Girls of the Mahabharata

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  ‘Did she say what she wanted?’ I ask Bhaaravi, knowing it’s a foolish question as soon as it leaves my mouth. Obviously, my mother will not trust a maid with her message, but I’d rather ask Bhaaravi, who has grown up with us, than ask Ambika, whose mouth is primming up in self-satisfaction.

  Bhaaravi shakes her head slowly, while she sections my hair to be braided again. Heavy with child, because of the marriage my mother arranged for her with a loyal foot soldier, she will be riding with me to my new home, once Salva is ready to take over his father’s kingdom. I wonder how she feels about it, this uncertain future for her and her child. She might not much miss her husband, who is old and brutish, I hear, but nevertheless, this is the only home she knows. Bhaaravi is not that much older than us, but looks about ten rains our elder because of her lined face and her swollen belly.

  ‘I think it’s to do with the swayamvara,’ says Ambalika.

  It has to be. We’re choosing our husbands as soon as the moon changes, as soon as it hangs full and proud in the sky. We’ve spoken of nothing else since the last cold season, and now it’s finally here. I look across at my sisters. Even Ambika wears a slightly crestfallen look, and Ambalika’s pretty forehead is creased with lines.

  ‘It probably is,’ I say, and then adopt my Older Sister tone, ‘Don’t worry. Father has only called the best princes, the finest grooms in the land.’

  ‘Yes, but...,’ says Ambika, and we’re all silent, knowing what she means. Father is a good king, and good kings are ruthless. He’d trade us all off for farmland if he could, and an occasion like a marriage is a good time to choose your allies. It is a mother’s role to make sure her daughters will be well taken care of in their marriages, but our mother is pale and cannot stand up to people, so it is just us, on our own. And after we are wed, it will no longer even be the three of us, the Three Princesses of Kashi, but each one sent to separate ends of the earth, and we will probably not see each other again for as long as we live.

  ‘Sister has Salva,’ says Ambalika, going back to preen at herself. ‘And Father will make sure I have a young and handsome husband as well.’

  ‘And what of me?’ asks Ambika, her voice sour. I know what she means. As the oldest, I was betrothed to our father’s ward before I even left my wet nurse. As the most beautiful, Ambalika will have a choice of kings and princes laid at her feet. As for Ambika, not particularly comely, and with a sullen demeanour, not many men will come forward for her hand. She is allowed to choose her husband before Ambalika, of course, we will go in order of our ages, but no one wants to marry someone who doesn’t want them. They will all be waiting for Ambalika’s dainty hands to pass a garland across their necks, and I imagine the princes will not be quiet if they are fobbed off with less than the biggest spoils.

  ‘Are we all ready?’ I ask, changing the subject. My sisters nod at me, and I rise, leading the way to our mother’s chambers.

  My mother was once the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen – only no one had actually ever seen her before she was married. The only daughter of a tribal chieftain called Jayanta, she was born after seven brothers, and it is said that they all guarded her fiercely, never letting even the sun cast a shadow on her feet. They were not rich, not like kings, or even like other tribes, but they were famous for their prowess in battle, each young man tall and strong, learning to fight as soon as they were able to toddle on their baby legs.

  Jayanta – our maternal grandfather – had three wives, each of whom gave him two sons, before perishing to a bout of fever that swept the land then. Grief stricken, and with six sons to raise, my grandfather went on a mighty pillage of all the settlements around him, shouting and fighting and drinking and bedding women, until his enemies prayed for his death from dawn till dusk. He did not die, the gods loved him too much, but instead, found a reward in the child of a potter. This potter was a desperately poor man, who lived on the outskirts of a village, and when Jayanta approached him, he went down on his hands and knees and begged to live. He’d give anything, he said, just for a chance at his life, as desperate and mean as it was.

  Jayanta was struck by this man’s desire to live – because there was nothing my grandfather wanted more than to die. He was tired of his life, missing his women, feeling old and unsubstantial, he wanted to die in battle, as nobly as he was born, and turn over his tribe and land to his oldest son. And as the potter was pleading for his life, a girl ran out and stood before my grandfather, and she was not afraid of him. She had accepted that she would be ruined, he saw that in her face, young as it was, and she was ashamed of her father begging in the dust like a dog, and in that proud face, my grandfather saw a reason to live again. He told the potter he would save him, because it was ill luck to harm your father-in-law, and the potter took a few moments to realize what was being said, and when he did, he leaped up and began to plan the wedding, which was swift and binding, Jayanta with his beard blowing in the breeze, the young girl with her hair unbound, as was the way with her people, still looking him straight in the eye.

  She bore him another son and a daughter – my mother – and it is said that she was the greatest love he had ever known, he who had been ready to die after the death of his wives, knew that if this one died, he’d throw himself into the fire with her. And so, he protected her and their daughter as fiercely as he knew how – building walls of clay and thorns around their home, threatening death to any men who approached without an introduction, and because of this potter’s daughter, he became known as a king, because who else but a king would take such good care of his women?

  And so it comes to why my mother – born of this fierce chieftain and this fearless woman – would be the most gentle and timid of all women, because she was locked up as soon as she was born, and told of all the dangers that lived out in the world, that her only sanctuary would be with her father and brothers, and later, her husband. That is how my mother was raised, and that is how she tried to raise us, but it has always been too late for her, the world was too overwhelming, her only refuge is her chambers and the hope she places so unflinchingly at my father’s feet.

  That’s how the slaves tell it, they’ve heard it from the bards who travel from kingdom to kingdom, telling stories, singing songs, and collecting new tales as payment. We all love it when the bards come – it’s three days of feasting, every day we are quick with our lessons, the maids do their work with a spring in their step and then as soon as the sun sets, a big fire is lit in the grand hall where my father meets his subjects, and anyone who wants to can attend. We are all bundled up, because the bards usually come when it is winter, the summer sun being too hot for them to travel all the way.

  ‘Where do they go in the summer?’ I remember asking my ayah and she would look down at me with her big eyes, shift the betel nuts in her mouth from one cheek to another and say, ‘They go to the cold kingdoms then, child, the cold kingdoms which none of us have seen.’ In the Cold Kingdoms, soft white flakes fall from the sky instead of rain and women walk around with baskets of coals inside their warm woollen tunics which are embroidered with summer flowers. All the women are very beautiful, with eyes the colour of stormy skies and straight noses and cheeks that flush like the inside of a champa flower. ‘But,’ one of the bards would always say, ‘none so beautiful as your daughters, Your Majesty.’ And I would feel proud, but now I know he probably said it to all the daughters in all the kingdoms he visited.

  The story of how my parents met is not one the bards tell – which is surprising, because they usually love to tell us all the stories of our kingdom. What our great-great grandfather did, how our great-great-grandmother was a good queen. I never thought about it, until I heard the slaves talking, and that’s when I realized that my parents had a story tucked away all to themselves.

  My father was the young prince of Kashi, back when my paternal grandfather, Shaguna, was still alive, and Shaguna said to him, ‘Son, go and win back those of our lands that are taken by that barbaric chieft
ain and his sons.’ He meant, of course, Jayanta, who at sixty rains was still stronger and sharper than any other soldier Shaguna could set on him.

  The slaves whisper that the reason my paternal grandfather sent my father was because he was the fifth son, not very useful, not very likely to take the throne, unless all the other sons died before him. Then too, there was a blemish already on my father’s name, Shaguna could not be sure that he had actually sired him, his mother, my grandmother was young and quick to be bored, and had been seen spending a lot of time with a handsome courtier. The easiest way to get rid of my father was by sending him out to fight a battle that Shaguna thought he had already lost.

  But my father – my scheming, handsome father – was wise to the ways of rulers, and as he rode out to the land Jayanta had, he already had a plan. Which was to lay down arms and demand sanctuary. Jayanta had him brought inside, arms trussed, crown off, and asked what he wanted.

  ‘I want what you want,’ said my father, and I imagine him tossing his head back and looking Jayanta straight in the eye. ‘I want to be ruler of Kashi.’

  ‘How would I be ruler of Kashi, O Princeling?’ asked Jayanta. The assembled warriors laughed, they had never heard anything as foolish as my father’s words.

  ‘Join arms with me and I will make you a gift of these lands,’ said my father. ‘And you never have to fight for them again.’

  ‘I do not need your gifts,’ said Jayanta, spitting on the ground, ‘I own these lands, and I am the ruler of these people. Who do you think you are, coming here with your words of gifts? Could I gift Kashi to you any more than you could gift my own fiefdom to me?’

  And then he gestured with his hand for them to take my father away and imprison him. They would probably kill him later.

  At that very moment, my mother came into the scene. Perhaps she did not hear the men talking, but I know from the stories that these people were very loud. Perhaps she thought they were finished for the day. Or perhaps, just maybe, she knew what had to be done to break herself out of that prison and be a queen in her own right. In she came, her head uncovered, her mouth half open and my father being dragged away saw her full face as it turned towards him, it all happened so quickly that Jayanta had no chance to toss his daughter’s veil over her head and send her packing out of the room.

  ‘I want to marry your daughter!’ my father called, ‘I will marry your daughter and then you will have part of Kashi through her! You will no longer be just a chieftain but also the father-in-law to the king!’

  Jayanta did not accept this right away, he was a clever leader and also a loving father, and he wanted his daughter to have the best – indeed, what could be better than a king? But I think Jayanta saw something in my father’s face that did not entirely agree with him, so he demurred, and would have probably stayed indecisive about the whole affair had not my mother taken it upon herself to side with my father, in the only defiant thing she has ever done. For seven days, my mother ate little, and took to her bed, threatening to kill herself if my father was harmed, until finally, Jayanta had had enough, released his prisoner and prepared a wedding.

  And together my father and Jayanta waged war on Kashi and killed Shaguna and all four of my uncles and by then my mother was with child, and ready to be a queen to his king. I never understood why that story was a secret until I heard the slaves whispering about it. ‘The king killed his own blood,’ they whispered. ‘He has lost his name and his sacred duty. He will never go to heaven.’

  If the king has no caste, what caste do his daughters have?

  Potter’s granddaughters, and the daughters of a bastard.

  No one must know, I’m only telling you because you should know who our ruler is, no one must know.

  I wonder sometimes what they would have been like if they lived – if my father was just a minor princeling, if his eldest brother, a man I hear was full of compassion, was allowed to live, what sort of kingdom would we have? Even though my father is a good ruler, a fair king, he’s not very kind, and his justice system, I have heard is harder than most. We do not let rulebreakers off with just a warning and as a result, crime is low in Kashi, and mothers lock their young sons in at night, fearful of impulses and high spirits.

  Our mother, as we expected, wants to go over the swayamvara with us. More specifically: our roles in it. We are to stand, waiting and expectant, behind a screen, so we will not be able to see the men and make our choices before they have completed their tasks. That’s the new style with swayamvaras, and my parents are anxious to not be thought old-fashioned – instead of just lining up and having a family priest list their virtues, the men now have to outperform each other with tasks that will show their mettle and skill.

  This is also a way to keep the audience from getting restive, a lot of rulers come just to watch and eat at the wedding later. My father, with the help of his aides, has come up with a few mock battles for the princes to do – nothing too taxing, it wouldn’t help our case to make them too formidable, but there will be a mace match and archery, as well as a recital of sacred texts. This is a way for him to say, ‘Look, I want a good warrior for my daughter, but also a scholar, because that is the way I am.’ I know Salva has been practising for the big day, and I know that my father has lined him up against princes who are not quite as skilled as he is.

  ‘I thought all three of you could wear our royal colours,’ says our mother, and she makes the maid lift the lid off a large chest in which are saris of the finest silk, dyed the fine kingfisher blue that is the symbol of the kingdom of Kashi.

  ‘I do not look well in blue, Mother!’ says Ambika, pouting. ‘Why can’t we wear red? Red is auspicious, after all.’

  ‘Red is the colour of war and it would not be lucky to wear it on your wedding day. In fact, there have been signs that it may not be the most auspicious day after all, we have been told.’ My mother pauses and bites her lip. She puts great store into what the priests say, as does most of my family. I? I am content to drift through life, not caring what the stars say. If the stars were so right, why do people die? Why does war even happen? Surely you’d look at the stars and you’d learn how to have peace all the time, peace and happiness.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ Ambalika’s eyes are big in her face. ‘Not lucky? What will happen?’

  If my mother was a comforting sort of woman, she’d put her arm around her youngest daughter and soothe her and tell her that it would be all right, but because she is fearful and holds herself apart from us, it falls to me to touch Ambalika on the shoulder and say, ‘There now, they don’t know for sure, do they? We’ll be fine.’

  Then we must all try on the saris the maids lay out for us, and since I am the oldest, I am dressed in the richest silks, gold borders as thick as my wrists, Ambika’s are slightly less ornate than mine, the border is only the width of two of her fingers and as for Ambalika, her gold border is only a line that marks out the edge of her sari, but because of her beauty, she looks adorned anyway.

  When we are done, our mother is exhausted, we can tell by the way she droops, and the maids bring out rose water to dab on her face, and for a moment, I think less of her. Any other mother would be full of plans and bustling with excitement as her daughter prepared for marriage – let alone three of her daughters. Any other mother would be hearing lists of food for the preparations, looking through the princes to see who would suit her daughters best, telling us stories about the wedding night. That last one I had to come upon on my own, by listening to the servants talk, and I will have to convey what I know to my sisters. I also have some idea because of my secret meetings with Salva, and I hope my sisters will have equally gentle partners, and will feel the same way I do about their bedding.

  Salva doesn’t speak much about his own mother, and I wonder if he misses her, back in their dry, arid kingdom, where both heat and cold are vicious enemies. He was sent to stay with my father when he was barely four winters old. He went to visit his family again when we were older, and whe
n he returned, laden with sweet fruits and lush carpets for us, I asked him how it was.

  ‘It was how it was,’ he said, shrugging.

  ‘Yes, but was it nice to see your family again?’

  ‘My mother is growing old fast, and yet her youngest child is still on the breast,’ he said, considering. ‘My father has grown nearly blind from the last dust storm, yet he insists on riding out, no matter what the weather. They were pleased to see me, and asked that I return to take over the kingdom as soon as I could manage it.’

  ‘And will you?’

  He looked at me, and for a second, it seemed as though he was gazing at me from very far away. ‘I don’t really know these people. They sent me away when I was still crying for my mother, and I learned not to cry for her since. Your father is the only father I remember, my own father is weak willed and some people say too kind to be a king.’

  He made those pronouncements as my father would, his soft mouth setting into a firm line. I wondered whether I’d rather be married to a man like my father, unbending and sometimes cruel, or to a man like his father, who I’ve heard goes for his rides across the countryside and then comes back laughing and joking, shouting for his wife as he strides through the palace. He sounds – if not kingly – then at least, he sounds like the sort of man his wife could talk to, and I believe they do talk, and she makes him laugh, even now, and they greet their court together and in the middle of it all, he will stretch his arms and say, ‘I grow tired of the noise in this hen house!’ and that will be the cue for the dancing girls to come out and he’ll lean across and take his wife’s hand and press a kiss to her palm. I hope Salva will have some of his father. It is a disloyal feeling, because it goes against my father, but I wish it anyway.