Bhima Lone Warrior Read online

  Bhima

  Lone Warrior

  M.T. VASUDEVAN NAIR

  Translated by

  GITA KRISHNANKUTTY

  HARPER PERENNIAL

  NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY NEW DELHI AUCKLAND

  Sootas and magadhas, let us sing ballads about the Kuru race once more. Let us salute Kuru and his son, Pradeepa. Let us salute Pradeepa’s son, Shantanu. Let us salute Ganga – she who sprang from Vishnu’s sacred feet, who witnessed birth, love, sin and death. Let us salute the great Bhishma, the renowned son Shantanu had by Ganga, who amazed even the gods with the harshness of his vow. Let us salute Vichitravirya, the son the fisherwoman had by Shantanu. Let us salute Dhritarashtra and Pandu, begot by Krishnadvaipayana-Vyasa upon Vichitravirya’s wives. Let us salute Vidura, the equal of Lord Dharma, whom Krishnadvaipayana had by a servant woman.

  Then let us salute Yudhishtira.

  Let us salute Kuru, whom Samvarana of the race of the Moon had by the daughter of the Sun, Tapati.

  Friends, let us sing once more of the greatness of the races of the Sun and the Moon.

  CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PART 1

  PART 2

  PART 3

  PART 4

  PART 5

  PART 6

  PART 7

  PART 8

  EPILOGUE

  P.S.: Insights, Interviews & More

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PART 1

  THE JOURNEY

  The sea was black in colour. The waves dashed against the shore, screaming, as if devouring the palace and the great city of Dwaraka had not sated their hunger.

  The five of them stood on the rocks, gazing at the scene below in amazement, in disbelief. In the distance, at a spot that must have marked the crest of the victory pavilion of the old palace, the water was now still. In front of it, the slanting head of a tall, majestic pillar rose high. The small stone structures of the ramparts dotted the shore beneath as far as the eye could reach. A lone chariot that had escaped being shattered when the waves flung it down lay leaning on its side, its yoke sunk in the sand.

  Vestiges of Dwaraka’s old splendour, which the deluge had masticated and spat out, lay scattered on the wet sand of the shore like the lifeless bodies of thousands of animals lying on a sacrificial site.

  Yudhishtira whispered a warning to calm his now faltering heart: ‘Remember, all beginnings have an end. Oh heart, remember everything your grandfather, Krishnadvaipayana, said to you before the great journey.’

  Arjuna, who had been compelled to witness the destruction of Dwaraka earlier than the others, moved back, reluctant to go down to the seashore.

  Dwaraka had been trembling with fear. When they saw Gandeevi, everyone, including the women, had crowded around him, relieved that a protector had arrived at last. The women’s quarters in the palace had been terrorized by the nightmare of a female form with a black body and a face that grinned, showing huge white teeth. Wearing black clothes, she had prowled through the darkness of the corridors. Old mothers spoke of how they had begun to see evil omens much earlier. Jackals had come out of their dark lairs in the daytime in search of prey and howled in the middle of the city at high noon. The people of Dwaraka were relieved to see Arjuna, who had come to save them from danger. The women crowded around him, placing their trust in the speed of his hands, in the strength of his Gandeeva bow. It was a futile task to try to console them, saying that it had all been a bad dream. When the wicked dacoits had gathered up the women before his eyes and dissolved into the forests, Arjuna, the great archer, had wept within, knowing his strength had ebbed away. The modesty and good name of the women of Krishna’s palace had been torn to shreds among the wild thickets in front of him, and the echoes of their wails still rang in his heart. Meanwhile, the rough hands of the deluge-waves and the famished wind had already begun to attack the body of the now naked, shelterless city. In the sound of the waves dashing on the shore, Arjuna continued to hear a laugh filled with the arrogance of having erased the history of the Yadava race.

  When he had walked through the emptiness of the battlefield of Kurukshetra earlier, after the great war had ended, weaving his way among carcasses and over rivers of dried blood, Arjuna had felt no sorrow. War was the dharma of the kshatriya race and death lay on the other side of victory. Krishna had walked with him there, reminding him wordlessly that everything that had happened so far had been a move in a chess game played by destiny.

  Had Krishna, who died when a hunter’s arrow pierced him, foreseen his end? Krishna, who wielded the strength of his weapons and of his soul? Sighing, Arjuna thought that of the duo Nara-Narayana, man and God, that he and Krishna had been, only Nara remained.

  Arjuna had taken a firm decision not to turn and look back when he started the great journey – not only at the road behind, but at any of the paths he had trod in life. Standing apart, away from the vague clamour of the waves, he warned himself once again: do not turn and look back.

  Draupadi, Subhadra, Chitrangada, Uloopi, all the countless women whose names he could not even remember, had been nothing to him in life. As the brahmin who taught him the scriptures when he was young used to say, they had been no more than sacrificial flames set alight to offer his seed to the gods. Or mere ornaments for an archer to lift up and display at his moments of victory.

  But Krishna, who had been nurtured by this little country and clan that the sea had swallowed and was now licking its lips over – that man had poured his love over him. For the first time, and for the last, he was aware of the vastness of a love that had no limits.

  When he was young, Arjuna had tried to see all aspects of love in the teacher who had singled him out proudly in front of a multitude, declaring that this disciple was dearer to him than his own son – the ideal of love that a young man cherishes.

  Dronacharya had needed at that time to nurture self-confidence in the soul of his young disciple, knowing that the burden of the gurudakshina that he would demand from him later would be extremely heavy. The emotion felt for a sacrificial horse as it is led out to graze is also love.

  Had Krishna not mastered the strategies of a charioteer, Arjuna was aware that he himself would never have become the leader the world now knew. Krishna was the friend who had always arrived to rescue him from the traps he kept falling into because of his pride, who had never found fault with him. Arjuna had faced many dilemmas in life, even contemplated suicide. He hoped the world would never learn that his heroic tale ended as it did, that Arjuna failed Krishna on the simple mission entrusted to him: the safety of Dwaraka. The ever-victorious Arjuna had watched, defeated, as the Kirata dacoits seized the women of the city. He now thanked his elder brother, Yudhishtira, silently in his heart for having finally taken the wise decision to lay down the burden of life, say goodbye and start on this great journey.

  News of the calamities in Dwaraka had reached Hastinapura earlier. But when Sahadeva went to the palace to tell the women what he had heard, he had not realized that the destruction was so terrible.

  Sahadeva looked at Nakula, who was staring at a particular point in the sea and realized that the years had not taken a toll on his brother’s physique. Older than him by a few seconds, Nakula’s face still had the liveliness of youth. His form was radiant even when clothed in bark. Nakula stood, walked, talked with the awareness that the eyes of beautiful women followed him through the little openings set into the doors. He had not given up the habit of standing with his head tilted slightly back and his right fist firmly planted on his waist.

  Sahadeva gazed at the distant spot on the sea where Nakula’s eyes were riveted. The tip of the majestic pillar that had been visible earlier had sunk de
eper and was continuing to sink. If he wanted, he would now be able to calculate how many seconds more it would take to become invisible. Mental exercises were always a delight to him. Sahadeva remembered that it was no longer necessary to astonish or amuse anyone. The great journey had begun.

  When the pillar was finally submerged, Bhima suppressed the smile of simple delight that had risen to his lips and looked at Yudhishtira, who stood with his eyes closed and his head bowed. Bhima remembered what he wanted to say to Draupadi, who stood behind his elder brother, her head also bowed: that withered garlands had been lying on the seashore, in a narrow channel between the chariot sunk in the sand and a broken lion-pillar. Between the garlands, he had glimpsed a huge ruby, obviously part of some ornament, glowing like an eye of fire in the sunlight.

  No, Draupadi would not have seen anything. Gazing only at her feet, she was trying not to see that Dwaraka had been destroyed. Bhima remembered that it had always been a habit of Draupadi’s to stand immobile, letting her mind wander over distant places.

  Bhima suddenly thought of the short time he had spent in Dwaraka as a guest and student. The day he arrived, he had not felt the happiness of having come to an uncle’s house. Balarama, his cousin, had treated him distantly, emphasizing the difference in their ages. In the mornings, anxious not to waste time when the messenger came to call him, Bhima used to rise early and get ready – remove his ornaments, knot his hair over his head, wind his upper cloth tightly around his waist and smear boar’s fat over his body. He was always worried: would the guru teach him the secret strategies used when waging war with the mace, the ones he taught Duryodhana? It seemed to him that his guru often forgot that he had asked him to come for a lesson in the mornings. In the evenings, while the guru spoke through a haze of liquor, Bhima would sit at his feet, listening to everything he said. When would he reveal the secret of the strategies that Shukacharya had told him about earlier and that only Balarama knew? Bhima was uneasy at night, wondering what he should do or say so that the guru would show the same interest in him that he showed in Duryodhana. Whenever he took leave of the guru, he took care not to betray his disappointment at having learnt nothing new.

  Krishna had been away at that time. And Bhima had met his uncle, Vasudevar, only twice: as soon as he arrived and when he said goodbye to him on the twenty-second day. All that had lingered awhile in his memory was the astonishment he felt when he encountered the wealth and prosperity of Dwaraka.

  Yudhishtira began to walk forward. Bhima’s turn came next. He walked past Arjuna, who was trying to conceal his grief, climbed down the rocks and reached the seashore again. Yudhishtira had already gone far ahead. The others must be following, thought Bhima – Arjuna just behind and after him, Nakula. Behind Nakula would be Sahadeva, in front of Draupadi, who had to be the last.

  So they walked through nights that knew no difference from days. As the miles fell behind them, Bhima felt that they were in the vicinity of regions they had wandered through earlier as pilgrims, during the period of their exile in the forest. Do not think of that, he rebuked himself. His teachers and his elder brother had said at the beginning of their journey: the mind that seeks the path of salvation should not engage in such activities.

  The past no longer exists for us.

  When memories and hopes are wiped out, the mind becomes still and unwavering, as pure as crystal.

  Was not the sacred rivulet of Sira somewhere here?

  Even if you see it, you must walk on as if you have not; that is the rule.

  As the peaks of Himavan became visible in the distance, it seemed as if Yudhishtira’s pace quickened. Bhima walked on at his own pace, listening to the footsteps behind him, the swift intakes of breath.

  The slopes of Himavan! On which side was Shatasringa, which caressed me when I was a child, Bhima asked himself. Was the hermitage of the sages who had given him his name and conducted his thread ceremony still there? Shatasringa, our foster-mother, do you see Bhimasena, do you see the Pandavas as they go on their final journey?

  Bhima recalled a forest on the banks of the Ganga, on the western slope of glowing Himavan. A shrivelled forest. The fragrance of the madhuka flowers that had fallen during the last monsoon still lingered beneath the trees. Forest streams licked the bitumen off the rock surfaces in its valleys. There was a gleam in the eyes of the black-skinned beauty who ran through the forest, bearing the scent of the flowering kutakappala trees in her hair. Shadows stole shyly over the ground, screaming silently at the festive boisterousness of youth. Where, where were those forests whose names he did not know, the forests that had laughed, covering their eyes partially as they looked on his naked manhood?

  Once they crossed the heights and descents and reached the other side, a thorny desert terrain stretched out before them. They had to continue their journey until they crossed the distant peak of Meru. After that, everything would end peacefully in yoganidra, where the mind lies between sleep and meditation. Bhima stopped when he heard a sob and a subdued lament in a voice that he could recognize in the midst of any chaos.

  He called out in a voice loud enough for Yudhishtira to hear, ‘Wait, Elder Brother, Draupadi has fallen down!’

  Without slowing down or turning back to look, Yudhishtira said, ‘I am not surprised. She lost the strength of mind she needs to find her way alive to the feet of the gods long ago.’

  Bhima was taken aback. Was Yudhishtira speaking of his noble wife?

  He heard Yudhishtira’s words, wafted to him on the wind, clearly, ‘She loved only Arjuna. Even when she was seated beside me for the Rajasooya sacrifice, her eyes were on him. Continue to walk, do not wait for those who fall down on the way.’

  Yudhishtira kept walking.

  Bhima heard the footsteps behind him come closer. His eyes steadily gazing at the peak of the great Meru mountain, Arjuna skirted Bhima who stood blocking his way, taking care not to touch him.

  Bhima said to him, ‘Draupadi fell down.’

  Arjuna did not seem to hear. Bhima wondered: had the wind, which blew so fiercely through the thorny bushes, making them tremble, deadened his tired voice? But he could find no more words to say.

  A little later, as Nakula’s form of molten gold, perspiring with the effort of movement, passed him on his left, Bhima heard him murmur: ‘There is no time to wait for anyone.’

  Bhima waited for the moment when the youngest one, Madri’s son, the one he always thought of as a child, would gather Draupadi up in his arms and go past him. Sahadeva would never leave her on the ground and go on. She was not just the wife for whom he had been fifth in line as a husband, she had also unstintingly poured a mother’s love over him.

  But, in the end, when Sahadeva too went past him, looking neither left nor right, his eyes riveted on the footsteps of those who had gone ahead of him, his lips quivering in concentration, Bhimasena forgot the rules of the great journey. He turned around. And in that one moment when he forgot all the scriptures, all the rules, the peak of Meru that had invoked him with its invisible power, lay behind him.

  Dragging his exhausted feet, Bhima retraced his path.

  He stood by Draupadi, who had lost her balance and fallen on the scorched earth, among the thorny bushes. Her shoulder-bones twitched as she lay with her lips pressed to the earth, her breath faint. He knelt down beside her. Withdrawing the hand that had shot forward to touch her shoulder, he called: ‘Draupadi!’

  Draupadi’s exhausted form stirred. She sat up with an effort. Bhima saw with relief that her eyes, which had first wandered all around as if seeing nothing, were gradually becoming clearer.

  But he saw only disappointment reflected in them. Yudhishtira and Arjuna had not waited for her. No one had waited.

  He repeated, ‘I am here.’

  Her eyes became hard, then grew moist. They followed those who had gone ahead, into the emptiness of the desert. She saw no one. The wind had erased even the footprints of those who had gone that way in search of eternal peace.


  She looked at Bhima, who stood bewildered, not knowing what to do for her. He saw the silent questions that crowded her eyes.

  Her lips moved. But he could not make out the words she managed to speak. He longed to know whether they expressed gratitude, or were a prayer, or whether they asked for forgiveness. Or were they a curse on those who had gone away?

  He waited for her lips to move again.

  A prayer took shape in his mind: say something, for the last time, say something. Just once.

  Once again, Draupadi’s tired head slipped down.

  Somewhere in front of them, could he hear the sound of the wheels of the heavenly chariot approaching to welcome Yudhishtira? Somewhere very far away?

  What he actually heard, however, was from the distant past. Chariot wheels rolling over palace courtyards, forest paths, the battlefield …

  Bhima sat down sorrowfully, waiting for her eyes to open, gazing steadily at her.

  Then he smiled.

  PART 2

  THE MURMURS OF A CYCLONE

  1

  I remember the journey from Shatasringa to Hastinapura only vaguely. I had climbed into the chariot because I wanted to see the sights on the way. But I slept most of the time. I would wake up when we reached resting places on the wayside, then go back to sleep.

  While waiting at the fortress gates of the capital city, I could see the mansions in the distance. On either side of the doorway, below statues of lions, stood four guards with swords at their waists and long spears in their right hands. The spear-points glittered brightly above their red head-dresses.

  What fascinated me were the huge drums that hung outside the doorway, on either side of the flagpole. I turned around to ask a question and noticed that Mother looked uneasy. A thought arose in my five-year-old mind when I saw her face as she stood there with Sahadeva on her hip and Nakula pressed close to her knees: Mother was afraid! I realized it was not the moment to ask questions.