FORTY-SIX
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.