Karna's Wife (17 page)

‘So, child, what are you wearing for the function?’ Kunti interrupted her thoughts.

Uruvi burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Ma, what does it matter?’ she answered with a shrug. ‘It’s not my event. It’s yours and Draupadi’s. You are the hosts!’

‘And you will always be my guest of honour!’

Uruvi was as anxious to meet her parents as were they to meet their daughter. Queen Shubra was particularly apprehensive. The moment she caught Karna and Uruvi together, she felt like a stranger between a lovesick pair. It was easy to see that her daughter was madly in love with Karna. But what made the Queen of Pukeya heave a huge sigh of relief was that her son-in-law was obviously in love with her daughter as well. There was a light in his eyes that was unmistakable; he could not take his eyes off Uruvi and found an excuse to be with her all the time. Her daughter blushed often, her lips slightly parted in a sigh when she looked at her husband. They looked like lovers who would rather walk off into the sunset, hands entwined, searching for a place to be with each other. It was exciting, even a little moving, and the mother felt her hostility for the son-in-law slowly melting away.

The Rajasuya yagna was a success, as predicted. The morning saw King Yudhishthira, in a dazzling chariot, enter the hall with Draupadi. Uruvi had not seen Draupadi till then, but had heard enough stories about her to make her curious. At the very first sight, Draupadi was arresting—tall, dark and voluptuous. Her magnificient eyes were heavily kohled, yet luminous. She had a fine nose, her mouth red and generous, curving slightly downwards. Her skin was smooth, and her coal-black wavy hair tumbling down her rounded shoulders, was, crowned with a tiara of diamonds and other glittering gems. She had not tied her thick mane in a bun as most women had at the event; clearly, she knew it was her best feature. She wore a heavily embroidered crimson silk sari, her slim feet bare beneath tinkling anklets. She was not a delicate woman, but like a goddess of summer, exuded raw sensuality.

Draupadi’s eyes were not demure or downcast as she sat for the yagna besides Yudhishthira. They were stealthy and searching, as she scrutinized the guests around her. As she did so, her eyes met Uruvi’s, but she looked indifferently away when Uruvi smiled. This woman doesn’t like me, Uruvi thought with amused surprise. She wondered why. Because of Arjuna? Because she was supposed to have married Arjuna and Draupadi was still angry about it? Uruvi could not fathom why the Pandava queen had coldly ignored her and it bothered her a little. The Pandava queen had not come down to meet her when Uruvi had visited Kunti at the palace either. Or was it because she was a sutaputra’s wife? It was that horrible feeling again. Her face flamed with the heat of feeling outright rejection.

The ceremony was in full swing. The priests, religious heads and brahmins were performing a sacrifice and loudly chanting the Vedic hymns. The princely guests from many kingdoms, like Madri, Panchala, Chedi, Pukeya and Kosala, were present in full regalia. In order to observe the great ceremony, wives of the nobles and queens of the royal family arrived, gorgeously dressed, in fancy palanquins. Queen Bhanumati was among them, and catching sight of Uruvi standing near one of the marbled pillars, rushed to her side, smiling and waving to her.

‘Am I late?’ she gasped, catching her breath.

‘No, well in time,’ Uruvi smiled. There was something utterly adorable about this blundering girl. One had to like her, even though she was Duryodhana’s wife. Karna treated her like his baby sister, indulgent and teasing alternately.

‘The yagna has just started,’ Uruvi held her hand affectionately. ‘There’s the couple doing the pooja,’ she said pointing at the Pandava king and queen. Yudhishthira was closely following what the priest was saying, but Draupadi looked distracted. She was staring straight into the distance, a soft almost caressing look on her face.

Curious, Uruvi’s eyes followed Draupadi’s to see who Draupadi was gazing at. Then Uruvi’s heart skipped a beat, her body going suddenly tense. It was Karna. Draupadi was looking pensively at Karna, her otherwise dark, flashing eyes soft with immeasurable tenderness. Uruvi paled. She looked towards her husband. He was chatting with Ashwatthama; they seemed to share a joke for, suddenly, Karna threw back his head and laughed. Karna’s laughter seemed to break the spell for Draupadi and Uruvi saw her hurriedly glancing at Yudhishthira instead.

Uruvi stared at the rising flames of the yagna fire. She couldn’t forget the look of longing Draupadi had given Karna. She felt a prickle down her back and her throat had gone dry. It came to her with shattering suddenness—Draupadi was in love with Karna. It was such a surprise, such a shock that she could not cope with it. It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t be! Uruvi found herself shaking her head, trying to ward off the impossible. It couldn’t be that Draupadi loved Karna. But Uruvi had seen Draupadi’s expression—and she knew. There was no mistake, no illusion about the intensity of the look and what it meant. She felt no jealousy. She felt no anger. Just plain amazement. It couldn’t be possible, she breathed painfully. But it was. If Draupadi loved him, why had she humiliated him at her swayamwara and thrown away her chance to marry him? She knew he would have passed the test, yet she had not allowed him the opportunity to win her at her swayamwara. But why?
Why?

And what were Karna’s feelings for her? The thought jolted her. Did her husband harbour a secret love for Draupadi as well? Cold fear caught at her heart. Could it be so? For Uruvi, the long hours of the yagna turned to sheer torment. Her eyes kept shifting from Karna to Draupadi and back, searching for tell tale signs. Draupadi kept glancing at him furtively whenever she could, but Karna seemed oblivious to her, cold and inscrutable as he always was. But the fear did not leave Uruvi’s aching heart.

‘You look so disturbed. Aren’t you feeling well?’ Bhanumati’s chatter broke through her thoughts. ‘You seem so oddly quiet. We have hardly spoken!’

Uruvi gave her a wan smile. She knew she could not leave the function midway. Following the Rajasuya sacrifice, there was the Vedic ritual called patni-samyaja, a sacrifice performed by the king and his wife, and also by priests. When Queen Draupadi and King Yudhishthira had their avabhrtha, a holy dip in the river, citizens of all the varnas—the brahmins, the kshatriyas, the vaisyas and the sudras—followed them. With everyone refreshed after bathing, the guests dressed in their best silks, adorned with ornaments and garlands, the women with golden girdles around the waist and vermillion tilakas on their foreheads. The men and women of Hastinapur and Indraprastha were rejoicing, but Uruvi barely registered the happy commotion around her. She wanted to run away, far from the crowds and her disturbing thoughts.

As the ceremony came to an end, all the guests began to leave. King Yudhishthira persuaded his close friends and relatives, including Krishna, Duryodhana and Uruvi to stay back. They could not refuse the request of the king and Kunti, especially, coaxed Uruvi to stay on. Uruvi wanted to rush back home to the comforting confines of her own room but she forced herself to listen to Kunti. She agreed to stay on for another day although her instincts warned her not to do so.

The next morning, Uruvi sat in the verandah with Kunti and Subhadra, a soft-spoken lovely girl rumoured to be Arjuna’s favourite wife; she had consented to elope with Arjuna under the very nose of her suitor, Duryodhana! So, that was another slight Duryodhana was unlikely to forget. Uruvi heard chatter downstairs and saw Duryodhana being shown around by the royal couple, Yudhishthira and Draupadi. Karna was with them. Uruvi bit her lip. He kept a distance from the couple, and lagged behind the group. Draupadi this time though, looked through him and was treating him as if he was invisible. Uruvi could almost feel the icy coldness between them.

A retinue of handmaids appeared and lined up before the guests. ‘This way, brother-in-law,’ Uruvi heard Draupadi tell Duryodhana, indicating that he walk though the encircling wall. Duryodhana looked suspiciously at Draupadi as if she was poking fun at him.

‘I’ll use the door instead,’ he said and banged straight into a solid wall. He was so dazed that he had to be steadied by Karna. Uruvi suppressed a giggle but her eyes danced with merriment. So did Subhadra’s. Kunti hushed them warningly.

‘You should have listened to me, brother-in-law,’ said Draupadi, amiably. ‘In this palace, what appears to be is not what it actually is.’ She and Yudhishthira moved towards the courtyard, which was an intriguing piece of architecture. The surface of the left side seemed like a ripple of water. On the right, though, the floor of the courtyard appeared to be polished granite. The maids walked across the rippling surface of water in the courtyard, while the royal guests looked on, speechless. Draupadi walked across the shimmering water surface herself and requested them to follow her. ‘I’ll go the other way,’ said Duryodhana, and before anyone could warn him, he took a step on the ‘granite’. There was a loud splash and Uruvi saw Duryodhana waist-deep in water, drenched and dishevelled. Uruvi clapped a hand to her mouth and stifled a giggle but Draupadi could not control herself. She burst out laughing. ‘Oh, the blind son of a blind father!’ she exclaimed, merry tears streaming down her face.

Karna was helping his friend up. So was Yudhishthira, apologizing profusely. Duryodhana went white with fury, and looked crazed enough to hit Draupadi. Had it not been for Karna’s restraining hand, Uruvi realized in horror, Duryodhana would have done just that. Instead, he gave a cry of rage and stormed out of the palace. Uruvi saw Karna give Draupadi a venomous glare. ‘I hope we can contain the situation,’ he muttered to Yudhishthira and rushed after the Kuru king. The usually gentle Yudhishthira was pale, and he frowned angrily at his wife. ‘Do you realize what you have done?’ he asked in exasperation, and followed Karna out of the courtyard.

Draupadi was still smiling mockingly. She did not know that it would be her last smile for a long time to come.

It was the thought of Draupadi that now tormented Uruvi. She could not forget the look of intense yearning she had seen in Draupadi’s eyes, her gaze lingering on Karna. She shut her eyes to block the image but it was impressed on her mind. The restlessness within her grew; it besieged her through the day and ravaged her through the nights. The raven-haired, black-eyed, smiling Draupadi seemed to taunt her in her dreams. It was almost the same vision she replayed each night…

She heard a husky laugh. Draupadi was strolling down a path, the movement of her swaying hips lissom and lazy. She was alone, walking towards someone. Uruvi turned her head to see whom Draupadi was going to meet, her steps quickening, eager and rushed. It was Karna, tall and smiling. He got up to greet her. Draupadi looked more beautiful than before, almost luminous in her loveliness. Her skin was silky and smooth, her face glowed, her thick hair cascaded down to her slim waist. Her lips were full and smiling, her eyes smouldering with desire. Karna drew her close and Draupadi flung her arms around him. She stood there laughing, held in his close embrace, the tinkling sound similar to her laughter when Duryodhana had walked into water in her palace. Uruvi’s terrified eyes saw an approaching fire behind the embracing couple, burning everything, everywhere, as the sound of anguished screams rent the air. She recognized a huge battlefield, blood-soaked and full of heaped corpses and…

The shrieks pierced her into wakefulness. She shut her ears to cut off the weeping howls, her eyes shut tightly to erase the lingering image imprinted in her convoluted thoughts. Would Draupadi’s unkind laugh spark off a raging fire of hate, war and bloodshed?

The consequences of her taunting laughter had been enormous. Duryodhana had left for Hastinapur more livid and resentful than he was when he had arrived there. He ranted and raged for days after that, and Uruvi wondered when the terrible inferno of hatred would flare up some day, obliterating everything. Karna tried to placate him, but in vain, as his words only worked like inflammable oil over a smouldering fire.

‘Let him be. He just cannot bear the success of the Pandavas, Indraprastha and the lovely palace,’ Uruvi said dismissively. ‘And Draupadi’s malicious remark scratched a raw wound. It’ll burn, it’ll bleed, but you can’t do anything about it. As you once said yourself, Duryodhana has gone too far down the path of hatred and jealousy. He’ll do anything to get what he wants. And he wants the Pandavas out—preferably destroyed. And you, inadvertently, will be part of his plot, Karna. That will be the day.’

Uruvi had resigned herself to the fact that she could never weed out the deep-rooted hold Duryodhana had over her husband. It was too firm an allegiance, but she tried to convince Karna to see how his friend was on the path to destruction.

In her turmoil of worry, jealousy and suspicion, Uruvi discovered that she had something to look forward to in her life. She was wildly happy—and disgustingly sick—each morning. She wanted to break the news to Karna, but each time she faltered, either out of uncharacteristic shyness or because she simply did not consider the moment as the right one.