“Krishna, in all my life…” I did not know what I would say. “In all my life, with all the battering of this war, in spite of all the burning astras and fighting all night long, here alone have I felt the promise of my life and its fulfillment.”
In my mind I lived out several lives with Krishna. In one, we were in Dwaraka swimming in the sea and gathering great pink shells and in the evening we would sit reminiscing on the terrace of his marble palace with cups of wine. In another, we returned to Indraprastha and rebuilt it. The wild horses came to us from the forest when we cleared it. With its acacia trees we wrought our chariots. Our goldsmiths thickly crusted them with designs that Maya gave them. Maya! Maya and the Mayasabha. And now we stood within its radiance which sparked eternity in us. Nowhere in my dreams did I return to Hastina.
“Make me one present, Krishna. Give me the gift of not forgetting I have seen the Lord.” Krishna considered my request for a while before he spoke.
“We are poised upon the cusp of a yuga that does forget, the Kali Yuga.” His eyes shifted from mine and looked into that future. “Now we forget and know we have forgotten, but our children’s children will not know they have forgotten. They will not believe. They will lose the mantras that call the gods; they will say there are no gods. The Yavanas will come and try to prove it. We have lost the age of sharing with the Being in all things. The Kshatriyas have destroyed it with their sole belief in power. The universe is the breath of Brahma and he is breathing out. Change cannot be avoided, nothing can be dodged. But it will lead to something else.” I sensed the shadow of destruction; Krishna dispelled it: “We are here and I promise you many days together. I also promise you…now listen carefully, Arjuna, I promise you that anytime you need me, call for me and I shall come. And you too will know it if I call you, and you will come. We shall hear each other’s call.” My heart filled, so I thought I might not need to sleep again, and nearly said so but my yawning stopped me. Later I thought sleep would not come. I was too tired and no massaging would release the muscles in my legs and yet, at last, sleep did arrive and brought me Abhimanyu.
“Look, father,” he was saying. He was whole and light shone from his body. I turned to his charioteer. “Is it really my son?” I asked.
“Oh yes, my lord,” he replied.
“I thought that he was dead.”
He laughed. I waited for an explanation but for answer he touched the tawny horses and the chariot streaked across the field. The peacock spread its tail across the sky. All round the men stopped polishing their weapons to look up. There was a presence in him that made one stare. While I had always feared, I also knew he could not die. Not six men and not sixty or six hundred could have killed him. It was another lie just like the one we had told Dronacharya. Now I watched my son pull his bowstring to his ear, and shooting arrows right and left, he entered the Chakra vyuha and raced down its corridor. This is the dangerous part, I thought. He has got in but I never taught him how to come out again. Then I saw that Bheema and Eldest were blocked. The boy was all alone.
“Get in! Get in!” I urged them. I tried to tell them how to enter. Their ears were heavy and they could not hear me. I tried to follow him myself but faced a barrier of Samsaptakas. Helplessly, I watched his horses galloping. He looked behind and saw that no one followed him.
“Father,” he called to me, “I am alone. I do not know how to get out.”
His charioteer turned round to him and said, “My child, prepare yourself. Today we shall meet Yama, but first let us do something that will make your father proud.”
He turned his face to me and smiled. I saw there was a god in Abhimanyu and understood he had an embassy. His pennant fluttered in the wind and bore a sign that I had never seen before. Behind the peacock was poised a rising sun. His face turned heavenward, he prayed.
“I am alone, but speak; I shall get through.” He used no invocation but talked as a friend to a friend. I knew so little of my son. “I cannot, by myself, fight all these enemies.” The answer came: These men are dead already, and you are not alone, or if their strength were ten times more, I am a hundred hundred thousand. My rays are my innumerable arrows. Your son and your son’s sons shall yet prevail. Our light shall fill the universe. We are the astras that destroy the past and shred the veil which hides the future. Our horses’ hooves pound rotted Dharma into pulp. Nothing can stop us. Now shoot. I lay my hand upon your head.”
From Abhimanyu’s body one of heavenly energy shone out half a hand all around him, and the shower of arrows that came at him stopped short. From within his blaze emerged innumerable arrows streaming like rays to dissolve darkness. His enemies were rooted to the ground. All who saw him knew him for a lord of power and victory. His horses flew like those that draw the chariot of the sun, and kicked up such a dust that he was lost in it. Above it all there rode his peacock like a yantra. I knew that it meant victory and many other things which I half saw, but knew that they were Abhimanyu’s, and only he could understand them. When I lost him in the clouds of dust, I wondered: “Can one boy conquer all the akshauhinis of the Kauravas?” And while he disappeared into the cloud dust, I heard the dreaded thwacking of thousands upon thousands of bowstrings like the rapid beat of leathery wings of birds; the war drums and the conches, the ratde-ratde of the chariot wheels, the cries of elephants and wounded horses, the howl of jackals and all the sounds of terror we had heard for fifteen days roared tumultuously. Armours and lances flew through the undulating clouds of dust. Inauspicious birds hovered above—crows and kites and condors. I could not breathe for pain. The earth was being furrowed, it was prepared to receive corpses. It must be the great cleansing. There was a thunder in the field, now hidden from me as though the mountains of the north had fallen down into the sea. It tore my heart. The angry sea rushed in upon the earth swallowing everything in turmoil. My insides churned sickeningly.
I shouted: “Mother, save me!” Slowly the terror slipped away. The dust began to change from red to rust. I found myself looking upon the Chakra vyuha as though I sat on a cloud. Below me waited our forces. My son! Suddenly, there was a sound of lightning splitting stone; Abhimanyu’s horses galloped out. He and his horses and his charioteer were bristling with a thick white light, unstained by blood as though all had been bathed in coronation water. They raced right through our troops. They let him through, then turned and galloped with him while he, advancing, led them forward. No man was missing. Uttarakumara and his brother Shweta, Ghatotkacha, Drupada, and Virata were all there and so were all our kings and friends.
The silken banners were as new and bright as though freshly woven. Each bell was in its place around the horses’ necks and ears, the velvet on the elephants, the varandakas scrubbed and sparkling, the armies glinting in the sun, the royal umbrellas flying like white tents against the sky. The dust they left behind was gold. I was with them, Krishna driving me. We rode hard and entered, came into the courtyard of a palace laced with fountains, flower beds, and lawns. White walls stretched up to the sky and birds sang from the eaves; all about were flowering trees. Our names were called when we went in, like at swayamvaras or rajasuyas. We walked across the threshold of a sabha. A lightning light pierced through me. My body fell away like armour and I saw the matter I was made of.
Light. It was pure light. I was made of light. The lightning pierced us all. It made us light. In groups of two and three we moved towards a golden staircase through waves of celestial music.
Krishna turned to me in his iridescence. His smile embraced me. Then it jolted me awake.
The dream lingered before my opened eyes. The air was serene. I saw my incense had burnt out. A fragrance from another world was carried back with me. And while my body lay upon the bed under a white tent in the Pandava camp of the Kurukshetra war, someone still climbed the golden stairs. My body was not tired when I rose from bed and by the time the musicians came to rouse me, I had already bathed, prayed to Lord Surya, and dressed. There was no fatigue or pain of battl
e. I offered flowers to my weapons and sang the Soldier’s Hymn to Mother Durga. Then I went to see Greatfather.
15
“What day of battle is it?”
“It is the sixteenth day, Greatfather.” His eyes were closed. “I had a dream last night. Do you dream sometimes, Greatfather?”
“I only dream, Arjuna. There is a time for being young, then for study, and there is a time for battle. And towards the end, there is a time for listening and dreaming.”
A silence crept into our conversation. I did not know why I had come.
“Ask the question in your heart.” I did not know I had a question till I asked what nobody had dared to: “Do you regret your vow, Greatfather?”
There was a long silence. Greatfather’s eyelids flickered but still he did not speak. Was this the question he had asked himself throughout his life?
“When you lie here, you do not think like that, Arjuna. All life is woven in a pattern which we cannot see while in it, for we ourselves are in the threads. Our fibres and our sinews and our blood are part of it. But if you stand above it you can see the pattern, and the vow is not a thing apart. It takes birth within a whole. You cannot say, “I wish I had not taken it”, for if you do, you say “I wish I had not taken life.” He paused. It was as though he dreamt his life again. “There is no regret. Behind my lids I see how things are joined. There is no love and hate. They blend. And so do cold and heat, and so do pain and pleasure. It is as in the hymn that sings of Night and Dawn, eternal sisters that come like joyful women weaving the weft of man’s perpetual works into the form of sacrifice. There is no thread that weaves regret. It does not fit into the pattern.” Then, suddenly, I knew why I had come. I wanted him to know about my dream. But I saw Karna coming. It would have to wait for another visit.
The sixteenth day was very strange. I find it hard to talk about. Now I know why Karna had spared Bheema and the twins when their lives were in his hands, but then I did not.
At the beginning of the day he shot the bow from Bheema’s hand and scooped his sword from it as though he were a falcon plucking baby birds. He laughed and said for all to hear: “Here is Virata’s cook again. Bheema, Bheema, Baby Bheema. Is it true you shave your lip to save the food that might get trapped in your moustache?” His sword edge rested on the neck of Bheema. It now caressed that upper lip, first one side then the other. “Such charming baby cheeks beneath those great big oxen eyes! You are a naughty little glutton, now run home to your brothers and ask Arjuna to protect you.” He drew laughter from the Kauravas, but from Bheema’s heart he drew blood.
Before Bheema was out of reach, Karna’s bow came down over his head and Bheema was jerked in like a great fish. Karna bent forwards, placed his lips upon the shaven cheek, and kissed him once again. Bheema was too shocked to move, so the kiss lingered. When at last he drew back, Karna smiled into his eyes. Bheema spat into the dust to break the spell. He spat and spat and drove away howling, “That Sutaputra kissed me once again!” Karna did the same with Nakula. He put his bow around Nakula’s neck and drew him in. Nakula said that Karna’s eyes had tears and as he told the story so did his.
“Nakula, be sure to tell your mother that I spared your life; but tell Arjuna that I cannot spare his.”
In the midst of battle, he had touched Eldest on the shoulder with his bow and smiled at him.
“Has he gone mad?” I said to Krishna. “Discernment fails me.”
“He is not mad.” Krishna said no more.
Each commander has his style and you can tell who leads the troops by looking at the battlefield. It was no more a Kuta war. For five days we had fought our guru’s brutal onslaughts and his astras. Now, Karna— though he fought and killed with brilliance—seemed intent on showing us that he had us at his mercy. He shot as many banners down as men, and everywhere within his bowshot flags were quenched, like fires when you abandon camp. As I looked back I traced his path by lack of pennant colour in the sky. I spent most of the day in fighting what was left of the Trigartas and could not get at Karna, but that night it heartened me to hear that he was planning arrows for me instead of polishing new insults.
In later years I grew to know that when we love a man we see only that which we choose to see; an enemy, we do not see at all. This makes us wary and prompts us to attack. It offended me that Karna had assumed such a kingly bearing. He had the shoulders and the long arms of an archer. He held his head more proudly than anyone I knew, and that he looked like a king was a sharp fish-hook dart so deep inside me I could not pull it out. Had he been blunt of feature, or even slow-witted, he might have been less hard to tolerate. I could have laughed. During the forest years the mere mention of his name could mar my appetite. The spies now told me one more thing that enraged me; it was the truth of it that burnt me. Karna told Duryodhana that had Krishna been his charioteer he could have killed me on the first day had he been fighting. A thousand times my life was saved by Krishna’s charioteering, but it made me bleed to hear it thus from him. Tomorrow one of us would kill the other. I would never have to hear these things again.
“We shall meet tomorrow. Nothing can stop that. I know it in my bones and in each of my body’s cells—one of us will die. Krishna, I regret nothing. To have had your friendship makes me the most favoured of all mortals. You, Subhadra, and Abhimanyu, but also my four brothers and Draupadi. I would not have chosen differently. Even the dice game and the years of exile are part of the grace. Greatfather said this morning that no thread can be cut without unravelling the whole. They brought us here to Kurukshetra and that brought to me your darshan. But when I think of Karna, I am seized by something strange that robs me of my senses. It is more devilish than jealousy.” Krishna gazed at me for long; there was silence in the tent, such silence that you could hear the tent walls move and the candles flicker. Krishna said, “It sounds to me like love. Why do you hate him so?”
Four people had asked me why I hated Karna as I did. They were Krishna, Draupadi, Subhadra, and Abhimanyu. They wondered why I liked him less than Duryodhana. My answer and indeed my feelings never varied: I could not bring myself to hate Duryodhana. Any Kshatriya who feels defrauded of his kingdom will plot and plan and kill until it is returned to him. Duryodhana was crude but so was Bheema, and what I hated most about Duryodhana was the way he leaned on those such as Karna and Shakuni. What turned my stomach about Karna was his pretence to Kshatriyahood. A Kshatriya will give his blood and life to conquer lands and riches, to offer sacrifices, to hear the bell announcing that he has fed another crore of Brahmins. A Kshatriya will give his life to win a woman or gain fame and kingdoms. With Karna it was none of these.
He cultivated coarseness to match that streak in Duryodhana. He fawned on him and used him to humiliate the world. He waxed on Draupadi’s humiliation and came to jeer and laugh when we were in the forest. His was the mind that had devised a hundred jibes and made our exile bitter. Some in Hastina had taxed him with conquering lands as much to spite us as to please Duryodhana. This he had taken as a compliment, admitting that he liked to bring down more than one mango with a single throw. He waxed on everybody’s shame. It was his food and drink. Even in Hastina it was said you had to swallow him at Duryodhana’s feasts, but that not even Duryodhana could stop you from regurgitating him. And what I hated most of all was that there was something in me which would have liked to ape his stance. There was a careless grace in it which could almost convince you that he gave no heed to what anybody thought of him. Like a superb mime, I always thought, and often said he looked the Kshatriya more than the Kauravas, more than anyone we knew. He had to work at it, Dhaumya had once retorted.
“We should plan tomorrow’s strategy,” I said.
“Very well then, plan.”
“It may be my last night.”
“Is that tomorrow’s strategy?”
“Make me a promise,” I said and held out my upturned palm towards him.
“First, let me hear it.” I saw the shadow of my
palm against the silk, like a Krauncha vyuha. I heard my words float out hollow and curiously detached, I kept my eyes upon the shadowbird to catch its shape when Krishna’s palm came down on mine.
“If Karna wounds me, Krishna, do not drive me off the field, not even if it means my life could be saved. I do not want it said that I fled from Karna; else I could not live.” At last I withdrew my gaze from the bird.
“There is no need to speak like that. You will kill Karna.”
“Then let your palm touch mine in promise.”
“You are not to talk like that, you are not to think like that.” There was such vehemence in him that my fingers curled into my palm.
“Your promise would ensure my sleep tonight.”
“And what about my sleep? Think only of one thing, that Karna must be killed by you.”
“I tell you, Krishna, I have thought of nothing else for days and months and years. I shall kill the arrogant Sutaputra.” For once I hoped there was a spy to take back what I might have no time to say upon the battlefield: “Some men are born as sutas but their souls are noble. They are stainless. Uncles Vidura and Sanjaya. But Karna, though he received the coronation bath a hundred times, would still remain a suta. He gives himself those princely airs but he is cruel at the core. I tell you, he is worse than Shakuni. Whose idea was it to bring the court in all its finery, with its dancing girls and elephants from Hastina to remind us we were paupers? Karna was pander to Duryodhana’s basest dreams. It was he who mocked at Draupadi and told her that a woman with five husbands was no better than a whore. You were not there. It was he who said she should know better how to choose her future husband.”
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 54
