Subhadra speaks

By a roll of the dice

"Daruka mentioned the box to you?" Krishna ran a hand over his chin.

"How, and where did he hear such a story?" I pressed.

He didn't reply at once, but threw such a grave look at me, that new doubts filled my head. "This is why I supported your match with Arjuna. His dharmic nature will counterbalance the asuric nature of this child that you shall bring forth, till he turns sixteen."

I stared at him, unsure if he was pulling my leg. "What after he turns sixteen? Besides...how could you have known all of that before?"

"One of my wives is a bit more loyal to me than you think." He cast a meaningful glance at Rukmini, who shook her head at him in a chiding manner. "Although he has become too solemn for pranks these days, he always makes an exception with you, Bhadre."

"It is an old habit that I cannot get rid of." Krishna said, his eyes filling with laughter.

"How fortunate for me!" I stood up, annoyed, and Rukmini pulled me down. "How could your child ever be a demon?" Her face brightened. "I will have Vakruti foretell your child's future."

And so, Vakruti, my brother's attendant who prided himself in his fortune telling abilities, was dragged in before me. "This is no ordinary child." He declared after due ceremony. "This is the incarnation of Varchas himself, the son of the Moon God, come to Earth, to serve you all."

"See, he is not an asura, but a deva!" Rukmini exclaimed, delighted.

Eight months later, I stared at the red, wrinkly baby with sparse strands of dark, curly hair, neither a deva nor an asura, but very much a human. I valiantly matched Arjuna and Kunti's luminous smiles while battling against my rising despair. I had held many a baby, and holding my son felt no different to me. It was not joy, but my own pain and fatigue, that brought tears to my eyes. Where was the love I was supposed to feel for him as a mother? What sort of a mother was I?

However, he seemed to have made up his mind. He had a formidable bawl that was disproportionate to his tiny, fragile appearance, which would stop only when he nestled in my arms, whether guzzling at my breast, or with his eyes tightly shut in indifferent sleep. And the first time I startled awake in the middle of the night, guilty that I had fallen asleep while tending to him, he was studying me, his dark eyes quiet and content. My heart was full as it had never been before.

Three years later, I mused on that bejeweled moment as I helped the sages' wife clear away the remnants of the ceremonial prayers for his birthday. This quiet, somber ceremony, in a hermitage in the middle of the forest, was hardly what I had planned for him, but then as I learned ten days ago, my life itself was turning out to be drastically different than what I had envisioned.

I returned from the hermitage to the clearing where we were staying. The four shelters were shrouded in silence, a sleepy silence imbued with a latent outrage that sparked and smoldered, as it had been for all days that I had been there. Even the wind seemed aware of it, for it held its' breath, as though reluctant to fan the flames.

When Draupadi saw me lay out water and lotus leaves, she worked her magic with her akshayapatra and handed it to me. Her sons' departure, with her brother and father the day before, seemed to have crushed her spirit all over again.

As I served the meal, the hot surface of the bowl seared the wound in my hand. I dropped it, spilling most of its' contents on my brother-in-law, who burst out, "When you feel the pinch in just three days, how is it right that she suffer for thirteen years?" With that, he stormed out of the hut.

"He is right." I kept my voice light. After a moment of awkward silence, Arjuna walked out, and seizing this opportunity, my son scooted after him. With a sigh, I served the others.

Afterwards, I cleaned the bowl and put it away, and fanned Draupadi, as she lay with unseeing eyes and a vacant face. Hauntingly remote in her misery and heartbreak, she appeared more beautiful than she had ever been before.

"Will you visit them?" She asked me. "Tell them about their fathers. And me."

"Every year." I promised. If I don't accompany you, I added in my head.

"Thank you. You have done enough. Go away now."

I went out to the woods. My wound began to tingle again. I cursed the devious scorpion that had caught me unawares that morning. Maybe he had the same thing to say of me. Before it could escalate into the sharp, stinging sensation that was familiar to me, I plunged my hand into the cool waters of the stream behind the shelter.

"Here," I started when Arjuna materialized behind me, his hands full.

"Where is Abhi?"

"Not with me." He frowned, and my heart skipped a beat. "Surprise!" Abhimanyu darted from behind him. A rare ghost of a smile flitted through Arjuna's face, and prevented me from reprimanding my boy.

"Do you think," Arjuna wiped my hand with the edge of my saree, crushed the leaves and applied their juice to my wound. "That by doing all this, I will take you with us?"

"Why not?" Abhimanyu asked. "I will help Mother help you."

"What of your education?"

"You can train me, Father. Like you train Satyaki Uncle and others."

"You can't grow up in the forest."

"You grew up in the forest." I said.

"It is not the same." Arjuna kissed my hand. "Don't request Krishna for one more day when he comes here tomorrow." His eyes swept my face in a tender, gentle caress. "Go to Dwaraka."

"No!" My son muttered, and stomped away.

I looked into Arjuna's eyes, at the strange light that flickered in them. I realized that he was not going to be around himself. He had made up his mind- there would be a war in thirteen years. He was going to throw himself into preparing for it.

"Don't be gone for long." My hand, still in his, trembled. "They need you. Don't leave her again."

He nodded. "Thirteen years." I whispered, stricken. "And then..."
"We will never be apart again. I promise."

But would he still be the same man, whose eyes I could look into, and read his thoughts?

"Come." He pulled me up, a sudden brightness in his face. "Let us find him. We have a whole evening ahead of us."

P.S: My heartfelt thanks to all those who have read my work so far, your precious encouragement is much appreciated. I hope you continue to enjoy this, and please vote if you do. 

The theory of Abhimanyu being a demon, comes from a folk tale, though it does not appear in the Mahabharata. For those of you who are unaware, this story, and the theory of him being an incarnation of Varchas, are a few of the reasons that are given to explain why Krishna failed to save him in the war.