The Curse of Gandhari

by Aditi Banerjee

  Gandhari gasped in horror: ‘Suyodhana! Watch yourself and your language. How dare you say such things?’ Had he remained within her grasp, she would have slapped him for such ugliness. But she could not see where he was; she could not reach him. She appealed to her husband, ‘Husband, say something to him. He cannot talk like this!’

  Dhritarashthra moaned and cried out plaintively, ‘What can I say to our son, Gandhari? I understand his pain, his anguish. It is only natural. Why should he suffer so, simply because I was denied the throne because of my blindness? Why should my sins be visited upon him? And really, how do we know the truth of what Kunti tells us? It is only prudent to be suspicious, to demand evidence before we welcome them into our home.’

  ‘Pandu was the king. This is Kunti and her children’s home. You know that Yudhishthira is heir to the throne and will be king. You have agreed to this yourself! Why are you allowing our son to be agitated like this? You have to tell him the reality of things. He is in anguish because he does not understand, does not accept the truth of the matter. You are his father! You must make him see right!’

  Dhritarashthra said nothing, only sighed loudly and theatrically. Shakuni crossed the room to sit next to his sister. He placed his hand upon hers firmly and said, ‘Now is not the time, sister. Let them be. Let your son be. He will be fine.’

  ‘Another thing, mother,’ Suyodhana whirled around suddenly to face her.

  ‘Wh – what is it?’ She was suddenly afraid of her own son. His mercurial moods, his extremes, his uncontrollable behaviour. Almost, almost, she felt for a moment happy that it would be Yudhishthira who would be king and not her own son. It was a shameful thought as a mother but perhaps the right one as queen.

  ‘My name is no longer Suyodhana. I shall be known as Duryodhana.’ There was such terribleness in how he pronounced the name that it sounded almost evil, a word signifying something bad and inauspicious. Years later, some would say that his name changed as a reflection of his character, that he was no longer worthy of an auspicious name, that his evil deeds had earned him this pejorative moniker. But they were wrong. It was a name he chose for himself.

  ‘Why this name? Why Duryodhana?’

  ‘Let my name be a warning to others to not mess with me. Duryodhana! It means the unconquerable one, the one with whom it is difficult to fight. Let not the Pandavas underestimate me.’

  ‘You already have such a beautiful name,’ whispered Gandhari. ‘Suyodhana. The Great Warrior.’

  He snickered contemptuously. ‘Not good enough. There may be many great warriors, but there is only one me. There is only one who will occupy the throne of Hastinapur. That is Duryodhana. The unconquerable one.’

  Gandhari turned beseechingly to her brother. ‘Shakuni, what is all this nonsense? Talk some sense into him!’

  Duryodhana snapped, ‘Do not turn my uncle against me! Shakuni Mama was the one who suggested this name to me. It is his idea as much as mine. You are a weak woman, Mother. You do not know what you are talking about. Leave us to it.’ He turned his back on her, walking off as if excusing her from the chamber.

  ‘Shakuni! Is this true?’ Gandhari was bewildered. She understood the delusions her husband and son harboured, but surely Shakuni must have known better. He was too wily and cunning to not realize that Suyodhana could not possibly expect to be king, not with the return of Yudhishthira. He would surely have known that it was for the best for Suyodhana to accept his place in the palace and make peace with his cousins. It was his job to teach her sons. That was why she had brought him back.

  ‘Sister, we will talk of it later.’ His voice was quiet but firm.

  Gandhari was troubled. She was being ordered out of chambers which belonged to her. She was the one who should have been in charge here, but she suddenly felt vulnerable and out of place. She did not want the embarrassment of being defied, so she got up to leave uneasily.

  ‘Mother!’ His voice was sharp and strong, bouncing off the walls.

  ‘Yes, son?’

  ‘Say it. Say it once. It will only feel like it is properly my name when you say it. You are the only one who can name me.’

  Tears came to her eyes. Only she heard the plea in his voice, the insecurity, the desperation to be validated and accepted, loved by his mother. She could never deny him. Never. She walked to him and stroked his hair, his forehead, kissing the top of his head as her tears fell into his thick curly locks. Please protect him, she screamed out internally to the gods, the ancestors, to Pandu who was now in the heavens. Please keep him safe!

  Had she been stronger, she would have refused. And maybe a series of refusals would have been enough to change the tide, to pull back from the lure of war, the trap of inevitable destruction, the path that led them further and further away from Dharma. Love made her weak, though, made her murmur into her son’s ears, ‘Duryodhana, my son. You shall always be known as the unconquerable one, the one with whom it is terrible to fight. You are now Duryodhana.’

  And with that bitter, sour taste of that name that felt so inauspicious in her mouth, Gandhari left the room.

  Satyavati was leaving. She was leaving with her daughters-in-law, Ambika and Ambalika, for the forest to spend the rest of their days in a hermitage before leaving the world. It was Dvaipayana who had come to her, after the news of Pandu’s death had been announced, to comfort her in her grief and to instruct her gently that it was time to leave. He told her that dark days were coming, that the happy days she had known as part of the Kuru clan had come to an end. The earth has lost her youth, he told her, and days of darkness, of increasing evil and degeneracy were coming now. He told her she would not be able to bear witnessing the destruction of her family and the lineage.

  In her customary way, Satyavati agreed brusquely and in the space of a day made ready to leave. Once she had decided upon a course of action, she set about executing it immediately. She summoned Ambika, Dhritarashthra’s mother, and informed her that because of the evil acts foreseen to be performed by her son, that would result in the destruction of the Kuru clan, she was retiring to the forest along with Ambalika, Pandu’s mother, and that she was welcome to join them if she wanted. Ambika consented meekly.

  Gandhari was distraught at the prospect of losing Satyavati. Even in recent years, when they had drifted apart, she had found comfort and pleasure in Satyavati’s presence and still saw in her the mother she had always lacked. She was tongue-tied now, devastated that it was her husband and her sons that were turning Satyavati away from what had been her home for so long. As they met for the last time, Gandhari expressed her wish that she could have accompanied Satyavati to the forest hermitage and looked after her there.

  Satyavati dismissed her airily: ‘No, Gandhari. You belong here. The time is not for you yet. One can only leave the world once one has finished one’s work in it. I have seen it all, done it all. It is time for me to go, to leave the palace and the affairs of the Kuru family in the hands of the younger ones now. It is now your turn to guide the fate of the Kuru dynasty. One cannot go into renunciation until one has completed one’s work.’

  Gandhari bowed her head in acquiescence. She asked if her grandmother-in-law had any parting words of advice or instructions before she left. Satyavati sighed as if she were reluctant to say the words but since Gandhari had asked, speak them she did.

  ‘How can I ask of you what I did not do myself? To honour the family into which you have been married, to treat those who are not your sons as your own sons? How long and loyally Bhishma has served me and yet even now I cannot muster for him the affection a mother should have for her son. Still I am haunted by the memories of the sons I lost, who were pale shadows of men next to him, who did not deserve the throne upon which they sat, the throne safeguarded and protected by the honour and might of my stepson whom I never treated rightfully as my own. Never has he disobeyed or displeased me in anything, except the one time when he refused to break the very vow I forced him to take. I broke this family with my r
efusal to accept the rightful heir of the Kuru clan. From now until my deathbed, in the forest, I shall reflect upon this, commit penance for my past.

  ‘And now here you are and history seems destined to repeat itself. But I am not so sure you will succeed. Shantanu wanted me more than he wanted the throne. Bhishma wanted his father’s happiness more than he wanted to be king. No one wants your sons on the throne of Hastinapur. No one is concerned for your happiness, daughter. It is a losing fight your husband and perhaps you seek to pursue.

  ‘But I will not ask you to turn away from the path you are walking. I will not ask of you what you cannot deliver. I will not ask you to put aside your interests for the good of the kingdom. I will not ask you to desist from the path of destruction your husband and son are on. I will not ask you to abandon them for the sake of the kingdom. I will not ask you to care for Yudhishthira or the Pandavas. I will not ask of you what I was unable to do myself. You are the mother of one hundred sons; I shall not ask you to be the mother of one hundred and five.’ And with that, Satyavati kissed her on the forehead, not unsympathetically, and left.

  6

  THE FOREST, NOW

  Gandhari stirred, reluctantly shaken awake by a nagging anxiety that did not allow her to be lulled into a deep sleep. This was not sleep; this was being held under water and sputtering to the surface, choking and gasping for breath before being dunked underwater again. In this way, she transitioned between sleep and the waking state, lurching from one to the other.

  It must have been midnight. There was no Kunti beside her, no murmur of voices, only the dim orange glow of the eternal fire in the distance. Gandhari sat up. Sweat had plastered her hair to her brow. Voices hummed in her head. She had heard the voices of the devas once. In those days of her penance, she had heard Shiva, Ganesha, Durga whispering their approval to her, their acceptance of her offerings. She had yearned for their voices then, eagerly chased after them, delving more and more deeply into her penance. Even in the years leading up to the war, even as the devas receded into the background of her mind as she focused more and more on her sons, still they lurked within her consciousness and it was a comfort to know she could reach out to them at any time. She never lost the confidence that the devas were just one fast, one prayer, one act of sacrifice, away. Every vrata she had sought, ever boon, she had won, was reserved for that.

  Until Krishna.

  Krishna, her most despised enemy. Krishna, who thwarted her and her sons at every turn. Krishna, who defended and saved the Pandavas, again and again. Krishna stopped the voices in her head. Krishna took the devas away from her. Relentlessly, he had pushed them to the brink of war. That last day, on the battlefield, when she had cursed him, when he had coldly reprimanded her, she had stopped all worship. She banished the devas from her consciousness. What was the point anymore, after the judgment of Krishna, which had so obviously found her lacking? She accepted his judgment passively; she was resigned to her fate and never again sought to change it. She was stoic to the prospect of unending suffering. Indeed, she was. Even if they had stayed back in Hastinapur and suffered through all the taunts and insults by Bhima and the others, she would not have minded it. She would have accepted it quietly. She knew her fate and she greeted it dispassionately. Just as she had been fated to marry the blind prince, just as she had been fated to bear one hundred sons, just as she had been fated to give birth to the one who would destroy the Kuru clan, to see him die, so, too, had this become her fate. She had no protest.

  The thought never occurred to Gandhari to turn to the devas now, to seek their comfort and guidance. Surely, they had abandoned her.

  Sometimes, it shamed her, this insistence on survival. It was not desire. Desire meant the hope for something greater. Yet, she was not Madri, who consigned herself to the flames when her husband had died. She had lost all one hundred of her sons, yet she still persisted in living, when life had lost all of its joy and meaning for her. She felt lower than an animal, this clawing at existence, refusing to let go. There was still something she demanded of life, that life demanded of her.

  She wondered if she would die in her sleep, if death would come like an insect, biting her unawares, spreading its poison slowly through her limbs and blood, without her realizing it, until it was too late. Would she know if she was dead after she died? Would there be a sleep before she woke again to don a new life, enter crying into a new world? Or would it be immediate, a yanking from this life to the next? Would she spend years and years in the realms of hell before the chance at a new life, at starting over? No, not even that, not a starting over, just a resumption of the life she had already started, a resumption of the burdens that weighted her even now. Death was not an escape – just a prolonging. The only escape was through the devas and that path felt lost to her now. She imagined praying to them and them laughing at her, scorn dripping from their beatific faces. She was too proud to risk such a rejection, so she turned away from them, resolute.

  Maybe it would not be so bad, dying without knowing she was dying. Dying in her sleep – expecting to wake up but never again waking. She wanted to get it over with now, the business of death and dying. She wanted it to be done. It is simple enough – how many times you have forced yourself to stay awake, to watch over your sons, to pray to the gods, to stay alert; now just reverse it, now just force yourself to stay asleep, to never again surface into consciousness, to slip into a slumber that will not cease. Do not think about it. Just do it.

  She closed her eyes, firmly vowing never to open them again. It was just one step away, from blindfold to blindness.

  As soon as her eyelids closed, a gentle wind drifted through the forest, gentle yet powerful, lifting the fine hairs off her neck and whispering through the leaves, ruffling the grass. It made the forest sound like it was laughing and Gandhari, even as she screwed her eyes tight, curling into herself, into her pallet, was convinced somehow that it was Krishna, that he had come one last time, to laugh at her.

  Hastinapur, Then

  It had all started so innocently. That was what Gandhari told herself. In the beginning, it had just been roughhousing. They were boys after all. So what if they hit each other, beat each other up badly, her sons and Kunti’s sons, transforming picnic outings into brawls. Always it was Duryodhana against Bhima, the strongest of Kunti’s sons, and always Duryodhana was on the losing end of it. So, it did not surprise Gandhari, that he became more and more desperate, went to further and further lengths to fight back against him. That was why she did not bother to do anything about it. Boys will be boys.

  Then came the murder attempts. Bhima was poisoned. Bhima was drowned. Only to come back from the verge of death, again and again, only to become a stronger and more popular hero in the eyes of the people of Hastinapur, only to make her son seem a weakling and a fool.

  That was when Gandhari grew antsy. She went to her husband first. That was a mistake. Nowadays two others were always in his chambers – Sanjaya, the charioteer, who had replaced Kutili as his principal companion and advisor, and Yuyutsu, his son from Ayla. Kutili had left in disgust once Yuyutsu had been born, refusing to entertain the son of a maid (a maid like her) who dared to claim the status of being the king’s son. Sanjaya, the gentle, wise charioteer, appealed to Dhritarashthra, a contrast to the volatile temperament of Kutili. He had had enough of women by then, in any event.

  Yuyutsu was a sweet boy who preferred the company of his father to his rowdy half-brothers. He was gentle and good, and Gandhari hated him passionately. She hated him more than she had hated Kunti, more than she hated Kunti’s sons – she hated him for being better than her own blood-born sons, for making her feel an inferior mother to her own maid even in absentia. What goodness there must have been in Ayla that had transferred to him and what badness must there have been in Gandhari to have produced sons who seemed bent only on killing their cousins. She bristled at his presence, and so she left the room whenever she found him there.

  Having given up on her
husband, Gandhari turned to her brother, Shakuni. He was hardly ever to be found on his own. He was always with her sons, principally Duryodhana, coddling them and ingratiating himself with them. They called him Shakuni Mama with as much affection as they called her Ma.

  It was near midnight when she finally found him alone, in his chambers, strategically wedged between Dhritarashthra’s rooms and Duryodhana’s. The palace had grown quiet after dinner as the inhabitants, the royal family, the servants, the ministers who lived in the palace quarters, all retired to rest. This was when Shakuni was his busiest. Gandhari’s new servants told her that the lamps were always burning in his chambers, that there were hushed whispers emanating from there even when there appeared to be no one else inside, that they could hear him muttering to himself late into the night and early into the morning. And always there was the rattle of dice, thrown against the wall, collected into his hands, and thrown again, harder and harder, faster and faster, as if he was throwing out every possible combination until he had worked out all the possibilities and could command the dice to fall as he wanted them to fall.

  Her servants were in awe of him and in fear. They were mostly useless and did not catch half the things that ought to have been reported to her, the things that Ayla reported to her without fail. She felt even blinder than before, more helpless. She had thought Shakuni would be her additional pair of eyes, but now she felt he was yet another one that she had to monitor and suspiciously observe.

  She knocked softly on his door and he opened it with alacrity, jumping up. ‘Sister!’ he exclaimed, not unhappily. ‘What a surprise to see you here at this hour. Come in!’ He unceremoniously yanked her inside the room and shut the door. He was wary of being seen.