Girls of the Mahabharata

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  Chapter Eleven

  The capital of Dasarna, Bhisa, quite literally rose up in the middle of the night. The night before, we had made camp. The next morning, one of the men came up to me with a smile on his face and told me the king wanted to see me, and when I followed him, I found myself standing in front of mud coloured fortress walls, with little windows. I could see colourful flags had been hoisted on all the roads and out of the windows, and it looked like the entire city was waiting for us to come in, come home.

  ‘There it is, son,’ said Hiranyavarman, proudly. ‘The kingdom my grandfather built, and passed on to my father who passed it on to me. How sad was I to only have a daughter, even though she is the most beautiful and noble of all the young princesses I have ever met. But now I think it was lucky that I only had one girl, because then I chose my boy, and there are no other siblings for either of you to fight with. I call it providence.’ He turned to me and scratched his beard, still smiling beatifically. ‘I do, I think we were blessed by the gods.’

  I stammered out some words of gratitude and eagerness and turned to go back to camp so I could get ready to be received by my new city, but he stopped me by slapping my shoulder and smiling widely, ‘And your wedding night, tonight, my boy! I have not forgotten! You must be waiting for this day to end. I tell you what – for all your patience, I have a reward. After we go in and are received by our subjects, you and my daughter may have some time to yourselves. All to yourselves, you understand? We need an heir, and I would like to see my grandchildren before I die, I would!’

  He was a bumptious sort of man, I had come to learn over travelling with him those past four nights. Capable of going on and on without stopping, enjoying the sound of his own voice. But then the house of Dasarna wasn’t as old as the house of Panchala, only three generations, and this king had never been taught to hold back, reveal little. Besides, for all that, I liked him. I liked his generosity, always kind to small children and the poor we passed along the way. I liked that even then, he was nobody’s fool and was quick to tell if anyone was taking advantage of him. I liked that he genuinely thought of his kingdom as the centre of the world, and also that he was so pleased that I married his daughter. Yes, that last part I liked a lot.

  And he was true to his word. We were greeted by the people, who showered us with marigold petals, and shouted for us to have long lives and then we were driven in our chariots up the winding road to the palace, passing all the little houses on the way, stopping every few minutes to toss out coins from the purses given to us for just this purpose, and little children sang songs for us. There were even a few named for us, born while we were being married: two Shikhandis, one Shikhandini and one Bahuratna.

  Bahuratna and the ladies of her household were waiting for us as we arrived, her veil tossed back so I could see her shining eyes, her smiling mouth, the first time I ever saw her entire face, and she was indeed as beautiful as my father had promised, so beautiful that I almost stammered in her presence, and she seemed to notice this and squeezed my hand under the thaali she waved around my face, her eyes promising more. Later.

  And then…

  I don’t think I can remember any more.

  The yaksha draws himself away from Utsarg and comes up to me instead, running a claw down my face.

  ‘No?’ he whispers, low into my ear. ‘But you were telling the story so well. Very well, I suppose we will all just have to see what happened next.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, and he holds up one long finger and then gathers some dirt into his palms and blows softly on it and it is like we are looking into a mirror made of smoke and dust, except on the other side of the mirror is Bahuratna and there I am as well, standing, looking awkwardly at her, while she slowly unbraids her hair. She is saying something and I can’t hear anything, and I glance at Utsarg who is watching all this with his mouth slightly open.

  ‘My magic is a little slow today,’ says Sthunakarna. ‘It has been a while since I last tried this. One gets so bored living by oneself, don’t you think?’ He strides over to the mirror, and seems to pull at one end of the smoke, winding it around his finger and placing it off the other side. Suddenly, I hear Bahuratna’s voice as clear as a bell.

  ‘Will you not join me, husband?’

  ‘This is sorcery!’ I say, trembling, and turning to the yaksha, ‘This is evil. Asura magic. I will have no part of it.’

  But he only waves me away and Utsarg is still watching, transfixed.

  ‘Shall I help you get undressed?’ Bahuratna is asking me now, I remember this, how my heart was stuck in my throat. No one had ever seen me naked after I started bleeding. She didn’t wait for my answer, she came over to me and put her arms around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth.

  ‘You might be the only man I know who doesn’t have a moustache,’ she said teasing, and drawing her finger across my upper lip. ‘On the whole, I think I prefer it. I think it makes your mouth easier to kiss.’ And she punctuates this with a kiss as the end, and her hands go down my chest and across my back.

  Her mother must have told her. Her father. Someone in my family. They would have told her.

  I turn away from the mirror, I know what will happen next. She will say, ‘Do you always wear this around your chest, my lord? Do loosen it.’ She will toss me a look over her shoulder as she drops the cloth from her chest and stands before me, her breasts bared, and still smaller than mine, but as I reached out one trembling hand she shook her head and moved away. ‘First you,’ she whispered, and I closed my eyes and undid my chest bindings and stood in front of her. I felt as though my heart would beat right out of its chest. As I waited, so she could see what I bore on my body, and she will stop smiling, she will look at my breasts then up to my face. I opened my mouth to tell her it would be all right, I would love her truly and worship her with my body and my mind, I would be a good husband, but she didn’t give me a chance. Quickly, before I can stop her, she will pull on the knot holding my dhoti together and I will stand in front of her, all my secrets in the open, and she will open her mouth and begin to scream and scream.

  I have my eyes closed, but I can still hear her scream, tinny and far away. I realize tears are running down my face.

  ‘Enough!’ says Utsarg, and his voice is terrible and loud, cutting across the screaming.

  ‘That is the truth,’ says Sthunakarna, but he no longer looks as gleeful as he has all this time. Instead his face is almost sombre, his eyes glittering with unshed tears – tears for me? He slices through the mirror with his talons, and the dust drops immediately, just earth, after all, just a piece of ordinary soil.

  ‘Men are so unhappy,’ Sthunakarna says, shaking his head, ‘They are so very, very mired in their misery, and each man thinks, “Oh, I will be the person who is free from all this and yet.”’ He spreads his hands out, taking us in and blinks a few times. ‘And yet.’

  I have steadied myself, I am able to look at him now, and Utsarg is standing by me as he was before, and nothing in his pale, calm face makes me think that he views me any differently.

  ‘Just so we’re all agreed on this story – after this, Hiranyavarman declared that your family had duped him and declared war on Panchala.’

  I nod, agreeing.

  ‘And after that, you decided that you should find the great and powerful yaksha Sthunakarna, and throw yourself at his mercy?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Utsarg, nodding too. ‘That’s about the lay of it.’ He adds hurriedly, ‘O great and powerful yaksha.’

  ‘What is it you expect me to do for you boys though? Hmmm?’ Sthunakarna’s form flickers, so for an instant it’s like he’s vanished all over again and I can’t let him just leave us, not now, not when there is no way I can return unless I change deeply.

  ‘Turn me into a man,’ I say and then I dive forward and reach for his feet so I am holding them and begging him. ‘Please turn me into a man, don’t let me live like this, O Sthunakarna! It is always who I have been, make
my body match my mind. You who can do so much magic, it would be child’s play for you. Let me be Shikhandi, all of me, not just my poor heart, but everything else, so I can truly be Shikhandi as well, fulfil my father’s wish for me to be a great warrior one day.’

  ‘That magic? That was nothing, only your own memory made outside. No,’ Sthunakarna shakes his head, suddenly looking solemn. ‘War is coming, a great war, the likes of which have never been seen before, nor will again. More misery. More lives lost. If you stay as you are, it’s likely that some of the war won’t pan out. Wouldn’t that be better?’ He looks like he is almost pleading with me. ‘Peace, and forests, and old bodies back to the earth instead of young ones. Rivers of milk and not blood. Think of it, princeling. Think what you would choose if you went down this path you ask of me.’

  ‘There would still be a war, even if I chose to stay where I was?’ I ask.

  Sthunakarna answers reluctantly, ‘Yes, there would. But your hands would be free of bloodshed and the people you will kill will have another chance to stay alive.’

  ‘Do you think I would stand by and see my family go to war without me? I am still a Kshatriya. I must. I have to.’

  The yaksha goes over to the tree and touches it lovingly. One branch stretches out to caress his hands. He looks at us both – I, obstinate, my chin thrust out, still on my knees and Utsarg sagging behind me, his face set in lines of sadness. Is the sadness for what he has seen today or what we now know will come? I can normally read Utsarg’s mind as he can mine, but we seem to have been cleft, him on one side, I on the other.

  ‘I thought you would say that,’ says the yaksha, ‘Very well, I will think on it. I grow tired of you humans and your ways. I will return with a decision.’

  And just like that he vanishes, but starting from his head this time so his genitals still stay in the air for some time, mocking us until they too fade away into the bark of the tree.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Would you have chosen differently?’

  It is later, we are lying underneath the tree, and we haven’t spoken since Sthunakarna left us. I keep going back to that memory he showed us – when you’re in the scene, you don’t see yourself from the outside, and this time I did. I saw the way my face looked, apprehensive and then truly sorrowful, and I saw that right before the sorrow, a little flare of hope had started in my eyes. I wouldn’t have known how to describe it if you asked me tell me, what does your face look like when you want something to happen but the moment I saw my expression, I knew. This then, is how I look to others, even though, in my heart I am taller, wider, stronger. To other people, I look like a girlish boy. Or a boyish girl. My face is too tentative to be manly, even my gestures, all this while I thought I looked like my brothers, how I acted, how I sounded, but instead I look like a girl dressed up. It’s not as if I’ve never seen a mirror before, I have, but sometimes when you look into a mirror, you look for what you want to see. I was always greeted by a young man staring out of my face.

  ‘Would I have?’ Utsarg rolls on to his stomach and looks at me. ‘I don’t know. Is it so bad to be a woman?’

  I meet his eyes, ‘No, to be a woman is not so bad, but I feel like ... if you were suddenly a bird, or a ... a squirrel, wouldn’t you want to turn back into being a man as quickly as you could?’

  He smiles sadly at me, ‘Yes, I think I would. They say there once was a great king called Nahusha who was turned into a snake for angering a sage. They say he still lives in his serpent guise, devouring people and weeping as he does, for it is not his nature and yet it is the nature of the body he bears.’

  But I am not interested in one of Utsarg’s tales just then. I poke the ground with a twig and then ask, ‘Do you really think there is going to be a great war? It could just be that yaksha saying it. What does he know anyway?’

  ‘It’s not just the yaksha, although even you have to admit, he is a wise creature. No, I’ve been hearing prophecies of one great war for some time now – it was hard not to, living in your father’s palace.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, when they said you would be a great warrior, they meant that you would prove your worth in a battle that is coming. When they said that Drishtadyumna would bring down Drona, they meant the same battle. And when they predicted little Draupadi would start a war – they really thought she will. They think it’s all coming, the signs, the sages, the wise men. We’re heading towards something. Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘No,’ I say loudly, to banish the chill his words have caused me. ‘I think you’re being superstitious, just like an old woman. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?’

  He gives me a long look, ‘Who thought there were still yakshas? I knew you didn’t believe in Sthunakarna even when we went looking for him. Not fully. And now you have seen him with your own eyes. How can you now doubt that the stars are telling us something and we need to be prepared? Everyone else is – your father, the surrounding kingdoms, even foolish Hiranyavarman has started to expand his army, just in case.’

  ‘In that case, there is nothing I can do to stop them. I can only add my body to the fight, raise my bow above my head and prepare to die.’

  He turns to me and I see tears in his eyes. ‘You would be safe if you were a woman.’

  I know now what bothers him and I prop myself up on my elbows and look into his face, truly into his face, so he can see mine, and I say, ‘I would never be a woman, I never was one, do you not understand that by now, Utsarg? For me, it is not choosing between being a woman or having a man’s body. It is choosing to hide or to live.’

  He starts to look away and I grab his chin so he’s still looking at me. ‘But!’ I say, ‘but I promise I won’t die at the beginning of the war. I’ll stay till the very end, and you’ll be tired of me by then. Our sons will be by our sides, and they’ll ask us to stop talking so they can get a word in edgewise.’

  He begins to smile, so I poke him under his arms and we are soon rolling about wrestling, and there’s one moment where we stop and we look at each other, acknowledging what happened the last time we were in this position.

  And then I laugh and he laughs, and just like that, it’s gone, forgotten, happened to two different people who certainly weren’t us.

  We are heading back to Kampilya. Just like that.

  I have to move in my seat, for I am not used to this newness, this heaviness between my legs. But I also let my top cloth fall so my chest is bare, hard where it was soft, and the sun warms it. I look down at myself frequently. I feel as though I am a person who was locked in a curse that turned them into stone, and now I have broken free of it. A butterfly cracking open a cocoon. A hatchline bursting out of its shell. I am all those things, and I can taste freedom.

  Utsarg says something and I laugh, except my voice isn’t the low one I’ve practised all my laugh, it’s a coarse sound, booming out of my throat. I talk more, so I can hear myself. I could listen to this new voice all day. I talk so much, I am parched and I have to drink more water, and that means I have to stop to piss, which also I enjoy doing because I am standing up as I do. I am so pleased, it seems as though I will never stop smiling.

  Utsarg mocks me, but he does it with love, and when I reach out to hit him on the arm, he cries out and I notice there’s a bruise. I must learn to be careful.

  I must learn to be. Careful!

  I still don’t understand the magic of it. Sthunakarna came back, and told us he couldn’t change my body to that of a man’s, and I was so bitterly disappointed, I wanted the earth to swallow me just then, just kill me if I am not able to live the way I wish to.

  ‘But,’ Sthunakarna held up one finger, and I saw he was also enjoying my misery. Yakshas are strange creatures, after all. Not gods, they take too much pleasure in malice. Like cats with mice. ‘But I can swap your body with a willing male’s.’

  I knew Utsarg would do it, I saw him opening his mouth to offer. Utsarg would do it, but then he would lose m
e as surely as I would lose him. I am selfish.

  I want everything.

  So, I told Sthunakarna no, there was no one willing, unless he himself would be interested in a trade.

  ‘A trade?’ asked Sthunakarna

  ‘Yes, O yaksha,’ I said, ‘I need to be a man, to father children of my own, so my father will not be disgraced, so my wife will not die a barren woman. After that, I don’t think it would even matter, I could go back to having a woman’s body, having done my duty.’

  I could see Sthunakarna liked this, because he linked his fingers under his chin and looked off into the distance for a while, a little smile growing on his face and then he said, ‘Interesting, interesting. I have often wondered what it would be like to have a female form.’

  ‘It’s not all bad,’ I said, gesturing down myself. ‘You could have a child of your own.’

  ‘A child?’ He was almost cooing by now.

  ‘Yes, a little yaksha, and you could bear him and suckle him at your breast, and have some company in this forest.’

  ‘I have always wanted a child,’ Sthunakarna told Utsarg, who in turn said, ‘Then by all means, O noble yaksha. Everyone knows children love their mothers more than their fathers.’

  ‘But I’d have to be his father eventually,’ said Sthunakarna frowning.

  ‘Oh yes, eventually. But in the early years, you’d be his mother and feel his pain and joy with a mother’s heart.’

  Sthunakarna made a cradle out of his arms and glanced down at them, his green face was almost suffused with tenderness, if you could call it that in a yaksha. Then he looked up at us both.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I shall switch with you. Just long enough for me to have my child and for you to have yours.’

  ‘Just,’ I said and then he reached out and into me, and there was a deep pain like a hot iron rod against my lungs, I almost bent over double with it, and I saw he had walked through me, and I collapsed and lay on the ground shaking. Utsarg ran over to me, and cradled my head in his lap.