The Curse of Gandhari

by Aditi Banerjee

  Ayla was the only one who could soothe her. She lay next to her, washing her forehead with a wet scented cloth, fanning her in the unbearable heat of summer, reading her stories of her favourite kings and queens, the ones Subala used to tell her when she was a child. With Ayla, Gandhari could weep openly, gasping in pain when she felt the baby beating against the walls of her belly with hammering fists, perhaps as impatient to enter the world as she was to welcome him into it.

  One day, Gandhari complained to Ayla, ‘It feels like I have one hundred babies inside of me, Ayla, all waiting to be born. That would really be a fine mess, if I am to bear all one hundred sons at once!’ Ayla clucked sympathetically.

  It was Gandhari’s intent to imbue her baby with education even while he was in the womb. She wanted to recite all of the hymns to the devas that she had learned, to surround him with auspicious vibrations, to give him the company of the devas. She wanted to teach him all that Subala had taught her, reciting the names of all the eminent dynasties and lineages of the ruling families of Bharat, the history of their kingdom, the glories of their ancestors, the conquests, the piety, the might and valour of the family into which he would be born. She wanted to tell him about the values by which to live, how to care for and win the favour of the people, the duties of a king.

  But in this too she was thwarted by Dhritarashthra. He would lie next to her in bed for hours, whispering bitterly into her belly, how he had been deprived of the throne by fate, how all of his hopes were vested in him, this baby boy who would finally win for him the throne he was denied, how he would do anything to make him succeed and secure his interests; he would lie, scheme, steal, kill, if he had to, to make sure his boy sat on the throne of Hastinapur.

  Gandhari sometimes tried to put her hands on her belly to protect the baby from these venomous outpourings, as if she could cover the baby’s ears so he would not hear this poison. But she was so discombobulated by weakness and strain, by the pulsing mass of flesh that was eating away at her, that she lacked the strength to keep her husband away from her belly, to inoculate her baby from his spite. Every time she tried to talk, her teeth chattered uncontrollably. Her limbs shook like she was in palsy every time she tried to move.

  Months and months passed. It had been a year now, over a year, and still no babies emerged from her womb. Gandhari grew weaker and weaker. She was on the verge of unconsciousness all the time but lacked the respite of sleep in this limbo state between being awake and unconscious. She was tormented by nightmares of hellish worlds full of fire and demons. In her visions, all she saw was a blazing fire spread across the entire horizon, scorching her skin as she walked through it, looking for her babies. Every time she opened her mouth to call out to them, she swallowed fire and her organs withered and died. She became a walking skeleton. But still she went after her babies. They began to cry out to her, like hatchlings. She heard their cries, faint through the din of the roaring fire, that howled as it ate more and more of the world, consuming and charring everything in sight. She never saw them, only heard their cries, crawling and groping through this world of fire. She lived more in this nightmarish world in those last several months of her pregnancy than in the world of her stuffy, dank chamber.

  It was as if she had been left to die.

  Bhishma stopped visiting; Satyavati stopped sending special foods to nourish her. Even Dhritarashthra shrank away and retreated to his own chambers. Only Vidura was regular in checking in on her, providing special herbs to cool and soothe her. Ayla never left her side.

  Gandhari stopped counting the days, once her pregnancy exceeded a year. And so, she did not know whether it had been three years or five or just one day beyond the first year, that day, when Dhritarashthra came running to her chamber. It had been months since he had visited her, and Gandhari stirred in surprise, trying to wake herself into a lucid state. She tried to comb her hair with her fingers, to appear presentable, but she had grown so weak that her hair felt too heavy for her hands.

  She was startled to hear Ayla throw herself against Dhritarashthra, trying to forcibly bar him from entering the room. Ayla cried out, ‘Leave! Leave! She is not fit for you to visit. Do not bother her now!’

  Dhritarashthra was ranting incoherently, trying to push his way in.

  Gandhari cried out, ‘Ayla! What are you doing? He is my husband. Let him in.’

  Ayla sobbed but obeyed. Even Kutili appeared perturbed. She had escorted Dhritarashthra here but now urged him to go back. ‘Sir, another time. Not now. She is too weak. She will not be able to bear it.’

  Gandhari’s heart began to pound in terror. How bad could it be if even Kutili was trying to protect her against Dhritarashthra? Had she miscarried without realizing it? Her hands groped towards her belly. No, that pulsing mass was still there, throbbing inside her belly. She twisted her head, trying to hear better what was going on, through the ringing in her ears that had grown constant in the past few weeks.

  Dhritarashthra pushed both of them aside and leaned over Gandhari, snarling: ‘You promised me! You promised me one hundred sons!’

  She began to quake. ‘That is what Shiva has promised me. That is what Dvaipayana promised me. Surely, it will come true.’ It hurt her to talk, so parched was her throat, so long had it been since someone had spoken to her, since she had managed to drink a few drops of water. Even though he was yelling at her so bitterly that spittle fell from his mouth onto her chin, it was almost a relief to have a human interaction again, to feel like someone cared enough to visit.

  ‘It is no use now. No use! One son or one hundred. You are too late, woman, too late. You have been in this room for over a year now. Over one year, and still no baby! Still no heir!’

  ‘I am trying my best.’ As dehydrated as she was, tears started trickling down her cheeks, thinking how long she had been locked away here, how desperately she had tried to bear and keep inside her the weight of the foetuses until her babies were ready to be born. What more could I have done?

  He sputtered indignantly: ‘Well, you need not bother anymore. Kunti has given birth to a boy. Pandu has an heir!’

  She tried to lift her head, shock freezing the blood in her veins. ‘Kunti? Pandu? H-how? And Pandu is still alive? How is it possible? The curse – i-it cannot be possible!’

  ‘How do I know! I was not there to witness the act, was I? They sent word by a messenger. The messenger was a rishi, no less! So, no doubt could be cast on the truth of the matter. A hale, healthy son, as fair and noble as Yama, the god of death and righteousness, himself ! That is what they say.’

  ‘Our son was conceived first,’ Gandhari whispered defiantly.

  He laughed hollowly. ‘And what difference does that make? He will be born last! We lose yet again. Woman, we are done for now.’ And with that, he left.

  For long minutes, Gandhari was shell-shocked. She could not believe it! Pandu had adopted the life of a hermit, a celibate living on alms in the forests far away in the Himalayas. He would not have turned back on his vow. How could he have sired a child with Kunti, then? Her heart hurt, literally hurt, at the image of Pandu and Kunti bent over their little baby boy, the very picture of a happy family. And look at her now, stuck in this dark chamber that smelled of sweat and blood for over a year, left for dead, abandoned by all except her maid, Ayla, with a raving mad husband who blamed her for not having gone into childbirth earlier. What had she come to? How low had she fallen?

  For months and months, she had held that mass of life within her, protecting it with all her strength and will, gritting her teeth through the worst kinds of pain, defying the concerns of doctors and nurses, in order to keep that foetus safe. She had taken Bhishma’s command to keep safe the future of the Kuru clan that rested within her belly very seriously. She had nursed it with her blood, her marrow, her very flesh, to make come true her husband’s far-fetched dreams and ambition. She had taken in faith the words of Shiva and Dvaipayana that she would be mother to one hundred sons.

  Foo
l! I have been fooled! Yet again! By the devas, by the rishis, by this family! I have lost to Kunti, again! No more of this!

  A low, animal-like, primal scream started emitting from her belly, then her lungs, her chest, her dry throat, her mouth, finally emerging from her trembling lips. She screamed and screamed and screamed. And she began striking her belly. Hard. Again and again. With force she did not know she had left inside her. She bashed her belly until her bangles shattered and stuck in shards into the skin of her taut stomach, drawing blood. She struck her belly harder and harder, desperate to expel that mass of flesh from her body, that cancerous thing that had devoured and destroyed her. She hit herself again and again and again, grunting from the exertion, her teeth gnashing against her lips until they bled, but still she did not desist.

  Finally, as Ayla ran back to her, hearing her screams, there was an immense heaving from within the deepest recesses of her and that mass of flesh dislodged itself from the lining of her womb and lunged downwards, like an iceberg ripping off from a glacier wall. As Ayla cried out in shock and worry, reaching out to try to save her, that thing came out of her in a burst of blood and strange fluids, a heavy mass of dead, dense flesh, as heavy and hard as bone, woven round and round into a tightly wound ball of flesh that smelled rotten and diseased.

  Gandhari cried out in anguish, feeling simultaneous relief and grief at this thing having been dislodged and delivered of her at last, so overcome and overwrought that she slipped into a deep unconsciousness, into sleep, for the first time in many months.

  When Gandhari awoke, many days had passed. She sat up at once when she saw Dvaipayana at her bedside. He shook her roughly. ‘Gandhari, what have you done?’

  Her voice was feeble and reproachful. ‘You had promised me one hundred sons. But there was nothing there! Just a mass of dead flesh.’

  Dvaipayana growled: ‘Foolish woman! You have no patience. My words can never be untrue! That which you aborted; that is your one hundred sons!’

  Gandhari sputtered, ‘What is the point? Kunti already gave birth. Mine are not even alive.’

  Dvaipayana walked away for some moments and returned. He commanded Gandhari to open her hands. She placed them above the blanket covering her from the chest down, upturned. He placed a cold, rubbery ball on her palms. She recoiled, shrinking away from it. It smelled fetid and rotten and felt like something dead and cold. But he pressed it firmly upon her, and she could not avoid it.

  ‘Touch it, Gandhari. This is what came from your belly. This is what you pushed out, tried to expel. Touch it!’

  ‘No!’ she cried out, horrified and repulsed. But he was persistent.

  She reached out tentatively. It was hard in spots and soft in spots, like a marbled ball of meat, with a dense, hard core, covered in spirals of softer tissue that felt almost like the beginnings of little hands and little feet. She wondered now, if it would have gone faster, if she had asked for one baby instead of one hundred. What she held horrified her yet moved her, bringing tears to her eyes. It felt dead but heavy with the pregnancy of life. It smelled sterile, not rotten. The rot was from her own innards that had dripped out with it.

  Her voice warbled. ‘These are my babies?’

  Dvaipayana answered gruffly. ‘They would have been your babies had you not so foolishly and rashly killed them by hitting yourself so violently.’

  Gandhari cried out. ‘I did not mean to! I was not in my right mind. I was so desperate, so frightened and in grief. I did not understand what was happening. I was all alone.’

  He sighed and then softened his voice. ‘I had promised you one hundred sons. I thought you had faith in me, my dear.’

  There was a trace of sadness in his voice that made her heart constrict. It was the first time she felt empathy, a connection with another human being, in the time she had been locked away. It was not even a feeling, really; it was just an echo of a long-ago held capacity to feel.

  Her voice was small. ‘I did. It all just seemed so long ago, part of another world, another life. I could not really believe in your promise anymore.’

  ‘My words can never come untrue. They shall yet be born, daughter, if you still want them.’

  Her heart seized as she thought of those nightmares during the end of her pregnancy, of wandering through that fiery hellish world in search of her sons. ‘I do! I do!’

  He told her to heed his instructions well. He removed the ball from her hands and with Ayla’s help, he summoned one hundred small pots to be produced in each of which he placed one of a hundred parts of the ball to grow into one hundred sons. As he explained this to Gandhari, she shyly requested whether he could include one daughter as well. He laughed and agreed, ‘So be it, one hundred sons and one daughter.’

  The ball was separated into one hundred (and one) individual parts, each part placed into one pot and topped with ghee and other herbal ointments and oils. Dvaipayana warned that the pots had to be guarded and watched over until the babies were ready to be born.

  Gandhari solemnly nodded and promised to obey.

  Ayla prepared the adjoining chamber and carefully placed the pots in even rows of ten. Gandhari roused herself from the bed, and with Ayla and Dvaipayana’s help, she moved in front of the other chamber, laying her body across the threshold to protect and watch over her babies. Dvaipayana put his hand on her head in blessing before leaving, and she pressed the top of her head into his palm, that warm touch the only human comfort she had received in the preceding year.

  For months, Gandhari lay there, ears perked to hear a human cry from the room behind her. But there was nothing. She forgot to eat or drink, until Ayla would press some food into her slack mouth, lifting her head to swallow. It was a long, lonely vigil. No one else really believed these pots would bear anything to life; it was too bizarre a thing, this arrangement of small pots, for anyone in the court to believe in Dvaipayana’s words. It was only Gandhari who clung to the thread of Dvaipayana’s words. Many, many months passed, without her even knowing it, without anyone visiting, other than Ayla.

  One day, Gandhari, half drowsing, detected the noise of the faint cry of a baby. It sounded far away but she was sure she heard it. She cried out weakly to Ayla, who rushed to her side. ‘Ayla! Ayla! I hear it, the sound of a baby crying. It sounds so far away, though. Please check. Please see whether any of my babies have come alive. It must be one of them. Who else could it be?’

  But Ayla was not there. Gandhari frowned. This was the first time she could ever remember Ayla not being there when she had called out for her. In the past several weeks, she had been so tired that she had not called out for anyone. Someone wordlessly had placed food and water next to her head that she sometimes forced herself to consume. Now she wondered if that had not been Ayla after all. She felt a frisson of sudden worry. Is Ayla all right? She has to be all right!

  Eventually another maid came and went into the chamber to inspect. The few minutes that she was gone stretched into the most anxious moments of Gandhari’s life. She returned wordlessly and placed a small bundle on Gandhari’s chest.

  ‘He’s alive?’ gasped Gandhari.

  The maid replied quietly, ‘Yes, Queen, you have a healthy boy.’ Gandhari missed Ayla all the more – how joyous she would have been at the news, how much sweeter the moment!

  Gandhari sat up carefully, holding her son, cradled tight in her arms. She leaned against the doorway to support herself, bringing his body up to her face, sniffing him deeply. Oh! How she wished she could see his face, just once. One day, one day, I will see you with my own eyes, my son, one day.

  Gandhari cried and laughed, cried and laughed, squealing with the delight of feeling his wriggling body in her arms finally, his fingers and toes warm and alive. He cried out lustily, and Gandhari heard the distant roar of thunder but paid it no mind as her fingers roved over her baby’s body, inspecting each limb, each tiny bone and muscle, the dimple of his cheeks, the crease of his lips, the small button-shaped nose. She caressed him again
and again, kissing his cheeks through the rain of her tears.

  The maid held her to support her body which had become so frail and weak over the past two years. ‘Take me to my husband. I want to present his heir to him myself.’

  The maid murmured her assent and helped her up, the baby secure in her arms. ‘Suyodhana. That shall be his name. Suyodhana. The Great Warrior. He fought so hard to be alive, and he shall fight hard his entire life for what is right, for what is his, ours.’

  They walked slowly down the hallway to Dhritarashthra’s chamber. It had been so long since Gandhari had emerged from seclusion, she felt herself coming alive, just as her baby had come alive from that pot and into her arms. She felt lightheaded and exultant. This one had been born, and so would all the others. Finally, they reached the chamber. A servant guarding the chamber stood up in surprise to let them in, announcing that Bhishma, Satyavati and Vidura were also inside.

  Gandhari entered with her head held high, striding confidently into the chamber. She found her way unfalteringly to the bedside of her husband and placed their baby on his chest with a triumphant smile. She turned to face the other three, who stood on the other side of the bed. ‘I present to you our heir, Suyodhana! There he is, the eldest son of the eldest son of the Kuru lineage.’

  Dhritarashthra gasped and cried out. ‘Finally! This is the second great news of the day!’

  Satyavati rushed to bring Gandhari a seat. Gandhari was puzzled. ‘The second?’

  Dhritarashthra fell quiet and did not say anything. Satyavati said gently, ‘Dhritarashthra was worried when you had not gone into labour for so long, while you were pregnant, that you would not give birth after all.’ She paused to give him a chance to speak for himself, but he remained stonily silent, so Satyavati was the one to tell Gandhari that he had sired another child with one of Gandhari’s maids, months ago. She had just gone into labour earlier this very day.