Subhadra speaks

Idyll

It was mid-morning. The woods behind our cottage hummed with birdsong, while in the distance to my left, I spotted my friends from the village, watching over their millets. Today, instead of joining them, I decided to trek up the little hill by myself. 

During my first week here in Pushkara, I had been unnerved by the loud silence and the sudden paucity of companionship. But soon I realized that my loneliness was a farce, for at all times, in the narrowest of spaces possible, life seemed to sprout and thrive. Everyone around me from the tiny centipedes munching on my carefully nurtured plants to the lovely lasses at the village that I befriended, charted their own paths in accordance with the purpose of their existence.

I also got a glimpse of a different side to my husband. While he had spent the last year in my home, in my world, this time, he let me into his world, for he was a child of the forest, nurtured by nature before he had been tamed into a prince, elevated into a warrior and weighted with the duties of an army commander. He had plenty of ambition of his own, and took the tag of the world's best archer very seriously indeed. Even here, he rarely slacked off his practice, sometimes disappearing for hours at an end. And then there were all those times when we wandered about in the woods, unconstrained by time, unhampered by responsibilities.

And so the year flew by. With the beginning of the frost season, his exile would come to an end, and with it, our delightful, dreamy sojourn in the groves adjourning Pushkara.

From up here, I could see the bigger hill to which Goddess Saraswati had fled, when Lord Brahma married Gayatri. Somebody, a beautiful soul no doubt, had carved onto a rock, a depiction of the incident. As I looked at the images, my mind fell back to a conversation from the past, a few days before my wedding.

I hovered impatiently outside Krishna's bath-chamber, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. It was an odd place to wait, with no corners or pillars to hide. Eventually he appeared for his evening ablutions, one of the few rare moments when he was alone.

"I wish to ask you something."

His eyes lit up in a gentle smile at my brusque tone.

"Are we on talking terms again?"

Although my anger had mellowed considerably when I heard of how he had persuaded my agitated family to accept this alliance, I was still a little sore at him. "Did or did not Arjuna marry the Naga princess Ulupi?"

He raised his eyebrows in mock disapproval. "Do not pry into my friend's life. Such conduct is unworthy of you."

I swelled up in indignation. "And what of your conduct? In your haste to make your friend your brother-in-law and strengthen ties between your families, you did not hesitate to use me as a pawn. What if I did not desire your friend, what if my heart was set upon another?"

"But the very first vow you took, at the age of fourteen, was that you would wed no other but the greatest archer in the world, Dhananjaya."

I was stumped. "How...how did you know that?"

He smiled in response, his famously mischievous smile loaded with deadly charm, and I looked away in haste. "Such vows taken in an ignorant age, mean nothing."

"Proceed with extreme caution there, dear Bhadre, for the family you are marrying into, take their vows very seriously indeed. Anyway, as to the answer to your question, yes, Arjun wed Ulupi and has a son by her."

It took a little more needling before I got to the heart of the matter. It was common knowledge that Draupadi was to serve each brother as wife for a year. But we knew nothing of their bedroom arrangements. All I knew was that Arjuna was on a self-imposed exile because he had offended his brother, even though his brother had been willing to forgive him.

That day Krishna told me about the rules the five brothers had set up to share their common wife. Draupadi had been Yudhisthira's wife the first year, the year they had begun to build Indraprastha. The process of building the city was still going on, and they were staying in tents when one night, Arjuna had been forced to enter Draupadi's chamber where their weapons had been temporarily stored that day.  In accordance with their rule, he had left on a self-imposed exile.

I turned at the sound of a footstep, and to my surprise, beheld Arjuna behind me. "What brings you here at this time?"

He pulled me into his embrace, a merry gleam in his eyes. "I saw you come up here alone, and sensed an opportunity." The sun obligingly slid behind the clouds, and three boulders sheltering a grassy bed of flowers, winked at us with tiny, glittering eyes.

Afterwards, I wandered over to the wide berthed malati tree decked with blossoms. The sun came out again, shining his blazing rays upon the angry Sarasvati in the rock, bringing forth the righteousness of her wrath to the world. As I gazed at her, an odd, distasteful, unfamiliar emotion filled me. It took me a minute to realize it was fear.

"Something troubles you, is it not?" He brushed away strands of grass out of my hair. "You have been unusually quiet the past two days, and it is unlike you to wander off alone." His lips curved in a soft smile. "Are you nervous at the thought of going home?"

Home, I thought with a pang. Home no longer meant the familiar tree-lined streets of Dwaraka, cradled by the gentle embrace of the ocean, greeting us with its' sparkling waves, filling our ears with its' soothing song and soaking the breeze with its' salty spray. My home would soon be a small mansion on the outskirts of Indraprastha, run by me, and occupied by my children, numbering three, maybe four.

"Of course not." I murmured. "I look forward to it."

Note: When Arjuna expresses his desire to wed Subhadra, Krishna says, (from KMG's translation):

 'O bull amongst men, self-choice hath been ordained for the marriage of Kshatriyas. But that is doubtful (in its consequences), O Partha, as we do not know this girl's temper and disposition. In the case of Kshatriyas that are brave, a forcible abduction for purposes of marriage is applauded, as the learned have said. Therefore O Arjuna, carry away this my beautiful sister by force, for who knows what she may do at a self-choice.'

Krishna seems to be saying that Subhadra is unlikely to choose Arjuna as her husband, given a choice. Is he then advocating that they not give her any choice? On the surface, it seems so. 

The following is strictly my opinion- I think Krishna, knowing his sister, advised Arjuna thus, to help him win Subhadra's heart. That he would risk the enmity of the Yadavas for her sake would definitely make an impression on her, besides I think Krishna was also testing Arjuna, to see the lengths he would go for his sister.  By abducting Subhadra in this manner, Arjuna might incur the Yadavas ire and lose their political support, would he still do this for this woman? No brother, (let alone Shri Krishna of all people), would ever compromise his sister's happiness for a friend, no matter how close. Nor would he be cruel enough to deprive his sister of any say in her wedding. He knew  Arjuna was a good match for his sister, and this was his way of making his sister see the same, and in his own way, he played cupid for his friend as well. 

Blessed is he who has the Lord by his side. Jai Shree Krishna!