Until the Lions

by Karthika Nair

  more distant from insight and joy there’ll never be –

  rains, till it shatters earth into a million eyes,

  till unrest and greed spill haemic light from our sons.

  If I could, I’d halt Time, force him back to the day

  a million eyes rained on Gandhar’s earth to carve out

  your grave that I have been carrying for all these years,

  made heavier each day. I’d force Time to halt, return,

  and I’d kill you myself while you were still a child.

  SATYAVATI

  X. FAULT LINES

  Eighteen years. Eighteen more years of joy and colour I own in my heart. Eighteen years when my blood smiled and flourished. Years of peace and pride and prosperity as Hastina healed, little by little, from the grief and fear and febrility of quick royal deaths and ownerless crowns. Joy, but the quiet, grateful joy of those who dare not exult too much, having met all too often the baneful underside of bliss. We would not, I think, ever again believe – or not fully, at least – in the benevolence of Fate and our numberless deities, so we savoured, bit by delectable bit (each as though it were the last), the flavour of every day without a tragedy. I watched Vidura, Pandu and Dhritarashtra – my grandsons, born to Poorna, Ambalika and Ambika – grow; grow, each in his own way, into leviathans. Each so different, but his brothers’ missing segment – together they were an infrangible inconel bolt. I watched Bheeshma step into painfully familiar – though fond – shoes, those of preceptor, of near-parent. This time, though, he really did keep his heart in quarantine: he lavished learning and skills, wisdom and statecraft on his nephews, but withheld the warmth and tenderness, for most part, except to the throne. I watched Ambika and Ambalika recover, timorous and disbelieving at first, from the couplings I’d enjoined of them; recover and ripen into dowagers, sure and stately. And Poorna, whose life I had spared – unreasonably, rued the court at first – despite the deception; I watched her bequeath an age-old, quiet serenity on her son. I watched and rejoiced, and wondered how long it could all last, and rejoiced all the same.

  Listen. Listen, then came the time to coronate the next suzerain, when Bheeshma and I crossed words once again, for Bheeshma stood obdurate that Pandu should be made king, and I insisted otherwise, convinced of a reign by triumvirate. Only an able-bodied, blue-blooded prince should be crowned monarch, persisted Bheeshma, and Dhritarashtra, though impeccable of breeding and strong of reasoning, was born blind, and the sightless could not rule, declared our regent. While Vidura, ablest, most astute and heaven-sent of the three siblings, bore not a trace of kshatriya blood in his being – his mother was a dasi, Bheeshma bemoaned, and the father, whilst a legendary sage, had fisher-stock in his veins. And wasn’t Pandu, I retorted, though invincible a warrior, too reckless to be king – not to mention, as we alone knew, unfit to produce heirs? Let them, I urged, rule together – each redeeming the others’ failings. Besides, I cautioned, to be removed from crown and throne would gnarl Dhritarashtra’s soul, maim him more than blindness ever could and lead him to loathe his kin. That, Bheeshma countered, was no reason he should be named sovereign – kingship was not an exercise in self-affirmation, it was the kingdom he had to consider. The kingdom, came my response, would not survive a heart that spurned its own blood. Our words snarled. Our words glared. Our words circled, baying for full victory. There they stood – bare-clawed, fanged, tentacled, eager to pounce and rent when, all of a sudden, I tired.

  Listen, I tired of the whole rigmarole, of the mausoleum of a future that pressed on my pharynx. I tired of my actions, tired of our lynxlike words, tired of watching my choices tumble in the wind, a stalk of ants clinging to the tune of a dented lute. I would not, I said to myself, stand in the way of Bheeshma’s convictions, nor press my case further – it was his turn to take the reins of choice for kin and country, to feel free to unleash errors and revel in his own decisions. It was a strange floweret, this fatigue that had so rapidly bloomed without discernible root or calyx: a fatigue that threatened to overwhelm my words, my purpose. I had to retreat, I saw, with the daybreak of clarity, retreat to quieter times, at least for a while. But I couldn’t, not just yet, for there was a slew of ceremonies, and my absence, Bheeshma averred, would be read as dissent by court and kingdom – with the queen-mother’s discord a heady stimulant for future disaffection, he held. Order, he insisted, must be maintained whatever the cost to personal feelings or well-being. So I stayed, and saw, and saw differently, through eyes cleansed by tiredness and distance. Words eluded me, but not thought. I saw rage and shame shimmer in Dhritarashtra’s chest, nerves channelling dark fuel from heart to limbs each day. I saw Pandu’s inborn pride sediment into hubris. I saw the court dance obeisance to the king, quietly disregarding the eldest prince, more and more each day. I saw them scoff at the youngest, the lowborn one, I saw them revile him more brazenly each day, and there I intervened once again: I bid Bheeshma designate Vidura prime minister of Kuru, central pillar of Hastina’s court – an office independent of birth. He agreed, instantly, as I’d hoped he would: if it didn’t menace his cherished social stasis, Bheeshma was happy to espouse efficiency, even a simulacrum of equality.

  Then, I left. I left with Poorna and an entourage of soldiers, charioteers, cooks, physicians and loyal servants. I left, but not before exhorting Bheeshma to pay twice-fold heed to Dhritarashtra’s hopes and dreams – the boy’s wounds could still heal, deep and putrid though they throbbed. Do what it takes, I pressed, to make him happy again, if you want to keep this kingdom whole. Dhritarashtra is a man of mighty but slow passions: while he will not detonate overnight his hate can corrode the bedrock of this dynasty. Do not let him get steeped in self-pity – that will spell collective doom. There is unbridled love in his heart, but make no mistake; the venin that looms in his blood is just as potent. Do not give it room to rise to his troubled mind. Do not let him find his way to sin. And with that, I left, voyaging first to the sacred sites where the ancient rivers meet: it was time, I felt, to thank all the forces that had kept hope alive, and perhaps pray – pray, like I never had, to an ambush of gods I still did not entirely trust – for that cascade of blessings to keep flowing. Thence, to Prayaga we travelled, confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswathi, said the sages, consecrated by nectar from the gods during the cosmic churning; Prayaga, whose waters could wash all vice and sin, they swore.

  (Though people there, I found – unsurprised, on the whole – were not specially devout, not more, that is, than in any other spot; all the sacred waters had little effect on the thieves and louts who scavenged around its hallowed banks. Salvation, I thought once again, was unlike a king; it would not tread on unwelcoming ground, much less pitch its pennant.) From Prayaga, we moved to Kashi, childhood city of Ambika and Ambalika, then from there, further southwest, to Somnath and the warm climes of Kamboj.

  Listen. Listen, several years passed, years of quiet and peace and discovery. It was – let’s not pretend – invigorating to shed the mantle of the land I’d worn for more years than I could count, to wander the realm unattended by royal cares, to have to withstand merely cyclones and fierce mountains, marauding bands and the odd, rampaging bull-elephant. And the company of rivers, after such a long hiatus, appeased both heart and mind – it was little short of a family reunion, I’d never felt so much at ease since the early demise of my younger sons. But our halcyon existence was to cease, for all too soon, came Bheeshma’s urgent summons – the duta Ajay, his private messenger (reliable, if young), caught up with us on the route to Madurai. Ajay had never been one to equivocate or stand on protocol. Queen Mother, he submitted, Lord Bheeshma begs you to return forthwith. Maharani Gandhari has been pregnant for two years, and shows no signs yet of parturition. King Dhritarashtra’s frenzy to attain fatherhood before his brother knows no bounds; he had soldiers and priests scour the land for the most fertile maiden to beget his children since the Maharani has been, begging
your pardon, somewhat inadequate. Lord Bheeshma feels you are the only person who can prevent him from further folly. It sounded like a clutter of conundrums to me, all mewling for attention. Maharani Gandhari? A two-year pregnancy? King Dhritarashtra? King? How did that transpire when Bheeshma was so unyielding on the issue of blind monarchs? And where was Pandu? When did he stop being king? My questions tumbled faster than Ganga’s rapids up north. It was Ajay’s turn to look baffled. Hadn’t we met with the many messengers Lord Bheeshma had unfailingly sent through the years to announce each event, joyful or tragic? None ever returned to Hastina, but all our carrier pigeons had reached home, so no one felt any dread, though Bheeshma wondered now and then why I hadn’t sent my blessings to all the newlyweds.

  Listen, the boy lost no time filling us in on the last seven years of Hastina’s annals. Dhritarashtra, soon after we had left, expressed a tender regard for the Princess of Gandhar, a maiden – sang the bards – so virtuous and dazzling that Lord Shiva himself had appeared to grant her a boon: not two or a dozen, but a hundred sons would she bear, he’d promised. Dhritarashtra had merely heard of her charms, but Bheeshma gathered, that’d been enough for heart and mind to disarm. Steadfast to my adjurations on saving the blind prince from fatal gloom, Bheeshma sent the King of Gandhar a generous bid for his daughter’s hand – so certain of the impending nuptials (Kuru much mightier than a far-off mountain land), he even had a palace built for the future couple. Therein perhaps the wrath – crimson, cataclysmic – that reared unbidden when he received Gandhar’s rebuff, clear as the streams in that high country: No daughter of mine will be made to wed a blind man, at least not during my lifetime, however vast the wingspan of his kingdom or treasury.

  It was a carnage, said Ajay, as ever deadpan. They never stood a chance. For out marched Bheeshma, Pandu at his flanks, both in deathly martial trance, with the entire Kuru army, falling on the Gandhar citadel with more hunger and savagery than a shiver of tiger sharks. Adults and children and the ancient were decimated – even-handed were my kinsmen in bloodlust – beginning with the father who’d stated not in my lifetime, who met an end both slow and barbarous. The epoch they slaughtered drowned Gandhar’s mountains in claret. The Kuru forces returned victorious with Princess Gandhari, and her sole living kin: her youngest brother, a lame, solemn child named Shakuni. Why did Bheeshma spare his life, I asked, curious at such largesse when so many waifs had been slain. It was his sister’s only address when we reached the palace, recalled Ajay, she begged he be spared, she begged to see his face before she embraced sightlessness to match each step with her future husband. You see, she chose to wear a blindfold for the rest of her life. Lord Bheeshma was deeply stirred by her spousal devotion, he was ready to grant her every wish – but he’d already razed her kin and kingdom, so there wasn’t much else of a request. A shiver ran through my breasts on hearing his description: what kind of human blinds herself from fealty to a man she’d never met, a man she’d been forced to wed over the shattered lives and severed heads of her clan?

  The duta’s next account impinged on my ruminations. Lord Bheeshma then sought brides for King Pandu and Prime Minister Vidura. Vidura, though, found a wife all on his own – the younger sister of a ground landlord from another province, a damsel sound in scriptures, gentle, gracious. A union renowned in Hastina, their well deserved bliss soon crowned by two infants. Pandu, I learnt, followed his uncle’s bidding to the last syllable. First sent by Bheeshma to King Kuntibhoja’s court, he vied for – and won – the winsome, doe-eyed Princess Kunti’s heart and lot. A year later, Ajay added, Bheeshma married Pandu off once more: for a king, he thought, needed more than one consort (both as strategic alliance and after-life insurance). The second bride, for some reason, had to be bought, and Princess Madri – fragrant and voluptuous as Usha, the dawn goddess – got from the Kuru coffers several chests of gold and pearl and coral, wrought-iron arms and a war elephant. Everyone in Madra and Kuru – save Kunti, whose opinions were not sought – called it a match made in heaven. Before he could fully savour his uxorious haven, Pandu, alas, had to lead a conquest of another kind; turn invader on kingdoms near and far at Bheeshma’s behest. Kashi (yes, once again: that land could find no rest), Anga, Vanga and Kalinga, Magadha and Dasarna (which had shown no signs of unrest): the Kuru escutcheon quelled regions all over Bharatavarsha.

  You’d think he’d weary after so much mayhem, but Pandu was, it appeared, a true Kuru – in spirit, if not by blood. After the nationwide rampage, he left with both his brides on an extended hunt in the northern mountains, his notion of the perfect honeymoon. It was the silly season for venery. Pandu would kill by day and conjugate by moonlight – a pleasing arrangement for everyone, from wives to cooks to servitors. One morning, let’s say, a rare, soft morning in beryl, claret and cream, with the gods – alas, once again! – at play in some other clime, Pandu – like many a royal ancestor – went off to hunt, as kings are wont. He chased and stalked, trapped, shot and killed. Having killed and killed again, littered the land with dead hart and doe, tiger, partridge, even crow, he spotted a sudden movement in the clearing. Sighting a stag and hind rutting, musk deer, he thought, as the male mounted his eager, quivering mate. Slighting the first, sacred law of the hunt, never seek or attack animals in the throes of passion, the king – drunk on an altogether deadlier potion – sent an arrow through both their loving groins.

  Listen. Listen, even Pandu, practised killer that he was, felt his flesh congeal as a bestial scream tore the earth apart. Stag and hind, mangled and bleeding, transformed into man and woman kneeling and shuddering – and still bleeding – before Pandu’s startled eyes: it was a rishi and his wife, who’d turned into deer to prolong the pleasure of coition, their favoured sport and pastime, a lethal one, alas, in these godless climes. Alas, alas, for them, there was just an agonising, unsatiated end ahead – but the rishi struck back with the last remnants of his breath. Cruel, heartless king, you who know it is forbidden to hunt animals in rut, a sin to attack couples that are mating, may you die the instant you try copulating with your wife or concubine. May you learn to pine for your beloved’s touch, may you yearn to spill your seed into a woman. May you drown each night in torment for this malign deed. And with that vicious curse, the rishi perished on his dead lover’s breasts. Alas, alas for Pandu, he could neither repent nor repine. It was the end of his dreams of greater glory, and very nearly the end of his story. The king abjured his crown, he sent back his royal guards and priests, attendants and ministers, he would have sent his wives too if he could, but Kunti and Madri clung on to him as vines do to a peepul, vowing that celibacy by his side would be their chosen lot. They renounced all earthly possessions, removed weapons and silks and gold from their persons, and swore to live as sanyasis, swore to become hermits without human desires.

  That, Ajay continued, is how Prince Dhritarashtra was crowned king of Kuru, overlord of much of Bharatavarsha, of all the kingdoms his brother had won in his last, triumphal march. And yet, and yet, although he dwelled in the heart of the Himalayas with a mortal curse over his head, it was Pandu who, unwittingly (or perhaps not, could it really be that innocent?) had designed the current frenzy in Dhritarashtra’s mind. Two years and a bit earlier, the news had arrived that Kunti was pregnant – wandering ascetics had brought the good news. Bheeshma hailed it as divine intervention, and rewarded the messengers lavishly but Dhritarashtra, oddly, tried to slay them with bare arms. Strange things began to happen: Gandhari, also pregnant, would camber and grow and stretch, a near full moon, but her babies remained unborn – this after the twenty-first month, while Dhritarashtra had grown malignant with despair and envy. And when the king heard – this time through spies – that Kunti would soon deliver her firstborn, Pandu’s son, he frothed like one possessed. The queen had then sworn she’d tear her belly rather than see him bed another woman, when she’d heard of the new – priestly-sanctioned – scheme for an heir. That was when Bheeshma, in desperation, ha
d deemed it time to summon me back.

  Listen, I heard the full account, and I saw a vortex, a wave, a leap tide of metal; a ripple of stones and pebbles in spume. Rock warriors would rise, I could hear their chant in my bones, many-armed and lethal, they would fling meteors at brothers and lovers, fathers and grandsons. I could see the sun melt into the sea, and a giant orb of slag engulf his seat on the horizon. I could see the earth go blind. In that instant, the future sang to me in a voice of flint, sharp and thin and sulphurous. I could see all of it – every wound and want and villainy that lurked ahead. It was pralaya that gestated in Kunti’s and Gandhari’s wombs, not children, not heirs. This was a gift I had never desired, that even I – with all my failings – did not deserve, the gift of such clear prophecy as dreamt of by seers. Why could the gods – if they really did exist – not choose another being? Now I would have to return even as I could hear my body crumble, its words dissolve and tremble, the letters unreel, the curlicues trail and fade into nothing. There was little I could do, but I had to return. I had to return. We ride at dawn, I declared, we ride at dawn despite flash floods and the approaching monsoon. There are greater dangers than inclement weather ahead. Send word to Bheeshma.

  Brothers will duel

  in dharma’s name – low, the cost

  of moral victory.

  HIDIMBI

  RESIDUUM (EPISTLES)

  (i)

  For it is spring,

  Kirmira. For it is

  spring in Hidimbavana

  again. Not the first

  spring, for Chaitra has been

  before, many a time – and will

  leave again. But for now,

  the roots smell moist and green,