The Queens of Hastinapur

289 Pages·2017·1.32 MB·English

by  Sharath Komarraju

THE QUEENS OF
HASTINAPUR
SHARATH KOMARRAJU
For Sarayu
This book will probably be out of print by the time
you’re old enough to read it. But what the hell.
Contents
BOOK ONE: INTERVENTION
Prologue: Ganga Speaks
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
BOOK TWO: VICTORY AND DEFEAT
Prologue :Ganga Speaks
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Sharath Komarraju
Copyright
BOOK ONE
INTERVENTION
PROLOGUE
GANGA SPEAKS
The bare White Rock against which I sit, which rises up to touch the clouds,
breathes a chilling current of air down my back. My hooded black cloak – once
all that I needed to protect me from the elements – is now damp, its coarse cotton
giving way at the seams under the arms. A gust of wind runs up the mountain, turns
Yudhisthir’s lifeless body a darker shade of blue, and nibbles at my shrivelled white
hair.
I have been speaking for long, now, yet the tale of the great war is but at its very
beginning. My body withers with each passing moment, and soon I shall lie down
next to Hastinapur’s High King and shut my eyes. But before that, I must make
certain that the entire song passes my lips, for if the light once departs my body, the
story of the Meru people and the battle of Kurukshetra shall forever remain untold.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone hears me here, for I see no bird or bee or flower or
tree – just the falling snow and the endless grey of the overhead skies. Perhaps all that
I say here is in vain; perhaps my voice speaks just to the lifeless crags among which
the Pandavas lie dead; perhaps even if I were to trick death long enough to narrate
my tale, it shall never be uncovered.
If that is so, perhaps it is best that I lie down right now, and surrender to the
weight of my eyelids …
I lean forward on my seat to feel Yudhisthir’s battle-hardened palm; even after all
those years of peace, his hands bear the marks of war. With the sleeve of my cloak I
clean the sleet off his hand, and to my utter surprise I sense his fingers tremble
slightly, and then they wrap as one around mine. I watch the rest of his body for
other signs of life, but there are none. His lips had already blackened, as though they
had been dipped in the venom of hell. His eyelashes are freckled with ice.
But his trembling touch has given me my answer. Even if my listeners are lifeless
rocks, I must go on. Even if my words are destined to lay forever buried under carpets
of snow, I must go on. Even if they freeze in this air for a while, I must believe there
will come a time – in the far future, perhaps – when summer arrives and melts them
into life once again. Even when I see no hope, I must find some, deep within me.
So I hold on to Yudhisthir’s hand and will myself to resume.
The hands of man yearn to grasp. His fingertips are born with the innate knowledge
that they must curl around whatever they touch. To sate his hunger he kneads the
nipples of his mother. As he begins to move about on all fours, he reaches for objects
that catch his eye; he touches, he feels, and those that he likes, he clutches to his
bosom. When he learns to walk, he holds the hand of his elder for support; when he
is old enough to love, he sends out his fingers again, eager, groping, into the dark in
desperate hope. He makes food for himself by guiding the path of the plough, and he
makes the plough itself by felling trees with an axe, whose blade he forges from black
iron extracted from the Earth’s breast – all by means of his hands.
The mind of man yearns to grasp. Deep within it is a well of unslaked thirst that
drives him forever on, asking questions of the Goddess, digging her for secrets, and
when the Goddess answers each of his queries with a thousand of her own, he
soldiers relentlessly on. He picks up each one of the puzzles at once, turning it over in
his head, certain that he shall one day unravel them all.
The mind of man is also besotted with lust – for power, for wealth, for status. Its
tendrils are akin to those of a ravenous spider spinning an infinite web. There is never
a moment when it is still. It is always teetering on the edge that separates instinct
from thought, clawing, feeling …
The soul of man yearns to grasp. From the time he gains consciousness, he is aware
of two worlds that he at once inhabits: one outer world that seems to run of its own
volition, oblivious to his whims and thoughts; and one inner world where he reigns
supreme, where his word is decree, where there are no arguments to face, no wars to
fight, where there is peace at every corner, where love and forgiveness bloom on every
tree. But this inner world is locked in eternal combat with the outer, and his soul
longs to shape the latter in the image of the former.
This yearning is the reason for all of man’s most towering achievements. Without
it, would we ever have rubbed together two stones on a cold winter’s night? Would
we have written the book of mysteries? Would we have told each other tales of wars
and triumphs and defeats, taught our children to be good, fed the old and weak,
respected the dead? Would we have made love, passed on our memories, kindled this
flame of hope in our hearts?
And yet it is this same yearning that brings out the worst in man. The same hand
that guides the plough also grabs at the hilt of a sword. The same mind that lusts for
knowledge and wisdom also yearns for revenge, for power over another. The same
soul that acknowledges the free existence of the outside world seeks to bend it – by
waging wars, by placing curses, by enslaving kingdoms.
The journey of a priestess is not to escape this desire to grasp and to mould –
indeed, none of us can – but to realize its futility. The march of creation is
inexorable. The sweep of time extends thousands of years into the past and into the
future. The life of one man – and the life of one race – is but a blink of the Goddess’s
eye. An age is but one heave of the Goddess’s chest. All of the thoughts that have
occurred in all human minds through the epochs are contained within the Goddess’s
one heartbeat.
This notion, then, that we control the course of history is but an illusion. I told the
Wise Ones on the mountain this on the day Pritha and Gandhari were betrothed in
Hastinapur – that we must stay away from Earth from now, allow the Goddess to
exert her will in her own patient, invisible manner – and they nodded.
Yes, they said. The Lady of the River speaks well. We have meddled enough in
Earth’s affairs. Let us now turn our gaze inward, and bow to the will of the Goddess.
But it is the great folly of men – even the wisest of them – that they think they
know the Goddess’s will. They can see into her mind, these men claim, forgetting
that her mind holds the entire known universe within it. They have spoken to the
Goddess, they insist, forgetting that she has no mouth with which to speak or
scream. Perhaps this is why she has so many who speak on her behalf – these men
who are but mere mites of dust by her feet. They can claim to know her because she