THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (26 page)

For an hour or two, the Pandava sat gorging himself at his ease, as the sun rose into the sky; and once, did he imagine it, or did he hear a rakshasa’s hungry roar far away? It did not bother him. When he had finished three quarters of the hillock of food, Bheema felt drowsy. He gave a ringing belch of absolute contentment and lay in the shade of the cart to catch a brief nap.

He awoke in an hour, feeling better than he had since he last ate in the lacquer palace. Climbing back on the cart, he urged his bullocks forward, to their surprise: they had thought he wanted them to go slowly, the slower the better. Now Bheema was hungry for battle. Shouting at the bullocks that they were laggards, he stood up on the cart-head and whipped them on smartly. They flew across the flat land, arriving sooner than they liked in the dark woods that grew around the base of the mountain.

A dirt track, disused once Baka began living here, wound its way through the trees and up the gloomy slope. Bheema set his bullocks on that trail. The poor beasts would rather avoid this menacing mountain; after climbing a short way, they stopped obstinately. The Pandava realized he would have to carry them if he wanted to go on.

The careen from the place where he had last eaten had made him hungry again: just enough to polish off half of what remained on the cart. With a sigh and a brief curse at the bullocks, Bheema climbed down and tied them to a sturdy tree: so they would not bolt with the rest of the food, at the first sign of the rakshasa. He climbed back on and began to tuck in to what was left of the rice.

For a while he ate ruminatively, thinking that only now, at his second foray, could he really taste the nuances of the marvelous cooking. As he demolished the last quarter of the rice, savoring each morsel, he began to call out to the rakshasa.

“Baka!” bellowed Bheema, as he ate, “O Baka, come for your meal! The cart from Ekachakra has arrived, the bullocks and the cartman are here!”

Nothing stirred. Bheema continued to eat and, intermittently, to call out the rakshasa’s name. Some time passed and then the bullocks grew terribly restless. They tossed their heads and lowed, looking fearfully at the thick woods and the mud trail. Bheema ate on, with never a glance over his shoulder. Between mouthfuls, he still sang out Baka’s name from time to time.

The birds in the trees had fallen ominously quiet. The woods had grown perfectly still. The bullocks were frantic. Their eyes showed white with panic, as they tried to break the rope and escape what they sensed in the dimness behind Bheema: the thing that had crept up on huge feet and now stood glaring at the cart with burning eyes.

This was how Baka always received his cart of food and the cartman. He enjoyed stalking them, as a cat does a lizard. Baka was enormous. He made Hidimba seem mansized. His head was in the trees, as he stood quite naked and motionless, only his strange phallus twitching with the lust of the hunt. He saw what Bheema had done to the food. The rakshasa’s hairless body quivered. His crimson organ subsided like a distraught serpent and rage replaced excitement in his tiny eyes.

Bheema first became aware of Baka by his stench, borne on the breeze like a pall of death. Breathing through his mouth until he grew accustomed to that stink, Bheema continued eating. Baka gave a low growl and stepped out of the trees. He was covered in dried blood and his own filth. He wore a necklace of skulls and bones of the men and beasts he had eaten and a crown of vultures’ feathers. His hair hung below his shoulders like a woman’s and he had woven jasmine flowers into it. He was a bizarre sight and the bullocks nearly broke their necks to get away. The rope held.

Baka padded up behind Bheema and stood glowering, his pale face pinched in fury. At last, thinking to frighten the human glutton out of his wits, Baka gave a louder growl. The poor bullocks danced in fright. Bheema did not turn around. He ate on: the last of the food he was meant to have brought for Baka.

The final mouthful down, the Pandava belched again. He yawned and stretched. Now Baka cried in his high lisp, “Dare you eat my food?”

Wiping his mouth, Bheema turned around. Baka saw the human was unafraid and that his eyes glittered disconcertingly. Bheema said coolly, “Just look at you, Baka. You are so like the rakshasas in my mother’s stories that you could have stepped out of one of them. You are fat and useless with living off the town. Why, you could not hunt any more if you wanted to. I think, Rakshasa, that you are fat enough for killing. Though you stink so much, that not the vultures and jackals would like to feed off your carcass.”

With a screech, Baka aimed a blow at Bheema that would have torn any other man’s head off his neck. Bheema let it land on him, while the bullocks bucked and bellowed. The rakshasa’s blow did not so much as knock Bheema over.

With a howl Baka ran off and wrenched up a tree. Roaring like ten tigers now, he hurled it at Bheema, as his kind do when they fight each other in jungle-hearts. The wind’s son raised an arm and the tree smashed into slivers against it.

Fear gripped him now and Baka roared louder. Never had he encountered anyone of the puny race like the specimen before him. He pulled up more trees and flung them at the Pandava like spears. By now the rakshasa frothed at the mouth as terror drove him mad. Laughing in his face, Bheema also began to pull up trees and cast them back playfully at the demon.

Baka saw Bheema’s body grow bright; his sinews were made of eddying airs that rippled with the power of Vayu who wears down mountains. Baka thought he saw Bheema big as the sky, laughing at the rakshasa that he dared challenge him.

Quickly, the place where they fought was denuded of its trees. Bheema’s laughter grew louder and Baka’s roars and screeches more desperate. The naked devil’s black blood flowed, mingling with the filth in which he was caked. When the last tree was too far to reach, with the longest howl yet Baka turned into a pack of silver wolves. Bheema struck them with a sapling as if he was beating a dog and yelping, Baka resumed his own form.

By now, he had no hope the dreadful human would flee. He rushed at Bheema, as he might rush into the jaws of death. Bheema seized him and snapped his spine like an elephant would a cane of sugar. Birds flew screeching into the air at the report and the rakshasa’s dying scream.

The bullocks had fallen silent, knowing with sure animal instinct that their cartman would prevail. Now he came to them and they nuzzled against him. Then there were other sinister presences in the woods and the bullocks grew restive again. Bheema saw a knot of smaller rakshasas, Baka’s people. They had watched the battle and were in dread of Bheema.

He cried fiercely, “Leave this mountain or I will kill you all!”

He took a threatening step toward them; they fled howling and never came again to those parts.

Flushed with victory and all the fine food on which he had gorged, Bheema hauled the rakshasa’s broken body to the cart and lifted it on. He turned his bullocks around and pointed them back to Ekachakra. As they trundled along, Bheema leant his head against dead Baka’s thigh and he was soon snoring under the westering sun.

Night had fallen when Bheema arrived in Ekachakra. He stopped the cart at the edge of town, rolled Baka’s carcass off and left it at the city-gates. Quietly, he went back to the brahmana’s house. His mother and his brothers hugged him; the brahmana and his wife fell at his feet.

Bheema said to the brahmana, “Remember, don’t breathe a word to anyone.”

Kunti had hot water ready for her son’s bath. As he went in to it, he turned back once more. With a grin, he said to the brahmana’s wife, “I hope we don’t have to wait for another rakshasa before I taste your cooking again.”

He went in, bathed and then fell asleep, digesting the awesome meal he had eaten like some python. As he slept, he smiled in a sweet dream of the food. His mother and his brothers sat watching him fondly for a while and then they slept too.

The next morning, a commotion broke out in the sleepy town of Ekachakra, when someone found Baka’s body at the gates. The town-folk soon discovered whose turn it had been to feed the rakshasa and they thronged the brahmana’s house. They wanted to know how Baka had died.

The brahmana said, “Yesterday, I sat crying with my wife because it was my turn to take the cart of food to Baka. Suddenly a young brahmana came to me and said, ‘Friend, do not grieve. I will take the cart for you and, what’s more, I will kill the rakshasa.’ He assured me he was far stronger than any rakshasa on earth and I need have no qualms about letting him go in my place. Sure enough, this morning my bullocks and cart had been returned and Baka’s body lay at our gates.”

All that day there was singing and dancing in Ekachakra and offerings to the Gods. No one suspected who the rakshasa-slayer was. The Pandavas continued to live peacefully in their grateful host’s house and Bheema frequently had the most inspired dishes sent him by the brahmana’s gifted wife.

FORTY-SIX A STRANGE STORY
 

Some weeks passed after the killing of Baka. One evening, as twilight fell in Ekachakra, a handsome mendicant arrived at the door of the brahmana with whom the Pandavas lived. Always hospitable, the brahmana took the traveler in for the night.

When the visitor had bathed and eaten, he sat in the lamplit courtyard and began to regale his host with a fund of stories from his obviously incessant wandering. Many of these touched upon the holy tirthas of Bharatavarsha. The host begged the muni’s permission to call his other guests, because surely they would be enthralled by his fabulous lore.

Soon, Kunti and her sons also sat raptly round the raconteur. The Pandavas were keen to hear what the world said about the burning of the lacquer palace in Varanasi. It was only later the stranger came to that.

He began with some glowing accounts of miracles he had either heard about or seen at the blessed tirthas; and he was a gifted pauranika. Then, he changed tack suddenly. “Tonight I am abroad on a royal mission. A king has sent me and others like me, across the length and breadth of Bharatavarsha with a very special message, meant just for one kshatriya’s ears.”

Sahadeva asked, “Who is the king? And the kshatriya?”

Yudhishtira said quietly, “Let us also hear your message, Muni.”

The wanderer retied his topknot with slim hands and began. “I am abroad on a mission for king Drupada of the Panchalas.”

The Pandavas all gave a slight start. If the mendicant noticed in the lamplight, he gave no sign of it. “Drupada has sent me to spread the word about his daughter Draupadi’s swayamvara in Kampilya. Did you know the lovely Draupadi and her brother Dhrishtadyumna were born not from a woman’s body, but a fire?”

“Tell us about them,” urged Kunti, an inkling of destiny alive in her.

“It is a long story. Are you patient enough to hear it through?”

They all nodded. The mendicant said, “Once there were two childhood friends, Drona and Drupada. Both studied under Drona’s father, the Rishi Bharadvaja. While they were students, Drupada swore that one day he would share his kingdom with Drona.”

The Pandavas knew this part of the man’s tale well. They did not interrupt him. He came to Arjuna’s guru-dakshina and how the prince humbled Drupada in Kampilya. What the muni said next astonished his listeners.

“Even in defeat, Drupada was full of admiration for young Arjuna. He said, ‘There is no kshatriya on earth like Arjuna. I must have a daughter to marry him.’ At that time Drupada pretended all was forgiven between himself and Drona, but it was then he conceived an implacable hatred for the acharya.”

His audience sat up; they did not know this. “It was as if the hatred flew out of Drona’s heart into Drupada’s and it was a demon that gave him no peace.

But Drona was Bhargava’s disciple and a master of the brahmastra; no warrior on earth could kill him. Drupada left his city and wandered dementedly through a jungle, muttering to himself, ‘A son to kill Drona and a daughter to marry Arjuna!’

For weeks, he wandered, possessed, until he arrived at a lonely asrama in the very heart of the jungle. Two rishis called Yaja and Upayaja lived in that asrama. Drupada managed to tell them what he wanted.

‘My hatred is a fire that consumes me moment by moment. Drona is a master of the brahmastra. He was not born of a mortal woman and no man on earth can kill him.’

He paused, then changed his subject without warning, as the sages listened to him with grave attention. ‘Arjuna is a peerless kshatriya! He came to my gates and he vanquished me. There is no archer like him in the world. I wish he were my son or, at least, my son-in-law. But I have no daughter for him to marry and even if I was to have one now, she would be too young for the Pandava.’

Drupada began mumbling sadly to himself again. Yaja said, ‘Serve us for a year and you shall have a son to kill Drona and a daughter to be Arjuna’s wife.’

For a year, Drupada served the two rishis in the vana and at the year’s end, they performed a putrakama yagna for him. The munis sat chanting powerful mantras beside the flames of a sacred fire. It was high noon and Drupada and his wife sat behind them. After some hours of chanting, Yaja poured some libation on to the flames. Candescent colors danced in that fire. Then it blazed up, blinding and the flames were slabs of white light, piercing the sky.

It seemed the earth had been subsumed into a more exalted realm. Drupada heard unworldly music. As he sat there, in transport, a crystal chariot rose out of the white flames and in it sat a godlike youth of some fourteen summers.

He was a kshatriya in shining armor. He carried unworldly weapons and his face seemed as if it was carved from stone. The chariot emerged from the flames, the youth in it smiled at Drupada and his wife. The Panchala king could not contain a cry of joy: he knew Drona was as good as dead. A voice spoke out of heaven, ‘This prince will kill Drona and bring glory to the Panchalas.’

When Drupada wanted to go and embrace the youth in the chariot, Upayaja restrained him. The yagna fire was full of color and light again and another miracle was unfolding among its flames. They sprang white once more and higher and abruptly grew still as if arrested in time. The burning stillness assumed a human form. There were long, dark arms there, a perfect head flowing black tresses. As Drupada, his wife and the rishis watched, stunned by her incredible beauty, her skin dark as night, her face and her body so perfect they were from a more pristine time, a young girl stepped out of the white light. Now a common fire burned again in Yaja’s sacrificial pit.

Once more, an asariri spoke in the jungle’s heart, ‘The dark one will be the most beautiful woman in the world. She is born to fulfil a divine purpose, she will be the nemesis of kshatriya kind.’

Her fragrance filled that glade like the scent of a great black lotus. Drupada’s queen cried to Yaja, ‘Muni, let these children think of me and no one else as their mother!’

Yaja said, ‘So be it. Call your son Dhrishtadyumna. And let your daughter of destiny be named Krishnaa, for her dark skin.’

But her father loved her so much that soon she was not called Krishnaa any more, but Draupadi, Drupada’s daughter and Panchali1, princess of the Panchalas.”

The wandering ascetic paused. Bheema said softly, “So Drupada became a father of twins. But, good Brahmana, I have heard Dhrishtadyumna is Drona’s sishya.”

The man laughed. “Drona knew Dhrishtadyumna had been born to kill him. The acharya also knew that no man escapes fate. He took Dhrishtadyumna to be his sishya and taught the fire-born prince like his own son.

Let me come back to my mission. It has to do with the Pandavas, the nephews of blind Dhritarashtra who is king in Hastinapura.”

Not a muscle moved on any of the brothers’ faces.

The storyteller continued, “Dhritarashtra is the scion of an ancient House, in which only noble kings have been born since time out of mind. But not the blind one. He did not treat his dead brother’s sons as he should, far from it.”

1. She was also called Yagnaseni, since she was born from the sacrificial fire.

He lowered his voice, as if the night had ears, “Dhritarashtra sent the Pandavas to Varanasi, on the borders of his kingdom. He did not want Pandu’s son Yudhishtira to rule after him, but his own son Duryodhana, who is a devil. In Varanasi, Duryodhana built a palace of lac for the Pandavas and their mother Kunti. One night, as they slept, he had it set on fire and burnt them alive inside. He cleared his own way to the throne.

Drupada was shocked; he seemed deranged by the news. If Arjuna were dead, how would he marry Draupadi? Strange, indeed, was the scene in the palace of Kampilya: Drupada mourned the Pandavas as if they were his sons.

His guru said to him, ‘My lord, Yaja and Upayaja are maharishis and your children were born from their fire. The munis knew why you wanted a daughter. They would not deceive you and lay waste Draupadi’s life.

Have it proclaimed all over Bharatavarsha, that a swayamvara will be held for the princess and that there will be a test of archery for the kshatriyas who would compete for Panchali’s hand. I am certain the Pandavas are alive and in hiding somewhere. Wherever he is, Arjuna will come and win Draupadi’s hand.’

Friends, I was also sent forth by my lord Drupada to spread the word of Draupadi’s swayamvara. So here I am, telling you about it. And, who knows, Arjuna himself may be listening!” He gave a laugh, but his eyes were shrewd in the flickering light. It was midnight and the hermit rose. He yawned and went in, saying nothing would keep him from his bed any more.

Their host and his wife followed their guest. Kunti and her sons sat on for a while in the open, with the night breeze playing on their faces. They sat in silence and those young men’s hearts beat wildly with visions of a dark princess.

Then, Kunti said, “We have been in Ekachakra for too long. I am tired of seeing the same four walls, the same pots and pans and begging-bowls, the same yard, the same trees, the same mountain.”

She saw her sons’ eyes light up with desperate hope. She felt sorry for them: so young, so manly and no means to express either youth or manliness. “I think fate brought us here to rid Ekachakra of Baka. Now that is done, why shouldn’t we move on?”

“But where to, mother?” asked Yudhishtira, innocently.

“Why not to Kampilya? I have heard it is a marvelous city and the princess Draupadi’s swayamvara promises to be an event. It will be so refreshing to walk through the streets of a great city, in a thronging crowd. Besides, the archery promises to be exciting. I am for going to Kampilya…that is, unless you have some objection.”

She laughed in the fetching, young girl’s way she had whenever she was amused at her sons. In one voice, her five princes cried, “Let us leave tomorrow!”

Then, blushing, they avoided each other’s eyes. Each one knew what obsessed his brothers and himself: a dark face they longed to see, black velvet skin they longed to touch. Yudhishtira knew she was meant for his brother Arjuna, but he could not get her out of his mind; and Yudhishtira’s thoughts of Draupadi were not chaste at all.

Yet, what the eldest Pandava felt in the brahmana’s yard, as the moon sank in the west, was a delicious anticipation in the depths of his body, a warm lake of sensation he shared with his brothers. Strangely, there was no conflict in it, but only an inexpressible deepening of their closeness: a vibrant, golden bond, past words.

“We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” said Kunti. Rare excitement was upon her as well, as she went in to sleep for a few hours before they set out.

Long after she had gone, her sons sat on under the stars. They sat wordlessly, when all the night birds, owls and bats and even the breeze, had slept.

Finally, they also turned in, Yudhishtira last of all. Now they lay awake in the dark and the dusky Draupadi still tormented them. Yudhishtira did not sleep, nor Bheema, Arjuna, Sahadeva or Nakula. They lay tossing in their beds, waiting for the dawn.