"My ladli (beloved)...you know what Shri Krishna says to kuntiputr (son of kunti) on the fierce battle field of Kurukshetra?" "Didn't they write an entire book about it?" Added a girl little over 10 or so, shifting the pages of 'footprint without feet' with a concentration unwithered as if she were a part of world which were written down in those pages that brushed against her skin, however, the old lady lean forth with her wrinkled eyes squint to get a glimpse of what was so intense has captured her granddaughter's attention so dearly that it almost made her jealous.
Her fingers, lined with years and stories, reached for Meher's ponytail and gave it a gentle tug.
"Ouch, dadisa—that hurts!" Meher groaned, half scolding, half smiling.
But the old woman's chuckle was quiet, like rustling leaves.
"I do have enough tolerance for bearing with such an arrogant and ignorant attitude of one child...now I can't deal with another of it's copy" "I'm nothing like him! A father only in name when even he despite his own flesh and bone for what? For something which happened a long time ago wasn't even my fault--"
'…wasn't even my fault—?!' her breath stuck.
It clenched, as if her throat knew something her words didn't dare admit.
Because it was wrong to say that.
It was her fault.
Not logically. Not morally.
But in the quiet corner of her heart where grief grows claws.
Her nails dug into her palm until it stung. She welcomed the sting—because pain, at least, felt honest.
"She died giving me life. My first cry became her final silence"
The thought was quiet, but it crashed like thunder inside her chest, as she realized how loud she were thinking that her words were echoing like the breaking of a glacier in siachen.
"And, now I carry her absence like a surname. Or rather a drug in my vien"
The book crumpled as her grip tightened. She imagined her mother's face, not because she remembered it—she had none of that—but because imagination hurts more when it's stitched from longing.
"I am a wound disguised as a daughter!"
Her grandmother moved closer, sensing the shift in air. Perhaps the old woman had once held that same ache.
"Ladli, my child," she whispered gently " he's just being a child, holding onto old grunges with fate without acknowledging fate is the most complex thread woven by hari himself" "or was that grudge held up against me?! Wasn't it better if he had just smashed me to a wall and let me die like those brothers and sisters of lord krishna who died at the hand of their own blood uncle?!"
"Ram, ram...what sinful words are you muttering, my child?!" "I speak with my heart, dadisa, I don't feel like a human here I feel like a criminal serving a jail time in the blackwater- they can provide me with clothes, food and satisfy my desires on a paper but with what coldness those are served seem like a wish granted to a dying man or rather a man scheduled to be executed by day! I am a deadman born to only walk this land with no goals just misery"
"Ladli" she said softly, "when Shri Krishna stood on the battlefield, speaking to Arjuna—the kuntiputra—he wasn't just guiding a warrior. He was guiding every soul lost between purpose and despair."
Meher, her voice trembling like a candle in wind, whispered, "But, he had a chariot, a bow, and Krishna at his side. I have... nothing. Not even a reason."
The old woman shook her head gently. "My ladli, Krishna said: 'Having attained Me, the great souls are no more subject to rebirth in this world, which is transient and full of misery, because they have attained the highest perfection.'"
Meher clenched her fists. "Then why am I stuck here? Why this life, this burden, this silence that screams? It's unfair! It's...pointless and painful!"
Grandma took Meher's hands into hers, cradling them like fragile lotus petals. "Because, child, this pain you speak of—it is not your sentence, but your path and it's not pointless. Such a massive war like mahabharata may have seem pointless that even Arjuna wanted to run away from the war, but Krishna taught him that true courage lies not in escaping fate but in facing it with dharma."
"But what is my dharma, Dadisa? To be broken and never urge to be loved or atleast healed?"
"To feel deeply enough to see your cracks is not a weakness, Meher—it is your fire. Perhaps your dharma is to rise despite, not without, the wounds. Perfection doesn't mean you are untouched—it means you are willing to walk through imperfection with faith. Kiss your fingers and make them wings and dare to fly cause we are all just a character penned by the Supreme lord, the bansi-wala (flute bearer) and How could he be cruel to his own creations?"
The girl blinked through a haze of resentment and thought. "You really think... Hari wrote my story too?"
Grandma smiled, her eyes like dusk calming the day. "My child, your soul is a verse in Krishna's eternal song. Every sorrow, every ache, even your silence—it sings, it sings a meghmalhara (the song know to bring rain), asking for the drops of water to cooldown the steaming sand, believe in little Makhanchor...sure, we will see Saraswati (river) retracing it's forgotten path sooner with a sprinting enthusiasm of a wild horse, my ladli."
Believe...
what a funny term indeed? A bandage worn by well-intended and a weapon only used by most of hypocrites!
"I will be always there for you, ladli, believe in it" said who shall die the very next week leaving an eleven year old with lose strings.
"You have to believe what I'm saying, you are too innocent for this cruel world" said a girl who was there only to extract what ever could be sucked from a mourning girl like a leech.
"Believe me, You are my darling the only girl for me" Said a boy who gave her a shoulder to cry on when she were lost in the darkest ally of her life, but where did he drop her off? A trash tossed in a trash can.
This word—this "belief"—it bleeds you dry.
a tool used to manipulate, mend and exploit one's innocent to the point that once precious innocent is not more than petroleum blistering under intense sunlight.
'And...dadisa, who I was supposed to believe in? When even you, the only person who loved me without any gains betrayed me and you believe that I should put my fractured belief into A fictional character who was penned by some human while others like those genz girls crazy over those superficial wattpad stories overtime made him into some god.
Surely, gods are a myth itself, a dinosaur with skin just like any empty hope that all suffering shall bear a fruit.
Ha...The only sweet fruit of suffering I had tasted were...The moment just before the thread of my conciousness is burnt completely, that I draw a final breath celebrating of the fact, my suffering has been paid off in the very end.
*Dingggggggg Donnnnnnnggggggg*
An inhuman loud sound like a large plate (parat) for kneading a dough of soaked wheat flour, which mothers used were accidentally knocked off the kitchen slab and had crashed to the stone floor.
'System violated!'
now concealed like a fetus suspended into the claustrophobic safety of the womb, when meher finally unlocked her constraining red eyes- the vision was gushing and blurred with thick grey-green water, and her chest was filled with an awful rust like rush as if a pillow pressed to her face. A flight response fired through her body at one point that she did try to tussle her arms in order to resurface only once...just once, she reasoned without another thought however, looks like the river was in favor of supporting and ensuring that her hypothesis was a success.
Every attempt was failure with the waves which rolled with an intensity like chakarvyu, and she were Abhimanyu who knew how to enter it but couldn't figure to break out of it.
'Conceal it within' a struggling bubble escaped her grinting teeth. 'Let it swallow you'
The struggles against her thoughts were also calming now...quieter and the struggle begin to numb as her arms and legs were wasted against the water, her vision waner almost like a new moon night and water became her flow... what does they say...only dead fish follows the flow.
Does it mean...she were dead? Or,
*splash*
An abrupt, gush of fresh sweet oxygen touched her insides and her numb cold body sensed a warm firm arm around her thin waist that lifted her out of that chakarvyu, like Abhimanyu might have wished to his last breathe but in her case she didn't wished for such a thing.
"I can see them! Lord shiva bless them! I see them! Gods be praised---"
"Nuff..."
"Don't struggle too much, I shall make sure you will live, just believe in me."
believe?!
Those words of assurance felt like a poison,
She wanted to scream, curse, bite and leap off his arms back into the water from where she were just rescued in a sense like a fish agonizing for water, yet her body was at its limit that even fliching a nerve might take entire strength and as in the scientific community we say- 'A hypothesis was a failure because of uncalculated and external factors'.
'A boy...with sun mark'
A contrast of Tilak and turmeric made a beautiful circular impression just between both his eyebrows of which red Tilak radiation like lines zaged out as if a drawing of sun made by a kindergartens and he seems no more than 18 years of age but his face- just like a celistial body against a heavenly pink sky, a world of fantacy, also held a maturity, a knowledge of worldly matter, of life and death. The face of the father who abandoned meher in all terms. A face she despise!
It was all...all that she saw through a flicker nerve...before it was flustered in darkness as if the curtains of a theatrical play is drawn to it's end.
****
"Chitra" "yes, devi, did you call for this servant of yours?" she popped out off the battelian like crowd of all the 100 or so maids of northern wing
"I did but unfortunately, I was hoping to call for another name but It seems either the scent of sand couldn't sustain in these overbearing moisture of the fertile land or is it that my honored Maid might have come to a foul reasoning that for my eyes, those are bound under a cloth so thick that I should have turned blind by now?"
"My lady, such a conclusion is a false one and whoever must have reached it shall be the one who must be blind, however, the honored Maid of devi is humble at heart and I can slit my throat to prove these words with utmost confidence if she were to have neglected her mistress's desire and even dare to mock them"
"Then, where is my maid?" "I'm afraid devi, she's running a few errands"
Devi Gandhari's heavily decorated anklets's click-clacking sound abruptly stopped and the entire procession halted like a scene within a snowglobe-silent with rose petal like snow falling over a dreamy landscape but here in hastinapur, the sky had turned rosy with a light citrus shade, and a chuckle passed over those lips of the blindfolded lady,
"Is she the queen of Hastinapur and I'm the dasi who is suppose to look for her to return?" Bitterness laced the Divine face of the Goddess, and even without watching or having any glimpse at the face as the headmaid had been instructed since childhood, a rebellious spirit pulsating then, a decade ago when the King's carnival was on it's way through the shrink streets of her meager village, 'why can't I see the king, baba?'
'Sush, don't call his majesty so casually as 'king', he's a burning incarnation of gods themself, They are heavenly and only gods can look at their face without going blind in awe while, we are here to devote our lifes worshipping them, if you call him so casually the gods will most likely curse your tongue and then you shall watch your tongue go slur...to limp and one day, you will become dumb with so much desire to name yet not voice or atleast words to describe them'
"She will be back by the time last diya is blown, devi"
a streach of something serious radiated out of both, it almost seemcertain today that headmaid will be flogged to death- it was such a deadly aura.
"Sigh...I guess evening proceedings can not be delayed" the devi turned her face away from the vigorous yet cold face of the headmaid, "Dushala... I need you to serve me until my honoured Maid is back by the 'last diya is blown' "
"All hail the goddess" rushed a Maid with a blue saree, and cheeks as chubby like a chipmunk, from the back sides of the crowd, a lower Maid servent ready to leap like a alligator sneaking for a chance to press it's jaw into a neck of soft thick meat- some might call her an opportunist but she called it survival.
"Let's not delay the proceedings any further" and devi turned leading the mandatory evening procession, along side the girl whose face was flushed and lips hold a grin which were close to evil-a demon's smirk as she winked at headmaid, an equal age and height both belonged to almost same clan however, chitra's family rose in power to reach capital and dushala's were still conservative about leaving the sides of present day bengal sea.
However now atlast the ignorant line of Kshatriyas is proceeding the procession by sharing a shoulder with the maharani of Hastinapur.
"Headmaid...should I ask for the honored maid to be returned as soon as possible as Devi is clearly quite upset with this sheer audacity against the royalty?" "Tejal, didn't you hear devi's words? She's in our favor...atleast for now" an abnormal crease ceased over Chitra's thin face but her voice seem certain of things which that damsel like beauty, an odd egg within bunch, could only conclude as a daydream, clearly devi gandhari was angry and this plainsight warning was nothing but a threat to headmaid's misconduct which may cost even her meager life yet, chitra was walking with head high and face stone cold beside her in this unison of synchronicity which had now and then shift their corner eyes over her and back to another side, and whispers hidden behind veils only become louder.
"How can you be okay with this?" "It's only a bitter moment...though, It's not like I have been demoted from my prestigious post of northern wing's headmaid so don't worry, I will give each gossiper a visit after the procession is concluded and shall make sure that each one of them is served well."
"Headmaid, when did you become so arrogant...so egoistic?! No-No! it's almost disgusting to hear such words from a woman of your culture and your ethics, it can't be true...I must be missing something, yes, it's something im lacking to see through my eyes"
"We are devi gandhari's maid, we are trained to catch a flying fly in the dark, eyes closed or even in sleep" A slim grin spread over the statue face like algae blooming over a damp rock across the sea.
"Greetings, Devi"
"Greetings, nathji, how is your health now?"
"It's all well thanks to shiv's grace"
"Can we begin with the procession now?"
"Follow me, my lady" the devi draped in the darkest shade of red, a similar shade to the pomegranate that were plopped by the clumsiness of mehar, walked obidiently behind the old man who walked by taking the stand onto a slender yet unexpectedly unwavering cane which seems more of a higher branch of a dense neem tree.
"comeon, move all the offerings inside" "but, Dushala, the garbhagreh (inside of temple where diety's sculpture is placed) is reserved only for devi and her chosen maid"
"So, are you implying that i'm not chosen enough to lead the procession today? comeon, are you going to say that the queen's decisions are irrational...incompetent?"
"My—Dushala—it's not what I'm saying—"
"Well, I heard it. And I'm pretty sure everyone else heard it too—clear as a Krishna Paksha's day."
The maid who had interrupted Dushala stood frozen, terrified. Her lips quivered as she forced out the words, as if realizing what she had walked on were made of the thinest ice, more she shall imply, the more likely it will consume her.
"Forgive me..."
"Hey, hey... don't be so apologetic. It breaks my heart to see one of my sister in such a state of timidity" her eyes so trustful as it glittered clenching to the hands of the shivering maid but, the last statement wasn't a mean of console or an assurance rather, it was an arrow pointed at the woman, stating to the siderow, headhigh as ever like mount kelasha itself.
"Just carry the offerings inside the temple, okay? Didn't you mean to say the chamber will turn dirty if you set your feet inside? Or that the queen shall be angry at such a massive audacity? But let me tell you something..."
She leaned in and whispered,
"The queen is blind."
"Come on everyone, the queen won't be waiting for long... carry on!"
Many maids stepped forward, though their movements were laced with hesitation. A few exchanged doubtful glances, and most looked toward the headmaid, as if trying to read her opinion. But the headmaid remained unexpectedly quiet.
"She sure knows how to turn the tide of any situation and make it swirl around her. What are your thoughts, Tejal?" the headmaid asked, watching Dushala's figure dissolve into the shrine.
"i-i'm just confused"
"confused? how is it that you are confused? don't tell me, i had made a dumb person in charge of inner chambers"
"Headmaid, why did you send the newly appointed honored maid just moments before the procession? It's unlike you. If you bore a grudge, you've always known how to have them wasted without ever soiling your hands. But this time... you placed your own head in the okhali, one can call it a stupidity—but it's as if you wanted it there."
"Tejal, you terrify me sometimes"
"Har Har Mahadevi!" head priest, whose forehead, throat, chest and arms were thick with a layer of ash, hailed rising both his arms towards heaven as if as portal open up high where lord shiv's plain innocent face can gleem in the simplest glee.
Maidens folded their arms in prayer. Gandhari poured sacred milk over the black stone of the Shivlinga. The temple echoed with the rhythm of mantras and sandalwood smoke.
Back in the procession line, Tejal leaned closer.
"So what's going on? Why are you setting yourself to the centre of all this mess?" "Isn't it obvious? I'm setting a powerful bait to tempt a powerhungry slug, a slug who I have set so far into the filth of faeces disposal yet when it was time for maharani to choose the second person beside me, why would the Divine devi choose foul, nose wreaking smell over your sweet fragrance of lilies?"
A sudden shiver passed over Tejal. Chitra's words snapped into place like puzzle pieces soaked in poison as a realization like the sap of a young pitiole that was snapped from it's branch, dribbled with a clear suspicion, something that she failed but now as she review the situation it seems more that obvious, was left with a blank greater that a valley itself.
Indeed, devi must have choose her, her most trusted dasi in the inner chambers yet, why would she choose the leading Maid of the Northern wing's faecal decompose? a Kshatriya by birth yet of the shudra's work line...was it sympathy that drove her to appoint her as head of the procession? however, more she scrap her skull, this possibility was also difficult as devi had rearly crossed her except in these daily processions among these hundred or so nameless maidservants of Northern wing but Chitra as the head of procession had never lose her armour against such clingy approach so...certainly it was fishy enough that one can smell the rotting smell of a slimy water creature reeking through the entire pond.
"But dushala is famous for all the wrong reasons"
It's not what one is known for," Chitra said, "but what one can perform, in front of the right audience."
A long pause.
Tejal's whisper was sharp now. "You think Devi is watching all this unfold?"
"She always is. Behind that cloth, there are eyes sharper than any sword."
Tejal turned with an abrupt swirl and looked straight at her, eyes wide.
"Are you saying--" matching her height and leveling her gazes to those dense charcoal iris, almost forgetting where she were intending to be standing.
"Of all there's one thing I'm sure about, If you could be fooled at first glance then those blind maggets must be already clinging to the flesh of ripe banana, prancing in victory."
"But this matter is---" "enough, the maiden of inner chambers, must be the sole bearer of maintaining decorum but seem like I have gone easy on you as headmaid that you are going to voilet the evening proceedings"
A sudden shift of conversation seems like that abrupt gush of water which back away from the shore only to engulf the entire shore under itself, crushing it all, when it returns but the petite female couldn't pin the bridges for getting caught into this rift.
"Have I got everyone's attention?" the headmaid lean closer, until her breath brushed the edge of Tejal's ear which were turning ruddy, a tip of rose petal and as if her all questions were answered finally a slow breath flow down her nostrils.
"Yes, headmaid" with a whisper, bent her quite round head, Tejal bowed, now in a total attention that she caught from those pointy corners of her eyes and wail with a horrifying pitch, "I'm sorry, headmaid for such violation, please spare me"
The courtyard of temple which were gush with maids from highest to lowerst ranks, whispers grew louder. Maids glanced nervously behind their veils at each other sharing same places, same questions, and maybe same beliefs.
"If I could have then again, I might have neglected the choice to spare the one to disrespect the rules that is equilent to disrespecting me"
Chitra straightened, voice suddenly sharp enough to slice a neck, and flinch her finger off her pointy chin which turned into a giant Knob to the end, and turned away from now crying maid,
"So, how about I rip you off from the inner chambers and toss you into the duties of faecal disposal?" "Mercy, headmaid, I have been good!"
The shrill protest broke into the sacred air of the garbhagreh.
From the sanctum, Gandhari's meditation broke, who were lost in the chanting of mantras.
"Is there Something occurring, dushala?" Asked in calmness of the lotus sitting in the muddled floor of the garbhagreh. " It sounds like a commotion among some maid and headmaid. Seems like she's venting her anger on a poor lowly maid"
"Dushala, you indeed have a big mouth"
"I could have a big mouth for a Maid but my heart is honest, devi, unlike that schemer who spend away your honored Maid off the shores to fill up for your bath water" "atleast I'm happy my honoured Maid is working for me even when she's around me" Smiled the devi but dushala's teeth only grints against each other, "Now, let me go back to the meditation in peace" "yes devi, I shall go see of the commotion outside just in case, if it may needs my assistance" "No need, Chitra can handle it on her own" dushala's jaw clenched.
'Everywhere...why?!....Why is this 'Chitra' everywhere?!' Something a small twig of neem that dushala were carrying snapped into her fist, the twig a habit of childhood to chew between her teeth.
And the chant resumed, a hum of lips, a known song of universe.
"Om....namoshivaye"
The Shivlinga gleamed. Milk flowed like mercy. But beneath the sacred ritual, politics stirred like a serpent in the garden.
****
"Om...Om...namoshivaye...om--"
An eagle shrieked overhead through those chants, circling like a witness.
"Cough-cough" a glassfull of water busted out of her mouth as She staggered forward, knees buckling against the wet sand, fingers clawing at the earth as if trying to anchor herself to the living but, instantly, she collapse back onto her spine as her lungs burned—each breath a battle.
"God gracious... you've returned to life! My lord, she's back in flesh! My prayers have been answered!" The girl's voice cracked like dry earth under monsoon and her arms tightened around meher's sore neck.
Her hands flew to her mouth, trembling, as if the words themselves might undo her, yet she whispered a few through those sobs, the cry which made all the words no more that nuisance to Meher's ear,
"You weren't breathing. Your lips were blue. I thought the sea had claimed you, that no prayer could reach that deep into the yamaraja's ear" Her eyes brimmed with something between terror and reverence. "And now you are here—salt in your hair, breath in your chest—as if death was just a fever you slept through."
"I'm...alive"
Her voice came out hoarse, barely hers.
It was after so long that meher realized this and a sudden thunder plunged over her
As she touched her throat, felt the pulse thudding like a stranger's knock.
'I went into the water to forget. To dissolve. To be unmade yet...' she lifted her head, her chin supposed over the shoulder of quivering dhani as if she were a little leaf of a blooming tree, and her vague eyes met those silent gazes which were observing the whole even occurring with quiet obedience.
"I fullfilled my promise to you" he smile gently, a sight that snapped a string inside of meher like that of a sitar while it's been playing.
"Who are you?" "Hey, why aren't you being polite with your savior, the king of anga, if he hadn't save you then you might have died already and living your life among those demons of hell, you stupid woman!"
"Sarthi, don't be so rash, she had just woke from such a traumatic event" now that she glance at him at the fullest, she realized how exaggerate his jewells, that golden armour clinging to his chest, clothes and that rath behind them were, quite similar to those she had seen inside the palace,
'So, he's truly a Nobel, a king...The king of anga' but she couldn't remember anything of Anga...or of any king of anga from those stories that dadisa told with a unique likelihood. 'Or maybe he was a minor character'
"He's very good, vedhahi, he is good, a man with heart of gold" whispered dhani, who had sat beside meher holding onto her shoulders, "he had did everything to snatch you back from the claws of Yama, he even refused to go with this Ill horseridder when you begin to breath and said I shall now move until devi is awake and well, what a god's peculiar creation!"
The boy turned forth, again glancing at her face with a soft smile, and walked a few steps towards her in silence,
"Devi, Don't take any offense of my servent's words, he might have a sharp tongue but he's tender at heart" and got on his knees to which the servent was about to rebel, as his face was so red like a smashed tomato, but, on the command of his master, he had no option but to bottle it all up and take all the bitter gulps down his throat.
"As you asked who I am…"
It was the first time his smile withered—slowly, like a balloon losing air, like a bubble of gloom rising from somewhere deep.
An eclipse, witnessed without shelter.
"I'm just like you, Devi. A son of a charioteer, carved into the side slabs of the royal palace. They call me the King of Anga, but at my core, I'm just a boy—an imposter. Denied by my guru, by my clan, even by my own passions. All because I don't fit in."
Meher's voice was quiet, but steady.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Her eyes didn't waver now. They were fixed on his flawless face, on those hawk-like eyes that had once seemed untouchable.
He laughed, softly. Not mockingly, but like someone surprised by his own honesty.
"It's strange. This question—When others asked, it felt like a wound being poked by a dagger. But when you asked… it didn't feel like an insult. It felt like someone genuinely wanted to understand me."
He paused, gaze drifting toward the horizon.
"Maybe it's my imagination. But for once, it warmed my heart. Or maybe I've been carrying this weight too long, waiting for someone to ask. Ha… maybe it's both, what do you say, devi?"
"My lord, you don't have to call this lowly maid a devi"
"Those walls have given us those titles, didn't they? Then why can't we leave these titles within those thick walls for once and become a body of one flesh, one bone?"
"What's your name?" A smile brime over his lips hearing this much, "My name is...karana, the son of adhiratha"
Her eyes widened and she almost collapsed over the poor dhani as the system announced-
*mission-midnight initiating*
No word I spoke, yet fate was stirred
A gift of fire, wrapped in a king's word
Eyes I lacked, but not the will of seeing my son's claim what's supposed to be his.
'You got to be fucking kidding me!'