It brought no comfort to Gandhari to see the Pandavas so devastated and downtrodden at the end of the war. It made the loss of her sons all the more meaningless and futile. There was not even a proper cause for which they had been sacrificed. She could not bear to be in the midst of such sorrow anymore, and she moved away quietly. There was one last visit she needed to make.
The battlefield was easier to navigate now that most of the corpses had been removed, the blood absorbed into the earth. The vultures had done the rest of the work. It was quiet now that the tumult of war had receded. Gandhari was able to pick her way to where Bhishma was resting, preparing to die. He had fallen in the early days of the war, brought down by the arrows of Arjuna with Shikhandi, Amba reborn, as the charioteer. He had been injured fatally but had the boon from his father that he would die only when he wished. Now Bhishma was waiting for the sun to change its course to Uttarayana, the phase of the solar cycle each year when the sun began its northward journey from the south. That was the most auspicious time to die.
He refused to be taken from the battlefield. Instead, he lay on a bed of arrows. After he had fallen, when Arjuna and the others rushed to his side to look after him, he had requested only one thing. A pillow for his head. The others had run off to the palace to bring him expensive cushions and soft pillows. Only Arjuna had understood what he meant. With tears streaming down his face, with great tenderness and love, Arjuna shot three arrows into the ground upon which his grandfather could rest his head.
Gandhari came alone. She did not want anyone else to intrude on this visit. She could pick out his location through the sound of his breath. No one else breathed as deeply, as calmly, as richly, as Bhishma. There was an aura that radiated from him, of wisdom, of experience, of having gone through things no one else could imagine. Gandhari could find him like a moth would find a flame.
She knelt next to him.
Bhishma chuckled. ‘Ah, Gandhari! There are two women, I think, who have blamed me for their lot in life, who saw me as their enemy. One was Amba, who then took birth as Shikandi to be the charioteer for Arjuna. She knew I would not shoot at a woman (even if she was now a man) and so Arjuna was able to bring me down easily. I think that is one debt I have repaid. You are the other one. And what is it you would ask of me, queen? Let all my debts be repaid now before I leave this earth one last time.’
She did not know why she had come to Bhishma. She did not speak. It would be months, nearly a year, before she would speak again, before her brain and mouth could resume a semblance of proper functioning. He had always been larger than life for her – this heroic, otherworldly figure, the patriarch of a family to which she had always wanted but never quite managed to belong. His approval, so unforthcoming, had meant a lot to her. Always she remembered him as being the one who agreed with her to let her baby Duryodhana live. She wondered if he regretted it now.
She had always felt kinship with Satyavati, his stepmother. Bhishma had always been so aloof. But now she thought of how much more she had in common with Bhishma — their vows, their loyalty to family even at the cost of dharma, their quixotic idealism that did not allow them to deviate from their family, the constant foolish delusional attachment to their family. They both perhaps longed to be in the world of the devas but were stuck in the world of the mortals, trapped by the desires and ambitions of others. Except now Bhishma was leaving.
If she could, Gandhari would have touched his feet for his blessings. But one could not touch the feet of one who was lying down, who was ill, who was dying. And this was the pain that made the first tears fall from Gandhari’s eyes. There was the pain of losing her sons, but this was another type of pain, the pain of losing elders, of no longer having anyone above her, no one whose feet she could touch for blessings, no one to offer guidance or advice. Her parents, her teachers, they were all dead. It was a different kind of loss.
Bhishma asked again softly, ‘Gandhari, what is it that I can do for you?’
She lifted his hand and pressed her head into the bed of arrows next to where his hand was resting, turned her cheek to the side, the feathery shafts of the arrows dimpling the side of her face. She pressed her face down onto the arrows until it hurt. Bhishma understood and placed his hand on her head, on top of her hair, where the bandage was tied tight around her eyes. He kept his hand there in comfort, in affection, in blessing, as she wept silently.
He did not bless her with words. What could he possibly offer to her as a blessing now? But he kept his hand there for hours as her tears fell in a stream onto the ground. Soon she would have to get up again. Soon she would have to return to a palace now ruled over by the enemies of her sons. Soon she would have to tend once more to Dhritarashthra and soothe his pain. Soon she would have to endure the presence of Kunti, returned once again to Hastinapur as the dowager queen. She would have to return to a palace where she would be tended to not by her sons but by Yuyutsu, the last remaining son of Dhritarashthra, who had sided with the Pandavas and had therefore been spared, the son of her maid. She would have to return to a palace that would now be silent, that would not bear the footfall of her one hundred sons, that would never know her grandchildren but would instead house the alien grandchildren of Kunti. She would have to return to a life worse than death.
But for now, she could sit under the protective shadow, one last time, of Bhishma. She could bow her head to her elder, one last time. One last time, she could be in the presence of one like her who had known the path of dharma but had been trapped by familial ties and affection, one who, like her, had in his own way loved Duryodhana, too.
10
IN THE FOREST, NOW
She knew it was a dream because she could see. How fastidious she was about never casting her eyes upon the world. Even when she changed her bandage for cleaning, she screwed her eyes tightly closed so no ray of light would enter them, no taste of colour.
This was a dream she cringed from. It was late in the night, the dark before dawn, and she was in the forest, near the hermitage by the river. But the forest had turned ominous. The crickets chirped menacingly.
She clawed at her face.
She whimpered. She could smell Krishna in the air. The fragrance of sandalwood was stronger, more intense than before. He surrounded her. In between the frenzied gusts of wind, she thought she could hear his footsteps. He was coming after her. She cried out but there was no one in the world to listen. Kunti was gone. Sanjaya was gone. Dhritarashthra was gone. Only Krishna and Gandhari remained in this dark wild world.
She felt desperately afraid.
Was it a dream or was it something real?
It did not matter. It hurt to breathe, to inhale that scent of sandalwood that carried with it the smell of the death of her family, her sons and her brother (yes, she missed even him, too), the acrid scent of the battle air when she had cursed Krishna, the remorse, the guilt, the regret, the wistfulness, and the deflation of his rebuke, his judgment of her. She could not face it again.
She stumbled out of her pallet. She was weak on her feet, her legs trembled so badly. But she was desperate to escape. She began running away from Krishna. The wind whipped the leaves into a frenzy, the trees shaking their boughs at her as she tried to walk between them. The branches pushed her back, not letting her proceed. Her feet dug into the earth, and the dirt became a deep, sticky mud, sucking at her ankles and heels, drawing her under.
She tried breathing with her mouth but could not avoid the smell and taste of sandalwood, that fragrance that should have been light, soothing and cool but instead burned the insides of her nose. She pushed against the branches and tried to force her feet up and forward. The branches snapped back in her face, scratching her with thorns. The mud squelched around her feet and the more she resisted, the deeper she sank. She thought she felt worms crawling over her feet, dragging against the skin of the tops of her feet, curling around her toes.
Now she began to run. She hated running, had given it up since girlhood. A que
en should never be hurried; a queen’s gait should always be dignified, measured. She should never stumble. How could an old woman, nearly starved to death, run after all? It was just desperate walking, lurching from tree to tree, sometimes holding on to the trees and gasping for breath, then pushing off to the next few stumbling steps until the next tree. When her feet could no longer hold her up, she was content to crawl, using her belly to pull her forward, grabbing the branches that pierced her and using them as leverage.
But she knew Krishna was coming after her. Her hearing had become superfine. She could hear his feet dancing lightly through the forest, effortless, the trees parting to let him through, the leaves rubbing themselves on him gently, lovingly. The very forest seemed to caress him, and the owls, the crickets; making way for him to pursue her.
I will not see him. Not again. If I see him, he should be dead; if I see him, it should be to see the fulfilment of my curse.
‘Madhu,’ said Krishna softly, somewhere near her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Madhu! How many years had it been since she had heard that name, her pet name, the name by which her father and brothers called her. Since she had turned a teenager, she was known as Gandhari, named after her kingdom, Gandhara, and that was the name her husband, Bhishma, Vidura, Satyavati and all the others had used for her. To hear that old childhood name again, the name that embodied all the affection from her family whom she had never seen again since the day she was shipped off to her marriage to the blind king, jolted her, made her shiver.
That voice. That somnolent voice roughened with a lilting laugh, sweeter and finer than the flute he played. The voice that had told her of the death of her son, that told her that women like her gave birth to sons for slaughter.
Her teeth gnashed together. She clutched her head but could not block out the sound of Krishna’s voice, and it came out of her in a stream of bile and vomit and blood.
Then she was falling into spinning blackness and a pair of blue hands caught her, refusing to let her fall, refusing to let her elude him.
She woke with a jolt. Where am I? She was sitting on rough ground, something hard and smooth like rock. Her feet explored the ground beneath her. It was as smooth as pebbles, round stones stacked together, with dimpled indentations. She sniffed at the air. It was odourless, sterile.
She cocked her ear. The only sound was the harsh rise of her own breathing.
The bandage around her eyes had lightened to almost translucence. It made the world around her appear in a dull yellow glow. She instantly tried to close her eyes, but she could not. She could not not see.
Was this death then? A forced reckoning with the past? She had not needed the aid of her eyes to realize where she was. She was back in Kurukshetra, the battlefield, where she had lost her one hundred sons, where each of her daughters-in-law had been turned into a widow. Where she had cursed Krishna. She would have known Kurukshetra anywhere without the need of any her senses.
Kurukshetra. They called it Dharmakshetra, the site where Dharma, the order of righteousness and harmony, had been re-established through the holy war. It was where she had lost everything. And now here she was again. She looked at the earth below her feet and saw she sat perched on a mountain of skulls. A mountain built up of millions and millions of skulls. Streams of blood wound their way from the base of the mountain, spreading like tentacles across the barren parched brown terrain of the battlefield. The blood was coagulated, like solidified lava. The field was littered with broken armour and crowns. The corpses had disappeared, but she could count them in the skulls beneath her feet; in her memory, she knew the identity of each one and where each had lain on the ground. Once, she had witnessed their deaths; once, she had recited their names, immortalizing them in history.
There was no sun here, just this dull yellow light, the dying of the day.
She knew he was here, next to her, but she still refused to look at him.
‘Here we are again,’ said Krishna’s voice.
Gandhari replied stiffly, ‘You did not need to bring me back here. I have never forgotten.’
‘No, you have not,’ agreed Krishna softly.
Gandhari blinked hard. She was not like the others. Dhritarashthra was consumed by the need to expiate his past and attain the heavens. Kunti was stoic, resigned, fatalistic. But a mother never forgot, never lost her grief.
She carefully stood, securing her foothold by curling her toes into the eye sockets of two different skulls. She planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the field. Her father had taught her this. After every battle, he would take her to survey the damage. He would count the casualties, the prisoners, the dead, the survivors, not just for their side, not just their allies, but also for the enemy.
He would tell her, ‘Madhu, we are responsible for all of them. Every horse, elephant, every enemy killed, every man of ours who have sacrificed their lives. We must honour their sacrifice. Their lives, the lives we have taken, are our responsibility.’
‘I am responsible for all of them,’ she whispered. It was as if a stone, one of the skulls, were lodged in her throat, making breath and speech impossible.
Krishna came to stand beside her. His shape was fuzzy to her, just a blur of blue skin and yellow silk clothes, a golden crown glittering atop curly black hair. She refused to look at him directly.
‘You are, too,’ she could not help accusing him.
Krishna inclined his head. ‘I had my role, my reasons. I have already accepted your curse, my queen. That is not why we are here.’
‘And why are we here, Krishna?’ Gandhari snapped. ‘Why have you chased me through the forest? Why can you not simply leave me alone?’ Her voice cracked. She lacked the strength she had all those years ago, when she had railed against him and cursed him. She was a feeble woman now. ‘I know the tally of my sins and virtues. I know that I will suffer for what I have done and I shall face it. It is not necessary for you to have come to taunt me, to punish me further. I know your judgment.’
‘That is not what I have come for.’ His voice was firm and brooked no argument.
‘Then, why have you come, Krishna?’ Gandhari pressed again, and she could not help it that there was something small in her voice, something soft, something a little desperate.
There was a tenderness in his voice that startled Gandhari as he said, ‘I have come to help you die, Madhu.’
She was so taken aback that she lowered her head so he could not see the expression on her face. ‘Did you help my sons die, Krishna? You brought them to their death, but did you help them die?’
‘I gave them many chances, Gandhari.’
She could not deny that. She scoffed, ‘I do not need your help to die. I am ready to die and suffer through my karma. I am prepared to face it. I am not afraid to die.’ She swallowed hard, a faint tremor in her heart belying her words. She breathed deeply to steady her voice. ‘What is so hard about dying? It is just the absence of life. I can sit here and die on my own without anyone’s help.’ Without her intending it, her voice became bitter and venomous. She thought of how she had helped Dhritarashthra to find peace in his last sleep, but no one had been there to do that for her.
‘Why do you always choose to suffer, Gandhari? You, a woman of such immense virtue, a lady of such inconceivable strength and willpower. Why do you let that strength and virtue turn to rust? Even now you could change your future, your death. Why do you not try?’
Gandhari snorted. ‘What future do I have left? I had no future left the day the war had ended. Ever since then, it has just been this wait for death. My life lost all meaning and purpose the moment I cursed you. Only a few hours are left now between me and death. It is too late for anything else.’
There was something otherworldly in Krishna’s already otherworldly voice, as mellifluous and clear as the music of bells and flutes, as he pronounced, ‘Even a moment can be enough to change the course of a lifetime, of many lifetimes. Someone with the power of your penance
should understand that.’
Gandhari shook her head decisively and there was something jaded, cynical to that shake of her head. She was not interested in his philosophy, another of his metaphysical discourses that he gave once in a while. Arjuna was enraptured by what he had told him before the war had begun. Somehow Krishna had given him the strength to fight the war when Arjuna had been in despair, ready to walk away from battle before it had even started.
Gandhari was not interested in that; she was not interested in changing. She simply wanted to get it over with, whatever was to come. She looked away from him, back at the scene of sanitized carnage. She pictured it in her head, the way it had been back then – each mangled corpse, each amputated limb. She recalled the smell of the rotting flesh. In her nightmares, she walked through rivers of blood trying to get to her sons. The blood of the fallen reached chest-high and as much as she waded, she never made it through the entire river. She never made it to her sons, not even in her dreams.
‘They say I should have been a better mother.’
Krishna shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I wish you had been a better queen.’
Gandhari frowned.
‘That is what Bhishma had hoped for, when he had picked you for Dhritarashthra’s bride, you know.’
Gandhari harrumphed. ‘No! I was an easy mark. A blind prince who would never become king – that was hardly a good marital prospect! The great princesses of the realm would not have settled for my husband. They must have thought a mountain bumpkin like me, someone from the hinterlands, would not have had a better option. They thought it would be a step up for me.’ And, then, of course, there was the boon. One hundred sons. That must have been tantalizing. Still the bitterness of that day rankled, the realization that it was for Dhritarashthra that her hand was being sought, not Pandu.
The Curse of Gandhari Page 29
