The Great Indian Novel (58 page)

The
whole
world
wouldn’t
make
sense
any
more.
I think it was those words, spoken in soft sincerity by the purest of the Pandavas, that penetrated my conscience so deeply that they shattered the careful equilibrium I had constructed there, fragmented my complacency like a breaking mirror. Did my world, I found myself silently asking, make sense any more? Had I, in my Brahminical ambivalence, twisted and turned so cleverly that I had failed to stay in the same place, slipping unnoticed to a different mooring? Had I not seen, or worse, pretended not to see, that the sun and the moon and the stars of my world were no longer shining where they had always shone before?

Oh, Ganapathi, there was no escaping from these questions! I tried to tell myself that the answers were irrelevant, that the questions simply had to be asked differently. But I knew, as you too may well have guessed, that however flexibly I had sought to define the truth, however safely I had delimited my world, I had spent too long avoiding all thought of one facet of my world, one shining visage, one person. Yes, Ganapathi, you are right, you have caught me in my self-deception: for too many hours now, and too many pages, I have failed to make any reference to Draupadi.

What can I tell you, Ganapathi? Can I look into the hurt in her eyes and claim it didn’t matter? Can I acknowledge the little cuts and bruises and burns I had spotted on her arms and hands and face at each visit to her home and dismiss them, as Kunti did, as minor kitchen mishaps? Can I admit the terrible suspicion that her own husbands were ill-treating her, exploiting her, neglecting her, even ignoring her, and still excuse myself for having done nothing about it? Can I recall the sagging flesh that had begun to mask her inner beauty, the lines of pain that had begun to radiate from those crystal-clear eyes, the tiredness in the normally firm voice, and allow myself to pretend that I had noticed none of it, that none of these things, perhaps not even Draupadi herself, was real?

I cannot, Ganapathi, and yet I must turn away from reality. Because when Arjun’s gentle words smashed my mental equipoise and forced me to think of Draupadi, I began again to dream.

I dreamt once more of legends past, of shimmering palaces and moustachioed men in shining brass armour and princesses glowing with gold bangles and scented garlands; of glorious Hastinapur, home of my ancestors. I dreamt of long-dead Dhritarashtra, restored to unseeing life, on a kingly throne; of sharp-faced Duryodhani, his crowned heiress; of righteous Yudhishtir and the Pandava brothers; and of the beautiful, fresh-faced Draupadi, their common wife.

I dreamt, too, of Karna, the Hacker-Off, strong and proud; of his unacknowledged mother, the widowed Kunti; of the brilliant smile of Krishna, still distant in Gokarnam, but with his far-seeing eye never straying from the events in Hastinapur. And I dreamt of the sinister slimy Shakuni, rubbing hands from which a profusion of rings gleamed, as he approached the Princess Duryodhani in a sibilant whisper.

‘I have a plan,’ he breathed. ‘A plan that will trap the Pandava brothers like five fish in a net.’

‘Oh, tell me, Shakuni,’ Duryodhani responded eagerly.

‘You want to defeat Yudhishtir, but he cannot so easily be beaten on the battlefield. For this reason we have been searching for another stratagem. I believe I have found it.’

‘Yes?’ Duryodhani could have been a maiden waiting for the announcement of a suitor’s name, so excited did she sound.

‘Yudhishtir likes to play dice.’ Shakuni saw the blank look on the princess’ face and spelt the word for her. ‘Dee - eye - she - eee, dice. You know, the little ivory cubes with dots on them.’

‘Ah, yes. But what has his playing dice got to do with . . .?’

‘Everything. As a noble of Hastinapur, he cannot in all honour refuse to accept a challenge from me to play dice. For stakes. Very high stakes.’ Shakuni’s eyes rolled heavenwards.

‘I think I’m beginning to understand.’ Duryodhani’s voice took on a girlish tremor. ‘I suppose you play dice rather well, Shakuni.’

‘Rather well!’ Shakuni giggled incongruously, his jowls trembling with pleasure. ‘I am unbeatable. Simply unbeatable. I have,’ he explained, lowering his voice to a confidential croak, ‘a very special pair of dice. And in our traditional rules, it is the challenger who has to provide the dice.’

‘Bless the traditional rules,’ Duryodhani said. ‘I’m delighted, Shakuni. I’ll give you whatever support you need.’

‘First there is your father to be thought of,’ Shakuni pointed out. ‘Will Dhritarashtra permit the game in his palace? That is the only location which would make the challenge respectable, and where Yudhishtir would not be able to refuse, even if he were advised to.’

‘Hmm,’ Duryodhani said. ‘I’ll try.’ And she hurried, floating through my dream like an animated wraith, to her father. Dhritarashtra was seated on his golden throne, the white umbrella of kingship wobbling unsteadily above his thinning hair.

‘A game of dice?’ Dhritarashtra asked. ‘I’m not sure that’s entirely in the spirit of the rules I’ve drawn up for the kingdom, Duryodhani. There’s nothing explicitly against it, though. I’ll tell you what, my dear one. This is the sort of thing on which I normally consult the officials. Let me ask Vidur and see what he has to say.’

‘Don’t!’ Duryodhani pouted. ‘He will be against it, I know. You know how these bureaucrats are - they don’t like anybody to have fun. Why not let it remain a matter for your ministers? Shakuni thinks it’s all right, and he’s a minis-

The blind king sighed, as he often did in the face of his daughter’s insistent demands. ‘All right, then,’ he said at last, the words echoing hollowly in my suspended mind. ‘Have it your own way.’

The jackals howled again, Ganapathi, the vultures wheeled overhead and screeched, the crows beat their black wings against the window-panes of the palace, and the sky turned grey, the colour of ashes on a funeral pyre. Priya Duryodhani skipped happily to Shakuni and announced the king’s consent.

‘You can leave the rest to me,’ the minister said.

In my dream it was Vidur who arrived at Yudhishtir’s palace to invite him for the game.

‘I don’t like the sound of it one bit’ the civil servant said. But I’m afraid it’s my duty, Yudhishtir, to ask you to come.’

‘Oh, I’ll come,’ Yudhishtir said impassively. ‘It is my duty, too, in all honour, to accept Shakuni’s challenge. Besides, I’m not too bad at dice myself.’

And so the five brothers and wife set out for Hastinapur, to the tune of a farewell song which rang arhythmically in my mind:

Yudhishtir said, ‘It’s time to go
To keep a date
With Fate;
Fate beckons; we mustn’t be slow
Or hesitate –
We’ll be late!

I realize that in this thing
I have no voice,
No choice;
We’re just puppets on a string,
To be thrown thrice –
Fate’s dice.’

They reached Dhritarashtra’s palace, and bent before his throne to touch his feet in ritual homage. Mynahs chirped in the trees as they entered, and the sweet fragrance of frangipani blossoms wafted before Draupadi with each tinkling step of her hennaed feet.

‘Welcome,’ Dhritarashtra said. ‘I understand, Yudhishtir, that you have accepted Shakuni’s challenge.’

‘It is my duty,’ Yudhishtir said simply.

‘You don’t have to, you know,’ the aged king responded sharply. ‘You can leave now, if you prefer.’

‘My honour obliges me not to flee from a challenge,’ Yudhishtir replied. ‘Besides, I am in the hands of Fate, as are we all.’

‘Not me,’ said Priya Duryodhani, the ultimate beneficiary of Shakuni’s skills. I’ll watch.’

‘I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ Vidur said from behind the throne. ‘When we drew up the rules of the kingdom, Dhritarashtra, we did not envisage anything like this.’

Go ahead, Yudhishtir!’ blazed old Drona, standing up at the sidelines. ‘Defeat rotten Shakuni and win his treasures in the name of the people! You can do it.’

‘I think so too,’ agreed Yudhishtir, seating himself before the bald and gleaming minister. Throw the dice, Shakuni.’

And in my dream, the clouds, which had lifted for Draupadi’s entrance, closed in once more, and the skies darkened again. And Shakuni boomed, ‘What do you wager?’

‘I wager my palace, my position, my share of the Kaurava kingdom,’ Yudhishtir responded, throwing the dice.

Shakuni threw, and announced, ‘I win.’ A great wail rose in the distance, like the lowing of a thousand wolves in a moonlit forest. The players remained oblivious of it. ‘And what do you wager next?’

‘I wager the Constitution, the laws, the peace of the people,’ Yudhishtir proclaimed stiffly, and threw.

‘I win. Next?’

‘I wager my own freedom, together with that of ten thousand faithful party workers, the support of the press and the prospect of the next elections,’ he said.

Shakuni threw again, and the pockmarks on the ivory cubes gleamed dully at Yudhishtir, like the scabs of a virulent rash. ‘I win.’

The eldest Pandava sat very still, looking straight into the eyes of his victor. ‘I am ruined,’ he said evenly. ‘I have nothing else to wager.’

‘Oh, yes, you do.’ The massive bald pate inclined towards the five figures of Yudhishtir’s appalled family along the wall. ‘You have them.’

A thin line of perspiration, like a row of transparent beads, appeared on Yudhishtir’s upper lip. He seemed about to say something, then stopped.

‘I stake my brothers,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘You’ve got to stop them, sir,’ Vidur pleaded with his blind half-brother. ‘Dhritarashtra, this mustn’t go on. Damnation will visit us all. Shakuni is not playing an honest game. Yudhishtir is trapped. You must stop it, or the whole country will be ruined.’

But Priya Duryodhani was within earshot. ‘Don’t listen to him, Daddy,’ she urged. ‘He’s always been on their side, even when he pretended to be helping you. Shakuni knows what he’s doing. And as for the country, we can manage it just as well without the Pandavas. Probably better.’

Dhritarashtra was too absorbed in the contest to reply to either of them. Vidur lapsed into a sullen silence, his arms folded across his chest, disassociating himself from the proceedings his invitation had initiated.

‘I throw for your brothers.’ Shakuni flung the dice, which landed mockingly at Yudhishtir’s feet, their unbeatable dots face up.

‘They are now your prisoners,’ Yudhishtir conceded, his staring eyes downcast, avoiding the looks of impotent betrayal his brothers were directing at him from their hopeless places on the sidelines.

‘There is still,’ Shakuni said pointedly, ‘Draupadi. Wager her, Yudhishtir, and you might win your own freedom back. Who knows how the dice will fall?’

At these words the howling started up again, Ganapathi, the fluttering resumed outside, and thunder rolled in the heavens. ‘Close the windows,’ Duryodhani commanded.

In my dream Yudhishtir never looked at his wife as she cowered at the wall. He spoke in a hoarse low voice. ‘My wife Draupadi, most desirable of all women, in the full flower of her youth, pride of our nation and mother of our fondest hopes - I stake her.’ And Karna’s golden face, the half-moon throbbing on its forehead, parted in a mirthless ghostly laugh that echoed around the room.

The dice flew from Shakuni’s fingers in a flash of his wrist. ‘I have won!’ he exclaimed. ‘Draupadi is mine.’

As the howls rose again in the distance, a streak of lightning at the window illuminated the glee on Priya Duryodhani’s pinched face, lit up the horror on the faces of the Pandava brothers and threw a shadow on to Draupadi, cringing against Arjun’s shoulder.

‘Go and bring them to the centre of the room,’ Duryodhani said to Vidur, who was sitting near the throne with his head in his hands. ‘Let everyone see what Yudhishtir has lost.’

‘No,’ he groaned in the only refuge of bureaucrats. ‘It is not my job to do that.’

A guard instead went forward to summon the Pandavas. Draupadi alone stayed where she was, refusing to move.

‘Ask Yudhishtir,’ she said, ‘by what right he staked me as his wager, when he had already lost himself? Can a fallen husband pledge his wife when he himself is no longer a free man?’

The guard repeated the question before the hushed gathering.

‘How dare she waste our time with such questions!’ Duryodhani snapped. She turned to a faithful retainer, the organizer of the palace fairs, a man of unquestioning loyalty and unquestionable coarseness. ‘Go, Duhshasan, and bring her to us.’

Duhshasan, with his red eyes and Pathan nose, his cruel moustache and vicious tongue, strode towards Draupadi Mokrasi, who with a terrified gasp ran towards the women’s quarters. But the villain was too quick for her; with a lunge he caught her by her long dark hair and began dragging her to the centre of the room.

‘Leave me alone,’ she pleaded. ‘Do not humiliate me. Can’t you see I’m bleeding?’

‘Bleeding or dry, you’re ours now, my lovely,’ the Pathan snarled, still tugging, as Draupadi’s tinkling silver
payals
broke and cascaded to the floor.

‘How can you all allow this to happen?’ she screamed despairingly, and her words struck Yudhishtir and echoed round the room, hurtling in rage against the unseeing Dhritarashtra, the irresolute Arjun, the fist-clenching Bhim, the shaking Vidur, the broken Drona. But none of them replied; none of them could reply.