Karna's Wife (29 page)

Karna’s handsome face contorted in pain and before she could interrupt, he went on relentlessly, exorcising his own fears and suffering. ‘Once, a few years ago, while riding through my kingdom, I met a child who was sobbing because the milk in her pot had spilled and she was too scared to return home because her stepmother would punish her. Feeling sorry for the little girl, I squeezed milk from the wet soil back into the pot. While the girl skipped home happily, I suddenly heard the agonized cry of a woman in pain. It was Bhoomidevi, the earth goddess. She was furious and spelt out a curse that one day at the most crucial battle of my life, she would trap my chariot’s wheel with the same deathly grip, just the way I had wrung the soil and that would be the cause of my death. So, Uruvi, I am a dead man already. Arjuna need not kill me in battle.’

She went cold, gripped by the icy grip of dread, defeat and impending death. And in that moment Uruvi knew she would lose Karna forever. She felt an intense empathy with his unending torment and it broke her heart. She had never loved her husband more. She saw him look sadly back at her, and felt her eyes smarting with sudden unshed tears. Overcome with emotion, she knew she could not fight her husband any more. She wanted their war to be over, once and for all.

She walked slowly towards him and placed her head gently on his chest, her arms going round his waist. She felt him stiffen but he didn’t push her away. They stood still, locked in each other’s arms for a long time. There was no need for words; their pain and longing bound them together.

He bent his head down as she looked up to his beautiful eyes. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her upturned face. She moved closer to him. ‘Please stay. Don’t go away,’ she pleaded. Her lips trembled. The thought that she would lose him was unbearable. She clutched at his arm, her nails digging hard into his flesh. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you so much,’ she said softly in despair, holding him close to her. ‘I don’t want you to die,’ she cried. She allowed her pain to surge into a mounting passion. She threw herself at him with abandon, seeking his lips. She had forgotten all her bitter thoughts in the joy of holding him again. She clung to him, feeling in that moment all the anguish of their parting, the terror of the future, and the rapture of their reunion.

‘Don’t leave me…ever.’

‘I can never leave you. You know that.’ He tightened his arms around her, feeling her soft body melt against his.

He faltered. He could taste the salty tears on her face. She made no sound. He drew away and wiped her tears. ‘Hush, dear, everything will be fine now…’

‘I fear I am going to lose you forever. But I don’t want to lose you before the time comes,’ she wept. ‘I am afraid. I am so scared I have already lost you. And by pushing you away, I am doing exactly that. Damn my rules and my moralizing…! I care more for you than ever and I want you with me. I am sorry for what I put you through…it was pride, it was my foolishness. I can’t go on without you any more!’

He took her hand. ‘I know you better than you know yourself. You did what you thought was right; it wasn’t malice. You are my conscience-keeper, reminding me whenever I am wrong. Even though I rarely heed you, you don’t give up either. You are the bravest woman I know and I love you for it.’

‘You don’t know what I go through each day, dreading what is to come,’ she sobbed brokenly. ‘There won’t ever be peace; the harmony is forever lost. There is going to be war—and I hate it. I fear it. I don’t care who wins or who loses, all I want is you by my side. I had always thought that I would grow old with my husband but I fear this can never be…oh, why can’t we give up these thoughts of war and go somewhere else?’

‘If you are not brave today, it’ll be worse tomorrow. Trying to escape is not the route of the heroic. Face the truth and brave the consequences. The test of courage is not to die but to live. And live with dignity and conviction every single day.’

He was silent for a moment, gazing at her drenched face. He gently pulled her close. His greatest fear had been dispelled—she would not leave him; she would be by his side through all the trouble that lay before them. He had lived in this dread for so long. She had gone away once, and those had been the most empty days of his life. He had wanted to run after her and bring her back home, to beg her till she forgave him, but he could not find the moral strength in himself to do so. He had instead distracted himself in his military campaigns. He had not dared to hope she would come back to him ever again. But she had, mercifully, although with a condition; a condition more cruel than the torture of living in the hellish void of her absence. He had mutely complied, consoled himself with the thought that she was close to him; that he could love her by simply looking at her and live by keeping her by his side. Karna hoped that they would be together for as long as possible—but he knew there was not much time.

Vrushali liked to watch Karna and Uruvi with their son, who was now almost two years old. She saw them walking in the garden with him. Uruvi took Vrishakethu out in the early morning, each day, and they were soon followed by Karna. They spent an excited half-hour teaching their son to walk, run, play and hold his father’s mace. The toddler beamed up at his parents as they stood a few metres away, urging him to waddle between them. Every time the baby hurled itself into his father’s outstretched arms, Karna whooped with joy and hugged him tight as though he could not bear to let him go.

Vrushali saw them from the shadows of her verandah. They looked so content and blissful together that words would have shattered the tranquillity of the moment. It warmed her heart, and yet, it hurt her to observe the affection Uruvi so obviously felt for her handsome husband, who hovered possessively close to her. It was a touching sight. Karna often tucked the wisps of her curls behind her small ears as she tried to keep pace with his long strides. Every now and then, he looked down at her; they had eyes only for each other, except when the occasional chuckle of the toddler reminded them of reality.

Vrushali could not look at them for too long. Not because, she told herself, she was jealous, but she felt she was intruding on their private moments. She loved Karna no less because he loved Uruvi. She could not envy them their happiness. She was content being his closest friend, giving him the words of advice and the patience he expected from her. Vrushali knew that she enjoyed his confidence and with a tinge of sadness, she exulted at the happiness she was allowing the man she loved. Both she and Uruvi were desperately in love with him but she could not miss how his eyes rested only on Uruvi. Her gracious acceptance of their love would be the best for all of them, she thought resignedly, and moved away from the verandah into the comforting confines of her room.

‘He is a brave lad!’ Karna declared proudly, placing his son on his shoulder and holding his small fists with his arms outstretched. He looked at his wife, walking closely by his side, below Vrushali’s verandah. His eyes were tender. ‘It was when I knew you were going to have a baby that I realized how much I loved you,’ he said. ‘Till then, you were just a beautiful fairy who had entered my life and made my world suddenly wonderful with your magic.’

‘Aha, are you confessing your love for me after all this while?’ she asked with a laugh.

‘At first, I could not believe that a person like you would choose me as a husband. It was such a shock! Don’t you see what I mean? I had you, I almost lost you and you are with me again. Our child means everything in the world to me. I don’t know how to put it across…I feel a new emotion for Vrishakethu, which I don’t understand myself. He is our future, isn’t he?’

She looked at him keenly and there was a soft wetness in her eyes. ‘I thought of him—and you—all the time, even when I was on the battlefield,’ Karna said wistfully. ‘I was scared you would never come back and I would eventually lose both of you. I wanted to hold him in my arms, and I wanted to teach him to walk. And I am doing all that right now because you came back, Uruvi. I cannot thank you enough.’

Uruvi flushed deeply. She clasped her hands tightly together around his arm, afraid he would go away from her again.

‘And as he grows up, I’ll teach him all I know. I’ll teach him to ride and I’ll teach him to shoot with the bow and arrow. I am going to be the proudest father in the world.’

‘You already are one!’ she reminded him warmly. ‘Your oldest son, Vrishasena, has turned twenty now and has grown into a fine young archer himself! He is as formidable as you! And your other sons are picking up too. Why, you have a fine in-house army!’

He gave her his disarming smile. She wanted to capture this moment forever…but she frowned as a thought struck her. Karna noticed her change of mood immediately.

‘Anything troubling you?’ he asked quickly.

She looked at him directly in his eyes. ‘Either give me an honest answer or do not reply if you so wish…’ she began hesitantly, but continued more firmly as she saw Karna nod, his face suddenly solemn. ‘I have been trying to run away from this doubt but I ended up running away from you instead…’ she sighed and gathered courage again to voice her words. ‘Karna, did you ever love Draupadi?’

He went white first and then colour flooded his face. He flushed darkly, his lips pursing into a severe line. Uruvi wondered, with a swift pang, if she had made a mistake. But she knew she needed to erase the last shadow which lurked between them.

‘Yes…’ he replied eventually.

She had been anticipating this answer, dreading it, but the moment he said it, it was—much to her surprise—an enormous relief. She was suddenly free of the misgivings, the jealousy that hounded her and the treacherous thoughts that harassed her.

‘Yes, I loved her…once,’ he said evenly, accentuating the last word. Crazy hope surged through her. ‘It was a mad infatuation that died as fast as it was born. It was born the moment I saw her at her swayamwara and died the moment she shamed me in public,’ he answered slowly but deliberately. ‘She is a bewitching woman…and I could not resist her, I admit. I was certain in my arrogance that I would win her at the swayamwara. I was more in love with
that
heady feeling than with her. The thought that I could possess the most beautiful woman and that I could win the woman the world wooed was like winning a prized trophy. Draupadi is the woman whom I was once attracted to, long before you entered my life. You have no reason to be jealous of her, Uruvi. No, it wasn’t love, it was intoxication, which sobered the moment she hurt my pride. And when she married Arjuna, she was someone else’s wife. I couldn’t have looked at her in any other way—she was not mine any longer. I respected her as a married woman—except for that one instance at the Raj Sabha…’ he admitted. ‘I hated her then but even now that hate is spent and turned to ashes. I am the one who is now burning in shame. I regret those terrible words I said to her and I know I can’t ever take them back. If there is one thing I wish to undo, it’s that. What I said and did in the heat of the moment was unpardonable. I only hope that some day I have the courage to beg for her forgiveness…’

Uruvi almost blurted out that Draupadi had forgiven him a long time ago but stopped herself just in time. She had extracted the truth from him but she could never spell out the Pandavas’ wife’s secret feelings for Karna. ‘Repentance, like forgiveness, is divine—it purifies the soul,’ she said softly, hoping her words would make him feel cleaner, lighter.

There was nothing more to say. They walked together in silence, grateful for the peace of the moment and finding solace in it.

From the time Vrishakethu was a baby until he was almost in his teens, Uruvi took him to visit Kunti at Vidura’s palace. The queen seemed reluctant to go to the Anga palace, citing one excuse or the other to avoid it. During the long, painful years when the Pandavas languished in their exile, their mother found a new means to divert her loneliness—Karna and Uruvi’s child. Spending an hour or two with the baby gave her immense pleasure.

Initially, if Karna was displeased about this, he did not show it. Taking his silence for his sanction, Uruvi continued with her visits to her foster mother and not once did Karna utter a word of protest. But one day, cornered by Shona’s clear disapproval and Radha’s possessiveness where her new grandson was concerned, Uruvi decided to confront him.