‘What have you done?’ Utsarg shouted, and the yaksha turned around, only she was a yakshi now, but just as strange looking as she was before, and she beckoned for me to stand up, and when I did, I realized I was different.
‘Behold,’ said Sthunakarna. ‘Prince Shikhandi.’
‘There’s Kampilya ahead,’ says Utsarg, pointing and I ride over to him to look, our horses were found unharmed and returned as soon as we left Sthunakarna’s forest. Or were released from it.
I see the walls of the fort rising, the gate drawn up, because of course, they are expecting Dasarna’s army at any moment, ready to wage war, and I see the river that flows alongside the fort, holding it like a precious jewel, and the women drawing water into their pots, and I know if I go closer I’ll smell food being cooked, and hear the tonk-tonk-tonk of the metalworkers and hear the cries of the various vendors as they move from street to street and in the middle of it all, will be set our palace, the pearl of Panchala, where right now my brothers and sister will be woken up by their maids and dressed and washed and prepared for a new day. I feel a smile split my face. I will tell my father that Bahuratna must live with me, and we must both live in Kampilya with them. I will tell my father that I deserve that for being made to go through this. I will not tell him that I felt betrayed, by him, by my mother, by everyone who loves me, for not preparing me for what happened that day. I won’t tell him because he won’t understand, and right now, I have so much lightness in my heart, that I am ready to forgive him.
‘What will they say?’ I ask Utsarg, who looks at my pleased face and laughs again.
‘Let’s find out,’ he says.
And so we ride on and through, towards the rest of my life.
Epilogue
Listen, I thought I was having that dream again, but it turns out it’s not a dream and there is blood everywhere, it’s as if it has become part of the dust and the sand blood that washes over the folds of my skin and my feet the cracks in my soles are rusty with dried blood but it’s not mine unless it is my feet burn with the force of my stance my arms are full of welts and I need to screw up my eyes to see through the dust storm that whistles in my ears and gives me a mouthful of dirt. And blood.
You are with me, you are stroking your moustache and trying to divine the best course of action for us to take when we first hear the rumour that he will not kill me, kill us, because he believes us to be women.
You look up at me, your eyebrows raised and you say then we must definitely kill him.
I agree with you, I must be the one to shoot him, clear through the heart with my arrow. If he is such a fool to put his arms down during a battle, to say he will not raise his bow against me, then it is not for me to argue with such a gift. Once I kill him, it will be the beginning of the end of the war.
Through the walls of the tent in which we sit, I hear our sons, my sons, your son, my brothers and my sister’s children, all talking at once to each other. They are so young, this is still a game for them. We are so old, we have seen so many lifetimes, even though our hair is still mostly black, it feels as though we have lived a hundred years.
How odd, this may be the last hour, the last day of my life, and I am suddenly thinking of you and me in the forest, the yaksha in front of us, the moment we were so close and then so far apart. She never claimed her body again, and I never tried to return it either. I have had this body for longer than the one I had on my birth, and it seems so strange to think there was a time I felt as though I was being chafed by my own skin.
I take my bow, you begin to leave so you can set the horses to the carriage. I call your name and you turn.
Do you think there’s any truth to that story about Princess Amba?
For a minute, I think you’re going to answer me, for I do believe you have considered this for so long that you have come to some sort of conclusion. But then, I see that you’re thinking about killing him again, and the beginning of the end and whatever you tell me right now, I will never know if you truly mean it.
You shake your head.
People believe what they want to believe, you tell me.
Acknowledgements
My mother and my father, for being encouraging and supportive and ready with comments and suggestions for my entire writing career. A person couldn’t ask for more love and understanding than I have received.
Thanks to Sohini Basak at HarperCollins, for her thoughtful and gentle edits which made the book what you just read. Thanks also to Diya Kar at HarperCollins, for always being so confident about what I do.
Thanks to two of my first readers Ameya Nagarajan and Niyati Dhuldhoya, for taking the time to read a book in its first draft and offering me so many excellent suggestions, many of which I’ve used. Thanks also to all my friends who were so excited about this book coming out, I owe so much to your enthusiasm and praise.
Thanks also to historian Upinder Singh, who suggested John D. Smith’s scholarly version of the Mahabharata that I used for this text. I used the Bharati Vidya Bhavan books The History and Culture of the Indian People, specifically the Vedic Age volume. For the Sanskrit names of characters in this book, I used Indian Names: From Classical to Contemporary by M.V. Kamath and Kalindi Randeri, which is a terrific resource for writers who have several characters and have run out of name ideas.
Thanks to my three cats – Bruno, Olga and Squishy – they can’t read, but they do listen. Sometimes.
About The Book
Book One, The One Who Swam with the Fishes, told the tale of Satyavati on the cusp of womanhood. She is now Queen of Hastinapur and the story moves forward to the kingdom of Kashi, where Princess Amba is growing up with her sisters, Ambika and Ambalika. A swayamvara is arranged for them, where Amba plans to wed Prince Salva, the love of her life. However, an unexpected figure walks into the ceremony and thwarts all plans of a happy ending.
In another life, Shikhandi has never been what he seems. With his close companion, Utsarg, he embarks on a journey to look for a yaksha who will give him what he wants - to be a Kshatriya prince in body and in mind. But, along the way, he might have to lose some of himself, the part he calls Shikhandini...
Searching beyond gender, duty and tradition, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan draws out the lesser-known characters of the Mahabharata and tells their stories with true compassion and grit.
About The Author
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan was born in Hyderabad, but grew up in New Delhi, where she currently lives with her partner and their three cats. Formerly a journalist, Madhavan’s first book You Are Here was commissioned in 2007 on the basis of her hugely popular blog Compulsive Confessions. Since then, Madhavan has written four more novels, two books for young adults and a collection of short stories, as well as contributed to several anthologies. She also writes essays and columns for a variety of publications. The One Who Lived Two Lives is her seventh book and the second in the Girls of the Mahabharata series.
Praise for The One Who Swam with the Fishes
‘Retellings of the Mahabharata often succumb to the temptation of reversing the gaze and providing a noble patina to their protagonists. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, though, bravely reimagines the story and the inner life of the fisher-maiden Satyavati before her arrival into the epic, before she changes the future of the Kuru dynasty.’
– Karthika Naïr
‘Madhavan transforms what seems like Satyavati’s story of opportunism and greed into the layered and disturbing portrait of a young orphan girl destined to be a game-changer in history. … Themes of fate, morality and power overlay a subtle and essential feminism to make this lyrical book a must-read.’
– Open Magazine
‘… it’s not all fun and games, for Reddy Madhavan is also able to tackle some fairly sensitive subjects such as identity, the love of and karmic ties with parents, adoption, the first sexual encounter, loneliness, and my favourite, feminist rage.’
– Scroll.in
‘Madhavan’s Satyavati is a bit lik
e the urban woman Madhavan has always captured so perfectly. The scenario is distinctly different, of course, but like those girls she oscillates between brashness and vulnerability and is comfortable with her sexuality.’
– The Hindu
‘A mesmerizing account of the well-known story of Matsyagandha and her transformation from fisherman’s daughter to Satyavati, Shantanu’s royal consort and the Mother/Progenitor of the Kuru clan. The upfront confessions of the young girl-woman give us a tale in which a father’s ambition for his daughter sets her on her journey to the royal court.’
– Hindustan Times
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First published in India by
HarperCollins Publishers in 2018
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
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Copyright © Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan 2018
ISBN: 978-93-5302-468-0
Epub Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5302-469-7
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design : Tanaya Vyas
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Girls of the Mahabharata Page 19
