accursed, destined to die; sludge and blood to be their pall.
No pall, no pyre, no funeral song.
They deserve more: once dead, even sinners should belong.
Some sinners. Flawed, for sure, all. Yet dear,
my brothers: Hastina’s lights that wane; will disappear.
Each light I shall weep – weep and recite
their names, etch their voices on these woods, this wind, this night.
For their warts, voices, their nights, their loves,
all vanish – when dead, they’ll know fame as hundred Kauravs.
Reduced to a number, a clan name.
That cannot be. They must be remembered. Mourned. Reclaimed.
First VIRJASA, my nearest sibling,
once the child who lassoed stars with Father’s signet ring.
Strands of that wonder I hold within
the heart, candescent, clean, free from all sorrow and sin.
KUNDASHI, the one with a quarter-
moon on his cheek; earth and sky to his little daughter.
DIRGHABAHU, DIRGHAROMA, both
were melomaniacs – their aubades, the day’s happiest troth.
MAHABAHU, we often forgot –
there’s one like him in every clan, silent floe of thought.
ANAADHRISHYA, ALOLUPA and
ABHAYA breathed and lived as one, digits of a hand.
CHITRANGA commanded fealty.
With phoneme, frown and tread, he exuded royalty.
KAANCHANADHWAJA, folks often took
for gandharva: bewitching as midnight, tined as hook.
SAMA and SAHA wore summer’s crest
in their eyes. The bards claimed their smiles ushered each harvest.
Siblings tend to discount each other’s
charms, but even I saw beauty in these two brothers.
JALAGANDHA was clearly mortal.
But when he spoke, words seemed to unbolt heaven’s portal.
DUSHPRADHARSHANA was not handsome.
But his heart, his giant heart, was worth a king’s ransom.
DHRIDARATHASRAYA had fought hard
and long with his wayward locks, then went bald as reward.
You wouldn’t spot DURMARSHANA – lithe
and small – in a crowd. But no target could miss his scythe.
SULOCHANA was a bully, though.
SARASANA too. Neither was good with sword or bow.
DUSSALA, DUSHKARNA, DURMUKHA,
savants, urged us all to forsake the path of duhkha.
Then VEERYAVAN, PRAMATHA, also
VIRAVI: once my heroes, slayers of infant woe.
They’d speared nightmares, the dark and dragons.
They’d made my childhood the brightest, blithest of seasons.
Like a mountain oak stood VIVITSU,
firm, tall and peaceful – rare was the battle he’d debut.
VIKARNA and KARNA, the kingdom’s
moral hinge: cursed, the day our court expunged your anthems.
DUSSHASAN became a fearsome curse –
a raptor owned his heart. His malice signalled our hearse.
UPACHITRA and CHITRAKSHA swayed
easily – that infamous day, they joined the melee.
CHARUCHITHRA was more a cipher.
I never knew if he’d be tiger, steed or viper.
DURMADA and DURVIGHA abstained
from both sides till the war – they just craved a stable reign.
Far-sighted was our KUNDHABHEDI.
He’d warned Father of that blue krait, Maama Shakuni.
In vain, for Father never listened.
And Shakuni’s pale nimbus ate and grew and glistened.
RAUDRAKARMA and VIRABAHU,
gentle scribes: both to their monikers remained untrue.
DURDHARSHA and CHITRAKUNDALA
spent their waking hours crafting intricate mandala.
Not SUBAHU nor DUSSAHA, who
only cared to hunt creatures that ran or swam or flew.
VIKTANA loved weapons. Not to kill
with, but to carve, forge and hone; the strength required, the skill.
URNANABHA and SUNABHA taught
soldiers to become arrows: straight lines, swift, light and taut.
UPANANDA cared deeply for joy,
not just his own, but all the people in his employ.
Sweet sorrow blooms each time memory
unearths pranksters KUNDADHARA, KRADHAN and KUNDI.
Their laughter spilled beyond palace walls –
fresh, vibrant laughter, now to be cradled by earth’s caul.
While DHANURDHARA’S banner stirred fear
in the sinews and hearts of warriors far and near.
AADITYAKETU, I never knew,
at least, not until I touched the shattered skies he drew.
SUVARCHA, though – also VATVEGA –
I could see through, whether quick hoax or ornate saga.
DURADHARA and SUHASTHA were
different: they studied scriptures, they spoke in a blur.
BHIMVIKRAMA while a gifted cook,
too, preferred – unlike his near-namesake – to devour books.
KAVACHI, UGRASAYI along
with SADAS forever stayed teens – they loved feeling wronged.
APRAMATHIN, though, was wise from day
one: he steered clear of the endless Pandav-Kaurav fray.
Now, alas, even he has no choice.
Each kin must take sides; no room is left for a sane voice.
VISHALAKSH, KUNDASAI, APARAJIT
and SENANI, great archers, deserve another myth.
UGRASEN busied himself without
fuss – healing souls and bodies maimed through war, fire and drought.
MAHODARA’S talent never sought
acclaim. But when he danced, constellations were rewrought.
Our mahouts prized NAGAADAT dearly.
He could calm the deadliest beast with a caress, merely.
And DUSHPARAJAI was adored
by Nishadas: he’d soar with them till the ocean floor.
Grandsire Bheeshma disapproved of these
lowborn pursuits – and of CHITHRA, who grew shala trees.
Grandsire once had exiled BAHVASI
for mouthing strange, volcanic words like democracy.
But he never raised voice or eyebrow
the day DHRIDHAHASTHA slew a maid who did not bow.
Nor was UGRASRAVA reproved when
he razed a Kuru town: Mistakes happen to all men.
SUVARMA was hailed by the court for
banning fisher-folk from town – thus was varna restored.
Of all my brothers, AYOBAHU
alone asked if I wished to wed the King of Sindhu.
SATHYASANDHA, amidst all this roil,
became my comfort, my compass; he shone tall as foil.
JARASANDHA got away for some
time. In Hampi he learnt new tongues, and quaffed the humdrum.
DRIDASANDHA and ANUDARA
found harbour in their brides, doe-eyed twins from Sopara.
Their wives – Kriti and Saachi – well knew
the cost of war, one they’d hoped never again to view.
DURVIMOCHAN courted my husband’s
niece. She died young – and that phantom love he would not rend.
VINDA and ANUVINDA, shameless
flirts, knew the name of every woman in the palace.
Our maids Mother kept safe from abuse,
so CHITRABANA went elsewhere to claim seigneur’s dues.
BHIMVEGA had pined – lit
tle did we
know – for years, enamoured of a lissome nartaki.
SOMAKIRTI and PASHI remained
single – nuptial life, they professed, would drive them insane.
Grandsire spewed fire when SALAN explained
he liked men. Mother said: Life is no sin when unfeigned.
They all lost sleep over NISHANGI.
As teen, he’d run off with a bhang-eating yogini.
We had real misfits in the clan.
DRIDHAVARMA, poor soul, believed he was born a swan.
I recall the day that he – egged by
Bheema – near leapt off the turrets, certain he could fly.
Both frightened and repulsed me, as child,
till DRIDHAKSHATRA told me roses smelt fairest wild.
That those with whom you grow or belong
need not bear shades you’d choose, or the glow of evensong.
SUVARMA THE SECOND loathed his name.
A priest’s lapse: he’d had a hundred and one to declaim.
UGRAYUDHA and CHITHRAYUDHA
gained fame and fortune – across seven seas – as siddha.
CHITRAVARMA travelled far and wide,
then decided by which deity he would abide.
SUSHENA hailed Krishna as divine.
He said the Dark One would ravage all forces malign.
BALVARDHAN was a born agnostic.
Doubt was his faith, but he was intrigued by tantric.
CHITRAKUNDA refused to worship
the gods. Anyone else would have been slain, at least whipped.
But Kund diffused charm in abundance.
Gods don’t care for goodness, he’d quip without comeuppance.
All through, BHIMBALA and VALAKI –
devout, brave, gentle – stayed favourites of Ma Kunti.
YUYUTSU I cannot count among
kin: another mother he has, other heart and lung.
NANDA to Arjun was a dear friend.
Then the dice game and exile wreaked wounds that would not mend.
SATHWA and Nakul swore to sustain
their kinship till the end: some hearts will not be arraigned.
VRINDARAK and Bheema were kindred
spirits since boyhood. Now Bheem’s sworn to kill all hundred.
Vrindarak just asked it be rapid.
They both know oaths matter more in a war this sordid.
SUYODHAN. Ô where would I begin?
Finest of kings, staunchest friend: made synonymous with sin.
Gentle brother, had you not fallen
prey to wrath and greed, Kuru’d stay more blithe than heaven.
I scatter their memories – this past
imperfect, yet glorious – lest they be named outcast.
Scatter their names, their light like fireflies
among a conference of birds who sieve truth from lies.
Birds who’ll fly these truths – these tales – to times
and lands near and distant, so once more will sound their chimes.
While here, in Bhaarat, the bards will sing
only victors’ odes – psalms on the lost dead don’t greet spring.
ULUPI
THE CAPILLARIES OF COSMIC BODIES
Arjuna, I send you the son you’ve never seen:
our son, yes, your firstborn, Aravan. It will mean
nothing to you, his gentle name, I know. Nor mine,
perhaps – Ulupi, daughter of Kouravya, Queen
of the Naga. For names seldom count. To refine
your vision, recall Devprayag, the river shrine –
Ganga’s cradle – you’d visited in your first golden
year of exile. Recall the naiad who’d entwined
her pulse and breath with your own, plunging nine frozen
leagues down – down, with you in her arms, your heart molten
with wonder, limbs cursives of sudden, mute delight –
to the netherworld, shimmering, aqueous glen
of the serpent kings, and frontier of heaven’s might.
Recall how you had gazed, in the nacreous light,
at her speed, her allure, then begged to gain the same
mystic skills – to wage war underseas, to ignite
oceans with a single spell. Remembrance reclaims
you now, and oblivion blossoms into shame.
For though men of Kuru enjoy a history
of forgetting wives and lovers, to disclaim
a tutor – as I, who granted you victory
over seven worlds below earth – bodes misery,
moral ruin in your mind. But it scarce matters:
I’ve hardly pined that you expunged from memory
the mirrored blaze of my thighs and lips, or attar
from my rose! That night meant a quick, luscious patter
in both loins, nothing more – a night I had acquired
in return for the runes you needed to shatter
rival armies: your seed my teacher’s fee, the fire
to forge my child. For it was not burning desire
that impelled my barter for coitus, you see,
but my clan’s need for fresh warrior stock to sire
the next monarch. Yet our Elders first reproached me
for choosing an earthling, Indra’s son and demi-
divine though you were; worse, Aravan had to face
down, when young and unknowing, the ignominy
of words like half-breed and mutt, for the human race
stays second-rate among serpents. But he embraced,
to our surprise, his father’s blood with fiercer pride
in response, rising so tall and true that Disgrace –
who’d dogged his tread through childhood – fell by the wayside
and never caught up again. Staunchly has he tried
to be worthy of you. But more than the echo
of his sire – so much more – is this son who bestrides
seven spheres as numen, the camber of his bow
shaping earth’s vault while his smile ushers tomorrow.
He is what matters, Prince: Aravan, beyond wrong
or crown; the future, which is not ours to forgo.
I knew it would kill, I knew the ache to belong
would send him here, to this crazed, dissonant swansong
of war – for sons will slash their lifelines for distant
fathers, to please kin who’ve disdained them all along
while mothers and lovers and life, in an instant,
are forsaken for combat, for the swift, brilliant
death or painless triumph they believe lies ahead.
Neither – they will find, alas – proves to be constant.
I’d graft Aravan to the ocean floor, embed
my son within deep murmurs of my heart, or spread
him amongst the farthest stars to keep him from harm,
if I could – but moths seek the flaming braided thread
for death, even when unlit. Wherein lie fire’s charms,
Arjuna, what makes them yearn to drown in its arms?
I’ve mulled on that for long. I know what this portends,
but goddesses cannot mourn, nor raise an alarm.
I do not ask you to love him, nor to pretend.
Who can love on demand, even to make amends,
even one’s own blood? And Aravan deserves more,
as soldier, as being: I ask that you extend
to my son the courtesy, the care you’d outpour
on an ally; the candour you’d unveil before
equals. Do hold his filial trust unbetrayed,
; even the day you deflect his lifeblood, his core
to raze the foe, when war spreads from earth to invade
the skies, when the end crawls up, and its breath abrades
your spine. Grant him his lineage, complete with sheen:
watch him stroll towards death, his pulse the serenade.
KRISHNA
BLUEPRINT FOR A VICTORY
It’s war we’re waging. Look,
Yuddhishtira, someone must die,
must kill himself, and willingly, so
we can prevail. Or a galaxy of dead
eyes will be your only legacy
to this land, to this age.
Yuddhishtira, someone must die,
your priest insists. It’ll be amavasya
in a day: Surya and Chandra are about
to rise as one in the sky; Kali will crave
a human sacrifice, from the perfect
warrior on the front. Then
someone, Yuddhishtira, must die
tonight, before Duryodhana slays
a white elephant to gratify the gods
(and collects their choicest boons
for victory). I can hoodwink the sun,
the moon – and most others – but
someone must die, Yuddhishtira,
and remember, without pain, or wants
unsated. Three warriors alone on our
side can make the cut, their skins blessed
with the ritual signs of sacrifice, all thirty-
two: Arjuna, Prince Aravan, and I.
Someone must die, Yuddhishtira,
but not – you agree – your brother,
Arjuna, commander of our army, star
archer, and iris of your mother’s
eyes. But you needn’t panic, for I
can take on the role, of that
someone, Yuddhishtira, who must die!
Happily, since my death will bring
you victory, pledge I gave to Draupadi.
No, no, let me, cousin, for what is life
but a garment to wear and discard?
You insist you won’t let me be
someone who must die, Yuddhishtira,
but it isn’t such a big deal. All that
matters in life is duty, and mine is clear:
order in the world, at every cost, even
of justice and integrity – order’s the thing,
see, the recipe for empires, the reason
someone must die, Yuddhishtira,
the reason countless others will
also die, the reason you – and not
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