and done it. He had said that the boy would grow up in Hastinapur and play a ‘great role’ in its destiny, but it was hard to believe him. For one, Celestials always believed that their sons were destined for great things.
‘He,’ she said, scratching her forehead with one finger, ‘was a mistake.’
‘A mistake!’
‘A small one,’ said Ganga, ‘but a mistake nonetheless. He will be in Hastinapur, so perhaps Kunti will take him in and rear him as her own. Perhaps he shall play no part at all in what is to come, I know not. But he adds one more ingredient to the broth, Kubera, and when you try and shape the future, perhaps more is not necessarily bad. We shall find some use for him, for after all, he is the son of a Celestial.’
Kubera nodded. ‘I am still troubled,’ said he, ‘because I fear for the future of the mountain.’
She patted him on the cheek. ‘The mountain shall be safe, Kubera. With the Crystal Lake and now the black stones with us, I think not that any kingdom on Earth shall ever touch us. No, not even Hastinapur.’
‘But you said there were three strands–’
‘Yes,’ said Ganga, and even as she said it, her heart grew heavy. She had told Kubera that no man or woman could foretell the future, and yet whenever she thought of Amba, her vision blurred, her stomach turned. Somewhere deep within her, she felt that she knew the answer. But she dared not give it voice. ‘The third strand is Amba,’ she said. ‘She is another of those women that Devavrata has wronged, and we have nurtured her and seen to it – through the High Sage Parashurama – that she has borne a child, a female child, who shall grow into a maiden.’
‘The father is the king of Pachala, I hear,’ said Kubera.
‘Indeed,’ said Ganga, smiling. ‘Panchala and Hastinapur have been enemies for a long time now. Drupad has not had a child before – or even after this babe – so he shall have no choice but to accept her as his. And she will grow up a princess, then perhaps she will grow into a queen, but wherever she goes, she will carry within her heart her mother’s hatred for Devavrata.’
‘I see,’ said Kubera, and for once she saw the knot in his eyebrows smoothen, and the creases on his cheeks vanish.
‘You do see,’ she said. ‘There are two ways to fight your foe, Kubera. One is by force, by battering him down repeatedly, making him weaker with each blow, until he falls down never to get up again. That was the way of the Dark Ones before us, but we – we think it is better to strengthen your enemy and make him bigger than he has ever been, but make sure that you build in these little cracks in the founding pillars, so that you can later find and widen them as you need to.’
‘All of this,’ said Kubera, ‘to get at one man?’
The sun had disappeared, and the stars began to twinkle in sight. When Ganga turned her head to the other side she saw the yellow crescent just about to begin her rise. Like she had on that unforgettable night all those years ago by the peepal, she looked for a star at the tip but found none. Any time now, the mother doe would bound out of the bushes for her berries, and she did not wish to be around to scare her away.
‘It is never about one man or one woman, Kubera,’ she said, standing up. He got to his feet too, and bowed to her. She touched her palm to the hair on his scalp and murmured a blessing. ‘There are always bigger tales afoot than yours and mine. Remember that.’ She saw his face crumple up again at her words, and before he could ask her a question, she gestured him toward the stairs. ‘It is time for my evening prayers. Perhaps we could speak of this at a later time.’
‘My lady,’ he said, and turned away. She did not wait to see him descend the steps and make his way to the boat. She hurried away to her front door and let herself in, giving her eyes a moment to get used to the darkness of the hut. She groped with her free hand and found the firestone. At her fireplace, she gathered some hay and began to scratch the stone against the hearth. The first two sparks were too weak, and they fizzled out after they touched the hay. But the third caught fire, and Ganga reached for her blowpipe. Just then she heard the sound of hoof against stone on the porch, followed by a light gurgle. The mother doe had come.
She smiled to herself. All was well, now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharath Komarraju is a Bangalore-based author. He began life as a software engineer but has since jumped the fence to write full time. His first novel, Murder in Amaravati, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2013. Perhaps his best known work is the Hastinapur series, which attempts to tell the story of the Mahabharata through the thoughts and lives of the epic’s lesser known female characters. When he’s not writing, he’s either watching cricket or talking to his wife, or trying to watch cricket while talking to his wife.
Also by Author
Novels
Murder in Amaravati
Banquet on the Dead
The Winds of Hastinapur
The Puppeteers of Palem
Nari
The Crows of Agra
Non-fiction
Money Wise: The Aam Aadmi’s Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom
Short Fiction
Jump, Didi!
The Narrow Road to Palem
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First published in India in 2015 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Sharath Komarraju
2015
P-ISBN: 978-93-5177-376-4
Epub Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 978-93-5177-377-1
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Sharath Komarraju asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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The Rise of Hastinapur Page 33