‘King or mother?’
‘I am king. I am also mother.’
‘No. Mothers cannot be kings. If Shilavati cannot be king, Yuvanashva cannot be mother.’
Yuvanashva was silent.
‘My lord, what use is a wife if she cannot be mother. Let me be what I was brought here for. Your son’s mother. I will love him as my own. You stay king.’
‘He is mine. I gave birth to him. You are nothing,’ said Yuvanashva angrily.
Simantini struck back. She had thought about this long and hard. She spoke with confidence, ‘To be a mother you must be a woman. Are you saying you are a woman, Arya? If you are a woman you have no right to sit on the throne.’
Yuvanashva said, ‘I will not let you take my son away from me.’
‘Either your son or your crown. Choose what you wish to give up.’
‘I can see you have been talking to my mother. She has made you a pawn in her game to get back at me.’
‘She is right.’
‘She is vicious and vindictive. She is using you.’
Simantini felt sorry for her husband. Her voice softened, ‘It is for your own good, Arya, that I do this. And for the good of our family. The world must not know that you are an aberration. They will cast you into the same pyre into which you cast those two boys. I will not let them do that to you. Let the world see you as it wants to see you. A great king, with three wives and two sons. Virile and strong and obedient. The flame of the Turuvasu clan. Be a father. Leave motherhood to me. I am your wife. Your chief queen. You owe me that.’
He did.
‘And this scar? Do you want to deny the truth of this scar?’ asked Yuvanashva, parting his dhoti, revealing the gash of childbirth on his left inner thigh.
‘Everybody knows what that is,’ said Simantini, turning away, with Mandhata in her arms. ‘A hunting accident, where you were gored by a great boar’s tusks.’
Outside, the crows cheered. What a brilliant lie! Order had been restored. The family tree was in full bloom. Its honour intact.
Book Seven
no one turns up
Sixteen years after the carnage of Kuru-kshetra, a young girl in the city of Panchala felt blood seeping between her thighs for the first time in her life.
‘Devi,’ cried her handmaiden addressing the girl’s mother, ‘It has finally happened. The princess has bloomed.’
Hiranyavarni, the widow queen of Panchala, heaved a sigh of relief: it was three years overdue. Turning to Soudamini, her now toothless mother-in-law, she said, ‘Now, no one will doubt your son’s masculinity. The forefathers will welcome my husband into the land of the dead.’
The girl’s name was Amba. Born ten moons after the battle of Kuru-kshetra, three moons after Mandhata, she was the last of the Yagnasenis, daughter of Drupada’s eldest son, Shikhandi.
A messenger rushed to Hastina-puri whose king, Yudhishtira, had served as Panchala’s guardian since Drupada and his sons met with their death in Kurukshetra. ‘The daughter is a true woman,’ he said. ‘So the father must have been a man.’
Draupadi, who had never doubted this, wept on receiving the news. ‘If only he was alive to hear this.’ she told Yudhishtira.
A flood of memories gushed into the palace of the Pandavas. The dreadful dawn following the night of victory, the headless bodies of Draupadi’s two brothers and her five sons, and Ashwatthama, son of Drona, laughing hysterically, holding their seven heads, describing in gory detail how he slipped into the Pandava camp at night, and slit the throats of all the warriors as they slept, breaking every code of decency.
‘What decency are you talking about,’ Ashwatthama had barked when the Pandavas finally caught up with him. ‘You broke each and every rule of war in order to secure victory. Where was decency when Yudhishtira lied to my father, told him I was dead, breaking his heart and making him throw down his weapons? My father killed Drupada fairly, in keeping with the rules of battle, but Drupada’s son struck him down after he had laid down his weapons. He was unarmed, Yudhishtira, and yet you let Dhristadhyumna chop his head off. Was that appropriate? Was that dharma? I don’t regret killing Dhristadhyumna as he slept. I wanted to kill the five of you too but I killed your sons instead. That was a mistake. I regret that. They were children, the youngest barely sixteen. I also regret killing Shikhandi. She was a woman after all.’
‘Cut his tongue out, Arya,’ Draupadi had screamed. ‘Is it not enough that he killed my brother? Now he calls him a woman. Insults him even in death. Cut his tongue out, break his bones, throw him to the dogs.’
Realizing there was still an opportunity to make Draupadi cry, the vengeful Ashwatthama had retorted, ‘Shikhandi was a woman. So what if Krishna took him into the battlefield. Even Bhisma lowered his bow out of decency. Your father, you, your husbands, can pretend as much as you want. But that does not change facts. Your perverted father got her married to a woman. Such adharma. He deserved to die. In fact, now that I think of it, I don’t think killing Shikhandi was wrong. To kill a woman who pretends to be a man is dharma indeed.’
Yudhishtira had wanted to rip Ashwatthama’s tongue out himself. But he had restrained himself. ‘Forgive him,’ he had said. ‘That will be his worst punishment. He wants to die. So he provokes us. But let us not give him that satisfaction. Let him suffer the memories of his crimes for the rest of his life. Wherever he goes, people will say, “There goes the son of Drona, a Brahmana, who gave up his varna to become king. There goes the son of Drona, child-killer, woman-killer.”’
Years had not healed the deep wounds of that night. Wiping her tears, Draupadi told her husbands, ‘I want my niece’s swayamvara to be the grandest in Ila-vrita.’
How could Yudhishtira say no? It had made his wife smile. No expense was therefore spared. Emissaries were sent to each and every kingdom along the banks of the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati, inviting worthy kings and princes to Panchala so that Amba could select a Gandharva from amongst them.
It had been a long time since Panchala had seen a royal wedding. The whole city came alive, like the red earth in summer yearning for the rain. The palace walls were painted with bright images of nymphs, gods and sages. The streets were watered. Flags were hoisted atop every house. Gates were decorated with flower garlands. Musicians and dancers and storytellers were invited to entertain the guests. Pavilions were set up on the many roads that led to the city where the royal entourages could rest and where their horses and elephants and cows could be watered. Yudhishtira personally oversaw all the arrangements to the satisfaction of Draupadi and to the relief of Hiranyavarni.
Young Kshatriya boys climbed the topmost beam of the city gates eager to identify the arriving princes by their fluttering banners. They waited, and waited, and waited. Days passed. The flowers withered and the roads dried up. But not a single banner could be spotted. For not a single prince in all of Ila-vrita had accepted the invitation to Amba’s swayamvara.
mandhata rejects amba
Mandhata too had received an invitation. He too had turned it down.
A spitting image of Yuvanashva, Mandhata was as handsome as his father had been when he was sixteen, with broad shoulders, slim waist, long muscular arms and thick long hair reaching down to his waist. His eyes were as piercing and his lips as full. In the hermitage of his teacher, when he moved around wearing nothing but a loin cloth, his brown body covered with sweat glistened like polished bronze in the sunlight. And when he entered the river one could almost hear the Apsaras gasp.
Vipula had informed Yuvanashva that the young prince was ready to step out of brahmacharya-ashrama and step into grihastha-ashrama. Yuvanashva was sure that if his son went to Panchala, he would surely become Amba’s Gandharva. Mandhata’s decision not to go took him by surprise.
‘Why did you not go?’ asked Yuvanashva.
‘Because she is Shikhandi’s daughter,’ replied Mandhata.
‘So?’
‘How can anybody accept as his bride a woman whose father was
a woman?’
‘So says the man whose mother is a man,’ cackled the two ghosts that night.
Yuvanashva defended his son, ‘He does not know his truth.’
‘Then tell him.’
‘No.’
‘How dare you let him self-righteously reject that poor girl? Is that the kind of king you want for Vallabhi? It is time, father. Let the truth be told!’ screeched the ghosts, rising up into the air.
‘No, it is not time,’ said the king looking away.
‘When then?’
‘When society is ready to accept the truth.’
‘When will that be?’ asked the ghosts. Yuvanashva did not reply. The ghosts sensed he was frightened. ‘What is it, father?’ they asked, their tone no longer accusative.
‘I am afraid.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of being rejected by my son.’
‘Do not underestimate the power of man, father,’ said the two Pisachas in a compassionate voice, ‘Look at Amba. All the men of Ila-vrita have rejected her. Yet that slip of a girl faces her rejection stoically. She has not broken down. And she does not hide from the truth. She will surely make a worthy daughter-in-law, a worthy wife and a worthy queen. But your son? Will he face the truth? Will he make a worthy husband, a worthy king?’
the truth of amba
Truth can terrify. But there are many who face truth fearlessly. Like the little boy, who, when asked about his father, replied, ‘My mother says that she has served many men. So she does not know of which seed I am fruit. All she can say with certainty is she is my mother and that I am her son. Her name is Jabala and that makes me Jabali, the son of Jabala.’ Impressed by the little boy’s forthrightness, his teacher gave him a new name: Satya-kama, he who fearlessly yearns for the truth.
Hiranyavarni, who had heard this tale in her father’s house, had sworn she would be like Satya-kama and always face truth fearlessly. That is why, on her wedding night, forty-five years earlier, she was not afraid to tell Panchala what it had been denying for fourteen years. That its crown prince, Shikhandi, to whom she was given as wife, was a woman.
Only her father, the king of Dasharna, had heard her then. He had sent his chief concubine to check if this was true. But when she had returned with a smile on her lips shouting, ‘He is most certainly a man. And what a man!’ he had no choice but to send her back to Panchala shamefaced.
No one had greeted her at the gates of the palace when she returned. ‘How dare she show her face here,’ her mother-in-law had shouted.
‘Where else will she go?’ Shikhandi had shouted back, holding her hand firmly. ‘She is my wife and she belongs here, beside me.’
Tears had welled up in Hiranyavarni’s eyes as she felt her husband’s comforting grip. But the truth had not changed. She had seen what she had seen. And no matter what the courtesan had experienced, her husband was for her a woman.
‘How did you get it?’ She had asked her husband when she had finally found the courage.
‘From a Yaksha,’ he had said.
‘So what I saw was true, was it not, Arya?’ she had asked.
And he had replied, ‘That was yesterday’s truth, Bharya. This is today’s truth.’
‘Truth cannot change,’ she had insisted.
‘It has. Look at me,’ he had said, untying his dhoti. She had covered her eyes in embarrassment. ‘It is real. It works. I will prove it to you.’ When she had resisted, he had dragged a palace maid to their bed and mounted her in plain sight. The helpless maid had submitted to the prince but had shut her eyes in shame. But with each thrust her eyes had grown wider. By the time he was done, she was clinging to him fiercely, and shamelessly, refusing to let go, mouthing pleasurable sighs. ‘See, how this girl smiles,’ he had said. ‘That is how your father’s courtesan smiled. She also clung to me, begged me to make love to her once again, said she could not bear the itch.’
Hiranyavarni had found the whole thing revolting, ‘You should stick to courtesans and palace maids then. And take more wives if you wish. But I will not come to you. My truth remains my truth. And a Yaksha’s manhood will not make a wife out of me.’
And so, in public, Hiranyavarni was always seen seated demurely beside Shikhandi, fulfilling her social obligations as a wife but in private she never let Shikhandi touch her. If he came to her courtyard, she let him in. She was the dutiful wife who bathed her husband, fed him, even let him sleep on her bed, but she never offered him tambula and he never forced himself on her. He loved her for leading him to his truth. She loved him for accepting her truth. But a shared truth stretched between them, keeping them apart.
The Yaksha’s manhood had brought with it dreams, terrible dreams that made Shikhandi talk in his sleep and weep and sweat all night. He dreamt of being a woman, of being abducted on the eve of her wedding, of being forced to marry an impotent prince, of begging that she be allowed to go back to the man she loved, of being allowed to do so only to have her lover turn her away. For nights on end Hiranyavarni watched her husband writhe in agony feeling that woman’s pain, her rejection, her humiliation.
Hiranyavarni had sought the help of the priestesses of Bahugami, who were known for their oracular powers. They had recognized in Shikhandi’s dreams a painful memory of a past life. Waving branches of the neem tree and swaying in a trance, the priestesses had told Hiranyavarni, ‘That woman who haunts your husband is Amba, once eldest daughter of the king of Kashi, who was in love with Shalva, who was abducted by Bhisma of the Kuru clan, and who was given in marriage to Vichitra-virya. She immolated herself after all of these men rejected her. Shikhandi is Amba reborn, born to kill Bhisma, cause of her misfortune.’
‘I am no woman reborn,’ Shikhandi had protested. He was determined nothing would come in the way of his new-found masculinity. Many women threw themselves at him drawn by the potency of the Yaksha’s appendage. He never turned them away, partly to make his wife jealous, partly to prove to himself that he was indeed a man and partly to convince his father that he was really a son.
Unfortunately, Drupada was not convinced. He had also heard what the priestesses of Bahugami had to say. ‘This is not the son I wanted. He is a woman at heart.’ So saying he invited the Siddhas, Yaja and Upayaja, to perform a yagna and give him a true son— an event that only fuelled Shikhandi’s sense of inadequacy. When he saw the twins, Dhristradhyumna and Draupadi, emerge from the fire-pit, he had told Hiranyavarni, ‘Bharya, my brother is more man than I will ever be and my sister is more woman that I could ever be. My father found me fit enough to have a wife but will he find me fit enough to wear the crown?’
The humiliation was complete when Shikhandi was not allowed to ride out with the Yagnaseni Kshatriyas to Kuru-kshetra. Dhristadhyumna was made commander of the Pandava army while Shikhandi was told by his father to stay back and guard the women of Panchala as if he was a eunuch.
But on the ninth night of the war, Dhristadhyumna had returned to fetch him. ‘Brother, they want you to ride into battle on Krishna’s chariot tomorrow morning.’
‘Why? Is Arjuna dead?’ Shikhandi had asked, surprised by the offer.
‘No, no. Arjuna will ride on the chariot with you. Behind you.’
‘Why?’
‘The Pandava morale hangs by a thread. Old Bhisma has proved to be an able commander for the Kauravas. He has held his ground and pushed the Pandavas back for nine days. He has smashed all my battle formations. To win, we must first be rid of Bhisma. And the only way to do so is to make him lower his bow. But he will do so only in front of a woman. As women are not allowed to enter the battlefield …’
‘… you want me to ride in on Krishna’s chariot,’ Shikhandi had completed the sentence with a bitter smile. ‘A man who is actually a woman!’
Dhristadhyumna had felt his brother’s rage and humiliation. Falling at his brother’s feet, he had said, ‘Forgive us, brother. We are only human, imperfect creatures, limited by our prejudices. But in Krishna’s eyes you are a man—not wh
at you were born as, but what you have become.’
‘I have become a man of convenience with a weapon called womanhood,’ said Shikhandi. But he did not argue further. This was perhaps his only chance to fight like a man, and perhaps die like a man. Besides, Krishna had sent for him. How could he say no?
As he was about to put on his armour, Hiranyavarni had said, ‘I have one wish.’
‘What is it?’
‘Make love to me before you go. Let me be your real wife. Otherwise I will never be able to walk by your side in your next life.’
Shikhandi had touched his wife’s cheek tenderly. ‘Do you think I will die?’
‘I think nothing will survive this war. If you survive this war, I will put on gold anklets like a queen and sit beside you on the throne. If you don’t, I will shave my head and beat my breast as a Kshatriya’s widow should.’
‘Are you sure you want me to make love to you? You know what happens to women after that.’
‘The itch that will follow will be the only memory I will have of you. It will remind me constantly of your manliness that I have rejected since my wedding night.’
Hiranyavarni led Shikhandi to her courtyard. After thirty years of being together, they finally consummated their marriage. Shikhandi was slow and generous in his affection. As he penetrated her, he looked into the shadows and wondered if the Yaksha was watching, impatient to take back his manhood.
He was.
But Sthunakarna’s manhood did not leave Shikhandi. It clung to him till the day he died. And it left behind no itch. Instead, Hiranyavarni’s withered womb bloomed with life.
Hiranyavarni remembered the shocked expression on her mother-in-law’s face, just days after the war, when she announced she was with child. ‘How is it possible?’ Soudamini had asked.
‘He was a man, was he not, mother?’ Hiranyavarni had replied. ‘It is his. I assure you. He came to me before he left for war.’
‘I know my son was a man. But you stopped bleeding months ago.’