It was one thing to give up food, sleep, sex. But to give up sight itself, that was something unique. And once having given it up, to have it back but to control it, to not seize more, was excruciatingly difficult. But then the world had not known a woman of Gandhari’s willpower and discipline. She controlled herself expertly. Her eyes covered every pore and follicle of his body, comprehensively and thoroughly, and she could feel his flesh become adamantine under her gaze, invincible. She could feel the power of her gaze penetrate his body, go through his skin and bones, the arteries of blood, through the heavy muscle and the skin and flesh on the other side. She could feel the strength of armour she was cloaking him in, as strong and destruction-proof as the armour Suryadeva had bestowed upon Karna. The thought niggled in the back of her mind that Karna had given away the armour, that there were limits to the parameters of parental protection, but she did not let such doubts cloud her concentration then. It was a thought that would haunt her later.
She protected his torso, his ribs, his navel, his belly. And then her eyes dropped to his waist. A piece of cloth was tied around it. She staved off the dismay, the anger at her son’s disobedience! She did not let her gaze falter, to move too quickly or to skitter away. She methodically finished the scan of her son’s body, covered each hair on his legs, each toe and toenail, and as soon as her eyes hit the ground, she slipped the blindfold over her eyes again.
It was then that she let herself breathe, her heart pound. It was then she allowed herself to ask in a cracked voice, ‘What have you done, Duryodhana? Why did you not come naked as I said?’
‘Mother, I did! But – it is just a small cloth. How could I come before you naked, Mother, without covering my waist? It would be indecent.’
Gandhari dragged a hand through her hair. Her heart was beating wildly. She was depleted and drained. All the stores of energies and inner strength that she had survived on for so many years were gone, channelled into Duryodhana. She had needed him unclothed. She could not protect him where the cloth obstructed her gaze. She had known that. That was why she had told him to come naked. Her limbs were shaking but she could not bring herself to sit down. It had all been a waste. All her penance, all her vows, all expended in futility.
She could not help repeating, ‘I told you to come naked. I was very clear.’
Duryodhana approached her but then stopped, afraid to come closer perhaps. There was something awful emanating from her now; all the goodness had been distilled into her gaze as she had covered him. Now it was the residue of her psyche left behind. The inauspicious, noxious, dark waves of doubt and dismay. She started becoming unhinged. One moment she wanted to laugh wildly, the next she wanted to pound the ground with her fists in frustration, and then she wanted to run out to the battlefield and scream at everyone to stop, just stop. How many others were going to suffer as she would now, losing their sons, their husbands, their brothers?
She shook her head again and again.
Duryodhana tried to comfort her in a tumble of words. ‘Mother, do not be upset with me. I did come naked as you had said. I was walking here stark naked, Mother. But then–’
Gandhari raised her head sharply. ‘Then what, Duryodhana?’
He confessed sheepishly, ‘Then Krishna saw me and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he admonished me that it would be a sign of disrespect to come to you naked, that I should at least cover my waist.’
Then Gandhari did laugh – madly. Of course, it was Krishna. He had to thwart them one more time.
Duryodhana’s voice was unexpectedly timid as he asked, ‘Mother? What is it that I did wrong?’
Gandhari snorted. ‘Foolish boy, I protected you with my eyes, everywhere your skin was visible to my gaze. But the cloth you wore blocked my vision, so your thighs are vulnerable while the rest of you has become invincible.’
Duryodhana laughed. ‘Oh, is that it? But, Mother, all you have to do is remove the blindfold and do it once more. I will untie the cloth right now.’
‘No. It is impossible.’ The words came out before Gandhari could think about it. She instinctively knew it to be true, that the moment had passed, that her power of protection was gone. It would take decades to rebuild that store of tapasya. But even if she could do it in a matter of minutes, something more important than the quantum of tapasya required had seeped out of her. The will was gone, the desire and the intent to see her son live.
Even mothers have to give up sometimes.
She could not stop herself from reproaching him bitterly. ‘You have never listened to your father or me. You have always disobeyed us. I had given you the strict command to come to me naked and again you disobeyed, unthinkingly, recklessly. There is nothing to be done for one who never learns to mend his ways. Leave it. There is nothing more I can do for you.’
At that, Duryodhana fell silent. She could imagine his head falling. Now that she knew what he looked like she could picture him perfectly. It made it hurt more. Now she could see what he would look like dead, how strong and handsome his body would be as it was consigned to the funeral pyre. She bit her tongue until it bled. She should not say anything more to demoralize or distress him. He should go out into battle one last time with that same brash confidence he had always carried; he should go out into battle one last time still thinking there was the possibility he would win. At least that much he should have.
Abashed, he came to her silently and knelt at her feet, lying prostrate before her. His hands and then his head touched her feet. He lay there prone. It was the deepest sign of respect that could be offered. His voice was muted and humble as he said, ‘Bless me one more time, Mother. Not with your powers but as my mother. One last time as the last day of the war approaches. I shall come back to you as the crowned king and carry you back to the palace on my shoulders as the Queen Mother. Or I shall come back to you a corpse.’
Gandhari’s hand brushed his hair and even though such blessings should be given while standing, she could not help it but lower herself to the ground and hold him to her one last time. Despite everything, she had wanted him to win. Not to be king but to be alive. She had wanted her one hundred sons to live. Whether in a palace or in a forest in permanent exile, she had just wanted them alive, to know her daughters-in-law would enjoy the fullness of married life, a joy she herself had never known. She was no longer capable of laughter herself but wanted to be surrounded by the sound of her grandchildren’s laughter. Oh, how many grandchildren she would have had! She would have grown old with them, with her sons and daughters-in-law and her grandchildren. They would have taken care of her in her frailty. They would have fed her and looked after her as she had once looked after them. She would not have died alone – she would have died with them at her side, buoyed by their love and company. She had wanted him to win.
But even mothers have to give up sometimes.
She had always been haunted by Vidura’s words, when she had proudly carried the new-born Suyodhana into her husband’s chambers, how he had called for his nephew’s death for the sake of the kingdom, the family, the world itself. She had wondered then how such doom could be writ in the face of an innocent baby, one that had suckled at her breast. Again and again, she and Dhritarashthra had been urged to turn their backs on him. Again and again, they had refused. She had thought it was love, the duty of a mother to always protect her son. But maybe there was a duty higher than that. And now she saw the folly of thinking blessings could protect or curses destroy when one was on the wrong side of righteousness.
For the sake of the family, the individual should be abandoned. For the sake of a village, abandon the family. For the sake of a country, abandon the village. And for the sake of your soul, abandon the world.
She let her lips and nose nuzzle the top of Duryodhana’s head. Each day, before marching out to battle, her one hundred sons had filed before her for her blessings, before she began her morning meditation. She had sniffed their heads and touched their foreheads in blessing. She had bl
essed them with long lives and good health.
Her blessing changed today. Perhaps it was too late, to say this on the day that she knew her son would die, on the last day of the war; perhaps it was nothing more than a meaningless gesture. But it meant something to her to pronounce the death sentence on her eldest son as she whispered into his hair: ‘May victory go to the righteous.’
And then she let him go from her embrace and from her life.
It was Krishna they sent to inform her of Duryodhana’s death. The Pandavas, Yudhishthira especially, were too afraid to face Gandhari’s wrath, afraid of the power of her curse. But they were not the ones she would curse. In their unknowing fear, they sent Krishna to inform her and placate her.
Of course, she already knew. She knew when he had left her that morning. She had smelled his death, the death of Duryodhana and all her other sons. Each morning, the wind had carried to her the smell of blood and broken entrails, of earth churned under the tread of chariot wheels. But the smell of her sons’ deaths was distinctive for her. She smelled their death on the wind. It was through smell that she knew her sons. Every morning and every night, they had filed past her and she would smell their heads and bless them with a murmur for a long life, health and prosperity. So much for the power of her blessings.
She did not gasp in shock when Krishna came or let a tear fall or let her trembling lips quiver. Dhritarashthra was seated next to her, too lost in grief to say a word, for once. Even he knew the news that Krishna carried; even his blindness had fallen away. For once, Krishna was not flamboyant, not immediately mesmerizing and captivating, in his entrance. It was as if he muted his powerful magnetism so as not to intrude upon their grief. He made himself smaller to accommodate their pain.
It was Gandhari he addressed as he seated himself next to them. Almost always the king came first, but in the matters related to children, it had to be the mother who came first. Gandhari could not bear to hear the words that Duryodhana had died from Krishna’s lips, so instead she asked him, ‘Tell me, Krishna, how did my son die?’
At her request, Krishna told her unflinchingly of how Duryodhana had been beaten in battle and had run away to a lake to hide from the Pandavas in hot pursuit. The loss of Karna precipitated chaos and disaster for the Kauravas. The army disbanded and soldiers ran away from the battle. Duryodhana himself had retreated to the lake to conceal himself. He had been outed by the Pandavas and forced to rise from the waters. He then begged in fear of his life to retreat to the forest in exile. The Pandavas refused to accept alms from the Kauravas anymore, now that they knew how fickle the holders of the throne of Hastinapur could be. They demanded that he fight. Yudhishthira cajoled him. He offered to Duryodhana a new kind of gamble. One-on-one combat between Duryodhana and any of the Pandavas, and to the victor would go the kingdom of Hastinapur. Gandhari could imagine how displeased Krishna would have been at Yudhishthira’s reckless gamble. But Krishna did not get side-tracked. He talked to them only of their son.
Of course, it was Bhima that Duryodhana had chosen to fight in one last duel. Krishna was about to skip to the end but Gandhari insisted on the details. It was what her father had taught her. A ruler must always take full account of victories and defeats in battle. He must listen to all the details and learn. It is owed to the memory of the fallen that their last encounters are recounted and heard by the ones who rule, the ones who sent them to war and to their death. It is the last duty owed to them. There would be time for the funeral pyre, for the rites of passage to the afterlife, but for now, in this moment, this was what she owed to her son as a mother, what was owed to the prince from the queen. She would hear his tale with pride.
It had been an even fight and a long one. A long-awaited combat that drew the devas and Gandharvas and other celestial beings to the clouds above to witness this extraordinary battle that raged for the greater part of the day. They both bled profusely and needed periods of rest in between bouts of intense fighting. Everyone came to watch. Everyone was spellbound and watched with baited breath. They had never seen anything like this.
Krishna told Gandhari that Duryodhana had fought valiantly, that when he had fallen the skies rained down blood and dust, that rivers reversed their course, the air darkened all around them and gusts of wind blew. He spared her the gory details, which she would hear later from others, how her son’s head had been kicked by Bhima after he had died, how the Pandavas had danced and shouted madly in glee at their final victory. She was haunted by nightmares then, feeling again and again in her dreams the press of Bhima’s foot kicking hard against Duryodhana’s helmet – Bhima who had always been the especial object of Duryodhana’s hate. She could have borne everything that Krishna told her but not these words whispered into her ears by gossiping hangers-on at court after the war had ended. Krishna had never been cruel like that. It was Krishna who reprimanded Bhima and Yudhishthira for their unbecoming disrespect of their cousin. She was not capable of gratitude for that gesture yet.
In between Dhritarashthra’s sobs and gasps of his son’s name, Gandhari asked abruptly, ‘How did you do it?’
Krishna hesitated, clearly reluctant. ‘How did I do what?’
Gandhari said sharply, ‘I remember your brother’s words. Balarama had said that while Bhima was the stronger of the two, Duryodhana was the better of the two in mace fighting because he had practised more and worked harder. He spent the past thirteen years solely devoted to becoming the best at mace fighting to defeat Bhima. It must have been you who defeated him.’
She imagined Krishna’s faint smile as he said admiringly, ‘Truly, you are the daughter of Subala.’
Gandhari touched her thigh. She let herself remember now, now that it could no longer hurt any more than it was hurting, how her son had looked bathed in the rosy light of dawn. How virile, how massive, how strong, how infinitely dear with his shy smile and his big broad eyes that blinked too fast. She remembered his thighs, how muscled they were, and the thin cloth that kept them from her protective gaze. She squeezed her thigh until it hurt to block out this other deeper pain. She whispered, ‘Is this where Bhima struck him? Is this how Duryodhana died?’
‘Yes, queen.’
She kept whispering, not trusting herself to speak in a normal voice. ‘It is against the rules of combat. That was cheating.’ The thigh was not a fair target in the rules of mace-fighting.
‘Queen, the rules of dharma are there to protect those who take refuge in dharma. Those who have violated dharma again and again, who have shown no respect for it – they cannot hide behind the façade of dharma when it has come time to meet their fate.’
Gandhari’s hand released her thigh. She hugged herself around the waist and bent over her knees as if somehow that physical pressure would suppress the grief that radiated outwards from her heart in spirals of fiery pain. ‘You cheated.’ She imagined how he did it. She imagined him tapping his thigh with his slender blue fingers, indicating to Bhima where to strike.
Krishna’s voice remained mild and cool. ‘Yes, Gandhari. There was no way for Duryodhana to be defeated in a fair fight. He had become invincible, even if the gods themselves were to fight him. It was only through cheating that he could be defeated. For the sake of dharma, he had to be defeated.’
Gandhari’s lips quivered. She shook her head.
Krishna knelt before her, and he said in a voice suddenly so melodious and firm, so resonant, that the currents of his voice flowed all around and throughout her body and swept her up into the cloud of his ethos, illuminating once again his presence that he had muted earlier. The power of him could comfort her even when his words could not.
Krishna said to Gandhari in a voice so earnest, so moving, it brought tears to her eyes when her eyes had remained dry even at the news of Duryodhana’s death. He said, ‘O daughter of Subala! You are the one excellent in vows! There is no woman like you in the world, no wife as devoted, no woman as virtuous and noble. O queen! Remember the words that you spoke in the assembly-hall
in my presence. Your words full of dharma were not able to restrain your sons. You said to Duryodhana, ‘O foolish one! Victory goes to the righteous!’ Now those words of yours have come true.
‘Through the strength of your austerities, you are capable of burning down the earth. O queen! Do not hate the Pandavas. They shall carry out the duties of your sons who are now gone. They shall treat you as their own mother. O queen! Do not grieve.’
Gandhari could not help it. She began weeping. It would be the hand of her son’s enemy who would light her funeral pyre. This was against nature. It should be a crime to outlive your children. What kind of greed is it to keep drawing breath, clinging to life, now that all my reasons for living have died? How is it that I survive? How is that I accept this and continue to live? How can I accept inside my chambers the killer of my son and take comfort from him?
Yet Gandhari could not stop herself from asking this last question, desperate for this small piece of consolation. She asked, ‘Did he die well, Krishna? Did Duryodhana have a good death?’
‘Yes, queen. When your son fell, fierce winds began to blow. The earth began to tremble at the loss of this hero. Thunder split the skies and large meteors appeared to fall from the sky. Duryodhana died a valiant hero. He fought well.’
‘Suyodhana,’ Gandhari whispered. Now she could say it, the name that she had chosen for him. He was no longer there to protest. How proudly she had named him, how beloved the sound of that name had been on her lips, when she first named him, carrying him proudly through the corridors of the palace in Hastinapur, the palace she had imagined would be his one day to rule over as king, how she had pressed that name into his head with her lips, as he sat cradled against her chest, as she took him to meet his father, her husband, this shell of a man who was weeping next to her now.
The Curse of Gandhari Page 27
