Karna's Wife (2 page)

Uruvi found herself smiling. Kunti, too, seemed happy that the situation had turned in favour of the stranger. ‘That young man is certainly charming’, Uruvi chuckled softly to herself. ‘He has two women admirers already.’

Suddenly, the royal proceedings were interrupted. She saw an emaciated old man pushing through the heaving crowds towards Karna and, with a small cry, clasp the newly crowned king to his bosom.

‘My son, my son!’ the old man repeated over and over again, with tears coursing down his raddled face. Karna looked surprised and slightly uneasy for a moment before hugging the elderly man and touching his feet in solemn reverence.

The crowd gasped. Uruvi caught her breath; the sheer nobility of the act had stirred her. The Pandavas jeered with contemptuous laughter while the crowd grew restive.

Uruvi heard Bhima give a snort of derisive laughter. ‘King of Anga indeed! You are but a son of our charioteer!’ he sneered. ‘Your father is Adhiratha, a charioteer in my uncle King Dhritrashtra’s army. You are no prince, you are no warrior! You don’t need a royal insignia or a bow. All you need is a whip to drive the horses! Or it would seem more appropriate if you had a brush in hand to clean the horses. You are fit to rule the stables, not the kingdom of Anga!’

Bhima’s caustic words came like a whip, lashing the young Karna to steely silence. He seemed frozen, gazing intently at the sinking sun, his eyes twin dark pools of despair.

Taking Karna’s sudden silence as a sign of weakness, Bhima pushed mercilessly further. ‘You are no warrior, young man! You were strutting about so proudly a while ago—where has all that arrogance gone? You don’t deserve the crown, or the kingdom given to you so undeservedly by my cousin here. Take your father’s whip instead and help him out,’ Bhima mocked cruelly.

The tide turned. The cheering spectators had gone mute, now that the great warrior had turned out to be no kshatriya at all but a lowly charioteer’s son. But Uruvi reacted strongly to these hurtful words. ‘Bhima is downright mean!’ she turned furiously to Kunti, the mother of the tormentor. ‘How can he ridicule the humble and the helpless? Does that pride and pettiness befit a prince? And why are the elders keeping quiet about this gross insult being heaped upon a defenceless person? Why does Bhishma Pitamaha remain quiet when Bhima is so brutally ridiculing the warrior? Did he not proclaim a moment ago that Karna was a great archer, better than even Arjuna?’

Below, Prince Duryodhana spoke up for the hapless Karna as well. ‘Such speech is not worthy of you, Bhima! It is valour which defines a kshatriya, a kshatriya does not define valour. You are known by the deeds done; merit has no pedigree. Tracing one’s lineage is pointless. I can give you hundreds of instances of great men of humble birth. The bloodline of heroes—like the source of a mighty river—is never known. Those born in the kshatriya clan have even become brahmins. Vishwamitra, born a kshatriya, became the greatest sage, obtaining the title of Brahmarishi from Lord Brahma himself. Our guru, Dronacharya, was born in a water pot—a drona—and Kripacharya of the Gotama race was born from a clump of grass. Let’s not talk about parentage as the finger might point apply to you too…’

Uruvi saw Kunti flinch and she felt a frisson of anger against Duryodhana for his irreverent insinuation. It was an acknowledged fact that the Pandavas were the five sons of Queen Kunti and Queen Madri from five different gods. They were not fathered by King Pandu, who was forced into celibacy because of an ancient curse. King Pandu had requested his wife Kunti to make use of the boon Rishi Durvasa had once given her—that she could invoke any god and he would bless her with a son. That is how Kunti had conceived three of the Pandavas—Yudhishthira from Lord Yama, the god of dharma and death; Bhima from Vayu the god of the wind, and Arjuna from Lord Indra, the king of the gods.

‘Awkward questions may be asked about your own origin,’ Duryodhana continued derisively. ‘Can a doe give birth to a tiger? Look at Karna—his golden armour, his shining earrings, his build, his confidence and the way he carries himself. He must be of royal blood. I am certain he is of celestial ancestry. We are talking about merit and skills, and Karna has more than proved that he is a worthy warrior. Unworthy of ruling Anga, did you say, Bhima? I consider that he is worthy of ruling this whole world!’

And with those contemptuous words, the Kuru prince took Karna by the arm, leading him to his chariot, and drove away into the dusk.

‘What on earth is happening?’ asked the blindfolded Queen Gandhari, mother of the hundred Kauravas, in rising bewilderment.

Uruvi answered cheekily, ‘I think Duryodhana has got himself a new friend!’

She turned to look back at the departing chariot on the dusty road, carrying the man she had just fallen in love with away from her.

‘And that was the first and the last I actually saw of him,’ sighed Uruvi, her lips curling in an unhappy curve. Usually she wore a lovely, infectious smile. Either it was a flashing one which lit up her oval face, or a slow one suffused with an elfin charm. At the moment, she was grim, with a bitter ache in her heart for he was still a stranger to her and she wondered if her love was destined to remain unrequited. Her swayamwara, when she would follow the custom of choosing the prince she wished to marry, was being planned for the coming month of marghashirsha, in winter, and here she was dreaming about a man she had only seen, but never met.

His daughter’s swayamwara would be more grand than Draupadi’s, King Vahusha of Pukeya had promised himself. Not because he was one of the more powerful kings of the time. Not because he was a close ally of both King Dhritrashtra and Vasudev Krishna of Dwarka. Not because he wanted to outmatch King Drupada, the surly, rancorous father of the dusky, doe-eyed Draupadi, now the consort of the five Pandavas. But yes, because he wanted to flaunt his beautiful daughter at the most ostentatious swayamwara ever—to proudly present her to the world. She would eventually marry the most eligible of all her suitors—that fortunate one whom she favoured.

She was his little princess. Uruvi was the only daughter of the sixth King of Pukeya, the erudite Vahusha and Queen Shubra; an heiress to her father’s legacy, his intelligence, and her mother’s flaming beauty. Slender and petite, her loveliness was distracting, speciously masking her incisive wit. Though the burning fire in her eyes, the warmth of her smile, and the passion with which she articulated her thoughts were enticing, she was too spirited to be restrained, too proud to be cautious, and far too forthright to think of the consequences of her actions. She had a charming candour, a blithe audacity steeled with a stubborn resilience, which many admired but few appreciated. Most got carried away with her captivating beauty and her wit, and gazed at her in wonder.

King Vahusha was not apologetic about his adoration for his daughter. She was his only child—a gift bestowed on him a trifle late in life. He loved his wife, Queen Shubra, in an indulgent, unfussy way, as he did his mother and his various nephews and nieces, but he clearly idolised his daughter.

King Vahusha stood tall and imposing, thinking of the object of his paternal pride. With his spare form, his gentle eyes and aquiline nose, he looked more like a poet than a warring king, more fit to hold a quill than a sword, mace or a spear. With skin the colour of dull ivory and a shimmering silver mane, he looked more like a sage than a ruler.

He thought the world of his daughter. She was beautiful as she was brilliant, she was kind as she was brutally frank, she was loving as she was tempestuous. As a child, she had never given him a moment’s uneasiness. She was naughty and defiant but never grossly disobedient; even in her mischief, there was an endearing impishness.

‘She is my world,’ he confessed simply to Queen Shubra whenever she gently chided him for over-pampering their only daughter. ‘There are two types of children: one, whom you love naturally because they are your offspring and they become unconditionally yours the moment you hold them in your arms. But there is another kind, who besides this unreserved love heaped upon them, are enchanting because of their striking individual traits. Very early in life, this kind of child becomes an individual who is born to win over people by her innate character and distinctiveness. There are qualities in the child that are so endearing, so impossibly appealing, that you immediately fall in love with her. She completely woos you over with her charm and not just because she happens to be your offspring. Our Uruvi is one such child. Who cannot help but love her?’

There was truth in his statement, the mother agreed. Queen Shubra was a small, elegant lady with magnificent eyes, a straight, delicate nose and a pale smooth skin. Her thick, abundant black hair, tied neatly in a bun at her nape, had a silver streak. Her smooth face was still unlined, the occasional criss-crosses emerging whenever she frowned, which was often enough when it came to matters concerning her growing daughter. Uruvi could be a very trying child, Shubra sighed silently, not daring to voice her thoughts. The spirited daughter had inherited her mother’s glorious beauty and her father’s sharp mind, and both sizzled in her short flashes of temper.

No one remained unaffected by the little princess’s vivacity and her inherent goodness. Even the sternest of the royal patriarchs—Bhishma Pitamaha—never hesitated to place her on his lap, and always offered her a basket of her favourite, freshly plucked jasmines each time she visited Hastinapur. The child was everyone’s delight. ‘Why do you always wear white?’ she once demanded of the grand old man as she perched prettily on his lap. ‘Even your hair is so white! Don’t you like colours? See what a brilliant pink I am wearing!’ she said and promptly placed her bright stole over his broad shoulders, which were by then shaking with indulgent merriment. Each time, the little girl would make the otherwise grim, taciturn great-granduncle laugh uproariously through his luxuriantly flowing beard.

Or when she had irreverently asked the blind-folded Queen Gandhari about the piece of cloth tied around her eyes. ‘Why do you wear that?’ she had questioned the queen mother, softly tracing her dimpled little finger over the silken cloth. ‘Do you like to play blind man’s buff with Uncle? You should remove the fold and help him about instead!’

Queen Gandhari had giggled and hugged the child close.

‘It’s not often you see Gandhari smile, forget laugh!’ Kunti observed quietly to Queen Shubra, her friend. ‘Uruvi has an irrepressible naiveté about her which is so engaging! That little angel makes the whole world smile, whatever she does!’ she gushed fondly. ‘And I hope she doesn’t lose that charm when she grows up! If she remains so delightful, you will have a handful to deal with, dear! One which I am ready to take on any time you want,’ smiled Kunti. ‘She is going to be my daughter-in-law one day, mind my words!’ The smile had slipped from Queen Shubra’s face when she heard Kunti’s words, not wanting to think of the day she would have to part with her daughter.

Kunti loved Uruvi like her own child. ‘Possibly because I don’t have a daughter myself, and bringing up five boys can be quite demanding,’ she had laughed lightly, and proceeded to proclaim that the dainty little princess would be the wife of one of her sons. ‘That way, she’ll be with me always!’ Queen Shubra had readily agreed and the two friends had made a secret pact many years ago; one which both King Vahusha and Uruvi were aware of but treated with indifference.

Uruvi’s father allowed her to break free of norms while her mother tried hard to restrain her from defying conventions. The daughter detested the unsaid decree which demanded that a girl of a good family should be hidden away till it was time for her to get married. She played with her friends in Hastinapur, sang and danced with her cousins, rode horses with the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and climbed trees with Bhima and Vikarna, the Kaurava prince.

A good many princes and young men, wealthy or noble, or both, had asked for Princess Uruvi’s fair hand in marriage, but much to her mother’s consternation, Uruvi had refused all of them. Her apprehensive mother worried that her daughter at sweet nineteen should still be single. She demanded why the girl was being so finicky; it was absurd to be so difficult.

Uruvi was charmingly obstinate. She found reasons to reject every one of her suitors. So her exasperated mother thought of the only reasonable way out—a swayamwara. She was pleasantly surprised when her otherwise mutinous daughter agreed to it. The mother hoped Uruvi would finally garland a suitable prince; hopefully, the soft-spoken, handsome Arjuna. Kunti might have been sweepingly magnanimous about Uruvi choosing any one of the five Pandavas, but Shubra confessed that she was most fond of Arjuna as a prospective son-in-law. He was surely the best choice—good-looking, kind and brave. They would make a good match—he so tall and handsome, she so slim and slight by his side. Heavens, she was already picturing them together. Shubra’s smile fell, downed with a growing sense of unease. The future seemed so perfect but…it was this ‘but’ which kept coming between her best-laid plans and peace of mind.

‘Have you asked Uruvi whom she wants to marry?’ asked Queen Shubra somewhat sharply, turning to King Vahusha.