The silence is so total he imagines he can hear the pounding of his heart. This is like the silence they had met, Krishna and he, when they returned from the futile chase they had been led into, a chase which had taken them further and further away from the battlefield. On their return they had met a silence, which was both sinister and puzzling. It was not yet time for the day’s fighting to end; why, then, had the men stopped fighting? And why were groups of men standing about, men who looked at them as they passed and then quickly averted their eyes?
‘Something has happened,’ he said.
‘Yudhishtira,’ Krishna said and quickened the pace of the tired horses.
No, it was not that. Yudhishtira came to them the moment he heard the sound of the chariot, but his face…? And then Yudhishtira told them what had happened.
He hears a rustling sound now. She comes in a swift rush. For a moment they look at each other. What has the maid told her? Whatever it is, one look at his face and the hope that had flashed for a fraction of a moment in her eyes dies out.
‘How is…’ he begins and falters. He starts again. ‘How is...?’
And to her horror, he collapses, as if his legs can’t support him. He conceals his face in both his hands, his body heaving with the violence of his sobs. She lets herself down by him, offering neither a comforting word, nor a consoling touch. In a while he recovers himself. And sees to his consternation that she is weeping too, silently as always, her face composed, only the tears pouring down her cheeks speaking of her grief.
‘No, don’t,’ he says and holds her hand in so tight and fierce a grip that it will hurt her for days. She will not remember where or how she got hurt. Even now, only the sight of his ravaged face registers; there is nothing else. For a few moments they are silent, neither of them having any words for what has happened.
Finally, he asks her the question he had begun to ask before he broke down. ‘How is Subhadra?’
She shakes her head, makes a gesture of helplessness. He continues to look at her expectantly.
‘She’s a mother, her son is …’
‘No, not that word,’ he says, putting up his hand to stop her from speaking. ‘No.’
She lapses into silence. For a moment neither speaks. Suddenly she bursts out, ‘Where were you? Why were you not with him? Why was he alone?’
There is a long pause before he replies. ‘We had heard from our spies that they were going to capture Yudhishtira. I decided I would be with him all day. But I was challenged.’
‘By whom?’
‘Some old enemies.’
‘And you went after them? Krishna and you, such experienced warriors – you went after them? You didn’t realise it was a ploy?’
‘I could not refuse a challenge. And there were others with Elder Brother – Bhima was there and Satyaki, Dhrishtadyumnya. All great warriors. We didn’t expect that those men would lead us on such a long chase. At last, we decided to return…’
As he speaks, he begins to understand that what has happened is real. He had not wanted to talk about it, he does not know why he is speaking to Draupadi, he does not know why he has come here at all. He knows only one thing: he cannot talk to anyone else. Not even to Subhadra, least of all to Subhadra.
‘Guru Drona had made a formation nobody but I could break into. Elder Brother asked Abhimanyu to do it, he knew I had taught him how to enter into the chakravyuha.’
A long pause. ‘And?’ she finally prompts him.
He seems to be pondering, gathering the words for what he has to say.
`When Abhimanyu told his uncle he didn’t know how to come out of the chakravyuha, Elder Brother said – you go in, we will follow you, we will be right behind you.’
She waits patiently this time for him to go on.
‘They could not follow him.’ He bangs his fist on the ground so hard that she winces at the pain he is inflicting on himself. He himself seems unaware of it. ‘My fault,’ he says, ‘it was all my fault. I should never have taught him only part of it, I should have taught him all or nothing.’
Her question ‘why didn’t you complete your teaching?’ seems to hang in the air between them.
‘There was no time to teach him all of it, there was never time. I could never spend time with my son, I was always away, always somewhere else, there was always something we had to do. And then we went away. For thirteen years. When we left him with Krishna, he was only a child. When we returned, I still thought of him as a child. But when we met, he was suddenly a young man. And then a husband! I found it hard to believe that he was a married man.’
She thinks of Abhimanyu’s shy pride in his wife, pride in his status as a husband, of the way he had looked at Uttara.
The silence stretches between them. He breaks it with an explosive ‘Jayadratha! It was Jayadratha who closed the gap immediately so that no one else could go in, no one could follow him in. He was alone, Draupadi, my son was all alone among his enemies. He fought like a tiger, they told me. When all his weapons were gone, he took the wheel of his broken chariot and swung it over his head, keeping them at bay. Like his uncle Krishna with his Sudarshan Chakra. In the end…’ he stops but resumes in a moment, ‘In the end, they killed him. All of them together against one boy. He was only a boy, Subhadra’s son was still a boy. And those men, they attacked him, all at the same time. And … and…’
‘And then you took an oath?’
He looks up sharply. ‘You heard that?’
‘Yes.’ When he says nothing, she asks, ‘Why did you have to take an oath? Could you not have just killed Jayadratha?’
‘They had to understand I was serious. They had to be terrified. Cowards, all of them. Fighting with a boy! Anyway, what difference does it make, Draupadi? What difference does it make, whether I take an oath to kill him, or I just kill him?’
‘All the difference. All the difference. They say you swore you would kill Jayadratha before evening.’
‘Yes.’
‘What if you can’t? You know how they are – cunning, treacherous, dishonest. They will do anything, everything, to keep him away from you tomorrow. They will surround him, they will conceal him…’
‘I will find him wherever he is. If fifty men come between me and him, I will kill fifty. If a hundred men try to protect him, I will kill all the hundred.’
‘He may not come to battle tomorrow.’
‘Then he will be known as a coward, he will be shamed as a coward. His children, his children’s children and their children – all of them will carry the disgrace of his cowardice.’
‘But what if, for some reason, you can’t kill him tomorrow? What if you fail?’
‘I will not fail, I cannot fail. Draupadi, I don’t go into battle thinking of failure. I go into battle sure of my skill, sure of my strength, sure of victory.’
This is no bravado on his part; she knows that. He is merely stating a fact.
‘I go into battle knowing that I will be alive at the end of the day, knowing that my enemies will be vanquished. I will do what I have sworn to do.’
‘Who does not know that? The whole world knows you are a great warrior.’
He waves his hand as if dismissing the words. ‘Then why are you asking me so many questions?’
‘I am frightened.’
‘Since when have you learnt fear?’
‘We have lost the bravest of our young men. And you know we have no hopes of winning without you. If they – if you are not there, we will lose.’
‘Listen to me, Draupadi, just listen to me. I will go out to battle tomorrow, Krishna by my side. I will call out to Jayadratha, I will challenge him. He cannot ignore my challenge. If he hides himself, if they hide him, I will search for him, I will hunt him down and find him wherever he is. And I will kill him. Wherever he is, I will kill him. If I have learnt anything from my Gurus, if I have sharpened my skill in the years, I will kill him. I swear to you – nothing can save him.’
There is something savage in him that she has not seen before. But has she not studied him in the early years with all the diligence of a Brahmin boy at his studies? Has she not learnt to decipher every word, every action of his? She knows that rage is the only thing that can help him cope with his grief. He has to whip up his anger, to keep his rage burning, to stave off grief.
‘Did you hear what they did, those animals, to our boy after they had killed him? They danced around him like savages, they laughed and shouted triumphant cries round his … round him. They cannot live. I cannot let Jayadratha live. There’s a burning inside me, it will consume me if I don’t kill him. I cannot mourn my son while Jayadratha lives, I cannot look his mother in the face. No, I can’t live if he lives.’
He stops, looks her in the face for the first time and wipes her tears with his hand. ‘Krishna will be with me,’ he says.
Is he comforting her, or are these words for himself?
‘Krishna and I…’ He leaves it there and goes on. ‘Do you know Draupadi, it was one of their men who picked up my son? He carried him to Yudhishtira and laid him at his feet. That man was a true Kshatriya. The men who sang and danced at the death of a hero – they are cowards. They would not have dared to face him when he was living. They should have honoured such a brave fighter. In a war in which we are becoming more and more savage, he retained his purity. Instead …’
He thinks of the last time he saw his son. It comes to him like a gleam in the dark, the sight of him engaged in a battle with a Kaurava prince, seemingly wholly engrossed in it. Yet he sensed his father’s presence, for he turned briefly and waved his hand at him as if to say, ‘Go on, I can look after myself.’
She waits patiently for him to go on. ‘That man took my son, my dead son, to his own people, and told them, this is the bravest warrior I have seen. He has no equal, not even his father. For me to hear those words…’ Once again, he falters.
She wants to tell him to stop, she can’t bear to hear his words, she can’t bear to see his suffering. But she knows she has to let him speak. Is that not why he is here?
‘Our Gurus taught us to fight, they taught us battle skills, they taught us how to use our weapons, how to capture our enemies, how to defend ourselves and how to kill. But they never taught us how to look at a dead son’s mutilated face. At his body, almost torn to shreds. My brothers, all the others, they didn’t want me to see him, but I had to. His beautiful face, Draupadi … there was nothing to see. There was only blood. How can I face his mother? What answer can I give her when she asks me why I didn’t protect him?’
‘She won’t blame you. She is Krishna’s sister. She knows what war is.’
He goes on, ignoring her words. ‘Subhadra taught me how to be a father. I was never around, I was always away for some reason or the other. When I was home, he followed me all the time. Take him with you, she would say, hold his hands, she would tell me. His hands were as soft as the petals of a flower. And mine…’ He thrusts his hands at her, showing palms calloused and hardened by constantly wielding weapons.
‘I saw him one day – he was only a boy then – rubbing his palms in the mud. So fiercely that he grunted each time he did it. I had to laugh. He was angry with me for laughing. I asked him why he was doing it. I want to be like my father, he said. I want hands like his. He wanted to be like you. He wanted to be you.’
‘It’s all over now, Draupadi. All over.’ His tone is that of a man weary to death.
What can she say? What words are there which can console him? Nothing can change the fact that they have lost him. Their Abhimanyu. We have to suffer – he, Subhadra, all of us.
‘Parents should not outlive their children. The young should not go before the old. It’s not right, it’s wrong, it’s unnatural.’
‘War is wrong, war is unnatural.’
‘You say this, Draupadi? You?’
She looks stricken. ‘I have been thinking – am I responsible for Abhimanyu’s death? Did I, by wanting war, kill him?’
‘Don’t blame yourself …’
‘I have to, I have to ask myself the question. But I swear to you, I did not think a war would take away our children, I did not think so many men would have to die. This was not what I wanted. I only wanted the men who had insulted me to be punished. And I was angry with you, with all of you. Five warriors silently watching it happen. Letting it happen. And you allowed them to humiliate me. For me, that was the worst humiliation.’
‘Draupadi, nobody can humiliate you. You are above that, you are above all of us. It is we who were humiliated. And how can you think we didn’t care about what they were doing to you? We are Kshatriyas, Kshatriya blood runs in our bodies. That day when that – I can’t call him a man, I don’t know any word low enough for him – when he touched you, I wanted to kill him. Bhima stopped me.’ He sees her face. ‘Yes, Bhima. He said, No, not here, not now. We will kill them on the battlefield. He was right. We had to punish them on the battlefield, not brawl with them in a peaceful assembly.’
‘And yet you sent Krishna to try for peace?’
‘We had to give them a chance. That was the right thing to do.’
‘Kshatriya dharma,’ she says.
‘Going to war had nothing to do with you,’ he goes on, so intent on speaking that he ignores her words, takes no note of the bitterness in them. ‘There was no way we could not have gone to war. All of us knew that. If we hadn’t, do you think Duryodhana would have let us live in peace? No, he would have come to us, wherever we were, he would mock us and humiliate us. The truth is that he could never have let us live. As long as we were alive, he would live in constant fear of us, fear that we would take away his right to become king. When our uncle dies, he will be king. Can you imagine how we will live after that? You know, Draupadi, sometimes I admire Duryodhana.’
‘Admire him? How can you?’
‘I admire his steadfastness in hating. When we came to Hastinapur, no, when our mother brought us to Hastinapur, we were amazed to see the number of people, we were wonderstruck by the way our uncle and his sons lived. We soon learnt that it was our heritage as well, that we had a share in everything. But Duryodhana, from the moment he saw us, he made it clear that he hated us, that he would share nothing with us. No, not a grain of food, not an old rag of a loincloth. He has never wavered in that resolve. Whereas, we have hesitated, we have talked about whether we want war, we have agonised over it, we have tried to negotiate. But for him it was simple. Everything was his. Nothing was ours. Remember his not a needle-point of land?’
‘Yes, I remember. Am I likely to forget? I remember everything. There is much to remember. Sometimes, when I think of what we have endured, I ask myself – are there people who live ordinary lives? People who do not always have to think of killing or being killed?’
‘Living an ordinary life is not our destiny, it never was our destiny. And remember, Draupadi, if we hadn’t fought, we would have been homeless wanderers always in search of refuge, strangers to our own rights. We would have been objects of pity – Kshatriyas who don’t want to fight. Yes, we had to fight, that is our Dharma.’ So, he has heard her, she thinks. ‘We have to live according to our Dharma.’
‘And Abhimanyu had to die,’ she says in a whisper, now, at last, wiping her wet face herself.
He says nothing, but his bleak face tells her the truth. She hugs herself as if she is suddenly cold. ‘And the war will go on?’
‘Yes, the war will go on. It will go on till the bitter end. Until one of us is defeated.’
‘And if that is us?’
‘It won’t happen. Krishna is with us. We will not lose. We cannot lose. We will win.’
‘What kind of victory will it be if we lose our children?’
‘I don’t know. I only know that we have to win – for Abhimanyu’s sake, for all our children. Yes, we have to win. And Yudhishtira will be king.’
She makes a strangled sound, something between a sob and laughter. He looks inquiringly at her.
‘Don’t you think it strange that you are fighting to make a man who does not want to be King, a King? It does not matter to him that he has no kingdom, no subjects, no wealth, no palaces. He does not have even the desire to rule.’
‘Yet it is you who always speaks of him as the King, Draupadi. Is it to remind him of his position, of his rights, of his duty? He does not need to be reminded. He is a Kshatriya, he knows he is the eldest, he knows what his duty is.’
Yes, she thinks, however much he hates war, he will do his duty. You are, all of you, trapped in the chakravyuha of your Kshatriyahood.
Suddenly his voice breaks. ‘But you know what frightens me? I am frightened for my brother – is he also changing? We have all changed. We kill so easily now, our chariots drive over the bodies of dead men and we go on as if the dead were only stones in our path, we can hear the bones scrunching, yet we don’t look down. We have lost our humanity. I am frightened of what is happening to us, I am frightened most of all for Yudhishtira.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Does he also want victory at any cost? Why did he send Abhimanyu, only a boy with little experience of war, to enter the chakravyuha? Is he so desperate to win?’
‘I don’t think so. You should not mistrust him.’
He looks penitent. ‘No, I should not. You know him better. But tell me, Draupadi, if our brother Yudhishtira has changed, where will we find Dharma in this world? Who will show us what Dharma means, who will keep us on the path of Dharma, who will make sure we don’t move away from it? Why is he called Dharmaraja if not to be a model for all of us?’
‘Believe me,’ she says, not pleading, but stern, ‘believe me, he has not changed.’
She thinks how ironic it is that she is reminding him of his loyalty to his brother. When, all her life, she has known and has resented the fact that their loyalty to one another was greater than their feelings for her.
Suddenly he moves. ‘Enough.’ he says. ‘Enough. I must go. I have to prepare for tomorrow.’
He clambers to his feet with the difficulty and clumsiness of a much older man. She stands up too.
‘You will be with Subhadra?’
‘Yes.’
‘And don’t let her know how he … how he was killed.’
She does not reply, but gives him a look which asks, ‘Who do you think I am?’
As if in response, he says, ‘You are a brave woman, Draupadi.’
‘Brave? We do what we have to do. That is all.’
Suddenly the Brahmin youth he had seemed to be in her swayamvara comes to her mind. She remembers how, after she saw him, she had had no eyes for anyone else. There was mocking laughter when he, a slim young man, walked to the bow, laughter which ceased when he lifted it with ease. Nevertheless, she had had doubts herself; how could this Brahmin boy succeed when so many Kshatriya heroes had failed? He had stood with the bow in his hands for a moment in silence, as if he was meditating. The entire hall was suddenly hushed and expectant. And then the arrows sped directly to the target, following one another so swiftly it seemed like he had shot only one arrow, not five. She was consumed by joy at the thought that she would be his wife. She walked out of the hall with him, she followed him, uncaring, unaware of the others with him. And then she realised that she would be, not only his wife, but the wife of his brothers as well. That she would have five husbands. Something in her died then. You are a brave woman, he says. It was then that she learnt to be brave. She had to be brave, to hide her feelings, to show him nothing, to pretend that all of them were the same for her. But it never was that way. Be with Subhadra, he says. Yes, I will be with her, both of us sharing the great sorrow of our son’s death, for he is also my son, I have loved him as much as my own sons; both Subhadra and I have been fearful for all our children. Yes, we have our loyalties too.
‘Uttara?’ he suddenly stops and asks.
‘She is with her mother. You won’t meet Subhadra?’
‘No, not now. Tomorrow. When I have done what I have sworn to do.’
She doesn’t care whether you kill Jayadratha or not, she wants to say. His death won’t bring her son back. But she knows he is clinging to this task with desperation, she knows the goal of killing the man fills him to the exclusion of everything else; even grief has taken a back seat. In a moment she feels the light touch of his hand on her head. And then he is gone.
I have often watched you setting off – with your brothers, with Krishna. It was when you were with Krishna that you looked most happy, most carefree. I watched you both talking and laughing together and I envied the world you had, away from all of us, a world in which you were more free than in our world.
Tomorrow you will again leave with Krishna, your flag flying gaily in the breeze. But there will be no talking, no laughter this time. And there will be a third with you, your beloved boy will be between you and Krishna, his innocent and trusting smile lighting your way. When you get to the battlefield, you will twang your Gandiva and Krishna will blow his Panchajanya. And the enemy will know that you have come, Krishna and you, that you have come to do what you have sworn to do. You will roar out Jayadratha’s name, challenging him, a challenge that will rise to the skies, a challenge which everyone will hear. If he hides himself, if they hide him, you will search for him, you will hunt him down and find him, wherever he is. And you will kill him. Nothing can save him.
And then? What then?
*
Novelist and short story writer, Shashi Deshpande has eleven novels, two crime novellas, a number of short story collections, two books of essays, and four children’s books to her credit.
Shashi Deshpande was awarded the Padma Shri in 2009.
Her literary memoir Listen to Me was published in 2018. Three of her novels have received awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award for That Long Silence, Penguin, in 1990. She has translated works from Kannada into English including two plays by her father, Adya Rangacharya (Shriranga), as well as his memoirs, and also a novel from Marathi into English. Her own work has been translated into various Indian and European languages. Her latest publication is titled Subversions: Essays on Life and Literature, Context Books, 2021.
In 2015 she resigned from her positions in the Sahitya Akademi to protest the silence of the institution following the murder of writer, scholar and academician, M M Kalburgi.
Shashi Deshpande’s work has appeared previously in Out of Print.