THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (48 page)

Then he did and Arjuna was lost. By now, Duryodhana’s brothers crowed and clapped. They shouted Shakuni’s name and Duryodhana’s; and they mocked the Pandavas, crying the emperor of Bharatavarsha had lost his brothers at a game of dice.

Shakuni said, “And will you wager Bheema next?”

Duryodhana’s eyes shone more than ever. This was the finest day of his life. Fate was compensating him for all the torment he had endured, since Pandu’s sons first came out of the wilderness. Today was a perfect day and its crowning sweetness would be if Shakuni won Bheema to be Duryodhana’s slave. This would be better than if Bheema had died in the river or the house of lac. Duryodhana stared at his cousin, savoring the moment; and today, for the first time, Bheema looked away.

Yudhishtira said dully, “Bheema is the Senapati of my army and stronger than all of you put together. I wager him.”

Again the dice rolled and it was a foregone conclusion that Shakuni won. Duryodhana gave a roar of delight and Bheema sat with his head bowed. Shakuni said, “All your brothers are lost, Yudhishtira. Now who will you wager to retrieve your losses? Or perhaps you have lost enough?”

Yudhishtira replied, “I wager myself.”

“For this rarest wager, of the emperor of all Bharatavarsha, I will reverse the order of play so your luck might change. I will throw first and you beat my throw.”

But he threw a perfect score, which could not be beaten only matched; and Yudhishtira could not match it. Now Pandu’s eldest son had nothing left to lose. Silence ruled that sabha, but only briefly. Then, Shakuni’s reptilian voice was saying, “You think you have lost everything, Yudhishtira? But no, there is still one possession you have which we will accept as a final stake.”

“I have nothing left, not even myself.”

“But that isn’t true!” hissed Shakuni. “You have not yet wagered Draupadi.”

Bheema seized his mace and would have smashed Shakuni’s head had Arjuna not stopped him. Yudhishtira trembled. But still in the grip of the demon that whispered there was still hope, he said, “I wager Drupada’s daughter, our queen.”

Duryodhana’s eyes were brighter than when Bheema had been put up. There was a murmur in that hallowed sabha, turned into a gaming-hall. Even the most flinty-hearted in it were saying this was too much, Yudhishtira had no right. But Duryodhana glared around his father’s court and silence fell.

Shakuni sneered, “She is your most precious possession, that you wagered yourself before you wagered her. It is only fair that you have the first throw. Go on, I am sure you will win everything back. How could the Pandavas’ fortunes have changed so quickly, so completely?” He turned to Duryodhana and they both laughed.

Yudhishtira cast the dice for the last time, as if he now played with his very life. He raised a fair score and, for the first time, turned his gentle eyes to Shakuni’s slitted ones. There was such imploration on the Pandava’s face, that even the cold Shakuni turned his gaze away. But when the dice stopped rolling, Duryodhana’s yell echoed in the stunned sabha.

“Won!” he roared, hugging his uncle. “Draupadi is ours!”

Yudhishtira sat numb; now he had truly lost everything.

SEVENTEEN SHAME
 

Vidura sat with his head in his hands, sighing like a serpent. His body was bent, as if to beg the earth’s forgiveness for the sin committed upon her. Bheeshma and Drona were shocked; Kripa trembled. But Dhritarashtra was elated. He had asked at every throw of the dice, “And what was won now?” Though he knew.

Duryodhana embraced Shakuni and cried, “This is the most wonderful day of my life and I owe it to you!”

His eyes glittering, the Kaurava turned to Vidura. “Uncle, rejoice with us! Draupadi is our slave. Go and fetch her, Vidura, so she can enter our harem. She will serve with the other women, sweep the floors and attend to our every pleasure.”

The Kaurava panted with excitement. The slut had laughed at him in the Mayaa sabha; he would see how she laughed now. Vidura rose wearily and said in a voice that had aged years in an hour, “Even now it is not too late, Duryodhana. You don’t realize the danger you are in. Only the fool thinks he is in heaven when he hangs over a precipice with a noose round his neck. Punishment for this crime will follow more swiftly than you think. Dreadful nemesis will visit you.

Relent now, while there is still time. Return everything you have won with Shakuni’s deceit. The jackal should not provoke the tiger.

I know you think I am your enemy; but only your own feeble wit makes you believe this. I am your only friend at this moment, Duryodhana. Listen to me. You must not even think of Draupadi as being your slave. Beware of these sons of Pandu; be as careful with them as with king cobras. Duryodhana, hell already yawns open to receive you and your brothers. Treat this game of dice as a joke and forget it was ever played.”

Vidura fell quiet. For a moment, Duryodhana hesitated; something warned him what Vidura said was true and he must follow this uncle’s advice. Then, he glanced at Shakuni, whose serpent’s eyes were fixed on him with distant interest, mocking him coolly. Duryodhana cried, “At such a triumphant moment, this son of a maidservant can think of nothing but doom!”

That prince’s eyes roved over the sabha and alighted on his own charioteer.

“Pratikami, go and fetch Draupadi! Tell her that her master Duryodhana commands her presence in the sabha.”

Duryodhana saw fear in Pratikami’s eyes. The sarathy looked nervously at the Pandavas, who sat as if they were carved from stone. The Kaurava cried, “Don’t be afraid. They are also our slaves and a slave cannot harm his master. Go, Pratikami, fetch her.”

The old sarathy left the court and went slowly along the passages of the Kuru palace toward the women’s day quarters. He knocked gingerly at the door to Draupadi’s apartment. Never had he been asked to carry a message like the one he now bore.

When a maid opened the door, Pratikami said, “I must see the queen Draupadi. I have urgent news for her ears only.”

Soon, Draupadi stood before him, so regal the poor sarathy grew dumb just to look at her. How could he say what he had come for, when his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth?

Panchali said kindly, “Old one, what have you come to tell me, that you couldn’t tell my sakhi?”

Pratikami stared down at his feet and, then, somehow whispered, “My lord Duryodhana sent me, Devi. Your husband Yudhishtira has lost everything at a game of dice.”

Draupadi sat quickly in a chair, for she would have fallen otherwise. She saw Pratikami still hesitated, but there was obviously more he wanted to say. In a tremulous voice, she asked, “Is there more?”

Never looking at her, he said, “Yudhishtira lost his brothers at the gambling, he lost himself and…” the next words would not come.

“And?” her pupils dilated with shock.

“Finally, he lost you as well!” cried Pratikami, with the last shred of courage he owned. “Duryodhana is your master now and he commands you to come to the sabha.”

Her world spun and Draupadi clutched at the arms of the chair. But she was a strong woman and she asked, “Tell me, messenger, whom did my husband lose first, himself or me?”

“He first lost all his possessions, his wealth, his army, his granary, his kingdom. Then he lost his brothers, one by one, beginning with the youngest; and then he lost himself. Only after that did he lose you, last of all. You were more precious to him than everything else, than himself.”

A stab of light in her lovely eyes: a flicker of hope. She said, “Go back to the sabha and say to my husband his wife wants to know if he lost her first, or himself. Ask Yudhishtira only that and bring his answer to me.”

Pratikami bowed and went back to the crowded court where Duryodhana and his brothers waited impatiently. The old sarathy said, “The queen Draupadi asks if Yudhishtira lost himself first, or her.”

Yudhishtira sat graven; not a word did he say. Duryodhana growled, “Let the woman come and ask the question herself. Go back and fetch her, Pratikami.”

Unhappily, Pratikami went back through the passages and stood before Draupadi once more. Her eyes were red and she shivered as if she had a fever.

The charioteer said, “I took your message to the sabha. Yudhishtira made no reply to your question, but sat like a block of wood. But my prince Duryodhana grew angry and said you must come and ask the question yourself.”

She said nothing yet, but her lips twitched in anger. His heart melting, the sarathy said, “Devi, the end of the Kurus is near that you have been insulted in our sabha. Duryodhana will pay for this with his life.”

Taking courage from his words, Draupadi said again, “Go back and ask Yudhishtira what I should do. I will obey him, no one else.”

Pratikami returned to the sabha, “Draupadi bids me ask Yudhishtira what she should do. She says she will not obey anyone else.”

Yudhishtira sat with his head bent down down into his chest. Without raising it, he whispered, “Tell Draupadi I want her to come into this court and ask the elders if I have lost her or not and what she should do from now on.”

Duryodhana howled, “Fetch the woman! She is our slave now, won fairly at dice.”

Now Pratikami said, “I am afraid to go back to her. Let someone else take this message.”

Duryodhana turned to his brother Dusasana, who was if anything more violent than himself. Dusasana stood smirking, in lascivious anticipation of Draupadi’s advent. He was a bestial prince, wild of rage and lust and now his brother said to him, “Dusasana, you fetch our woman.”

His eyes lighting up, Dusasana went grinning from the sabha. He arrived at Draupadi’s apartment and his kick flung the heavy door open into the room where she waited.

Dusasana stood leering at her, his hands on his hips, his eyes devouring her slender form, as they would never have dared to in the past. She shuddered.

He began to laugh. “My brother won you fairly. You don’t have to fear your husbands any more, you belong to us now. Come boldly to Duryodhana; turn your haughty eyes to the lord of the Kurus.”

She moaned. She swayed on her feet at what had overtaken her so suddenly. His voice full of vileness, the fiend continued to torment her.

“Don’t pretend to be so modest, you are no virgin. Five men already and now you will have a hundred more to keep you happy. Ah, you blush! But why, Panchali? We are your husbands’ cousins, after all.” And his devilish laugh again. Then he came closer and she thought he was going to touch her; she saw in his eyes how much he wanted to. She drew away from him, shaking. This was a beast with no shred of ruth and she did not know how to deal with him.

“Come, my dark beauty, let us go to the sabha.”

He closed on her and with a scream, she dodged round him and ran toward Gandhari’s apartment down the passage. But he was on her in a flash. Dusasana caught Draupadi by her long hair, washed in the holy waters of the Rajasuya yagna. Growling, he began to drag her to the Kuru court—she whom her husbands would hardly allow the wind to touch.

She cried, “Let go of me, devil! Can’t you see I am wearing just one cloth? I have my period, I can’t come to the sabha like this.”

But he had no ears for her pleas, no eyes to see how she wept. He laughed, “You are no queen now, but a slave; and your master calls you! It does not matter if you are clean or not, if you wear one cloth or none.”

He hauled her wailing through those corridors, her garment often falling away from her naked shoulders, while she clutched at it for her very life, or for honor more precious than life. Growling still, like a predator with its prey, Dusasana dragged Draupadi into the Kuru sabha by her hair and flung her down on the floor before its kshatriyas, her eyes blazing, her face streaked with tears.

EIGHTEEN ‘AM I A FREE WOMAN?’
 

As soon as Dusasana threw her down, Panchali screamed long and loud in primeval rage: a cry from her soul. A wild and cornered thing, she panted, “I curse you, sons of Bharata! I curse you a thousand times! That you allow this outrage in your ancient court of dharma.”

Her fury silenced the humming sabha.

“I see the Kuru elders on their thrones. I see Bheeshma, Drona, Vidura and Dhritarashtra before me. Or am I dreaming? For they sit looking on, while a villain, witless with power, tells his brutal brother to drag a chaste woman and a wife into the royal sabha of the Kurus. The fiend drags me through the palace by my hair, washed in the holy water of the Rajasuya yagna, drags me here like some whore. And not a word to stop him from Bheeshma, Drona, Vidura or Dhritarashtra. Surely, this is a monstrous dream from which I will awaken, to find daylight in the world.”

She paused, breathless. Then she turned on Yudhishtira, “Here, in this court of righteous men, sits my own husband, who is the Lord Dharma’s son; and with him, his brothers, matchless kshatriyas and Devaputras, all of them my husbands.” There was such contempt in her voice and the Pandavas squirmed. “And a messenger from this sabha told me I must come here like a slave because my husband, who is dharma’s very image on earth, had lost me at dice.

I asked for an answer to one question before I came, half-clad and in shame. Instead of a proper reply, Dusasana burst into my apartment and dragged me here like an animal. And none of these great kshatriyas stopped him.”

Her eyes raked her husbands. Yudhishtira would have been glad if the earth opened and swallowed him. He never raised his head. She stood like that, her slender shoulders heaving and no one dared make a sound. You could hear her breathe, as she turned back to the Kuru elders on their thrones.

More quietly, she said, “Dharma has left the Kuru sabha. But I would still like an answer from Pitama Bheeshma, from Acharya Drona, from Kripa, Vidura and Dhritarashtra. My question is a simple one: am I Duryodhana’s slave or still a free woman?”

She looked directly at Bheeshma now. “Pitama, they say there is no one nobler than you, nor anyone more learned or wiser. You answer me, am I a slave or am I free?”

Bheeshma said gravely, “It is a fine point of dharma. On one hand, when a man has lost himself already he may no longer wager anyone else. On the other, a man has a right over his wife, whether he is free or not: our meanest servants do. It is hard to say if you are free or a slave, Panchali.

Yudhishtira knew that Shakuni is a master dice-player. Yet, he chose to play; and though he was losing, he continued until he lost everything, including you.”

Draupadi cried, “How can you say Yudhishtira played willingly? In Indraprastha, he told Vidura he did not want to play. Obviously, he was provoked into playing. You were here all the while, Pitama: didn’t you know how poor at dice my husband is? That he hasn’t the temper for it, that he is too noble, too innocent. Or didn’t you, perhaps, know there is no dice-player on earth like Shakuni? But you sat by without a murmur as Yudhishtira gambled away all that he owned.

O, Pitama, you are the king’s uncle; you wield great power in this sabha. How did you allow this? It was like sending a child into battle against a seasoned warrior. And yet, Bheeshma, you speak to me of the finer points of dharma. How do you dare?”

Her delicate form shook and her wrath was that of an empress. Awesome destiny stood beside Draupadi in that court and anyone there who had been calm enough would have recalled the prophecy at her birth: that, one day, she would become the nemesis of the race of kshatriyas.

Panchali had not finished. “O Bheeshma, O Drona, O Kuru elders, Yudhishtira lost everything he owned and then he lost his brothers and himself. When he decided to wager me, at least then couldn’t one of you have stopped him?

Dharma is not merely the details of the law. That is not justice. Is it not clear to your wise old hearts what is just in this matter and what is not? Do you really not know on which side the truth lies? That you, Bheeshma, say to me you cannot decide if I am a slave or free. There is no sabha without its elders. But just being old does not make a man fit to be a patriarch, or deserving of the title of Pitama or Acharya. If the elders don’t speak out for dharma when they see it flouted so flagrantly, they are not elders but merely old men, of neither wisdom nor truth.”

She still shook with the terror of her plight. Staring at her with unspeakable lewdness, Dusasana taunted, “Who are you to speak of dharma? Your dharma now is to serve Duryodhana and I dare say your satisfaction lies there as well!”

This coarseness was greeted by laughter from some of the other Kaurava brothers, devils all, spliced once from the misshapen lump of flesh that Gandhari aborted. Draupadi glared at Dusasana as if to burn him up with her gaze.

Bheema, who barely controlled himself all this while, could not bear it any more. He turned on Yudhishtira.

“What have you done? Men who gamble every day have wives, but they do not wager them at dice. But the Pandava emperor does! You are mad. You gambled away all our wealth, our army, our kingdom, everything we had. I said nothing, because you are my older brother. I cared little for what you lost when I set it against my love for you.

Then, you gambled the five of us away and still I held my peace. I thought that you are our guru, our king. We all belong to you and whatever you did would be for the best.”

Bheema’s face was crimson. Arjuna tried to calm him, but the son of the wind had lost control of himself.

“Everything you did I bore in silence. But now you have gone completely mad. Did you see how that animal dragged Draupadi into this sabha of our fathers? Yudhishtira, I will never forgive you for wagering Panchali!”

His eyes were red and flecks of froth on his lips. Bheema turned to Sahadeva and cried, “Bring me fire, Sahadeva. I will burn the hands that lost Panchali at a game of dice!”

The man who had been emperor of the world, an hour ago, sat with his head hung low. Arjuna pulled Bheema to a side and hissed, “What has happened to you? You have always treated Yudhishtira like a father. How can you speak to him like this at such a time?”

Bheema was in no mood to relent. “He was like a father till an hour ago and I respected him. But he has changed: he deserves to have his hands burned! Oh, Arjuna, look at Draupadi. Can you bear this shame?”

Restraining the titan somehow, Arjuna breathed, “Look at Yudhishtira; do you think he feels no shame? How bravely he bears it and his guilt. His spirit is already broken, Bheema. What will you achieve by burning a broken man’s hands?”

Bheema’s eyes still blazed and his great body shook. But he allowed himself to be led away to a corner, where Arjuna said, “There is one thing Duryodhana has not been able to take from us: our unity. Don’t complete the Kaurava’s joy by gifting him that as well.”

Bheema seemed startled. He looked around him and realized he stood on the edge of disaster. With an effort, he calmed himself.