The Curse of Gandhari

by Aditi Banerjee

  Satyavati affectionately kissed the top of head. ‘Imagine if any of my simpering daughters-in-law had your nerves of steel, daughter. What a different tale this would have been! Sometimes I feel you are wasted on my grandson.’ Satyavati chuckled, then whispered, ‘I did not say that last part, child.’

  Gandhari walked away with a shake of her head and a smile.

  That night, Dhritarashthra was in an unusually talkative mood. They lay next to each other in bed, facing each other, with a long bolster pillow between them. His hand touched hers and he did not remove it. That was the most intimacy they had had in months. He was very curious to know what she thought of Dvaipayana. She honestly relayed to him all that had passed.

  Dhritarashthra asked eagerly, ‘Wife, do you think he is really that fond of you?’

  She shrugged and said modestly, ‘Such a great man is by nature merciful and compassionate. I am sure he is like this with everyone.’

  He gripped her hand firmly. ‘You know, wife, he is an inordinately powerful man. The spells he can cast! The power that lies at his fingertips! It is incredible.’

  ‘Yes, I am aware,’ Gandhari said flatly. So, this is why he was being so touchy-feely with her tonight, she thought to herself: he wanted to curry favour with Dvaipayana through her.

  Dhritarashthra mused aloud: ‘It has been months now since Pandu has been married. Two wives, and no heir yet!’

  ‘Having two wives does not mean one can create an heir twice as fast,’ she pointed out wryly.

  Dhritarashthra waved his hands impatiently, accidentally swatting her face. ‘Yes, yes, but what I mean is, we have an opportunity here, wife. A golden opportunity.’

  Gandhari had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  He continued, ‘An heir is everything, Gandhari. Yes, it is true that I cannot rule over the kingdom. I shall never be king. But why not my sons, Gandhari? I am the eldest son of this family and if my sons are elder to his – why should it not be their birthright to rule, to take up the crown that was denied to me? With the blessings of the devas, they shall not have my infirmity.’ His voice became increasingly excited. ‘Do you understand, Gandhari? Do you see what I am saying?’

  It is the eldest son of the crowned king who would inherit, not the eldest son of the eldest brother. But she did not voice this aloud.

  Ever since Bhishma had been denied the throne through his self-imposed vow, the succession to the throne had grown ever murkier. She could understand Dhritarashthra’s resentment, his hope for his sons to acquire a better hand than the one that had been dealt him. ‘Yes.’ She hesitated but reminded herself that this was her husband and she should be open with him. She said softly, ‘But I already have the boon that I shall bear one hundred sons. What more do we need?’

  Dhritarashthra sniffed dismissively. ‘That is something you saw in a dream, a vision. It is not very reliable. It is better to get certainty. If Dvaipayana grants you the boon, it will come true, I am sure of it. This is the opportunity to cement the boon, Gandhari, and make sure that we get the heirs we need.’

  She almost snapped at him. He was so cavalier about her boon from Shiva, dismissing the one year’s worth of penance she had done to attain it. Once her willpower had been enough to earn the attention of the devas themselves; now she wasted all of it controlling, or trying to control, her temper with her husband. She diverted her attention. ‘One hundred sons?’ asked Gandhari sceptically. ‘Do we really need one hundred?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Dhritarashthra. ‘There can never be too many. It is so easy to lose sons in battle, to illness, to infirmity. And – I do not know whether this is something that is passed on to my children biologically, this blindness. I do not want to take any risks! It is better to have as many children as possible.’

  One good child outweighs one hundred brats. Her father’s words came back to her. She suddenly felt a shiver of foreboding but said nothing. She knew it was pointless to argue with her husband.

  Dhritarashthra gripped her arm tightly. ‘You will do it, won’t you, Gandhari? You will obtain this boon from him? For me. For us. You will not let me down, will you?’

  Gandhari swallowed. It was dangerous to play games with the great ones, to try to bend them to one’s will, to try to pry boons and blessings that they were reluctant to offer. It went against everything she believed in, but it was not just her husband’s words that stilled her tongue. She was bristling against the stifling life of the palace, where she had been firmly side-lined, where she did nothing but cook and tend to guests and her husband, where the only decisions she was charged with were what outfit to wear and how to dress her hair – and even that she could not do herself; she was dependent on servants by her blindfold and by her position as a princess. She was growing rusty in her studies, now that she did not read and could not ask Ayla to read dense, arcane texts of statecraft and espionage to her. The language and grammar in those books was too advanced and complicated for Ayla’s basic literacy. Gandhari was not ready to fade into irrelevance quite yet and so the prospect of sons, heirs, who could have a greater role in court than she and her husband, who could achieve what they had not been able to on their own, lured her.

  Around midnight, a knock came on the door. Gandhari carefully navigated her way to the door and opened it. Dvaipayana had dispatched a messenger. He requested her presence at his private worship before first light in the gardens, prior to his departure later in the morning.

  Dhritarashthra was tossing and turning in his sleep but did not wake at the sound of the knock or the hushed conversation between Gandhari and the messenger. She came back to bed and was filled with wonder and excitement at the opportunity to once again sit for worship with the great rishi. Thoughts of boons and blessings slipped away from her mind as she recalled how it felt to sit with him in the afternoon, how transported and transformed she had felt. For the first time in a long time, she was looking forward to something and she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

  Gandhari did not take any servants with her on her way to her meeting with Dvaipayana. It was not quite morning yet. Torches were still burning interspersed throughout the gardens and courtyard. She could see the outlines of the flickering flames through her blindfold. It was hard going as she rarely walked this far out to the furthest reaches of the gardens, but she made her way slowly, tapping the ground in front of her with one foot before taking a firm step, gripping swaying branches from the trees even as the thorns pricked her palms. The grass was wet with dew, slippery, so that her feet and the bottom hem of her sari were sodden by the time she reached the furthermost corner of the garden where Satyavati had commanded a small hut be built for her son. This area of the land bordered the river and Gandhari could hear the hum of the waves lapping gently against the banks of the river. The sound of the river, the cool air, the sensation of night slowly greying into dawn, was soothing. No wonder the rishis called this the holiest part of the day.

  Dvaipayana muttered crossly as Gandhari knelt before him in prostration. ‘I should have realized what a hardship it would be for you to come here in this state. Why didn’t you a bring a servant with you to lead the way, girl?’

  Gandhari smiled. ‘One should not take any luxuries when visiting a holy site or a holy man. Even emperors leave behind their golden slippers, their crowns, all ornaments, when visiting the ashram of a guru or acharya. One should come barefoot and alone when in the presence of the holy ones.’

  ‘Hmm.’ His voice was pleased. ‘You have learned well, my daughter. Come, sit next to me.’

  Gandhari sat next to him. He offered her a small deerskin mat on which to sit, as the ground was still chilled from the dew and the coolness of the night. They faced the river. There was no elaborate worship ceremony today. He told her nothing, simply commenced with the special breathing exercises of pranayama and then fell silent, so silent that it felt as if he had stopped breathing. He entered into a deep meditative state almost immediately and Gandhari could feel that he was
inaccessible now, as if he were in another world; as if, were she to reach over and touch him, he would be like stiff wood, a dead corpse.

  Gandhari did not know what to do. She simply closed her eyes and breathed gently, trying to hold herself still and calm so that she would not inadvertently disturb his trance. After some time, she felt lulled into a different space. The boundaries between her body and the outside seemed to fluctuate, to become fluid and wavering, until she felt her being expand into space, cover the earth and grow, grow, grow, to cover the whole universe, to become one with the light, to be nothing but light, white, radiant, hot light, the light of sun that gave birth to and nourished all life, and far below her, she could see all the sentient beings of the universe, all the cows, human beings, plants, birds, oceans, all the wildlife residing in the oceans, and all of it was blessed and nourished by her; she was mother to all; she was mother to the entire universe.

  As soon as that word came to her mind – mother – Dvaipayana stirred and she felt the trance break. She had never felt anything so sublime, so wonderful. She did not want it to end, but it was Dvaipayana who had carried her into that meditation and now that he was stirred, there was no way for her to go back. She was forcibly brought back into the present moment.

  He cleared his throat gruffly after some minutes. Then, he sighed. ‘Was there something you wished to ask me, Gandhari?’

  She swallowed hard. ‘No, revered one. There is nothing I have to ask of you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She recalled Dhritarashthra’s words and her unspoken promise to him. Neither could she break that promise, nor could she bring herself to ask something so worldly, so materialistic, of this great man who had already blessed her in so many ways, indescribably more precious to her than the mere fact of bearing children.

  She was so torn that she said nothing.

  Dvaipayana chuckled gently. ‘When I sit in meditation, if one sits with me as you have, their desires are imprinted so clearly on the slate of my mind, I can see everything. You do not even have to ask me, child.’

  She bowed her head in shame. Why it should shame her, she did not know, but it felt like such a trite blessing to seek, the most common boon sought by all women, to become a mother. Yes, there was the desire in her for children, to give birth to a son who would sit on the throne denied to her husband and to her. But surely there were higher things in life for which to aspire? It felt a silly thing to bother such a great sage about – the trivialities of family life.

  ‘Child, do you know what fate is?’

  Gandhari shook her head slightly. She knew, of course, in a simplistic way, but nothing Dvaipayana ever said was simple. Every sentence was full of profundities that she repeated over and over in her mind until she could glean their complete meaning.

  ‘Fate is nothing more than the play of karma. Through actions, equal and opposing reactions are generated. They do not bear fruit immediately, but the storehouse of those reactions, those karmic forces, is powerful. Strands of karmic debts and forces come together, born of one’s choices and actions in lifetime after lifetime, and then they take a momentum all their own. They propel one’s life in this direction, in that direction. A normal mortal is buffeted in the storm of their own karma. Fate, what we call fate, is that propulsion of karma, a standing wave, a current, a tide, pulling in one direction.

  ‘But, for one who is strong in will, fate is nothing. Free will is everything. They can alter the course of their destiny, ride the waves of karma but steer their life on the course of their choosing. That is why fate is always only a probability, never an inevitability. Do you understand, child?’

  Gandhari shook her head in uncertainty. She understood the principle of what he was saying, but there was a message for her, a warning, an omen, a gem of advice, that she was not able to discern. She remembered what Satyavati had said about his words to her once, that subtlety of wisdom was more important than sharpness of intellect. She felt sorely lacking in that subtle insight at this moment.

  ‘Do you not understand, child?’ Dvaipayana whispered. ‘I felt moved to call you to my meditation this morning. I never do that. My morning meditation is the most peaceful time of the day for me. I enjoy it in solitude, just me before the river, with the devas standing in front of me, the sun shining above me, the birdsong and scents of forest flowers and foliage my only company. And yet I felt moved to call you. As we sat together, I felt impelled to grant you a boon, unsought. Somehow, motherhood came to your mind and then immediately it came to mine. The words came to my lips unbidden, the words that would grant you the boon of giving birth to one hundred sons. As soon as I was aroused from meditation, I almost said the words, pronounced the blessings.

  ‘But I stopped myself. I made myself stop it. Even now, I am holding it at bay, by sheer dint of my will. The devas are compelling me; the force of your karma is compelling me; the desire of your husband is compelling me; the twisting path of fate is compelling me; yet I am holding them all back. Do you know why, Gandhari?’

  She was sweating now, even in the cool watery light of dawn. Her stomach was twisting and lurching wildly, and she thought she would vomit or soil her dress. She was short of breath and her heart pounded, thudding with heavy slams against her trembling breast. She felt caught up in a game she did not even know was being played. She felt like a small pawn in a large chessboard, where all the other players dwarfed her in skill and size. She did not know which way to move.

  Her throat was dry as she whispered, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you are a woman of iron will, Gandhari. A woman of remarkable strength and intelligence, of deep devotion and virtue. A noble woman, a truly noble woman. I want to give you the choice. I want it to be your decision. Do I grant the blessing or not?’

  Sometimes a blessing felt like a curse. She did not know why in this case, but it did.

  Gandhari racked her brain, trying to think what her father would do in this kind of a situation. He would buy time, figure out all the options available to him before making a decision. She licked her lips and asked, ‘What other options do I have?’

  Dvaipayana said dryly, ‘It is not a menu for you to pick from, daughter. Wrong questions will never get the right answer.’

  Her palms sweated. She closed her eyes and tried to think but nothing came. All she could see was Dhritarashthra asking her for the boon. She thought of Kunti and Madri, whom she despised. She thought of Pandu, of how he had no time for her anymore. She thought of her father, how painstakingly he had taken the time to teach her so much, how it was all going to waste now. And what could she do, blindfolded, in this palace to rule when she was thwarted at all sides by Kutili, who jealously guarded Dhritarashthra, Kunti and Madri and Satyavati who were conspiring to shore up Pandu’s rule, and Pandu himself, who sidelined her as an elder sister to be honoured but not one whose advice or guidance he earnestly sought? At least with a child – a child who one day himself may become heir to the throne through the vagaries of fate – who knew, after all, when a crown prince or a king could fall, when the crown would again be up for grabs? – at least with a child, she could finally put her gifts and talents to use. She would teach him to rule as she had never been given the opportunity to rule herself.

  Somewhere inside, she knew this was pettiness. She knew there was something higher, a better boon to ask for, or the highest of all – to not seek a boon at all, to just be content with the blessings of a great one. But perhaps she was not as strong as Dvaipayana thought she was. And that made her eyes tear, to think of disappointing this great one, after all that he had come to mean to her.

  ‘Is it not my dharma to ensure the continuity of the lineage, to provide as many heirs as I can? Is that not the best thing I can do for the kingdom, for the family, for my husband, my duty as a wife and princess of the Kuru clan?’

  Dvaipayana snorted: ‘Do you need one hundred sons for that?’ She wondered if he knew that he was using her own words from last night against her.


  ‘In this family, it is best to hedge one’s bets,’ she replied coolly.

  Dvaipayana guffawed. ‘You have me there. Can’t deny that. Girl, I will certainly miss your wit once I am gone. You remind me of my mother, but different. More refined and elegant, I suppose,’ he commented fondly.

  His voice changed into something sombre and gravelly. ‘So be it. Let us not delay. It is time for me to go, too.’

  Gandhari knelt and placed her head at his feet. He hesitated for a moment, then placed his hands on her head, and pronounced the traditional blessing, that she be blessed with one hundred sons.

  As Gandhari rose to leave, he lingeringly held her hand. ‘Daughter, at the end of your life, come to my hermitage in the forest. You shall always have a home there, even if I am not there. It is your home, do you understand?’

  Gandhari nodded wordlessly and walked back to the palace. She dismissed the thought of his hermitage. Why would she live in the forest at the end of her life? She would have one hundred sons there to care for her, to be her company, to keep her in comfort and love until she passed away peacefully from this earth. That much she had won with this boon. Hadn’t she?

  4

  THE FOREST, NOW

  Sleep eluded Gandhari. The names of her sons did not bring her peace, after all, but brought back terrible grief. Snippets of dreams tormented her – of cradling Suyodhana’s head on her lap as he napped interspersed with memories of holding his cold corpse in her lap, wailing and beating her head with her hands until her glass bangles shattered.

  She woke up crying. She could not help it. It was night now and she could hear the distant murmur of voices that told her it was not yet so late. She lurched to her feet. She stumbled her way to Dhritarashthra’s sleeping place. He slept closer to the hermitage. He was afraid of being alone. When she reached his side, she heard his wheezy snoring.