SEVENTEEN
On his way back to the Kaurava camp, Duryodhana sees all his dead, lying dismembered on the earth. Again and again, he sees Bheema killing his brothers. He finds Karna waiting for him in his tent and breaks down, sobbing.
Desperately he cries to his friend, “These last three days, I have seen that monster kill twenty-four of my brothers. Their screams ring in my ears and I have no peace. I see my mother crying for her sons. But Bheeshma has not killed even one Pandava and I fear he doesn’t mean to. Each day, we return from the war, routed again and every night Bheeshma says the same thing to me, that my cousins are invincible. I cannot stand it any more, Karna. We must do something quickly, or we shall all be lost.”
Duryodhana, of course, has no inkling of the secret Karna now carries, which has changed him so profoundly. The Kaurava believes his friend is eager to take the field against the Pandavas. He does not know these eight days have been a miraculous respite, a Godsend to Karna and a time when he has really begun to think of the Pandavas as his brothers. Duryodhana has no clue of the secret that bisects Karna’s life. He, who once longed to take the field against Arjuna, hardly dares let the thought enter his mind now, but prays that Bheeshma will save him from the exigency; though, deep inside him, he knows it is inevitable.
Karna can reveal nothing of his secret to Duryodhana; least of all, when the war is being lost so swiftly. Now, he says bravely, “I can’t bear to watch you cry. There is nothing I want more than to see a smile on your lips. Don’t forget I am here: to fight for you, to die for you if I must. I grieve for your brothers, my prince. What can I say to soften your pain, except that their deaths were destined? All that happens in this world is by fate: life, death, everything; and there is nothing you or I can do to change what fate has written. How I wish I could comfort you, or bring your brothers back to life! Nothing saddens me as much as to see you like this.”
Karna, too, has tears in his eyes.
Duryodhana says, “Drona, Bheeshma, Kripa, Shalya, none of them fight to kill the sons of Pandu. They raze the enemy army, but that is not enough. The Pandavas are that army’s soul; if the soul isn’t put out, they will win. It happens every day: we come home defeated, our soldiers more terrified than ever, because they have seen their comrades die. Even our great kshatriyas are dispirited; no one believes we can win this war any more. They probably outnumber us now, though we began with four aksauhinis more than they did. How I wish you were on the field, Karna, how different things would have been. You wouldn’t hesitate to kill Arjuna or the others.”
Karna says somberly, “Your Pitama loves his grandsons too much. Besides, I am not sure that at his age he can kill them even if he wanted to. There is one solution. Tell Bheeshma to stay away for a day or two and I will come to fight. I will hunt just Arjuna; when I have killed him, the others’ hearts will break. I will leave the field again and your Pitama can win the rest of the war. Arjuna is the key to victory. Why do you think Krishna chose to be his sarathy and not Yudhishtira’s or Bheema’s? If we can kill Arjuna, the rest will be easy.”
Nothing in his voice or his face gives away what it costs Karna to make that offer. Duryodhana stares at him, for a moment, then he gets up. “I will go and speak to Pitama.”
Bheeshma is waiting for him; he has been expecting his grandson. Usually so direct, Duryodhana is uncomfortable with having to tell his grandsire what he has come for. He folds his hands, then sits down near Bheeshma, but never looks into the patriarch’s eyes. Bheeshma waits for him to speak.
“Pitama, there is no kshatriya on earth like you. When you took command of my army I was certain victory would be mine and I thought it would take no more than a day or two. But we have fought eight terrible days and my certainties were mere dreams. You haven’t killed even one Pandava.”
Bheeshma begins to speak, but Duryodhana holds up his hand so he may finish. “Your love for Pandu’s sons is stronger than your love for me. I know you kill ten thousand soldiers every day. But that will not win the war for us, because they kill more of our men than you kill theirs. And, finally, this war will not be won or lost by the ordinary soldiers who die, but by the lords of men that do.”
He lowers his voice, “Pitama, I have lost twenty-four brothers already, all killed by that beast. Weren’t they your grandsons too? Were their lives cheaper than my cousins’ lives, that they can die but not the Pandavas? On whose side do you fight, O Bheeshma, on theirs or mine? If you will not attack Yudhishtira and his brothers, I beg you, relinquish your command. Let Karna take the field tomorrow.”
Having said what he found so hard, Duryodhana falls quiet. Bheeshma sighs. He says in his slow, sad way, “Why are you so cruel to me every day, Duryodhana? Here I am at this bloody yagna, for your sake and the yagnapasu, the sacrificial animal, is I. And you still doubt my love for you? You wound me so casually with your accusations. Instead, why don’t you face the truth? I do my best, but I cannot kill the Pandavas. Even if my heart were set on killing them, I would not be able to. Krishna is with them; the armies of Devaloka could not harm the sons of Pandu.
Duryodhana, the root of your troubles is that you do not realize who Krishna is. You think of him as the Pandavas’ cousin, or as the prince of Dwaraka. You are engulfed in such darkness that you don’t recognize the lights of lights when he stands before you. It is God you are fighting, poor child, the master of all things, the lord of galaxies, the king of time, the creator, sustainer and destroyer of not just us, but the worlds. He showed himself to you in Hastinapura, so you might believe; and you fell down in fear when you saw him like that. Yet, later, you chose to ignore what you saw and accused him of performing a conjuring trick to deceive you. Ah, my son, you are so stubborn and so afraid, that I fear you will submit to Krishna only in death. What can Karna or I, or anyone else do for you? Duryodhana, the dying and the defeat are not on Kurukshetra, but in your own heart.”
Duryodhana sits very still. Bheeshma says, “Let me fight tomorrow and watch me burn their army. I will be a fire among the dry trees of summer and the earth shall never forget how Bheeshma fights. Now go and sleep, my child, you must be strong for battle. And let me rest as well, so I can show you in the morning how much I do love you.”
Bheeshma lies down on his bed and turns his back on Duryodhana. Mollified by his grandfather’s promise, Duryodhana leaves the tent. He doesn’t see the tears Bheeshma sheds: for him, for his slain brothers, for all the men who have lost their lives and, most of all, for Duryodhana’s immortal soul, plunged in darkness, its final ruin drawn near.
Later that night, another kshatriya, who has taken no part yet in the war of Kurukshetra, lies awake long after he has left Duryodhana’s tent. Karna lies roiled in his bed. He does not cry for himself, that he had such a cruel burden thrust upon him: the knowledge of who he was. He weeps for Duryodhana, that his cause was a lost one and only defeat and death would reward his struggle. Yet, Karna chooses to stay at his friend’s side, even at this impossible time.
Duryodhana still believes that if one man on earth hates the Pandavas as much as he himself does, it is Karna. How can Karna confess to him that, now, his hatred has turned into a love that has wrought a miracle in his spirit? Changed the way he saw the world. How can he tell Duryodhana that now Karna loves Arjuna and his brothers more than Bheeshma does? That, as nothing else, would break his friend’s heart. Karna, whose life has been a long injustice from its first moments, cannot bring himself to do the thing his body cries out to: to run away from Kurukshetra until the war is over!
No, he will stay. He will fight Arjuna and his other brothers. He knows life will not spare him that final trial, that last ordeal, before he finds death’s release.
Karna does not cry for himself, as he well might. He is so used to suffering that he feels hardly any pity for himself. He cries for Duryodhana: because, like Bheeshma and Drona, he knows Duryo-dhana will lose this war and his life with it. Karna knows who Krishna is and that victory will come inevitably to those that fought on the Avatara’s side. But who can make Duryodhana see the truth? No one on earth: not even Krishna, who had revealed the shadow of his Viswarupa to the Kaurava. Duryodhana rushes headlong toward an abyss; and Karna, whose heart has been exorcised by the truth, will not abandon him. This night, like every other night of the war, Karna lies staring into death’s very face. He will not allow fear to master him.