TWENTY-NINE

DRONA

The two hosts rush at each other by torchlight and the killing begins again; the air is shrill with the screams of a thousand dying men, thick with the roars of their killers. But past the midnight hour, deep tiredness is upon them all as well. They have been fighting since morning and there are those that actually fall asleep where they stand and have their heads struck off by an enemy almost as exhausted.

Arjuna’s voice rings out above every other sound of battle. “All of us are tired. I say we should sleep an hour or two before we fight again.”

Shouts of approval from both armies greet this. Not waiting a moment, every soldier on that field lays down his weapons, lies on the blessed earth and lets sleep come over him. Some Kaurava soldiers cry before they fall asleep, “God bless Arjuna for his mercy!”

Then, soon, silence; only a sea of breathing heaves against night’s deep quiet. Kurukshetra lies darkling, a child that has sobbed itself to sleep, scarlet trails on her face. The sleeping and the dead lie side by side, indistinguishable. A moon the hue of blood rises high over this spectacle, a cardinal lotus blooming in the sky. As Soma Deva climbs higher, his ruddy complexion fades and Kurukshetra is bathed in silver light.

There is one man who does not sleep tonight. Drona sits alone at the edge of the field of death and a profound sense of doom is upon him. At night’s abysmal heart, all his life plays itself out phantas-magorically before his eyes. He sees himself as a boy again: his idyllic tutelage in his father Bharad-vaja’s asrama. He sees Drupada beside him, also a boy. He hears their innocent voices, full of wonder, full of love. Tears well in Drona’s eyes and roll down his cheeks. Then, later, Aswatthama is a child; his father hears him ask in his lisping voice to taste milk. An uncanny breeze starts around Drona, plucking at his face. He sees himself come to Drupada’s court, hoping to find a new life, most of all for his son. For the first time, he tastes the hubris of kings, their selfishness. Drupada breaks his heart with scorn. Even then, he could have turned back to the natural forest. That should have been taste enough for him to realize he did not belong in the world of power, the harsh world of the kshatriya.

But he was young and rash; he took the wrong turn. Thirsty for revenge, he went to Hastinapura. Now, alone here in the outer darkness, he sees it all so clearly. He sees his terrible mistakes, the first steps on the road to sin. He was a brahmana; he did not belong in the court of a kshatriya king, least of all, as a teacher of archery. But he also realizes he could hardly have helped himself. Untenable sorrow turned into the rage that obsessed him: sorrow and his pride. If only he had understood this then, they would not have consumed his life.

He sees himself walking into Hastinapura, to Kripa’s house. He sees it all as if it was happening again before his eyes, in this dense night full of ghosts of every kind, full of the lost times of the earth. He went to Bheeshma and told him how Drupada had humiliated him and he wanted revenge. The Kuru Pitama smiled: a smile that mocked Drona’s youthful earnestness. Quietly, Bheeshma said, ‘You have come to the right place. I have a hundred grandsons, all eager to learn archery.’

Drona stayed on in Hastinapura. The demon revenge possessed him and he did not think what he was sacrificing for it. Over the years, he lost the gentleness that should have been part of his nature. He lost the dignity and freedom that should have been his. He became just a hireling of the Kurus. Over the years, this gnawed at him. Yet, more than anything, he wanted revenge against Drupada.

Revenge he had, when Arjuna routed the Panchala king. But when Drona saw his childhood friend humbled before him, he cried, ‘I only wanted to teach you a lesson. Let us be friends again.’ How naive he had been to think a kshatriya would forget that shame, or ever think of him as his equal. Drupada prayed for a son who would kill Drona.

The breeze swells into a midnight wind, whispering death around Drona sitting alone at the edge of Kurukshetra, as the moon washes the violent field in spectral light. His life plays itself out before his weary eyes, eerily.

The brahmana sees himself as a master to the Kuru princes. There, too, he had been a failure. Very early, he had noticed the growing enmity between the sons of Dhritarashtra and the sons of Pandu. As a guru, he could have tried to put an end to that fledgling antagonism, to nip it in the bud. But he had not thought of this as being part of his duties. Indeed, he had subtly fuelled that hatred by turning a blind eye to it: because he thought it helped the princes compete more intensely and thus excel.

This was where his indifference had led them all. Out alone on the deathly field, Drona realizes he had not loved his wards as he should have. He had seen them only as warriors of the future, not as human children.

Now, Drona’s eyes leak pointless tears and the cold wind dries them on his face. He should have gone back to the forest when the princes’ instruction was complete. The wilderness would have healed him. It would have eased away the worldly mantle with which he had covered himself. He would have been his own master again and for a proud spirit like Drona, that would have cured him as nothing else. But he lingered on in Hastinapura, until the fateful game of dice was played. Even then, it was not too late. He could have spoken out for dharma; it was not as if he did not know who was right and who was wrong. Like Bheeshma, he remained silent. Was it because he revered the Pitama so much that he could not bring himself to speak out when the patriarch held his peace? On Kurukshetra tonight, as two armies lie around him, asleep and dead, Drona faces that terrible question from himself.

He shivers in the dark wind, which seeps into his bones. Drona feels what can only be death’s fingers brush his cheek and is filled with remorse. He remembers how Duryodhana came to him, after the Pandavas left for the forest swearing revenge. Duryodhana was afraid his cousins would attack Hastinapura. Even then, the Acharya could have redeemed himself; instead, he rashly promised the Kaurava prince that he would fight for him. More than any other, that promise had sealed Drona’s fate. There was no turning back for him.

Now, too late, he sees that a deep sense of inferiority had led him down the path to ruin. Then the war began and Bheeshma fell. Drona became Senapati of the Kaurava army. How proud he had been! No turning back. The cruel night mirrors his mistakes without mercy. Drona sobs like a boy, when he thinks in shame of how he agreed to take Yudhishtira captive. Even that was as nothing compared to what followed.

He remembers the chakra vyuha. He sees every chariot and footsoldier of it with pitiless clarity. He sees himself weave that web, in cold blood, to snare a child. And why? Because Duryodhana taunted him, saying he did not fight as he could. He had known very well that only Abhimanyu could breach the vyuha. It was as if he had stolen into Arjuna’s son’s tent and stabbed him in his sleep. And Arjuna had treated him as a father, looked up to him even when he fought as Duryodhana’s Senapati. What had he said, as he flashed by on his way to kill Jayadratha?

‘You are not my enemy. You are my guru.’

But Bheema had not spared him the truth. The night burns Bheema’s words like hot knives in his soul. ‘Once you were our guru and like a father to us. Now you are an enemy, just another of Duryodhana’s minions.’

Suddenly, a voice speaks out of the night to the brahmana. Duryodhana says, “Here you are, Acharya, I have been looking for you.”

Quickly, Drona wipes his tears and turns to his king. By the light of the moon, for the first time he sees Duryodhana as he truly is: a beast of darkness, his eyes full of evil. Drona controls himself and says, “Yes, Duryodhana? Is there something you wanted to say to me?”

His voice cold and mocking, as ever, Duryodhana says, “Nothing new, Acharya. Only what I have been saying to you all these days, since you became our Senapati. You have astras that can raze the enemy, whenever you decide that you will win this war for us. But Arjuna still rules your heart. Did you see how many of our men he killed today? You hardly tried to stop him. Drona, you must make up your mind if it is the Pandavas you fight for or us.”

Drona growls, “I have always done my best for you. But you know, as well as I do, that it is a crime to use the devastras against common soldiers.”

His eyes malevolent, Duryodhana answers his master with silence. Drona sighs, “I have already sworn I will not remove this armor from my body until I have killed all the Panchalas and Kekayas. But you are my king and I am your Senapati. I will obey you. If you command me to use the devastras against common Pandava soldiers, so be it. My life is hardly worth living any more and with this final crime, death will come for me: though I know that is of small concern to you.

But listen to me, Duryodhana. I, too, have something to say to you, which I have said before. Not with the devastras, or any weapon that your warriors possess, can Arjuna be killed. No kshatriya that fights for you, not all of them together, can bring him down.”

A tremor of resentment ripples through the Kaurava. He says, “We will bring down your Arjuna, Acharya. Between Karna, Dusasana, Shakuni and me, we will kill your great archer.”

Drona smiles more scathingly than anything he can say and does not reply. Duryodhana continues, “From now, let us divide our army in two. We four will take one half and ride against the Pandavas. You take the other half. Fight if you will, Acharya, or stand aside and contemplate your Arjuna’s greatness.

Drona smiles. “I wish you well, Duryodhana. You have lived a full life, so you need have no regret as you set out on this brave mission. Only when you face him yourself, will you discover who Arjuna is. Until then, you won’t believe what I say.” There is bitterness in the brahmana’s voice. “You have always been suspicious, never knowing who loves you and who does not.” He laughs. “But I am forgetting you are a kshatriya born in the House of Kuru. It is only natural that you want to fight Arjuna yourself. I wondered why you hardly fought all these days, while all around you hundreds of thousands died for your sake. For the sake of your greed.

After all, what have you to fear, when your uncle goes into battle with you? The mighty Shakuni! The one who has brought us all to this pass. The master of the dice-board will do what no kshatriya has yet: he will vanquish Arjuna in battle, as easily as he did Yudhishtira at dice!”

Drona laughs again, grimly. “Yes, how often I have heard you say in your father’s sabha, ‘We three, Dusasana, Karna and I, are enough to kill the five Pandavas.’ Your time is here, Duryodhana. You have drunk deeper from the cup of pleasure than most kings do in ten lifetimes. You have wielded power as no other man in the world. And yes, you have been generous to those whom you love. You have done much good, as well and as far as I know, you are not in debt to anyone. So, go boldly and fight the Pandavas. You have tasted everything that life has to offer someone like you. Now die gloriously at your cousins’ hands!”

Drona gets up and walks away from Duryodhana, who stands gazing out into the night for a long time after his Senapati has gone.